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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in
+Norway, by Martin Brown Ruud
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway
+
+Author: Martin Brown Ruud
+
+Release Date: August 2, 2005 [EBook #16416]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY TOWARD A HISTORY OF ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Louise Hope, David Starner and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+           The University of Chicago
+
+
+           AN ESSAY TOWARD A HISTORY
+               OF SHAKESPEARE IN
+                     NORWAY
+
+
+                 A Dissertation
+
+            Submitted to the Faculty
+ of the Graduate School of Arts and Literature
+        in Candidacy for the Degree of
+              Doctor of Philosophy
+      Department of Germanics and English
+                       by
+
+               MARTIN BROWN RUUD
+
+
+
+                 Reprint from
+        Scandinavian Studies and Notes
+               Urbana, Illinois
+                      1917
+
+
+
+
+              The Collegiate Press
+        George Banta Publishing Company
+               Menasha, Wisconsin
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+PREFATORY NOTE
+
+I have attempted in this study to trace the history of Shakespearean
+translations, Shakespearean criticism, and the performances of
+Shakespeare's plays in Norway. I have not attempted to investigate
+Shakespeare's influence on Norwegian literature. To do so would not,
+perhaps, be entirely fruitless, but it would constitute a different
+kind of work.
+
+The investigation was made possible by a fellowship from the University
+of Chicago and a scholarship from the American-Scandinavian Foundation,
+and I am glad to express my gratitude to these bodies for the
+opportunities given to me of study in the Scandinavian countries.
+I am indebted for special help and encouragement to Dr. C.N. Gould
+and Professor J.M. Manly, of the University of Chicago, and to the
+authorities of the University library in Kristiania for their unfailing
+courtesy. To my wife, who has worked with me throughout, my obligations
+are greater than I can express.
+
+It is my plan to follow this monograph with a second on the history of
+Shakespeare in Denmark.
+
+
+M.B.R.
+
+Minneapolis, Minnesota.
+September, 1916.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+Shakespeare Translations In Norway
+
+
+A
+
+In the years following 1750, there was gathered in the city of Trondhjem
+a remarkable group of men: Nils Krog Bredal, composer of the first
+Danish opera, John Gunnerus, theologian and biologist, Gerhart Schøning,
+rector of the Cathedral School and author of an elaborate history of the
+fatherland, and Peter Suhm, whose 14,047 pages on the history of Denmark
+testify to a learning, an industry, and a generous devotion to
+scholarship which few have rivalled. Bredal was mayor (Borgermester),
+Gunnerus was bishop, Schøning was rector, and Suhm was for the moment
+merely the husband of a rich and unsympathetic wife. But they were
+united in their interest in serious studies, and in 1760, the last
+three--somewhat before Bredal's arrival--founded "Videnskabsselkabet i
+Trondhjem." A few years later the society received its charter as "Det
+Kongelige Videnskabsselskab."
+
+A little provincial scientific body! Of what moment is it? But in those
+days it was of moment. Norway was then and long afterwards the political
+and intellectual dependency of Denmark. For three hundred years she had
+been governed more or less effectively from Copenhagen, and for two
+hundred years Danish had supplanted Norwegian as the language of church
+and state, of trade, and of higher social intercourse. The country had
+no university; Norwegians were compelled to go to Copenhagen for their
+degrees and there loaf about in the anterooms of ministers waiting for
+preferment. Videnskabsselskabet was the first tangible evidence of
+awakened national life, and we are not surprised to find that it was in
+this circle that the demand for a separate Norwegian university was
+first authoritatively presented. Again, a little group of periodicals
+sprang up in which were discussed, learnedly and pedantically, to be
+sure, but with keen intelligence, the questions that were interesting
+the great world outside. It is dreary business ploughing through these
+solemn, badly printed octavos and quartos. Of a sudden, however, one
+comes upon the first, and for thirty-six years the only Norwegian
+translation of Shakespeare.
+
+We find it in _Trondhjems Allehaande_ for October 23, 1782--the third
+and last volume. The translator has hit upon Antony's funeral oration
+and introduces it with a short note:[1] "The following is taken from
+the famous English play _Julius Caesar_ and may be regarded as a
+masterpiece. When Julius Caesar was killed, Antonius secured permission
+from Brutus and the other conspirators to speak at his funeral. The
+people, whose minds were full of the prosperity to come, were satisfied
+with Caesar's murder and regarded the murderers as benefactors. Antonius
+spoke so as to turn their minds from rejoicing to regret at a great
+man's untimely death and so as to justify himself and win the hearts of
+the populace. And in what a masterly way Antonius won them! We shall
+render, along with the oration, the interjected remarks of the crowd,
+inasmuch as they too are evidences of Shakespeare's understanding of
+the human soul and his realization of the manner in which the oration
+gradually brought about the purpose toward which he aimed:"
+
+    [1. It has been thought best to give such citations for the most
+    part in translation.]
+
+  Antonius:
+  Venner, Medborgere, giver mig Gehør, jeg kommer for at jorde Cæsars
+  Legeme, ikke for at rose ham. Det Onde man gjør lever endnu efter
+  os; det Gode begraves ofte tilligemed vore Been. Saa Være det ogsaa
+  med Cæsar. Den ædle Brutus har sagt Eder, Cæsar var herskesyg. Var
+  han det saa var det en svær Forseelse: og Cæsar har ogsaa dyrt
+  maattet bøde derfor. Efter Brutus og de Øvriges Tilladelse--og
+  Brutus er en hederlig Mand, og det er de alle, lutter hederlige
+  Mænd, kommer jeg hid for at holde Cæsars Ligtale. Han var min Ven,
+  trofast og oprigtig mod mig! dog, Brutus siger, han var herskesyg,
+  og Brutus er en hederlig Mand. Han har bragt mange Fanger med til
+  Rom, hvis Løsepenge formerede de offentlige Skatter; synes Eder det
+  herskesygt af Cæsar--naar de Arme skreeg, saa græd Cæsar--Herskesyge
+  maate dog vel væves af stærkere Stof.--Dog Brutus siger han var
+  herskesyg; og Brutus er en hederlig Mand. I have alle seet at jeg
+  paa Pans Fest tre Gange tilbød ham en kongelig Krone, og at han tre
+  Gange afslog den. Var det herskesygt?--Dog Brutus siger han var
+  herskesyg, og i Sandhed, han er en hederlig Mand. Jeg taler ikke for
+  at gjendrive det, som Brutus har sagt; men jeg staar her, for at
+  sige hvad jeg veed. I alle elskede ham engang, uden Aarsag; hvad for
+  en Aarsag afholder Eder fra at sørge over ham? O! Fornuft! Du er
+  flyed hen til de umælende Bæster, og Menneskene have tabt deres
+  Forstand. Haver Taalmodighed med mig; mit Hjerte er hist i Kisten
+  hos Cæsar, og jeg maa holde inde til det kommer tilbage til mig.
+
+  Den Første af Folket:
+  Mig synes der er megen Fornuft i hans Tale.
+
+  Den Anden af Folket:
+  Naar du ret overveier Sagen, saa er Cæsar skeet stor Uret.
+
+  Den Tredje:
+  Mener I det, godt Folk? Jeg frygter der vil komme slemmere i hans
+  Sted.
+
+  Den Fjerde:
+  Har I lagt Mærke til hvad han sagde? Han vilde ikke modtage Kronen,
+  det er altsaa vist at han ikke var herskesyg.
+
+  Den Første:
+  Hvis saa er, vil det komme visse Folk dyrt at staae.
+
+  Den Anden:
+  Den fromme Mand! Hans Øien er blodrøde af Graad.
+
+  Den Tredje:
+  Der er ingen fortræffeligere Mand i Rom end Antonius.
+
+  Den Fjerde:
+  Giver Agt, han begynder igjen at tale.
+
+  Antonius:
+  Endnu i Gaar havde et Ord af Cæsar gjældt imod hele Verden, nu
+  ligger han der, endog den Usleste nægter ham Agtelse. O, I Folk!
+  var jeg sindet, at ophidse Eders Gemytter til Raserie og Oprør, saa
+  skulde jeg skade Brutus og Kassius, hvilke, som I alle veed, ere
+  hederlige Mænd. Men jeg vil intet Ondt gjøre dem: hellere vil jeg
+  gjøre den Døde, mig selv, og Eder Uret, end at jeg skulde volde
+  slige hederlige Mænd Fortræd. Men her er et Pergament med Cæsars
+  Segl: jeg fandt det i hans Kammer; det er hans sidste Villie. Lad
+  Folket blot høre hans Testament, som jeg, tilgiv mig det, ikke
+  tænker at oplæse, da skulde de alle gaa hen og kysse den døde Cæsars
+  Saar; og dyppe deres Klæder i hans hellige Blod; skulde bede om et
+  Haar af ham til Erindring, og paa deres Dødsdag i deres sidste
+  Villie tænke paa dette Haar, og testamentere deres Efterkommere
+  det som en rig Arvedel.
+
+  Den Fjerde:
+  Vi ville høre Testamentet! Læs det, Marcus Antonius.
+
+  Antonius:
+  Haver Taalmodighed, mine Venner: jeg tør ikke forelæse det; deter
+  ikke raadeligt, at I erfare hvor kjær Cæsar havde Eder. I ere ikke
+  Træe, I ere ikke Stene, I ere Mennesker; og da I ere Mennesker saa
+  skulde Testamentet, om I hørte det, sætte Eder i Flamme, det skulde
+  gjøre Eder rasende. Det er godt at I ikke vide, at I ere hans
+  Arvinger; thi vidste I det, O, hvad vilde der da blive af?
+
+  Den fjerde:
+  Læs Testamentet; vi ville høre det, Antonius! Du maae læse
+  Testamentet for os, Cæsars Testament!
+
+  Antonius:
+  Ville i være rolige? Ville I bie lidt? Jeg er gaaen for vidt at jeg
+  har sagt Eder noget derom--jeg frygter jeg fornærmer de hederlige
+  Mænd, som have myrdet Cæsar--jeg befrygter det.
+
+  Den Fjerde:
+  De vare Forrædere!--ha, hederlige Mænd!
+
+The translation continues to the point where the plebeians, roused to
+fury by the cunning appeal of Antony, rush out with the cries:[2]
+
+  2. Pleb:
+  Go fetch fire!
+
+  3. Pleb:
+  Plucke down Benches!
+
+  2. Pleb:
+  Plucke down Formes, Windowes, anything.
+
+    [2. _Julius Caesar_. III, 2. 268-70. Variorum Edition Furness.
+    Phila. 1913.]
+
+But we have not space for a more extended quotation, and the passage
+given is sufficiently representative.
+
+The faults are obvious. The translator has not ventured to reproduce
+Shakespeare's blank verse, nor, indeed, could that be expected. The
+Alexandrine had long held sway in Danish poetry. In _Rolf Krage_ (1770),
+Ewald had broken with the tradition and written an heroic tragedy in
+prose. Unquestionably he had been moved to take this step by the example
+of his great model Klopstock in _Bardiete_.[3] It seems equally certain,
+however, that he was also inspired by the plays of Shakespeare, and the
+songs of Ossian, which came to him in the translations of Wieland.[4]
+
+    [3. Rønning--_Rationalismens Tidsalder_. 11-95.]
+
+    [4. Ewald--_Levnet og meninger_. Ed. Bobe. Kbhn. 1911, p. 166.]
+
+A few years later, when he had learned English and read Shakespeare
+in the original, he wrote _Balders Død_ in blank verse and
+naturalized Shakespeare's metre in Denmark.[5] At any rate, it
+is not surprising that this unknown plodder far north in Trondhjem
+had not progressed beyond Klopstock and Ewald. But the result of
+turning Shakespeare's poetry into the journeyman prose of a foreign
+language is necessarily bad. The translation before us amounts to a
+paraphrase,--good, respectable Danish untouched by genius. Two
+examples will illustrate this. The lines:
+
+  .... Now lies he there,
+  And none so poor to do him reverence.
+
+    [5. _Ibid._ II, 234-235.]
+
+are rendered in the thoroughly matter-of-fact words, appropriate for a
+letter or a newspaper "story":
+
+  .... Nu ligger han der,
+  endog den Usleste nægter ham Agtelse.
+
+Again,
+
+  I have o'ershot myself to tell you of it,
+
+is translated:
+
+  Jeg er gaaen for vidt at jeg sagde Eder noget derom.
+
+On the other hand, the translation presents no glaring errors; such
+slips as we do find are due rather to ineptitude, an inability to
+find the right word, with the result that the writer has contented
+himself with an accidental and approximate rendering. For example,
+the translator no doubt understood the lines:
+
+  The evil that men do lives after them,
+  The good is oft interred with their bones.
+
+but he could hit upon nothing better than:
+
+  Det Onde man gjør _lever endnu efter os_;
+  det Gode begraves ofte tilligemed vore Been.
+
+which is both inaccurate and infelicitous. For the line
+
+  He was my friend, faithful and just to me.
+
+our author has:
+
+  Han var min Ven, trofast og _oprigtig_ mod mig!
+
+Again:
+
+  Has he, Masters? I fear there will come a worse in his place.
+
+Translation:
+
+  Mener I det, godt Folk?--etc.
+
+Despite these faults--and many others could be cited,--it is perfectly
+clear that this unknown student of Shakespeare understood his original
+and endeavored to reproduce it correctly in good Danish. His very
+blunders showed that he tried not to be slavish, and his style, while
+not remarkable, is easy and fluent. Apparently, however, his work
+attracted no attention. His name is unknown, as are his sources, and
+there is not, with one exception, a single reference to him in the later
+Shakespeare literature of Denmark and Norway. Not even Rahbek, who was
+remarkably well informed in this field, mentions him. Only Foersom,[6]
+who let nothing referring to Shakespeare escape him, speaks (in the
+notes to Part I of his translation) of a part of Act III of _Julius
+Caesar_ in _Trondhjems Allehaande_. That is all. It it not too much to
+emphasize, therefore, that we have here the first Danish version of any
+part of _Julius Caesar_ as well as the first Norwegian translation of
+any part of Shakespeare into what was then the common literary language
+of Denmark and Norway.[7]
+
+    [6. _William Shakespeares Tragiske Værker--Første Deel._ Khbn.
+    1807. Notes at the back of the volume.]
+
+    [7. By way of background, a bare enumeration of the early Danish
+    translations of Shakespeare is here given.
+
+    1777. _Hamlet_. Translated by Johannes Boye.
+
+    1790. _Macbeth_. Translated by Nils Rosenfeldt.
+      _Othello_. Translated by Nils Rosenfeldt.
+      _All's Well that Ends Well_. Translated by Nils Rosenfeldt.
+
+    1792. _King Lear_. Translated by Nils Rosenfeldt.
+      _Cymbeline_. Translated by Nils Rosenfeldt.
+      _The Merchant of Venice_. Translated by Nils Rosenfeldt.
+
+    1794. _King Lear_. Nahum Tate's stage version. Translated by Hans
+    Wilhelm Riber.
+
+    1796. _Two Speeches._--To be or not to be--_(Hamlet.)_
+      Is this a dagger--_(Macbeth.)_
+      Translated by Malthe Conrad Brun in _Svada_.
+
+    1800. Act III, Sc. 2 of _Julius Caesar_. Translated by Knut Lyhne
+    Rahbek in _Minerva_.
+
+    1801. _Macbeth_. Translated by Levin Sander and K.L. Rahbek. Not
+    published till 1804.
+
+    1804. Act V of _Julius Caesar_. Translated by P.F. Foersom in
+    _Minerva_.
+
+    1805. Act IV Sc. 3 of _Love's Labour Lost_. Translated by P.F.
+    Foersom in _Nytaarsgave for Skuespilyndere._
+
+    1807. Hamlet's speech to the players. Translated by P.F. Foersom
+    in _Nytaarsgave for Skuespilyndere_.
+
+    It may be added that in 1807 appeared the first volume of
+    Foersom's translation of Shakespeare's tragedies, and after 1807
+    the history of Shakespeare in Denmark is more complicated. With
+    these matters I shall deal at length in another study.]
+
+
+B
+
+It was many years before the anonymous contributor to _Trondhjems
+Allehaande_ was to have a follower. From 1782 to 1807 Norwegians were
+engaged in accumulating wealth, an occupation, indeed, in which they
+were remarkably successful. There was no time to meddle with Shakespeare
+in a day when Norwegian shipping and Norwegian products were profitable
+as never before. After 1807, when the blundering panic of the British
+plunged Denmark and Norway into war on the side of Napoleon, there were
+sterner things to think of. It was a sufficiently difficult matter to
+get daily bread. But in 1818, when the country had, as yet, scarcely
+begun to recover from the agony of the Napoleonic wars, the second
+Norwegian translation from Shakespeare appeared.[8]
+
+    [8. _Coriolanus, efter Shakespeare_. Christiania. 1818.]
+
+The translator of this version of _Coriolanus_ is unknown. Beyond the
+bare statement on the title page that the translation is made directly
+from Shakespeare and that it is printed and published in Christiania by
+Jacob Lehmann, there is no information to be had. Following the title
+there is a brief quotation from Dr. Johnson and one from the "Zeitung
+für die elegante Welt." Again Norway anticipates her sister nation; for
+not till the following year did Denmark get her first translation of the
+play.[9]
+
+    [9. The first Danish translation of Coriolanus by P.F. Wulff
+    appeared in 1819.]
+
+Ewald, Oehlenschlæger, and Foersom had by this time made the blank verse
+of Shakespeare a commonplace in Dano-Norwegian literature. Even the
+mediocre could attempt it with reasonable assurance of success. The
+_Coriolanus_ of 1818 is fairly correct, but its lumbering verse reveals
+plainly that the translator had trouble with his metre. Two or three
+examples will illustrate. First, the famous allegory of Menenius:[10]
+
+  _Menenius:_
+  I enten maae erkjende at I ere
+  Heel ondskabsfulde, eller taale, man
+  For Uforstandighed anklager Eder.
+  Et snurrigt Eventyr jeg vil fortælle;
+  Maaskee I har det hørt, men da det tjener
+  Just til min Hensigt, jeg forsøge vil
+  Nøiagtigen det Eder at forklare.
+    .  .  .  .  .
+  Jeg Eder det fortælle skal; med et
+  Slags Smil, der sig fra Lungen ikke skrev;
+  Omtrent saaledes--thi I vide maae
+  Naar jeg kan lade Maven tale, jeg
+  Den og kan lade smile--stikende
+  Den svarede hvert misfornøiet Lem
+  Og hver Rebel, som den misundte al
+  Sin Indtægt; Saa misunde I Senatet
+  Fordi det ikke er det som I ere.
+
+  _Første Borger_:
+  Hvorledes. Det var Mavens Svar! Hvorledes?
+  Og Hovedet, der kongeligt er kronet,
+  Og Øiet, der er blot Aarvaagenhed;
+  Og Hjertet, som os giver gode Raad;
+  Og Tungen, vor Trumpet, vor Stridsmand, Armen,
+  Og Foden, vores Pragthest, med de flere
+  Befæstingner, der støtte vor Maskine,
+  Hvis de nu skulde....
+
+  _Menenius_:
+  Nu hvad skulde de?...
+  Den Karl mig lader ei til Orde komme,
+  Hvad vil I sigte med det _hvis de skulde?_
+
+  _Første Borger_:
+  Hvis de nu skulde sig betvinge lade
+  Ved denne Slughals Maven som blot er
+  En Afløbs-Rende for vort Legeme?
+
+  _Menenius_:
+  Nu videre!
+
+  _Første Borger_:
+  Hvad vilde Maven svare?
+  Hvis hine Handlende med Klage fremstod?
+
+  _Menenius_:
+  Hvis I mig skjænke vil det som I have
+  Kun lidet af, Taalmodighed, jeg mener,
+  Jeg Eder Mavens Svar da skal fortælle.
+
+  _Første Borger_:
+  I! Den Fortælling ret i Langdrag trækker!
+
+  _Menenius_:
+  Min gode Ven, nu allerførst bemærke.
+  Agtværdig Mave brugte Overlæg;
+  Ei ubetænksom den sig overiled
+  Som dens Modstandere; og saa lød Svaret:
+  I Venner som fra mig ei skilles kan!
+  Det Sandhed er, at jeg fra første Haand
+  Modtager Næringen som Eder føder,
+  Og dette i sin Orden er, thi jeg
+  Et Varelager og et Forraads-Kammer
+  Jo er for Legemet; men ei I glemme:
+  Jeg Næringen igjennem Blodets Floder
+  Og sender lige hen til Hoffet-Hjertet--
+  Til Hjernens Sæde; jeg den flyde lader
+  Igjennem Menneskets meest fine Dele;
+  Og de meest fast Nerver, som de mindste
+  Blandt Aarene fra mig modtager hver
+  Naturlig Kraft, hvormed de leve, og
+  Endskjøndt de ikke alle paa eengang--
+  I gode Venner (det var Mavens Ord)
+  Og mærker dem heel nøie....
+
+  _Første Borger_:
+      Det vil vi gjøre.
+
+  _Menenius_:
+  Endskjøndt de ikke alle kunde see,
+  Hvad jeg tilflyde lader hver især,
+  Saa kan jeg dog med gyldigt Dokument
+  Bevise at jeg overlader dem
+  Den rene Kjærne, selv beholder Kliddet.
+  Hvad siger I dertil?
+
+  _Første Borger_:
+      Et svar det var--
+  Men nu Andvendelsen!
+
+  _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?
+
+    [10. _Coriolanus_--Malone's ed. London. 1790. Vol. 7, pp. 148 ff.]
+
+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.
+
+One more extract and I am done. It is Coriolanus' outburst of wrath
+against the pretensions of the tribunes (III, 1). With all its
+imperfections, the translation is almost adequate.
+
+  _Coriolanus_:
+  Skal!
+  Patrisier, I ædle, men ei vise!
+  I høie Senatorer, som mon mangle
+  Al Overlæg, hvi lod I Hydra vælge
+  En Tjener som med sit bestemte Skal
+  --Skjøndt blot Uhyrets Talerør og Lyd--
+  Ei mangler Mod, at sige at han vil
+  Forvandle Eders Havstrøm til en Sump,
+  Og som vil gjøre Jer Kanal til sin.
+  Hvis han har Magten, lad Enfoldighed
+  Da for ham bukke; har han ingen Magt,
+  Da vækker Eders Mildhed af sin Dvale,
+  Den farlig er; hvis I ei mangle Klogskab,
+  Da handler ei som Daaren; mangler den,
+  Lad denne ved Jer Side faae en Pude.
+  Plebeier ere I, hvis Senatorer
+  De ere, og de ere mindre ei
+  Naar begge Eders Stemmer sammenblandes
+  Og naar de kildres meest ved Fornemhed.
+  De vælge deres egen Øvrighed,
+  Og saadan Een, der sætte tør sit Skal,
+  Ja sit gemene Skal mod en Forsamling,
+  Der mer agtværdig er end nogensinde
+  Man fandt i Grækenland. Ved Jupiter!
+  Sligt Consulen fornedrer! Og det smerter
+  Min Sjæl at vide, hvor der findes tvende
+  Autoriteter, ingen af dem størst,
+  Der kan Forvirring lettelig faae Indpas
+  I Gabet, som er mellem dem, og hæve
+  Den ene ved den anden.
+
+
+C
+
+In 1865, Paul Botten Hansen, best known to the English-speaking world
+for his relations with Bjørnson and Ibsen, reviewed[11] the eleventh
+installment of Lembcke's translation of Shakespeare. The article
+does not venture into criticism, but is almost entirely a resumé of
+Shakespeare translation in Norway and Denmark. It is less well informed
+than we should expect, and contains, among several other slips, the
+following "...in 1855, Niels Hauge, deceased the following year as
+teacher in Kragerø, translated _Macbeth_, the first faithful version of
+this masterpiece which Dano-Norwegian literature could boast of." Botten
+Hansen mentions only one previous Danish or Norwegian version of
+Shakespeare--Foersom's adaptation of Schiller's stage version (1816).
+He is quite obviously ignorant of Rosenfeldt's translation of 1790; and
+the Rahbek-Sanders translation of 1801 seems also to have escaped him,
+although Hauge expressly refers to this work in his introduction. Both
+of these early attempts are in prose; Foersom's, to be sure, is in blank
+verse, but Foersom's _Macbeth_ is not Shakespeare's. Accordingly, it is,
+in a sense, true that Hauge in 1855 did give the Dano-Norwegian public
+their first taste of an unspoiled _Macbeth_ in the vernacular.[12]
+
+    [11. _Illustreret Nyhedsblad_--1865, p. 96.]
+
+    [12. _Macbeth--Tragedie i fem Akter af William Shakespeare_.
+    Oversat og fortolket af N. Hauge. Christiania. 1855. Johan Dahl.]
+
+Hauge tells us that he had interested himself in English literature at
+the risk of being called an eccentric. Modern languages then offered no
+avenue to preferment, and why, forsooth, did men attend lectures and
+take examinations except to gain the means of earning a livelihood? He
+justifies his interest, however, by the seriousness and industry with
+which Shakespeare is studied in Germany and England. With the founts of
+this study he is apparently familiar, and with the influence of
+Shakespeare on Lessing, Goethe, and the lesser romanticists. It is
+interesting to note, too, that two scholars, well known in widely
+different fields, Monrad, the philosopher--for some years a sort of Dr.
+Johnson in the literary circles of Christiania--and Unger, the scholarly
+editor of many Old Norse texts, assisted him in his work.
+
+The character of Hauge's work is best seen in his notes. They consist of
+a careful defense of every liberty he takes with the text, explanations
+of grammatical constructions, and interpretations of debated matters.
+For example, he defends the witches on the ground that they symbolize
+the power of evil in the human soul.
+
+  Man kan sige at Shakespeare i dem og deres Slæng har givet de
+  nytestamentlige Dæmoner Kjød og Blod.
+
+(We may say that Shakespeare in them and their train has endowed the
+demons of the New Testament with flesh and blood). Again, he would
+change the word _incarnadine_ to _incarnate_ on the ground that _Twelfth
+Night V_ offers a similar instance of the corrupt use of _incardinate_
+for _incarnate_. The word occurs, moreover, in English only in this
+passage.[13] Again, in his note to Act IV, he points out that the
+dialogue in which Malcolm tests the sincerity of Macduff is taken almost
+verbatim from Holinshed. "In performing the play," he suggests, "it
+should, perhaps, be omitted as it very well may be without injury to the
+action since the complication which arises through Malcolm's suspicion
+of Macduff is fully and satisfactorily resolved by the appearance of
+Rosse." And his note to a passage in Act V is interesting as showing
+that, wide and thorough as was Hauge's acquaintance with Shakespearean
+criticism, he had, besides, a first-hand knowledge of the minor
+Elizabethan dramatists. I give the note in full. "_The way to dusty
+death--_
+
+  Til dette besynderlige Udtryk, kan foruden hvad Knight og Dyce
+  have at citere, endnu citeres af Fords _Perkin Warbeck_, II, 2,
+  "I take my leave to travel to my dust."
+
+    [13. This is, of course, incorrect. Cf. Macbeth, Variorum
+    Edition. Ed. Furness. Phila. 1903, p. 40. Note.]
+
+Hauge was a careful and conscientious scholar. He knew his field and
+worked with the painstaking fidelity of the man who realizes the
+difficulty of his task. The translation he gave is of a piece with the
+man--faithful, laborious, uninspired. But it is, at least, superior to
+Rosenfeldt and Sander, and Hauge justified his work by giving to his
+countrymen the best version of _Macbeth_ up to that time.
+
+Monrad himself reviewed Hauge's _Macbeth_ in a careful and well-informed
+article, in _Nordisk Tidsskrift for Videnskab og Literatur_, which I
+shall review later.
+
+
+D
+
+One of the most significant elements in the intellectual life of modern
+Norway is the so-called Landsmaal movement. It is probably unnecessary
+to say that this movement is an effort on the part of many Norwegians to
+substitute for the dominant Dano-Norwegian a new literary language based
+on the "best" dialects. This language, commonly called the Landsmaal,
+is, at all events in its origin, the creation of one man, Ivar Aasen.
+Aasen published the first edition of his grammar in 1848, and the first
+edition of his dictionary in 1850. But obviously it was not enough to
+provide a grammar and a word-book. The literary powers of the new
+language must be developed and disciplined and, accordingly, Aasen
+published in 1853 _Prøver af Landsmaalet i Norge_. The little volume
+contains, besides other material, seven translations from foreign
+classics; among these is Romeo's soliloquy in the balcony scene.[14]
+(Act II, Sc. 1) This modest essay of Aasen's, then, antedates Hauge's
+rendering of _Macbeth_ and constitutes the first bit of Shakespeare
+translation in Norway since the _Coriolanus_ of 1818.
+
+    [14. Ivar Aasen--_Skrifter i Samling_--Christiania. 1911, Vol. 11,
+    p. 165. Reprinted from _Prøver af Landsmaalet i Norge, Første
+    Udgave_. Kristiania. 1853, p. 114.]
+
+Aasen knew that Landsmaal was adequate to the expression of the homely
+and familiar. But would it do for belles lettres?
+
+  Han lær aat Saar, som aldri kende Saar.--
+  Men hyst!--Kvat Ljos er dat dar upp i glaset?
+  Dat er i Aust, og Julia er Soli.
