Guillaume Apollinaire
On the 31st day of August in the year 1914
I left Deauville shortly before midnight
In Rouveyre’s little car
Including his chauffeur there were three of us
We said goodbye to a whole epoch
Furious giants were looming over Europe
The eagles were leaving their eyries expecting the sun
Voracious fishes were swimming up from the abysses
Nations were rushing together to know each other through and through
The dead were trembling with fear in their dark dwellings
The dogs were barking in the direction of the frontiers
As I went I carried within me all the armies that were fighting
I felt them rising within me and spreading out over the regions through which their columns
wound
With the forests the happy villages of Belgium
Francorchamps and Eau Rouge and the pouhons
A region through which invasions are always taking place
And the railway arteries along which those who were going away to die
Saluted one more time a life full of colours
The deep oceans where monsters were stirring
In old carcasses of wrecks
The unimaginable heights where men fight
Higher than the eagle soars
Man fights there against man
And falls suddenly like a shooting star
I felt within me new beings full of dexterity
Building a new universe and running it as well
A merchant of unheard-of-opulence and of prodigious stature
Was setting out an extraordinary display of stock
And gigantic shepherds were driving forward
Great dumb flocks grazing on words as they went
And at them barked all the dogs along the road
I shall never
forget this journey by night during which none
of us said a word
O
dark O u
departure tender O h r
when our 3 night of vil towards which d r
headlights failed before the war lages e i
B L A C K S M I T H S R E C A L L E D
E M O R N I N G
B E T W E E N M I D N I G H T A N D O N E I N T H
n V
e a r e r s a
L i s i e u x or else illes the
the very g o l d
blue en
r s t t y r e
a n d 3 t i m e s w e h a d t o s t o p t o c h a n g e a b u
And when having passed through Fountainbleau
During the afternoon
We got to Paris
At the moment at which the mobilization posters were going up
We understood my comrade and I
That the little car had brought us into a
New age
And that although we were both already fully grown men
We had nevertheless just been born
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Analysis (AI Assisted)
This poem is an extraordinary meditation on the moment of transition, both personal and historical. Set against the backdrop of Europe on the cusp of World War I, it conveys the weight of the shift in consciousness and identity that marked the start of the war. The narrator, accompanied by a friend and their chauffeur, journeys from Deauville to Paris on the night of August 31st, 1914, an evening when the world seemed to tilt on its axis, and the horizon was filled with the looming threat of war.
The opening lines present a vivid, almost cinematic scene. The time and place—the late summer night of 1914—are grounded in a clear historical moment. The choice of August 31st, the eve of World War I’s full-scale eruption, gives the poem a sense of foreboding. The “whole epoch” that the narrator bids farewell to is not just the end of peace but also the end of a certain worldview. The description of “furious giants looming over Europe” evokes a sense of inevitability, a tension growing larger by the minute.
The phrase “The eagles were leaving their eyries expecting the sun” is strikingly poetic. The image of eagles preparing to leave their nests suggests a moment of transition in the natural world—perhaps a metaphor for the powerful nations of Europe preparing to engage in a new kind of warfare, one that is both grand and catastrophic. The “voracious fishes” swimming up from the depths suggest that the forces of nature and history are stirring with a violence that cannot be ignored.
As the poem progresses, the narrator imagines the collective weight of the armies, the dead, and the restless spirits of the war. “The dogs were barking in the direction of the frontiers” carries the sense of urgency and anticipation, as if the world itself is reacting to the gathering storm. The line, “I carried within me all the armies that were fighting,” speaks to the narrator’s internal experience of the war. It’s not just an external event but something that is felt deeply, almost physically, as if the armies themselves are invading the narrator’s consciousness.
The imagery here is both surreal and powerful, blending the internal with the external. The narrator sees the land as both an intimate and expansive site of conflict, with “the forests,” “the happy villages of Belgium,” and “the railway arteries” all woven into the tapestry of war. There’s an almost dreamlike quality to these images—the forests and villages now marked by impending destruction, the railway stations as places where soldiers depart, leaving behind “a life full of colours.” These colors, which may refer to the vibrancy of life before war, are now tinged with melancholy.
The passage describing the “merchant of unheard-of-opulence” and the “gigantic shepherds driving forward great dumb flocks” is a metaphorical reflection on the human condition in the face of the war. The “merchant” offers “an extraordinary display of stock,” a capitalist or industrialist profiteering off the war’s potential, while the “shepherds” lead the “dumb flocks,” perhaps a reference to the mass of soldiers who are blindly led to their deaths. The line about the dogs barking at the procession, “barking all along the road,” adds an eerie and ominous quality, as if the world is witnessing the march to war with a mixture of fear and acceptance.
The journey itself is important in the poem, a literal and metaphorical passage that moves from the quiet of the countryside to the heart of Paris. The speaker notes the silence of the trip, “none of us said a word,” as though the weight of the moment is too much to articulate. The “dark departure” seems to represent not only the literal departure of the journey but the symbolic departure of peace, of innocence. The poem uses the space of the car ride to highlight the inward journey of the speaker as well—one in which the looming war seems to spread within him.
The lines towards the end of the poem, when the speaker arrives in Paris and sees the mobilization posters being put up, mark a moment of recognition. The “new age” is not just the beginning of a conflict but the beginning of a new identity for the speaker and his comrade. The realization that “although we were both already fully grown men, / we had nevertheless just been born” is striking. It suggests that the war, which they now know is inevitable, will reshape them in ways they cannot yet understand. This sense of rebirth, however, is not one of optimism but of an awareness that they are entering into something far beyond their control, something that will irrevocably alter them and the world around them.
The fragmented and disjointed presentation of the text—the interruptions, the oddly placed words, the broken structure of the poem—mirrors the disintegration of the world order that the war represents. The use of visual disarray, as if the words themselves are breaking apart, underscores the chaos and confusion of the historical moment.
In conclusion, this poem captures the emotional and intellectual turbulence of a moment just before catastrophe. It intertwines personal reflection with grand historical forces, showing how an individual can feel both the weight of history and the stark reality of war. The journey, both literal and figurative, becomes a microcosm of the shift from innocence to the raw awareness of violence and destruction, encapsulating the devastating transformation of Europe in the early 20th century.