Chapter 8

"The night drew near, and in the westUpon its couch lay Evening dreaming,And silent, like the priests of Egypt,The stars pursued their radiant paths,And earth stood in the starry eve,As blissful as a bride who stands,The garland in her dusky hair,Beneath the baldaquin and blushes.Tired of the games of day, and warm,The Naïad rested, still and smiling,The glow of evening shone resplendent,A gorgeous rose upon her breast;And merry Cupid, who had sleptWhen sun was high, awoke and rodeUpon the moonbeams up and down,With bow and arrow, through the forest."

This is all very magnificent; but the images tread so close upon each other's heels, that they come near treading each other down, and tumbling together in a confused jumble. I claim no originality in calling attention to the fact that it must have been a colossal Naïad who could wear the evening glow like "a gorgeous rose upon her breast." Likewise former critics have questionedwhether the stars gain in the least in vividness by being compared to the priests of Egypt,[31]who were certainly far less familiar to the reader's vision.

[31]L. Dietrichson: Indledning i Studiet af Sveriges Litteratur. Kjöbenhavn, 1862. See also Svensk Litteratur-Tidning as quoted in B. E. Malmström: Grunddragen af Svenska Vitterhetens Historia, vol. v., p. 423. Oerebro.

The story of the Swedish officer Axel and his beloved, the Cossack Amazon, Maria, has from beginning to end a flavor of Byron, and recalls alternately "the Corsair" and "Lara." The extravagant sentimentality of the tale appealed, however, powerfully to the contemporary taste, and the dissenting voice of criticism was drowned like the shrill note of a single fife in the noisy orchestra of praise. The Swedish matrons and maidens wept over Axel's and Maria's heroic, but tragic love, as those of England, nay, of all Europe, wept over that of Conrad and Medora. Maria, when she hears that Axel has a betrothed at home, enlists as a man in the Russian army (a very odd proceeding by the way, and scarcely conducive to her purpose) and resolves to kill her rival. She is, however, mortally wounded, and Axel finds her dying upon the battlefield.

"Yea, it was she; with smothered painShe whispers with a voice full faint:'Good-evening, Axel, nay, good-night,For death is nestling at my heart.Oh! ask not what hath brought me hither;'Twas love alone led me astray.Alas! the last long night is dusking;I stand before the grave's dread door.How different life, with all its small distresses,Seems now from what it seemed of yore!And only love—love fair as ours,Can I take with me to the skies.'"[32]

[32]The original is in the rhymed Byronic metre, mostly in couplets. In order not to sacrifice anything of the meaning I have chosen to put it into blank verse.

This is exactly the Byronic note, which would be still more audible, if I had preserved the rhymed couplets. Even Medora's male attire is borrowed by Maria, and much more of this Byronic melodramatic heroism is there, only a little more conventionally draped and with larger concessions to the Philistine sense of propriety. But even if Tegnér in "Axel" had coquetted with the Romantic muse, it would be rash to conclude that he contemplated any durable relation. The note which he had struck in his renowned oration at the festival commemorating the Reformation (1817), came from the depth of his heart, and continued to resound through his speech and song for many years to come. I do not moan to imply, of course, that the Byronic Romanticism was very closely akin to that of Tieck, the Schlegels, and Novalis; or that Tegnér in the least compromised his frank and manly liberalism by composing a variation, as it were, on a Byronic theme. How deeply he hated the mediæval obscurantism whichthen, under the auspices of Metternich and his unholy "Holy Alliance" was spreading over Europe, he showed in numerous private and public utterances concerning the political condition of Europe after the fall of Napoleon. His greeting to the "New Year, 1816" (which his son-in-law has foolishly excluded from his edition of the collected works), is overbrimming with bitterness at the triumph of the enemies of the light.

"Hurrah! Religion is a Jesuit,The rights of man are Jacobins;The world is free; the raven is white;Long live the Pope—and that other;I am going to Germany, and there I'll learnSonnets to sing and incense to burn."Welcome, thou New Year, with murder and gloom,Stupidity, lies, and fraud!I hope thou'lt make an end of our earth,A bullet at least she's worth;She's restless, poor thing, like many another,A shot through the head—she'll cause no more bother!"

