Part 5

Möter du nordanvinden, karl, då möter du man och ära, lustig och djärv, med blicken klar 15 som nyårsmånens skära.

Glad har jag hört hans muntra appell, när han trummade till på rutan. Ljöd hans signal genom springor och spjäll, då gömde jag svårmodslutan. 20

Glad har jag följt så mången mil hans knarrande, vita vägar, druckit ur bergens frusande il hans ymniga hälsobägar.

Kom, går du med för gammans skull? 25 Den kyliga kvällen lågar, skyn är av glimmande strängar full till lyror och till bågar.

Hövding, ryck an; jag är din man, din man under sälla stjärnor. 30 Bistra kämpar följa ditt spann och leende vintertärnor.

Kom och följ med för gammans skull, envar som kan le och sjunga! Skyarna gå som fanor av gull: 35 framåt, I stridbart unga!

NOTES.

BERNHARD ELIS MALMSTRÖM.

VI SUCKAR DET SÅ TUNGT UTI SKOGEN?

1. The folk-song style is apparent throughout this poem, the first distinctive mark being the superfluous use of the pronoun immediately after its antecedent, a manner of speech borrowed from the vernacular and incorporated with numerous popular ballads. Cf. lines 18, 19, 22.

8. _hemsk uti sitt mod_, apprehensive of danger; _till mods_ is the idiomatic phrase.

10. _tänkte stygga tankar_, thought of grewsome things.

II. _vilsegick_, usually not compounded.

12. _kär_, properly _kära_.

13. _Gud nåde mig, som liten är_, a paraphrase of the second line from a common children's prayer beginning, _Gud, som haver barnen kär_; the poet also seems to have copied from this the irregular form _kär_, in line 12.

13. The home is so clearly in the lad's mind that the idea is adequately expressed by _där_.

18. _trollena_, a vernacular def. pl. form for _trollen_. This form in _-a_ has been exploited by recent metropolitan writers, as also by Selma Lagerlöf, but without gaining general favor among the best stylists of Sweden.

22. _vidan hed_, archaic for _vida heden_. Cf. _grönan ö (gröna ön)_, 45.

25. _så_, frequently thus interpolated in careless speech and here lending a savor of the common tongue.

39. _hemsk_ (frightened),--_till mods_ being mentally supplied from the second stanza.

50. _den arma jord(en)_, the suffixed definite sign being frequently dropped in poetic style.

52. _all ... mord_; the correspondence between qualifiers and nouns is sometimes lost in a series, as here, _lögn_ and _flärd_ (sg.) requiring _all_, but _mord_ (pl.), _alla_. Analogous inconsistencies are found in the best literature, as in Tegner's Addresses (_På Växjö gymnasium, 1836_): "Den som _sitter_ vid lästen och den som sitter vid statsstyret, vid svarvstolen eller på lärostolen, _vid plogen_ eller lyran," the quotation conveying the incongruous idea of "sitting at the plow," as at the shoemaker's bench or the turning lathe.

62. _Herren vill jag lova_ calls for a sharp distinction between _lova_ (praise) and _lova_ (promise).

ÖDMJUKER ER!

1. _ödmjuker_; the alternative form in _-er_ (2nd person pl., imperative) is peculiar to solemn rhetorical style. Cf. lines 13, 15, 32.

2. _himlens rand_, usually the horizon, here has a vague and undefinable poetic meaning.

K. V. A. STRANDBERG.

BARRIKADER.

14. _på sistone_, archaic form of _på det sista_; modern style, _till sist_, at length.

MANING.

2. _harar_, the common metaphor to designate cowardice.

6. The red color indicating the liberalist party whose cause the poet pleaded.

9. _Karlars blod_, the blood of the Swedish kings of that name.

MITT DÖDA BARN.

12. _karl_; the rhyme here calls for the popular pronunciation, with the _l_ mute.

