Dulce et Decorum Est

http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen1.html

by KC8ZKF • 17 years ago

20 14 17 years ago

warpoetry.co.uk

bravura• 17 years ago

DULCE ET DECORUM EST - the first words of a Latin saying (taken from an ode by Horace). The words were widely understood and often quoted at the start of the First World War. They mean "It is sweet and right."

I prefer the motto of the Harvard Advocate: DULCE EST PERICULUM. "Sweet is danger"

lsd5you3• 17 years ago

It should be noted that in the original latin work, 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori ...' the phrase is also spoken with irony/satire, but then subsequently taken out of context and used to rally the troops. Or at least that is my understanding.

telemachos3• 17 years ago

I'm sorry to say, but your understanding is wrong. As another poster mentions, the poem (Ode III, 2) is from a series of highly patriotic poems, often called "the Roman odes" as a group. (That name is modern. It covers Odes III, 1-6.)

Many people feel that there are various levels of implicit irony or criticism in Horace's pro-Roman or pro-Augustan poems, but the surface level is clearly positive.

lsd5you3• 17 years ago

So you are not an intentionalist?

I'm not equiped to argue this authoratively, but from what i gather the words taken literally are out of character, so are at least disingenious at some level. Unless he really believed in the message, how can such a strident message be anything but ironic,satirical or hollow.

MarkPNeyer• 17 years ago

For those unaware (or too lazy to go to the website) the transliteration is as follows:

'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori' -> Sweet and fitting it is for the fatherland to die.

Maktab• 17 years ago

Rather, the translation is: 'It is sweet and right to die for one's country'. Alternatively, it could be rendered as 'It is noble and honourable to die for one's fatherland' or similar.

rwmj• 17 years ago

Yes I'd agree with the other reply that "pro patria" is "for [your] country", and has nothing to do with the word "fatherland".

(And yes I did study Latin for about 10 years).

telemachos3• 17 years ago

Different countries personify their nations in different ways, or not at all. The Latin word patria is feminine, and Cicero and others personified Roma as a woman.

That said, 'fatherland' is not necessarily an unreasonable translation of patria, depending on the context. (It does have some unfortunate overtones now, but that's accidental.)

bbg• 17 years ago

The phrase is from Horace, Carmen 3.2, line 13.

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...

Whether it's ironic or not is hard to say. It doesn't really sound like it. First he urges a boy to become skilled in war, then he pictures the boy's fiancee begging him not to fight against the enemy's star fighter -- a lion of a warrior. Then the poet says, "it is sweet and fitting to die on behalf of one's country," and goes on the describe the heroic qualities of personified Virtue in face of opposition.

Horace did claim to have himself thrown away his shield and fled from battle when in the service of the republican cause (the side of Brutus) after the death of Caesar. But he's also picking up on a theme used by early Greek poets, like Alcaeus, so it's questionable how much of this confession is literary trope and how much is historical evidence. Furthermore, Horace had been fighting on the losing side, and he later found it necessary to receive pardon from the victor Octavian (aka Augustus), so better to sound like he supported the republicans only half-heartedly. On the other hand, it might well still be true that he ditched his shield and ran.

The poem dates from after his military experience, and belongs to a collection of poems called the 'Roman Odes' that celebrate Rome and the emperor Augustus.

I think that's mostly correct, but it's been a while since I studied these things.

carey• 17 years ago

For added poignancy, the author of the poem, Wilfred Owen, was killed one week before the end of the war, and his mother (apocryphally?) received the telegram as the bells rang for the first Armistice Day.

balding_n_tired• 17 years ago

Good point,bbg--it struck me as a bit like Robert Burns writing "The Devil Away with the Excise Man".

I believe that the line is close to being a translation from a line in one of Tyrtaeus's poems. I definitely vote with telemachos on this one.

Dulce et Decorum Est

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