"Welcome, thou New Year, with murder and gloom,Stupidity, lies, and fraud!I hope thou'lt make an end of our earth,A bullet at least she's worth;She's restless, poor thing, like many another,A shot through the head—she'll cause no more bother!"

It was the fashion in those days to revile the Revolution, because it had produced the man on horseback who had turned the old order of things topsy-turvy in a very unceremonious fashion. Coleridge, Southey, and Wordsworth in England, and Klopstock, Schiller, and a horde of lesser lights in Germany, had hailed the French uprising as the bloody dawn of a new and more glorious day; but the excesses of the Reign of Terror frightenedthem back into the old fastnesses of Conservatism. Tegnér (and to his honor be it said) was one of the few who did not despair of liberty because a people born and bred in despotism failed to exercise the wisdom and self-restraint which only liberty can foster. For the only road to the attainment of liberty is its practice and its abuse, and the slow education which can be acquired by no theoretical teaching, but only in the hard and expensive school of experience. For the terrible birth-pangs of liberty no despotically governed people can escape, unless it chooses to remain in thraldom.

This is the spirit that breathes through Tegnér's speeches and poems, during his most vigorous manhood; and even, when the rift in his lute made its music harsh and uncertain, the strain was yet essentially the same, though transposed into an alien key. It is very tempting to quote the many noble sayings of this master of the commanding phrase, but one or two must suffice. It is a delight to read his published correspondence, because of this power of strong and luminous utterance, which he wields with such Titanic ease. Then, again, there is no affectation or cant, but an engaging candor and straightforwardness which bespeak a true man, considering the time when they were written. What clarity of political vision there is in such passages as these:

(1813.) "He who fancies that Europe will be delivered by Russia and her confederates, or that the progress of the Cossacks is for the advantageof Sweden, may perhaps be in the right; but his views are very different from mine. In the hatred of the Barbarians I am born and bred, and I hope to die in it, unbewildered by modern sophisms."

(1814.) "Who can believe in the re-establishment of the European balance of power or rejoice in the victory of wretched mediocrity over power and genius. The upheavals of the age will soon affect us all—at least us Swedes."

(1817) "That we are living on an earth yet quaking from the French Revolution is undeniable; and extremely foolish seems to me the speech of those who insist that the Revolution is finished, or even approaching its end."

"Napoleon fell, not on account of his wretched opponents, but because despotism is the livery of all strong souls, because his spirit was opposed to the spirit of the age, with which he wrestled, and which was stronger than he."[33]

[33]Quoted from G. Brandes: Esaias Tegnér: En Litteraturpsychologisk Studie. Kjöbenhavn, 1878, pp. 87 and 88.

Living as he did in an age of general disillusion, Tegnér performed an important service in endeavoring to stem with the full force of his personality the rising tide of reaction. How much he accomplished in this direction is difficult to estimate, for we can never know what turn Swedish affairs might have taken, if his clarion voice had not been heard. But it could scarcely fail that such a speech as the one at the Festival of the Reformation (1817), delivered in the presence of a large assembly ofscholars and public men, must have made a great impression, and in a hundred direct and indirect ways affected public opinion. Luther is to Tegnér a hero of liberty, a breaker of human shackles, a deliverer from spiritual bondage and gloom.

"Luther was one of those rare historical characters who always, in whatever they undertake, by their very manner, surprise, and indelibly impress themselves upon the memory. There was something chivalrous, I could almost say adventurous, in his whole personality, in his whole way of beginning and prosecuting an enterprise. He put upon whatever he did the stamp of an almost inconceivable greatness—of an almost overwhelming force. His mere word was half a battle, his deed was a whole one. He was one of those mighty souls which, like certain trees, can only bloom in a storm. His whole great, rich, marvellous life has always seemed to me like an epic with its battles and its final victory. Such a spirit must of necessity make room for itself, and decisively assert itself in history, in whatever direction its activity may be turned, under whatever circumstances and at whatever time it enters upon its career. The time when Luther came was one of those great historical epochs when the world-serpent sheds its skin and reappears in rejuvenated shape.... A great man, even the very greatest, is always the son of his age—only he is the eldest son; he is the deputy and executor of the age. The age is his, and he administers its substance according to hisjudgment. He finds the scattered elements to his hand, but usually tangled up and struggling in chaotic disorder. To gather and arrange them into a creation, to direct them toward a definite goal, ... this is his greatness; this is his creative powers.... In this ... sense Luther created his age."[34]

[34]Esaias Tegnér's Samlade Skrifter, vol. v., pp. 6, 7, 9, and 10.

Dr. Brandes has anticipated me in calling attention to the fact that the orator's characterization of Luther, though highly interesting, is one-sided. But as his admirable monograph on Tegnér is not accessible to English readers, I feel justified in repeating his argument in abbreviated form. There is a great uniformity, he says, in substance, in all Tegnér's heroes. They are all men of action—bold, strong, adventurous heroes, such as boys delight in. They have a striking family resemblance. With the change of a few attributes Tegnér applies his characterization of Luther to such a widely differing personality as King Gustavus III. of Sweden, a frivolous, theatrical, Frenchified, infidel monarch. And Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII. are forced into the same livery, in spite of their diversity of structure, because Tegnér admired them all, and had practically but one type which appeared to his frank, open, and somewhat boyish fancy wholly worthy of admiration.[35]

[35]Georg Brandes: Esaias Tegnér, pp. 17-19.

In reading consecutively the whole series of Tegnér's collected works I am much struck with theforce of this criticism. The brave man who defies the world single-handed, and plunges up to his ears into dangers, without counting the odds against him, is the typical juvenile hero; and it is strange, though by no means incomprehensible, that a man like Tegnér, who could betray such political insight as is shown in his letters to Franzén and Leopold had not really gotten beyond this primitive type of excellence. In a certain sense, perhaps, it was not desirable that he should. For the tremendous popularity which greeted "Frithjof's Saga" was due in no small measure to this half-juvenile robustness of its author's genius. As I cannot help regretting in myself the loss of my boyish appetite for swashbuckling marauders, and mysterious treasure-diggers, I am, indeed, far from deploring Tegnér's delight in the insane prowess of Charles XII., or the gay and chivalrous gallantry of Gustavus III. There is a sort of fine salubriousness in it which makes one, on the whole, like him the more.

It might well be said of Tegnér, as he said of Luther, that his word was half a battle. At all events he accomplished by his speeches a complete overthrow of his opponents the Phosphorists, without engaging in the barren polemics to which they invited him. He waited until some appropriate public occasion occurred, and then spoke out of the fulness of his conviction. And his words spread like undulating waves of light from one end of the land to the other, finding lodgement inthousands of hearts. Thus his beautiful epilogue at the "magister promotion"[36]in Lund (1820) was a direct manifesto (and a most incisive one) against that mystic obscurity which, according to the Phosphorists, was inseparable from the highest and deepest poetic utterance:

"In vain they call upon the lofty TruthWith sombre conjurations; for the darkShe ne'er endures; for her abode is light.In Phoebus' world, in knowledge as in song,All things are bright. Bright beams the radiant sun;Clear runs and pure his bright Castalian fountain.Whate'er thou canst not clearly say thou know'st not.Twin-born with thought is word on lips of man;That which is darkly said is darkly thought;For wisdom true is like the diamond,A drop that's petrified of heavenly light;The purer that it is, the more its value,The more the daylight shines and glitters through it.The ancients builded unto Truth a temple,A fair rotunda, light as heaven's vault.And freely poured the sunshine from all sidesInto its open round; the winds of heavenAmid its ranks of pillars gayly gambolled.But now instead we build a Tower of Babel,A heavy, barbarous structure. Darkness peepsFrom out its deep and narrow grated casements.Unto the sky the tower was meant to reach,But hitherto we've only had confusion.As in the realm of thought, in that of songIt is; and poesy is e'er transparent ..."

[36]A magister promotion corresponds approximately to our university commencements. It is the ceremony of bestowing the degree of master of arts.