44. Allusion to an ancient Greek custom. _Thanatos_, death, was represented as a human figure with a torch reversed.

TACK FÖR GOD VAKT!

This poem, written shortly before his death, was the poet's farewell to life. The title is characteristic, being a traditional form of greeting when guards were dismissed from duty and replaced by others.

9. _Georg Stiernhielm_ (1598-1672), philologist and poet, was the foremost Swedish savant of his time. His noted place among Swedish poets was won through priority rather than by any great creative genius. _Hakvin Spegel_ (1645-1714), archbishop of Sweden, was a noted religious poet, many of whose hymns are found in the present hymn book of the Church of Sweden.

39-40. The sentiment contained in these lines is fully borne out in the foregoing poem, _Mitt döda barn_, a touching expression of intense parental affection.

43-46. Though never suffering actual want, the poet for several years after his marriage in 1847 made a very meager living as a journalist, and the lines may be more poetic than true. "During these years his bread was not infrequently more than scarce, and want was often on the point of crossing his threshold," says J.A. RUNSTRÖM.

53-56. The poet faintly alludes to an attack of blindness in his youth which left traces for life.

VIKTOR RYDBERG.

DEXIPPOS.

The poem bears as its title the name of a Grecian historian, who flourished at the time of the invasion of the Goths, one episode of which is here described, the poet dating the event 267 A.D.

1. _Pallas' stad_, i.e. Athens, whose tutelary goddess was Pallas Athene.

8. _örnar_, the eagle-shaped figures used as standards in the Roman army. That emblem of imperialism had been the ensign of the kings of Babylon and of the Ptolemies. The Romans adopted it in conjunction with other devices, but Marius made it the ensign of the legion, and confined the other devices to the cohorts. It has remained to this day the preëminent sign of power in coats of arms, whether of monarchies, empires or republics. See U.S. seal and ensigns.

_järn_, here, the swords and lances of the legions.

24. The Corybant priests of the goddess Cybele in Phrygia, Asia Minor, worshiped by means of boisterous music and frantic dances.

27. _Befriarn Dionysos_. Dionysus, the god of wine and vineyards and of dramatic poetry, was styled Liberator (from care). Note the effective application of the same epithet in the personifications following.

39. _som Dodonas gamla ek_. The simile refers to the famous oracle at Dodona, in Epirus, dedicated to Zevs. The oracular answers were supposed to be derived from the whispering of the breezes in the crown of a great sacred oak.

_Dodonas ekar talade fordomdags, ur helga skuggor stammades ödets dom_.

(Dodona's oaks aforetime their message spake; Prom sacred shadows stammering Fate's decree.)

TEGNÉR'S "_Träden_."

42. The three great commanders and statesmen here named flourished about 500-450 B.C. and their achievements were still fresh in the memory of the Athenians after more than two hundred years, hence, (43) _de leva ännu--de stå mig när_. Great as these heroes were, the hyperbole in line 41, _då en värld befriades_, is obvious.

45. _Kerameikos_, the old Potters' Quarter in Athens, transformed into one of the finest parts of the city, with a wide square or plaza which is here specifically meant.

46. _pyrririsk vapendans_--the ancient Pyrrhic dance was performed to the music of flutes, by armed men simulating a hand to hand battle.

63. _ett panateneiskt festtåg_--the Panathenaea was the most ancient and important festival of Athens, celebrated in honor of the goddess Athena, in part by a festive procession to her temple in the center of the Acropolis.

75. _falang_--the Greek phalanx was a body of heavily armed infantry formed in close ranks and files varying from four to twenty-five ranks deep.

76. _tyrteiska hymnen_, a martial hymn by the ancient Spartan poet Tyrtaeus who flourished in the seventh century B.C.

81 ff. The Song of the Athenians is written in distich form, a strophic group of two lines; this was a favorite form for elegiac and other solemn poetry.

