The Scapegoat
Read 'The Scapegoat' by 'Andrew Barton Paterson' and provide your summary and literary analysis in the comments section below.
We have all of us read how the Israelites fled
From Egypt with Pharaoh in eager pursuit of 'em,
And Pharaoh's fierce troop were all put "in the soup"
When the waters rolled softly o'er every galoot of 'em.
The Jews were so glad when old Pharaoh was "had"
That they sounded their timbrels and capered like mad.
You see he was hated from Jordan to Cairo --
Whence comes the expression "to buck against faro".
For forty long years, 'midst perils and fears
In deserts with never a famine to follow by,
The Israelite horde went roaming abroad
Like so many sundowners "out on the wallaby".
When Moses, who led 'em, and taught 'em, and fed 'em,
Was dying, he murmured, "A rorty old hoss you are:
I give you command of the whole of the band" --
And handed the Government over to Joshua.
But Moses told 'em before he died,
"Wherever you are, whatever betide,
Every year as the time draws near
By lot or by rote choose you a goat,
And let the high priest confess on the beast
The sins of the people the worst and the least,
Lay your sins on the goat! Sure the plan ought to suit yer.
Because all your sins are 'his troubles' in future.
Then lead him away to the wilderness black
To die with the weight of your sins on his back:
Of thirst let him perish alone and unshriven,
For thus shall your sins be absolved and forgiven!"
'Tis needless to say, though it reeked of barbarity
This scapegoat arrangement gained great popularity.
By this means a Jew, whate'er he might do,
Though he burgled, or murdered, or cheated at loo,
Or meat on Good Friday (a sin most terrific) ate,
Could get his discharge, like a bankrupt's certificate;
Just here let us note -- Did they choose their best goat?
It's food for conjecture, to judge from the picture
By Hunt in the Gallery close to our door, a
Man well might suppose that the scapegoat they chose
Was a long way from being their choicest Angora.
In fact I should think he was one of their weediest:
'Tis a rule that obtains, no matter who reigns,
When making a sacrifice, offer the seediest;
Which accounts for a theory known to my hearers
Who live in the wild by the wattle beguiled,
That a "stag" makes quite good enough mutton for shearers.
Be that as it may, as each year passed away,
a scapegoat was led to the desert and freighted
With sin (the poor brute must have been overweighted)
And left there -- to die as his fancy dictated.
The day it has come, with trumpet and drum.
With pomp and solemnity fit for the tomb
They lead the old billy-goat off to his doom:
On every hand a reverend band,
Prophets and preachers and elders stand
And the oldest rabbi, with a tear in his eye,
Delivers a sermon to all standing by.
(We haven't his name -- whether Cohen or Harris, he
No doubt was the "poisonest" kind of Pharisee.)
The sermon was marked by a deal of humility
And pointed the fact, with no end of ability.
That being a Gentile's no mark of gentility,
And, according to Samuel, would certainly d--n you well.
Then, shedding his coat, he approaches the goat
And, while a red fillet he carefully pins on him,
Confesses the whole of the Israelites' sins on him.
With this eloquent burst he exhorts the accurst --
"Go forth in the desert and perish in woe,
The sins of the people are whiter than snow!"
Then signs to his pal "for to let the brute go".
(That "pal" as I've heard, is an elegant word,
Derived from the Persian "Palaykhur" or "Pallaghur"),
As the scapegoat strains and tugs at the reins
The Rabbi yells rapidly, "Let her go, Gallagher!"
The animal, freed from all restraint
Lowered his head, made a kind of feint,
And charged straight at that elderly saint.
So fierce his attack and so very severe, it
Quite floored the Rabbi, who, ere he could fly,
Was rammed on the -- no, not the back -- but just near it.
The scapegoat he snorted, and wildly cavorted,
A light-hearted antelope "out on the ramp",
Then stopped, looked around, got the "lay of the ground",
And made a beeline back again to the camp.
The elderly priest, as he noticed the beast
So gallantly making his way to the east,
Says he, "From the tents may I never more roam again
If that there old billy-goat ain't going home again.
He's hurrying, too! This never will do.
Can't somebody stop him? I'm all of a stew.
After all our confessions, so openly granted,
He's taking our sins back to where they're not wanted.
We've come all this distance salvation to win agog,
If he takes home our sins, it'll burst up the Synagogue!"
He turned to an Acolyte who was making his bacca light,
A fleet-footed youth who could run like a crack o' light.
"Run, Abraham, run! Hunt him over the plain,
And drive back the brute to the desert again.
The Sphinx is a-watching, the Pyramids will frown on you,
From those granite tops forty cent'ries look down on you --
Run, Abraham, run! I'll bet half-a-crown on you."
So Abraham ran, like a man did he go for him,
But the goat made it clear each time he drew near
That he had what the racing men call "too much toe" for him.
The crowd with great eagerness studied the race --
"Great Scott! isn't Abraham forcing the pace --
And don't the goat spiel? It is hard to keep sight on him,
The sins of the Israelites ride mighty light on him.
The scapegoat is leading a furlong or more,
And Abraham's tiring -- I'll lay six to four!
He rolls in his stride; he's done, there's no question!"
But here the old Rabbi brought up a suggestion.
('Twas strange that in racing he showed so much cunning),
"It's a hard race," said he, "and I think it would be
A good thing for someone to take up the running."
As soon said as done, they started to run --
The priests and the deacons, strong runners and weak 'uns
All reckoned ere long to come up with the brute,
And so the whole boiling set off in pursuit.
And then it came out, as the rabble and rout
Streamed over the desert with many a shout --
The Rabbi so elderly, grave, and patrician,
Had been in his youth a bold metallician,
And offered, in gasps, as they merrily spieled,
"Any price Abraham! Evens the field!"
Alas! the whole clan, they raced and they ran,
And Abraham proved him an "even time" man,
But the goat -- now a speck they could scarce keep their eyes on --
Stretched out in his stride in a style most surprisin'
And vanished ere long o'er the distant horizon.
Away in the camp the bill-sticker's tramp
Is heard as he wanders with paste, brush, and notices,
And paling and wall he plasters them all,
"I wonder how's things gettin' on with the goat," he says,
The pulls out his bills, "Use Solomon's Pills"
"Great Stoning of Christians! To all devout Jews! you all
Must each bring a stone -- Great sport will be shown;
Enormous Attractions! And prices as usual!
Roll up to the Hall!! Wives, children and all,
For naught the most delicate feelings to hurt is meant!!"
Here his eyes opened wide, for close by his side
Was the scapegoat: And eating his latest advertisement!
One shriek from him burst -- "You creature accurst!"
And he ran from the spot like one fearing the worst.
His language was chaste, as he fled in his haste,
But the goat stayed behind him -- and "scoffed up" the paste.
With downcast head, and sorrowful tread,
The people came back from the desert in dread.
"The goat -- was he back there? Had anyone heard of him?"
In very short order they got plenty word of him.
In fact as they wandered by street, lane and hall,
"The trail of the serpent was over them all."
A poor little child knocked out stiff in the gutter
Proclaimed that the scapegoat was bred for a "butter".
The bill-sticker's pail told a sorrowful tale,
The scapegoat had licked it as dry as a nail;
He raced through their houses, and frightened their spouses,
But his latest achievement most anger arouses,
For while they were searching, and scratching their craniums,
One little Ben Ourbed, who looked in the flow'r-bed,
Discovered him eating the Rabbi's geraniums.
Moral
The moral is patent to all the beholders --
Don't shift your own sins on to other folks' shoulders;
Be kind to dumb creatures and never abuse them,
Nor curse them nor kick them, nor spitefully use them:
Take their lives if needs must -- when it comes to the worst,
But don't let them perish of hunger or thirst.
Remember, no matter how far you may roam
That dogs, goats, and chickens, it's simply the dickens,
Their talent stupendous for "getting back home".
Your sins, without doubt, will aye find you out,
And so will a scapegoat, he's bound to achieve it,
But, die in the wilderness! Don't you believe it!
The Scapegoat Summary and Analysis
Andrew Barton Paterson turns the biblical scapegoat ritual into a comic, fast-talking yarn, framing it as if it were a bit of outback folklore or a racetrack anecdote. The poem's story follows the annual ceremony in which a goat is symbolically burdened with the people's sins and sent into the wilderness, but Paterson treats that solemn act with mock-heroic slang, lively banter, and increasingly absurd physical comedy. The result is a narrative that sounds breezy on the surface while steadily exposing the strangeness of the ritual itself.
