Menenius:
Senatet er
Den gode Mave: I Rebellerne.
I undersøge blot de Raad det giver
Og alt dets Omhue. Overveier nøie
Alt hvad til Statens Velferd monne sigte,
Og da I finde vil, at fra Senatet
Hver offentlig Velgjerning som I nyde
Sit Udspring bar, men ei fra Eder selv—
Hvad tænker I, som er den store Taae
Her i Forsamlingen?
Aside from the preponderance of feminine endings, which is inevitable in Scandinavian blank verse, what strikes us most in this translation is its laboriousness. The language is set on end. Inversion and transposition are the devices by which the translator has managed to give Shakespeare in metrically decent lines. The proof of this is so patent that I need scarcely point out instances. But take the first seven lines of the quotation. Neither in form nor content is this bad, yet no one with a feeling for the Danish language can avoid an exclamation, "forskruet Stil" and "poetiske Stylter." And lines 8-9 smack unmistakably of Peder Paars. In the second place, the translator often does not attempt to translate at all. He gives merely a paraphrase. Compare lines 1-3 with the English original; the whole of the speech of the first citizen, 17-24, 25-27, where the whole implied idea is fully expressed; 28-30, etc., etc. We might offer almost every translation of Shakespeare's figures as an example. One more instance. At times even paraphrase breaks down. Compare
And through the cranks and offices of man
The strongest and small inferior veins,
Receive from me that natural competency
Whereby they live.
with our translator's version (lines 50-51)
jeg den flyde lader
Igjennem Menneskets meest fine Dele.
This is not even good paraphrase; it is simply bald and helpless rendering.
On the other hand, it would be grossly unfair to dismiss it all with a sneer. The translator has succeeded for the most part in giving the sense of Shakespeare in smooth and sounding verse, in itself no small achievement. Rhetoric replaces poetry, it is true, and paraphrase dries up the freshness and the sparkle of the metaphor. But a Norwegian of that day who got his first taste of Shakespeare from the translation before us, would at least feel that here was the power of words, the music and sonorousness of elevated dramatic poetry.