I righted wrong, was stay where stay was needed;
Snatched crowns from kings, and crowns again bestowed.
LVII
“And so I came to Lora’s strand. Morannal
Was ruler of the proud domain of song.
Report spake loudly of his daughter’s beauty;
For her I waged a war with Morven’s hosts.
LVIII
“The aged king sat blind within his castle,
But all his sons I did to death in fight;
Prize of the victory, I won Oihonna,
And held my bridal on the foaming sea.
LIX
“O, know’st thou what it is to love, my father?
Hast e’er embraced a joy at once as bright
As heaven, and rich and teeming as the earth is,
And, like to both, in endless bloom arrayed?
LX
“What I had been before seemed but a shadow,
The splendour pale, my hope had gazed upon;
All triumphs, won and dreamt of — all was nothing
But emptiness beside the passing hour.
LXI
“The spring-tide breezes bore my galleys onward
Without an aim along an endless path,
And joyous waves on sunlit shoulders lifted
My bliss against the mansions of the Gods.
LXII
“But woe was near at hand. I took the rudder,
One night, and sat behind it sunk in dreams;
None kept the watch, save, by my side, Oihonna;
One lonely star looked on us from on high.
LXIII
“My wedded bride she took my hand: ‘O Hialmar,
Why art thou ever dearer to my soul?
From early years thou wast Oihonna’s hero;
Ere she beheld thy glances she was thine.
LXIV
“‘ Why follows not my love its first beginnings?
Because I then had courage to conceal
What unto thee I did not dare discover,
Lest thou shouldst scorn me with indignant pride.
LXV
“‘ I was so happy then, and more than Hialmar,
As yet, my own delight was unto me.
Morannal I was proud to call my father;
As king-begotten I became thy bride.
LXVI
“‘ In vain I now should try to hide in silence
What then I was too timid to unfold.
All things I could endure and suffer; only
Thee, O my Hialmar, I can ne’er deceive.
LXVII
“‘Put me away, reject me! Know my father
Was not Morannal, not a king, I ween;
The blood that now within my heart is seething
Was once a common thrall’s, for aught I know.
LXVIII
“‘Against thy homeland’s shore, close to the castle
Where thou in kingly splendour wilt reside,
Off Vidar’s Crag, one Yule-night, I was rescued
From storm-tossed billows as an outcast child!’
LXIX
“E’en thus she spake. Nay, blench thou not, my father;
Her blood upon my sword thou here beholdst!
My ocean bride, Oihonna, Maid of Morven,
Was thine own daughter, was my sister, King!
LXX
“She wished to die, to die for me. I bring thee
Her greeting.” He was silent. But his steel,
Like lightning, hid itself within his bosom,
And on the rock he sank to rest in death.
LXXI
Now hours on hours there glided by; and calmly
The day paced through the measure of its course.
As he had sat, stark as the grey grave pillar,
Voiceless and motionless sat Fialar still.
LXXII
What he was thinking no one knew. But horror
Had frightened all the warriors from his side.
Old Siolf alone, besides the soothsayer Dargar,
Stood near and watched the agony of his soul.
LXXIII
Not till the sun was sinking in the distance
Did he uplift his eyes and look on high.
“Yours is the triumph, ye high Gods,” he uttered;
“I have been punished, I, who tempted you.
LXXIV
“Oh, what is man that he should storm against you?
Like stars in space unreachable you smile
Through clouds of earthly fate which, like a plaything,
One breath of your own will controls at once.
LXXV
“He vaunts: and mighty, proved in many trials,
And wont to triumph, hard as any rock,
He seeks to bend all things as bids his spirit,
And crush whate’er defies his stern behests.
LXXVI
“His sword is raised. But then, as if in passing,
A hand unseen will gently touch his heart.
His arm he drops, his very glance that lightened
Will change its flashing threats to feeble tears.
LXXVII
“The wide sea swells enraged, the tempest roareth,
But you command: the waves at once subside;
The sea obeys, the fleet-devouring ocean
Is powerless to engulf a helpless child.