This was certainly an attractive doctrine, and it did not fail to command public approval. But it suffers from exactly the same limitation as Tegnér's gospel of joy. It is only relatively (I might almost say temperamentally) true; and the opposite might be maintained with equal force, and in fact was so maintained by Atterbom, who declared (in the "Poetical Calendar for 1821") that there can be no such a conception as light without darkness. Darkness, he says, is the condition of all color and form. You distinguish the light and all things in it only by the contrasting effect of shadow—all of which, I fancy, Tegnér would not have denied. More to the point would have been the query whether in poetry darkness and indistinctness are synonymous terms. It is only the most commonplace truths which can be made intelligible to all. Much of the best and highest thinking of humanity lies above the plane of the ordinary untrained intellect. What is light to me may be twilight or darkness to you. What to you is clear as the daylight, may to me be as densely impenetrable as the Cimmerian night. Christ himself recognized this fact when he said to his disciples: "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now."

For all that, Tegnér's doctrine was in its effect wholesome. It discouraged the writers of the Romantic School, who under the guise of profundity gave publicity to much immature and confused thinking. He was no doubt right in saying that"a poetry which commences with whooping-cough is likely to end in consumption." His frequently repeated maxim, that poetry is nothing but the health of life, "occasioned by an abounding intellectual vigor, a joyous leap over the barriers of everyday life," applied, however, to his own poetry only so long as his vigor was unimpaired. His terrible poem "Hypochondria" (Mjeltsjukan) is to me no less poetical because it is not "a petrified drop of heavenly light," and mocks all the cheerful theories of its author's prime.

Tegnér had yet a few years in which to rejoice in this "health of life" in which he found the inspiration for his song; and these last years were the most fruitful in his entire career. He was about forty years of age when, in 1820, he began to compose the first cantos of "Frithjof's Saga." He was living in modest comfort, happy in his marital relation, and surrounded by a family of children to whom he was a most affectionate father. He could romp and play with his curly-headed boys and girls without any loss of dignity; and they loved nothing better than to invade his study. Next to them in his regard was a black-nosed pug, named Atis, who invariably accompanied him to his lectures and remained sitting at his feet listening with intelligent gravity to his explanations of the Greek poets. If by chance his master, in his zeal for his own poetry, forgot the lecture-hour, Atis would respectfully pull him by the tails of his coat. No man at the University ofLund was more generally beloved than Tegnér, and all honors which the University could bestow had been offered to him. The office of Rector Magnificus he had, however, persisted in declining.

There was at that time a general revival of interest in the so-called saga-age. The Danish poet, Oehlenschläger, had published his old-Norse cycle of poems, "Helge," which aroused a sympathetic reverberation in Tegnér's mind. The idea took possession of him that here was a theme which lay well within the range of his own voice, and full of alluring possibilities. Accordingly he chose the ancient "Saga of Frithjof the Bold," and resolved to embody in it all the characteristic features of the old heroic life. And what Oehlenschläger had attempted to do, and partly succeeded in doing, he accomplished with a completeness of success which was a surprise to himself. No sooner had "Iduna," the organ of the Gothic League, published the first nine cantos (1821), than all Sweden resounded with enthusiastic applause; and even from beyond the boundaries of the fatherland came voices of praise. When the completed poem appeared in book-form, it was translated into all civilized languages, and everywhere, in spite of the translators' shortcomings, it was hailed with delight. Not only England, France, and Germany hastened to appropriate it, but even in Spain, Greece, and Russia tears were shed over "Ingeborg's Lament," and tender bosoms palpitatedwith sympathy for Frithjof's sorrows. I know a dozen English translations of "Frithjof's Saga" (a friend of mine, who is a bibliophile, assures me that the exact number is at present twenty-one), and of German versions the number is not very much less. A Norwegian (or rather Danish) rendering was presented to me on my twelfth birthday; and the sentiment which then most forcibly appealed to me was, as I vividly remember, embodied in the following verse, in which Björn chides his friend's grief for the loss of his beloved:

"Frithjof, 'tis time for your folly's abating;Sigh and lament for a woman's loss:Earth is, alas, too full of such dross;One may be lost, still a thousand are waiting.Say but the word, of such goods I will bringQuickly a cargo—the Southland can spare them,Bed as the rose, mild as lambs in the spring;Then we'll cast lots, or as brothers we'll share them."[37]

[37]Holcomb's translation.

