The poem
Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight? Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows, Drooping tongues from jaws that slob their relish, Baring teeth that leer like skulls' tongues wicked? Stroke on stroke of pain, -- but what slow panic, Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets? Ever from their hair and through their hand palms Misery swelters. Surely we have perished Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish?
-- These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished. Memory fingers in their hair of murders, Multitudinous murders they once witnessed. Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander, Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter. Always they must see these things and hear them, Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles, Carnage incomparable and human squander Rucked too thick for these men's extrication.
Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented Back into their brains, because on their sense Sunlight seems a bloodsmear; night comes blood-black; Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh -- Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous, Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses. -- Thus their hands are plucking at each other; Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging; Snatching after us who smote them, brother, Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.
In the poem Mental Cases on line 4 there is a discrepancy in different version some have 'teeth' and some 'tongues'. Does anyone know which is the right one?
It is possible that both a valid. Owen will have redrafted his poems often, and depending on which edition of the poem is reproduced here there will be descrepencies between the word use.
That said, tongues seems to be most commenly used over the internet!
the correct one is teeth.
im doing it at school as an assessmant.
I believe that "teeth" was the correct term in conjunction with the rest of the sentence.
Mental Cases was a graphic, realistic look into the effect of the war on ordinary people and how it can turn them completely deranged in mind and body.
This poem really effected the way I saw war and the men that served, all of Owen's poems acted as a real eye-opener.
i think this is a strong poem and touches me to the heart!! im doing a essay on it in fact.. i think it shows torment the soldiers must now live with including there familys its great.. prob one his best!!