+  Sprett, fagre Sol, og tyn dan Maane-Skjegla,
+  som alt er sjuk og bleik av berre Ovund,
+  at hennar Taus er fagrar' en ho sjølv.
+  Ver inkje hennar Taus; dan Ovundsykja,
+  so sjukleg grøn er hennar Jomfru-Klædnad;
+  d'er berre Narr, som ber han. Sleng han av!
+  Ja, d'er mi Fru, d'er dan eg held i Hugen;
+  aa, giv ho hadde vist dat, at ho er dat!
+  Ho talar, utan Ord. Kvat skal ho med dei?
+  Ho tala kann med Augom;--eg vil svara.
+  Eg er for djerv; d'er inkje meg ho ser paa,
+  d'er tvo av fegste Stjernom dar paa Himlen,
+  som gekk ei Ærend, og fekk hennar Augo
+  te blinka i sin Stad, til dei kem atter.
+  Enn um dei var dar sjølve Augo hennar.
+  Kinn-Ljosken hennar hadde skemt dei Stjernor,
+  som Dagsljos skemmer Lampen; hennar Augo
+  hadd' straatt so bjart eit Ljos i Himmels Høgdi,
+  at Fuglar song og Trudde, dat var Dag.
+  Sjaa, kor ho hallar Kinni lint paa Handi,
+  Aa, giv eg var ein Vott paa denne Handi
+  at eg fekk strjuka Kinni den.--Ho talar.--
+  Aa tala meir, Ljos-Engel, med du lyser
+  so klaart i denne Natti kring mitt Hovud,
+  som naar dat kem ein utfløygd Himmels Sending
+  mot Folk, som keika seg og stira beint upp
+  med undrarsame kvit-snudd' Augo mot han,
+  naar han skrid um dan seinleg-sigand' Skyi
+  og sigler yver høge Himmels Barmen.
+
+It was no peasant jargon that Aasen had invented; it was a literary
+language of great power and beauty with the dignity and fulness of any
+other literary medium. But it was new and untried. It had no literature.
+Aasen, accordingly, set about creating one. Indeed, much of what he
+wrote had no other purpose. What, then, shall we say of the first
+appearance of Shakespeare in "Ny Norsk"?
+
+First, that it was remarkably felicitous.
+
+  Kinn-Ljosken hadde skemt dei Stjernor
+  som Dagsljos skemmer Lampen, hennar Augo, etc.
+
+That is no inadequate rendering of:
+
+  Two of the fairest stars in all the Heaven, etc.
+
+And equally good are the closing lines beginning:
+
+  Aa tala meir, Ljos-Engel med du lyser, etc.
+
+Foersom is deservedly praised for his translation of the same lines, but
+a comparison of the two is not altogether disastrous to Aasen, though,
+to be sure, his lines lack some of Foersom's insinuating softness:
+
+  Tal atter, Lysets Engel! thi du straaler
+  i Natten saa høiherlig over mig
+  som en af Nattens vingede Cheruber
+  for dødeliges himmelvendte Øine, etc.
+
+But lines like these have an admirable and perfect loveliness:
+
+  naar han skrid um dan seinleg-sigand' Skyi
+  og sigler yver høge Himmels Barmen.
+
+Aasen busied himself for some years with this effort to naturalize his
+Landsmaal in all the forms of literature. Apparently this was always
+uppermost in his thoughts. We find him trying himself in this sort of
+work in the years before and after the publication of _Prøver af
+Landsmaalet_. In _Skrifter i Samling_ is printed another little fragment
+of _Romeo and Juliet_, which the editor, without giving his reasons,
+assigns to a date earlier than that of the balcony scene. It is
+Mercutio's description of Queen Mab (Act I, Sc. 4). This is decidedly
+more successful than the other. The vocabulary of the Norwegian dialects
+is rich in words of fairy-lore, and one who knew this word treasure as
+Aasen did could render the fancies of Mercutio with something very near
+the exuberance of Shakespeare himself:
+
+  No ser eg vel, at ho hev' vore hjaa deg
+  ho gamle Mabba, Nærkona aat Vettom.
+  So lita som ein Adelstein i Ringen
+  paa fremste Fingren paa ein verdug Raadsmann,
+  ho kjøyrer kring med smaa Soldumbe-Flokar
+  paa Nasanna aat Folk, dan Tid dei søv.
+  Hjulspikann' henna er av Kongleføter,
+  Vognfelden er av Engjesprette-Vengjer,
+  og Taumann' av den minste Kongleveven.
+  Av Maanestraalanne paa Vatn er Selen,
+  og av Sirissebein er Svipeskafted
+  og Svipesnerten er av Agner smaa.
+  Skjotskaren er eit nett graakjola My
+  so stort som Holva av ein liten Mòl,
+  som minste Vækja krasa kann med Fingren.
+  Til Vogn ho fekk ei holut Haslenot
+  av Snikkar Ikorn elder Natemakk,
+  som altid var Vognmakarann' aat Vettom.[15]
+
+    [15. Ivar Aasen: _Skrifter i Samling_. Christiania. 1911, Vol. I,
+    p. 166.]
+
+The translation ends with Mercutio's words:
+
+  And being thus frightened, swears a prayer or two,
+  And sleeps again.
+
+In my opinion this is consummately well done--at once accurate and
+redolent of poesy; and certainly Aasen would have been justified in
+feeling that Landsmaal is equal to Shakespeare's most airy passages. The
+slight inaccuracy of one of the lines:
+
+  Av Maanestraalanne paa Vatn er Selen,
+
+for Shakespeare's:
+
+  The colors of the moonshine's watery beams,
+
+is of no consequence. The discrepancy was doubtless as obvious to the
+translator as it is to us.
+
+From about the same time we have another Shakespeare fragment from
+Aasen's hand. Like the Queen Mab passage, it was not published till
+1911.[16] It is scarcely surprising that it is a rendering of Hamlet's
+soliloquy: "To be or not to be." This is, of course, a more difficult
+undertaking. For the interests that make up the life of the
+people--their family and community affairs, their arts and crafts and
+folk-lore, the dialects of Norway, like the dialects of any other
+country, have a vocabulary amazingly rich and complete.[17] But not all
+ideas belong in the realm of the every-day, and the great difficulty of
+the Landsmaal movement is precisely this--that it must develop a
+"culture language." To a large degree it has already done so. The rest
+is largely a matter of time. And surely Ivar Aasen's translation of the
+famous soliloquy proved that the task of giving, even to thought as
+sophisticated as this, adequate and final expression is not impossible.
+The whole is worth giving:
+
+  Te vera elder ei,--d'er da her spyrst um;
+  um d'er meir heirlegt i sitt Brjost aa tola
+  kvar Styng og Støyt av ein hardsøkjen Lagnad
+  eld taka Vaapn imot eit Hav med Harmar,
+  staa mot og slaa dei veg?--Te døy, te sova,
+  alt fraa seg gjort,--og i ein Sømn te enda
+  dan Hjarteverk, dei tusend timleg' Støytar,
+  som Kjøt er Erving til, da var ein Ende
+  rett storleg ynskjande. Te døy, te sova,
+  ja sova, kanskje drøyma,--au, d'er Knuten.
+  Fyr' i dan Daudesømn, kva Draum kann koma,
+  naar mid ha kastat av dei daudleg Bandi,
+  da kann vel giv' oss Tankar; da er Sakji,
+  som gjerer Useldom so lang i Livet:
+  kven vilde tolt slikt Hogg og Haad i Tidi,
+  slik sterk Manns Urett, stolt Manns Skamlaus Medferd,
+  slik vanvyrd Elskhugs Harm, slik Rettarløysa,
+  slikt Embæt's Ovmod, slik Tilbakaspenning,
+  som tolug, verdug Mann fær av uverdug;
+  kven vilde da, naar sjølv han kunde løysa
+  seg med ein nakjen Odd? Kven bar dan Byrda
+  so sveitt og stynjand i so leid ein Livnad,
+  naar inkj'an ottast eitkvart etter Dauden,
+  da uforfarne Land, som ingjen Ferdmann
+  er komen atter fraa, da viller Viljen,
+  da læt oss helder ha dan Naud, mid hava,
+  en fly til onnor Naud, som er oss ukjend.
+  So gjer Samviskan Slavar av oss alle,
+  so bi dan fyrste, djerve, bjarte Viljen
+  skjemd ut med blakke Strik av Ettertankjen
+  og store Tiltak, som var Merg og Magt i,
+  maa soleid snu seg um og strøyma ovugt
+  og tapa Namn av Tiltak.
+
+    [16. _Skrifter i Samling_, I, 168. Kristiania. 1911.]
+
+    [17. Cf. Alf Torp. _Samtiden_, XIX (1908), p. 483.]
+
+This is a distinctly successful attempt--exact, fluent, poetic. Compare
+it with the Danish of Foersom and Lembcke, with the Swedish of Hagberg,
+or the new Norwegian "Riksmaal" translation, and Ivar Aasen's early
+Landsmaal version holds its own. It keeps the right tone. The dignity of
+the original is scarcely marred by a note of the colloquial. Scarcely
+marred! For just as many Norwegians are offended by such a phrase as
+"Hennar Taus er fagrar' en ho sjølv" in the balcony scene, so many more
+will object to the colloquial "Au, d'er Knuten." _Au_ has no place in
+dignified verse, and surely it is a most unhappy equivalent for "Ay,
+there's the rub." Aasen would have replied that Hamlet's words are
+themselves colloquial; but the English conveys no such connotation of
+easy speech as does the Landsmaal to a great part of the Norwegian
+people. But this is a trifle. The fact remains that Aasen gave a noble
+form to Shakespeare's noble verse.
+
+
+E
+
+For many years the work of Hauge and Aasen stood alone in Norwegian
+literature. The reading public was content to go to Denmark, and the
+growing Landsmaal literature was concerned with other matters--first of
+all, with the task of establishing itself and the even more complicated
+problem of finding a form--orthography, syntax, and inflexions which
+should command general acceptance. For the Landsmaal of Ivar Aasen was
+frankly based on "the best dialects," and by this he meant, of course,
+the dialects that best preserved the forms of the Old Norse. These were
+the dialects of the west coast and the mountains. To Aasen the speech of
+the towns, of the south-east coast and of the great eastern valleys and
+uplands was corrupt and vitiated. It seemed foreign, saturated and
+spoiled by Danish. There were those, however, who saw farther. If
+Landsmaal was to strike root, it must take into account not merely "the
+purest dialects" but the speech of the whole country. It could not, for
+example, retain forms like "dat," "dan," etc., which were peculiar to
+Søndmør, because they happened to be lineal descendants of Old Norse,
+nor should it insist on preterites in _ade_ and participles in _ad_
+merely because these forms were found in the sagas. We cannot enter upon
+this subject; we can but point out that this movement was born almost
+with Landsmaal itself, and that, after Aasen's fragments, the first
+Norwegian translation of any part of Shakespeare is a rendering of
+Sonnet CXXX in popularized Eastern, as distinguished from Aasen's
+literary, aristocratic Western Landsmaal. It is the first translation of
+a Shakespearean sonnet on Norwegian soil. The new language was hewing
+out new paths.
+
+  Som Soli Augunn' inkje skjin,
+  og som Koraller inkje Lipunn' glansar,
+  og snjokvit hev ho inkje Halsen sin,
+  og Gullhaar inkje Hove hennar kransar,
+
+  Eg baae kvit' og raue Roser ser--,
+  paa Kinni hennar deira Lit'kje blandast;
+  og meire fin vel Blomsterangen er,
+  en den som ut fraa Lipunn' hennar andast.
+
+  Eg høyrt hev hennar Røyst og veit endaa,
+  at inkje som ein Song dei læter Ori;
+  og aldrig hev eg set ein Engel gaa--
+  og gjenta mi ser støtt eg gaa paa Jori.
+
+  Men ho er større Lov og Ære vær
+  enn pyntedokkane me laana Glansen.
+  Den reine Hugen seg i alting ter,
+  og ljost ho smilar under Brurekransen.[18]
+
+    [18. "Ein Sonett etter William Shakespeare." _Fram_--1872.]
+
+Obviously this is not a sonnet at all. Not only does the translator
+ignore Shakespeare's rime scheme, but he sets aside the elementary
+definition of a sonnet--a poem of fourteen lines. We have here sixteen
+lines and the last two add nothing to the original. The poet, through
+lack of skill, has simply run on. He could have ended with line 14 and
+then, whatever other criticism might have been passed upon his work, we
+should have had at least the sonnet form. The additional lines are in
+themselves fairly good poetry but they have no place in what purports to
+be translation. The translator signs himself simply "r." Whoever he was,
+he had poetic feeling and power of expression. No mere poetaster could
+have given lines so exquisite in their imagery, so full of music, and
+so happy in their phrasing. This fact in itself makes it a poor
+translation, for it is rather a paraphrase with a quality and excellence
+all its own. Not a line exactly renders the English. The paraphrase is
+never so good as the original but, considered by itself, it is good
+poetry. The disillusionment comes only with comparison. On the whole,
+this second attempt to put Shakespeare into Landsmaal was distinctly
+less successful than the first. As poetry it does not measure up to
+Aasen; as translation it is periphrastic, arbitrary, not at all
+faithful.
+
+
+F
+
+The translations which we have thus far considered were mere
+fragments--brief soliloquies or a single sonnet, and they were done into
+a dialect which was not then and is not now the prevailing literary
+language of the country. They were earnest and, in the case of Aasen,
+successful attempts to show that Landsmaal was adequate to the most
+varied and remote of styles. But many years were to elapse before anyone
+attempted the far more difficult task of turning any considerable part
+of Shakespeare into "Modern Norwegian."
+
+Norway still relied, with no apparent sense of humiliation, on the
+translations of Shakespeare as they came up from Copenhagen. In 1881,
+however, Hartvig Lassen (1824-1897) translated _The Merchant of
+Venice_.[19] Lassen matriculated as a student in 1842, and from 1850
+supported himself as a literateur, writing reviews of books and plays
+for _Krydseren_ and _Aftenposten_. In 1872 he was appointed Artistic
+Censor at the theater, and in that office translated a multitude of
+plays from almost every language of Western Europe. His published
+translations of Shakespeare are, however, quite unrelated to his
+theatrical work. They were done for school use and published by
+_Selskabet for Folkeoplysningens Fremme_ (Society for the Promotion
+of Popular Education).
+
+    [19. _Kjøbmanden i Venedig_--Et Skuespil af William
+    Shakespeare. Oversat af Hartvig Lassen. Udgivet af Selskabet for
+    Folkeoplysningens Fremme som andet Tillægshefte til _Folkevennen_
+    for 1881. Kristiania, 1881.]
+
+To _Kjøbmanden i Venedig_ there is no introduction and no notes--merely
+a postscript in which the translator declares that he has endeavored
+everywhere faithfully to reproduce the peculiar tone of the play and to
+preserve the concentration of style which is everywhere characteristic
+of Shakespeare. He acknowledges his indebtedness to the Swedish
+translation by Hagberg and the German by Schlegel. Inasmuch as this work
+was published for wide, general distribution and for reading in the
+schools, Lassen cut out the passages which he deemed unsuitable for the
+untutored mind. "But," he adds, "with the exception of the last scene of
+Act III, which, in its expurgated form, would be too fragmentary (and
+which, indeed, does not bear any immediate relation to the action), only
+a few isolated passages have been cut. Shakespeare has lost next to
+nothing, and a great deal has been gained if I have hereby removed one
+ground for the hesitation which most teachers would feel in using the
+book in the public schools." In Act III, Scene 5 is omitted entirely,
+and obvious passages in other parts of the play.
+
+It has frequently been said that Lassen did little more than
+"norvagicize" Lembcke's Danish renderings. And certainly even the most
+cursory reading will show that he had Lembcke at hand. But comparison
+will also show that variations from Lembcke are numerous and
+considerable. Lassen was a man of letters, a critic, and a good student
+of foreign languages, but he was no poet, and his _Merchant of Venice_
+is, generally speaking, much inferior to Lembcke's. Compare, for
+example, the exquisite opening of the fifth act:
+
+
+  LASSEN
+
+  _Lor_:
+  Klart skinner Maanen, i en Nat som denne,
+  da Vinden gled med Lys igjennem Løvet,
+  og alt var tyst: i slig en Nat forvist
+  Trojas Murtinder Troilus besteg,
+  til Grækerlejren, til sin Cressida
+  udsukkende sin Sjæl.
+
+      LEMBCKE
+
+      Klart skinner Maanen, i en Nat som denne,
+      mens Luftningen saa sagte kyssed Træet
+      at knapt det sused, i en saadan Nat
+      steg Troilus vist up paa Trojas Mur
+      og sukked ud sin Sjæl mod Grækerlejren
+      der gjemte Cressida.
+
+
+  _Jes_:
+         I slig en Nat
+  sig Thisbe listed ængstelig, over Duggen
+  saa Løvens Skygge før hun saa den selv,
+  og løb forskrækket bort.
+
+             En saadan Nat
+      gik Thisbe bange trippende paa Duggen
+      og øjned Løvens Skygge før den selv
+      og løb forfærdet bort.
+
+  _Lor_:
+        I slig en Nat
+  stod Dido med en Vidjevaand i Haanden
+  paa vilden strand, og vinked til Kartago
+  sin elsker hjem igjen.
+
+            En saadan Nat
+      stod Dido med en Vidjekvist i Haanden
+      paa vilden Strand og vinkede sin Elsker
+      tilbage til Carthagos Kyst.
+
+  _Jes_:
+         I slig en Nat
+  Medea plukked Galder-Urt for Aeson
+  hans Ungdom at forny.
+
+              Det var
+      en saadan Nat, da sankede Medea
+      de Trolddomsurter der foryngede
+      den gamle Aeson.
+
+  _Lor_:
+
+          I slig en Nat
+  stjal Jessica sig fra den rige Jøde,
+  Løb fra Venedig med en lystig Elsker
+  til Belmont uden Stands.
+
+              Og en saadan Nat
+      sneg Jessica sig fra den rige Jøde
+      og løb med en Landstryger fra Venedig
+      herhid til Belmont.
+
+  _Jes_:
+
+          I slig en Nat
+  svor ung Lorenzo at han elsked hende,
+  stjal hendes Sjæl med mange Troskabsløfter
+  og ikke et var sandt.
+
+              Og en saadan Nat
+      svor ung Lorenzo hende Kjærlighed
+      og stjal med Troskabseder hendes Hjerte
+      og aldrig en var sand.
+
+  _Lor_:
+
+           I slig en Nat
+  skjøn Jessica, den lille Klaffertunge,
+  løi paa sin Elsker, og han tilgav hende.
+
+               I slig en Nat
+      bagtalte just skjøn Jessica sin Elsker
+      ret som en lille Trold, og han tilgav det.
+
+  _Jes_:
+
+  Jeg gad fortalt dig mer om slig en Nat,
+  hvis jeg ei hørte nogen komme--tys!
+
+      Jeg skulde sagtens "overnatte" dig
+      hvis ingen kom; men tys, jeg hører der
+      Trin af en Mand.
+
+Lembcke's version is faithful to the point of slavishness. Compare,
+for example, "Jeg skulde sagtens overnatte dig" with "I would outnight
+you." Lassen, though never grossly inaccurate, allows himself greater
+liberties. Compare lines 2-6 with the original and with Lembcke. In
+every case the Danish version is more faithful than the Norwegian. And
+more mellifluous. Why Lassen should choose such clumsy and banal lines
+as:
+
+          I slig en Nat
+  Trojas Murtinder Troilus besteg
+
+when he could have used Lembcke's, is inexplicable except on the
+hypothesis that he was eager to prove his own originality. The remainder
+of Lorenzo's first speech is scarcely better. It is neither good
+translation nor decent verse.
+
+In 1882 came Lassen's _Julius Caesar_,[20] likewise published as a
+supplement to _Folkevennen_ for use in the schools. A short postscript
+tells us that the principles which governed in the translation of the
+earlier play have governed here also. Lassen specifically declares that
+he used Foersom's translation (Copenhagen, 1811) as the basis for the
+translation of Antony's oration. A comparison shows that in this scene
+Lassen follows Foersom closely--he keeps archaisms which Lembcke
+amended. One or two instances:
+
+  _Foersom_:
+  Seer, her foer Casii Dolk igjennem den;
+  seer, hvilken Rift den nidske Casca gjorde;
+  her rammed' den høitelskte Bruti Dolk, etc.
+
+    _Lembcke_:
+    Se, her foer Cassius' Dolk igjennem den;
+    se hvilken Rift den onde Casca gjorde.
+    Her stødte Brutus den høitelskede, etc.
+
+      _Lassen_:
+      Se! her foer Casii Dolk igjennem den;
+      se hvilken Rift den onde Casca gjorde.
+      Her rammed den høielskte Bruti Dolk, etc.
+
+    [20. _Julius Caesar_. Et Skuespil af William Shakespeare. Oversat
+    af Hartvig Lassen. Udgivet af Selskabet for Folkeoplysningens
+    Fremme som første Tillægshefte til _Folkevennen_ for 1882.
+    Kristiania, 1882. Grøndal og Søn.]
+
+For the rest, a reading of this translation leaves the same impression
+as a reading of _The Merchant of Venice_--it is a reasonably good
+piece of work but distinctly inferior to Foersom and to Lembcke's
+modernization of Foersom. Lassen clearly had Lembcke at hand; he seldom,
+however, followed him for more than a line or two. What is more
+important is that there are reminiscences of Foersom not only in
+the funeral scene, where Lassen himself acknowledges the fact, but
+elsewhere. Note a few lines from the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius
+(Act IV, Sc. 3) beginning with Cassius' speech:
+
+  Urge me no more, I shall forget myself.
+
+Foersom (Ed. 1811) has:
+
+  _Cas_:
+  Tir mig ei mer at jeg ei glemmer mig;
+  husk Eders Vel--og frist mig ikke mere.
+
+  _Bru_:
+  Bort, svage Mand!
+
+  _Cas_:
+    Er dette muligt?
+
+  _Bru_:
+  Hør mig; jeg vil tale.
+  Skal jeg for Eders vilde Sind mig bøie?
+  Troer I jeg kyses af en gal Mands Blik?
+
+  _Cas_:
+  O Guder, Guder! skal jeg taale dette?
+
+  _Bru_:
+  Ja, meer. Brum saa dette stolte Hierte brister;
+  Gak, viis den Hæftighed for Eders Trælle,
+  og faa dem til at skielve. Skal jeg vige,
+  og føie Eder? Skal jeg staae og bøie
+  mig under Eders Luners Arrighed?
+  Ved Guderne, I skal nedsvælge selv
+  al Eders Galdes Gift, om end I brast;
+  thi fra i dag af bruger jeg Jer kun
+  til Moerskab, ja til latter naar I vredes.
+
+And Lassen has:
+
+_Cas_:
+  _Tirr_ mig ei mer; jeg kunde glemme mig.
+  Tænk paa dit eget Vel, frist mig ei længer.
+
+  _Bru_:
+  _Bort, svage Mand_!
+
+  _Cas_:
+  Er dette muligt?
+
+  _Bru_:
+    Hør mig, jeg vil tale.
+  Skal jeg _mig bøie_ for din Vredes Nykker?
+  Og skræmmes, naar en gal Mand glor paa mig?
+
+  _Cas_:
+  O Guder, Guder! maa jeg taale dette?
+
+  _Bru_:
+  Dette, ja mer end det. Stamp kun mod Brodden,
+  ras kun, indtil dit stolte Hjerte brister;
+  lad dine Slaver se hvor arg du er
+  og _skjelve_. Jeg--skal jeg tilside smutte?
+  Jeg gjøre Krus for dig? Jeg krumme Ryg
+  naar det behager dig? Ved Guderne!
+  Du selv skal _svælge_ al din _Galdes Gift_,
+  om saa du brister; thi fra denne Dag
+  jeg bruger dig til Moro, ja til Latter,
+  naar du er ilsk.
+
+The _italicized_ passages show that the influence of Foersom was felt
+in more than one scene. It would be easy to give other instances.
+
+After all this, we need scarcely more than mention Lassen's
+_Macbeth_[21] published in 1883. The usual brief note at the end of the
+play gives the usual information that, out of regard for the purpose for
+which the translation has been made, certain parts of the porter scene
+and certain speeches by Malcolm in Act IV, Sc. 3 have been cut. Readers
+will have no difficulty in picking them out.
+
+    [21. _Macbeth_. Tragedie af William Shakespeare. Oversat af
+    H. Lassen. Udgivet af Selskabet for Folkeoplysningens Fremme som
+    andet Tillægshefte til _Folkevennen_ for 1883. Kristiania. Grøndal
+    og Søn.]
+
+_Macbeth_ is, like all Lassen's work, dull and prosaic. Like his other
+translations from Shakespeare, it has never become popular. The standard
+translation in Norway is still the Foersom-Lembcke, a trifle
+nationalized with Norwegian words and phrases whenever a new acting
+version is to be prepared. And while it is not true that Lassen's
+translations are merely norvagicized editions of the Danish, it is true
+that they are often so little independent of them that they do not
+deserve to supersede the work of Foersom and Lembcke.
+
+
+G
+
+Norwegian translations of Shakespeare cannot, thus far, be called
+distinguished. There is no complete edition either in Riksmaal or
+Landsmaal. A few sonnets, a play or two, a scrap of dialogue--Norway
+has little Shakespeare translation of her own. Qualitatively, the case
+is somewhat better. Several of the renderings we have considered are
+extremely creditable, though none of them can be compared with the
+best in Danish or Swedish. It is a grateful task, therefore, to call
+attention to the translations by Christen Collin. They are not
+numerous--only eleven short fragments published as illustrative material
+in his school edition (English text) of _The Merchant of Venice_--[22]
+but they are of notable quality, and they save the Riksmaal literature
+from the reproach of surrendering completely to the Landsmaal the task
+of turning Shakespeare into Norwegian. With the exception of a few lines
+from _Macbeth_ and _Othello_, the selections are all from _The Merchant
+of Venice_.
+
+    [22. _The Merchant of Venice_. Med Indledning og Anmærkninger ved
+    Christen Collin. Kristiania. 1902. (This, of course, does not
+    include the translations of the sonnets referred to below.)]
+
+A good part of Collin's success must be attributed to his intimate
+familiarity with English. The fine nuances of the language do not escape
+him, and he can use it not with precision merely but with audacity and
+power. Long years of close and sympathetic association with the
+literature of England has made English well-nigh a second mother tongue
+to this fine and appreciative critic. But he is more than a critic. He
+has more than a little of the true poet's insight and the true poet's
+gift of song. All this has combined to give us a body of translations
+which, for fine felicity, stand unrivalled in Dano-Norwegian. Many of
+these have been prepared for lecture purposes and have never been
+printed.[23] Only a few have been perpetuated in this text edition of
+_The Merchant of Venice_. We shall discuss the edition itself below.
+Our concern here is with the translations. We remember Lassen's and
+Lembcke's opening of the fifth act. Collin is more successful than his
+countryman.
+
+  _Lor_:
+  Hvor Maanen straaler! I en nat som denne,
+  da milde vindpust kyssed skovens trær
+  og alting var saa tyst, i slig en nat
+  Troilus kanske steg op paa Trojas mure
+  og stønned ud sin sjæl mod Grækerteltene
+  hvor Cressida laa den nat.
+
+  _Jes_:
+           I slig en nat
+  kom Thisbe angstfuldt trippende over duggen,--
+  saa løvens skygge, før hun saa den selv,
+  og løb forskrækket bort.
+
+  _Lor_:
+           I slig en nat
+  stod Dido med en vidjekvist i haand
+  paa havets strand og vinkede Æneas
+  tilbage til Karthago.
+
+  _Jes_:
+           I slig en nat
+  Medea sanked urter som foryngede
+  den gamle Æsons liv.
+
+  _Lor_:
+           I slig en nat
+  stjal Jessica sig fra den rige Jøde
+  med en forfløien elsker fra Venedig
+  og fandt i Belmont ly.
+
+  _Jes_:
+           I en saadan nat
+  svor ung Lorenzo at hun var ham kjær
+  og stjal med mange eder hendes hjerte,
+  men ikke en var sand.
+
+  _Lor_:
+           I slig en nat
+  skjøn Jessica, den lille heks, bagtalte
+  sin elsker og han--tilgav hende alt.
+
+    [23. I have seen these translations in the typewritten copies
+    which Professor Collin distributed among his students.]
+
+"A translation of this passage," says Collin,[24] "can hardly be more
+than an approximation, but its inadequacy will only emphasize the
+beauty of the original." Nevertheless we have here more than a feeble
+approximation. It is not equal to Shakespeare, but it is good Norwegian
+poetry and as faithful as translation can or need be. It is difficult to
+refrain from giving Portia's plea for mercy, but I shall give instead
+Collin's striking rendering of Shylock's arraignment of Antonio:[25]
+
+  Signor Antonio, mangen en gang og tit
+  har paa Rialto torv I skjældt mig ud
+  for mine pengelaan og mine renter....
+  Jeg bar det med taalmodigt skuldertræk,
+  for taalmod er jo blit vor stammes merke.
+
+  I kalder mig en vantro, blodgrisk _hund_
+  og spytter paa min jødiske gaberdin--
+  hvorfor? for brug af hvad der er mit eget!
+  Nu synes det, I trænger til min hjælp.
+
+  Nei virkelig? I kommer nu til mig
+  og siger: Shylock, laan os penge,--I,
+  som slængte eders slim hen paa mit skjæg
+  og satte foden paa mig, som I spændte,
+  en kjøter fra Jer dør, I be'r om penge!
+  Hvad skal jeg svare vel? Skal jeg 'ke svare:
+  Har en hund penge? Er det muligt, at
+  en kjøter har tre tusinde dukater?
+  Eller skal jeg bukke dybt og i trælletone
+  med sænket røst og underdanig hvisken
+  formæle:
+  "Min herre, I spytted paa mig sidste onsdag,
+  en anden dag I spændte mig, en tredje
+  I kaldte mig en hund; for al den artighed
+  jeg laaner Jer saa og saa mange penge?"
+
+    [24. Collin, _op. cit._, _Indledning_, XII.]
+
+    [25. Collin, _op. cit._, _Indledning_, XXVI. (_M. of V._, 1-3)]
+
+It is to be regretted that Collin did not give us Shylock's still more
+impassioned outburst to Salarino in Act III. He would have done it well.
+
+It would be a gracious task to give more of this translator's work. It
+is, slight though its quantity, a genuine contribution to the body of
+excellent translation literature of the world. I shall quote but one
+more passage, a few lines from _Macbeth_.[26]
+
+  "Det tyktes mig som hørte jeg en røst;
+  Sov aldrig mer! Macbeth har myrdet søvnen,
+  den skyldfri søvn, som løser sorgens floke,
+  hvert daglivs død, et bad for mødig møie,
+  balsam for sjælesaar og alnaturens
+  den søde efterret,--dog hovednæringen
+  ved livets gjæstebud....
+
+  _Lady Macbeth_:
+  Hvad er det, du mener?
+
+  _Macbeth_:
+  "Sov aldrig mer," det skreg til hele huset.
+  Glarais har myrdet søvnen, derfor Cawdor
+  skal aldrig mer faa søvn,--Macbeth,
+  Macbeth skal aldrig mer faa søvn!"
+
+    [26. Collin, _op. cit._, _Indledning_, XXV. _Macbeth_ II, 1.]
+
+
+H
+
+We have hitherto discussed the Norwegian translations of Shakespeare in
+almost exact chronological order. It has been possible to do this
+because the plays have either been translated by a single man and issued
+close together, as in the case of Hartvig Lassen, or they have appeared
+separately from the hands of different translators and at widely
+different periods. We come now, however, to a group of translations
+which, although the work of different men and published independently
+from 1901 to 1912, nevertheless belong together. They are all in
+Landsmaal and they represent quite clearly an effort to enrich the
+literature of the new dialect with translations from Shakespeare. To do
+this successfully would, obviously, be a great gain. The Maalstrævere
+would thereby prove the capacity of their tongue for the highest, most
+exotic forms of literature. They would give to it, moreover, the
+discipline which the translation of foreign classics could not fail to
+afford. It was thus a renewal of the missionary spirit of Ivar Aasen.
+And behind it all was the defiant feeling that Norwegians should have
+Shakespeare in Norwegian, not in Danish or bastard Danish.
+
+The spirit of these translations is obvious enough from the opening
+sentence of Madhus' preface to his translation of _Macbeth_:[27]
+"I should hardly have ventured to publish this first attempt at a
+Norwegian translation of Shakespeare if competent men had not urged me
+to do so." It is frankly declared to be the first Norwegian translation
+of Shakespeare. Hauge and Lassen, to say nothing of the translator of
+1818, are curtly dismissed from Norwegian literature. They belong to
+Denmark. This might be true if it were not for the bland assumption
+that nothing is really Norwegian except what is written in the dialect
+of a particular group of Norwegians. The fundamental error of the
+"Maalstrævere" is the inability to comprehend the simple fact that
+language has no natural, instinctive connection with race. An American
+born in America of Norwegian parents _may_, if his parents are energetic
+and circumstances favorable, learn the tongue of his father and mother,
+but his natural speech, the medium he uses easily, his real
+mother-tongue, will be English. Will it be contended that this American
+has lost anything in spiritual power or linguistic facility? Quite the
+contrary. The use of Danish in Norway has had the unfortunate effect of
+stirring up a bitter war between the two literary languages or the two
+dialects of the same language, but it has imposed no bonds on the
+literary or intellectual powers of a large part of the people, for the
+simple reason that these people have long used the language as their
+own. And because they live in Norway they have made the speech
+Norwegian. Despite its Danish origin, Dano-Norwegian is today as truly
+Norwegian as any other Norwegian dialect, and in its literary form it
+is, in a sense, more Norwegian than the literary Landsmaal, for the
+language of Bjørnson has grown up gradually on Norwegian soil; the
+language of Ivar Aasen is not yet acclimatized.
+
+    [27. William Shakespeare: _Macbeth_. I norsk Umskrift ved Olav
+    Madhus. Kristiania. 1901. H. Aschehoug & Co.]
+
+For these reasons it will not do to let Madhus' calm assertion go
+unchallenged. The fact is that to a large part of the Norwegian people
+Lassen's translations represent merely a slightly Danicized form of
+their own language, while to the same people the language of Madhus is
+at least as foreign as Swedish. This is not the place for a discussion
+of "Sprogstriden." We may give full recognition to Landsmaal without
+subscribing to the creed of enthusiasts. And it is still easier to give
+credit to the excellence of the Shakespeare translations in Landsmaal
+without concerning ourselves with the partisanship of the translator.
+What shall we say, then, of the _Macbeth_ of Olav Madhus?
+
+First, that it is decidedly good. The tragedy of Macbeth is stark, grim,
+stern, and the vigorous, resonant Norwegian fits admirably. There is
+little opportunity, as in Aasen's selections from _Romeo and Juliet_ for
+those unfortunate contrasts between the homespun of the modern dialect
+and the exquisite silk and gossamer of the vocabulary of romance of
+a "cultured language." Madhus has been successful in rendering into
+Landsmaal scenes as different as the witch-scene, the porter-scene
+(which Lassen omitted for fear it would contaminate the minds of school
+children), the exquisite lines of the King and Banquo on their arrival
+at Macbeth's castle, and Macbeth's last, tragic soliloquy when he learns
+of the death of his queen.
+
+Duncan and Banquo arrive at the castle of Macbeth and Duncan speaks
+those lovely lines: "This castle has a pleasant seat," etc. Madhus
+translates:
+
+  _Duncan_:
+  Ho hev eit fagert lægje, denne borgi,
+  og lufti lyar seg og gjer seg smeiki
+  aat vaare glade sansar.
+
+  _Banquo_:
+             Sumar-gjesten,
+  den tempel-kjære svala, vitnar med,
+  at himlens ande blakrar smeikin her,
+  med di at ho so gjerne her vil byggje.
+  Det finst kje sule eller takskjeggs livd
+  og ikkje voll hell vigskar, der ei ho
+  hev hengt si lette seng og barne-vogge.
+  Der ho mest bur og bræer, hev eg merkt meg,
+  er lufti herleg.
+
+This is as light and luminous as possible. Contrast it with the slow,
+solemn tempo of the opening of Act I, Sc. 7--Macbeth's "If it were done
+when 'tis done," etc.
+
+  Um det var gjort, naar d'er gjort, var det væl,
+  um det vart snart gjort; kunde løynmordsverke,
+  stengje og binde alle vonde fylgdir
+  og, med aa faa hurt honom, naa sitt maal,
+  so denne eine støyten som maa til,
+  vart enden, alt, det siste som det fyrste
+  i tidi her--den havsens øyr og bode
+  me sit paa no--,--med live som kjem etter
+  det fekk daa vaage voni. Men i slikt
+  vert domen sagd alt her. Blodtankane,
+  me el, kjem vaksne att og piner oss,
+  som gav deim liv og fostra deim; og drykken,
+  som me hev blanda eiter i aat andre,
+  vert eingong uta miskunn bodin fram
+  av rettferds hand aat vaare eigne munnar.
+
+The deep tones of a language born in mountains and along fjords finely
+re-echo the dark broodings in Macbeth's soul.
+
+Or take still another example, the witch-scene in Act IV. It opens in
+Madhus' version:
+
+  _Fyrste Heks_:
+  Tri gong mjava brandut katt.
+
+  _Andre Heks_:
+  Tri og ein gong bust-svin peip.
+
+  _Tridje Heks_:
+  Val-ramn skrik. D'er tid, d'er tid.
+
+  _Fyrste Heks_:
+  Ring um gryta gjeng me tri;
+  sleng forgiftigt seid--mang i.
+  Gyrme-gro, som under stein
+  dagar tredive og ein
+  sveita eiter, lat og leid,
+  koke fyrst i vaaro seid.
+
+  _Alle_:
+  Tvifaldt træl og møda duble;
+  brand frase, seid buble!
+
+  _Andre Heks_:
+  Møyrkjøt av ein myr-orm kald
+  so i gryta koke skal.
+  Ødle-augo, skinnveng-haar,
+  hundetunge, froskelaar,
+  slève-brodd, firfisle-svórd,
+  ule-veng og lyngaal-spórd
+  til eit seid som sinn kann rengje
+  hèl-sodd-heitt seg saman mengje!
+
+This is not only accurate; it is a decidedly successful imitation of the
+movement of the original. Madhus has done a first-rate piece of work.
+The language of witch-craft is as international as the language of
+science. But only a poet can turn it to poetic use.
+
+Not quite so successful is Macbeth's soliloquy when the death of Lady
+Macbeth is announced to him:
+
+          Det skuld'ho drygt med.
+  Aat slikt eit ord var komi betre stund.--
+  "I morgo" og "i morgo" og "i morgo,"
+  slik sig det smaatt fram etter, dag for dag,
+  til siste ord i livsens sogubok;
+  og kvart "i gaar" hev daarer vegen lyst
+  til dust og daude.
+
+It is difficult to say just where the fault lies, but the thing seems
+uncouth, a trifle too colloquial and peasant-like. The fault may be the
+translator's, but something must also be charged to his medium. The
+passage in Shakespeare is simple but it breathes distinction. The
+Landsmaal version is merely colloquial, even banal. One fine line
+there is:
+
+  "til siste ord i livsens sogubok."
+
+But the rest suggests too plainly the limitations of an uncultivated
+speech.
+
+In 1905 came a translation of _The Merchant of Venice_ by Madhus,[28]
+and, uniform with it, a little book--_Soga um Kaupmannen i Venetia_ (The
+Story of The Merchant of Venice) in which the action of the play is told
+in simple prose. In the appendatory notes the translator acknowledges
+his obligation to Arne Garborg--"Arne Garborg hev gjort mig framifraa
+god hjelp, her som med _Macbeth_. Takk og ære hev han."
+
+    [28. William Shakespeare--_Kaupmannen i Venetia_. Paa Norsk ved
+    Olav Madhus. Oslo. 1905.]
+
+What we have said of _Macbeth_ applies with no less force here. The
+translation is more than merely creditable--it is distinctly good. And
+certainly it is no small feat to have translated Shakespeare in all his
+richness and fulness into what was only fifty years ago a rustic and
+untrained dialect. It is the best answer possible to the charge often
+made against Landsmaal that it is utterly unable to convey the subtle
+thought of high and cosmopolitan culture. This was the indictment of
+Bjørnson,[29] of philologists like Torp,[30] and of a literary critic
+like Hjalmar Christensen.[31] The last named speaks repeatedly of the
+feebleness of Landsmaal when it swerves from its task of depicting
+peasant life. His criticism of the poetry of Ivar Mortensen is one long
+variation of this theme--the immaturity of Landsmaal. All of this is
+true. A finished literary language, even when its roots go deep into a
+spoken language, cannot be created in a day. It must be enriched and
+elaborated, and it must gain flexibility from constant and varied use.
+It is precisely this apprentice stage that Landsmaal is now in. The
+finished "Kultursprache" will come in good time. No one who has read
+Garborg will deny that it can convey the subtlest emotions; and Madhus'
+translations of Shakespeare are further evidence of its possibilities.
+
+    [29. Bjørnson: _Vort Sprog_.]
+
+    [30. Torp. _Samtiden_, Vol. XIX (1908), p. 408.]
+
+    [31. _Vor Literatur_.]
+
+That Madhus does not measure up to his original will astonish no one
+who knows Shakespeare translations in other languages. Even Tieck's
+and Schlegel's German, or Hagberg's Swedish, or Foersom's Danish is no
+substitute for Shakespeare. Whether or not Madhus measures up to these
+is not for me to decide, but I feel very certain that he will not suffer
+by comparison with the Danish versions by Wolff, Meisling, Wosemose, or
+even Lembcke, or with the Norwegian versions of Hauge and Lassen. The
+feeling that one gets in reading Madhus is not that he is uncouth, still
+less inaccurate, but that in the presence of great imaginative richness
+he becomes cold and barren. We felt it less in the tragedy of _Macbeth_,
+where romantic color is absent; we feel it strongly in _The Merchant of
+Venice_, where the richness of romance is instinct in every line. The
+opening of the play offers a perfect illustration. In answer to
+Antonio's complaint "In sooth I know not why I am so sad," etc, Salarino
+replies in these stately and sounding lines:
+
+  Your mind is tossing on the ocean;
+  There, where your argosies, with portly sail,--
+  Like signiors and rich burghers of the flood,
+  Or, as it were, the pageants of the sea,--
+  Do overpeer the petty traffickers
+  That curt'sy to them, do them reverence,
+  As they fly by them with their woven wings.
+
+The picture becomes very much less stately in Norwegian folk-speech:
+
+  Paa storehave huskar hugen din,
+  der dine langferd-skip med staute segl
+  som hovdingar og herremenn paa sjø
+  i drusteferd, aa kalle, gagar seg
+  paa baara millom kræmarskutur smaa',
+  som nigjer aat deim og som helsar audmjukt
+  naar dei med vovne vengir framum stryk.
+
+The last two lines are adequate, but the rest has too much the flavor of
+Ole and Peer discussing the fate of their fishing-smacks. Somewhat more
+successful is the translation of the opening of Act V, doubtless because
+it is simpler, less full of remote and sophisticated imagery. By way of
+comparison with Lassen and Collin, it may be interesting to have it at
+hand.
+
+  _Lor_:
+  Ovfagert lyser maanen. Slik ei natt,
+  daa milde vindar kysste ljuve tre
+  so lindt at knapt dei susa, slik ei natt
+  steig Troilus upp paa Troja-murane
+  og sukka saali si til Greklands telt,
+  der Kressida laag den natti.
+
+  _Jes_:
+          Slik ei natt
+  gjekk Thisbe hugrædd yvi doggvaat voll
+  og løveskuggen saag fyrr løva kom;
+  og rædd ho der-fraa rømde.
+
+  _Lor_:
+          Slik ei natt
+  stod Dido med ein siljutein i hand
+  paa villan strand og vinka venen sin
+  tilbake til Kartago.
+
+  _Jes_:
+          Slik ei natt
+  Medea trolldoms-urtir fann, til upp
+  aa yngje gamle Æson.
+
+  _Lor_:
+          Slik ei natt
+  stal Jessika seg ut fraa judens hus
+  og med ein fark til festarmann for av
+  so langt som hit til Belmont.
+
+  _Jes_:
+          Slik ei natt
+  svor ung Lorenso henne elskhugs eid
+  og hjarta hennar stal med fagre ord
+  som ikkje aatte sanning.
+
+  _Lor_:
+          Slik ei natt
+  leksa ven' Jessika som eit lite troll
+  upp for sin kjærst, og han tilgav ho.
+
+  _Jes_:
+  I natteleik eg heldt nok ut med deg,
+  um ingin kom; men hyss, eg høyrer stig.
+
+But when Madhus turns from such flights of high poetry to low comedy,
+his success is complete. It may be a long time before Landsmaal can
+successfully render the mighty line of Marlowe, or the manifold music of
+Shakespeare, but we should expect it to give with perfect verity the
+language of the people. And when we read the scenes in which Lancelot
+Gobbo figures, there is no doubt that here Landsmaal is at home. Note,
+for example, Act II, Sc. 1:
+
+  "Samvite mitt vil visst ikkje hjelpe meg med aa røme fraa denne
+  juden, husbond min. Fenden stend her attum òlbogen min og segjer til
+  meg: "Gobbo, Lanselot Gobbo; gode Lanselot, eller gode Gobbo, bruka
+  leggine; tak hyven; drag din veg." Samvite segjer: "nei, agta deg,
+  ærlige Gobbo," eller som fyr sagt: "ærlige Lanselot Gobbo, røm
+  ikkje; set deg mot røming med hæl og taa!" Men fenden, den
+  stormodige, bed meg pakka meg; "fremad mars!" segjer fenden; "legg i
+  veg!" segjer fenden; "for alt som heilagt er," segjer fenden; "vaaga
+  paa; drag i veg!" Men samvite heng un halsen paa hjarta mitt og
+  talar visdom til meg; "min ærlige ven Lanselot, som er son av ein
+  ærlig mann, eller rettare: av eit ærligt kvende; for skal eg segja
+  sant, so teva det eit grand svidt av far min; han hadde som ein
+  attaat-snev; naah; samvite segjer: "du skal ikkje fantegaa." "Du
+  skal fantegaa," segjer fenden; "nei; ikkje fantegaa," segjer
+  samvite. "Du samvit," segjer eg, "du raader meg godt." "Du fenden,"
+  segjer eg, "du raader meg godt." Fylgde eg no samvite, so vart eg
+  verande hjaa juden, som--forlate mi synd--er noko som ein devel; og
+  rømer eg fraa juden, so lyder eg fenden, som--beintfram sagt--er
+  develen sjølv. Visst og sannt: juden er sjølve develen i karnition;
+  men etter mitt vit er samvite mit vitlaust, som vil raade meg til aa
+  verta verande hjaa juden. Fenden gjev meg den venlegaste raadi; eg
+  tek kuten, fenden; hælane mine stend til din kommando; eg tek kuten."
+
+This has the genuine ring. The brisk colloquial vocabulary fits
+admirably the brilliant sophistry of the argument. And both could come
+only from Launcelot Gobbo. For "the simplicity of the folk" is one of
+those fictions which romantic closet study has woven around the study of
+"the people."
+
+Of the little re-telling of _The Merchant of Venice_, "Soga um
+Kaupmannen i Venetia"[32] which appeared in the same year, nothing need
+be said. It is a simple, unpretentious summary of the story with a
+certain charm which simplicity and naïveté always give. No name appears
+on the title-page, but we are probably safe in attributing it to
+Madhus, for in the note to _Kaupmannen i Venetia_ we read: "I _Soga um
+Kaupmannen i Venetia_ hev ein sjølve forteljingi som stykkji er bygt
+paa."
+
+    [32. _Soga um Kaupmannen i Venetia_. Oslo, 1905.]
+
+
+I
+
+In the year 1903, midway between the publication of Madhus' _Macbeth_
+and the appearance of his _Kaupmannen i Venetia_, there appeared in the
+chief literary magazine of the Landsmaal movement, "Syn og Segn," a
+translation of the fairy scenes of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ by Erik
+Eggen.[33] This is the sort of material which we should expect Landsmaal
+to render well. Oberon and Titania are not greatly different from Nissen
+and Alverne in Norwegian fairy tales, and the translator had but to
+fancy himself in Alveland to be in the enchanted wood near Athens. The
+spirit of the fairy scenes in Shakespeare is akin to the spirit of
+Asbjørnson's "Huldre-Eventyr." There is in them a community of feeling,
+of fancy, of ideas. And whereas Madhus had difficulty with the sunny
+romance of Italy, Eggen in the story of Puck found material ready to
+hand. The passage translated begins Act II, Sc. 1, and runs through Act
+II to Oberon's words immediately before the entrance of Helen and
+Demetrius:
+
+  But who comes here? I am invisible;
+  And I will overhear their conference.
+
+    [33. _Alveliv. Eller Shakespeare's Midsumarnatt Draum_ ved Erik
+    Eggen. _Syn og Segn_, 1903. No. 3-6, pp. (105-114); 248-259.]
+
+Then the translator omits everything until Puck re-enters and Oberon
+greets him with the words:
+
+  Velkomen, vandrar; hev du blomen der?
+  (Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.)
+
+Here the translation begins again and goes to the exit of Oberon and the
+entrance of Lysander and Hermia. This is all in the first selection in
+_Syn og Segn_, No. 3.
+
+In the sixth number of the same year (1903) the work is continued. The
+translation here begins with Puck's words (Act III):
+
+  What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here?
+  So near the cradle of the fairy queen?
+  What, a play toward! I'll be an auditor;
+  An actor, too, if I see cause.
+
+Then it breaks off again and resumes with the entrance of Puck and
+Bottom adorned with an ass's head. Quince's words: "O monstrous! O
+strange!" are given and then Puck's speech: "I'll follow you: I'll lead
+you about a round." After this there is a break till Bottom's song:
+
+  "The ousel cock, so black of hue," etc.
+
+And now all proceeds without break to the _Hail_ of the last elf called
+in to serve Bottom, but the following speeches between Bottom and the
+fairies, Cobweb, Mustardseed and Peaseblossom, are all cut, and the
+scene ends with Titania's speech:
+
+  "Come, wait upon him, lead him to my bower," etc.
+
+Act III, Sc. 2, follows immediately, but the translation ends with the
+first line of Oberon's speech to Puck before the entrance of Demetrius
+and Hermia:
+
+  "This falls out better than I could devise."
+
+and resumes with Oberon's words:
+
+  "I'll to my queen and beg her Indian boy,"
+
+and includes (with the omission of the last two lines) Oberon's speech
+beginning:
+
+  "But we are spirits of another sort."
+
+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:
+
+  Kor torer uhengt kjeltrings pakk daa skvaldre
+  so nære vogga hennar alvemor?
+  Kva?--skodespel i gjerdom? Eg vil sjaa paa--
+  kann hende spele med, um so eg synest.
+
+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:
+
+  Eg fylgjer dykk og fører rundt i tunn,
+  i myr og busk og ormegras og klunger,
+  og snart eg er ein hest og snart ein hund,
+  ein gris, ein mannvond bjørn, snart flammetungur,
+  og kneggjer, gøyr og ryler, murrar, brenn,
+  som hest, hund, gris, bjørn, varme--eitt um senn.
+
+we give our unqualified admiration to the skill of the translator. Or,
+compare Titania's instructions to the faries to serve her Bottom:
+
+  Ver venlege imot og tén den herren!
+  Dans vænt for augo hans, hopp der han gjeng!
+  Gjev aprikos og frukt fraa blaabærlid,
+  ei korg med druvur, fikjur, morbær i!
+  Stel honningsekken bort fraa annsam bi!
+  Til Nattljos hennar voksbein slit i fleng,--
+  kveik deim paa jonsok-onn i buskeheng!
+  Lys for min ven, naar han vil gaa i seng.
+  Fraa maala fivreld slit ein fager veng,
+  og fraa hans augo maaneljose steng.
+  Hels honom so, og kyss til honom sleng.
+
+  _Fyrste Alven_:
+  Menneskje.
+
+  _Andre Alven_:
+      Heil deg!
+
+  _Tridje Alven_:
+          Heil!
+
+  _Fjerde Alven_:
+              Heil og sæl!
+
+  _Titania_:
+  Tén honom so! Leid honom til mitt rom!
+  Eg tykkjer maanen er i augo vaat;
+  og naar han græt, daa græt kvar litin blom,
+  og minnest daa ei tilnøydd dygd med graat.
+  Legg handi paa hans munn! Og stilt far aat!
+
+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:
+
+  Han trostefar med svarte kropp
+    og nebb som appelsin,
+  og gjerdesmett med litin topp
+    og stare med tone fin.
+  Og finke, sporv og lerke graa
+    og gauk,--ho, ho![34] han lær,
+  so tidt han gjev sin næste smaa;
+    men aldri svar han fær.
+
+    [34. The translator explains in a note the pun in the original.]
+
+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:[35]
+
+  _Ein alv_:
+  Spettut orm med tungur tvo,
+  kvass bust-igel, krjup kje her!
+  Øle, staal-orm, fara no,
+  kom vaar alvemor ei nær!
+
+  _Alle alvene_:
+  Maaltrost, syng med tone full
+  du med oss vaart bysselull:
+  bysse, bysse, bysselull,
+    ei maa vald,
+    ei heksegald
+  faa vaar dronning ottefull;
+  so god natt og bysselull.
+
+  _Ein annan alv_:
+  Ingi kongrov vil me sjaa,
+  langbeint vevekjering, gakk!
+  Svart tordivel, burt her fraa,
+  burt med snigil og med makk!
+
+  _Alle alvene_:
+  Maaltrost, syng med tone full
+  du med oss vaart bysselull:
+  bysse, bysse, bysselull,
+  bysse, bysse, bysselull,
+    ei maa vald,
+    ei heksegald
+  faa vaar dronning ottefull;
+  so god natt og bysselull.
+
+    [35. Act II, Sc. 2.]
+
+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.[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
+
+  _Nissen_:
+  Kor no ande! seg, kvar skal du av?
+
+      REVISION OF 1912
+
+      _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.
+
+      _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.
+
+  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.
+
+        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.
+
+    [36. William Shakespeare--_Jonsok Draumen_--Eit Gamenspel. Paa
+    Norsk ved Erik Eggen. Oslo, 1912.]
+
+Now, admitting that
+
+    eg dogge maa
+    dei grøne straa
+  som vaar dronning dansar paa.
+
+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
+
+    Kvart nykelband
+    er adelsmann,
+  med ordenar dei glime kann;
+
+the first version is not above reproach in this respect. It might
+fairly be asked: where does Eggen get his authority for
+
+  sjaa dei stjernur alvar gav deim!
+
+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:
+
+    kvar blank rubin,
+    paa bringa skin,
+  utsender ange fin.
+
+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:
+
+  Misleade nightwanderers, laughing at their harm,
+
+Eggen has added this homelike conception in his translation:
+
+  som òg kann draga fôr til hest og naut,
+  naar berre du kvar torsdag fær din graut.
+
+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:
+
+  _Fyrste alven_:
+  Spettut orm, bustyvel kvass,
+  eiter-ødle, sleve graa,
+  fare burt fraa denne plass,
+  so vaar dronning sova maa!
+
+  _Alle_:
+  Maaltrost, syng med oss i lund
+  dronningi i sælan blund:
+    Byssam, byssam barne,
+    gryta heng i jarne.
+      Troll og nykk,
+    gakk burt med dykk
+  denne sæle skymingsstund!
+  So god natt! Sov søtt i lund!
+
+  _Andre alven_:
+  Burt, tordivel, kom kje her!
+  Makk og snigill, burt dykk vinn!
+  Kongro, far ei onnor ferd,
+  langt ifraa oss din spune spinn!
+
+  _Alle_:
+  Maaltrost, syng med oss i lund, etc.
+
+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:
+
+  Byssam, byssam barne,
+  gryta, heng i jarne,
+
+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:[37]
+
+  _Mønsaas_:
+  Er heile kompanie samla?
+
+  _Varp_:
+  Det er best du ropar deim upp alle saman, mann for mann, etter
+  lista.
+
+  _Mønsaas_:
+  Her er ei liste yver namni paa alle deim som me i heile Atén finn
+  mest høvelege til aa spela i millomstykke vaareses framfyre hertugen
+  og frua hans paa brudlaupsdagen um kvelden.
+
+  _Varp_:
+  Du Per Mønsaas, lyt fyrst segja kva stykke gjeng ut paa; les so upp
+  namni paa spelarne, og so--til saki.
+
+  _Mønsaas_:
+  Ja vel. Stykke heiter: "Det grøtelege gamanspele um Pyramus og Tisbi
+  og deira syndlege daude."
+
+  _Varp_:
+  Verkeleg eit godt stykke arbeid, skal eg segja dykk, og morsamt med.
+  No, min gode Per Mønsaas, ropa upp spelarne etter lista. Godtfolk,
+  spreid dykk.
+
+  _Mønsaas_:
+  Svara ettersom eg ropar dykk upp.
+  Nils Varp, vevar?
+
+  _Varp_:
+  Her! Seg kva for ein rolle eg skal hava, og haldt so fram.
+
+  _Mønsaas_:
+  Du, Nils Varp, er skrivin for Pyramus.
+
+  _Varp_:
+  Kva er Pyramus for slags kar? Ein elskar eller ein fark?
+
+  _Mønsaas_:
+  Ein elskar som drep seg sjølv paa ægte riddarvis av kjærleik.
+
+  _Varp_:
+  Det kjem til aa koste taarur um ein spelar det retteleg. Fær eg
+  spela det, so lyt nok dei som ser paa, sjaa til kvar dei hev augo
+  sine; eg skal grøte steinen, eg skal jamre so fælt so. For resten,
+  mi gaave ligg best for ein berserk. Eg skulde spela herr Kules
+  fraamifra--eller ein rolle, der eg kann klore og bite og slaa all
+  ting i mòl og mas:
+    Og sprikk det fjell
+    med toresmell,
+    daa sunder fell
+    kvar port so sterk.
+    Stig Føbus fram
+    bak skyatram,
+    daa sprikk med skam
+    alt gygere-herk.
+  Det der laag no høgt det. Nemn so resten av spelarane. Dette var
+  rase til herr Kules, berserk-ras; ein elskar er meir klagande.
+
+    [37. Act II, Sc. 2.]
+
+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:
+
+      Min eigin gut,
+  eg sver ved beste bogen Amor hev,
+  ved beste pili hans, med odd av gull,
+  ved duvune, dei reine og dei kvite
+  som flyg paa tun hjaa fagre Afrodite,
+  ved det som knyter mannehjarto saman,
+  ved det som føder kjærlerks fryd og gaman,
+  ved baale, der seg dronning Dido brende,
+  daa seg Æneas trulaus fraa ho vende,
+  ved kvar den eid som falske menn hev svori--
+  langt fleir enn kvinnelippur fram hev bori,
+  at paa den staden du hev nemnt for meg,
+  der skal i morgo natt eg møte deg.
+
+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:
+
+  ved duvune, dei reine og dei kvite
+  som flyg paa tun hjaa fagre Afrodite,
+
+Shakespeare says quite simply:
+
+  By the simplicity of Venus Doves,
+
+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:
+
+  _Bernardo_:
+  Hvem der?
+
+  _Francisco_:
+  Nei, svar mig først; gjør holdt og sig hvem der!
+
+  _Ber_:
+  Vor konge længe leve!
+
+  _Fra_:
+      De, Bernardo?
+
+  _Ber_:
+  Ja vel.
+
+  _Fra_:
+      De kommer jo paa klokkeslaget.
+
+  _Ber_:
+  Ja, den slog tolv nu. Gaa til ro, Francisco.
+
+  _Fra_:
+  Tak for De løser av. Her er saa surt, og jeg er dødsens træt.
+
+  _Ber_:
+  Har du hat rolig vagt?
+
+  _Fra_:
+      En mus har ei
+  sig rørt.
+
+  _Ber_:
+      Nu vel, god nat.
+  Hvis du Marcellus og Horatio ser,
+  som skal ha vakt med mig, bed dem sig skynde.
+
+  _Fra_:
+  Jeg hører dem vist nu. Holdt hoi! Hvem der.
+    (Horatio og Marcellus kommer.)
+
+  _Horatio_:
+  Kun landets venner.
+
+  _Marcellus_:
+      Danekongens folk!
+
+  _Fra_:
+  God nat, sov godt!
+
+  _Mar_:
+      Godnat, du bra soldat!
+  Hvem har løst av?
+
+  _Fra_:
+      Bernardo staar paa post.
+  God nat igjen. (Gaar.)
+
+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:
+
+  Hvad melder _De_ mig om _Dem_ selv, Laertes?
+
+and two lines below:
+
+  Hvad kan _du_ be mig om?
+
+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:
+
+  At være eller ikke være, det
+  problemet er: Om det er større av
+  en sjæl at taale skjæbnens pil og slynge
+  end ta til vaaben mot et hav av plager
+  og ende dem i kamp? At dø,--at sove,
+  ei mer; og tro, at ved en søvn vi ender
+  vor hjerteve og livets tusen støt,
+  som kjød er arving til--det maal for livet
+  maa ønskes inderlig. At dø,--at sove--
+  at sove!--Kanske drømme! Der er knuten;
+  for hvad i dødsens søvn vi monne drømme,
+  naar livets lænke vi har viklet av,
+  det holder os igjen; det er det hensyn,
+  som gir vor jammer her saa langt et liv' etc.
+
+
+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_.[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.
+
+    [38: _As You Like It_, eller _Livet i Skogen_. Dramatisk Skuespil
+    av William Shakespeare. Oversat og bearbeidet for Nationaltheatret
+    av Herman Wildenvey. Kristiania og København. 1912.]
+
+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.
+
+[Transcriber's Note:
+The summary is given here exactly as it appears in Ruud's text. Note
+in particular Wildenvey's I, 2, and Shakespeare's II, 1.]
+
+  Act I, Sc. 1.
+
+  An open place on the road to Sir Oliver's house.
+
+  The scene opens with a short, exceedingly free rendering of
+  Orlando's speech and runs on to the end of Scene 1 in Shakespeare.
+
+  Act I, Sc. 2.
+
+  Outside of Duke Frederik's Palace.
+
+  Begins with I, 2 and goes to I, 3. Then follows without change of
+  scene, I, 3. and, following that, 1, 3.
+
+  Act II.
+
+  In Wildenvey this is all one scene.
+
+  Opens with a rhapsodical conversation between the banished duke and
+  Amiens on the glories of nature and the joys of out-door life. It is
+  fully in Shakespeare's tone, but Wildenvey's own invention. After
+  this the scene continues with II, 1. The first lord's speech in
+  Wildenvey, however, is merely a free adaptation of the original, and
+  the later speech of the first lord, describing Jacques' reveries on
+  the hunt, is put into the mouth of Jacques himself. A few entirely
+  new speeches follow and the company goes out upon the hunt.
+
+  There is then a slight pause, but no scene division, and Shakespeare's
+  II, 4 follows. This is succeeded again without a break, by II, 5, II,
+  6, and II, 7 (the opening of II, 7 to the entrance of Jacques, is
+  omitted altogether) to the end of the act.
+
+  Act III.
+
+  This act has two scenes.
+
+  Sc. 1. In Duke Frederik's palace. It opens with II, I and then
+  follows III, 1.
+
+  Sc. 2. In the Forest of Arden. Evening.
+
+  Begins with III, 2. Then follows III, 4, III, 5, IV, 1.
+
+  Act IV.
+
+  Wildenvey's last act (IV) opens with Shakespeare's IV, 2 and
+  continues: IV, 3, V, 1, V, 2, V, 3, V, 4.
+
+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_: (kommer ind med tjeneren Adam)
+  Nu kan du likesaa godt faa vite hvordan alle mine bedrøveligheter
+  begynder, Adam! Min salig far testamenterte mig nogen fattige tusen
+  kroner og paala uttrykkelig min bror at gi mig en standsmæssig
+  opdragelse. Men se hvordan han opfylder sin broderpligt mot mig!
+  Han lar min bror Jacques studere, og rygtet melder om hans store
+  fremgang. Men mig underholder han hjemme, det vil si, han holder mig
+  hjemme uten at underholde mig. For man kan da vel ikke kalde det at
+  underholde en adelsmand som ellers regnes for at staldfore en okse!
+
+  _Adam_:
+  Det er synd om Eder, herre, I som er min gamle herres bedste søn!
+  Men jeg tjener Eders bror, og er alene tjener...
+
+  _Orl_:
+  Her hos ham har jeg ikke kunnet lægge mig til noget andet end vækst,
+  og det kan jeg være ham likesaa forbunden for som hans husdyr hist
+  og her. Formodentlig er det det jeg har arvet av min fars aand som
+  gjør oprør mot denne behandling. Jeg har ingen utsigt til nogen
+  forandring til det bedre, men hvad der end hænder, vil jeg ikke
+  taale det længer.
+
+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.
+
+  Den Landflygtige Hertug (kommer ut fra en grotte i skogen)
+  Vær hilset, dag, som lægges til de andre
+  av mine mange motgangs dage.
+  Vær hilset nu, naar solen atter stempler
+  sit gyldne segl paa jordens stolte pande.
+  Vær hilset, morgen, med din nye rigdom,
+  med dug og duft fra alle trær og blomster.
+  Glade, blanke fugleøines perler
+  blinker alt av sol som duggens draaper,
+  hilser mig som herre og som ven. (En fugl flyver op over hans hode.)
+  Ei, lille sangerskjelm, godt ord igjen?
+
+  _Amiens_:
+  (hertugens ven, kommer likeledes ut av hulen).
+  Godmorgen, ven og broder i eksilet.
+
+  _Hertugen_:
+  Godmorgen, Amiens, du glade sanger!
+  Du er vel enig i at slik en morgen
+  i skogen her med al dens liv og lek
+  er fuld erstatning for den pragt vi tapte,
+  ja mer end hoffets smigergyldne falskhet?
+
+  _Amiens_:
+  Det ligner litt paa selve Edens have,
+  og trær og dyr og andre forekomster
+  betragter os som Adamer, kanhænde.
+
+  _Hertugen_:
+  Din spøg er vel en saadan sanger værd.
+  Du mener med at her er alting herlig,
+  sommer, vinter, vaar og høsttid veksler.
+  Solen skinner, vind og veiret driver.
+  Vinterblaasten blaaser op og biter
+  og fortæller uden sminket smiger
+  hvem vi er, og hvor vi os befinder.
+  Ja, livet her er ei ly for verdens ondskap,
+  er stolt og frit og fuldt av rike glæder:
+  hver graasten synes god og kirkeklok,
+  hvert redetræ er jo en sangers slot,
+  og alt er skjønt, og alt er saare godt.
+
+  _Amiens_:
+  Du er en godt benaadet oversætter,
+  naar du kan tolke skjæbnens harske talesæt
+  i slike sterke, stemningsfulde ord...
+
+  (En hofmand, derefter Jacques og tjenere kommer.)
+
+  _Hertugen_:
+  Godmorgen, venner--vel, saa skal vi jage
+  paa vildtet her, de vakre, dumme borgere
+  av denne øde og forlate stad...
+
+  _Jacques_:
+  Det er synd at søndre deres vakre lemmer
+  med pile-odd.
+
+  _Amiens_:
+      Det samme sier du altid,
+  du er for melankolsk og bitter, Jacques.
+
+A careful comparison of the translation with the original will reveal
+certain verbal resemblances, notably in the duke's speech:
+
+  Din spøk er vel en saadan sanger værd, etc.
+
+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:
+
+  _Touchstone_:
+  Har du været ved hoffet, hyrde?
+
+  _Korin_:
+  Visselig ikke.
+
+  _Touch_:
+  Da er du evig fordømt.
+
+  _Korin_:
+  Det haaber jeg da ikke.
+
+  _Touch_:
+  Visselig, da er du fordømt som en sviske.
+
+  _Korin_:
+  Fordi jeg ikke har været ved hoffet? Hvad mener I?
+
+  _Touch_:
+  Hvis du ikke har været ved hoffet, saa har du aldrig set gode seder,
+  og hvis du ikke har set gode seder, saa maa dine seder være slette,
+  og slette seder er synd, og syndens sold er død og fordømmelse. Du
+  er i en betænkelig tilstand, hyrde!
+
+And the mocking verses all rhyming in _in-ind_ in III, 3 (Shak. III, 2):
+"From the East to western Ind," etc., are given with marvelous
+cleverness:
+
+  Fra øst til vest er ei at finde
+  en ædelsten som Rosalinde.
+  Al verden om paa alle vinde
+  skal rygtet gaa om Rosalinde.
+  Hvor har en maler nogensinde
+  et kunstverk skapt som Rosalinde?
+  Al anden deilighet maa svinde
+  av tanken bort--for Rosalinde.
+
+Or Touchstone's parody:
+
+  Hjorten skriker efter hinde,
+  skrik da efter Rosalinde,
+  kat vil katte gjerne finde,
+  hvem vil finde Rosalinde.
+  Vinterklær er tit for tynde,
+  det er ogsaa Rosalinde.
+  Nøtten søt har surhamshinde,
+  slik en nøtt er Rosalinde.
+  Den som ros' med torn vil finde,
+  finder den--og Rosalinde.
+
+With even greater felicity Wildenvey has rendered the songs of the play.
+His verses are not, in any strict sense, translations, but they have a
+life and movement which, perhaps, interpret the original more fully than
+any translation could interpret it. What freshness and sparkle in "Under
+the Greenwood Tree!" I give only the first stanza:
+
+  Under de grønne trær
+  hvem vil mig møte der?
+  Hvem vil en tone slaa
+  frit mot det blide blaa?
+  Kom hit og herhen, hit og herhen,
+  kom, kjære ven,
+    her skal du se,
+    trær skal du se,
+  sommer og herlig veir skal du se.
+
+Or what could be better than the exhilirating text of "Blow, blow, thou
+winter wind," as Wildenvey has given it? Again only the first stanza:
+
+    Blaas, blaas du barske vind,
+    troløse venners sind
+    synes os mere raa.
+    Bar du dig end saa sint,
+    bet du dog ei saa blindt,
+    pustet du ogsaa paa.
+  Heiho! Syng heiho! i vor skog under løvet.
+  Alt venskap er vammelt, al elskov er tøvet,
+    men her under løvet
+    er ingen bedrøvet.
+
+_Livet i Skogen_, then, must not be read as a translation of _As You
+Like It_, but is immensely worth reading for its own sake. Schiller
+recast and rewrote _Macbeth_ in somewhat the same way, but Schiller's
+_Macbeth_, condemned by its absurd porter-scene, is today nothing
+more than a literary curiosity. I firmly believe that Wildenvey's
+"bearbeidelse" deserves a better fate. It gave new life to the
+Shakespeare tradition on the Norwegian stage, and is in itself,
+a genuine contribution to the literature of Norway.
+
+
+SUMMARY
+
+If we look over the field of Norwegian translation of Shakespeare,
+the impression we get is not one to inspire awe. The translations are
+neither numerous nor important. There is nothing to be compared with the
+German of Tieck and Schlegel the Danish of Foersom, or the Swedish of
+Hagberg.
+
+But the reason is obvious. Down to 1814 Norway was politically and
+culturally a dependency of Denmark. Copenhagen was the seat of
+government, of literature, and of polite life. To Copenhagen cultivated
+Norwegians looked for their models and their ideals. When Shakespeare
+made his first appearance in the Danish literary world--Denmark and
+Norway--it was, of course, in pure Danish garb. Boye, Rosenfeldt,
+and Foersom gave to their contemporaries more or less satisfactory
+translations of Shakespeare, and Norwegians were content to accept the
+Danish versions. In one or two instances they made experiments of their
+own. An unknown man of letters translated a scene from _Julius Caesar_
+in 1782, and in 1818 appeared a translation of _Coriolanus_. But there
+is little that is typically Norwegian about either of these--a word or a
+phrase here and there. For the rest, they are written in pure Danish,
+and but for the title-page, no one could tell whether they were
+published in Copenhagen or Christiania and Trondhjem.
+
+In the meantime Foersom had begun his admirable Danish translations,
+and the work stopped in Norway. The building of a nation and literary
+interests of another character absorbed the attention of the cultivated
+world. Hauge's translation of _Macbeth_ is not significant, nor are
+those of Lassen thirty years later. A scholar could, of course, easily
+show that they are Norwegian, but that is all. They never succeeded in
+displacing Foersom-Lembcke.
+
+More important are the Landsmaal translations beginning with Ivar
+Aasen's in 1853. They are interesting because they mark one of the most
+important events in modern Norwegian culture--the language struggle.
+Ivar Aasen set out to demonstrate that "maalet" could be used in
+literature of every sort, and the same purpose, though in greatly
+tempered form, is to be detected in every Landsmaal translation since.
+Certainly in their outward aim they have succeeded. And, despite the
+handicap of working in a language new, rough, and untried, they have
+given to their countrymen translations of parts of Shakespeare which
+are, at least, as good as those in "Riksmaal."
+
+Herman Wildenvey stands alone. His work is neither a translation nor
+a mere paraphrase; it is a reformulating of Shakespeare into a new work
+of art. He has accomplished a feat worth performing, but it cannot be
+called translating Shakespeare. It must be judged as an independent
+work.
+
+Whether Norway is always to go to Denmark for her standard Shakespeare,
+or whether she is to have one of her own is, as yet, a question
+impossible to answer. A pure Landsmaal translation cannot satisfy, and
+many Norwegians refuse to recognize the Riksmaal as Norwegian at all. In
+the far, impenetrable future the language question may settle itself,
+and when that happy day comes, but not before, we may look with some
+confidence for a "standard" Shakespeare in a literary garb which all
+Norwegians will recognize as their own.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+Shakespeare Criticism In Norway
+
+
+The history of Shakespearean translation in Norway cannot, by any
+stretch of the imagination, be called distinguished. It is not, however,
+wholly lacking in interesting details. In like manner the history of
+Shakespearean criticism, though it contains no great names and no
+fascinating chapters, is not wholly without appeal and significance. We
+shall, then, in the following, consider this division of our subject.
+
+Our first bit of Shakespearean criticism is the little introductory note
+which the anonymous translator of the scenes from _Julius Caesar_ put at
+the head of his translation in _Trondhjems Allehaande_ for October 23,
+1782. And even this is a mere statement that the passage in the original
+"may be regarded as a masterpiece," and that the writer purposes to
+render not merely Antony's eloquent appeal but also the interspersed
+ejaculations of the crowd, "since these, too, are evidence of
+Shakespeare's understanding of the human soul and of his realization
+of the manner in which the oration gradually brought about the result
+toward which Antony aimed."
+
+This is not profound criticism, to be sure, but it shows clearly that
+this litterateur in far-away Trondhjem had a definite, if not a very new
+and original, estimate of Shakespeare. It is significant that there is
+no hint of apology, of that tone which is so common in Shakespearean
+criticism of the day--Shakespeare was a great poet, but his genius was
+wild and untamed. This unknown Norwegian, apparently, had been struck
+only by the verity of the scene, and in that simplicity showed himself a
+better critic of Shakespeare than many more famous men. Whoever he was,
+his name is lost to us now. He deserves better than to be forgotten,
+but it seems that he was forgotten very early. Foersom refers to him
+casually, as we have seen, but Rahbek does not mention him.[1] Many
+years later Paul Botten Hansen, one of the best equipped bookmen that
+Norway has produced, wrote a brief review of Lembcke's translation. In
+the course of this he enumerates the Dano-Norwegian translations known
+to him. There is not a word about his countryman in Trondhjem.[2]
+
+    [1. "Shakespeareana i Danmark"--_Dansk Minerva_, 1816 (III)
+    pp. 151 ff.]
+
+    [2. _Illustreret Nyhedsblad_, 1865, pp. 96 ff.]
+
+After this solitary landmark, a long time passed before we again find
+evidence of Shakespearean studies in Norway. The isolated translation
+of _Coriolanus_ from 1818 shows us that Shakespeare was read, carefully
+and critically read, but no one turned his attention to criticism or
+scholarly investigation. Indeed, I have searched Norwegian periodical
+literature in vain for any allusion to Shakespeare between 1782 and
+1827. Finally, in the latter year _Den Norske Husven_ adorns its
+title-page with a motto from Shakespeare. _Christiania Aftenbladet_
+for July 19, 1828, reprints Carl Bagger's clever poem on Shakespeare's
+reputed love-affair with "Fanny," an adventure which got him into
+trouble and gave rise to the bon-mot, "William the Conqueror ruled
+before Richard III." The poem was reprinted from _Kjöbenhavns Flyvende
+Post_ (1828); we shall speak of it again in connection with our study of
+Shakespeare in Denmark.
+
+After this there is another break. Not even a reference to Shakespeare
+occurs in the hundreds of periodicals I have examined, until the long
+silence is broken by a short, fourth-hand article on Shakespeare's life
+in _Skilling Magazinet_ for Sept. 23, 1843. The same magazine gives a
+similar popular account in its issue for Sept. 4, 1844. Indeed, several
+such articles and sketches may be found in popular periodicals of the
+years following.
+
+In 1855, however, appeared Niels Hauge's afore mentioned translation of
+_Macbeth_, and shortly afterward Professor Monrad, who, according to
+Hauge himself, had at least given him valuable counsel in his work,
+wrote a review in _Nordisk Tidsskrift for Videnskab og Literatur_.[3]
+Monrad was a pedant, stiff and inflexible, but he was a man of good
+sense, and when he was dealing with acknowledged masterpieces he could
+be depended upon to say the conventional things well.
+
+    [3. See Vol. III (1855), pp. 378 ff.]
+
+He begins by saying that if any author deserves translation it
+is Shakespeare, for in him the whole poetic, romantic ideal of
+Protestantism finds expression. He is the Luther of poetry, though
+between Luther and Shakespeare there is all the difference between
+religious zeal and the quiet contemplation of the beautiful. Both belong
+to the whole world, Shakespeare because his characters, humor, art,
+reflections, are universal in their validity and their appeal. Wherever
+he is read he becomes the spokesman against narrowness, dogmatism, and
+intolerance. To translate Shakespeare, he points out, is difficult
+because of the archaic language, the obscure allusions, and the intense
+originality of the expression. Shakespeare, indeed, is as much the
+creator as the user of his mother-tongue. The one translation of
+_Macbeth_ in existence, Foersom's, is good, but it is only in part
+Shakespeare, and the times require something more adequate and
+"something more distinctly our own." Monrad feels that this should
+not be altogether impossible "when we consider the intimate relations
+between England and Norway, and the further coincidence that the
+Norwegian language today is in the same state of flux and transition,
+as was Elizabethan English." All translations at present, he continues,
+can be but experiments, and should aim primarily at a faithful rendering
+of the text. Monrad calls attention to the fact--in which he was, of
+course, mistaken--that this is the first translation of the original
+_Macbeth_ into Dano-Norwegian or into Danish. It is a work of undoubted
+merit, though here and there a little stiff and hazy, "but Shakespeare
+is not easily clarified." The humorous passages, thinks the reviewer,
+are a severe test of a translator's powers and this test Hauge has met
+with conspicuous success. Also he has aquitted himself well in the
+difficult matter of putting Shakespeare's meter into Norwegian.
+
+The last two pages are taken up with a detailed study of single
+passages. The only serious error Monrad has noticed is the following: In
+Act II, 3 one of the murderers calls out "A light! A light!" Regarding
+this passage Monrad remarks: "It is certainly a mistake to have the
+second murderer call out, "Bring a light here!" (Lys hid!) The murderer
+does not demand a light, but he detects a shimmer from Banquo's
+approaching torch." The rest of the section is devoted to mere trifles.
+
+This is the sort of review which we should expect from an intelligent
+and well-informed man. Monrad was not a scholar, nor even a man of
+delicate and penetrating reactions. But he had sound sense and perfect
+self-assurance, which made him something of a Samuel Johnson in the
+little provincial Kristiania of his day. At any rate, he was the only
+one who took the trouble to review Hauge's translation, and even he was
+doubtless led to the task because of his personal interest in the
+translator. If we may judge from the stir it made in periodical
+literature, _Macbeth_ fell dead from the press.
+
+The tercentenary of Shakespeare's birth (1864) aroused a certain
+interest in Norway, and little notes and articles are not infrequent
+in the newspapers and periodicals about that time. _Illustreret
+Nyhedsblad_[4] has a short, popular article on Stratford-on-Avon. It
+contains the usual Shakespeare apocrypha--the Sir Thomas Lucy story, the
+story of the apple tree under which Shakespeare and his companions slept
+off the effects of too much Bedford ale--and all the rest of it. It
+makes no pretense of being anything but an interesting hodge-podge
+for popular consumption. The next year, 1864, the same periodical
+published[5] on the traditional day of Shakespeare's birth a rather long
+and suggestive article on the English drama before Shakespeare. If this
+article had been original, it might have had a certain significance,
+but, unfortunately, it is taken from the German of Bodenstedt. The
+only significant thing about it is the line following the title: "Til
+Erindring paa Trehundredsaarsdagen efter Shakespeares Födsel, d. 23
+April, 1563."
+
+    [4. Vol. XII (1863), pp. 199 ff.]
+
+    [5. Vol. XIII (1864), pp. 65 ff.]
+
+More interesting than this, however, are the verses written by the then
+highly esteemed poet, Andreas Munch, and published in his own magazine,
+_For Hjemmet_,[6] in April, 1864. Munch rarely rises above mediocrity
+and his tribute to the bard of Avon is the very essence of it.
+He begins:
+
+  I disse Dage gaar et vældigt Navn
+  Fra Mund til Mund, fra Kyst til Kyst rundt Jorden--
+  Det straaler festligt over fjernest Havn,
+  Og klinger selv igjennem Krigens Torden,
+  Det slutter alle Folk i Aandens Favn,
+  Og er et Eenheds Tegn i Striden vorden--
+  I Stjerneskrift det staaer paa Tidens Bue,
+  Og leder Slægterne med Hjertelue.
+
+    [6. Vol. V, p. 572.]
+
+and, after four more stanzas, he concludes:
+
+  Hos os har ingen ydre Fest betegnet
+  Vort Folks Tribut til denne store Mand.
+  Er vi af Hav og Fjelde saa omhegnet,
+  At ei hans Straaler trænge til os kan?
+  Nei,--Nordisk var hans Aand og netop egnet
+  Til at opfattes af vort Norden-Land,
+  Og mer maaske end selv vi tro og tænke,
+  Har Shakespeare brudt for os en fremmed Lænke.
+
+One has a feeling that Munch awoke one morning, discovered from his
+calendar that Shakespeare's birthday was approaching, and ground out
+this poem to fill space in _Hjemmet_. But his intentions are good. No
+one can quarrel with the content. And when all is said, he probably
+expressed, with a fair degree of accuracy, the feeling of his time.
+It remains but to note a detail or two. First, that the poet, even in
+dealing with Shakespeare, found it necessary to draw upon the prevailing
+"Skandinavisme" and label Shakespeare "Nordisk"; second, the accidental
+truth of the closing couplet. If we could interpret this as referring
+to Wergeland, who _did_ break the chains of foreign bondage, and gave
+Norway a place in the literature of the world, we should have the first
+reference to an interesting fact in Norwegian literary history. But
+doubtless we have no right to credit Munch with any such acumen. The
+couplet was put into the poem merely because it sounded well.
+
+More important than this effusion of bad verse from the poet of fashion
+was a little article which Paul Botten Hansen wrote in _Illustreret
+Nyhedsblad_[7] in 1865. Botten Hansen had a fine literary appreciation
+and a profound knowledge of books. The effort, therefore, to give
+Denmark and Norway a complete translation of Shakespeare was sure to
+meet with his sympathy. In 1861 Lembcke began his revision of Foersom's
+work, and, although it must have come up to Norway from Copenhagen
+almost immediately, no allusion to it is found in periodical literature
+till Botten Hansen wrote his review of Part (Hefte) XI. This part
+contains _King John_. The reviewer, however, does not enter upon any
+criticism of the play or of the translation; he gives merely a short
+account of Shakespearean translation in the two countries before
+Lembcke. Apparently the notice is written without special research, for
+it is far from complete, but it gives, at any rate, the best outline of
+the subject which we have had up to the present. Save for a few lines of
+praise for Foersom and a word for Hauge, "who gave the first accurate
+translation of this masterpiece (_Macbeth_) of which Dano-Norwegian
+literature can boast before 1861," the review is simply a loosely
+connected string of titles. Toward the close Botten Hansen writes:
+"When to these plays (the standard Danish translations) we add (certain
+others, which are given), we believe that we have enumerated all the
+Danish translations of Shakespeare." This investigation has shown,
+however, that there are serious gaps in the list. Botten Hansen calls
+Foersom's the first Danish translation of Shakespeare. It is curious
+that he should have overlooked Johannes Boye's _Hamlet_ of 1777, or
+Rosenfeldt's translation of six plays (1790-1792). It is less strange
+that he did not know Sander and Rahbek's translation of the unaltered
+_Macbeth_ of 1801--which preceded Hauge by half a century--for this was
+buried in Sander's lectures. Nor is he greatly to be blamed for his
+ignorance of the numerous Shakespearean fragments which the student may
+find tucked away in Danish reviews, from M.C. Brun's _Svada_ (1796) and
+on. Botten Hansen took his task very lightly. If he had read Foersom's
+notes to his translation he would have found a clue of interest to him
+as a Norwegian. For Foersom specifically refers to a translation of a
+scene from _Julius Caesar_ in _Trondhjems Allehaande_.
+
+    [7. Vol. XIV, p. 96.]
+
+Lembcke's revision, which is the occasion of the article, is greeted
+with approval and encouragement. There is no need for Norwegians to go
+about preparing an independent translation. Quite the contrary. The
+article closes: "Whether or not Lembcke has the strength and endurance
+for such a gigantic task, time alone will tell. At any rate, it is the
+duty of the public to encourage the undertaking and make possible its
+completion."
+
+We come now to the most interesting chapter in the history of
+Shakespeare in Norway. This is a performance of _A Midsummer Night's
+Dream_ under the direction of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson at Christiania
+Theater, April 17, 1865. The story belongs rather to the history of
+Shakespeare on the Norwegian stage, but the documents of the affair are
+contributions to Shakespearean criticism and must, accordingly, be
+discussed here. Bjørnson's fiery reply to his critics of April 28
+is especially valuable as an analysis of his own attitude toward
+Shakespeare.
+
+Bjørnson became director of Christiania Theater in January, 1865, and
+the first important performance under his direction was _A Midsummer
+Night's Dream_ (Skjärsommernatsdrömmen) in Oehlenschläger's translation,
+with music by Mendelssohn.[8] Bjørnson had strained the resources
+of the theater to the utmost to give the performance distinction.
+But the success was doubtful. _Aftenposten_ found it tiresome, and
+_Morgenbladet_, in two long articles, tore it to shreds.[9] It is
+worth while to review the controversy in some detail.
+
+    [8. Blanc. _Christianias Theaters Historie_, p. 196.]
+
+    [9. April 26-27, 1865.]
+
+The reviewer begins by saying that the play is so well known that it
+is needless to give an account of it. "But what is the meaning," he
+exclaims, "of this bold and poetic mixture of clowns and fairies, of
+mythology, and superstition, of high and low, of the earthly and
+the supernatural? And the scene is neither Athens nor Greece, but
+Shakespeare's own England; it is his own time and his own spirit." We
+are transported to an English grove in early summer with birds, flowers,
+soft breezes, and cooling shadows. What wonder that a man coming in from
+the hunt or the society of men should fill such a place with fairies and
+lovely ladies and people it with sighs, and passions, and stories? And
+all this has been brought together by a poet's fine feeling. This it is
+which separates the play from so many others of its kind now so common
+and often so well presented. Here a master's spirit pervades all, unites
+all in lovely romance. Other plays are mere displays of scenery and
+costume by comparison. Even the sport of the clowns throws the whole
+into stronger relief.