It was not the unconscious humor of this proposition which struck me the most in those days; but it was the bluff frankness of the gruff old viking which then seemed truly admirable. In fact, I am not sure but that Björn appeared to me a more sympathetic figure than Frithjof. But a little later it dawned upon me that his utter lack of chivalry was rather revolting; and I began to marvel at my former admiration. At fourteen thefollowing verse (which at twelve was charmingly heroic) caused me to revise my opinion of Björn:

"Good! to King Ring it shall be my glad dutySomething to teach of a wronged viking's power;Fire we his palace at midnight's still hour,Scorch the old graybeard and bear off the beauty."

For all that, Björn with his rough speech and hearty delight in fighting and drinking, is far truer to the spirit of the old heroic age than is Frithjof with his sentimentality and lovesick reveries. This verse, for instance, is replete with the briny breath of the northern main. The north wind blows through it:

"Good is the sea, your complaining you squander,Freedom and joy on the sea flourish best.He never knoweth effeminate restWho on the billows delighteth to wander.When I am old, to the green-growing landI, too, will cling, with the grass for my pillow.Now I will drink and will fight with free hand,Now I'll enjoy my own sorrow-free billow."

I might continue in the autobiographical vein; but must forbear. For there is a period in the life of every young Norseman when, untroubled by its anachronism, he glories in Frithjof's melancholy mooning, his praise of Ingeborg, his misanthropy, and all the manifold moods of love so enchantingly expressed in Tegnér's melodious verse.

When a book acquires this significance as an expressionof the typical experience in the lives of thousands, the critical muse can but join in the general chorus, and find profound reasons for the universal praise. In the case of "Frithjof's Saga" this is not a difficult matter. From beginning to end the poem has a lyrical intensity which sets the mind vibrating with a responsive emotion. It is not a coldly impersonal epic, recounting remote heroic events; but there is a deeply personal note in it, which has that nameless moving quality—la note émue, as the French call it—which brings the tear to your eye, and sends a delicious breeze through your nerves. All that, to be sure, or nearly all of it, evaporates in translation; for no more than you can transfer the exquisite dewy intactness of the lily to canvas can you transfer the rapturous melody of noble verse into an alien tongue. The subtlest harmonies—those upon which the thrill depends—are invariably lost. If Longfellow, instead of giving us two cantos, had translated the whole poem, we should, at least, have possessed an English version which would have afforded us some conception of the charm of the renowned original.

The objections to "Frithjof's Saga" which have been urged by numerous critics may all be admitted as more or less valid; yet something remains which will account for its astounding popularity. Tegnér at the time when he was singing of Frithjof's and Ingeborg's love was himself suffering from a consuming but unrequited passion. The strong, warm pulse of life which throbs in Frithjof's wrath, defiance, and scorn, and in his deep and manly tenderness is the poet's own. It marks but the rhythm of his own tumultuous heart-beat. It is altogether an unhappy chapter, which his biographer has vainly striven to suppress. There was among his acquaintance in Lund a certain Mrs. Palm, toward whom he felt drawn with an irresistible half-demonic force. Beyond this fact we know nothing of the lady, except that she was handsome, cultivated, and well-connected. Whatever approaches Tegnér may have made toward her (and it is not known of what nature they were) she appears to have repelled; and the poet, though fighting desperately against his growing infatuation, wore out his splendid vitality in the conflict of emotions which the unhappy relation occasioned. He became a prey to the most terrible melancholy, and a misanthropy of the deepest hue spread its sombre veil over the world which hitherto had given to him its brightest smile. The dread of insanity became anidée fixewith him; and the pathetic cry, "God preserve my reason," rings again and again through his private correspondence. One of his brothers was insane; and he fancied that there must be a taint in his blood which menaced him with the same tragic doom.

Happily, he could as yet conjure the storm. It hung threateningly on the horizon of his mind, with mutterings of thunder and stray flashes oflightning. But his poetic bark still sped along with full sails, bravely breasting the waves.

"Und wenn der Mensch in seiner Qual verstummtGab mir ein Gott zu sagen was ich leide,"

says Goethe. And this divine gift of saying, or, better still, of singing, what he suffered made Tegnér, during this period, master of his sufferings. They did not overwhelm him and ruin his usefulness. On the contrary, these were the most active and fruitful years of his life. But it was the deep agitation which possessed him—it was the suppressed tumult of his strong soul which vibrated through "Frithjof" and which imparted to it that vital quality, that moving ring which arouses the deeper feelings in the human heart.

