Chapter 1

Shakespeare Translations In Norway

A

In the years following 1750, there was gathered in the city of Trondhjem a remarkable group of men: Nils Krog Bredal, composer of the first Danish opera, John Gunnerus, theologian and biologist, Gerhart Schøning, rector of the Cathedral School and author of an elaborate history of the fatherland, and Peter Suhm, whose 14,047 pages on the history of Denmark testify to a learning, an industry, and a generous devotion to scholarship which few have rivalled. Bredal was mayor (Borgermester), Gunnerus was bishop, Schøning was rector, and Suhm was for the moment merely the husband of a rich and unsympathetic wife. But they were united in their interest in serious studies, and in 1760, the last three--somewhat before Bredal's arrival--founded "Videnskabsselkabet i Trondhjem." A few years later the society received its charter as "Det Kongelige Videnskabsselskab."

A little provincial scientific body! Of what moment is it? But in those days it was of moment. Norway was then and long afterwards the political and intellectual dependency of Denmark. For three hundred years she had been governed more or less effectively from Copenhagen, and for two hundred years Danish had supplanted Norwegian as the language of church and state, of trade, and of higher social intercourse. The country had no university; Norwegians were compelled to go to Copenhagen for their degrees and there loaf about in the anterooms of ministers waiting for preferment. Videnskabsselskabet was the first tangible evidence of awakened national life, and we are not surprised to find that it was in this circle that the demand for a separate Norwegian university was first authoritatively presented. Again, a little group of periodicals sprang up in which were discussed, learnedly and pedantically, to be sure, but with keen intelligence, the questions that were interesting the great world outside. It is dreary business ploughing through these solemn, badly printed octavos and quartos. Of a sudden, however, one comes upon the first, and for thirty-six years the only Norwegian translation of Shakespeare.

We find it in _Trondhjems Allehaande_ for October 23, 1782--the third and last volume. The translator has hit upon Antony's funeral oration and introduces it with a short note:[1] "The following is taken from the famous English play _Julius Caesar_ and may be regarded as a masterpiece. When Julius Caesar was killed, Antonius secured permission from Brutus and the other conspirators to speak at his funeral. The people, whose minds were full of the prosperity to come, were satisfied with Caesar's murder and regarded the murderers as benefactors. Antonius spoke so as to turn their minds from rejoicing to regret at a great man's untimely death and so as to justify himself and win the hearts of the populace. And in what a masterly way Antonius won them! We shall render, along with the oration, the interjected remarks of the crowd, inasmuch as they too are evidences of Shakespeare's understanding of the human soul and his realization of the manner in which the oration gradually brought about the purpose toward which he aimed:"

[1. It has been thought best to give such citations for the most part in translation.]

Antonius: Venner, Medborgere, giver mig Gehør, jeg kommer for at jorde Cæsars Legeme, ikke for at rose ham. Det Onde man gjør lever endnu efter os; det Gode begraves ofte tilligemed vore Been. Saa Være det ogsaa med Cæsar. Den ædle Brutus har sagt Eder, Cæsar var herskesyg. Var han det saa var det en svær Forseelse: og Cæsar har ogsaa dyrt maattet bøde derfor. Efter Brutus og de Øvriges Tilladelse--og Brutus er en hederlig Mand, og det er de alle, lutter hederlige Mænd, kommer jeg hid for at holde Cæsars Ligtale. Han var min Ven, trofast og oprigtig mod mig! dog, Brutus siger, han var herskesyg, og Brutus er en hederlig Mand. Han har bragt mange Fanger med til Rom, hvis Løsepenge formerede de offentlige Skatter; synes Eder det herskesygt af Cæsar--naar de Arme skreeg, saa græd Cæsar--Herskesyge maate dog vel væves af stærkere Stof.--Dog Brutus siger han var herskesyg; og Brutus er en hederlig Mand. I have alle seet at jeg paa Pans Fest tre Gange tilbød ham en kongelig Krone, og at han tre Gange afslog den. Var det herskesygt?--Dog Brutus siger han var herskesyg, og i Sandhed, han er en hederlig Mand. Jeg taler ikke for at gjendrive det, som Brutus har sagt; men jeg staar her, for at sige hvad jeg veed. I alle elskede ham engang, uden Aarsag; hvad for en Aarsag afholder Eder fra at sørge over ham? O! Fornuft! Du er flyed hen til de umælende Bæster, og Menneskene have tabt deres Forstand. Haver Taalmodighed med mig; mit Hjerte er hist i Kisten hos Cæsar, og jeg maa holde inde til det kommer tilbage til mig.

Den Første af Folket: Mig synes der er megen Fornuft i hans Tale.

Den Anden af Folket: Naar du ret overveier Sagen, saa er Cæsar skeet stor Uret.

Den Tredje: Mener I det, godt Folk? Jeg frygter der vil komme slemmere i hans Sted.

Den Fjerde: Har I lagt Mærke til hvad han sagde? Han vilde ikke modtage Kronen, det er altsaa vist at han ikke var herskesyg.

Den Første: Hvis saa er, vil det komme visse Folk dyrt at staae.

