An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway

by Martin B. Ruud

faa vaar dronning ottefull;
so god natt og bysselull.

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:

thou rememberest

Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid upon a dolphin's back, etc.

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

That very time I saw, but thou could'st not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all armed, etc.

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:

Syn og Segn—1903		Revision of 1912
Nissen: Kor no ande! seg, kvar skal du av?		Tuften: Hallo! Kvar skal du av, du vesle vette?
Alven: Yver dal, yver fjell, gjenom vatn, gjenom eld, yver gras, yver grind, gjenom klunger so stinn, yver alt eg smett og kliv snøggare enn maanen sviv; eg i gras dei ringar doggar, der vaar mori dans seg voggar. Hennar vakt mun symrur vera, gyllne klæde mun dei bera; sjaa dei stjernur alvar gav deim! Derfraa kjem all angen av deim. Aa sanke dogg—til de eg kom; ei perle fester eg til kvar ein blom. Far vel, du ande-styving! Eg maa vekk; vaar dronning er her ho paa fljugand' flekk.		Alven: Yver dal, yver fjell, gjenom vatn, gjenom eld, yver gras, yver grind, gjenom klunger so stinn, alle stad'r eg smett og kliv snøggare enn maanen sviv; eg dogge maa dei grøne straa som vaar dronning dansar paa. Kvart nykelband er adelsmann, med ordenar dei glime kann; kvar blank rubin, paa bringa skin, utsender ange fin. Doggdropar blanke skal eg sanke, mange, mange, dei skal hange kvar av hennar adels-mennar glimande i øyra.