CHAPTER XXVI
——“Litera scripta manet,”
The poet saith. Pray let me show my vanit-
Y, and have “a foreign slipslop now and then,
If but to prove I’ve traveled; and what’s travel,
Unless it teaches one to quote and cavil?”
THE modern literature of the Icelanders is of quite a different character from that in heathen times, and in the early history of the country, from the tenth to the sixteenth century. They seem as much devoted to poetry as their ancestors, and their style of versification is similar; but they court the muse in a different strain. The poetry of the modern Icelanders does not abound in mythology, hyperbole, and fable; and it may reasonably be supposed that works of imagination have lost something of the hue of romance that is thrown around the productions of a heroic age. A study of the works of foreign authors—translations from eminent christian poets, in Norway, Germany, England, and the United States, are favorite pursuits of the modern Icelanders; and works of this description are among the most popular published in the country.
Among the original writers and translators of the present century, none rank as high as Jon Thorlakson. Receiving a scanty salary of less than fifty dollars a year, as parish priest of Bægisa, and laboring hard as a farmer, he yet found time to translate from English and German writers, and to compose original poetry, to the extent of several octavo volumes, About the year 1818, his case attracted the attention of a learned society in London, and a sum of money was forwarded to him to smooth his declining years; but he survived only till 1821, being over seventy years of age at the time of his death. His translation of Milton was published in Icelandic, in octavo—double columns—a volume of over 400 pages, in 1828. The “Essay on Man,” and a volume of original poetry of great merit were published in 1842. Among his original poems are two versions of the story of Inkle and Yarico.
The style of versification in vogue among the early Icelandic writers was very peculiar. Its harmony was dependent, not so much on rhyme and the number of syllables in a line, as upon peculiar alliterations. Their language abounding in consonants, this seemed easier than rhymes, which were seldom used. Some of their kinds of verse had regular alliterations at the commencement of the lines; other varieties, just so many alliterations in a line, or alliterations in a similar position in certain words of corresponding lines. The following is a very good example. It is from an “Address to the New Year,” or, more literally, “The sight of the New Year.”
NYARS VISUR.
Verði bliðda veðurs!
Viðir blómgi hliðar!
Veiðist vel á miðum!
Vaxi gengdin laxa!
Glitri grund og flötur!
Groi tun og floi!
Neytist afl til nota!
Nytist allt til hlitar!
How ingenious and regular are the alliterations! This is from a poem, written in 1847. During the present century, rhymes have been gaining in favor greatly. A longer meter and more perfect rhythm is also cultivated. The old verse, and much of the more modern, is a very short meter, which, to us, does not seem as poetical as a more stately and majestic tread. Formerly, and sometimes at the present day, verse was printed without capitals, except at the commencement of a stanza. Let us see how old John Milton looks in an Icelandic dress; and how Mr. Thorlakson sings:—
Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe.
UM fyrsta manns
felda hlýðni
ok átlystíng
af epli forboðnu,
hvaðan óvægr
upp kom dauði,
Edens missir,
ok allt böl manna;
Þartil annarr einn,
æðri maðr,
aptr fær
oss viðreista,
ok afrekar nýan
oss til handa
fullsælustað
fögrum sigri;
Sýng þú, Menta-
móðir himneska!
þú sem Hórebs fyrr
á huldum toppi,
eða Sínaí,
sauðaverði
innblést fræðanda
útvalit sæði,
hve alheimr skópst
af alls samblandi;
Eða lysti þik
lángtum heldr
at Zíons hæð
ok Sílóa brunni,
sem framstreymdi
hjá Frétt guðligri!
We can barely recognize the “heavenly Muse”—“Mentamothir hymneska”—Mother of hymns!—
——“that, on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, did’st inspire
That shepherd who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning, how Heaven and Earth
Rose out of chaos.”
Thorlakson’s version of Pope’s great Essay is a later translation, and, probably, a better one. It is longer meter, is all in rhyme, and more in accordance with the structure of English verse.[[37]] Here is a selection from the fourth epistle of the Essay, with the translation:—
But, by your fathers’ worth, if yours you rate,
Count me those only who were good and great.
Go! if your ancient but ignoble blood
Has crept through scoundrels ever since the flood,
Go! and pretend your family is young;
Nor own your fathers have been fools so long.
What can ennoble sots, or slaves, or cowards?—
Alas! not all the blood of all the Howards.
Mr. Thorlakson gives it in this style.
En sé yðvart hið aldna bólð
i ótérligum runnið straum
þartil nu siðan Nóa flóð,
narra-registar gegnum aum,
segið þá heldur yðar ætt
unga; látið ei heyra neinn
að sér hafi svo lengi lædt
i legg þeim dáraskapur einn!
Hvað skarn-þræl, narra, skelmskum hal,
skapa kann aðals-mæti góð?
ei heilar ættar tallaust tal
til vinnst, ei gjörvalt Hovarðs blóð.
One of the finest specimens of Icelandic poetry, is a translation of Bruce’s Address to his Army, on the following page. It shows the flexibility of the Icelandic language in a striking light; the piece preserving the exact number of stanzas, the same number of lines to a stanza, and rhymes precisely like the song of Burns, so that in the Icelandic version it can be sung to the same air.