Den Anden: Den fromme Mand! Hans Øien er blodrøde af Graad.

Den Tredje: Der er ingen fortræffeligere Mand i Rom end Antonius.

Den Fjerde: Giver Agt, han begynder igjen at tale.

Antonius: Endnu i Gaar havde et Ord af Cæsar gjældt imod hele Verden, nu ligger han der, endog den Usleste nægter ham Agtelse. O, I Folk! var jeg sindet, at ophidse Eders Gemytter til Raserie og Oprør, saa skulde jeg skade Brutus og Kassius, hvilke, som I alle veed, ere hederlige Mænd. Men jeg vil intet Ondt gjøre dem: hellere vil jeg gjøre den Døde, mig selv, og Eder Uret, end at jeg skulde volde slige hederlige Mænd Fortræd. Men her er et Pergament med Cæsars Segl: jeg fandt det i hans Kammer; det er hans sidste Villie. Lad Folket blot høre hans Testament, som jeg, tilgiv mig det, ikke tænker at oplæse, da skulde de alle gaa hen og kysse den døde Cæsars Saar; og dyppe deres Klæder i hans hellige Blod; skulde bede om et Haar af ham til Erindring, og paa deres Dødsdag i deres sidste Villie tænke paa dette Haar, og testamentere deres Efterkommere det som en rig Arvedel.

Den Fjerde: Vi ville høre Testamentet! Læs det, Marcus Antonius.

Antonius: Haver Taalmodighed, mine Venner: jeg tør ikke forelæse det; deter ikke raadeligt, at I erfare hvor kjær Cæsar havde Eder. I ere ikke Træe, I ere ikke Stene, I ere Mennesker; og da I ere Mennesker saa skulde Testamentet, om I hørte det, sætte Eder i Flamme, det skulde gjøre Eder rasende. Det er godt at I ikke vide, at I ere hans Arvinger; thi vidste I det, O, hvad vilde der da blive af?

Den fjerde: Læs Testamentet; vi ville høre det, Antonius! Du maae læse Testamentet for os, Cæsars Testament!

Antonius: Ville i være rolige? Ville I bie lidt? Jeg er gaaen for vidt at jeg har sagt Eder noget derom--jeg frygter jeg fornærmer de hederlige Mænd, som have myrdet Cæsar--jeg befrygter det.

Den Fjerde: De vare Forrædere!--ha, hederlige Mænd!

The translation continues to the point where the plebeians, roused to fury by the cunning appeal of Antony, rush out with the cries:[2]

2. Pleb: Go fetch fire!

3. Pleb: Plucke down Benches!

2. Pleb: Plucke down Formes, Windowes, anything.

[2. _Julius Caesar_. III, 2. 268-70. Variorum Edition Furness. Phila. 1913.]

But we have not space for a more extended quotation, and the passage given is sufficiently representative.

The faults are obvious. The translator has not ventured to reproduce Shakespeare's blank verse, nor, indeed, could that be expected. The Alexandrine had long held sway in Danish poetry. In _Rolf Krage_ (1770), Ewald had broken with the tradition and written an heroic tragedy in prose. Unquestionably he had been moved to take this step by the example of his great model Klopstock in _Bardiete_.[3] It seems equally certain, however, that he was also inspired by the plays of Shakespeare, and the songs of Ossian, which came to him in the translations of Wieland.[4]

[3. Rønning--_Rationalismens Tidsalder_. 11-95.]

[4. Ewald--_Levnet og meninger_. Ed. Bobe. Kbhn. 1911, p. 166.]

A few years later, when he had learned English and read Shakespeare in the original, he wrote _Balders Død_ in blank verse and naturalized Shakespeare's metre in Denmark.[5] At any rate, it is not surprising that this unknown plodder far north in Trondhjem had not progressed beyond Klopstock and Ewald. But the result of turning Shakespeare's poetry into the journeyman prose of a foreign language is necessarily bad. The translation before us amounts to a paraphrase,--good, respectable Danish untouched by genius. Two examples will illustrate this. The lines:

.... Now lies he there, And none so poor to do him reverence.

[5. _Ibid._ II, 234-235.]

are rendered in the thoroughly matter-of-fact words, appropriate for a letter or a newspaper "story":

.... Nu ligger han der, endog den Usleste nægter ham Agtelse.

Again,

I have o'ershot myself to tell you of it,

is translated:

Jeg er gaaen for vidt at jeg sagde Eder noget derom.

On the other hand, the translation presents no glaring errors; such slips as we do find are due rather to ineptitude, an inability to find the right word, with the result that the writer has contented himself with an accidental and approximate rendering. For example, the translator no doubt understood the lines:

The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones.

but he could hit upon nothing better than:

Det Onde man gjør _lever endnu efter os_; det Gode begraves ofte tilligemed vore Been.

which is both inaccurate and infelicitous. For the line

He was my friend, faithful and just to me.

our author has:

Han var min Ven, trofast og _oprigtig_ mod mig!

Again:

Has he, Masters? I fear there will come a worse in his place.

Translation:

Mener I det, godt Folk?--etc.

