and includes (with the omission of the last two lines) Oberon's speech beginning:

Eggen then jumps to the fourth act and translates Titania's opening speech. After this there is a break till the entrance of Oberon. The dialogue between Titania and Oberon is given faithfully, except that in the speech in which Oberon removes the incantation, all the lines referring to the wedding of Theseus are omitted; the speeches of Puck, Oberon, and Titania immediately preceding the entrance of Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus, and their train, are rendered.

From Act V the entire second scene is given.

Eggen has, then, attempted to give a translation into Norwegian Landsmaal of the fairy scenes in A Midsummer Night's Dream. He has confined himself severely to his task as thus limited, even cutting out lines from the middle of speeches when these lines refer to another part of the action or to another group of characters. What we have is, then, a fragment, to be defended only as an experiment, and successful in proportion as it renders single lines, speeches, or songs well. On the whole, Eggen has been successful. There is a vigor and directness in his style which, indeed, seem rather Norwegian than Shakespearean, but which are, nevertheless, entirely convincing. One is scarcely conscious that it is a translation. And in the lighter, more romantic passages Eggen has hit the right tone with entire fidelity. His knowledge is sound. His notes, though exhibiting no special learning, show clearly that he is abreast of modern scholarship. Whenever his rendering seems daring, he accompanies it with a note that clearly and briefly sets forth why a particular word or phrase was chosen. The standard Danish, Norwegian, and German translations are known to him, and occasionally he borrows from them. But he knows exactly why he does borrow. His scholarship and his real poetic power combine to give us a translation of which Landsmaal literature has every reason to be proud. We need give only a few passages. I like the rollicking humor of Puck's words:

And a little farther on when Bottom, adorned with his ass's head, returns with Puck, and the simple players flee in terror and Puck exclaims:

we give our unqualified admiration to the skill of the translator. Or, compare Titania's instructions to the fairies to serve her Bottom:

It is, however, in his exquisitely delicate rendering of the songs of this play—certainly one of the most difficult tasks that a translator can undertake—that Eggen has done his best work. There is more than a distant echo of the original in this happy translation of Bottom's song:

The marvelous richness of the Norwegian dialects in the vocabulary of folklore is admirably brought out in the song with which the fairies sing Titania to sleep:^I.35

It is easy to draw upon this fragment for further examples of felicitous translation. It is scarcely necessary, however. What has been given is sufficient to show the rare skill of the translator. He is so fortunate as to possess in a high degree what Bayard Taylor calls "secondary inspiration," without which the work of a translator becomes a soulless mass and frequently degenerates into the veriest drivel. Erik Eggen's Alveliv deserves a place in the same high company with Taylor's Faust.

Nine years later, in 1912, Eggen returned to the task he had left unfinished with the fairy scenes in Syn og Segn and gave a complete translation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. In a little prefatory note he acknowledges his indebtedness to Arne Garborg, who critically examined the manuscript and gave valuable suggestions and advice. The introduction itself is a restatement in two pages of the Shakespeare-Essex-Leicester-Elizabeth story. Shakespeare recalls the festivities as he saw them in youth when he writes in Act II, Sc. 2:

And it is Elizabeth he has in mind when, in the same scene, we read:

All of this is given by way of background, and it is of little importance to the general readers what modern Shakespeare scholars may say of it.

Eggen has not been content merely to reprint in the complete translation his earlier work from Syn og Segn, but he has made a thoroughgoing revision.^I.36 It cannot be said to be altogether happy. Frequently, of course, a line or phrase is improved or an awkward turn straightened out, but, as a whole, the first version surpasses the second not in poetic beauty merely, but in accuracy. Compare, for example, the two renderings of the opening lines:

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 banality as

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

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:

have to the ears of most Norwegians the atmosphere of the back stairs. Better the unadorned version of 1903.

In the passage 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:

Eggen has added this homelike conception in his translation:

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:

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:

can be defended.

But we have already devoted too much space 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:^I.37

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 grøte steinen, eg skal jamre so fælt so," one who has something of Norwegian "Sprachgefühl" 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 moonshine," 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 classes; "Det er rett, Per Mønsaas; 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 classic home to the masses. 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:

In spite of the translator's obvious effort to put fire into the passage, 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:

Shakespeare says quite simply:

and to anyone but a Landsmaal fanatic it seems ridiculous to have Theseus tell Hermia: "Demetrius er so gild ein kar som nokon." "Demetrius is a worthy gentleman," says Shakespeare and this has "the grand Manner." But to a cultivated Norwegian the translation is "Bauernsprache," such as a local magnate might use in forcing a suitor on his daughter.

All of which goes back to the present condition of Landsmaal. It has little flexibility, little inward grace. It is not a finished literary language. But, despite its archaisms, Landsmaal is a living language and it has, therefore, unlike the Karathevusa of Greece, the possibility of growth. The translations of Madhus and Aasen and Eggen have made notable contributions to this development. They are worthy of all praise. Their weaknesses are the result of conditions which time will change.