93 ff. The Song of the Goths is characterized both by the irregularity of old German verse and the alliteration of the Eddic poetry of Scandinavia. It forms a striking contrast to the careful chiseling of the Greek verse.

94. _nickar_ here implies not only a nodding or swaying motion but a command, as expressed in what follows. Thus, the pine tree of the North, like the oak of Dodona, is voicing the decree of destiny.

112. _lekt Maraton_. The beating off of the Goths on this occasion, however, did not prove as decisive a battle as that of Marathon. Not until their defeat by Claudius in the battle of Naissus two years later did the Goths cease to harass and devastate Greece and other territories of the Roman empire inadequately protected by its legions (see line 8).

I KLOSTERCELLEN.

4. _kodex_, manuscript in text hand on parchment, usually containing some portion of Scripture or of classic literature.

19-20. By conserving classic learning the monks during medieval times nurtured the seeds of culture from which was to spring the Reformation of the Church and its concomitant, the civilization of the modern age. Cf. lines 14-16.

24. _Platos himmel och Perikles' republik_.--What the poet here refers to as "Plato's heaven" may be briefly defined as the ideal world (as conceived in his philosophy), dominated by the highest of all ideas, that of absolute good. But the ideal good in Plato's philosophy did not mean a personal God, hence a purely religious conception of heaven was not a part of his system.

Pericles, though himself of aristocratic birth, was the protagonist of democracy in Greece, in opposition to Cimon, who through his influence was exiled 460 B.C. The republic subsequently established by Pericles was in fact, according to the contemporary historian Thucydides, an autocracy by common consent.---The line has reference to the activity of the learned friars, especially of the Renaissance period, in reduplicating copies of the remnants of the old Greek literature, thereby saving to the world the _knowledge_ of Greek thought and Greek institutions.

30-32. The closing lines present, as does the poem as a whole, a picture of the entire period known as the Middle Ages.

SNÖFRID.

_Snöfrid_ is a mythical being idealized by Rydberg into a guiding genius pointing the way of ambition, strife and self-sacrifice, while most poets dealing with similar characters, so common in literature, make them out wanton and seductive agencies of destruction, like the sirens.

35. _troll i dvärgaham_, dwarflike trolls. _Hamn_, shape, apparition, is sometimes, and probably more correctly, written _ham_; so also by LEVERTIN in _En gammal nyårsvisa_:

_som en svart och spöklik ham sorgens fåle dröjer_.

99. _ju himlen närmare_, for _ju närmare himlen_, is a poetic innovation; _ju_ and _desto_, as conjunctions, immediately precede the comparative form of the adjective.

109-10. Allusion to the Eddic song _Voluspá_, stanzas 8 and 63, where it is said of the gods:

8. _Guldtavel på gården de glade lekte --allt av guld de i överflöd hade_.

63. _Därefter varda de underbara guldtavlorna i gräset funna, dem de i urtiden ägt hade_.

TOMTEN.

9. _Står där så grå_--the frequent omission of the subject (cf. lines 17, 21, 25, 33), in imitation of an ancient manner, lends quaintness and an antiquated air to the poem.

67. Rhyming and stressing the pronoun _som_ is a breach of the rules of good style rare in the polished and precise diction of Rydberg.

75-76. Prose order: _blott bruset av forsens fall höres helt sakta från fjärran_.

85. _Månen sänker sin tysta ban_--a poetic ellipse; supply _sig på_ after _sänker_.

I NATTEN.

11-15. A poetic vision of rare beauty, exquisitely expressed. Note the hush in the onomatopoetic line, _sövd av sorlande källans sus_.

KARL GUSTAV JOHAN SNOILSKY.

Ur INLEDNINGSSÅNG.

5. _utöver höva_--the elimination of the postpositive definite article in the archaic idiom _över hövan_ is quite irregular and a manifest sacrifice to the law of rhyme.

15. _Brenta_, a river in northern Italy, whose picturesque shores, studded with villas, gardens and parks, are familiar to tourists.

