An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway | Page 8

gjort,--og i ein S?mn te enda dan Hjarteverk, dei tusend timleg' St?ytar, som Kj?t er Erving til, da var ein Ende rett storleg ynskjande. Te d?y, te sova, ja sova, kanskje dr?yma,--au, d'er Knuten. Fyr' i dan Daudes?mn, 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 Rettarl?ysa, slikt Emb?t's Ovmod, slik Tilbakaspenning, som tolug, verdug Mann f?r av uverdug; kven vilde da, naar sj?lv han kunde l?ysa 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 l?t 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 str?yma 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 sj?lv" 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 S?ndm?r, 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 h?yrt hev hennar R?yst og veit endaa, at inkje som ein Song dei l?ter Ori; og aldrig hev eg set ein Engel gaa-- og gjenta mi ser st?tt eg gaa paa Jori.
Men ho er st?rre Lov og ?re v?r 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