15 August 2009

Dolly by Falstaff, fakir

There is a poem called simply "Dolly" by the author Axel Wallengren, also known as Falstaff, fakir. It goes like this:
Dolly, Dolly, har du hjärta?
Svara mig, du grymma snärta!
Nej, du har ej. Oh, vad smärta!
Därför går jag nu till Berta.
As far as I know there is no English translation of it, so I will do an attempt of my own to render as much of the eloquence as possible:
Dolly, Dolly, where's thy heart?
Answer me! Thou cruel art!
Oh, what pain, for thou hast none.
Therefore I'll to Betty run.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you swedish yourself? And what is your opinion on monarchy? Not just swedish, in general? Hoping for a surpsising answer

Anonymous said...

why do you use 'Thy' and 'Thou' instead of 'your' and 'you'? The swedish version uses prefectly modern language?

Magnus Lewan said...

For the question about thy and thou, there are a number of arguments for and against. The most important one here is that I am lazy. "Thou art" rhymes on "heart".

For the question about monarchy, I need to think. I may come up with a duly agnostic opinion one day. Or not. Watch this space.

Unknown said...

in my opinion, which counts for a great deal, thy and thou are more poetic and fit the mood better, adding to the 'punchline'.