LXXVIII
“I know you now; without humiliation
I bend my knees before your might, at last.
Sated with life, to me has earthly greatness
Become of little worth. To you I go!”
LXXIX
So spake the king, and with his sword unflinching
Into his scarred breast runes of death he cut.
Rushed from the deep the fountains of his bosom,
And warm with Hialmar’s mixed the father’s blood.
LXXX
Upon the North lay bright the summer evening
And calm was settled over land and sea.
Beyond the wood the sun concealed his radiance,
And, like the day, KING FIALAR’S life went out.
THE END
LYRICAL SONGS, IDYLLS AND EPIGRAMS
Translated by Eiríkr Magnússon
CONTENTS
PREFACE.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.
TO FRANZEN.
THE OLD MAN’S RETURN.
THE NOBLE VICTORIOUS.
THE LARK.
MAY-SONG.
BIRDS OF PASSAGE.
THE SHEPHERD.
MY DAYS.
TO A BIRD.
THE SPRING MORNING.
TO A FLOWER.
THE BIRD’S NEST BY THE HIGHWAY.
A SUMMER NIGHT.
THE SWAN.
THE COTTAGER’S DAUGHTER.
AUTUMN EVENING.
CONSOLATION.
LOVE’S BLINDING.
THE GIRL’S LAMENT.
TO UNREST.
THE LOVER.
TO MY SPARROW.
THE BURIAL.
TO FRIGGA.
YOUTH.
WAITING.
JOURNEY FROM ABO.
HOW BLEST AM I!
THE MEETING.
TO A MAIDEN.
THE CONVALESCENT.
LULLABY FOR MY HEART.
MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD.
ON A FRIEND’S DEATH.
ON A SLEEPING CHILD.
ON A CHILD’S GRAVE.
LIFE AND DEATH.
OLD AGE.
THE BARD.
TO YEARNING.
THE WORK-GIRL.
THE PEASANT YOUTH.
THE ROWER.
THE PINE-THRUSH.
THE YOUNG HUNTSMAN.
THE MORNING.
THE KISS.
REGRET.
THAT WAS THEN.
THE SAILOR’S GIRL.
GREETING.
MIND — FOR THEN THE GOD APPEARETH.
S
ERENADE.
DISSIMULATION.
BUTTERFLY AND ROSE.
THE BIRD-CATCHER.
TO THE EVENING STAR.
THE DYING MAN.
THE YOUTH.
TO A ROSE.
THE BELLE.
BY A FOUNTAIN.
THE MAID OF SEVENTEEN.
THE REVENGE.
THE FLOWER’S LOT.
WHO HITHER STEERED THY WAY?
THE BRIDE.
REGRET.
SPRING DITTY.
TO FORTUNE.
THE HEART’S MORNING.
THE DOUBTER.
THE BRIDE.
THE SUNDAY HARVEST.
THE OLD MAN.
THE FLOWER.
AUTUMN SONG.
COMING HOME.
MY LIFE.
THOUGHT.
THE FORSAKEN.
AUTUMN EVENING.
WAITING.
MEMORY.
THE PAINTER.
THE TWO.
THE VAIN WISH.
IN A YOUNG GIRL’S ALBUM.
TO THE LADIES.
IDYLLS AND EPIGRAMS.
TO
HIS MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY
OSCAR THE SECOND
KING OF SWEDEN
THIS WORK
BY HIS MAJESTY’S SPECIAL PERMISSION IS HUMBLY DEDICATED.
SIRE, THIS translation is, so far as we know, the first attempt to render into English any of the more important poetical works in the Swedish language, with absolute loyalty to both form and substance.
Having spared no efforts to make this version worthy of the original, we have ventured to solicit the honour of dedicating it to YOUR MAJESTY, who holds so distinguished a place among the Singers in Svea’s sonorous tongue.
If, as we would humbly venture to hope, our work should find favour with a SOVEREIGN, who extends such an enlightened interest as YOUR MAJESTY to literature, science and art, we should deem that as the most precious reward for our devoted labour.
