An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway | Page 6

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 Sl?ng har givet de nytestamentlige D?moner Kj?d 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 _Pr?ver 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 _Pr?ver af Landsmaalet i Norge, F?rste 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 l?r 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 sj?lv. Ver inkje hennar Taus; dan Ovundsykja, so sjukleg gr?n er hennar Jomfru-Kl?dnad; 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 ?rend, og fekk hennar Augo te blinka i sin Stad, til dei kem atter. Enn um dei var dar sj?lve Augo hennar. Kinn-Ljosken hennar hadde skemt dei Stjernor, som Dagsljos skemmer Lampen; hennar Augo hadd' straatt so bjart eit Ljos i Himmels H?gdi, 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