NOTES TO THE FOURTEENTH CANTO.
Specimen of the original.
Som Vinden blaeser hen den lette Sky,
Saa svinder hver Bedrift i Evigheden;
Sen Bölge sank, een reiser sig paa ny,
Og Kampen leger leflende med Freden;
Snart blinke Svaerd, snart ruste de i Skeden.
Hvad er det alt? Et flygtigt Giöglemöde,
En Sommerfugl, som parred sig—og döde.
I much wished to adopt, as a metre for the translation of this Canto, the Spenserian stanza, but I found it too difficult. I therefore adopted a metre of my own invention, viz., a stanza of nine lines, eight of which have ten syllables, and the ninth, which rhymes with the sixth and eighth, has twelve. The arrangement of the rhyme is regular throughout, and it appears to me that this metre has something of the march and harmony of the Spenserian stanza.
[51] In this stanza the poet means probably to convey the idea, that whoever wishes to succeed in his profession, whatever it be, must aim at excellence and immortality.
[52] Kattegat means Passage of the Cat, so called from its danger, arising from the frequency of tempests. The poet begins here to trace the calamities and deterioration caused to the world by the absence of Iduna.
[53] Yggdrassil; see this name in the Alphabetical Catalogue. Yggdrassil, the mythological ash-tree, is called by the Scalds “the tree of life.” There is a Christmas ceremony at this day in Germany, wherein an artificial tree, generally made of fir, bears on its branches various little presents for children, for which they draw lots. May not this tree trace its origin from Yggdrassil, the tree of life, which distributes to the human race their different lots?
The human race has often been compared by poets to a tree, and the generations of mankind to its leaves. Homer has,
Ὁιη τῶν φυλλῶν γενεη τοιηδε και ανδρῶν.
[54] Odin’s ravens; their names are Hugin (thought), and Munin (memory). Finn Magnussen thus explains the mythe of the rape of Iduna by the giant Thiasse:
Iduna represents the mild air of spring, which gives renovated life and animation to all nature. Thiasse represents winter, and the carrying off of Iduna typifies the disappearance of all genial warmth at the approach of winter; her deliverance from the prison of Thiasse denotes the return of spring; Thiasse being burnt to death in the bale-fire of Breidablik, denotes the melting and disappearance of ice by the heat of the sun at the approach of summer. The rape and the deliverance of Iduna are both effectuated through the agency of Asa-Lok, who typifies time and its vacillating nature, now impelled to good, and now to evil.