+
+Now, how should such a play be given? Obviously, by actors of the first
+order and with costumes and scenery the most splendid. This goes without
+saying, for the play is intended quite as much to be seen as to be
+heard. To do it justice, the performance must bring out some of the
+splendor and the fantasy with which it was conceived. As we read
+_A Midsummer Night's Dream_ it is easy to imagine the glorious
+succession of splendid scenes, but on the stage the characters become
+flesh and blood with fixed limitations, and the illusion is easily lost
+unless every agency is used to carry it out. Hence the need of lights,
+of rich costumes, splendid backgrounds, music, rhythm.
+
+The play opens in an apparently uninhabited wood. Suddenly all comes
+to life--gay, full, romantic life. This is the scene to which we are
+transported. "It is a grave question," continues the reviewer, "if it is
+possible for the average audience to attain the full illusion which the
+play demands, and with which, in reading, we have no difficulty. One
+thing is certain, the audience was under no illusion. Some, those who do
+not pretend to learning or taste, wondered what it was all about. Only
+when the lion moved his tail, or the ass wriggled his ears were they at
+all interested. Others were frankly amused from first to last, no less
+at Hermia's and Helen's quarrel than at the antics of the clowns. Still
+others, the cultivated minority, were simply indifferent."
+
+The truth is that the performance was stiff and cold. Not for an instant
+did it suggest the full and passionate life which is the theme and the
+background of the play. Nor is this strange. _A Midsummer Night's Dream_
+is plainly beyond the powers of our theatre. Individual scenes were well
+done, but the whole was a cheerless piece of business.
+
+The next day the same writer continues his analysis. He points out that
+the secret of the play is the curious interweaving of the real world
+with the supernatural. Forget this but for a moment, and the piece
+becomes an impossible monstrosity without motivation or meaning.
+Shakespeare preserves this unity in duality. The two worlds seem to meet
+and fuse, each giving something of itself to the other. But this unity
+was absent from the performance. The actors did not even know their
+lines, and thus the spell was broken. The verse must flow from the lips
+in a limpid stream, especially in a fairy play; the words must never
+seem a burden. But even this elementary rule was ignored in our
+performance. And the ballet of the fairies was so bad that it might
+better have been omitted. Puck should not have been given by a woman,
+but by a boy as he was in Shakespeare's day. Only the clown scenes
+were unqualifiedly good, "as we might expect," concludes the reviewer
+sarcastically.
+
+The article closes with a parting shot at the costuming and the scenery.
+Not a little of it was inherited from "Orpheus in the Lower World." Are
+we so poor as that? Better wait, and for the present, give something
+which demands less of the theatre. The critic grants that the
+presentation may prove profitable but, on the whole, Bjørnson must
+feel that he has assisted at the mutilation of a master.
+
+Bjørnson did not permit this attack to go unchallenged. He was not the
+man to suffer in silence, and in this case he could not be silent. His
+directorate was an experiment, and there were those in Christiania
+who were determined to make it unsuccessful. It was his duty to set
+malicious criticism right. He did so in _Aftenbladet_[10] in an article
+which not only answered a bit of ephemeral criticism but which remains
+to this day an almost perfect example of Bjørnson's polemical
+prose--fresh, vigorous, genuinely eloquent, with a marvelous fusing
+of power and fancy.
+
+    [10. April 28. Reprinted in Bjørnson's _Taler og Skrifter_.
+    Udgivet af C. Collin og H. Eitrem. Kristiania. 1912. Vol. I,
+    pp. 263-270.]
+
+He begins with an analysis of the play: The play is called a dream. But
+wherein lies the dream? 'Why,' we are told, 'in the fact that fairies
+sport, that honest citizens, with and without asses' heads, put on a
+comedy, that lovers pursue each other in the moonlight.' But where is
+the law in all this? If the play is without law (Lov = organic unity),
+it is without validity.
+
+But it does have artistic validity. The dream is more than a fantasy.
+The same experiences come to all of us. "The play takes place, now in
+your life, now in mine. A young man happily engaged or happily married
+dreams one night that this is all a delusion. He must be engaged to, he
+must marry another. The image of the 'chosen one' hovers before him, but
+he can not quite visualize it, and he marries with a bad conscience.
+Then he awakens and thanks God that it is all a bad dream (Lysander). Or
+a youth is tired of her whom he adored for a time. He even begins to
+flirt with another. And then one fine night he dreams that he worships
+the very woman he loathes, that he implores her, weeps for her, fights
+for her (Demetrius). Or a young girl, or a young wife, who loves and is
+loved dreams, that her beloved is fleeing from her. When she follows him
+with tears and petitions, he lifts his hand against her. She pursues
+him, calls to him to stop, but she cannot reach him. She feels all the
+agony of death till she falls back in a calm, dreamless sleep. Or she
+dreams that the lover she cannot get comes to her in a wood and tells
+her that he really does love her, that her eyes are lovelier than the
+stars, her hands whiter than the snow on Taurus. But other visions come,
+more confusing. Another, whom she has never given a thought, comes and
+tells her the same story. His protestations are even more glowing--and
+it all turns to contention and sorrow, idle pursuit and strife, till her
+powers fail (Helena).
+
+"This is the dream chain of the lovers. The poet causes the man to dream
+that he is unfaithful, or that he is enamored of one whom he does not
+love. And he makes the woman dream that she is deserted or that she is
+happy with one whom she cannot get. And together these dreams tell us:
+watch your thoughts, watch your passions, you, walking in perfect
+confidence at the side of your beloved. They (the thoughts and passions)
+may bring forth a flower called 'love in idleness'--a flower which
+changes before you are aware of it. The dream gives us reality reversed,
+but reversed in such a way that there is always the possibility that it
+may, in an unguarded moment, take veritable shape.
+
+"And this dream of the lovers is given a paradoxical counterpart. A
+respectable, fat citizen dreams one night that he is to experience the
+great triumph of his life. He is to be presented before the duke's
+throne as the greatest of heroes. He dreams that he cannot get dressed,
+that he cannot get his head attended to, because, as a matter of fact,
+his head is not his own excellent head, but the head of an ass with long
+ears, a snout, and hair that itches. 'This is exactly like a fairy tale
+of my youth,' he dreams. And indeed, it is a dream! The mountain opens,
+the captive princess comes forth and leads him in, and he rests his head
+in her lap all strewn with blossoms. The lovely trolls come and scratch
+his head and music sounds from the rocks. It is characteristic of
+Shakespeare that the lovers do not dream fairy tales of their childhood.
+Higher culture has given them deeper passions, more intense personal
+relations; in dreams they but continue the life of waking. But the good
+weaver who lives thoroughly content in his own self-satisfaction and in
+the esteem of his neighbors, who has never reflected upon anything that
+has happened to him, but has received each day's blessings as they have
+come--this man sees, the moment he lays his head on the pillow, the
+fairies and the fairy queen. To him the whole circle of childhood
+fantasy reveals itself; nothing is changed, nothing but this absurd
+ass's head which he wears, and this curious longing for dry, sweet hay.
+
+"This is the dream and the action of the play. Superficially, all this
+magic is set in motion by the fairies; Theseus and his train, with whom
+come hunting horn and hunting talk and processional--are, in reality,
+the incarnation of the festival. And the comedy at the close is added by
+way of counterpiece to the light, delicate fancies of the dream. It is
+the thoughts we have thought, the painfully-wrought products of the
+waking mind, given in a sparkle of mocking laughter against the
+background of nightly visions. See the play over and over again. Do
+not study it with Bottom's ass's head, and do not be so blasé that you
+reject the performance because it does not command the latest electrical
+effects."
+
+Bjørnson then proceeds to discuss the staging. He admits by implication
+that the machinery and the properties are not so elaborate as they
+sometimes are in England, but points out that the equipment of
+Christiania Theater is fully up to that which, until a short time
+before, was considered entirely adequate in the great cities of Europe.
+And is machinery so important? The cutting of the play used at this
+performance was originally made by Tieck for the court theater at
+Potsdam. From Germany it was brought to Stockholm, and later to
+Christiania. "The spirit of Tieck pervades this adaptation. It is easy
+and natural. The spoken word has abundant opportunity to make itself
+felt, and is neither overwhelmed by theater tricks nor set aside by
+machinery. Tieck, who understood stage machinery perfectly, gave it free
+play where, as in modern operas, machinery is everything. The same is
+true of Mendelssohn. His music yields reverently to the spoken word. It
+merely accompanies the play like a new fairy who strews a strain or two
+across the stage before his companions enter, and lends them wings by
+which they may again disappear. Only when the words and the characters
+who utter them have gone, does the music brood over the forest like a
+mist of reminiscence, in which our imagination may once more synthesize
+the picture of what has gone before."
+
+Tieck's adaptation is still the standard one. Englishmen often stage
+Shakespeare's romantic plays more elaborately. They even show us a ship
+at sea in _The Tempest_. But Shakespeare has fled England; they are left
+with their properties, out of which the spirit of Shakespeare will not
+rise. It is significant that the most distinguished dramaturg of
+Germany, Dingelstedt, planned a few years before to go to London with
+some of the best actors in Germany to teach Englishmen how to play
+Shakespeare once more.
+
+Bjørnson closes this general discussion of scenery and properties
+with a word about the supreme importance of imagination to the playgoer.
+"I cannot refrain from saying that the imagination that delights in the
+familiar is stronger and healthier than that which loses itself in
+longings for the impossible. To visualize on the basis of a few and
+simple suggestions--that is to possess imagination; to allow the images
+to dissolve and dissipate--that is to have no imagination at all. Every
+allusion has a definite relation to the familiar, and if our playgoers
+cannot, after all that has been given here for years, feel the least
+illusion in the presence of the properties in _A Midsummer Night's
+Dream_, then it simply means that bad critics have broken the spell."
+Why should Norwegians require an elaborate wood-scene to be transported
+to the living woods? A boulevardier of Paris, indeed, might have need of
+it, but not a Norwegian with the great forests at his very doors. And
+what real illusion is there in a waterfall tumbling over a painted
+curtain, or a ship tossing about on rollers? Does not such apparatus
+rather destroy the illusion? "The new inventions of stage mechanicians
+are far from being under such perfect control that they do not often
+ruin art. We are in a period of transition. Why should we here, who are
+obliged to wait a long time for what is admittedly satisfactory, commit
+all the blunders which mark the way to acknowledged perfection?"
+
+It would probably be difficult to find definite and tangible evidence
+of Shakespeare's influence in Bjørnson's work, and we are, therefore,
+doubly glad to have his own eloquent acknowledgement of his debt
+to Shakespeare. The closing passus of Bjørnson's article deserves
+quotation for this reason alone. Unfortunately I cannot convey its warm,
+illuminating style: "Of all the poetry I have ever read, Shakespeare's
+_A Midsummer Night's Dream_ has, unquestionably, had the greatest
+influence upon me. It is his most delicate and most imaginative work,
+appealing quite as much through its intellectual significance as through
+its noble, humane spirit. I read it first in Eiksdal when I was writing
+_Arne_, and I felt rebuked for the gloomy feelings under the spell of
+which that book was written. But I took the lesson to heart: I felt
+that I had in my soul something that could produce a play with a
+little of the fancy and joy of _A Midsummer Night's Dream_--and I made
+resolutions. But the conditions under which a worker in art lives in
+Norway are hard, and all we say or promise avails nothing. But this I
+know: I am closer to the ideal of this play now than then, I have a
+fuller capacity for joy and a greater power to protect my joy and keep
+it inviolate. And if, after all, I never succeed in writing such a play,
+it means that circumstances have conquered, and that I have not achieved
+what I have ever sought to achieve.
+
+"And one longs to present a play which has been a guiding star to
+oneself. I knew perfectly well that a public fresh from _Orpheus_ would
+not at once respond, but I felt assured that response would come in
+time. As soon, therefore, as I had become acclimated as director and
+knew something of the resources of the theater, I made the venture. This
+is not a play to be given toward the end; it is too valuable as a means
+of gaining that which is to be the end--for the players and for the
+audience. So far as the actors are concerned, our exertions have been
+profitable. The play might doubtless be better presented--we shall
+give it better next year--but, all in all, we are making progress.
+You may call this naivete, poetic innocence, or obstinacy and
+arrogance--whatever it is, this play is of great moment to me, for it
+is the link which binds me to my public, it is my appeal to the public.
+If the public does not care to be led whither this leads, then I am not
+the proper guide. If people wish to get me out of the theater, they may
+attack me here. Here I am vulnerable."
+
+In _Morgenbladet_ for May 1st the reviewer made a sharp reply. He
+insists again that the local theater is not equal to _A Midsummer
+Night's Dream_. But it is not strange that Bjørnson will not admit his
+own failure. His eloquent tribute to the play and all that it has meant
+to him has, moreover, nothing to do with the question. All that he says
+may be true, but certainly such facts ought to be the very thing to
+deter him from giving Shakespeare into the hands of untrained actors.
+For if Bjørnson feels that the play was adequately presented, then we
+are at a loss to understand how he has been able to produce original
+work of unquestionable merit. One is forced to believe that he is hiding
+a failure behind his own name and fame. After all, concludes the writer,
+the director has no right to make this a personal matter. Criticism
+has no right to turn aside for injured feelings, and all Bjørnson's
+declarations about the passions of the hour have nothing to do with
+the case.
+
+This ended the discussion. At this day, of course, one cannot pass
+judgment, and there is no reason why we should. The two things which
+stand out are Bjørnson's protest against spectacular productions of
+Shakespeare's plays, and his ardent, almost passionate tribute to him
+as the poet whose influence had been greatest in his life.
+
+And then there is a long silence. Norwegian periodicals--there is not
+to this day a book on Shakespeare by a Norwegian--contain not a single
+contribution to Shakespearean criticism till 1880, when a church paper,
+_Luthersk Ugeskrift_[11] published an article which proved beyond cavil
+that Shakespeare is good and safe reading for Lutheran Christians.
+The writer admits that Shakespeare probably had several irregular
+love-affairs both before and after marriage, but as he grew older his
+heart turned to the comforts of religion, and in his epitaph he commends
+his soul to God, his body to the dust. Shakespeare's extreme objectivity
+makes snap judgments unsafe. We cannot always be sure that his
+characters voice his own thoughts and judgments, but, on the other hand,
+we have no right to assume that they never do. The tragedies especially
+afford a safe basis for judgment, for in them characterization is of the
+greatest importance. No great character was ever created which did not
+spring from the poet's own soul. In Shakespeare's characters sin, lust,
+cruelty, are always punished; sympathy, love, kindness are everywhere
+glorified. The writer illustrates his meaning with copious quotations.
+
+    [11. Vol. VII, pp. 1-12.]
+
+Apparently the good Lutheran who wrote this article felt troubled about
+the splendor which Shakespeare throws about the Catholic Church. But
+this is no evidence, he thinks, of any special sympathy for it. Many
+Protestants have been attracted by the pomp and circumstance of the
+Catholic Church, and they have been none the worse Protestants for that.
+The writer had the good sense not to make Shakespeare a Lutheran but,
+for the rest, the article is a typical example of the sort of criticism
+that has made Shakespeare everything from a pious Catholic to a champion
+of atheistic democracy. If, however, the readers of _Luthersk Ugeskrift_
+were led to read Shakespeare after being assured that they might do so
+safely, the article served a useful purpose.
+
+Eight years later the distinguished litterateur and critic, Just Bing,
+wrote in _Vidar_[12], one of the best periodicals that Norway has ever
+had, a brief character study of Ophelia, which, though it contains
+nothing original, stands considerably higher as literary criticism than
+anything we have yet considered, with the sole exception of Bjørnson's
+article in _Aftenbladet_, twenty-three years earlier.
+
+    [12. 1880, pp. 61-71.]
+
+Bing begins by defining two kinds of writers. First, those whose power
+is their keen observation. They see things accurately and they secure
+their effects by recording just what they see. Second, those writers
+who do not merely see external phenomena with the external eye, but
+who, through a miraculous intuition, go deeper into the soul of man.
+Molière is the classical example of the first type; Shakespeare of the
+second. To him a chance utterance reveals feelings, passions, whole
+lives--though he probably never developed the consequences of a chance
+remark to their logical conclusion without first applying to them close
+and searching rational processes. But it is clear that if a critic is to
+analyze a character of Shakespeare's, he must not be content merely to
+observe. He must feel with it, live with it. He must do so with special
+sympathy in the case of Ophelia.
+
+The common characteristic of Shakespeare's women is their devotion to
+the man of their choice and their confidence that this choice is wise
+and happy. The tragedy of Ophelia lies in the fact that outward evidence
+is constantly shocking that faith. Laertes, in his worldly-wise fashion,
+first warns her. She cries out from a broken heart though she promises
+to heed the warning. Then comes Polonius with his cunning wisdom. But
+Ophelia's faith is still unshaken. She promises her father, however, to
+be careful, and her caution, in turn, arouses the suspicion of Hamlet.
+Even after his wild outburst against her he still loves her. He begs her
+to believe in him and to remember him in her prayers. But suspicion goes
+on. Ophelia is caught between devotion and duty, and the grim events
+that crowd upon her plunge her to sweet, tragic death. Nothing could be
+more revealing than our last glimpse of her. Shakespeare's intuitive
+knowledge of the soul was sure. The determining fact of her life was her
+love for Hamlet: it is significant that when we see her insane not a
+mention of it crosses her lips.
+
+Hamlet and Ophelia are the delicate victims of a tragic necessity. They
+are undone because they lose confidence in those to whom they cling with
+all the abandon of deep, spiritual souls. Hamlet is at last aroused to
+desperation; Ophelia is helplessly crushed. She is the finest woman
+of Shakespeare's imagination, and perhaps for that reason the most
+difficult to understand and the one least often appreciated.
+
+The next chapter in Norwegian Shakespeareana is a dull, unprofitable
+one--a series of articles on the Baconian theory appearing irregularly
+in the monthly magazine, _Kringsjaa_. The first article appeared in the
+second volume (1894) and is merely a review of a strong pro-Bacon
+outburst in the American _Arena_. It is not worth criticising. Similar
+articles appeared in _Kringsjaa_ in 1895, the material this time being
+taken from the _Deutsche Revue_. It is the old ghost, the cipher in the
+first folio, though not Ignatius Donnelly's cryptogram. Finally, in
+1898, a new editor, Chr. Brinckmann, printed[13] a crushing reply to all
+these cryptogram fantasies. And that is all that was ever published in
+Norway on a foolish controversy.
+
+    [13. _Kringsjaa_. Vol. XII, pp. 777 ff. The article upon which
+    this reply was based was from the _Quarterly Review_.]
+
+It is a relief to turn from puerilities of this sort to Theodor
+Caspari's article in _For Kirke og Kultur_ (1895)[14]--_Grunddrag ved
+den Shakespeareske Digtning, i særlig Jevnförelse med Ibsens senere
+Digtning_.
+
+    [14. Vol. I, pp. 38 ff.]
+
+This article must be read with caution, partly because its analysis
+of the Elizabethan age is conventional, and therefore superficial, and
+partly because it represents a direction of thought which eyed the later
+work of Ibsen and Bjørnson with distrust. These men had rejected the
+faith of their fathers, and the books that came from them were signs of
+the apostasy. But _For Kirke og Kultur_ has been marked from its first
+number by ability, conspicuous fairness, and a large catholicity, which
+give it an honorable place among church journals. And not even a
+fanatical admirer of Ibsen will deny that there is more than a grain of
+truth in the indictment which the writer of this article brings against
+him.
+
+The central idea is the large, general objectivity of Shakespeare's
+plays as contrasted with the narrow, selfish subjectivity of Ibsen's.
+The difference bottoms in the difference between the age of Elizabeth
+and our own. Those were days of full, pulsing, untrammeled life. Men
+lived big, physical lives. They had few scruples and no nerves.
+Full-blooded passions, not petty problems of pathological psychology,
+were the things that interested poets and dramatists. They saw life
+fully and they saw it whole. So with Shakespeare. His characters are
+big, well-rounded men; they are not laboratory specimens. They live in
+the real Elizabethan world, not in the hothouse of the poet's brain. It
+is of no consequence that violence is done to "local color." Shakespeare
+beheld all the world and all ages through the lens of his own time and
+country, but because the men he saw were actual, living beings, the
+characters he gives us, be they mythological figures, Romans, Greeks,
+Italians, or Englishmen, have universal validity. He went to Italy for
+his greatest love-story. That gave him the right atmosphere. It is
+significant that Ibsen once thought it necessary to seek a suggestive
+background for one of his greatest characters. He went to Finmarken for
+Rebecca West.
+
+Shakespeare's characters speak in loud, emphatic tones and they give
+utterance to clear, emphatic thoughts. There is no "twilight zone" in
+their thinking. Ibsen's men and women, like the children at Rosmersholm,
+never speak aloud; they merely whimper or they whisper the polite
+innuendos of the drawing room. The difference lies largely in the
+difference of the age. But Ibsen is more decadent than his age. There
+are great ideas in our time too, but Ibsen does not see them. He sees
+only the "thought." Contrast with this Shakespeare's colossal scale.
+He is "loud-voiced" but he is also "many-voiced." Ibsen speaks in a
+salon voice and always in one key. And the remarkable thing is that
+Shakespeare, in spite of his complicated plots, is always clear. The
+main lines of the action stand out boldly. There is always speed and
+movement--a speed and movement directly caused by powerful feelings. He
+makes his readers think on a bigger scale than does Ibsen. His passions
+are sounder because they are larger and more expansive.
+
+Shakespeare is the dramatist of our average life; Ibsen, the poet of
+the rare exception. To Shakespeare's problems there is always an answer;
+underneath his storms there is peace, not merely filth and doubt. There
+is even a sense of a greater power--calm and immovable as history
+itself. Ibsen's plays are nervous, hectic, and unbelieving. In the words
+of Rosmer: "Since there is no judge over us, we must hold a judgment day
+for ourselves." Contrast this with Hamlet's soliloquy. And, finally,
+one feels sure in Shakespeare that the play means something. It has a
+beginning and an end. "What shall we say of plays like Ibsen's, in which
+Act I and Act II give no clue to Act III, and where both question and
+answer are hurled at us in the same speech?"
+
+In the same year, 1895, Georg Brandes published in _Samtiden_,[15] at
+that time issued in Bergen, two articles on _Shakespeare's Work in his
+Period of Gloom_ (Shakespeare i hans Digtnings mørke Periode) which
+embody in compact form that thesis since elaborated in his big work.
+Shakespeare's tragedies were the outcome of a deep pessimism that had
+grown for years and culminated when he was about forty. He was tired of
+the vice, the hollowness, the ungratefulness, of life. The immediate
+cause must remain unknown, but the fact of his melancholy seems clear
+enough. His comedy days were over and he began to portray a side of life
+which he had hitherto kept hidden. _Julius Caesar_ marks the transition.
+In Brutus we are reminded that high-mindedness in the presence of a
+practical situation often fails, and that practical mistakes are often
+as fatal as moral ones. From Brutus, Shakespeare came to Hamlet, a
+character in transition from fine youth, full of illusions, to a manhood
+whose faith is broken by the hard facts of the world. This is distinctly
+autobiographical. _Hamlet_ and Sonnet 66 are of one piece. Shakespeare
+was disillusioned. Add to this his struggle against his enemy,
+Puritanism, and a growing conviction that the miseries of life bottom
+in ignorance, and the reason for his growing pessimism becomes clear.
+From Hamlet, whom the world crushes, to Macbeth, who faces it with its
+own weapons, yet is haunted and terrified by what he does, the step is
+easy. He knew Macbeth as he knew Hamlet.
+
+    [15. Vol. VI, pp. 49 ff.]
+
+The scheming Iago, too, he must have known, for he has portrayed
+him with matchless art. "But _Othello_ was a mere monograph; _Lear_
+is a cosmic picture. Shakespeare turns from _Othello_ to _Lear_ in
+consequence of the necessity which the poet feels to supplement and
+round out his beginning." _Othello_ is noble chamber music; _Lear_ is a
+symphony played by a gigantic orchestra. It is the noblest of all the
+tragedies, for in it are all the storm and tumult of life, all that
+was struggling and raging in his own soul. We may feel sure that
+the ingratitude he had met with is reflected in Goneril and Regan.
+Undoubtedly, in the same way, the poet had met the lovely Cleopatra
+and knew what it was to be ensnared by her.
+
+Brandes, as has often been pointed out, did not invent this theory
+of Shakespeare's psychology but he elaborated it with a skill and
+persuasiveness which carried the uncritical away.
+
+In his second article Brandes continues his analysis of Shakespeare's
+pessimism. In the period of the great tragedies there can be no doubt
+that Shakespeare was profoundly pessimistic. There was abundant reason
+for it. The age of Elizabeth was an age of glorious sacrifices, but it
+was also an age of shameless hypocrisy, of cruel and unjust punishments,
+of downright oppression. Even the casual observer might well grow sick
+at heart. A nature so finely balanced as Shakespeare's suffered a
+thousandfold. Hence this contempt for life which showed only corruption
+and injustice. Cressida and Cleopatra are sick with sin and evil; the
+men are mere fools and brawlers.
+
+There is, moreover, a feeling that he is being set aside for younger
+men. We find clear expression of this in _All's Well That Ends Well_,
+in _Troilus and Cressida_. There is, too, in _Troilus and Cressida_
+a speech which shows the transition to the mood of _Coriolanus_, an
+aristocratic contempt for the mass of mankind. This is the famous speech
+in which Ulysses explains the necessity of social distinctions. Note
+in this connection Casca's contemptuous reference to the plebeians,
+Cleopatra's fear of being shown to the mob. Out of this feeling grew
+_Coriolanus_. The great patrician lives on the heights, and will not
+hear of bending to the crowd. The contempt of Coriolanus grew to the
+storming rage of Timon. When Coriolanus meets with ingratitude, he takes
+up arms; Timon is too supremely indifferent to do even this.
+
+Thus Shakespeare's pessimism grew from grief over the power of evil
+(Othello) and misery over life's sorrows, to bitter hatred (Timon).
+And when he had raged to the uttermost, something of the resignation
+of old age came to him. We have the evidence of this in his last works.
+Perhaps, as in the case of his own heroes, a woman saved him. Brandes
+feels that the evolution of Shakespeare as a dramatist is to be traced
+in his women. We have first the domineering scold, reminding him
+possibly of his own domestic relations (Lady Macbeth); second, the
+witty, handsome women (Portia, Rosalind); third, the simple, naive women
+(Ophelia, Desdemona); fourth, the frankly sensuous women (Cleopatra,
+Cressida); and, finally, the young woman viewed with all an old man's
+joy (Miranda). Again his genius exercises his spell. Then, like
+Prospero, he casts his magician's staff into the sea.
+
+In 1896 Brandes published his great work on Shakespeare. It arrested
+attention immediately in every country of the world. Never had a book so
+fascinating, so brilliant, so wonderfully suggestive, been written on
+Shakespeare. The literati were captivated. But alas, scholars were not.
+They admitted that Brandes had written an interesting book, that he had
+accumulated immense stores of information and given to these sapless
+materials a new life and a new attractiveness. But they pointed out that
+not only did his work contain gross positive errors, but it consisted,
+from first to last, of a tissue of speculations which, however
+ingenious, had no foundation in fact and no place in cool-headed
+criticism.[16] Theodor Bierfreund, one of the most brilliant Shakespeare
+scholars in Denmark, almost immediately attacked Brandes in a long
+article in the Norwegian periodical _Samtiden_.[17]
+
+    [16. Cf. Vilhelm Møller in _Nordisk Tidskrift för Vetenskap, Konst
+    och Industri_. 1896, pp. 501-519.]
+
+    [17. _Samtiden_, 1896. (VII), pp. 382 ff.]
+
+He acknowledges the great merits of the work. It is an enormously rich
+compilation of Shakespeare material gathered from the four corners of
+the earth and illuminated by the genius of a great writer. He gives the
+fullest recognition to Brandes' miraculous skill in analyzing characters
+and making them live before our eyes. But he warns us that Brandes is no
+critical student of source materials, and that we must be on our guard
+in accepting his conclusions. It is not so certain that the sonnets mean
+all that Brandes would have them mean, and it is certain that we must
+be cautious in inferring too much from _Troilus and Cressida_ and
+_Pericles_ for, in the opinion of the reviewer, Shakespeare probably had
+little or nothing to do with them. He then sketches briefly his theory
+that these plays cannot be Shakespeare's, a theory which he later
+elaborated in his admirably written monograph, _Shakespeare og hans
+Kunst_.[18] This, however, belongs to the study of Shakespearean
+criticism in Denmark.
+
+    [18. Copenhagen, 1898.]
+
+So far as I have been able to find, Bierfreund's review was the only one
+published in Norway immediately after the publication of Brandes' work,
+but in 1899, S. Brettville Jensen took up the matter again in _For Kirke
+og Kultur_[19] and, in 1901, Christen Collin vigorously assailed in
+_Samtiden_ that elaborate and fanciful theory of the sonnets which plays
+so great a part in Brandes' study of Shakespeare.
+
+    [19. Vol. VI (1899), pp. 400 ff.]
