Dulce et Decorum Est
warpoetry.co.uk
warpoetry.co.uk
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.
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.
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.
Horace's personal character is hard to know. The character of the speaker in his Odes, however, is that of an older, world-weary man, somewhat cynical about love, philosophy and politics. But this same persona acknowledges frequently that he owes his life of leisure to Maecenas and Augustus, and he makes his living (the character and the real man in this case) as a court poet.
As a younger man, Horace fought on the (so-called) Republican side with the army of Brutus and Cassius. Like many of the young men who were in that army and lived, he returned to Rome and was not penalized or pursued by Octavian (later Augustus). Octavian as a young man could be brutal to his enemies, but in this case he wasn't.
The Odes are filled with many sub-types of poems, but two basic types: lyric poems, praising the life of leisure and ease that the speaker enjoys (explicitly because of the gifts of Maecenas and Augustus) and poems explicitly praising Maecenas, Augustus and various political allies and generals under Augustus. The books are explicitly dedicated to Maecenas, who has been described as Octavian/Augustus's minister of propaganda. They are formally examples of poetry of praise: praise of Augustus, his reign and Rome.
So, the words dulce et decorum are arguably not in character in the sense that the speaker (an older man, far past the point of joining any army) can't live up to them, but they are entirely in character with the tone, spirit and content of the first three books of Odes. (If anything the 4th book of Odes, written much later, is even more fawningly propagandistic.)
By the way, it sounds like you are going on what you've heard/read from others, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I would urge you to read that whole poem and even better Odes III, 1-6, to get a sense of their tone. There's simply nothing in III, 2 to suggest irony or satire.
Yet seemingly there are academics that disagree with you, in plain english - http://www.jstor.org/pss/3291643.
It does raise the question about how well we can know what people meant and felt 2000yrs ago, particularly in this case given the political context.
I prefer the motto of the Harvard Advocate: DULCE EST PERICULUM. "Sweet is danger"
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 pro patria mori' -> Sweet and fitting it is for the fatherland to die.
(And yes I did study Latin for about 10 years).
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.)