17. _Hesperien_. Snoilsky, like the Greek poets, applies this classic name distinctly to Italy. Cf. the poem, "_Neros gyllene hus_," the 16th stanza of which reads:

_Att sjunga vaggsång för slavar Hesperiens vind var för god, för god att sucka bland gravar, där lagern på hån blott stod_.

20. In the nine stanzas here omitted the poet revels in the scenes and pleasures, the historic memories and current strife indigenous to Italian soil.

34. Note that the poet speaks in his own person throughout, not from the lips of an imaginary Muse.

DEN TJÄNANDE BRODERN.

This is one of the poems of purely democratic trend so characteristic of the literature of Sweden in the early eighties. It was written in 1882.

14. _lampans ande_--allusion to the genius of Aladdin's magic lamp in "Arabian Nights' Tales."

14-15. _allena_--_tjäna_, a "Stockholm rhyme," so called from the fact that the dialect of the capital discriminates none too well between the sounds of _e_ and _ä_.

I PORSLINSFABRIKEN.

In this as in the foregoing poem, Snoilsky pays high tribute to the man of labor, the artisan of common utilities as against the artist creator of costly luxuries. His exaltation of labor is hardly less fervent than the apotheosis of human liberty in a large number of his poems.

ALBERT ULRIK BÅÅTH.

VINTERSTÄMNING.

10. _Ett snacksällt lag_--a flock of rooks disturbed at nightfall by the ringing of the vesper bell.

EN PINGSTDAGSMORGON.

This poem has its counterpart in English literature in HOOD'S _Song of the Shirt_.

29. Metrically, the last syllable of _händerna_ belongs to the next line. Cf. lines 45-46 and 63-64.

BRIST.

The broken and irregular meter is quite in keeping with the plaintive note of this song, and others by Bååth, so strikingly described in lines 15-16.

OSKAR IVAR LEVERTIN.

EN GAMMAL NYÅRSVISA.

This is an old ballad modernized by Levertin, its legendary style being rather too fantastical for present-day verse.

16. _Betslet är en blomsterrad_--the reins, not the bit, forming a festoon of flowers, _betsel_ (bit) is a metonym for _tyglar_ (reins).

20. _guldsmidd_ is here used in two senses--"gold-mounted" and "hammered out of gold."

29. Spelt was the common variety of wheat in early times. It is still grown on poor soils in Germany and Switzerland.

35. _huvut_, contraction of _huvudet_, the _t_ representing the definite suffix, not a consonantal change.

45. _livsens_, archaic for _livets_.

FLOREZ OCH BLANZEFLOR.

This poem is based on an old medieval ballad which was translated into Swedish as early as 1312 and, together with similar versions of _Ivan Lejonriddaren_ and _Hertig Fredrik av Normandie_, formed a group of ballads of chivalry called _Eufemiavisorna_, Queen Euphemia of Norway having caused them to be translated into the Swedish tongue. While the source of "Ivan" appears to have been a French ballad and that of "Henrik" a German one, both belonging to the Arthurian Tales, nothing is said of the origin of "Flores," except that it was "turned into rhyme." The ballad was probably based on the Norse prose saga, "_Flores ok Blankiflur_," and a French redaction of the same. Critics have traced the romance back to a late Greek source. The Swedish translator is thought to have used the Old Norse prose version. A modern French version, "Floire et Blanceflor" by E. Du Meril (1856) bears close relation to the Old Swedish version. (GEETE and SCHÜCK.)

5. The line gives the title of the poem in Swedish words--_blomma och vitblomma_.

24. Levertin's poem, as here indicated, merely hints at the full contents of the original ballad.

ITHAKA.

The argument of the poem is found in the very title. Ithaka, according to the Odyssey, was the native island of Odysseus, to which the hero of the epic, after having taken part in the Trojan War, returned only after years of reverses and vicissitudes.