Despite these faults--and many others could be cited,--it is perfectly clear that this unknown student of Shakespeare understood his original and endeavored to reproduce it correctly in good Danish. His very blunders showed that he tried not to be slavish, and his style, while not remarkable, is easy and fluent. Apparently, however, his work attracted no attention. His name is unknown, as are his sources, and there is not, with one exception, a single reference to him in the later Shakespeare literature of Denmark and Norway. Not even Rahbek, who was remarkably well informed in this field, mentions him. Only Foersom,[6] who let nothing referring to Shakespeare escape him, speaks (in the notes to Part I of his translation) of a part of Act III of _Julius Caesar_ in _Trondhjems Allehaande_. That is all. It it not too much to emphasize, therefore, that we have here the first Danish version of any part of _Julius Caesar_ as well as the first Norwegian translation of any part of Shakespeare into what was then the common literary language of Denmark and Norway.[7]

[6. _William Shakespeares Tragiske Værker--Første Deel._ Khbn. 1807. Notes at the back of the volume.]

[7. By way of background, a bare enumeration of the early Danish translations of Shakespeare is here given.

1777. _Hamlet_. Translated by Johannes Boye.

1790. _Macbeth_. Translated by Nils Rosenfeldt. _Othello_. Translated by Nils Rosenfeldt. _All's Well that Ends Well_. Translated by Nils Rosenfeldt.

1792. _King Lear_. Translated by Nils Rosenfeldt. _Cymbeline_. Translated by Nils Rosenfeldt. _The Merchant of Venice_. Translated by Nils Rosenfeldt.

1794. _King Lear_. Nahum Tate's stage version. Translated by Hans Wilhelm Riber.

1796. _Two Speeches._--To be or not to be--_(Hamlet.)_ Is this a dagger--_(Macbeth.)_ Translated by Malthe Conrad Brun in _Svada_.

1800. Act III, Sc. 2 of _Julius Caesar_. Translated by Knut Lyhne Rahbek in _Minerva_.

1801. _Macbeth_. Translated by Levin Sander and K.L. Rahbek. Not published till 1804.

1804. Act V of _Julius Caesar_. Translated by P.F. Foersom in _Minerva_.

1805. Act IV Sc. 3 of _Love's Labour Lost_. Translated by P.F. Foersom in _Nytaarsgave for Skuespilyndere._

1807. Hamlet's speech to the players. Translated by P.F. Foersom in _Nytaarsgave for Skuespilyndere_.

It may be added that in 1807 appeared the first volume of Foersom's translation of Shakespeare's tragedies, and after 1807 the history of Shakespeare in Denmark is more complicated. With these matters I shall deal at length in another study.]

B

It was many years before the anonymous contributor to _Trondhjems Allehaande_ was to have a follower. From 1782 to 1807 Norwegians were engaged in accumulating wealth, an occupation, indeed, in which they were remarkably successful. There was no time to meddle with Shakespeare in a day when Norwegian shipping and Norwegian products were profitable as never before. After 1807, when the blundering panic of the British plunged Denmark and Norway into war on the side of Napoleon, there were sterner things to think of. It was a sufficiently difficult matter to get daily bread. But in 1818, when the country had, as yet, scarcely begun to recover from the agony of the Napoleonic wars, the second Norwegian translation from Shakespeare appeared.[8]

[8. _Coriolanus, efter Shakespeare_. Christiania. 1818.]

The translator of this version of _Coriolanus_ is unknown. Beyond the bare statement on the title page that the translation is made directly from Shakespeare and that it is printed and published in Christiania by Jacob Lehmann, there is no information to be had. Following the title there is a brief quotation from Dr. Johnson and one from the "Zeitung für die elegante Welt." Again Norway anticipates her sister nation; for not till the following year did Denmark get her first translation of the play.[9]

[9. The first Danish translation of Coriolanus by P.F. Wulff appeared in 1819.]

Ewald, Oehlenschlæger, and Foersom had by this time made the blank verse of Shakespeare a commonplace in Dano-Norwegian literature. Even the mediocre could attempt it with reasonable assurance of success. The _Coriolanus_ of 1818 is fairly correct, but its lumbering verse reveals plainly that the translator had trouble with his metre. Two or three examples will illustrate. First, the famous allegory of Menenius:[10]

_Menenius:_ I enten maae erkjende at I ere Heel ondskabsfulde, eller taale, man For Uforstandighed anklager Eder. Et snurrigt Eventyr jeg vil fortælle; Maaskee I har det hørt, men da det tjener Just til min Hensigt, jeg forsøge vil Nøiagtigen det Eder at forklare. . . . . . Jeg Eder det fortælle skal; med et Slags Smil, der sig fra Lungen ikke skrev; Omtrent saaledes--thi I vide maae Naar jeg kan lade Maven tale, jeg Den og kan lade smile--stikende Den svarede hvert misfornøiet Lem Og hver Rebel, som den misundte al Sin Indtægt; Saa misunde I Senatet Fordi det ikke er det som I ere.

