Nor there if they yet mock what women meant / who gave them flowers

Question

From "The Send-Off", by Wilfred Owen:

So secretly, like wrongs hushed-up, they went.
They were not ours:
We never heard to which front these were sent.

Nor there if they yet mock what women meant
Who gave them flowers.

I'm curious about the meaning of the "Nor .. flowers" part, especially about the sense of the word "mock" here.

Does it mean "We also don't know whether they are alive by now" - and thus whether they are at this moment able to joke about the flowers that the women gave them at their departure?

Is it a poetic-license-style change from "Nor if they there (in their current locations) yet mock (joke about) the giving of the flowers by the women"?

Answer 1

Poetry can be challenging to read, especially because poems often have multiple meanings. I'll put forward my interpretation of that line, and I welcome others to share their thoughts as well.

You're absolutely correct that the author is basically saying:

We never heard where they went or whether they were still alive.

The meaning of the word "mock", however, I think is somewhat complicated. I see a couple of interpretations, and I think the author may have meant a little of each:

First Interpreation

The word "mock" very literally means "treat with contempt or ridicule". The soldiers who are still alive have found the experience of war to be so awful that they now talk about their contempt for the support they received from the women.

Second Interpretation

The word "mock" still means "treat with contempt or ridicule", but less literally. The soldiers are not actually talking amongst themselves. Rather, war is so awful that the mere fact that they must serve as soldiers in a terrible war shows contempt for the love and affection they were shown when leaving the town.

Third Interpretation

The word "mock" means "disappoint or frustrate (the hopes of)". In this interpretation, the fact that the soldiers must fight in a war frustrates the hopes of the women who wished only the best for the soldiers leaving the town.

Conclusion

I think the author may have meant a little of each of these interpretations. I don't believe he meant that the soldiers were laughing and joking about the flowers, however, since that doesn't match the somber mood of the rest of the poem.

Answer 2

Does it mean "We also don't know whether they are alive by now" - and thus whether they are at this moment able to joke about the flowers that the women gave them at their departure?

I think it does mean the narrator doesn't know if they are now alive, but has nothing at all to do with men joking about flowers given to them at departure. Instead, it refers back to lines from the first stanza:

Their breasts were stuck all white with wreath and spray
As men's are, dead.

The flowers the women gave the soldiers probably were meant as reminders of home, and as tokens of affection. They were not intended to be like funeral flowers.

The phrase “Nor there if they yet mock” refers, I think, to the likelihood that the bodies of those soldiers who departed on the train now lie scattered on the battlefield; and those bodies mock the intentions of the women who gave the men flowers.

Answer 3

This is literary interpretation, not English interpretation. There are too many things a poet might mean for us to answer definitively.

That said, I'll tell you my initial impression. The poem's title indicates these soldiers are being shipped away from home to go to war. Because the poet wrote a lot of his poetry during World War I, I'll assume that's where the soldiers are going.

We see the soldiers leaving, but we don't know specific details, such as the locations where they are going. Woman are giving these soldiers flowers, probably as tokens of affection, yet many of these soldiers are being sent to their deaths. Is there not some irony there? Do people at the train station notice this irony?

I believe the poem is peeking into the minds of passersby, who see women giving soldiers flowers as a farewell gift, but these observers mutter to themselves about how that's a premonition of what is bound to happen – how the soldier is, as likely as not, destined to come back home in a coffin.

At any rate, the poem is not an easy one to figure out, even for a native English speaker.

Answer 4

I'm a native English speaker, and this is challenging to me too, partly because the way "there" and "yet" are used is uncommon in modern English.

These two lines do have to be read together, as the nor follows directly:

 We never heard to which front these (men) were sent.

Nor there if they yet mock what women meant
 Who gave them flowers

"Yet" can also mean "still", so "They yet mock" here means "they continue to mock".

"There" in "nor there" is the really unusual use. In idiomatic modern English you might instead say:

Nor if, while there, they still mock what women meant
 Who gave them flowers

Wilfred Owen wrote almost all of his poetry from experience; he must have, during the send off, heard men joking as to why the women were giving them flowers.

I can imagine, in the tension and camaraderie of the departing train, departing soldiers teasing each other that a flower received from a woman at the station meant something more than intended.

"Did you get a flower? She must fancy you...", that sort of thing, mocking what the women meant.