J

One might be tempted to believe from the foregoing that the propagandists of "Maalet" had completely monopolized the noble task of making Shakespeare accessible in the vernacular. And this is almost true. But the reason is not far to seek. Aside from the fact that in Norway, as elsewhere, Shakespeare is read mainly by cultivated people, among whom a sound reading knowledge of English is general, we have further to remember that the Foersom-Lembcke version has become standard in Norway and no real need has been felt of a separate Norwegian version in the dominant literary language. In Landsmaal the case is different. This dialect must be trained to "Literaturfähigkeit." It is not so much that Norway must have her own Shakespeare as that Landsmaal must be put to use in every type of literature. The results of this missionary spirit we have seen.

One of the few translations of Shakespeare that have been made into Riksmaal appeared in 1912, Hamlet, by C.H. Blom. As an experiment it is worthy of respect, but as a piece of literature it is not to be taken seriously. Like Lassen's work, it is honest, faithful, and utterly uninspired.

The opening scene of Hamlet is no mean test of a translator's ability—this quick, tense scene, one of the finest in dramatic literature. Foersom did it with conspicuous success. Blom has reduced it to the following prosy stuff:

It requires little knowledge of Norwegian to dismiss this as dull and insipid prose, a part of which has accidentally been turned into mechanical blank verse. Moreover, the work is marked throughout by inconsistency and carelessness in details. For instance the king begins (p. 7) by addressing Laertes:

and two lines below:

It might be a mere slip that the translator in one line uses the formal De and in another the familiar du, but the same inconsistency occurs again and again throughout the volume. In itself a trifle, it indicates clearly enough the careless, slipshod manner of work—and an utter lack of a sense of humor, for no one with a spark of humor would use the modern, essentially German De in a Norwegian translation of Shakespeare. If a formal form must be used it should, as a matter of course, be I.

Nor is the translation itself so accurate as it should be. For example, what does it mean when Marcellus tells Bernardo that he had implored Horatio "at vogte paa minutterne inat" (to watch over the minutes this night)? Again, in the King's speech to Hamlet (Act I, Sc. 2) the phrase "bend you to remain" is rendered by the categorical "se til at bli herhjemme," which is at least misleading. Little inaccuracies of this sort are not infrequent.

But, after all, a translator with a new variorum and a wealth of critical material at hand cannot go far wrong in point of mere translation. The chief indictment to be made against Blom's translation is its prosiness, its prosy, involved sentences, its banality. What in Shakespeare is easy and mellifluous often becomes in Blom so vague that its meaning has to be discovered by a reference to the original.

We gave, some pages back, Ivar Aasen's translation of Hamlet's soliloquy. The interesting thing about that translation is not only that it is the first one in Norwegian but that it was made into a new dialect by the creator of that dialect himself. When we look back and consider what Aasen had to do—first, make a literary medium, and then pour into the still rigid and inelastic forms of that language the subtlest thinking of a great world literature—we gain a new respect for his genius. Fifty years later Blom tried his hand at the same soliloquy. He was working in an old and tried literary medium—Dano-Norwegian. But he was unequal to the task:

K

Much more interesting than Blom's attempt, and much more significant, is a translation and working over of As You Like It which appeared in November of the same year. The circumstances under which this translation were made are interesting. Fru Johanne Dybwad, one of the "stars" at the National Theater was completing her twenty-fifth year of service on the stage, and the theater wished to commemorate the event in a manner worthy of the actress. For the gala performance, Herman Wildenvey, a poet of the young Norway, made a new translation and adaptation of As You Like It.^I.38 And no choice could have been more felicitous. Fru Dybwad had scored her greatest success as Puck; the life and sparkle and jollity of that mischievous wight seemed like a poetic glorification of her own character. It might be expected, then, that she would triumph in the rôle of Rosalind.

Then came the problem of a stage version. A simple cutting of Lembcke seemed inappropriate to this intensely modern woman. There was danger, too, that Lembcke's faithful Danish would hang heavy on the light and sparkling Norwegian. Herman Wildenvey undertook to prepare an acting version that should fit the actress and the occasion. The result is the text before us. For the songs and intermissions, Johan Halvorsen, Kapelmester of the theater, composed new music and the theater provided a magnificent staging. The tremendous stage-success of Wildenvey's As You Like It belongs rather to stage history, and for the present we shall confine ourselves to the translation itself.

First, what of the cutting? In a short introduction the translator has given an apologia for his procedure. It is worth quoting at some length. "To adapt a piece of literature is, as a rule, not especially commendable. And now, I who should be the last to do it, have become the first in this country to attempt anything of the sort with Shakespeare.

"I will not defend myself by saying that most of Shakespeare's plays require some sort of adaptation to the modern stage if they are to be played at all. But, as a matter of fact, I have done little adapting. I have dusted some of the speeches, maltreated others, and finally cut out a few which would have sputtered out of the mouths of the actors like fringes of an old tapestry. But, above all, I have tried to reproduce the imperishable woodland spirit, the fresh breath of out-of-doors which permeates this play."