_Første Borger_: Hvorledes. Det var Mavens Svar! Hvorledes? Og Hovedet, der kongeligt er kronet, Og Øiet, der er blot Aarvaagenhed; Og Hjertet, som os giver gode Raad; Og Tungen, vor Trumpet, vor Stridsmand, Armen, Og Foden, vores Pragthest, med de flere Befæstingner, der støtte vor Maskine, Hvis de nu skulde....

_Menenius_: Nu hvad skulde de?... Den Karl mig lader ei til Orde komme, Hvad vil I sigte med det _hvis de skulde?_

_Første Borger_: Hvis de nu skulde sig betvinge lade Ved denne Slughals Maven som blot er En Afløbs-Rende for vort Legeme?

_Menenius_: Nu videre!

_Første Borger_: Hvad vilde Maven svare? Hvis hine Handlende med Klage fremstod?

_Menenius_: Hvis I mig skjænke vil det som I have Kun lidet af, Taalmodighed, jeg mener, Jeg Eder Mavens Svar da skal fortælle.

_Første Borger_: I! Den Fortælling ret i Langdrag trækker!

_Menenius_: Min gode Ven, nu allerførst bemærke. Agtværdig Mave brugte Overlæg; Ei ubetænksom den sig overiled Som dens Modstandere; og saa lød Svaret: I Venner som fra mig ei skilles kan! Det Sandhed er, at jeg fra første Haand Modtager Næringen som Eder føder, Og dette i sin Orden er, thi jeg Et Varelager og et Forraads-Kammer Jo er for Legemet; men ei I glemme: Jeg Næringen igjennem Blodets Floder Og sender lige hen til Hoffet-Hjertet-- Til Hjernens Sæde; jeg den flyde lader Igjennem Menneskets meest fine Dele; Og de meest fast Nerver, som de mindste Blandt Aarene fra mig modtager hver Naturlig Kraft, hvormed de leve, og Endskjøndt de ikke alle paa eengang-- I gode Venner (det var Mavens Ord) Og mærker dem heel nøie....

_Første Borger_: Det vil vi gjøre.

_Menenius_: Endskjøndt de ikke alle kunde see, Hvad jeg tilflyde lader hver især, Saa kan jeg dog med gyldigt Dokument Bevise at jeg overlader dem Den rene Kjærne, selv beholder Kliddet. Hvad siger I dertil?

_Første Borger_: Et svar det var-- Men nu Andvendelsen!

_Menenius_: Senatet er Den gode Mave: I Rebellerne. I undersøge blot de Raad det giver Og alt dets Omhue. Overveier nøie Alt hvad til Statens Velferd monne sigte, Og da I finde vil, at fra Senatet Hver offentlig Velgjerning som I nyde Sit Udspring bar, men ei fra Eder selv-- Hvad tænker I, som er den store Taae Her i Forsamlingen?

[10. _Coriolanus_--Malone's ed. London. 1790. Vol. 7, pp. 148 ff.]

Aside from the preponderance of feminine endings, which is inevitable in Scandinavian blank verse, what strikes us most in this translation is its laboriousness. The language is set on end. Inversion and transposition are the devices by which the translator has managed to give Shakespeare in metrically decent lines. The proof of this is so patent that I need scarcely point out instances. But take the first seven lines of the quotation. Neither in form nor content is this bad, yet no one with a feeling for the Danish language can avoid an exclamation, "forskruet Stil" and "poetiske Stylter." And lines 8-9 smack unmistakably of _Peder Paars_. In the second place, the translator often does not attempt to translate at all. He gives merely a paraphrase. Compare lines 1-3 with the English original; the whole of the speech of the first citizen, 17-24, 25-27, where the whole implied idea is fully expressed; 28-30, etc., etc. We might offer almost every translation of Shakespeare's figures as an example. One more instance. At times even paraphrase breaks down. Compare

And through the cranks and offices of man The strongest and small inferior veins, Receive from me that natural competency Whereby they live.

with our translator's version (lines 50-51)

jeg den flyde lader Igjennem Menneskets meest fine Dele.

This is not even good paraphrase; it is simply bald and helpless rendering.

On the other hand, it would be grossly unfair to dismiss it all with a sneer. The translator has succeeded for the most part in giving the sense of Shakespeare in smooth and sounding verse, in itself no small achievement. Rhetoric replaces poetry, it is true, and paraphrase dries up the freshness and the sparkle of the metaphor. But a Norwegian of that day who got his first taste of Shakespeare from the translation before us, would at least feel that here was the power of words, the music and sonorousness of elevated dramatic poetry.

One more extract and I am done. It is Coriolanus' outburst of wrath against the pretensions of the tribunes (III, 1). With all its imperfections, the translation is almost adequate.

