An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway Part 11

_Touch_: Visselig, da er du fordmt som en sviske.

_Korin_: Fordi jeg ikke har vaeret ved hoffet? Hvad mener I?

_Touch_: Hvis du ikke har vaeret ved hoffet, saa har du aldrig set G.o.de seder, og hvis du ikke har set G.o.de seder, saa maa dine seder vaere slette, og slette seder er synd, og syndens sold er dd og fordmmelse. Du er i en betaenkelig tilstand, hyrde!

And the mocking verses all rhyming in _in-ind_ in III, 3 (Shak. III, 2): "From the East to western Ind," etc., are given with marvelous cleverness:

Fra st til vest er ei at finde en aedelsten som Rosalinde.

Al verden om paa alle vinde skal rygtet gaa om Rosalinde.

Hvor har en maler nogensinde et kunstverk skapt som Rosalinde?

Al anden deilighet maa svinde av tanken bort--for Rosalinde.

Or Touchstone's parody:

Hjorten skriker efter hinde, skrik da efter Rosalinde, kat vil katte gjerne finde, hvem vil finde Rosalinde.

Vinterklaer er t.i.t for tynde, det er ogsaa Rosalinde.

Ntten st har surhams.h.i.+nde, slik en ntt er Rosalinde.

Den som ros' med torn vil finde, finder den--og Rosalinde.

With even greater felicity Wildenvey has rendered the songs of the play.

His verses are not, in any strict sense, translations, but they have a life and movement which, perhaps, interpret the original more fully than any translation could interpret it. What freshness and sparkle in "Under the Greenwood Tree!" I give only the first stanza:

Under de grnne traer hvem vil mig mte der?

Hvem vil en tone slaa frit mot det blide blaa?

Kom hit og herhen, hit og herhen, kom, kjaere ven, her skal du se, traer skal du se, sommer og herlig veir skal du se.

Or what could be better than the exhilirating text of "Blow, blow, thou winter wind," as Wildenvey has given it? Again only the first stanza:

Blaas, blaas du barske vind, trolse venners sind synes os mere raa.

Bar du dig end saa sint, bet du dog ei saa blindt, pustet du ogsaa paa.

Heiho! Syng heiho! i vor skog under lvet.

Alt venskap er vammelt, al elskov er tvet, men her under lvet er ingen bedrvet.

_Livet i Skogen_, then, must not be read as a translation of _As You Like It_, but is immensely worth reading for its own sake. Schiller recast and rewrote _Macbeth_ in somewhat the same way, but Schiller's _Macbeth_, condemned by its absurd porter-scene, is today nothing more than a literary curiosity. I firmly believe that Wildenvey's "bearbeidelse" deserves a better fate. It gave new life to the Shakespeare tradition on the Norwegian stage, and is in itself, a genuine contribution to the literature of Norway.

SUMMARY

If we look over the field of Norwegian translation of Shakespeare, the impression we get is not one to inspire awe. The translations are neither numerous nor important. There is nothing to be compared with the German of Tieck and Schlegel the Danish of Foersom, or the Swedish of Hagberg.

But the reason is obvious. Down to 1814 Norway was politically and culturally a dependency of Denmark. Copenhagen was the seat of government, of literature, and of polite life. To Copenhagen cultivated Norwegians looked for their models and their ideals. When Shakespeare made his first appearance in the Danish literary world--Denmark and Norway--it was, of course, in pure Danish garb. Boye, Rosenfeldt, and Foersom gave to their contemporaries more or less satisfactory translations of Shakespeare, and Norwegians were content to accept the Danish versions. In one or two instances they made experiments of their own. An unknown man of letters translated a scene from _Julius Caesar_ in 1782, and in 1818 appeared a translation of _Coriola.n.u.s_. But there is little that is typically Norwegian about either of these--a word or a phrase here and there. For the rest, they are written in pure Danish, and but for the t.i.tle-page, no one could tell whether they were published in Copenhagen or Christiania and Trondhjem.

In the meantime Foersom had begun his admirable Danish translations, and the work stopped in Norway. The building of a nation and literary interests of another character absorbed the attention of the cultivated world. Hauge's translation of _Macbeth_ is not significant, nor are those of La.s.sen thirty years later. A scholar could, of course, easily show that they are Norwegian, but that is all. They never succeeded in displacing Foersom-Lembcke.

More important are the Landsmaal translations beginning with Ivar Aasen's in 1853. They are interesting because they mark one of the most important events in modern Norwegian culture--the language struggle.

Ivar Aasen set out to demonstrate that "maalet" could be used in literature of every sort, and the same purpose, though in greatly tempered form, is to be detected in every Landsmaal translation since.

Certainly in their outward aim they have succeeded. And, despite the handicap of working in a language new, rough, and untried, they have given to their countrymen translations of parts of Shakespeare which are, at least, as good as those in "Riksmaal."

Herman Wildenvey stands alone. His work is neither a translation nor a mere paraphrase; it is a reformulating of Shakespeare into a new work of art. He has accomplished a feat worth performing, but it cannot be called translating Shakespeare. It must be judged as an independent work.

Whether Norway is always to go to Denmark for her standard Shakespeare, or whether she is to have one of her own is, as yet, a question impossible to answer. A pure Landsmaal translation cannot satisfy, and many Norwegians refuse to recognize the Riksmaal as Norwegian at all. In the far, impenetrable future the language question may settle itself, and when that happy day comes, but not before, we may look with some confidence for a "standard" Shakespeare in a literary garb which all Norwegians will recognize as their own.

CHAPTER II

Shakespeare Criticism In Norway

The history of Shakespearean translation in Norway cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be called distinguished. It is not, however, wholly lacking in interesting details. In like manner the history of Shakespearean criticism, though it contains no great names and no fascinating chapters, is not wholly without appeal and significance. We shall, then, in the following, consider this division of our subject.

Our first bit of Shakespearean criticism is the little introductory note which the anonymous translator of the scenes from _Julius Caesar_ put at the head of his translation in _Trondhjems Allehaande_ for October 23, 1782. And even this is a mere statement that the pa.s.sage in the original "may be regarded as a masterpiece," and that the writer purposes to render not merely Antony's eloquent appeal but also the interspersed e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of the crowd, "since these, too, are evidence of Shakespeare's understanding of the human soul and of his realization of the manner in which the oration gradually brought about the result toward which Antony aimed."

This is not profound criticism, to be sure, but it shows clearly that this litterateur in far-away Trondhjem had a definite, if not a very new and original, estimate of Shakespeare. It is significant that there is no hint of apology, of that tone which is so common in Shakespearean criticism of the day--Shakespeare was a great poet, but his genius was wild and untamed. This unknown Norwegian, apparently, had been struck only by the verity of the scene, and in that simplicity showed himself a better critic of Shakespeare than many more famous men. Whoever he was, his name is lost to us now. He deserves better than to be forgotten, but it seems that he was forgotten very early. Foersom refers to him casually, as we have seen, but Rahbek does not mention him.[1] Many years later Paul Botten Hansen, one of the best equipped bookmen that Norway has produced, wrote a brief review of Lembcke's translation. In the course of this he enumerates the Dano-Norwegian translations known to him. There is not a word about his countryman in Trondhjem.[2]

[1. "Shakespeareana i Danmark"--_Dansk Minerva_, 1816 (III) pp. 151 ff.]

[2. _Ill.u.s.treret Nyhedsblad_, 1865, pp. 96 ff.]

After this solitary landmark, a long time pa.s.sed before we again find evidence of Shakespearean studies in Norway. The isolated translation of _Coriola.n.u.s_ from 1818 shows us that Shakespeare was read, carefully and critically read, but no one turned his attention to criticism or scholarly investigation. Indeed, I have searched Norwegian periodical literature in vain for any allusion to Shakespeare between 1782 and 1827. Finally, in the latter year _Den Norske Husven_ adorns its t.i.tle-page with a motto from Shakespeare. _Christiania Aftenbladet_ for July 19, 1828, reprints Carl Bagger's clever poem on Shakespeare's reputed love-affair with "f.a.n.n.y," an adventure which got him into trouble and gave rise to the bon-mot, "William the Conqueror ruled before Richard III." The poem was reprinted from _Kjobenhavns Flyvende Post_ (1828); we shall speak of it again in connection with our study of Shakespeare in Denmark.

After this there is another break. Not even a reference to Shakespeare occurs in the hundreds of periodicals I have examined, until the long silence is broken by a short, fourth-hand article on Shakespeare's life in _Skilling Magazinet_ for Sept. 23, 1843. The same magazine gives a similar popular account in its issue for Sept. 4, 1844. Indeed, several such articles and sketches may be found in popular periodicals of the years following.

In 1855, however, appeared Niels Hauge's afore mentioned translation of _Macbeth_, and shortly afterward Professor Monrad, who, according to Hauge himself, had at least given him valuable counsel in his work, wrote a review in _Nordisk Tidsskrift for Videnskab og Literatur_.[3]

Monrad was a pedant, stiff and inflexible, but he was a man of good sense, and when he was dealing with acknowledged masterpieces he could be depended upon to say the conventional things well.