The poem's central movement depends on a mischievous reversal: the goat refuses to behave like a passive carrier of blame and repeatedly returns, undoing the community's attempt to exile its guilt. That return gives the poem its comic energy, but it also sharpens its argument. Human beings want to disown wrongdoing by loading it onto something helpless, yet the poem insists that guilt is harder to banish than the ritual assumes. The ending makes that point in blunt, playful moral form, warning that sins have a way of coming back, just as the goat does.
Tone in The Scapegoat
Paterson's tone is mischievous, satirical, and knowingly performance-driven, as if he is telling a yarn for the delight of an amused audience. The emotional atmosphere, however, is more complicated: the reader is encouraged to laugh at the absurd chase and the extravagant language, but that laughter is shadowed by the poem's insistence that innocence is being made to suffer and that guilt will not stay buried. The humor keeps the poem buoyant, while the ending leaves behind a sharper moral sting than the comic surface first suggests.
This literary analysis was generated with AI and may contain interpretive differences. Provide your analysis in the comments section.
Themes in The Scapegoat
- Guilt and moral responsibility - The poem treats the scapegoat ritual as a literal attempt to transfer wrongdoing elsewhere, but its comic plot keeps reminding the reader that guilt cannot simply be dumped and forgotten.
- Satire of solemn ritual - Paterson undercuts ceremonial seriousness by recasting the ceremony in slang, racing talk, and joking narration, exposing how human institutions can become absurd when viewed from the side.
- Reckoning and return - The goat's repeated comeback suggests that what is rejected does not stay safely excluded; blame, memory, and consequence find their way back.
- Abuse of the powerless - The goat stands in for any vulnerable creature or person made to suffer for other people's faults, giving the poem a moral edge beneath its humor.
- Folkloric storytelling - The poem works like a tall tale, piling up exaggerated action and comic asides to turn a religious custom into a memorable story with a lesson.
- Humor as critique - The playful style does not cancel the poem's seriousness; instead, it makes the ethical point more approachable by making the reader laugh at the logic of scapegoating.
Literary Devices in The Scapegoat
- Comic diction - Paterson blends biblical material with colloquial slang and Australian idiom, creating a sharp contrast that keeps the poem witty and irreverent.
- Narrative ballad style - The poem tells a story in sequential episodes, using momentum, action, and dialogue to carry the reader through the ritual and its consequences.
- Mock-heroic tone - Grand religious and historical material is treated as if it were ordinary sporting or camp gossip, shrinking the ceremony and making its logic look ridiculous.
- Hyperbole - Exaggerated descriptions of the goat's speed, the crowd's panic, and the chase amplify the comedy while emphasizing the ritual's failure to contain guilt.
- Irony - The community performs a ceremony meant to remove sin, yet the goat returns and disrupts them, exposing the instability of their supposed solution.
- Direct address - The narrator frequently speaks as though chatting to an audience, which builds a conversational relationship and makes the moral feel like a shared lesson.
- Allusion - Biblical references and echoes of religious language provide the framework for the poem, even as they are playfully transformed.
- Repetition - The goat's repeated escape and return reinforce the central idea that blame cannot be neatly displaced.
Symbolism in The Scapegoat
- The goat - It symbolizes the burdened outsider onto whom a community projects its sins, but its return suggests that moral responsibility cannot be permanently exported.
- The wilderness - The desert stands for exile, exposure, and the imagined place where wrongdoing can be left behind, even though the poem shows that escape is only temporary.
- The red fillet - This mark functions as a visible sign of transferred guilt and ritual designation, setting the scapegoat apart from the rest of the community.
- The rabbiting chase across the plain - The pursuit symbolizes the futile effort to outrun conscience once blame has been attached to an innocent victim.
- The synagogue - It represents the religious community's order and self-understanding, which are threatened when the scapegoat returns with the sins still effectively in tow.
Historical Context of The Scapegoat
The poem draws on the biblical Day of Atonement tradition described in Levitical law, where a goat symbolically bears the sins of the people and is driven into the wilderness. In later English, "scapegoat" became a common term for someone made to suffer for the faults of others, and Paterson uses that tradition as the basis for a playful moral fable.
Paterson is strongly associated with Australian bush writing, bush ballads, and humorous verse that adapts local speech rhythms and comic storytelling. This poem reflects that broader tradition by mixing religious subject matter with vernacular wit, a technique that was especially suited to colonial and post-colonial comic poetry. Its style also sits comfortably within the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century taste for recitation pieces that relied on rhythm, persona, and audience-friendly humor.
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