_Coriolanus_: Skal! Patrisier, I ædle, men ei vise! I høie Senatorer, som mon mangle Al Overlæg, hvi lod I Hydra vælge En Tjener som med sit bestemte Skal --Skjøndt blot Uhyrets Talerør og Lyd-- Ei mangler Mod, at sige at han vil Forvandle Eders Havstrøm til en Sump, Og som vil gjøre Jer Kanal til sin. Hvis han har Magten, lad Enfoldighed Da for ham bukke; har han ingen Magt, Da vækker Eders Mildhed af sin Dvale, Den farlig er; hvis I ei mangle Klogskab, Da handler ei som Daaren; mangler den, Lad denne ved Jer Side faae en Pude. Plebeier ere I, hvis Senatorer De ere, og de ere mindre ei Naar begge Eders Stemmer sammenblandes Og naar de kildres meest ved Fornemhed. De vælge deres egen Øvrighed, Og saadan Een, der sætte tør sit Skal, Ja sit gemene Skal mod en Forsamling, Der mer agtværdig er end nogensinde Man fandt i Grækenland. Ved Jupiter! Sligt Consulen fornedrer! Og det smerter Min Sjæl at vide, hvor der findes tvende Autoriteter, ingen af dem størst, Der kan Forvirring lettelig faae Indpas I Gabet, som er mellem dem, og hæve Den ene ved den anden.

C

In 1865, Paul Botten Hansen, best known to the English-speaking world for his relations with Bjørnson and Ibsen, reviewed[11] the eleventh installment of Lembcke's translation of Shakespeare. The article does not venture into criticism, but is almost entirely a resumé of Shakespeare translation in Norway and Denmark. It is less well informed than we should expect, and contains, among several other slips, the following "...in 1855, Niels Hauge, deceased the following year as teacher in Kragerø, translated _Macbeth_, the first faithful version of this masterpiece which Dano-Norwegian literature could boast of." Botten Hansen mentions only one previous Danish or Norwegian version of Shakespeare--Foersom's adaptation of Schiller's stage version (1816). He is quite obviously ignorant of Rosenfeldt's translation of 1790; and the Rahbek-Sanders translation of 1801 seems also to have escaped him, although Hauge expressly refers to this work in his introduction. Both of these early attempts are in prose; Foersom's, to be sure, is in blank verse, but Foersom's _Macbeth_ is not Shakespeare's. Accordingly, it is, in a sense, true that Hauge in 1855 did give the Dano-Norwegian public their first taste of an unspoiled _Macbeth_ in the vernacular.[12]

[11. _Illustreret Nyhedsblad_--1865, p. 96.]

[12. _Macbeth--Tragedie i fem Akter af William Shakespeare_. Oversat og fortolket af N. Hauge. Christiania. 1855. Johan Dahl.]

Hauge tells us that he had interested himself in English literature at the risk of being called an eccentric. Modern languages then offered no avenue to preferment, and why, forsooth, did men attend lectures and take examinations except to gain the means of earning a livelihood? He justifies his interest, however, by the seriousness and industry with which Shakespeare is studied in Germany and England. With the founts of this study he is apparently familiar, and with the influence of Shakespeare on Lessing, Goethe, and the lesser romanticists. It is interesting to note, too, that two scholars, well known in widely different fields, Monrad, the philosopher--for some years a sort of Dr. Johnson in the literary circles of Christiania--and Unger, the scholarly editor of many Old Norse texts, assisted him in his work.

The character of Hauge's work is best seen in his notes. They consist of a careful defense of every liberty he takes with the text, explanations of grammatical constructions, and interpretations of debated matters. For example, he defends the witches on the ground that they symbolize the power of evil in the human soul.

Man kan sige at Shakespeare i dem og deres Slæng har givet de nytestamentlige Dæmoner Kjød og Blod.

(We may say that Shakespeare in them and their train has endowed the demons of the New Testament with flesh and blood). Again, he would change the word _incarnadine_ to _incarnate_ on the ground that _Twelfth Night V_ offers a similar instance of the corrupt use of _incardinate_ for _incarnate_. The word occurs, moreover, in English only in this passage.[13] Again, in his note to Act IV, he points out that the dialogue in which Malcolm tests the sincerity of Macduff is taken almost verbatim from Holinshed. "In performing the play," he suggests, "it should, perhaps, be omitted as it very well may be without injury to the action since the complication which arises through Malcolm's suspicion of Macduff is fully and satisfactorily resolved by the appearance of Rosse." And his note to a passage in Act V is interesting as showing that, wide and thorough as was Hauge's acquaintance with Shakespearean criticism, he had, besides, a first-hand knowledge of the minor Elizabethan dramatists. I give the note in full. "_The way to dusty death--_

Til dette besynderlige Udtryk, kan foruden hvad Knight og Dyce have at citere, endnu citeres af Fords _Perkin Warbeck_, II, 2, "I take my leave to travel to my dust."

[13. This is, of course, incorrect. Cf. Macbeth, Variorum Edition. Ed. Furness. Phila. 1903, p. 40. Note.]

Hauge was a careful and conscientious scholar. He knew his field and worked with the painstaking fidelity of the man who realizes the difficulty of his task. The translation he gave is of a piece with the man--faithful, laborious, uninspired. But it is, at least, superior to Rosenfeldt and Sander, and Hauge justified his work by giving to his countrymen the best version of _Macbeth_ up to that time.

Monrad himself reviewed Hauge's _Macbeth_ in a careful and well-informed article, in _Nordisk Tidsskrift for Videnskab og Literatur_, which I shall review later.

