Emil Hagström: 'Men gamla bocken'

 

MEN GAMLA BOCKEN

 

Liten killing hoppar omkring

och vill så lustig vara.

Han leker och dansar i rös och ring,

om världens sorg vet han ingenting.

Men gamla bocken skakar pả skägget.

 

Liten killing buffar på sin mor,

diar och hickar och nyser.

Han vet ganska litet om död och klor.

Han kastar och tvärar och önskar sig stor.

Men gamla bocken skakar på skägget.

 

 

 

BUT THE BILLY GOAT

 

The young kid only wants to spring

and finds life so amusing.

He’d so like to dance beyond pale and ring

of worldly sorrows knows not one thing

But the billy goat simply shakes his beard.

 

The young kid nudges at the doe,

suckles and hiccups and sneezes.

Of death and claws he is not in the know,

He butts and swerves and is eager to grow.

But the billy goat simply shakes his beard.

  

 

The Swedish word rös refers to a boundary stone, a heap of them can be called a cairn in English.

The English word pale derives from the Latin word pālus = a wooden stake or post. The term was used for a fence made of stakes (a palisade) and later the enclosed area or territory protected by that fence. Anyone going ‘beyond the pale’ became an ‘outlaw’, i.e. someone with no claim to or not deserving any legal protection.