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