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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   5546 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 24, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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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 gas-shells dropping softly 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.

I love this poem, and I've just noticed that Owen rhymes "drowning" with "drowning". Seriously, Wilfred?

I wanted to excuse it with the line break, but it really has to be paired with the preceding stanza. And then you’ve got the 12-line conclusion. Maybe there’s some printing artistic license involved…it’s impossible to tell from the manuscript.

This is one of my favorite poems. I like and admire the aesthetic of these men, who sacrificed so much for so little. In the end it is one of the reasons why I like the Hock and believe in its transformative power: the Hock, freely and willingly chosen, purges weakness from the soul. Sometimes the body dies, too much weakness entrapped within it. Everyone chooses their own Hock - or not.

Hock my balls.

If you really believed these men were noble, you would listen when they told you that you were buying in to a lie. Really listen, instead of mining their words for what you already believed.

They may well be some overlap between “necessary” and “dulce et decorum”. Trench warfare ain’t it.

It is meaningless. These men believed that what they were doing was glorious, but instead they got ground into paste in the trenches for a few inches of mud. I contend that freely and willingly entering this Hell is itself noble, admirable, pointless, and perhaps idiotic.

I contend that freely and willingly entering this Hell is itself noble, admirable, pointless, and perhaps idiotic.

What about the soldiers who were drafted?

As I understand it people were quite enthusiastic about it for the most part. Draftees that were ambivalent or worse were just unfortunate people in a terrible situation. The Hock is best if done willingly and freely.

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