Archæologically the poem was not correct, and was not meant to be. Tegnér distinctly disclaimed the intention of producing a historically accurate picture of the saga age; and all criticism censuring the modernness of Frithjofs and Ingeborg's sentiments is, therefore, according to his idea, wide of the mark. I do not quite agree with his point of view, but will state his argument. For the historical Frithjof, as he is represented in the ancient Norse saga bearing his name, Tegnér cared but little. What he wished to do was to give a poetic presentation of the old heroic life, and he chose Frithjof as his representative of this age because he united in himself so many of its characteristics:

"In the saga much occurs which is very grand and heroic, and hence valid for all times, which both might and ought to be retained; but, on the other hand, a great deal occurs which is rough, savage, barbarous; and this had either to be entirely eliminated, or at least materially softened. Up to a certain degree it therefore became necessary to modernize; but the difficulty was to find the golden mean. On the one hand, the poem ought not to offend too much our more refined manners and gentler modes of thought; but, on the other hand, the natural quality, the freshness, the truth to nature ought not to be sacrificed."

Tegnér fancies he has solved this problem by retaining in Frithjof the fundamental traits of all heroism, viz., nobility, magnanimity, courage; but at the same time nationalizing them by giving them a distinctly Scandinavian tinge. And this he has done by making his hero almost wantonly defiant, stubborn, pugnacious. As Ingeborg, lamenting his fierce pugnacity, and yet glorying in it, says:

"How glad, how stubborn, and how full of hope!The point he setteth of his trusty swordAgainst the breast of Fate and crieth, Thou must yield."

"Another peculiarity of the Norseman's character is a certain tendency to sadness and melancholy which is habitual with all deeper natures. An elegiac tone pervades all our old national melodies, and, generally speaking, all that is of significance in our history; for it rises from the very bottom of the nation's heart. There is a certain joyousness (commonly attributed to the French) which in the last instance is only levity. But the joyousness of the North is fundamentally serious; for which reason I have in Frithjofendeavored to give a hint of this brooding melancholy in his repentance of the unintentional burning of the temple, his brooding fear of Balder,

"Who sits in the sky, and the thoughts he sends down,Which forever are clouding my mind."

It will be seen from this that Tegnér was fully conscious of what he was doing. He civilized Frithjof, because he was addressing a civilized audience which would have taken little interest in the rude viking of the eighth century, if he had been presented to them in all his savage unrestraint. He did exactly what Tennyson did, when he made King Arthur the model of a modern English gentleman and (by implication) a Protestant a thousand years before Protestantism existed. Ingeborg, too, had to be a trifle modified and disembarrassed of a few somewhat too naturalistic traits with which the saga endows her, before she became the lovely type that she is of the faithful, loving, long-suffering, womanhood of the North, with trustful blue eyes, golden hair, and a heart full of sweet and beautiful sentiment. It was because Oehlenschläger had neglected to make sufficient concessions to modern demands that his "Helge" (though in some respects a greater poem than "Frithjof's Saga") never crossed the boundary of Scandinavia, and even there made no deep impression upon the general public.

Though the story of "Frithjof" is familiar to most readers, I may be pardoned for presenting abriefrésumé. The general plot, in Tegnér's version, coincides in its main outlines with that of the saga. Frithjof, the son of the free yeoman Thorstein Vikingson, is fostered in the house of the peasant Hilding, with Ingeborg, the daughter of King Belë of Sogn. The King and the yeoman have been life-long friends, and each has a most cordial regard for the other.

"By sword upheld, King Belë in King's-hall stood,Beside him Thorstein Vikingson, that yeoman good,His battle-friend with almost a century hoary,And deep-marked like a rune-stone with scars of glory."

The yeoman's son and the king's daughter, thrown into daily companionship in their foster-father's hall, love each other; and Frithjof, after the death of their fathers, goes to Ingeborg's brothers, Helge and Halfdan, and asks her hand in marriage. His suit is scornfully rejected, and he departs in wrath vowing vengeance. The ancient King Ring, of Ringerike, having heard of Ingeborg's beauty, sends also ambassadors to woo her. Her brothers make sacrifices in order to ascertain the will of the gods. The omens are inauspicious, and they accordingly feel compelled to decline the King's offer.

