Why Do the Oxen | Why do the oxen drag old heavy carts?

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by Francis Jammes (1868 - 1938)

Translation © by Grant Hicks

Pourquoi les bœufs

Language: French (Français)

Our translations: ENG

Pourquoi les bœufs traînent-ils les vieux chars pesants ?
Cela fait pitié de voir leur gros front bombé,
leurs yeux qui ont l'air de souffrance de tomber.
Ils font gagner le pain aux pauvres paysans.

S'ils ne peuvent plus marcher, les vétérinaires
les brûlent avec des drogues et des fers rouges.
Et puis dans les champs pleins de coquelicots rouges
les bœufs vont encore herser, racler la terre.

Il y en a qui se casse un pied quelquefois.
Alors on tue celui-là pour la boucherie,
pauvre bœuf qui écoutait le grillon qui crie

et qui était obéissant aux rudes voix
des paysans qui hersaient sous le soleil fou,
pauvre bœuf qui allait il ne savait où.

Confirmed with Francis Jammes, De l'Angelus de l'aube à l'Angelus du soir, Paris: Mercure de France, 1907, Pages 209-210.

Text Authorship:

by Francis Jammes (1868 - 1938), "Pourquoi Les bœufs...", appears in De l'Angélus de l'aube à l'Angélus du soir [author's text checked 1 time against a primary source]

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):

by Darius Milhaud (1892 - 1974), "Pourquoi les bœufs", op. 1 (Poèmes de Francis Jammes), Heft 1 no. 9 (1910-1912) [ voice and piano ] [sung text not yet checked]

Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):

ENG English (Grant Hicks) , "Why Do the Oxen", copyright © 2025, (re)printed on this website with kind permission

Researcher for this page: Grant Hicks [Guest Editor]

This text was added to the website: 2025-05-30
Line count: 14
Word count: 115

Why Do the Oxen

Language: English after the French (Français)

Why do the oxen drag old heavy carts?
It is pitiful to see their great bulging foreheads,
their eyes that reflect the pain of falling.
They allow the poor peasants to earn their bread.

If they can no longer walk, veterinarians
sear them with drugs and red-hot irons.
And then into fields full of red poppies
the oxen go again to harrow and scrape the soil.

Sometimes one of them will break a leg.
Then that one is killed for the butcher's shop,
poor ox who listened to the chirping cricket

and who obeyed the rude voices 
of the peasants harrowing under the mad sun,
poor ox who was going it knew not where.

Text Authorship:

Translation from French (Français) to English copyright © 2025 by Grant Hicks, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net

Based on:

a text in French (Français) by Francis Jammes (1868 - 1938), "Pourquoi Les bœufs...", appears in De l'Angélus de l'aube à l'Angélus du soir
- Go to the text page.

This text was added to the website: 2025-06-01
Line count: 14
Word count: 114