+
+Brettville Jensen praises Brandes highly. He is always interesting, in
+harmony with his age, and in rapport with his reader. "But his book is a
+fantasy palace, supported by columns as lovely as they are hollow and
+insecure, and hovering in rainbow mists between earth and sky." Brandes
+has rare skill in presenting hypotheses as facts. He has attempted to
+reconstruct the life of Shakespeare from his works. Now this is a mode
+of criticism which may yield valuable results, but clearly it must be
+used with great care. Shakespeare knew the whole of life, but how he
+came to know it is another matter. Brandes thinks he has found the
+secret. Back of every play and every character there is a personal
+experience. But this is rating genius altogether too cheap. One must
+concede something to the imagination and the creative ability of the
+poet. To relate everything in Shakespeare's dramas to the experiences
+of Shakespeare the man, is both fanciful and uncritical.
+
+The same objection naturally holds regarding the meaning of the sonnets
+which Brandes has made his own. Here we must bear in mind the fact that
+much of the language in the sonnets is purely conventional. We should
+have a difficult time indeed determining just how much is biographical
+and how much belongs to the stock in trade of Elizabethan sonneteers.
+Brettville Jensen points out that if the sonnets are the expression of
+grief at the loss of his beloved, it is a queer contradiction that
+Sonnet 144, which voices his most poignant sorrow, should date from
+1599, the year, according to Brandes, when Shakespeare's comedy period
+began!
+
+It is doubtless true that the plays and even the sonnets mark great
+periods in the life of the poet, but we may be sure that the relation
+between experience and literary creation was not so literal as Brandes
+would have us believe. The change from mood to mood, from play to play,
+was gradual, and it never destroyed Shakespeare's poise and sanity. We
+shall not judge Shakespeare rightly if we believe that personal feeling
+rather than artistic truth shaped his work.
+
+Two years later Collin, a critic of fine insight and appreciation, wrote
+in _Samtiden_[20] an article on the sonnets of Shakespeare. He begins by
+picturing Shakespeare's surprise if he could rise from his grave in the
+little church at Stratford and look upon the pompous and rather naive
+bust, and hear the strange tongues of the thousands of pilgrims at his
+shrine. Even greater would be his surprise if he could examine the
+ponderous tomes in the Shakespeare Memorial Library at Birmingham which
+have been written to explain him and his work. And if any of these
+volumes could interest him at all it would doubtless be those in which
+ingenious critics have attempted to discover the poet in the plays and
+the poems. Collin then gives a brief survey of modern Shakespearean
+criticism--Furnivall, Dowden, Brandl, Boas, ten Brink, and, more
+recently, Sidney, Lee, Brandes, and Bierfreund. An important object of
+the study of these men has been to fix the chronology of the plays. They
+seldom fully agree. Sidney Lee and the Danish critic, Bierfreund, do not
+accept the usual theory that the eight tragedies from _Julius Caesar_ to
+_Coriolanus_ reflect a period of gloom and pessimism. In their opinion
+psychological criticism has, in this instance, proved a dismal failure.
+
+    [20. Vol. XII, pp. 61 ff.]
+
+The battle has raged with particular violence about the sonnets.
+Most scholars assume that we have in them a direct presentation
+(fremstilling) of a definite period in the life of the poet. And by
+placing this period directly before the creation of _Hamlet_, Brandes
+has succeeded in making the relations to the "dark lady" a crisis in
+Shakespeare's life. The story, which, as Brandes tells it, has a
+remarkable similarity to an ultra-modern naturalistic novel, becomes
+even more piquant since Brandes knows the name of the lady, nay, even of
+the faithless friend. All this information Brandes has, of course, taken
+from Thomas Tyler's introduction to the Irving edition of the sonnets
+(1890), but his passion for the familiar anecdote has led him to
+embellish it with immense enthusiasm and circumstantiality.
+
+The hypothesis, however, is essentially weak. Collin disagrees
+absolutely with Lee that the sonnets are purely conventional, without
+the slightest biographical value. Mr. Lee has weakened his case by
+admitting that "key-sonnet" No. 144 is autobiographical. Now, if this
+be true, then one must assume that the sonnets set forth Shakespeare's
+relations to a real man and a real woman. But the most convincing
+argument against the Herbert-Fitton theory lies in the chronology. It is
+certain that the sonnet fashion was at its height immediately after the
+publication of Sidney's sequence in 1591, and it seems equally certain
+that it had fallen off by 1598. This chronology is rendered probable
+by two facts about Shakespeare's work. First, Shakespeare employs the
+sonnet in dialogue in _Two Gentlemen of Verona_ and in _Romeo and
+Juliet_. These plays belong to the early nineties. Second, the moods
+of the sonnets exactly correspond, on the one hand, to the exuberant
+sensuality of _Venus and Adonis_, on the other, to the restraint of the
+_Lucrece_.
+
+An even safer basis for determining the chronology of the sonnets Collin
+finds in the group in which the poet laments his poverty and his outcast
+state. If the sonnets are autobiographical--and Collin agrees with
+Brandes that they are--then this group (26, 29, 30, 31, 37, 49, 66,
+71-75, 99, 110-112, 116, 119, 120, 123, and 124) must refer to a time
+when the poet was wretched, poor, and obscure. And in this case, the
+sonnets cannot be placed at 1598-99, when Shakespeare was neither poor
+nor despised, a time in which, according to Brandes, he wrote his gayest
+comedies.
+
+It seems clear from all this that the sonnets cannot be placed so late
+as 1598-1600. They do not fit the facts of Shakespeare's life at this
+time. But they do fit the years from 1591 to 1594, and especially the
+years of the plague, 1592-3, when the theaters were generally closed,
+and Shakespeare no doubt had to battle for a mere existence. In 1594
+Shakespeare's position became more secure. He gained the favor of
+Southampton and dedicated the _Rape of Lucrece_ to him.
+
+Collin develops at this point with a good deal of fullness his
+theory that the motifs of the sonnets recur in _Venus and Adonis_
+and _Lucrece_--in _Venus and Adonis_, a certain crass naturalism;
+in _Lucrece_ a high and spiritual morality. In the sonnets the same
+antithesis is found. Compare Sonnet 116--in praise of friendship--with
+129, in which is pictured the tyranny and the treachery of sensual love.
+These two forces, sensual love and platonic friendship, were mighty
+cultural influences during Shakespeare's apprentice years and the young
+poet shows plainly that he was moved by both.
+
+If all this be true, then the Herbert-Fitton theory falls to the ground,
+for in 1597 Herbert was only seventeen. But unquestionably the sonnets
+are autobiographical. They reveal with a poignant power Shakespeare's
+sympathy, his unique ability to enter into another personality, his
+capacity of imaginative expansion to include the lives of others.
+Compare the noble sonnet 112, which Collin translates:
+
+  Din kjærlighed og medynk dækker til
+  det ar, som sladderen paa min pande trykket.
+  Lad andre tro og sige, hvad de vil,--
+  du kjærlig mine feil med fortrin smykket.
+
+  Du er mit verdensalt, og fra din mund
+  jeg henter al min skam og al min ære.
+  For andre er jeg død fra denne stund,
+  og de for mig som skygger blot skal være.
+
+  I avgrunds dyp jeg al bekymring kaster!
+  for andres røst min høresans er sløv.
+  Hvadenten de mig roser eller laster,
+  jeg som en hugorm er og vorder døv.
+
+  Saa helt du fylder ut min sjæl herinde,
+  at hele verden synes at forsvinde.
+
+At this point the article in _Samtiden_ closes. Collin promises to give
+in a later number, a metrical translation of a number of significant
+sonnets. The promised renderings, however, never appeared. Thirteen
+years later, in 1914, the author, in a most interesting and illuminating
+book, _Det Geniale Menneske_,[21] a study of "genius" and its relation
+to civilization, reprinted his essay in _Samtiden_ and supplemented it
+with three short chapters. In the first of these he endeavors to show
+that in the sonnets Shakespeare gives expression to two distinct
+tendencies of the Renaissance--the tendency toward a loose and
+unregulated gratification of the senses, and the tendency toward an
+elevated and platonic conception of friendship. Shakespeare sought in
+both of these a compensation for his own disastrous love affair and
+marriage. But the healing that either could give was at best transitory.
+There remained to him as a poet of genius one resource. He could gratify
+his own burning desire for a pure and unselfish love by living in his
+mighty imagination the lives of his characters. "He who in his yearning
+for the highest joys of love had been compelled to abandon hope, found
+a joy mingled with pain, in giving of his life to lovers in whom the
+longing of William Shakespeare lives for all time.
+
+"He has loved and been loved. It was he whom Sylvia, Hermia, Titania,
+Portia, Juliet, Beatrice, Rosalind, Viola, and Olivia loved,--and
+Ophelia, Desdemona, Hermione and Miranda."
+
+    [21. Chr. Collin, Christiania. 1914. H. Aschehoug & Co.]
+
+In the second chapter Collin argues, as he had done in his essay on
+_Hamlet_[22] that Shakespeare's great tragedies voice no pessimism, but
+the stern purpose to strengthen himself and his contemporaries against
+the evils and vices of Jacobean England--that period of moral and
+intellectual disintegration which followed the intense life of the
+Elizabethan age. Shakespeare battles against the ills of society as the
+Greek dramatists had done, by showing sin and wickedness as destroyers
+of life, and once this is done, by firing mankind to resistance against
+the forces of ruin and decay. "To hold the mirror up to nature," that
+men may see the devastation which evil and vice bring about in the
+social body. And to do this he does not, like some modern writers, shun
+moralizing. He warns against sensual excess in Adam's speech in _As You
+Like It_, II, 3:
+
+      Let me be your servant;
+  Though I look old, yet am I strong and lusty;
+  For in my youth I never did apply
+  Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;
+  Nor did not with unbashful forehead woo
+  The means of weakness and debility;
+
+    [22. See pp. 71 ff. below.]
+
+Or, compare the violent outburst against drunkenness in _Hamlet_ Act 1,
+Sc. 4, and the stern warning against the same vice in _Othello_, where,
+indeed, Cassius' weakness for strong drink is the immediate occasion of
+the tragic complication. In like manner, Shakespeare moralizes against
+lawless love in the _Merry Wives_, in _Troilus and Cressida_, in
+_Hamlet_, in _Lear_.
+
+On the other hand, Shakespeare never allows artistic scruples to
+stand in the way of exalting simple, domestic virtues. Simple conjugal
+fidelity is one of the glories of Hamlet's illustrious father and of the
+stern, old Roman, Coriolanus; the young prince, Malcolm, is as chaste
+and innocent as the young barbarians of whom Tacitus tells.
+
+In a final section, Collin connects this view of Hamlet which he has
+developed in his essay on _Hamlet_ and the Sonnets, with the theory of
+human civilization which his book so suggestively advances.
+
+The great tragedies from _Hamlet_ to _Timon of Athens_ are not
+autobiographical in the sense that they are reflections of Shakespeare's
+own concrete experience. They are not the record of a bitter personal
+pessimism. In the years when they were written Shakespeare was contented
+and prosperous. He restored the fortunes of his family and he was hailed
+as a master of English without a peer. It is therefore a priori quite
+unlikely that the tragic atmosphere of this period should go back
+to purely personal disappointments. The case is more likely this:
+Shakespeare had grown in power of sympathy with his fellows and his
+time. He had become sensitive to the needs and sorrows of the society
+about him. He could put himself in the place of those who are sick in
+mind and heart. And in consequence of this he could preach to this
+generation the simple gospel of right living and show to them the
+psychic weakness whence comes all human sorrow.
+
+And through this expansion of his ethical consciousness what had
+he gained? Not merely a fine insight as in _Macbeth_, _Antony and
+Cleopatra_, and _Coriolanus_, an insight which enables him to treat with
+comprehending sympathy even great criminals and traitors, but a high
+serenity and steady poise which enables him to write the romances of his
+last years--_Cymbeline_, _A Winter's Tale_, and _The Tempest_. He had
+come to feel that human life, after all, with its storms, is a little
+thing, a dream and a fata morgana, which soon must give place to a
+permanent reality:
+
+      We are such stuff
+  As dreams are made of, and our little life
+  Is rounded with a sleep.
+
+In 1904 Collin wrote in _Nordisk Tidskrift för Vetenskap, Konst och
+Industri_[23] a most suggestive article on Hamlet. He again dismisses
+the widely accepted theory of a period of gloom and increasing pessimism
+as baseless. The long line of tragedies cannot be used to prove this.
+They are the expression of a great poet's desire to strengthen mankind
+in the battle of life.
+
+    [23: This article is reprinted in _Det Geniale Menneske_ above
+    referred to. It forms the second of a group of essays in which
+    Collin analyzes the work of Shakespeare as the finest example of
+    the true contribution of genius to the progress and culture of
+    the race. Preceding the study of _Hamlet_ is a chapter called
+    _The Shakespearean Controversy_, and following it is a study of
+    Shakespeare the Man. This is in three parts, the first of which
+    is a reprint of an article in _Samtiden_ (1901).
+
+    In _Det Geniale Menneske_ Collin defines civilization as that
+    higher state which the human race has attained by means of
+    "psychic organs"--superior to the physical organs. The psychic
+    organs have been created by the human intellect and they are
+    controlled by the intellect. Had man been dependent upon the
+    physical organs solely, he would have remained an animal. His
+    psychic organs have enabled him to create instruments, tangible,
+    such as tools and machines; intangible, such as works of art.
+    These are psychic organs and with their aid man has become a
+    civilized being.
+
+    The psychic organs are the creation of the man of genius. To
+    create such organs is his function. The characteristics, then,
+    of the genius are an immense capacity for sympathy and an immense
+    surplus of power; sympathy, that he may know the needs of mankind;
+    power, that he may fashion those great organs of life by which the
+    race may live and grow.
+
+    In the various chapters of his book, Collin analyzes in an
+    illuminating way the life and work of Wergeland, Ibsen, and
+    Bjørnson as typical men of genius whose expansive sympathy gave
+    them insight and understanding and whose indefatigable energy
+    wrought in the light of their insight mighty psychic organs of
+    cultural progress.
+
+    He comes then to Shakespeare as the genius par excellence. The
+    chapter on the _Shakespearean Controversy_ gives first a survey
+    of the development of modern scientific literary criticism from
+    Herder to Taine and Saint Beuve. He goes on to detail the
+    application of this method to the plays and sonnets of
+    Shakespeare. Furnivall, Spalding, and Brandes have attempted to
+    trace the genesis and the chronology of the plays. They would have
+    us believe that the series of tragedies--_Hamlet_, _Macbeth_,
+    _Othello_, _Lear_, _Antony and Cleopatra_, _Troilus and Cressida_,
+    _Coriolanus_, and _Timon_ are the records of an increasing
+    bitterness and pessimism. Brandes and Frank Harris, following
+    Thomas Tyler have, on the basis of the sonnets, constructed a
+    fascinating, but quite fantastic romance.
+
+    Vagaries such as these have caused some critics, such as Sidney
+    Lee and Bierfreund, to declare that it is impossible on the basis
+    of the plays to penetrate to Shakespeare the man. His work is
+    too purely objective. Collin is not willing to admit this. He
+    maintains that the scientific biographical method of criticism
+    is fundamentally sound. But it must be rationally applied. The
+    sequence which Brandes has set up is quite impossible. Goswin
+    Kønig, in 1888, applying the metrical tests, fixed the order as
+    follows: _Hamlet_, _Troilus and Cressida_, _Measure for Measure_,
+    _Othello_, _Timon_, and _Lear_, and, in another group, _Macbeth_,
+    _Antony and Cleopatra_, and _Coriolanus_. These results are
+    confirmed by Bradley in his _Shakespearean Tragedy_.
+
+    Collin accepts this chronology. A careful study of the plays in
+    this order shows a striking community of ethical purpose between
+    the plays of each group. In the plays of the first group, the poet
+    assails with all his mighty wrath what to him seems the basest of
+    all wickedness, treachery. It is characteristic of these plays
+    that none of the villains attains the dignity of a great tragic
+    hero. They are without a virtue to redeem their faults.
+    Shakespeare's conception of the good and evil in these plays
+    approaches a medieval dualism. In the plays of the second group
+    the case is altered. There is no longer a crude dualism in the
+    interpretation of life. Shakespeare has entered into the soul of
+    Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, of Antony and Cleopatra, of Coriolanus,
+    and he has found underneath all that is weak and sinful and
+    diseased, a certain nobility and grandeur. He can feel with the
+    regicides in Macbeth; he no longer exposes and scourges; he
+    understands and sympathizes. The clouds of gloom and wrath have
+    cleared away, and Shakespeare has achieved a serenity and a fine
+    poise.
+
+    It follows, then, that the theory of a growing pessimism is
+    untenable. We must seek a new line of evolution.]
+
+We need dwell but little on Collin's sketch of the "Vorgeschichte"
+of _Hamlet_, for it contributes nothing that is new. _Hamlet_ was a
+characteristic "revenge tragedy" like the "Spanish Tragedy" and a whole
+host of others which had grown up in England under the influence, direct
+and indirect, of Seneca. He points out in a very illuminating way how
+admirably the "tragedy of blood" fitted the times. Nothing is more
+characteristic of the renaissance than an intense joy in living. But
+exactly as the appetite for mere existence became keen, the tragedy of
+death gained in power. The most passionate joy instinctively calls up
+the most terrible sorrow. There is a sort of morbid caution here--a
+feeling that in the moment of happiness it is well to harden oneself
+against the terrible reaction to come. Conversely, the contemplation of
+suffering intensifies the joys of the moment. At all events, in such a
+time, emotions become stronger, colors are brighter, and contrasts are
+more violent. The "tragedy of blood," therefore, was more than a learned
+imitation. Its sound and fury met the need of men who lived and died
+intensely.
+
+The primitive _Hamlet_ was such a play. Shakespeare took over, doubtless
+with little change, both fable and characters, but he gave to both a new
+spiritual content. Hamlet's revenge gained a new significance. It is no
+longer a fight against the murderer of his father, but a battle against
+"a world out of joint." No wonder that a simple duty of blood revenge
+becomes a task beyond his powers. He sees the world as a mass of
+faithlessness, and the weight of it crushes him and makes him sick at
+heart. This is the tragedy of Hamlet--his will is paralyzed and, with
+it, his passion for revenge. He fights a double battle, against his
+uncle and against himself. The conviction that Shakespeare, and not his
+predecessor, has given this turn to the tragedy is sustained by the
+other plays of the same period, _Lear_ and _Timon of Athens_. They
+exhibit three different stages of the same disease, a disease in which
+man's natural love of fighting is turned against himself.
+
+Collin denies that the tragedy of Hamlet is that of a contemplative soul
+who is called upon to solve great practical problems. What right have we
+to assume that Hamlet is a weak, excessively reflective nature? Hamlet
+is strong and regal, capable of great, concrete attainments. But he can
+do nothing except by violent and eccentric starts; his will is paralyzed
+by a fatal sickness. He suffers from a disease not so uncommon in modern
+literature--the tendency to see things in the darkest light. Is it far
+from the pessimism of Hamlet to the pessimism of Schopenhauer and
+Tolstoi? Great souls like Byron and Heine and Ibsen have seen life as
+Hamlet saw it, and they have struggled as he did, "like wounded warriors
+against the miseries of the times."
+
+But from this we must not assume that Shakespeare himself was
+pessimistic. To him Hamlet's state of mind was pathological. One might
+as well say that he was a murderer because he wrote _Macbeth_, a
+misogynist because he created characters like Isabella and Ophelia, a
+wife murderer because he wrote _Othello_, or a suicide because he wrote
+_Timon of Athens_ as to say that he was a pessimist because he wrote
+_Hamlet_--the tragedy of an irresolute avenger. This interpretation
+is contradicted by the very play itself. "At Hamlet's side is the
+thoroughly healthy Horatio, almost a standard by which his abnormality
+may be measured. At Lear's side stand Cordelia and Kent, faithful
+and sound to the core. If the hater of mankind, Timon, had written
+a play about a rich man who was betrayed by his friends, he would
+unquestionably have portrayed even the servants as scoundrels. But
+Shakespeare never presented his characters as all black. Pathological
+states of mind are not presented as normal."
+
+Collin admits, nevertheless, that there may be something
+autobiographical in the great tragedies. Undoubtedly Shakespeare felt
+that there was an iron discipline in beholding a great tragedy. To live
+it over in the soul tempered it, gave it firmness and resolution, and it
+is not impossible that the sympathetic, high-strung Shakespeare needed
+just such discipline. But we must not forget the element of play.
+All art is, in a sense, a game with images and feelings and human
+utterances. "In all this century-old discussion about the subtlety of
+Hamlet's character critics have forgotten that a piece of literature is,
+first of all, a festive sport with clear pictures, finely organized
+emotions, and eloquent words uttered in moments of deep feeling." The
+poet who remembers this will use his work to drive from the earth
+something of its gloom and melancholy. He will strengthen himself
+that he may strengthen others.
+
+I have tried to give an adequate synopsis of Collin's article but, in
+addition to the difficulties of translating the language, there are the
+difficulties, infinitely greater, of putting into definite words all
+that the Norwegian hints at and suggests. It is not high praise to say
+that Collin has written the most notable piece of Shakespeare criticism
+in Norway; indeed, nothing better has been written either in Norway or
+Denmark.
+
+The study of Shakespeare in Norway was not, as the foregoing shows,
+extensive or profound, but there were many Norwegian scholars who had
+at least considerable information about things Shakespearean. No great
+piece of research is to be recorded, but the stimulating criticism of
+Caspari, Collin, Just Bing, and Bjørnson is worth reading to this day.
+
+The same comment may be made on two other contributions--Wiesener's
+_Almindelig Indledning til Shakespeare_ (General Introduction to
+Shakespeare), published as an introduction to his school edition of
+_The Merchant of Venice_,[24] and Collin's _Indledning_ to his edition
+of the same play. Both are frankly compilations, but both are admirably
+organized, admirably written, and full of a personal enthusiasm which
+gives the old, sometimes hackneyed facts a new interest.
+
+    [24. _Shakespeares The Merchant of Venice. Med Anmærkninger og
+    Indledning_. Udgivet af G. Wiesener. Kristiania, 1880.]
+
+Wiesener's edition was published in 1880 in Christiania. The text is
+that of the Cambridge edition with a few necessary cuttings to adapt it
+for school reading. His introduction covers fifty-two closely printed
+pages and gives, within these limits, an exceedingly detailed account of
+the English drama, the Elizabethan stage, Shakespeare's life and work,
+and a careful study of _The Merchant of Venice_ itself. The editor does
+not pretend to originality; he has simply tried to bring together well
+ascertained facts and to present them in the simplest, clearest fashion
+possible. But the _Indledning_ is to-day, thirty-five years after it was
+written, fully up to the standard of the best annotated school editions
+in this country or in England. It is, of course, a little dry and
+schematic; that could hardly be avoided in an attempt to compress such a
+vast amount of information into such a small compass, but, for the most
+part, the details are so clear and vivid that their mass rather
+heightens than blurs the picture.
+
+From the fact that nothing in this introduction is original, it is
+hardly necessary to criticise it at length; all that may be demanded
+is a short survey of the contents. The whole consists of two great
+divisions, a general introduction to Shakespeare and a special
+introduction to _The Merchant of Venice_. The first division is, in
+turn, subdivided into seven heads: 1. _The Pre-Shakespearean Drama_.
+2. _The Life of Shakespeare_. 3. _Shakespeare's Works--Order and
+Chronology_. 4. _Shakespeare as a Dramatist_. 5. _Shakespeare's
+Versification_. 6. _The Text of Shakespeare_. 7. _The Theatres of
+Shakespeare's Time_. This introduction fills thirty-nine pages and
+presents an exceedingly useful compendium for the student and the
+general reader. The short introduction to the play itself discusses
+briefly the texts, the sources, the characters, Shakespeare's relation
+to his material and, finally, the meaning of the play. The last section
+is, however, a translation from Taine and not Wiesener's at all.
+
+The text itself is provided with elaborate notes of the usual text-book
+sort. In addition to these there is, at the back, an admirable series
+of notes on the language of Shakespeare. Wiesener explains in simple,
+compact fashion some of the differences between Elizabethan and modern
+English and traces these phenomena back to their origins in Anglo-Saxon
+and Middle English. Inadequate as they are, these linguistic notes
+cannot be too highly praised for the conviction of which they bear
+evidence--that a complete knowledge of Shakespeare without a knowledge
+of his language is impossible. To the student of that day these notes
+must have been a revelation.
+
+The second text edition of a Shakespearean play in Norway was Collin's
+_The Merchant of Venice_.[25] His introduction covers much the same
+ground as Wiesener's, but he offers no sketch of the Elizabethan drama,
+of Shakespeare's life, or of his development as a dramatic artist. On
+the other hand, his critical analysis of the play is fuller and, instead
+of a mere summary, he gives an elaborate exposition of Shakespeare's
+versification.
+
+    [25. _The Merchant of Venice_. Med Indledning og Anmærkninger ved
+    Chr. Collin. Kristiania. 1902.]
+
+Collin is a critic of rare insight. Accordingly, although he says
+nothing new in his discussion of the purport and content of the play,
+he makes the old story live anew. He images Shakespeare in the midst of
+his materials--how he found them, how he gave them life and being. The
+section on Shakespeare's language is not so solid and scientific as
+Wiesener's, but his discussion of Shakespeare's versification is
+both longer and more valuable than Wiesener's fragmentary essay, and
+Shakespeare's relation to his sources is treated much more suggestively.
+
+He points out, first of all, that in Shakespeare's "classical" plays the
+characters of high rank commonly use verse and those of low rank, prose.
+This is, however, not a law. The real principle of the interchange of
+prose and verse is in the emotions to be conveyed. Where these are
+tense, passionate, exalted, they are communicated in verse; where they
+are ordinary, commonplace, they are expressed in prose. This rule will
+hold both for characters of high station and for the most humble. In Act
+I, for example, Portia speaks in prose to her maid "obviously because
+Shakespeare would lower the pitch and reduce the suspense. In the
+following scene, the conversation between Shylock and Bassanio begins in
+prose. But as soon as Antonio appears, Shylock's emotions are roused to
+their highest pitch, and his speech turns naturally to verse--even
+though he is alone and his speech an aside. A storm of passions sets
+his mind and speech in rhythmic motion. And from that point on, the
+conversations of Shylock, Bassanio, and Antonio are in verse. In short,
+rhythmic speech when there is a transition to strong, more dramatic
+feeling."
+
+The use of prose or verse depends, then, on the kind and depth of
+feeling rather than on the characters. "In Act II Launcelot Gobbo and
+his father are the only ones who employ prose. All the others speak in
+verse--even the servant who tells of Bassanio's arrival. Not only that,
+but he speaks in splendid verse even though he is merely announcing a
+messenger:"
+
+          "Yet have I not seen
+  So likely an ambassador of love," etc.
+
+Again, in _Lear_, the servant who protests against Cornwall's cruelty to
+Gloster, nameless though he is, speaks in noble and stately lines:
+
+        Hold your hand, my lord;
+  I've served you ever since I was a child;
+  But better service have I never done you
+  Than now to bid you hold.
+
+When the dramatic feeling warrants it, the humblest rise to the highest
+poetry. The renaissance was an age of deeper, mightier feelings than
+our own, and this intense life speaks in verse, for only thus can it
+adequately express itself.
+
+All this is romantic enough. But it is to be doubted if the men of the
+renaissance were so different from us that they felt an instinctive need
+of bursting into song. The causes of the efflorescence of Elizabethan
+dramatic poetry are not, I think, to be sought in such subtleties as
+these.
+
+Collin further insists that the only way to understand Shakespeare's
+versification is to understand his situations and his characters. Rules
+avail little. If we do not _feel_ the meaning of the music, we shall
+never understand the meaning of the verse. Shakespeare's variations from
+the normal blank verse are to be interpreted from this point of view.
+Hence what the metricists call "irregularities" are not irregularities
+at all. Collin examines the more important of these irregularities and
+tries to account for them.
+
+1. Short broken lines as in I, 1-5: _I am to learn._ Antonio completes
+this line by a shrug of the shoulders or a gesture. "It would be
+remarkable," concludes Collin, "if there were no interruptions or pauses
+even though the characters speak in verse." Another example of this
+breaking of the line for dramatic purposes is found in I, 3-123 where
+Shylock suddenly stops after "say this" as if to draw breath and arrange
+his features. (Sic!)
+
+2. A verse may be abnormally long and contain six feet. This is
+frequently accidental, but in _M of V_ it is used at least once
+deliberately--in the oracular inscriptions on the caskets:
+
+  "Who chooseth me shall gain what men desire."
+  "Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves."
+  "Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he has."
+
+Collin explains that putting these formulas into Alexandrines gives them
+a stiffness and formality appropriate to their purpose.
+
+3. Frequently one or two light syllables are added to the close of the
+verse:
+
+  Sit like his grandsire cut in alabaster.
+
+or
+
+  Sleep when he wakes and creep into the jaundice.
+
+Again, in III, 2-214 we have two unstressed syllables:
+
+  But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel?
+
+"Shakespeare uses this unaccented gliding ending more in his later works
+to give an easier more unconstrained movement."
+
+4. Occasionally a syllable is lacking, and the foot seems to halt as in
+V, 1-17:
+
+  As far as Belmont. In such a night, etc.
