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    Help to translate Måltidssång by Bellman

    Och du, som med en ärlig min

    Plär dina vänner häda jämt

    Och dem förtalar vid ditt vin,

    Och det liksom på skämt,

    Och du, som ej försvarar dem,

    Fästän ur deras flaskor, du,

    Du väl kan slicka dina fem,

    Vad svarar du väl nu?

    And you, who with a straight/honest face

    Always talk badly about your friends (häda actually means blaspheme but I couldn't put that into a sentence that made sense)

    And slander them while you drink your wine

    Like it is a joke

    And you, who don't defend them

    Even though (you drink) from their bottles, you

    You can lick your fingers (I think the meaning here is that you gladly eat their food)

    What do you answer? (Or What do you have to say for yourself?)

    So the whole verse is about people taking advantage of friends and not being nice to them, and the singer is questioning their actions.

    As a side note, even Swedish people have a hard time understanding Bellman word for word because the language has evolved a lot from his days.

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    AlexanderFionov skrev 2020-11-25 21:06:55 följande:

    Concerning the phrase "Plär dina vänner häda jämt"

    Is it correct, that "Plär" means "Plägar"

    Like "tar" means "tagar"?

    Answer, please!  It is very interesting!


    Yes, it's probably abbreviated to fit the verse, or it's an older version of the word. It means "to be in the habit of (doing something)".
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    AlexanderFionov skrev 2020-11-26 10:33:59 följande:

    Thank you very much for all! I have completed the translation! It is interesting that the word "remmare" is absent in dictionaries. And I have reconsidered the sence of the phrase

    Du, vid din remmare och pressRödbrusig och med hatt på sned,

    I thought that "press" means a device for printing books and the phrase is about the press worker. But he is an drinker, not the worker. And I changed my translation according to new meaning.


    Yes "press" is referring to a wine press, and he's not working but drinking from it.
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    AlexanderFionov skrev 2020-11-27 15:00:59 följande:

    I think that a press is necessary for juice preparation. Then juice has to be transformed to vine. So, there is no vine directly from the press. But testing the ready vine is reasonable. 


    I doubt there was much wine production in Sweden, so it's probably more to evoke the image of a heavy drinker. And decadence.
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