Ingeborg is shut up in Balder's Grove, where the sanctity of the temple would make it sacrilege for any one to approach her. Frithjof, however, braves the wrath of the god, and sails every night across the fjord to a stolen rendezvous with hisbeloved. The canto called "Frithjof's Happiness," which is brimming over with a swelling redundance of sentiment, is so cloyingly sweet that the reader must himself be in love in order to enjoy it. It is written in the key of the watch-songs of the German minnesingers and the aubades of Provençal troubadours. The Norse note is not only wanting, but would never fit into that key:

"'Hush! 'tis the lark.' Nay, those soft numbersOf doves' faith tell that knows no rest.The lark yet on the hillside slumbersBeside his mate in grassy nest.To them no king seals his dominionsWhen morning breaks in eastern air;Their life is free as are their pinionsWhich bear aloft the gladsome pair."'See day is breaking!' Nay, some towerFar eastward sendeth forth that light;We yet may spend another hour,Not yet shall end the precious night.May sleep, thou sun, thee long encumber,And waking may'st thou linger still,For Frithjof's sake may'st freely slumberTill Ragnarök, be such thy will."Vain hope! The day its gray discloses,Already morning breezes blow,Already bend the eastern roses,As fresh as Ingeborg's can glow;The winged songsters mount and twitter(The thoughtless throng!) along the sky,And life starts forth, and billows glitter,And far the shades and lover fly."Farewell, beloved: till some longerAnd fairer eve we meet again.By one kiss on thy brow the strongerLet me depart—thy lips, once, then!Sleep now and dream of me, and wakenWhen mid-day comes, and faithful tellThe hours as I yearn forsaken,And sigh as I! Farewell, farewell!"[38]

"'See day is breaking!' Nay, some towerFar eastward sendeth forth that light;We yet may spend another hour,Not yet shall end the precious night.May sleep, thou sun, thee long encumber,And waking may'st thou linger still,For Frithjof's sake may'st freely slumberTill Ragnarök, be such thy will.

"Vain hope! The day its gray discloses,Already morning breezes blow,Already bend the eastern roses,As fresh as Ingeborg's can glow;The winged songsters mount and twitter(The thoughtless throng!) along the sky,And life starts forth, and billows glitter,And far the shades and lover fly.

"Farewell, beloved: till some longerAnd fairer eve we meet again.By one kiss on thy brow the strongerLet me depart—thy lips, once, then!Sleep now and dream of me, and wakenWhen mid-day comes, and faithful tellThe hours as I yearn forsaken,And sigh as I! Farewell, farewell!"[38]

[38]Translation of L. A. Sherman, Ph.D. Boston, 1878.

The two following cantos, entitled "The Parting" and "Ingeborg's Lament," though liable to the same criticism as their predecessor, are, with all their sentimental effusiveness, beautiful. No lover, I fancy, ever found them redundant, overstrained, spoiled by the lavish splendor of their imagery. Tegnér has accomplished the remarkable feat of interveining, as it were, his academic rhetoric with a blood-red humanity, and making the warm pulse of experience throb through the stately phrases.

King Ring, incensed at the rejection of his suit, declares war against Helge and Halfdan, who in their dire need ask Frithjof's aid, which is promptly refused. In order to be rid of him they then send him on an expedition to the Orkneys, to collect a tribute which is due to them from Earl Angantyr. He entreats Ingeborg to flee with him; but she refuses. She sees from Balder's Grove his good ship Ellida breasting the waves and weeps bitter tears at his loss:

"Swell not so high,Billows of blue with your deafening cry!Stars, lend assistance, a shiningPathway defining!"With the spring dovesFrithjof will come, but the maiden he lovesCannot in hall or dell meet him,Lovingly greet him.Buried she sleepsDead for love's sake, or bleeding she weepsHeart-broken, given by her brotherUnto another."

"Swell not so high,Billows of blue with your deafening cry!Stars, lend assistance, a shiningPathway defining!

