il og sael!

_Titania_:
Ten honom so! Leid honom til mitt rom!
Eg tykkjer maanen er i augo vaat;
og naar han graet, daa graet kvar litin blom,
og minnest daa ei tilnoydd 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 laer,
so tidt han gjev sin naeste smaa;
men aldri svar han faer.

[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!
Ole, staal-orm, fara no,
kom vaar alvemor ei naer!

_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_. I