Husband, now you despise me
Now you treat me with spite
Son of the Chief,
Now you compare me
With the rubbish in the rubbish pit.
You say you no longer want me
Because I am like the things left behind
In the deserted homestead.
You insult me
You laugh at me
You say I do not know the letter A
Because I have not been to school
And I have not been baptized
You compare me with a little dog,
A puppy.
My friend, age-mate of my brother,
Take care,
Take care of your tongue,
Be careful what your lips say.
First take a deep look, brother,
You are now a man
You are not a dead fruit!
To behave like a child does not befit you!
Listen Ocol, you are the son of a Chief,
Leave foolish behaviour to little children,
lt is not right that you should be laughed at in a song!
Songs about you should be songs of praise!
Stop despising people
As if you were at little foolish man,
Stop treating me like salt-less ash
Become barren of insults and stupidity;
Who has ever uprooted the Pumpkin?
✶
My clansmcn, I cry
Listen to my voice:
The insults of my man
Are painful beyond bearing.
My husband abuses me together with my parents;
He says terrible things about my mother
And I am so ashamed!
He abuses me in English
And he is so arrogant.
He says I am rubbish,
He no longer wants me!
In cruel jokes, he laughs at me,
He says I am primitive
Because I cannot play the guitar,
He says my eyes are dead
And I cannot read,
He says my ears are blocked
And cannot hear a single foreign word,
That I cannot count the coins.
He says I am like sheep,
The fool.
Ocol treats me
As if I am no longer a person,
He says I am silly
Like the ojuu insects that sit on the beer pot.
My husband treats me roughly.
The insults!
Words cut more painfully than sticks!
He says my mother is a witch,
That my clansmen are fools
Because they eat rats,
He says we are all Kaffirs.
We do not know the ways of God,
We sit in deep darkness
And do not know the Gospel,
He says my mother hides her charms
In her necklace
And that we are all sorcerers.
My husband’s tongue
Is bitter like the roots of the lyonno lily,
It is hot like the penis of the bee,
Like the sting of the kalang!
Ocol's tongue is fierce like the arrow of the scorpion,
Deadly like the spear of the buffalo-hornet.
It is ferocious
Like the poison of a barren woman
And corrosive like the juice of the gourd.
✶
My husband pours scom
On Black People,
He behaves like a hen
That eats its own eggs
A hen that should be imprisoned under a basket.
His eyes grow large
Deep black eyes
Ocol’s eyes resemble those of the Nile Perch!
He becomes fierce
Like a lioness with cubs.
He begins to behave like a mad hyena.
He says Black People are primitive
And their ways are utterly harmful,
Their dances are mortal sins
They are ignorant, poor and diseased!
Ocol says he is a modern man
A progressive and civilized man,
He says he has read extensively and widely
And he can no longer live with a thing like me
Who cannot distinguish between good and bad.
He says I am just a village woman,
I am of the old type,
And no longer attractive.
He says l am blocking his progress,
My head, he says,
ls as big as that of an elephant
But it is only bones,
There is no brain in it,
He says I am only wasting his time.
Okot p' Bitek (1931 – 1982) Uganda
Source: Song of Lawino & Song of Ocol by p'Bitek, Okot, Heinemann, 1984
This is really good
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