"With the spring dovesFrithjof will come, but the maiden he lovesCannot in hall or dell meet him,Lovingly greet him.Buried she sleepsDead for love's sake, or bleeding she weepsHeart-broken, given by her brotherUnto another."

It is perfectly in keeping with the character of Norse womanhood in the saga age that Ingeborg should refuse to defy her brother's authority by fleeing with Frithjof and yet deeply mourn his departure without her. The family feeling, the bond of blood, was exceptionally strong; and submission to the social code which made the male head of the house the arbiter of his sister's fate was bred in the bone. It is, therefore, perfectly natural that, when King Ring has beaten her brothers in battle, and exacted Ingeborg as the prize of victory, she yields unmurmuringly to their decree.

Frithjof, in the meanwhile, distinguishes himself greatly in the Orkneys by his strength and prowess, gains Earl Angantyr's friendship, and returns with the tribute. As he sails into the fjord, a sight greets him which makes his heart quail. Framnaes, his paternal estate, is burnt to the ground, and the charred beams lie in a ruined heap under the smiling sky. The kings, though they had pledged their honor that they would not harmhis property, had broken faith with him; and Ingeborg, in the hope of gaining whom he had undertaken the perilous voyage, was wedded to King Ring. In a white-heat of wrath and sorrow Frithjof starts out to call her perjured brothers to account. He finds them in the temple in Balder's Grove, preparing for the sacrifice. There he flings the bag containing the tribute into King Helge's face, knocking out his front teeth, and observing on his wife's arm the ring with which he had once pledged Ingeborg, he rushes at her to recover it. The woman, who had been warming the wooden image of Balder before the fire, drops, in her fright, the idol into the flame. Frithjof seizes her by the arm and snatches the ring from her. In the general confusion that follows the temple takes fire, and all attempts to quench the flames are futile. In consequence of this sacrilege Frithjof is outlawed at theThingas avargr-i-véum,i.e., wolf in the sanctuary, and is forced to go into exile. His farewell to his native land strikes one as being altogether out of tune. The old Norse viking is made to anticipate sentiments which are of far later growth; but for all that the verses are quite stirring:

"Brow of creation,Thou North sublime!I have no stationWithin thy clime.Proud, hence descendedMy race I tell;Of heroes splendid,Fond nurse, farewell!My love false-hearted,My manor burned,My name departed,An outlaw, spurned,I now appealingFrom earth, will dwellWith waves, for healing.Farewell, farewell!"[39]

"Brow of creation,Thou North sublime!I have no stationWithin thy clime.Proud, hence descendedMy race I tell;Of heroes splendid,Fond nurse, farewell!

My love false-hearted,My manor burned,My name departed,An outlaw, spurned,I now appealingFrom earth, will dwellWith waves, for healing.Farewell, farewell!"[39]

[39]Sherman's translation.

Frithjof now roams for many years over the sea as a viking, and gains much booty and honor. His viking code, with its swift anapestic rhythm, has a breezy melody which sings in the ear. It is an attempt to embody the ethics of Norse warfare at its best, and to present in the most poetic light the rampant, untamable individualism of the ancient Germanic paganism. In defiance of his friend Björn's advice, Frithjof, weary of this bootless chase for glory and pelf, resolves to see Ingeborg once more before he dies, and, disguised as a salt-boiler, he enters King Ring's hall. There he sees his beloved sitting in the high-seat beside her aged lord; and the sorrow which the years had dulled revives with an exquisite agony. He punishes with fierce promptitude one of the King's men who insults him; and his answer to the King's rebuke betrays him as a man of rank and station. He then throws away his disguise, without, however, revealing his name, but Ingeborg instantly recognizes him.

"Then even to her temples the queen's deep blushes sped,As when the northlight tinges the snow-clad fields with red,And like two full-blown lilies on racking waves which rest,With ill-concealed emotion so heaved her throbbing breast."

The king now invites the stranger, who calls himself Thjof, to remain his guest during the winter, and Frithjof accepts. He makes, however, no approach to Ingeborg, with whom he scarcely exchanges a single word. During a sleigh-ride on the ice he saves, by a tremendous feat of strength, the life of the king and queen. With the coming of the spring preparations are made for a grand chase, in which Frithjof participates.

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