Wildenvey then states that in his cuttings he has followed the edition of the British Empire Shakespeare Society. But the performance in Kristiania has demanded more, "and my adaptation could not be so wonderfully ideal. As You Like It is, probably more than any other of Shakespeare's plays, a jest and only in part a play. Through the title he has given his work, he has given me the right to make my own arrangement which is accordingly, yours truly As You Like It."

But the most cursory examination will show that this is more than a mere "cutting." In the first place, the five acts have been cut to four and scenes widely separated, have often been brought together. In this way unnecessary scene-shifts have been avoided. But the action has been kept intact and only two characters have been eliminated: Jacques de Bois, whose speeches have been given to Le Beau, and Hymen, whose rôle has been given to Celia. Two or three speeches have been shifted. But to a reader unacquainted with Shakespeare all this would pass unnoticed, as would also, doubtless, the serious cutting and the free translation.

A brief sketch of Wildenvey's arrangement will be of service.

A study of this scheme shows that Wildenvey has done no great violence to the fable nor to the characters. His shifts and changes are sensible enough. In the treatment of the text, however, he has had no scruples. Shakespeare is mercilessly cut and mangled.

The ways in which this is done are many. A favorite device is to break up long speeches into dialogue. To make this possible he has to put speeches of his own invention into the mouths of other characters. The opening of the play gives an excellent illustration. In Wildenvey we read:

Orlando's speech, we see, has been broken up into two, and between the two new speeches has been interpolated a speech by Adam which does not occur in the original. The same trick is resorted to repeatedly. Note, for instance, Jacques first speech on the deer (Act II, 7) and Oliver's long speech in IV, 3. The purpose of this is plain enough—to enliven the dialogue and speed up the action. Whether or not it is a legitimate way of handling Shakespeare is another matter.

More serious than this is Wildenvey's trick of adding whole series of speeches. We have noted in our survey of the "bearbeidelse" that the second act opens with a dialogue between the Duke and Amiens which is a gratuitous addition of Wildenvey's. It is suggested by the original, but departs from it radically both in form and content.

A careful comparison of the translation with the original will reveal certain verbal resemblances, notably in the duke's speech:

But, even allowing for that, it is a rephrasing rather than a translation. The stage action, too, is changed. Notice that Jacques appears in the scene, and that in the episode immediately following, the second part of the first lord's speech is put into Jacques' mouth. In other words, he is made to caricature himself!

This is Wildenvey's attitude throughout. To take still another example. Act IV, 2 begins in the English with a brief dialogue in prose between Jacques and the two lords. In Wildenvey this is changed to a rhymed dialogue in iambic tetrameters between Jacques and Amiens. In like manner, the blank verse dialogue between Silvius and Phebe (Silvius and Pippa) is in Norwegian rendered, or rather paraphrased, in iambic verse rhyming regularly abab.

Occasionally meanings are read into the play which not only do not belong in Shakespeare but which are ridiculously out of place. As an illustration, note the dialogue between Orlando and Rosalind in II, 2 (Original, III, 2). Orlando remarks: "Your accent is something finer than could be purchased in so remote a dwelling." Wildenvey renders this: "Eders sprog er mer elevert end man skulde vente i disse vilde trakter. De taler ikke Landsmaal." Probably no one would be deceived by this gratuitous satire on the Landsmaal, but, obviously, it has no place in what pretends to be a translation. The one justification for it is that Shakespeare himself could not have resisted so neat a word-play.

Wildenvey's version, therefore, can only be characterized as needlessly free. For the text as such he has absolutely no regard. But for the fact that he has kept the fable and, for the most part, the characters, intact, we should characterize it as a belated specimen of Sille Beyer's notorious Shakespeare "bearbeidelser" in Denmark. But Wildenvey does not take Sille Beyer's liberties with the dramatis personae and he has, moreover, what she utterly lacked—poetic genius.

For that is the redeeming feature of Livet i Skogen—it does not translate Shakespeare but it makes him live. The delighted audience which sat night after night in Christiania and Copenhagen and drank in the loveliness of Wildenvey's verse and Halvorsen's music cared little whether the lines that came over the footlights were philologically an accurate translation or not. They were enchanted by Norwegian verse and moved to unfeigned delight by the cleverness of the prose. If Wildenvey did not succeed in translating As You Like It—one cannot believe that he ever intended to,—he did succeed in reproducing something of "its imperishable woodland spirit, its fresh breath of out-of-doors."

We have already quoted the opening of Act II. It is not Shakespeare but it is good poetry in itself. And the immortal scene between Touchstone and Corin in III, 2 (Shak. III, 2), in which Touchstone clearly proves that the shepherd is damned, is a capital piece of work. The following fragment must serve as an example: