Dulce et decorum est *

By Wilfred Owen

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Summary:
It describes a day on the front line of WWI. The soldiers aren’t moving normal anymore: they are
underfed, bent like old men and have survived a lot. When the sun came down, they trudged to their
sleeping place. Some walked almost asleep, without shoes and covered in blood. Everyone is very
tired, to the point where they can’t even open their shoes. They have heard so many bombs, that they
don’t hear them anymore. When someone yells that there is a bombs coming, they all putt their masks
on, just in time. One was too late and knew he would die. The speaker sees him drowning in a green
sea. After that memory, he sees that person every night, choking, drowning and barfing.
Then he says: if you would have seen what I have, seeing him distend his eyes with an open mouth, to
hear the blood filling his lungs, with incurable wound on the innocent, that people would never, ever
tell children that it is good to die for their country. If one witnesses the physical and emotional agony of
far like the speaker, one might change their views on war, because there is nothing glorious about
death or war.

Volta’s:
Line 1-8: he talks about the horrible circumstances and conditions in which the soldiers are
Line 9-14: the bomb, where someone dies because of it
Line 15-16: the emotional aftermath
Line 17-24: describes the death of the man
Line 25-28: he reflects on the event and makes a conclusion
Imagery:
 Like old beggars: they are deprived of dignity and in health like elderly, they are shadows of
their former selves
 Coughing like hags: they cough because of all the smoke they inhaled. They lost their youth
and masculinity
 Like a man in fire or lime: the man is on fire (lime burns the skin)
 Like a devil’s sick of sin: just like a devil realizing his errors, he wishes to escape the battlefield
 Obscene as cancer: you cannot choose who gets affected, and it that way it is very osceen.
 Bitter as the cud: it is not “sweet” to die this way

Rhyming:
The rhyme begins normal, with ABAB CDCD EFEF, like in a Shakespearean sonnet. In line 13-14,
rhyming changes and the rhyme scheme breaks off. What the speaker sees messes with his mind. He
rhymes with a line two rhymes prior and uses “drowning” twice.
It is a double sonnet in the sense that it is 2x14 lines.
Iambic pentameter is missing in the last four lines.

Irony:
The title is ironic. The write reveals in the last lines, that that is a lie.

Onomatopoeia:
 Hoots of the gas-shells
 Cursed through sludge
 Guttering and choking
 Gargling from the lungs