With Death, Ethical Issues Abound

“Dulce Et Decorum Est”

We have been reading about bioethical issues a lot recently and I thought of this old (and out-of-copyright) poem from high school that ties in.

This is Wilfred Owen’s WWI poem “Dulce Et Decorum Est” (“It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.)  Owen died mere months (weeks?) after writing this and near the end of WWI’s fighting.

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.
Notes: Latin phrase is from the Roman poet Horace: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”
Source: Poems (Viking Press)

I suppose it’s easier to throw this at people than to field papers on some of the more bias-prone of topics like ritual castration, assisted suicide, and the like.

How might this relate to our readings from the text?