[3. See Vol. III (1855), pp. 378 ff.]

He begins by saying that if any author deserves translation it is Shakespeare, for in him the whole poetic, romantic ideal of Protestantism finds expression. He is the Luther of poetry, though between Luther and Shakespeare there is all the difference between religious zeal and the quiet contemplation of the beautiful. Both belong to the whole world, Shakespeare because his characters, humor, art, reflections, are universal in their validity and their appeal. Wherever he is read he becomes the spokesman against narrowness, dogmatism, and intolerance. To translate Shakespeare, he points out, is difficult because of the archaic language, the obscure allusions, and the intense originality of the expression. Shakespeare, indeed, is as much the creator as the user of his mother-tongue. The one translation of _Macbeth_ in existence, Foersom's, is good, but it is only in part Shakespeare, and the times require something more adequate and "something more distinctly our own." Monrad feels that this should not be altogether impossible "when we consider the intimate relations between England and Norway, and the further coincidence that the Norwegian language today is in the same state of flux and transition, as was Elizabethan English." All translations at present, he continues, can be but experiments, and should aim primarily at a faithful rendering of the text. Monrad calls attention to the fact--in which he was, of course, mistaken--that this is the first translation of the original _Macbeth_ into Dano-Norwegian or into Danish. It is a work of undoubted merit, though here and there a little stiff and hazy, "but Shakespeare is not easily clarified." The humorous pa.s.sages, thinks the reviewer, are a severe test of a translator's powers and this test Hauge has met with conspicuous success. Also he has aquitted himself well in the difficult matter of putting Shakespeare's meter into Norwegian.

The last two pages are taken up with a detailed study of single pa.s.sages. The only serious error Monrad has noticed is the following: In Act II, 3 one of the murderers calls out "A light! A light!" Regarding this pa.s.sage Monrad remarks: "It is certainly a mistake to have the second murderer call out, "Bring a light here!" (Lys hid!) The murderer does not demand a light, but he detects a s.h.i.+mmer from Banquo's approaching torch." The rest of the section is devoted to mere trifles.

This is the sort of review which we should expect from an intelligent and well-informed man. Monrad was not a scholar, nor even a man of delicate and penetrating reactions. But he had sound sense and perfect self-a.s.surance, which made him something of a Samuel Johnson in the little provincial Kristiania of his day. At any rate, he was the only one who took the trouble to review Hauge's translation, and even he was doubtless led to the task because of his personal interest in the translator. If we may judge from the stir it made in periodical literature, _Macbeth_ fell dead from the press.

The tercentenary of Shakespeare's birth (1864) aroused a certain interest in Norway, and little notes and articles are not infrequent in the newspapers and periodicals about that time. _Ill.u.s.treret Nyhedsblad_[4] has a short, popular article on Stratford-on-Avon. It contains the usual Shakespeare apocrypha--the Sir Thomas Lucy story, the story of the apple tree under which Shakespeare and his companions slept off the effects of too much Bedford ale--and all the rest of it. It makes no pretense of being anything but an interesting hodge-podge for popular consumption. The next year, 1864, the same periodical published[5] on the traditional day of Shakespeare's birth a rather long and suggestive article on the English drama before Shakespeare. If this article had been original, it might have had a certain significance, but, unfortunately, it is taken from the German of Bodenstedt. The only significant thing about it is the line following the t.i.tle: "Til Erindring paa Trehundredsaarsdagen efter Shakespeares Fodsel, d. 23 April, 1563."

[4. Vol. XII (1863), pp. 199 ff.]

[5. Vol. XIII (1864), pp. 65 ff.]

More interesting than this, however, are the verses written by the then highly esteemed poet, Andreas Munch, and published in his own magazine, _For Hjemmet_,[6] in April, 1864. Munch rarely rises above mediocrity and his tribute to the bard of Avon is the very essence of it.

He begins:

I disse Dage gaar et vaeldigt Navn Fra Mund til Mund, fra Kyst til Kyst rundt Jorden-- Det straaler festligt over fjernest Havn, Og klinger selv igjennem Krigens Torden, Det s.l.u.tter alle Folk i Aandens Favn, Og er et Eenheds Tegn i Striden vorden-- I Stjerneskrift det staaer paa Tidens Bue, Og leder Slaegterne med Hjertelue.

[6. Vol. V, p. 572.]

and, after four more stanzas, he concludes: