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