An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway Part 8

Now, admitting that

eg dogge maa dei grne straa som vaar dronning dansar paa.

is a better translation than in the _Syn og Segn_ text--which is doubtful enough--it is difficult to see what can be the excuse for such pompous ba.n.a.lity as

Kvart nykelband er adelsmann, med ordenar dei glime kann;

the first version is not above reproach in this respect. It might fairly be asked: where does Eggen get his authority for

sjaa dei stjernur alvar gav deim!

But the lines are not loaded down with imagery which is both misleading and in bad taste. Eggen should have left his first version unchanged.

Such uninspired prose as:

kvar blank rubin, paa bringa skin, utsender ange fin.

have to the ears of most Norwegians the atmosphere of the back stairs.

Better the unadorned version of 1903.

In the pa.s.sage following, Robin's reply, the revised version is probably better than the first, though there seems to be little to choose between them. But in the fairy's next speech the translator has gone quite beyond his legitimate province, and has improved Shakespeare by a picture from Norwegian folklore. Following the lines of the original:

Misleade nightwanderers, laughing at their harm,

Eggen has added this homelike conception in his translation:

som g kann draga for til hest og naut, naar berre du kvar torsdag faer din graut.

Shakespeare in Elysium must have regretted that he was not born in the mountains of Norway!

And when Robin, in the speech that follows, tells of his antics, one wonders just a little what has been gained by the revision. The same query is constantly suggested to anyone who compares the two texts.

Nor do I think that the lyrics have gained by the revision. Just a single comparison--the lullaby in the two versions. We have given it above as published in _Syn og Segn_. The following is its revised form:

_Fyrste alven_: Spettut orm, bustyvel kva.s.s, eiter-dle, sleve graa, fare burt fraa denne pla.s.s, so vaar dronning sova maa!

_Alle_: Maaltrost, syng med oss i lund dronningi i saelan blund: Byssam, byssam barne, gryta heng i jarne.

Troll og nykk, gakk burt med dykk denne saele skymingsstund!

So G.o.d natt! Sov stt i lund!

_Andre alven_: Burt, tordivel, kom kje her!

Makk og snigill, burt dykk vinn!

Kongro, far ei onnor ferd, langt ifraa oss din spune spinn!

_Alle_: Maaltrost, syng med oss i lund, etc.

The first version is not only more literal but, so far as I can judge, superior in every way--in music and delicacy of phrase. And again, Eggen has taken it upon himself to patch up Shakespeare with homespun rags from his native Norwegian parish. It is difficult to say upon what grounds such tinkerings with the text as:

Byssam, byssam barne, gryta, heng i jarne,

can be defended.

But we have already devoted too much s.p.a.ce to this matter. Save for a few isolated lines, Eggen might very well have left these scenes as he gave them to us in 1903. We then ask, "What of the much greater part of the play now translated for the first time?" Well, no one will dispute the translator's triumph in this scene:[37]

_Mnsaas_: Er heile kompanie samla?

_Varp_: Det er best du ropar deim upp alle saman, mann for mann, etter lista.

_Mnsaas_: Her er ei liste yver namni paa alle deim som me i heile Aten finn mest hvelege til aa spela i millomstykke vaareses framfyre hertugen og frua hans paa brudlaupsdagen um kvelden.

_Varp_: Du Per Mnsaas, lyt fyrst segja kva stykke gjeng ut paa; les so upp namni paa spelarne, og so--til saki.

_Mnsaas_: Ja vel. Stykke heiter: "Det grtelege gamanspele um Pyramus og Tisbi og deira syndlege daude."

_Varp_: Verkeleg eit G.o.dt stykke arbeid, skal eg segja dykk, og morsamt med.

No, min G.o.de Per Mnsaas, ropa upp spelarne etter lista. G.o.dtfolk, spreid dykk.

_Mnsaas_: Svara ettersom eg ropar dykk upp.

Nils Varp, vevar?

_Varp_: Her! Seg kva for ein rolle eg skal hava, og haldt so fram.

_Mnsaas_: Du, Nils Varp, er skrivin for Pyramus.

_Varp_: Kva er Pyramus for slags kar? Ein elskar eller ein fark?

_Mnsaas_: Ein elskar som drep seg sjlv paa aegte riddarvis av kjaerleik.

_Varp_: Det kjem til aa koste taarur um ein spelar det retteleg. Faer eg spela det, so lyt nok dei som ser paa, sjaa til kvar dei hev augo sine; eg skal grte steinen, eg skal jamre so faelt so. For resten, mi gaave ligg best for ein berserk. Eg skulde spela herr Kules fraamifra--eller ein rolle, der eg kann klore og bite og slaa all ting i ml og mas: Og sprikk det fjell med toresmell, daa sunder fell kvar port so sterk.

Stig Fbus fram bak skyatram, daa sprikk med skam alt gygere-herk.

Det der laag no hgt det. Nemn so resten av spelarane. Dette var rase til herr Kules, berserk-ras; ein elskar er meir klagande.

[37. Act II, Sc. 2.]

There can be no doubt about the genuineness of this. It catches the spirit of the original and communicates it irresistibly to the reader.

When Bottom (Varp) says "Kva er Pyramus for slags kar?" or when he threatens, "Eg skal grte steinen, eg skal jamre so faelt so," one who has something of Norwegian "Sprachgefuhl" will exclaim that this is exactly what it should be. It is not the language of Norwegian artisans--they do not speak Landsmaal. But neither is the language of Shakespeare's craftsmen the genuine spoken language of Elizabethan craftsmen. The important thing is that the tone is right. And this feeling of a right tone is still further satisfied in the rehearsal scene (III, Sc. 1). Certain slight liberties do not diminish our pleasure. The reminiscence of _Richard III_ in Bottom's, "A calendar, a calendar, looke in the Almanack, finde out moons.h.i.+ne," translated "Ei almanakke, ei almanakke, mit kongerike for ei almanakke," seems, however, a labored piece of business. One line, too, has been added to this speech which is a gratuitous invention of the translator, or rather, taken from the curious malaprop speech of the laboring cla.s.ses; "Det er rett, Per Mnsaas; sjaa millom aspektarane!" There can be no objection to an interpolation like this if the translation does not aim to be scholarly and definitive, but merely an effort to bring a foreign cla.s.sic home to the ma.s.ses. And this is, obviously, Eggen's purpose.

Personally I do not think, therefore, that there is any objection to a slight freedom like this. But it has no place at all in the fairies'

lullaby.

When we move to the circle of the high-place lovers or the court, I cannot feel that the Landsmaal is quite so convincing. There is something appallingly clumsy, labored, hard, in this speech of Hermia's:

Min eigin gut, eg sver ved beste bogen Amor hev, ved beste pili hans, med odd av gull, ved duvune, dei reine og dei kvite som flyg paa tun hjaa f.a.gre Afrodite, ved det som knyter mannehjarto saman, ved det som fder kjaerlerks fryd og gaman, ved baale, der seg dronning Dido brende, daa seg aeneas trulaus fraa ho vende, ved kvar den eid som falske menn hev svori-- langt fleir enn kvinnelippur fram hev bori, at paa den staden du hev nemnt for meg, der skal i morgo natt eg mte deg.

In spite of the translator's obvious effort to put fire into the pa.s.sage, his failure is all too evident. Even the ornament of these lines--to which there is nothing to correspond in the original--only makes the poetry more forcibly feeble:

ved duvune, dei reine og dei kvite som flyg paa tun hjaa f.a.gre Afrodite,

Shakespeare says quite simply: