You can now compare your edition with a published one (Stallworthy, 1983) and read some information about the manuscripts and the decisons Stallworthy made in creating his edition.

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

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.

(p.140)

Seminar Conclusion

In the course of this tutorial the manuscripts have been referred to as A, B, C, or D. In reality they are:

A - Oxford English Faculty Library, Box 2, p. 318 and verso B - British Library, MS Add. 43720, pp. 21 and 22 C - Oxford English Faculty, Box 2, pp. 316 and 317 D - British Library, MS Add. 43721, f. 41 recto and verso

Jon Stallworthy in his edition of 1983 used MS B as his base manuscript. He notes on p.140 of Volume I of his edition:

Drafted at Craiglockhart in the first half of October 1917...this poem was revised, probably at Scarborough but possibly at Ripon, between January and March 1918. The earliest surviving MS is dated 'Oct. 8. 1917.'.

Stallworthy notes that there is a particular problem with line 8 as Owen, even in the latest draft, never settled on the final line. Sassoon (1920) and Blunden (1933) both read this line as 'Of gas-shells dropping softly behind' even though they too are taking MS B as their base, but it is not until Day Lewis (1963) that there is the first occurrence of the line 'Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind' (retained by Hibberd, 1973).

British Library, MS Add. 43721 is notable for containing additions and alterations by Sassoon. These occur predominantly near the end of the poem and are written in blue.