+
+Here a syllable is lacking in the third foot. But artistically this is
+no defect. We cannot ask that Jessica and Lorenzo always have the right
+word at hand. The defective line simply means a pause and, therefore,
+instead of being a blemish, is exactly right.
+
+5. On the other hand, there is often an extra light syllable before the
+caesura. (I, 1-48):
+
+  Because you are not merry; and 'twere as easy, etc.
+
+This extra syllable before the pause gives the effect of a slight
+retardation. It was another device to make the verse easy and
+unconstrained.
+
+6. Though the prevailing verse is iambic pentameter, we rarely find
+more than three or four real accents. The iambic movement is constantly
+broken and compelled to fight its way through. This gives an added
+delight, since the ear, attuned to the iambic beat, readily recognizes
+it when it recurs. The presence of a trochee is no blemish, but a
+relief:
+
+  Vailing her high tops higher than her ribs. (I, 1-28)
+
+This inverted stress occurs frequently in Norwegian poetry. Wergeland
+was a master of it and used it with great effect, for instance, in his
+poem to Ludvig Daa beginning:
+
+  Med døden i mit hjerte,
+  og smilet om min mund,--
+
+All this gives to Shakespeare's verse a marvellous flexibility and
+power. Nor are these devices all that the poet had at his disposal. We
+frequently find three syllables to the foot, giving the line a certain
+fluidity which a translator only rarely can reproduce. Finally, a
+further difficulty in translating Shakespeare lies in the richness of
+the English language in words of one syllable. What literature can rival
+the grace and smoothness of:
+
+  In sooth I know not why I am so sad.
+
+Ten monosyllables in succession! It is enough to drive a translator to
+despair. Or take:
+
+  To be or not to be, that is the question.
+
+To summarize, no other language can rival English in dramatic dialogue
+in verse, and this is notably true of Shakespeare's English, where the
+word order is frequently simpler and more elastic than it is in modern
+English.
+
+Two reviews of Collin quickly appeared in a pedagogical magazine, _Den
+Höiere Skole_. The first of them,[26] by Ivar Alnæs, is a brief, rather
+perfunctory review. He points out that _The Merchant of Venice_ is
+especially adapted to reading in the gymnasium, for it is unified in
+structure, the characters are clearly presented, the language is not
+difficult, and the picture is worth while historically. Collin has,
+therefore, done a great service in making the play available for
+teaching purposes. Alnæs warmly praises the introduction; it is
+clear, full, interesting, and marked throughout by a tone of genuine
+appreciation. But right here lies its weakness. It is not always easy
+to distinguish ascertained facts from Collin's imaginative combinations.
+Every page, however, gives evidence of the editor's endeavor to give to
+the student fresh, stimulating impressions, and new, revealing points of
+view. This is a great merit and throws a cloak over many eccentricities
+of language.
+
+    [26. Vol. 5 (1903), pp. 51 ff.]
+
+But Collin was not to escape so easily. In the same volume Dr.
+August Western[27] wrote a severe criticism of Collin's treatment
+of Shakespeare's versification.
+
+    [27. _Ibid._ pp. 142 ff.]
+
+He agrees, as a matter of course, that Shakespeare is a master of
+versification, but he does not believe that Collin has proved it. That
+blank verse is the natural speech of the chief characters or of the
+minor characters under emotional stress, that prose is _usually_ used by
+minor characters or by important characters under no emotional strain
+is, in Dr. Western's opinion, all wrong. Nor is prose per se more
+restful than poetry. And is not Shylock more emotional in his scene
+(I, 3) than any of the characters in the casket scene immediately
+following (II, 1)? According to Collin, then, I, 3 should be in verse
+and II, 1 in prose! Equally absurd is the theory that Shakespeare's
+characters speak in verse because their natures demand it. Does Shylock
+go contrary to nature in III, 1? There is no psychological reason for
+Verse in Shakespeare. He wrote as he did because convention prescribed
+it. The same is true of Goethe and Schiller, of Bjørnson and Ibsen in
+their earlier plays. Shakespeare's lapses into prose are, moreover, easy
+to explain. There must always be something to amuse the gallery. Act
+III, 1 must be so understood, for though Shakespeare was undoubtedly
+moved, the effect of the scene was comic. The same is true of the
+dialogue between Portia and Nerissa in Act I, and of all the scenes
+in which Launcelot Gobbo appears.
+
+Western admits, however, that much of the prose in Shakespeare cannot
+be so explained; for example, the opening scenes in _Lear_ and _The
+Tempest_. And this brings up another point, i.e., Collin's supposition
+that Shakespeare's texts as we have them are exactly as he wrote them.
+When the line halts, Collin simply finds proof of the poet's fine ear!
+The truth probably is that Shakespeare had a good ear and that he always
+wrote good lines, but that he took no pains to see that these lines were
+correctly printed. Take, for example, such a line as:
+
+  As far as Belmont.
+      In such a night
+
+This would, if written by anyone else, always be considered bad, and Dr.
+Western does not believe that Collin's theory of the pauses will hold.
+The pause plays no part in verse. A line consists of a fixed number
+of _heard_ syllables. Collin would say that a line like I, 1-73:
+
+  I will not fail you,
+
+is filled out with a bow and a swinging of the hat. Then why are the
+lines just before it, in which Salarino and Salario take leave of each
+other, not defective? Indeed, how can we be sure that much of what
+passes for "Shakespeare's versification" is not based on printers'
+errors? In the folio of 1623 there are long passages printed in prose
+which, after closer study, we must believe were written in verse--the
+opening of _Lear_ and _The Tempest_. Often, too, it is plain that
+the beginnings and endings of lines have been run together. Take the
+passage:
+
+  _Sal_:
+  Why, then you are in love.
+
+  _Ant_:
+      Fie, fie!
+
+  _Sal_:
+  Not in love neither? Then let us say you are sad--
+
+The first line is one foot short, the second one foot too long. This
+Collin would call a stroke of genius; each _fie_ is a complete foot,
+and the line is complete! But what if the line were printed thus:
+
+  _Sal_:
+  Why, then you are in love.
+
+  _Ant_:
+      Fie, fie!
+
+  _Sal_:
+          Not in
+  Love neither? Then let us say you are sad.
+
+or possibly:
+
+  Love neither? Then let's say that you are sad.
+
+Another possible printer's error is found in I, 3-116:
+
+  With bated breath and whispering humbleness
+  Say this;
+  Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last.
+
+Are we here to imagine a pause of four feet? And what are we to do with
+the first folio which has
+
+  Say this; Fair sir, you spit on me on Wednesday last.
+
+all in one line? Perhaps some printer chose between the two. At any
+rate, Collin's theory will not hold. In the schools, of course, one
+cannot be a text critic but, on the other hand, one must not praise in
+Shakespeare what may be the tricks of the printer's devil. The text is
+not always faultless.
+
+Finally, Dr. Western objects to the statement that the difficulty in
+translating Shakespeare lies in the great number of monosyllables and
+gives
+
+  In sooth, I know not why I am so sad
+
+as proof. Ten monosyllables in one line! But this is not impossible in
+Norwegian:
+
+  For sand, jeg ved ei, hvi jeg er saa trist--
+
+It is not easy to translate Shakespeare, but the difficulty goes deeper
+than his richness in words of one syllable.
+
+With the greater part of Dr. Western's article everyone will agree. It
+is doubtful if any case could be made out for the division of prose and
+verse based on psychology. Shakespeare probably wrote his plays in verse
+for the same reason that Goethe and Schiller and Oehlenschläger did. It
+was the fashion. And how difficult it is to break with fashion or with
+old tradition, the history of Ibsen's transition from poetry to prose
+shows. It is equally certain that in Collin's _Introduction_ it is
+difficult to distinguish ascertained facts from brilliant speculation.
+But it is not easy to agree with Dr. Western that Collin's explanation
+of the "pause" is a tissue of fancy.
+
+In the first place, no one denies that the printers have at times
+played havoc with Shakespeare's text. Van Dam and Stoffel, to whose book
+Western refers and whose suggestions are directly responsible for this
+article, have shown this clearly enough. But when Dr. Western argues
+that because printers have corrupted the text in some places, they must
+be held accountable for every defective short line, we answer, it does
+not follow. In the second place, why should not a pause play a part in
+prosody as well as in music? Recall Tennyson's verse:
+
+      Break, break, break,
+  On thy cold, grey stones, o sea!
+
+where no one feels that the first line is defective. Of course the
+answer is that in Tennyson no accented syllable is lacking. But it is
+difficult to understand what difference this makes. When the reader has
+finished pronouncing _Belmont_ there _must_ be a moment's hesitation
+before Lorenzo breaks in with:
+
+  In such a night
+
+and this pause may have metrical value. The only judge of verse, after
+all, is the hearer, and, in my opinion, Collin is right when he points
+out the value of the slight metrical pause between the bits of repartee.
+Whether Shakespeare counted the syllables beforehand or not, is another
+matter. In the third place, Collin did not quote in support of his
+theory the preposterous lines which Dr. Western uses against him. Collin
+does quote I, 1-5:
+
+  I am to learn.
+
+and I, 1-73:
+
+  I will not fail you
+
+is a close parallel, but Collin probably would not insist that his
+theory accounts for every case. As to Dr. Western's other example of
+good meter spoiled by corrupt texts, Collin would, no doubt, admit
+the possibility of the proposed emendations. It would not alter his
+contention that a pause in the line, like a pause in music, is not
+necessarily void, but may be very significant indeed.
+
+The array of Shakespearean critics in Norway, as we said at the
+beginning, is not imposing. Nor are their contributions important.
+But they show, at least, a sound acquaintance with Shakespeare and
+Shakespeareana, and some of them, like the articles of Just Bing,
+Brettville Jensen, Christen Collin, and August Western, are interesting
+and illuminating. Bjørnson's article in _Aftenbladet_ is not merely
+suggestive as Shakespearean criticism, but it throws valuable light
+on Bjørnson himself and his literary development. When we come to the
+dramatic criticism of Shakespeare's plays, we shall find renewed
+evidence of a wide and intelligent knowledge of Shakespeare in Norway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Performances Of Shakespeare's Plays In Norway
+
+_Christiania_
+
+
+The first public theater in Christiania was opened by the Swedish
+actor, Johan Peter Strömberg, on January 30, 1827, but no Shakespeare
+production was put on during his short and troubled administration.
+Not quite two years later this strictly private undertaking became a
+semi-public one under the immediate direction of J.K. Böcher, and at
+the close of the season 1829-30, Böcher gave by way of epilogue to
+the year, two performances including scenes from Holberg's _Melampe_,
+Shakespeare's _Hamlet_, and Oehlenschläger's _Aladdin_. The Danish actor
+Berg played Hamlet, but we have no further details of the performance.
+We may be sure, however, that of the two translations available, Boye's
+and Foersom's, the latter was used. _Hamlet_, or a part of it, was thus
+given for the first time in Norway nearly seventeen years after Foersom
+himself had brought it upon the stage in Denmark.[1]
+
+    [1. Blanc: _Christianias Theaters Historie_, p. 51.]
+
+More than fourteen years were to elapse before the theater took
+up Shakespeare in earnest. On July 28, 1844, the first complete
+Shakespearean play was given. This was _Macbeth_ in Foersom's version
+of Schiller's "bearbeitung," which we shall take up in our studies of
+Shakespeare in Denmark.[2] No reviews of it are to be found in the
+newspapers of the time, not even an announcement. This, however, does
+not prove that the event was unnoticed, for the press of that day was
+a naive one. Extensive reviews were unknown; the most that the public
+expected was a notice.
+
+    [2. Blanc does not refer to this performance in his _Historie_.
+    But this and all other data of performances from 1844 to 1899 are
+    taken from his "Fortegnelse over alle dramatiske Arbeider, som
+    siden Kristiania Offentlige Theaters Aabning, den 30. Januar 1827,
+    har vært opført af dets Personale indtil 15 Juni 1899." The work
+    is unpublished. Ms 4to, No. 940 in the University Library,
+    Christiania.]
+
+We are equally ignorant of the fate of _Othello_, performed the next
+season, being given for the first time on January 3, 1845. Wulff's
+Danish translation was used. Blanc says in his _Historie_[3] that
+Desdemona and Iago were highly praised, but that the play as a whole
+was greatly beyond the powers of the theater.
+
+    [3. See p. 94, note 1.]
+
+Nearly eight years later, November 11, 1852, _Romeo and Juliet_ in
+Foersom's translation received its Norwegian premiere. The acting
+version used was that made for the Royal Theater in Copenhagen by A.E.
+Boye in 1828.[4] _Christiania Posten_[5] reports a packed house and a
+tremendous enthusiasm. Romeo (by Wiehe) and Juliet (by Jomfru Svendsen)
+revealed careful study and complete understanding. The reviewer in
+_Morgenbladet_[6] begins with the little essay on Shakespeare so common
+at the time; "Everyone knows with what colors the immortal Shakespeare
+depicts human passions. In _Othello_, jealousy; in _Hamlet_, despair;
+in _Romeo and Juliet_, love, are sung in tones which penetrate to the
+depths of the soul. Against the background of bitter feud, the love of
+Romeo and Juliet stands out victorious and beneficent. Even if we cannot
+comprehend this passion, we can, at least, feel the ennobling power of
+the story." Both of the leading parts are warmly praised. Of Wiehe the
+reviewer says: "Der var et Liv af Varme hos ham i fuldt Maal, og den
+grændseløse Fortvivlelse blev gjengivet med en næsten forfærdelig
+Troskab."
+
+    [4. See Aumont og Collin: _Det Danske Nationalteater_. V Afsnit,
+    pp. 118 ff.]
+
+    [5. _Christiania Posten_. November 15, 1845.]
+
+    [6. _Morgenbladet_. November 15, 1845.]
+
+The same season (Dec. 11, 1852) the theater also presented _As You
+Like It_ in the Danish version by Sille Beyer. The performance of two
+Shakespearean plays within a year may rightly be called an ambitious
+undertaking for a small theatre without a cent of subsidy. _Christiania
+Posten_ says: "It is a real kindness to the public to make it acquainted
+with these old masterpieces. One feels refreshed, as though coming
+out of a bath, after a plunge into their boundless, pure poetry. The
+marvellous thing about this comedy (_As You Like It_) is its wonderful,
+spontaneous freshness, and its freedom from all sentimentality and
+emotional nonsense." The acting, says the critic, was admirable, but
+its high quality must, in a measure, be attributed to the sympathy and
+enthusiasm of the audience. Wiehe is praised for his interpretation of
+Orlando and Jomfru Svendsen for her Rosalind.[7] Apparently none of the
+reviewers noticed that Sille Beyer had turned Shakespeare upside down.
+Her version was given for the last time on Sept. 25, 1878, and in this
+connection an interesting discussion sprang up in the press.
+
+    [7. _Christiania Posten_. Dec. 12, 1852.]
+
+The play was presented by student actors, and the performance
+was therefore less finished than it would have been under other
+circumstances. _Aftenposten_ was doubtless right when it criticised the
+director for entrusting so great a play to unpractised hands, assuming
+that Shakespeare should be played at all. "For our part, we do not
+believe the time far distant when Shakespeare will cease to be a
+regular part of the repertoire."[8] To this statement a contributor in
+_Aftenposten_ for Sept. 28 objected. He admits that Shakespeare wrote
+his plays for a stage different from our own, that the ease with which
+Elizabethan scenery was shifted gave his plays a form that makes them
+difficult to play today. Too often at a modern presentation we feel that
+we are seeing a succession of scenes rather than unified, organic drama.
+But, after all, the main thing is the substance--"the weighty content,
+and this will most certainly secure for them for a long time to come a
+place in the repertoire of the theater of the Germanic world. So long
+as we admit that in the delineation of character, in the presentation
+of noble figures, and in the mastery of dialogue, Shakespeare is
+unexcelled, so long we must admit that Shakespeare has a place on the
+modern stage."
+
+    [8. _Aftenposten_. Sept. 21, 1878.]
+
+Where did _Aftenposten_'s reviewer get the idea that Shakespeare's plays
+are not adapted to the modern stage? Was it from Charles Lamb? At any
+rate, it is certain that he anticipated a movement that has led to many
+devices both in the English-speaking countries and in Germany to
+reproduce the stage conditions under which Shakespeare's plays were
+performed during his own life.
+
+Of the next Shakespearean piece to be performed in Christiania,
+_All's Well That Ends Well_, there is but the briefest mention in
+the newspapers. We know that it was given in the curiously perverted
+arrangement by Sille Beyer and was presented twelve times from January
+15, 1854 to May 23, 1869. On that day a new version based on Lembcke's
+translation was used, and in this form the play was given eight times
+the following seasons. Since January 24, 1882, it has not been performed
+in Norway.[9]
+
+    [9. See Blanc's _Fortegnelse_. p. 93.]
+
+At the beginning of the next season, October 29, 1854, _Much Ado About
+Nothing_ was introduced to Kristiania theater-goers under the title
+_Blind Alarm_. The translation was by Carl Borgaard, director of the
+theater. But here, too, contemporary documents leave us in the dark.
+There is merely a brief announcement in the newspapers. Blanc informs
+us that Jomfru Svendsen played Hero, and Wiehe, Benedict.[10]
+
+    [10. See Blanc's _Fortegnelse_. p. 93.]
+
+After _Blind Alarm_ Shakespeare disappears from the repertoire for
+nearly four years. A version of _The Taming of the Shrew_ under the
+title _Hun Maa Tæmmes_ was given on March 28, 1858, but with no great
+success. Most of the papers ignored it. _Aftenbladet_ merely announced
+that it had been given.[11]
+
+    [11. _Aftenbladet_. March 22, 1858.]
+
+_Viola_, Sille Beyer's adaptation of _Twelfth Night_ was presented at
+Christiania Theater on November 20, 1860, the eighth of Shakespeare's
+plays to be presented in Norway, and again not merely in a Danish text
+but in a version made for the Copenhagen Theater.
+
+Neither the critics nor the public were exacting. The press hailed
+_Viola_ as a tremendous relief from the frothy stuff with which
+theater-goers had been sickened for a season or two. "The theater
+finally justified its existence," says _Morgenbladet_,[12] "by a
+performance of one of Shakespeare's plays. Viola was beautifully done."
+The writer then explains in conventional fashion the meaning of the
+English title and goes on--"But since the celebration of _Twelfth Night_
+could interest only the English, the Germans have "bearbeidet" the play
+and centered the interest around Viola. We have adopted this version."
+He approves of Sille Beyer's cutting, though he admits that much is lost
+of the breadth and overwhelming romantic fulness that mark the original.
+But this he thinks is compensated for by greater intelligibility and the
+resulting dramatic effect. "Men hvad Stykket ved saadan Forandring,
+Beklippelse, og Udeladelse saaatsige taber af sin Fylde idet ikke alt
+det Leende, Sorgløse og Romantiske vandre saa ligeberettiget side om
+side igjennem Stykket, mens det Øvrige samler sig om Viola, det opveies
+ved den større Forstaaelighed for vort Publikum og denne mere afrundede
+sceniske Virkning, Stykket ved Bearbeidelsen har faaet." As the piece is
+arranged now, Viola and her brother are not on the stage at the same
+time until Act V. Both rôles may therefore be played by Jomfru Svendsen.
+The critic is captivated by her acting of the double rôle, and
+Jørgensen's Malvolio and Johannes Brun's Sir Andrew Aguecheek share
+with her the glory of a thoroughly successful performance.
+
+    [12. November 23, 1860.]
+
+Sille Beyer's _Viola_ was given twelve times. From the thirteenth
+performance, January 21, 1890, _Twelfth Night_ was given in a new form
+based on Lembcke's translation.
+
+A thorough search through the newspaper files fails to reveal even a
+slight notice of _The Merchant of Venice_ (Kjøbmanden i Venedig) played
+for the first time on Sept. 17, 1861. Rahbek's translation was used, and
+this continued to be the standard until 1874, when, beginning with the
+eighth performance, it was replaced by Lembcke's.
+
+We come, then, to _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ (Skjærsommernatsdrømmen)
+played in Oehlenschläger's translation under Bjørnson's direction on
+April 17, 1865. The play was given ten times from that date till
+May 27, 1866. In spite of this unusual run it appears to have been only
+moderately successful, and when Bjørnson dropped it in the spring of
+1866, it was to disappear from the repertoire for thirty-seven years.
+On January 15, 1903, it was revived by Bjørnson's son, Bjørn Bjørnson.
+This time, however, it was called _Midsommernatsdrömmen_, and the acting
+version was based on Lembcke's translation. In this new shape it has
+been played twenty-seven times up to January, 1913.
+
+The interesting polemic which Bjørnson's production occasioned has
+already been discussed at some length. This may be added, however:
+A play which, according to the poet's confession, influenced his life as
+this one did, has played an important part in Norwegian literature. The
+influence may be intangible. It is none the less real.
+
+More popular than any of the plays which had thus far been presented in
+Norway was _A Winter's Tale_, performed at Christiania Theater for the
+first time on May 4, 1866. The version used had, however, but a faint
+resemblance to the original. It was a Danish revision of Dingelstedt's
+_Ein Wintermärchen_. I shall discuss this Holst-Dingelstedt text in
+another place. At this point it is enough to say that Shakespeare is
+highly diluted. It seems, nevertheless, to have been successful, for
+between the date of its premiere and March 21, 1893, when it was given
+for the last time, it received fifty-seven performances, easily breaking
+all records for Shakespearean plays at the old theater. And at the new
+National Theater, where it has never been given, no Shakespearean play,
+with the exception of _The Taming of the Shrew_ has approached its
+record.
+
+_Aftenbladet_[13] in its preliminary review said: "Although this is
+not one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, it is well worth putting on,
+especially in the form which Dingelstedt has given to it. It was
+received with the greatest enthusiasm." But _Aftenbladet's_ promised
+critical review never appeared.
+
+    [13. May 5, 1866.]
+
+More interesting and more important than most of the performances
+which we have thus far considered is that of _Henry IV_ in 1867, while
+Bjørnson was still director. To his desire to give Johannes Brun an
+opportunity for the display of his genius in the greatest of comic rôles
+we owe this version of the play. Bjørnson obviously could not give both
+parts, and he chose to combine cuttings from the two into a single play
+with Falstaff as the central figure. The translation used was Lembcke's
+and the text was only slightly norvagicized.
+
+Bjørnson's original prompt book is not now available. In 1910, however,
+H. Wiers Jensen, a playwright associated with the National Theater,
+shortened and slightly adapted the version for a revival of the play,
+which had not been seen in Kristiania since February 8, 1885. We may
+assume that in all essentials the prompt book of 1910 reproduces that of
+1867.
+
+In this _Kong Henrik IV_ the action opens with I Henry IV, II-4, and Act
+I consists of this scene freely cut and equally freely handled in the
+distribution of speeches. The opening of the scene, for example, is cut
+away entirely and replaced by a brief account of the robbery put naively
+into the mouth of Poins. The opening of Act II is entirely new. Since
+all the historical scenes of Act I of the original have been omitted, it
+becomes necessary to give the audience some notion of the background.
+This is done in a few lines in which the King tells of the revolt of
+the nobles and of his own difficult situation. Then follows the king's
+speech from Part I, Act III, Sc. 2:
+
+  Lords, give us leave; the prince of Wales and I
+  must have some conference...
+
+and what follows is the remainder of the scene with many cuttings. Sir
+Walter Blunt does not appear. His rôle is taken by Warwick.
+
+Act II, Sc. 2 of Bjørnson's text follows Part I, Act III, Sc. 3 closely.
+
+Act III, Sc. 1 corresponds with Part I, Act III, Sc. 1 to the point
+where Lady Mortimer and Lady Percy enter. This episode is cut and the
+scene resumes with the entrance of the messenger in Part I, Act IV,
+Sc. 1, line 14. This scene is then followed in outline to the end.
+
+Act III, Sc. 2 begins with Part I, Act IV, Sc. 3 from the entrance of
+Falstaff, and follows it to the end of the scene. To this is added most
+of Scene 4, but there is little left of the original action. Only the
+Falstaff episodes are retained intact.
+
+The last act (IV) is a wonderful composite. Scene 1 corresponds closely
+to Part II, Act III, Sc. 4, but it is, as usual, severely cut. Scene 2
+reverts back to Part II, Act III, Sc. 2 and is based on this scene to
+line 246, after which it is free handling of Part II, Act V, Sc. 3.
+Scene 3 is based on Part II, Act V, Sc. 5.
+
+A careful reading of Bjørnson's text with the above as a guide will
+show that this collection of episodes, chaotic as it seems, makes no
+ineffective play. With a genius--and a genius Johannes Brun was--as
+Falstaff, one can imagine that the piece went brilliantly. The press
+received it favorably, though the reviewers were much too critical to
+allow Bjørnson's mangling of the text to go unrebuked.
+
+_Aftenbladet_ has a careful review.[14] The writer admits that in our
+day it requires courage and labor to put on one of Shakespeare's
+historical plays, for they were written for a stage radically different
+from ours. In the Elizabethan times the immense scale of these
+"histories" presented no difficulties. On a modern stage the mere
+bulk makes a faithful rendition impossible. And the moment one starts
+tampering with Shakespeare, trouble begins. No two adapters will agree
+as to what or how to cut. Moreover, it may well be questioned whether
+any such cutting as that made for the theater here would be tolerated in
+any other country with a higher and older Shakespeare "Kultur." The
+attempt to fuse the two parts of _Henry IV_ would be impossible in a
+country with higher standards. "Our theater can, however, venture
+undisturbed to combine these two comprehensive series of scenes into
+one which shall not require more time than each one of them singly--a
+venture, to be sure, which is not wholly without precedent in foreign
+countries. It is clear that the result cannot give an adequate notion of
+Shakespeare's 'histories' in all their richness of content, but it does,
+perhaps, give to the theater a series of worth-while problems to work
+out, the importance of which should not be underestimated. The attempt,
+too, has made our theater-goers familiar with Shakespeare's greatest
+comic character, apparently to their immense delight. Added to all this
+is the fact that the acting was uniformly excellent."
+
+    [14. February 18, 1867.]
+
+But by what right is the play called Henry IV? Practically nothing is
+left of the historical setting, and the spectator is at a loss to know
+just what the whole thing is about. Certainly the whole emphasis is
+shifted, for the king, instead of being an important character is
+overshadowed by Prince Hal. The Falstaff scenes, on the other hand, are
+left almost in their original fulness, and thus constitute a much more
+important part of the play than they do in the original. The article
+closes with a glowing tribute to Johannes Brun as Falstaff.
+
+_Morgenbladet_[15] goes into greater detail. The reviewer seems to think
+that Shakespeare had some deep purpose in dividing the material into two
+parts--he wished to have room to develop the character of Prince Henry.
+"Accordingly, in the first part he gives us the early stages of Prince
+Hal's growth, beginning with the Prince of Wales as a sort of superior
+rake and tracing the development of his better qualities. In Part II we
+see the complete assertion of his spiritual and intellectual powers."
+The writer overlooks the fact that what Shakespeare was writing first of
+all--or rather, what he was revising--was a chronicle. If he required
+more than five acts to give the history of Henry IV he could use ten and
+call it two plays. If, in so doing, he gave admirable characterization,
+it was something inherent in his own genius, not in the materials with
+which he was working.
+
+    [15. February 17, 1867.]
+
+The history, says the reviewer, and the Falstaff scenes are the
+background for the study of the Prince, each one serving a distinct
+purpose. But here the history has been made meaningless and the Falstaff
+episodes have been put in the foreground. He points out that balance,
+proportion, and perspective are all lost by this. Yet, granting that
+such revolutionizing of a masterpiece is ever allowable, it must be
+admitted that Bjørnson has done it with considerable skill. Bjørnson's
+purpose is clear enough. He knew that Johannes Brun as Falstaff would
+score a triumph, and this success for his theater he was determined to
+secure. The same motive was back of the version which Stjernstrøm put on
+in Stockholm, and there can be little doubt that his success suggested
+the idea to Bjørnson. The nature of the cutting reveals the purpose at
+every step. For instance, the scene in which the Gadskill robbery is
+made clear, is cut entirely. We thus lose the first glimpse of the
+sterner and manlier side of the royal reveller. In fact, if Bjørnson had
+been frank he would have called his play _Falstaff--based on certain
+scenes from Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts I and II_.
+
+Yet, though much has been lost, much of what remains is excellent.
+Brun's Falstaff almost reconciles us to the sacrifice. Long may he live
+and delight us with it! It is one of his most superb creations. The cast
+as a whole is warmly praised. It is interesting to note that at the
+close of the review the critic suggests that the text be revised with
+Hagberg's Swedish translation at hand, for Lembcke's Danish contains
+many words unusual or even unfamiliar in Norwegian.
+
+_Henry IV_ remained popular in Norway, although from February 8,
+1885 to February 10, 1910 it was not given in Kristiania. When, in 1910,
+it was revived with Løvaas as Falstaff, the reception given it by the
+press was about what it had been a quarter of a century before.
+_Aftenposten_'s[16] comment is characteristic: "The play is turned
+upside down. The comic sub-plot with Falstaff as central figure is
+brought forward to the exclusion of all the rest. More than this, what
+is retained is shamelessly altered." Much more scathing is a short
+review by Christian Elster in the magazine _Kringsjaa_.[17] The play,
+he declares, has obviously been given to help out the box office by
+speculating in the popularity of Falstaff. "There is no unity, no
+coherence, no consistency in the delineation of characters, and even
+from the comic scenes the spirit has fled."[17]
+
+    [16. _Aftenposten_. February 25, 1910.]