6. _Herakles' stoder_, Gibraltar and the high rock on the opposite coast, known in classic lore as the Pillars of Hercules.

30, 32. _smekning_--_räkning_--see SNOILSKY, _Den tjänande brodern_, 14-15, note.

MODERSPRÅKET.

3. _Fantasos' tömmar_--carrying out the classic figure of Fancy as "the wingéd horse."

8. Allusion to John 1, 1-3.

9, 11. _sen_--_vän_--an extreme form of the "Stockholm rhyme," the vowels differing both in sound and in quantity.

20. The masculine epithet _ledsven_, in the midst of the feminine _sagoförtäljerska, följeslagerska, bikterska, trösterska, drömmerska_, is somewhat disconcerting.

_Babylons vimmel_ refers to the Babel of tongues.

22, 24. _stämma_--_hemma_--Stockholm rhymes.

34-38. Entirely in keeping with the poet's confession in these lines is the recent estimate of a critic who says: "Oskar Levertin, who was not ashamed of being a Jew, although his nature in a peculiar and fruitful way combined the characteristics of his own race with those of the race which fostered him, quite often struck the Jewish chord in his verse, yet he took a purely esthetic view of the subject, treating Jewish _motifs_ with romantic sentimentalism; at any rate, there was no distinctively Jewish mind or creative power back of the visions and songs of this occidental skeptic and art-dreamer." (OLOF RABENIUS in _Ord och Bild_, XXVI, 492.)

64. _stämma möte_ ordinarily requires _med_ or _till_, thus: _där döden med oss stämt möte_, or, _där döden oss stämt till möte_.

GUSTAV FRÖDING.

VALLARELÅT.

The musical quality of Fröding's verse is well exemplified in this pastoral, the mellifluous diction of which has been rarely matched in poetic literature. The Swedish _Anthology_ of Dr. Charles Wharton Stork (American-Scandinavian Foundation, 1917) contains able renderings into English of this and numerous other gems of modern Swedish verse. The volume will be found a great aid to the student who aspires to idealistic appreciation.

2. The song goes reverberating from hill to hill until the sound is finally lost,--such is the sense of this figurative line.

17. _tjärnet_, irregular neuter, probably the provincial form.

JONTE OCH BRUNTE.

The vernacular words and forms interwoven in the rhymes, as _tölas_ (9), _Jonten_ (30), _skjutgammal_ (38), _drumlade_ (45), _stracklade_ (47), add not a little to the bizarre humor of the rustic picture.

15, 17. The true colloquial use of the pronoun with its antecedent is here shown. So also in _Vallarelåt_, line 3.

33-35. The lines probably refer to the driver, but if he is mentally paying his respects to the old nag, the quotation which follows is a retort in kind, lending savor to the situation.

Ur STRÖVTÅG I HEMBYGDEN.

7. _var mig hälsad!_ presents an old construction with the dative (ethical dative) which is now obsolescent. Cf. Vol. I., STAGNELITUS, _Flyttfåglarna_, 45, note.

17-20. See beginning of Fröding monograph.

24. _Alsterns dal_, cf., in monograph, _Alsters bruk_, the birthplace of the poet.

Ur BIBLISKA FANTASIER.

_Hosiannah!_

A song in imitation of old Biblical style, hence the archaisms, _görer (gören), statt (stå), ärones (ärans), låter (låten)_.

MlN STJÄRNAS SÅNGER.

The keynote of Fröding's psychological poems is probably struck in this series of songs, forming an allegory in which the figure is consistently maintained throughout. The Star Songs undoubtedly throw light upon Fröding's philosophy of life and his personal attitude towards the Creator of life. A comparison of TegnÊér's _Sång till solen_ (Vol. I., p. 64) and Fröding's _Min stjärnas sånger_ yields the impression that the former is an impersonal, objective poetic pean, the latter a poet's creed.

9. _av din egen art_, of the same kind as yours, i.e., the sunspots.