We have the honour to be
YOUR MAJESTY’S
MOST OBEDIENT HUMBLE SERVANTS,
EIRIKR MAGNUSSON.
E. H. PALMER.
PREFACE.
IN this translation of Runeberg’s Lyrical Poems we have preserved the technical form of the original, both as to rhythm, metre and rhyme, rendering, with hardly a single exception, line by line and, in general, word by word.
We believe, that the fidelity of the translation will be found to be almost as close as that of a careful prose version. But while keeping to this strict rule of literal accuracy, we have tried not to sacrifice anything of the beauty of the original. How far we have been successful in this, we must leave it to the reader to judge. It is no easy task to combine in any translation close fidelity to form and substance with elegance of language; and the difficulties are much increased, in the present instance, by the great abundance of feminine, or double, rhymes, which these poems contain, and with which we have not tampered in one single instance.
E. M. & E. H. P.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE.
JOHAN LUDVIG RUNEBERG was born at Jacobsstad in Finland on the 5th of February 1804. His family, to judge from the names of his parents, Lorenz Ulrich and Anna Maria Malm, seems to have been of purely Swedish extraction, though it had, no doubt, for a long time been domiciled in Finland. Lorenz Ulrich Runeberg was a captain in the Merchant Service; his small means were soon to be heavily taxed by the support of his large family of six children, of whom our poet was the eldest. It was, therefore, doubtless owing to straitened circumstances, that Johan Ludvig was, as a young boy, sent away from home to be brought up by an uncle, a tradesman in a small way of business, at Uleaborg. Some time afterwards he was sent to school where, being unable to pay for his maintenance, he had to purchase his education by giving instruction to boys in the same school younger than himself. In 1822, at the age of eighteen, he entered the University of Abo, and after five years of studious toil, and struggle with poverty, took his degree of Candidatus Philosophiae in the spring of 1827, and proceeded to the degree of Philosophiae Doctor in July, the same year. Immediately on quitting the University, Runeberg left the Finnish coastland, the only part of Finland with which up to that time he had made himself acquainted, and went to spend three years in the wild uplands of the country, more especially in the “remote and beautiful” parish of Saarijarvi, on the large lake of Paijene. During this visit the foundation of Runeberg’s future greatness was laid. The majestic scenery of the country, its wild-woods, mountains, and lakes, the struggling existence of the people, their brave and enduring character, their primitive domestic life and pure morality were henceforth to be the fountain from which one of the most national poets that ever lived was to draw his poetical inspirations. These three years were a period of inward development for that distinct poetical type which in unbroken harmony with itself we recognize throughout all Runeberg’s works: in the choice of subjects of an original and mostly national type; in classical purity of conception combined with clearness and distinctness of form; and, still further, in language which is always simple, graceful, appropriate and above all melodious. Throughout, therefore, we are struck with a masterly union of antique sobriety and modern romanticism, which gives a stamp of classical delicacy and refinement to all Runeberg’s works. — From this statement, however, one poem (not included in this collection) must be excepted, namely Jealousy’s Nights, in which the author’s accustomed classical selfcontrol and healthy realism give way somewhat to unreality and passionate excess. It belongs to the earliest period of his career, and its excessive passionateness, considering the realistic character of Runeberg’s poetry generally, may therefore probably be ascribed to youthful fervour set ablaze by some spark of real experiences of life. It must belong to a time anterior even to that very early period in his career, in which he had come to a distinct understanding with himself with regard to his own type and character as a poet; a period that comes within the time of his upland visit. In these early years of his life, he wrote several of his Lyrical Songs, as well as the Idylls and Epigrams and his translations of Servian Folksongs, a popular form of poetry, for which he himself avows great admiration, and the strong influence of which is distinctly traceable in his Idylls and Epigrams. During these years also he occupied himself with one of his greatest epic poems, The Elk-hunters, of which we shall speak presently.