D

One of the most significant elements in the intellectual life of modern Norway is the so-called Landsmaal movement. It is probably unnecessary to say that this movement is an effort on the part of many Norwegians to substitute for the dominant Dano-Norwegian a new literary language based on the "best" dialects. This language, commonly called the Landsmaal, is, at all events in its origin, the creation of one man, Ivar Aasen. Aasen published the first edition of his grammar in 1848, and the first edition of his dictionary in 1850. But obviously it was not enough to provide a grammar and a word-book. The literary powers of the new language must be developed and disciplined and, accordingly, Aasen published in 1853 _Prøver af Landsmaalet i Norge_. The little volume contains, besides other material, seven translations from foreign classics; among these is Romeo's soliloquy in the balcony scene.[14] (Act II, Sc. 1) This modest essay of Aasen's, then, antedates Hauge's rendering of _Macbeth_ and constitutes the first bit of Shakespeare translation in Norway since the _Coriolanus_ of 1818.

[14. Ivar Aasen--_Skrifter i Samling_--Christiania. 1911, Vol. 11, p. 165. Reprinted from _Prøver af Landsmaalet i Norge, Første Udgave_. Kristiania. 1853, p. 114.]

Aasen knew that Landsmaal was adequate to the expression of the homely and familiar. But would it do for belles lettres?

Han lær aat Saar, som aldri kende Saar.-- Men hyst!--Kvat Ljos er dat dar upp i glaset? Dat er i Aust, og Julia er Soli. Sprett, fagre Sol, og tyn dan Maane-Skjegla, som alt er sjuk og bleik av berre Ovund, at hennar Taus er fagrar' en ho sjølv. Ver inkje hennar Taus; dan Ovundsykja, so sjukleg grøn er hennar Jomfru-Klædnad; d'er berre Narr, som ber han. Sleng han av! Ja, d'er mi Fru, d'er dan eg held i Hugen; aa, giv ho hadde vist dat, at ho er dat! Ho talar, utan Ord. Kvat skal ho med dei? Ho tala kann med Augom;--eg vil svara. Eg er for djerv; d'er inkje meg ho ser paa, d'er tvo av fegste Stjernom dar paa Himlen, som gekk ei Ærend, og fekk hennar Augo te blinka i sin Stad, til dei kem atter. Enn um dei var dar sjølve Augo hennar. Kinn-Ljosken hennar hadde skemt dei Stjernor, som Dagsljos skemmer Lampen; hennar Augo hadd' straatt so bjart eit Ljos i Himmels Høgdi, at Fuglar song og Trudde, dat var Dag. Sjaa, kor ho hallar Kinni lint paa Handi, Aa, giv eg var ein Vott paa denne Handi at eg fekk strjuka Kinni den.--Ho talar.-- Aa tala meir, Ljos-Engel, med du lyser so klaart i denne Natti kring mitt Hovud, som naar dat kem ein utfløygd Himmels Sending mot Folk, som keika seg og stira beint upp med undrarsame kvit-snudd' Augo mot han, naar han skrid um dan seinleg-sigand' Skyi og sigler yver høge Himmels Barmen.

It was no peasant jargon that Aasen had invented; it was a literary language of great power and beauty with the dignity and fulness of any other literary medium. But it was new and untried. It had no literature. Aasen, accordingly, set about creating one. Indeed, much of what he wrote had no other purpose. What, then, shall we say of the first appearance of Shakespeare in "Ny Norsk"?

First, that it was remarkably felicitous.

Kinn-Ljosken hadde skemt dei Stjernor som Dagsljos skemmer Lampen, hennar Augo, etc.

That is no inadequate rendering of:

Two of the fairest stars in all the Heaven, etc.

And equally good are the closing lines beginning:

Aa tala meir, Ljos-Engel med du lyser, etc.

Foersom is deservedly praised for his translation of the same lines, but a comparison of the two is not altogether disastrous to Aasen, though, to be sure, his lines lack some of Foersom's insinuating softness:

Tal atter, Lysets Engel! thi du straaler i Natten saa høiherlig over mig som en af Nattens vingede Cheruber for dødeliges himmelvendte Øine, etc.

But lines like these have an admirable and perfect loveliness:

naar han skrid um dan seinleg-sigand' Skyi og sigler yver høge Himmels Barmen.

Aasen busied himself for some years with this effort to naturalize his Landsmaal in all the forms of literature. Apparently this was always uppermost in his thoughts. We find him trying himself in this sort of work in the years before and after the publication of _Prøver af Landsmaalet_. In _Skrifter i Samling_ is printed another little fragment of _Romeo and Juliet_, which the editor, without giving his reasons, assigns to a date earlier than that of the balcony scene. It is Mercutio's description of Queen Mab (Act I, Sc. 4). This is decidedly more successful than the other. The vocabulary of the Norwegian dialects is rich in words of fairy-lore, and one who knew this word treasure as Aasen did could render the fancies of Mercutio with something very near the exuberance of Shakespeare himself:

No ser eg vel, at ho hev' vore hjaa deg ho gamle Mabba, Nærkona aat Vettom. So lita som ein Adelstein i Ringen paa fremste Fingren paa ein verdug Raadsmann, ho kjøyrer kring med smaa Soldumbe-Flokar paa Nasanna aat Folk, dan Tid dei søv. Hjulspikann' henna er av Kongleføter, Vognfelden er av Engjesprette-Vengjer, og Taumann' av den minste Kongleveven. Av Maanestraalanne paa Vatn er Selen, og av Sirissebein er Svipeskafted og Svipesnerten er av Agner smaa. Skjotskaren er eit nett graakjola My so stort som Holva av ein liten Mòl, som minste Vækja krasa kann med Fingren. Til Vogn ho fekk ei holut Haslenot av Snikkar Ikorn elder Natemakk, som altid var Vognmakarann' aat Vettom.[15]

[15. Ivar Aasen: _Skrifter i Samling_. Christiania. 1911, Vol. I, p. 166.]

The translation ends with Mercutio's words:

And being thus frightened, swears a prayer or two, And sleeps again.

In my opinion this is consummately well done--at once accurate and redolent of poesy; and certainly Aasen would have been justified in feeling that Landsmaal is equal to Shakespeare's most airy passages. The slight inaccuracy of one of the lines:

Av Maanestraalanne paa Vatn er Selen,

for Shakespeare's:

The colors of the moonshine's watery beams,

is of no consequence. The discrepancy was doubtless as obvious to the translator as it is to us.

From about the same time we have another Shakespeare fragment from Aasen's hand. Like the Queen Mab passage, it was not published till 1911.[16] It is scarcely surprising that it is a rendering of Hamlet's soliloquy: "To be or not to be." This is, of course, a more difficult undertaking. For the interests that make up the life of the people--their family and community affairs, their arts and crafts and folk-lore, the dialects of Norway, like the dialects of any other country, have a vocabulary amazingly rich and complete.[17] But not all ideas belong in the realm of the every-day, and the great difficulty of the Landsmaal movement is precisely this--that it must develop a "culture language." To a large degree it has already done so. The rest is largely a matter of time. And surely Ivar Aasen's translation of the famous soliloquy proved that the task of giving, even to thought as sophisticated as this, adequate and final expression is not impossible. The whole is worth giving:

Te vera elder ei,--d'er da her spyrst um; um d'er meir heirlegt i sitt Brjost aa tola kvar Styng og Støyt av ein hardsøkjen Lagnad eld taka Vaapn imot eit Hav med Harmar, staa mot og slaa dei veg?--Te døy, te sova, alt fraa seg gjort,--og i ein Sømn te enda dan Hjarteverk, dei tusend timleg' Støytar, som Kjøt er Erving til, da var ein Ende rett storleg ynskjande. Te døy, te sova, ja sova, kanskje drøyma,--au, d'er Knuten. Fyr' i dan Daudesømn, kva Draum kann koma, naar mid ha kastat av dei daudleg Bandi, da kann vel giv' oss Tankar; da er Sakji, som gjerer Useldom so lang i Livet: kven vilde tolt slikt Hogg og Haad i Tidi, slik sterk Manns Urett, stolt Manns Skamlaus Medferd, slik vanvyrd Elskhugs Harm, slik Rettarløysa, slikt Embæt's Ovmod, slik Tilbakaspenning, som tolug, verdug Mann fær av uverdug; kven vilde da, naar sjølv han kunde løysa seg med ein nakjen Odd? Kven bar dan Byrda so sveitt og stynjand i so leid ein Livnad, naar inkj'an ottast eitkvart etter Dauden, da uforfarne Land, som ingjen Ferdmann er komen atter fraa, da viller Viljen, da læt oss helder ha dan Naud, mid hava, en fly til onnor Naud, som er oss ukjend. So gjer Samviskan Slavar av oss alle, so bi dan fyrste, djerve, bjarte Viljen skjemd ut med blakke Strik av Ettertankjen og store Tiltak, som var Merg og Magt i, maa soleid snu seg um og strøyma ovugt og tapa Namn av Tiltak.

[16. _Skrifter i Samling_, I, 168. Kristiania. 1911.]

[17. Cf. Alf Torp. _Samtiden_, XIX (1908), p. 483.]

This is a distinctly successful attempt--exact, fluent, poetic. Compare it with the Danish of Foersom and Lembcke, with the Swedish of Hagberg, or the new Norwegian "Riksmaal" translation, and Ivar Aasen's early Landsmaal version holds its own. It keeps the right tone. The dignity of the original is scarcely marred by a note of the colloquial. Scarcely marred! For just as many Norwegians are offended by such a phrase as "Hennar Taus er fagrar' en ho sjølv" in the balcony scene, so many more will object to the colloquial "Au, d'er Knuten." _Au_ has no place in dignified verse, and surely it is a most unhappy equivalent for "Ay, there's the rub." Aasen would have replied that Hamlet's words are themselves colloquial; but the English conveys no such connotation of easy speech as does the Landsmaal to a great part of the Norwegian people. But this is a trifle. The fact remains that Aasen gave a noble form to Shakespeare's noble verse.