19. _så = såväl_,

41 ff. A study of Fröding's mental make-up is essential to a correct understanding of the metaphysical stanzas of part IV in particular.

VERNER VON HEIDENSTAM.

DJUFARS VISA.

1. _Tanta_, a city in lower Egypt.

17-19. _I afton kanske ... att han sjunger_--the _att_ here interposed has the effect of giving the adverbial _kanske_ its original verbal sense _kan ske_ (as, maybe he will--it may be _that_ he will).

32. _en klase druvor_, a cluster of grapes. The preposition _av_ or _med_, sometimes found with such attributives, is generally dispensed with.

34. _var_, the colloquial form for _vore_.

39. _trummare_, regularly, _trumslagare_.

55. The traditional quietude of Egypt was alluded to by Tegnér in his epic romance, _Axel_, thus:

"... _tysta som Egyptens präster begynte stjärnorna sitt tåg_."

60. _utan rodd och segel_, i.e., without propulsion by either oars or sails.

77-78. _sant blev Djufar spådd_, in prose, _Djufar blev sannspådd_, Djufar told the truth.

Ur ENSAMHETENS TANKAR.

4-5. The poet's mode of expression in these lines has been subjected to much comment and adverse criticism, many characterizing it as too arbitrary a departure from established linguistic usage. The grammatical Swedish of it would be: _jag längtar_ TILL _marken, jag längtar_ TILL _stenarna, där_ SOM _barn jag lekt_.

PILGRIMENS JULSÅNG.

Headed "_Hemkomsten_" this poem forms the introduction to Part III of _Hans Alienus_, which bears the same general title. In _Hans Alienus_, the chief character, bearing that name, roams about Europe and the Orient in the guise of a friar. There is no unity or sequence in point of time, the pilgrim visiting the pope in the Vatican, Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem, Sardanapalus in ancient Ninive, and so on, then returning to modern Sweden to spend his last days. This oddly fantastical romance serves as the vehicle for Heidenstam's idealistic quest of beauty and his philosophy of life--a somewhat immature and immoderate Epicureanism. The latter part of this story of mingled fact and fiction is symbolical of the poet's return from foreign parts to his native soil. As events have gone in Heidenstam's literary career, it foreshadowed his return from extravagant Oriental dreams to purely Northern ideals.

6. In _Sverige_, the _i_ is slurred. Cf. the corresponding rhyme.

25-30. A renunciation of the ascetic and religious ideals supposed to go with the friar's garb.

51. _kåpans musselskal_, reference to the shells with which the cloak of the friar Hans Alienus was ornamented. He is represented as a carver of mother of pearl and other ornaments from shells.

103. _ni nå_ for _I nån_ (_ni_, second person sg., in polite address; _nå_, first or third person pl.), a colloquialism peculiar to the most recent writers, here followed shortly (line 107) by the regular form _kallen I_, where consistency would have required _kalla ni_.

120. _vinkande_ refers to _frukter_, hence: fruits that beckon and stir a desire in my blood.

ÅKALLAN OCH LÖFTE.

The title has reference to an ancient Norse custom of invoking the gods when making solemn promise to achieve some great deed. Such promises, usually made at public feasts, were solemnized with the draining of the beaker of Brage (ON _bragafull_), in honor of the god of poetry and eloquence. It will be noticed that the poem in its entirety is an invocation and an invective, the pledge being a negligible element slightly traceable only in the first stanza. This poem closes a collection of poems under the general title, "_Ett folk_".

17. _Det är bättre (att) av en hämnare nås_.

ERIK AXEL KARLFELDT.

INTET ÄR SOM VÄNTANSTIDER.

This little poem holds a place alongside of Fröding's _Vallarelåt_ as one of the sweetest lyrics of recent Swedish verse. Each writer has evinced, in his own way, a mastery of diction rarely equaled. Karlfeldt excels in the subtly sentimental strain.

UPPBROTT.