In 1830 Runeberg left the wilds of the interior for Helsingfors, the capital of the country, where he was appointed Amanuensis to the Consistory of the University, which had been removed to the capital from Abo, after the conflagration of the latter town in 1827. This same year he wrote a dissertation in Latin, in which he subjected the tragedy Medea by Euripides and that of the same name by Seneca to a comparative criticism. On the strength of this critical dissertation he was appointed Docent in Roman Literature at the University. Immediately after this appointment Runeberg published his Translations of Servian Folksongs, his Idylls and Epigrams, and his first collection of Lyrical Songs, In reply to the Dedication to Bishop Franzen which Runeberg prefixed to the latter work, he received, some time afterwards, from this great and pure poet the following acknowledgement: “When your charming present arrived, I was prevented, by official duties, from bestowing on it a careful study. I had only time to rejoice here and there in the sight of a violet, or the sound of a lark; but even then I learnt, that it was a real poet, who was making his appearance in my former fatherland. Now I have given a more careful study to the poems, and know, that it is a great poet, which Finland is about to produce.” — This prophecy of the purehearted Franzen had not to wait long for its ample fulfilment.
In 1831 Runeberg married Fredrika Charlotta, daughter of Archbishop Tengstrom of Abo, whose high mental endowments and qualities of heart made her a delightful companion and a devoted wife to the poet. In this year he wrote and published his first tragic epos, The Grave in Perrho, the subject of which is taken from the war, which terminated in the annexa
tion of Finland to Russia. It may be called the poet’s first trial trip into the tragic regions of the history of his country, which he afterwards explored with so much success, and which furnished him with the themes for his most popular work: The Tales of Ensign Stal. For the Grave in Perrho he was awarded the smaller gold medal of the Swedish Academy in 1831.
In 1832 he became Editor of the Helsingfors Morgonblad and continued in that capacity till 1837. In the former year he first published his Elk-hunters. It is not only a truly national epic, but the greatest that Finland possesses after the Kalevala. Its greatness lies in the admirably perfect and truthful picture which it sets before us of modem domestic life among the peasant population of Finland. The well-to-do tenant farmer’s life is drawn and coloured in all its naive simplicity, sympathetic good nature, honest love and harmless parish politics, and framed, as it were, by the Finlander’s porte or wood-cot, its hearth ablaze with a roaring fire of logs of resinous firwood, its sooty walls of timber, its floor covered with hardened mud, and its roof enveloped in perpetual clouds of smoke. The brighter portions of the picture are thrown into relief by the dark shades which the terribly sad experience of the “honest beggar Aron” supplies; he being the type of stalwart manhood succumbing in the prime of its power to the Finnish farmer’s most relentless foe, the frosty night of autumn, which so frequently throws, at a single stroke, a whole happy household on the resources of the beggar’s staff. Throughout the poem there runs a vividly felt undercurrent of the sprightliest humour. This characteristic of the poem is sustained both by a variety of inimitably naive discussions on domestic affairs and family tales, in one of which an ancient flintlock plays a prominent and amusing part; as well as by graphic and almost Homeric epithets, applied to the actors themselves. Thus, to cite a few instances, the stirring housewife Anna, who has got a will and temper of her own, is the manifold-word-knowing Anna; while her considerate husband, Petrus, recurs perpetually, as the thoroughly sensible Petrus; Ontrus, an unkempt Russian travelling huckster, stands forth, unmistakeably, as the mattedly-brown-bearded Ontrus; while the description of the worshipful tenant of Hierpvik, retiring, after a toast, foaming beer-can in hand, to the
Uppermost end of the table, where bench joineth bench in an angle, is really a gem in its way of descriptive humour. — The classical grace of language in which Runeberg has managed to clothe the whole subject is truly marvellous. We notice, in connection with this poem, one striking characteristic, which meets us in all Runeberg’s works, and which, in the Elk-hunters, is palpably apparent: the simplicity of plot. He gives us the impression of all through resisting, on principle, all attempts at artificiality in the arrangement of his stories with a view to a sudden and surprising dénouement. He will have such a solution only, as shall stand in an absolutely natural relation to a perfectly simple and natural situation. In this respect also Runeberg is truly Homeric.
Collected Works of Johan Ludvig Runeberg Page 25