E

For many years the work of Hauge and Aasen stood alone in Norwegian literature. The reading public was content to go to Denmark, and the growing Landsmaal literature was concerned with other matters--first of all, with the task of establishing itself and the even more complicated problem of finding a form--orthography, syntax, and inflexions which should command general acceptance. For the Landsmaal of Ivar Aasen was frankly based on "the best dialects," and by this he meant, of course, the dialects that best preserved the forms of the Old Norse. These were the dialects of the west coast and the mountains. To Aasen the speech of the towns, of the south-east coast and of the great eastern valleys and uplands was corrupt and vitiated. It seemed foreign, saturated and spoiled by Danish. There were those, however, who saw farther. If Landsmaal was to strike root, it must take into account not merely "the purest dialects" but the speech of the whole country. It could not, for example, retain forms like "dat," "dan," etc., which were peculiar to Søndmør, because they happened to be lineal descendants of Old Norse, nor should it insist on preterites in _ade_ and participles in _ad_ merely because these forms were found in the sagas. We cannot enter upon this subject; we can but point out that this movement was born almost with Landsmaal itself, and that, after Aasen's fragments, the first Norwegian translation of any part of Shakespeare is a rendering of Sonnet CXXX in popularized Eastern, as distinguished from Aasen's literary, aristocratic Western Landsmaal. It is the first translation of a Shakespearean sonnet on Norwegian soil. The new language was hewing out new paths.

Som Soli Augunn' inkje skjin, og som Koraller inkje Lipunn' glansar, og snjokvit hev ho inkje Halsen sin, og Gullhaar inkje Hove hennar kransar,

Eg baae kvit' og raue Roser ser--, paa Kinni hennar deira Lit'kje blandast; og meire fin vel Blomsterangen er, en den som ut fraa Lipunn' hennar andast.

Eg høyrt hev hennar Røyst og veit endaa, at inkje som ein Song dei læter Ori; og aldrig hev eg set ein Engel gaa-- og gjenta mi ser støtt eg gaa paa Jori.

Men ho er større Lov og Ære vær enn pyntedokkane me laana Glansen. Den reine Hugen seg i alting ter, og ljost ho smilar under Brurekransen.[18]

[18. "Ein Sonett etter William Shakespeare." _Fram_--1872.]

Obviously this is not a sonnet at all. Not only does the translator ignore Shakespeare's rime scheme, but he sets aside the elementary definition of a sonnet--a poem of fourteen lines. We have here sixteen lines and the last two add nothing to the original. The poet, through lack of skill, has simply run on. He could have ended with line 14 and then, whatever other criticism might have been passed upon his work, we should have had at least the sonnet form. The additional lines are in themselves fairly good poetry but they have no place in what purports to be translation. The translator signs himself simply "r." Whoever he was, he had poetic feeling and power of expression. No mere poetaster could have given lines so exquisite in their imagery, so full of music, and so happy in their phrasing. This fact in itself makes it a poor translation, for it is rather a paraphrase with a quality and excellence all its own. Not a line exactly renders the English. The paraphrase is never so good as the original but, considered by itself, it is good poetry. The disillusionment comes only with comparison. On the whole, this second attempt to put Shakespeare into Landsmaal was distinctly less successful than the first. As poetry it does not measure up to Aasen; as translation it is periphrastic, arbitrary, not at all faithful.

F

The translations which we have thus far considered were mere fragments--brief soliloquies or a single sonnet, and they were done into a dialect which was not then and is not now the prevailing literary language of the country. They were earnest and, in the case of Aasen, successful attempts to show that Landsmaal was adequate to the most varied and remote of styles. But many years were to elapse before anyone attempted the far more difficult task of turning any considerable part of Shakespeare into "Modern Norwegian."

Norway still relied, with no apparent sense of humiliation, on the translations of Shakespeare as they came up from Copenhagen. In 1881, however, Hartvig Lassen (1824-1897) translated _The Merchant of Venice_.[19] Lassen matriculated as a student in 1842, and from 1850 supported himself as a literateur, writing reviews of books and plays for _Krydseren_ and _Aftenposten_. In 1872 he was appointed Artistic Censor at the theater, and in that office translated a multitude of plays from almost every language of Western Europe. His published translations of Shakespeare are, however, quite unrelated to his theatrical work. They were done for school use and published by _Selskabet for Folkeoplysningens Fremme_ (Society for the Promotion of Popular Education).

[19. _Kjøbmanden i Venedig_--Et Skuespil af William Shakespeare. Oversat af Hartvig Lassen. Udgivet af Selskabet for Folkeoplysningens Fremme som andet Tillægshefte til _Folkevennen_ for 1881. Kristiania, 1881.]

To _Kjøbmanden i Venedig_ there is no introduction and no notes--merely a postscript in which the translator declares that he has endeavored everywhere faithfully to reproduce the peculiar tone of the play and to preserve the concentration of style which is everywhere characteristic of Shakespeare. He acknowledges his indebtedness to the Swedish translation by Hagberg and the German by Schlegel. Inasmuch as this work was published for wide, general distribution and for reading in the schools, Lassen cut out the passages which he deemed unsuitable for the untutored mind. "But," he adds, "with the exception of the last scene of