+
+    [17. _Kringsjaa_ XV, III (1910), p. 173.]
+
+To all this it may be replied that the public was right when it
+accepted Falstaff for what he was regardless of the violence done to the
+original. The Norwegian public cared little about the wars, little even
+about the king and the prince; but people will tell one today of those
+glorious evenings when they sat in the theater and revelled in Johannes
+Brun as the big, elephantine knight.
+
+In the spring of 1813, Foersom himself brought out _Hamlet_ on the
+Danish stage. Nearly sixty years were to pass before this play was put
+on in Norway, March 4, 1870.
+
+The press was not lavish in its praise. _Dagbladet_[18] remarks
+that though the performance was not what it ought to have been, the
+audience followed it from first to last with undivided attention.
+_Aftenbladet_[19] has a long and interesting review. Most of it is
+given over to a criticism of Isaachson's Hamlet. First of all, says
+the reviewer, Isaachson labors under the delusion that every line is
+cryptic, embodying a secret. This leads him to forget the volume of the
+part and to invent all sorts of fanciful interpretations for details.
+Thus he loses the unity of the character. Things are hurried through to
+a conclusion and the fine transitions are lost. For example, "Oh, that
+this too, too solid flesh would melt" is started well, but the speech at
+once gains in clearness and decision until one wonders at the close why
+such a Hamlet does not act at once with promptness and vigor. There are,
+to be sure, occasional excellences, but they do not conceal the fact
+that, as a whole, Isaachson does not understand Hamlet.
+
+    [18. March 5, 1870.]
+
+    [19. March 8, 1870.]
+
+Since its first performance _Hamlet_ has been given often in
+Norway--twenty-eight times at the old Christiania Theater, and (from
+October 31, 1907) seventeen times at the new National Theater. Its
+revival in 1907, after an intermission of twenty-four years, was a
+complete success, although _Morgenbladet_[20] complained that the
+performance lacked light and inspiration. The house was full and the
+audience appreciative.
+
+    [20. November 1, 1907.]
+
+_Aftenposten_[21] found the production admirable. Christensen's Hamlet
+was a stroke of genius. "Han er voxet i og med Rollen; han har trængt
+sig ind i den danske Prins' dybeste Individualitet." And of the revival
+the paper says: "The performance shows that a national theater can solve
+difficult problems when the effort is made with sympathy, joy, and
+devotion to art."
+
+    [21. November 1, 1907.]
+
+In my judgment no theater could have given a better caste for
+_The Merry Wives of Windsor_ than that with which Christiania Theater
+was provided. All the actors were artists of distinction; and it is
+not strange, therefore, that the first performance was a huge success.
+_Aftenposten_[22] declares that Brun's Falstaff was a revelation.
+_Morgenbladet_[23] says that the play was done only moderately well.
+Brun as Falstaff was, however, "especially amusing." _Aftenbladet_[24]
+is more generous. "_The Merry Wives of Windsor_ has been awaited with a
+good deal of interest. Next to the curiosity about the play itself, the
+chief attraction has been Brun as Falstaff. And though Falstaff as lover
+gives no such opportunities as Falstaff, the mock hero, Brun makes a
+notable rôle out of it because he knows how to seize upon and bring out
+all there is in it."
+
+    [22. May 15, 1873.]
+
+    [23. May 15, 1873.]
+
+    [24. May 15, 1873.]
+
+Johannes Brun's Falstaff is a classic to this day on the Norwegian
+stage. In _Illustreret Tidende_ for July 12, 1874, K.A. Winterhjelm has
+a short appreciation of his work. "Johannes Brun has, as nearly as we
+can estimate, played something like three hundred rôles at Christiania
+Theater. Many of them, to be sure, are minor parts--but there remains
+a goodly number of important ones, from the clown in the farce to the
+chief parts in the great comedies. Merely to enumerate his great
+successes would carry us far afield. We recall in passing that he
+has given us Falstaff both in _Henry IV_ and in _The Merry Wives of
+Windsor_, Bottom in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_, and Autolycus in
+_A Winter's Tale_. Perhaps he lacks something of the nobleman we feel
+that he should be in _Henry IV_, but aside from this petty criticism,
+what a wondrous comic character Brun has given us!"
+
+As to the success of _Coriolanus_, the sixteenth of Shakespeare's plays
+to be put on in Kristiania, neither the newspapers nor the magazines
+give us any clew. If we may believe a little puff in _Aftenposten_ for
+January 20, 1874, the staging was to be magnificent. _Coriolanus_ was
+played in a translation by Hartvig Lassen for the first time on January
+21, 1874. After thirteen performances it was withdrawn on January 10,
+1876, and has not been since presented.
+
+In 1877, _Richard III_ was brought on the boards for the first time, but
+apparently the occasion was not considered significant, for there is
+scarcely a notice of it. The public seemed surfeited with Shakespeare,
+although the average had been less than one Shakespearean play a season.
+At all events, it was ten years before the theater put on a new
+one--_Julius Caesar_, on March 22, 1888. It had the unheard of
+distinction of being acted sixteen times in one month, from the premiere
+night to April 22. Yet the papers passed it by with indifference. Most
+of them gave it merely a notice, and the promised review in
+_Aftenposten_ never appeared.
+
+_Julius Caesar_ is the last new play to be presented at Christiania
+Theater or at the National Theater, which replaced the old Christiania
+Theater in 1899. From October, 1899 to January, 1913 the National
+Theater has presented eight Shakespearean plays, but every one of
+them has been a revival of plays previously presented.
+
+
+_Bergen_
+
+Up to a few years ago, the only theater of consequence in Norway,
+outside of the capital, was at Bergen. In many respects the history of
+the theater at Bergen is more interesting than that of the theater at
+Christiania. Established in 1850, while Christiania Theater was still
+largely Danish, to foster Norwegian dramatic art, it is associated with
+the greatest names in Norwegian art and letters. The theater owes its
+origin mainly to Ole Bull; Henrik Ibsen was official playwright from
+1851 to 1857, and Bjørnson was director from 1857 to 1859. For a dozen
+years or more "Den Nationale Scene i Bergen" led a precarious existence
+and finally closed its doors in 1863. In 1876 the theater was reopened.
+During the first period only two Shakespearean plays were
+given--_Twelfth Night_ and _As You Like It_.
+
+_As You Like It_ in Stille Beyer's version was played twice during the
+season 1855-56, on September 30 and October 3. The press is silent about
+the performances, but doubtless we may accept Blanc's statement that the
+task was too severe for the Bergen theater.[25]
+
+    [25. Norges Første Nationale Scene. Kristiania. 1884, p. 206.]
+
+Rather more successful were the two performances of _Twelfth Night_ in
+a stage version adapted from the German of Deinhardstein. The celebrated
+Laura Svendsen played the double rôle of Sebastian-Viola with
+conspicuous success.[26]
+
+    [26. _Ibid._, p. 304.]
+
+_The Merchant of Venice_ was given for the first time on October 9,
+1878, two years after the reopening of the theater. _Bergens
+Tidende_[27] calls the production "a creditable piece of amateur
+theatricals," insisting in a review of some length that the young
+theater cannot measure up to the demands which a play of Shakespeare's
+makes. _Bergensposten_ is less severe. Though far from faultless, the
+presentation was creditable, in some details excellent. But, quite apart
+from its absolute merits, there is great satisfaction in seeing the
+theater undertake plays that are worth while.[28] Both papers agree
+that the audience was large and enthusiastic.
+
+    [27. _Bergens Tidende_, October 10, 1878.]
+
+    [28. _Bergensposten_, October 11, 1878.]
+
+The next season _A Winter's Tale_ was given in H.P. Holst's
+translation and adaptation of Dingelstedt's German acting version
+_Ein Wintermärchen_. The press greeted it enthusiastically. _Bergens
+Tidende_[29] says: "_A Winter's Tale_ was performed at our theater
+yesterday in a manner that won the enthusiastic applause of a large
+gathering. The principal actors were called before the curtain again and
+again. It is greatly to the credit of any theater to give a Shakespeare
+drama, and all the more so when it can do it in a form as artistically
+perfect as was yesterday's presentation."
+
+    [29. April 20, 1880. Cf. also _Bergensposten_, April 21, 1880.]
+
+Concerning _Othello_, third in order in the Shakespearean repertoire in
+Bergen, the reviews of the first performance, November 13, 1881, are
+conflicting. _Bergens Tidende_[30] is all praise. It has no hesitation
+in pronouncing Johannesen's Iago a masterpiece. _Bergensposten_[31]
+calls the performance passable but utterly damns Johannesen--"nothing
+short of a colossal blunder." Hr. Johannesen is commended to the easily
+accessible commentaries of Taine and Genée, and to Hamlet's speech to
+the players. Desdemona and Cassio are dismissed in much the same
+fashion.
+
+    [30. November 14, 1881.]
+
+    [31. November 15, 1881.]
+
+A few days later, November 18, _Bergensposten_ reviewed the performance
+again and was glad to note a great improvement.
+
+_Bergens Addressecontoirs Efterretninger_[32] agrees with
+_Bergensposten_ in its estimate of Johannesen. "He gives us only the
+villain in Iago, not the cunning Ensign who deceives so many." But
+Desdemona was thoroughly satisfying.
+
+    [32. November 15, 1881.]
+
+Whatever may have been its initial success, _Othello_ did not last. It
+was given four times during the season 1881-2, but was then dropped and
+has never since been taken up.
+
+Three different groups of _Hamlet_ performances have been given in
+Bergen. In September, 1883, the Ophelia scenes from Act IV were given;
+the complete play, however, was not given till November 28, 1886. The
+press,[33] for once, was unanimous in declaring the production a
+success. It is interesting that an untried actor at his debut was
+entrusted with the rôle. But, to judge from the press comments, Hr.
+Løchen more than justified the confidence in him. His interpretation of
+the subtlest character in Shakespeare was thoroughly satisfying.[34]
+
+    [33. Cf. _Bergens Tidende_, November 29, 1886; _Bergens
+    Aftenblad_, November 29, 1886; _Bergensposten_, December 2, 1886.]
+
+    [34. Cf. _Bergens Tidende_, November 30, 1886; _Bergens
+    Aftenblad_, November 29, 1886; _Bergensposten_, December 1, 1886.]
+
+Finally, it should be noted that a Swedish travelling company under the
+direction of the well-known August Lindberg played _Hamlet_ in Bergen on
+November 5, 1895.
+
+It is apparent, from the tone of the press comment that a Shakespearean
+production was regarded as a serious undertaking. The theater approached
+the task hesitatingly, and the newspapers always qualify their praise or
+their blame with some apologetic remark about "the limited resources of
+our theater." This explains the long gaps between new productions, five
+years between _Othello_ (1881) and the complete _Hamlet_ (1886); five
+years likewise between _Hamlet_ and _King Henry IV_.
+
+_Henry IV_ in Bjørnson's stage cutting promised at first to establish
+itself. Its first performance was greeted by a crowded house, and
+enthusiasm ran high. The press questions the right of the play to the
+title of _Henry IV_, since it is a collection of scenes grouped about
+Prince Hal and Falstaff. But aside from this purely objective criticism
+the comment is favorable.[35]
+
+    [35. Cf. _Bergens Tidende_, March 2, 1891; _Bergens Aftenblad_,
+    March 2, 1891.]
+
+With the second performance (March 4, 1891) comes a change. _Bergens
+Tidende_ remarks that it is a common experience that a second
+performance is not so successful as the first. Certainly this was true
+in the case of _Henry IV_. The life and sparkle were gone, and the
+sallies of Falstaff awakened no such infectious laughter as they had a
+few evenings before.[36] There was no applause from the crowded house,
+and the coolness of the audience reacted upon the players--all in
+violent contrast to the first performance. The reviewer in _Aftenbladet_
+predicts that the production will have no very long life.[37] He was
+right. It was given once more, on March 6. Since then the theater-goers
+of Bergen have not seen it on their own stage.
+
+    [36. Cf. March 5, 1891.]
+
+    [37. Cf. March 5, 1891.]
+
+Sille Beyer's _Viola_ (which, in turn, is an adaptation of the German of
+Deinhardstein) had been played twice at the old Bergen Theater, July 17
+and 18, 1861. It was now (Oct. 9, 1892) revived in a new cutting based
+on Lembcke's Danish translation. _Bergens Aftenblad_ declares that the
+cutting was reckless and the staging almost beggarly. The presentation
+itself hardly rose above the mediocre.[38] _Bergens Tidende_, on the
+other hand, reports that the performance was an entire success. The
+caste was unexpectedly strong; the costumes and scenery splendid. The
+audience was appreciative and there was generous applause.[39]
+
+    [38. October 10, 1892.]
+
+    [39. October 10 and 13, 1892.]
+
+The last new play to find a place on the repertoire at Bergen is _Romeo
+and Juliet_. This was performed four times in May, 1897. Like _Henry
+IV_, it promised to be a great success, but it survived only four
+performances. _Bergens Tidende_[40] gives a careful, well-written
+analysis of the play and of the presentation. The reviewer gives full
+credit for the beauty of the staging and the excellence of the acting,
+but criticises the censor sharply for the unskillful cutting, and the
+stage manager for the long, tiresome waits. _Bergens Aftenblad_[41]
+praises the performance almost without reserve.
+
+    [40. May 15, 1897.]
+
+    [41. May 15, 1897.]
+
+And the last chapter in the history of Shakespeare's dramas in Bergen
+is a revival of _A Winter's Tale_ in the season 1902-3. The theater had
+done its utmost to give a spendid and worthy setting, and great care was
+given to the rehearsals. The result was a performance which, for beauty,
+symmetry, and artistic unity ranks among the very best that have ever
+been seen at the theater. The press was unanimous in its cordial
+recognition.[42] The play was given no less than nine times during
+October, 1902. Since then Shakespeare has not been given at _Den
+Nationale Scene i Bergen_.
+
+    [42. See _Bergens Aftenblad_ for October 6-9, 1902; _Bergens
+    Tidende_, October 6, 1902.]
+
+
+
+
+APPENDIX
+
+Register Of Shakespearean Performances In Norway
+
+
+_Kristiania_
+
+I. Christiania Theater.
+
+The following record is an excerpt of all the data relating to
+Shakespeare in T. Blanc: _Fortegnelse over alle dramatiske Arbeider, som
+siden Kristiania Theaters offentlige Aabning den 30 Januar, 1827, har
+været opførte paa samme af dets Personale indtil 15 Juni 1899_. This
+_Fortegnelse_ is still unpublished. The MS. is quarto No. 940 in the
+University Library, Kristiania.
+
+1. Blind Alarm. Skuespil i fem Akter af Shakespeare. (Original Title:
+_Much Ado About Nothing_). Translated by Carl Borgaard, from the
+nineteenth performance, May 18, 1878, under the title _Stor Staahei
+for Ingenting_, Oct. 29, 1854, May 26, 1878. 18 times.
+
+2. Coriolanus. Sørgespil i 5 Akter af Shakespeare, bearbeidet for Scenen
+af H. Lassen. Jan. 21, 1874--Jan. 10, 1876. 13 times.
+
+3. De Muntre Koner i Windsor. Lystspil i 5 Akter af Shakespeare.
+(Adapted for the stage by H. Lassen.) May 14, 1873, Nov. 8, 1876.
+12 times.
+
+4. En Skjærsommernatsdrøm. Eventyrkomedie i 5 Akter af W. Shakespeare.
+(Original Title: _A Midsummer Night's Dream_.) Translated by
+Oehlenschlæger. Music by Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. April 17, 1865, May 27,
+1866. 10 times.
+
+5. Et Vintereventyr. Romantisk Skuespil i 5 Akter. Adapted from
+Shakespeare's _A Winter's Tale_ and Dinglestedt's _Ein Wintermärchen_
+by H.P. Holst. Music by Flotow. May 4, 1866, March 21, 1893. 57 times.
+
+6. Hamlet. Tragedie i 5 Akter af W. Shakespeare. Translated by Foersom
+and Lembcke. March 4, 1870, April 27, 1883. 28 times.
+
+7. Hun Maa Tæmmes. Lystspil i 4 Akter. Adapted from Shakespeare's
+_Taming of the Shrew_. March 21, 1858, April 12, 1881. 28 times.
+
+8. Julius Caesar. Tragedie i 5 Akter af William Shakespeare. Translated
+by H. Lassen. March 22, 1887, April 22, 1887. 16 times.
+
+9. Kjøbmanden i Venedig. Skuespil i 5 Akter af Shakespeare. Adapted for
+the stage from Rahbek's translation. From the eighth performance (Oct.
+14, 1874) probably in a new translation by Lembcke. Sept. 17, 1861,
+June 12, 1882. 23 times.
+
+10. Kong Henrik Den Fjerde. Skuespil i 5 Akter af W. Shakespeare.
+Adapted by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson from _King Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2_
+in Lembcke's translation. Feb. 12, 1867, Feb. 8, 1885. 17 times.
+
+11. Kong Richard III. Tragedie i 5 Akter af W. Shakespeare. Translated
+by Lembcke. May 27, 1877, March 10, 1891. 26 times.
+
+12. Kongens Læge. Romantisk Lystspil i 5 Akter efter Shakespeares
+_All's Well That Ends Well_. Adapted by Sille Beyer. From the thirteenth
+performance (May 23, 1869) given under the title _Naar Enden er god er
+Alting godt_ in a new translation by Edvard Lembcke. Jan. 5, 1854, Jan.
+24, 1882. 20 times.
+
+13. Livet i Skoven. Romantisk Lystspil i 4 Akter efter Shakespeares
+_As You Like It_. Adapted by Sille Beyer. Dec. 9, 1852, Sept. 25, 1878.
+19 times.
+
+14. Macbeth. Tragedie i 5 Akter af W. Shakespeare. Schiller's version
+translated by Peter Foersom. Music by Weyse. July 28, 1844, Jan. 6,
+1896. 37 times.
+
+15. Othello, Moren af Venedig. Tragedie i 5 Akter af Shakespeare.
+Translated by P.L. Wulff. Jan. 3, 1845, March 10, 1872. 10 times.
+
+16. Romeo og Julie. Tragedie i 5 Akter af W. Shakespeare. Translated by
+P. Foersom and A.E. Boye. From the sixth performance (April 4, 1880)
+probably in a new translation by Lembcke. Nov. 11, 1852, July 12, 1899.
+42 times.
+
+17. Viola. Lystspil i 5 Akter efter Shakespeare's _Twelfth Night_.
+Translated and adapted by Sille Beyer. From the thirteenth performance
+(Jan. 21, 1890) under the title _Helligtrekongersaften, eller hvad man
+vil_. (In Lembcke's translation with music by Catherinus Elling.) Nov.
+20, 1860, May 31, 1891. 30 times.
+
+
+II. Nationaltheatret.
+
+The record of the Shakespearean performances at Nationaltheatret has
+been compiled from the summary of performances given in the decade
+1899-1909 contained in _Beretning om Nationaltheatrets Virksomhed i
+Aaret 1909-1910_. Kristiania, 1910. The record of performances
+subsequent to 1910, as well as the date of the first performances of
+all plays, has been found in the Journal of the theater.
+
+1. Helligtrekongersaften. (Twelfth Night). Oct. 5, 1899. 10 times.
+
+2. Trold Kan Tæmmes. (The Taming of the Shrew.) Dec. 26, 1900. 35 times.
+
+3. En Sommernats Dröm. (A Midsummer Night's Dream) Jan. 15, 1903.
+20 times.
+
+4. Kjöbmanden i Venedig. (The Merchant of Venice) Sept. 5, 1906.
+20 times.
+
+5. Hamlet. Oct. 31, 1907. 17 times.
+
+6. Othello. Oct. 22, 1908. 12 times.
+
+7. Henry IV. Feb. 10, 1910. 10 times.
+
+8. As You Like It. Nov. 7, 1912. This play was still being given when
+the investigation ceased. Ten performances had been given.
+
+
+_Bergen_
+
+I. The First Theater in Bergen (1850-1863)
+
+The information relating to Shakespeare at the old theater is gathered
+from T. Blanc: _Norges første nationale Scene. Bergen 1850-1863. Et
+Bidrag til den norske dramatiske Kunsts Historie. Kristiania, 1884_.
+
+1. Livet I Skoven. Romantisk Skuespil i 4 Akter efter Shakespeares
+_As You Like It_. Adapted by Sille Beyer. Sept. 30 and Oct. 9, 1855.
+2 times.
+
+2. Viola. Lystspil i 5 Akter efter Deinhardsteins Bearbeidelse af
+Shakespeares _What You Will_. Adapted by Sille Beyer. July 17 and 18,
+1861. 2 times.
+
+
+II. The New Theater at Bergen (1876)
+
+The following data have been communicated to me by Hr. Christian Landal,
+of the theater at Bergen. They have been compiled from the _Journal
+(Spillejournal)_ of the theater.
+
+1. Kjöbmanden i Venedig (The Merchant of Venice) Oct. 9, 11, 13, 1878.
+Friday, June 18, 1880, the Shylock scenes, with Emil Paulsen (of the
+Royal Theater in Copenhagen) as guest. 4 times.
+
+2. Et Vintereventyr. (A Winter's Tale) April 19, 21, 25, 26, 28, 1880;
+May 9, 1880; Nov. 28, 29, 1889; Oct. 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 15, 17, 20,
+1902. 18 times.
+
+3. Othello. Nov. 13, 16, 18, 28, 1881. 4 times.
+
+4. Hamlet. Nov. 28 and 29; Dec. 1, 5, 19, 1886. The Ophelia scenes from
+Act 4 with Ida Falberg Kiachas as guest. Sept. 12, 14, 16, 21, 1883.
+Guest performance by August Lindberg and his Swedish company. Nov. 15,
+1895. 10 times.
+
+5. Helligtrekongersaften. (_Twelfth Night_) in Lembcke's translation.
+Oct. 9, 12, 14, 16, 1892; April 23, 1893 in Stavanger. 5 times.
+
+6. Romeo og Julie. May 12, 16, 19, 27, 1897. 4 times.
+
+
+SUMMARY
+
+There have been played in Christiania seventeen plays of Shakespeare's
+with a total of 540 performances. In Bergen seven Shakespearean plays
+have been played with a total of 49 performances.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Errors and Anomalies Noted by Transcriber:
+
+English:
+
+_passim_
+  Oehlenschläger/Oehlenschlæger
+    _variant spellings in original_
+
+p. 6n.
+  after 1807 the history of Shakespeare in Denmark is more complicated
+    _original has_ Denkmark
+
+p. 9
+  It is Coriolanus' outburst of wrath against the pretensions of the
+  tribunes (III, 1)
+    _original has_ 111-1
+
+p. 15
+  even to thought as sophisticated as this
+    _original has_ sophiscated
+
+p. 32
+  And when we read the scenes in which Lancelot Gobbo figures...
+    _spelling as in original_
+
+p. 36
+  Titania's instructions to the fairies
+    _original has_ faries
+
+p. 39
+  though there seems to be little to choose between them
+    _original has_ thought here
+
+p. 43
+  the Foersom-Lembcke version has become standard
+    _original has_ Forsom-Lembcke
+
+p. 50
+  notably in the duke's speech
+    _original has_ notaby
+  (Silvius and Pippa)
+    _original has_ anid
+
+p. 51
+  dialogue between Orlando and Rosalind in II, 2
+    _so in original_
+
+p. 57
+  Also he has acquitted himself well
+    _original has_ aquitted
+
+p. 68
+  nothing to do with the case.
+    _original has_ ...with case.
+
+p. 69
+  Molière
+    _original has_ Moliére
+
+p. 80
+  Cassius' weakness for strong drink
+    _so in original_
+
+p. 81n.
+  The Shakespearean Controversy
+    _original has_ Shakespeareen
+
+p. 82n.
+  and Bierfreund, to declare
+    _original has_ ...Bierfreund to, declare
+
+p. 86
+  He images Shakespeare
+    _so in original_: imagines?
+
+p. 88
+  in I, 3-123 where Shylock suddenly stops after "say this"
+    _original has_ I-3-1.3
+  (Sic!)
+    _so in original_
+  Occasionally a syllable is lacking
+    _original has_ Occassionally
+
+p. 89
+  Vailing her high tops higher than her ribs. (I, 1-28)
+    _original has_ I-1-28
+
+p. 95nn.
+  See p. 94, note 1.
+    _original has_ p. 85, note 1
+  November 15, 1845 (_twice_)
+    _date and year as in original_
+
+p. 97n.
+  March 22, 1858.
+    _date as in original_
+
+p. 98
+  This may be added, however: A play which, according to the...
+    _original has_
+    This may be according added, however: A play which, to the...
+
+p. 98
+  As the piece is arranged now, Viola and her brother
+    _original has_ now Viola, and
+
+p. 102, 103
+  in the magazine _Kringsjaa_.[17] .... the spirit has fled."[17]
+    _duplicate footnote reference in original_
+
+p. 103n.
+  November 1, 1907.
+    _original has_ 1917
+
+p. 104
+  no theater could have given a better caste
+    _spelling as in original_
+
+p. 107
+  commentaries of Taine and Genée
+    _original has_ Genèe
+
+p. 108
+  The caste was unexpectedly strong
+    _spelling as in original_
+
+
+Danish and Norwegian:
+
+p. 2
+  hvad for en Aarsag afholder
+    _original has_ an Aarsag
+  Mig synes der er megen Fornuft
+    _original has_ Meg synes...
+
+p. 3
+  Du maae læse Testamentet for os, Cæsars Testament!
+    _original has_ Cæsars Testamment
+
+p. 7
+  Maaskee I har det hørt, men da de
+    _original has_ Maaskee i har...
+  Slags Smil, der sig fra Lungen ikke skrev
+    _original has_ Smill
+
+p. 8
+  Endskjøndt de ikke alle kunde see
+    _original has_ ...ikke all kunne...
+
+p. 10
+  Der mer agtværdig er end nogensinde
+    _original has_ ...en nogensinde
+
+p. 11
+  endnu citeres af Fords _Perkin Warbeck_, II, 2
+    _original has_ 11, 2
+
+p. 13
+  Kinn-Ljosken hadde skemt dei Stjernor (_second occurrence_)
+    _original has_ Sternor
+
+p. 17
+  og aldrig hev eg set ein Engel gaa
+    _original has_ en Engel
+  og gjenta mi ser støtt eg gaa paa Jori
+    _original has_ Jorl
+
+p. 19
+  Trojas Murtinder Troilus besteg,
+    _original has_ trojas
+
+p. 20
+  de Trolddomsurter der foryngede / den gamle Aeson
+    _original has_
+    ...de Troldomsurter der foryngede den / gamle Aeson
+  Løb fra Venedig med en lystig Elsker
+    _original has_ er lystig Elsker
+  hvis jeg ei hørte nogen komme--tys!
+    _original has_ komm-/tys at line break
+
+p. 22
+  Brum saa dette stolte Hierte brister;
+    _original has_ brist er
+
+p. 33
+  han hadde som ein attaat-snev;
+    _original has_ altaat-snev
+
+p. 33
+  "Du fenden," segjer eg, "du raader meg godt."
+    _original has_ "Du fenden, segjer eg... _missing close quote_
+
+p. 33
+  "I _Soga um Kaupmannen i Venetia_
+    _original has_ I, Soga um...
+
+p. 34
+  Velkomen, vandrar; hev du blomen der?
+    _original has_ Velkomon
+  This is all in the first selection in _Syn og Segn_, No. 3.
+    _original has_ Syn og segn
+
+p. 36
+  _Fjerde Alven_:
+    _original has_ Fjorde
+  Til Nattljos hennar voksbein slit i fleng
+    _original has_ slitt
+
+p. 37
+  so god natt og bysselull (_first occurrence_)
+    _original has_ byselul
+  faa vaar dronning ottefull (_first occurrence_)
+    _original has_ ottefulls
+  faa vaar dronning ottefull (_second occurrence_)
+    _original has_ otteful
+
+p. 41
+  _Mønsaas_:
+  Her er ei liste...
+    _original has_ Mónsaas
+
+p. 42
+  langt fleir enn kvinnelippur fram hev bori
+    _original has_ fler
+
+p. 44
+  _Bernardo_:
+    _original has_ Bernado
+
+p. 94n.
+  "Fortegnelse over alle dramatiske Arbeider..."
+    _original has_ over all
+
+p. 97
+  saaatsige taber af sin Fylde
+    _not an error_ (saa at sige)
+
+p. 107
+  Bergens Addressecontoirs Efterretninger
+    _spelling as in original_
+
+p. 110
+  har været opførte paa samme
+    _original has_ varet opforte
+
+p. 110
+  bearbeidet for Scenen af H. Lassen
+    _original has_ bearbeidet for / for Scenen _at line break_
+
+p. 111
+  efter Shakespeares _All's Well That Ends Well_
+    _original has_ after Shakespeare's...
+
+p. 111, 112 (twice)
+  Romeo og Julie.
+    _normal Dano-Norse form of name_
+
+p. 112
+  Deinhardsteins Bearbeidelse af Shakespeares _What You Will_
+    _original has_ Shakespeare's ]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Essay Toward a History of
+Shakespeare in Norway, by Martin Brown Ruud
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN ESSAY TOWARD A HISTORY OF ***
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