The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature Part 6

This pa.s.sage is nominally in the same meter as the opening lines of the poem:

In this your land there once did dwell A certain carle who lived full well, And lacked few things to make him glad; And three fair sons this goodman had.

According to old time English prosody, it is the same, too, as the meter of Scott's Marmion!

In the pa.s.sages quoted from "The Lovers of Gudrun" we see a measure called the same as that of Pope's _Essay on Man_! Not seldom in "The Lovers" do we forget that the lines are rhymed in twos; indeed, often we do not note the rhyme at all. We are sometimes tempted to think that in this piece, if not in "The Land East of the Sun," rhyme might have been dispensed with altogether, since it often forces archaic words and expressions into use. But it is to be said generally of Morris's management of the meter in the Old Norse pieces, that it was adequate to gain his end always, whether that end was to tell an Old Norse story in English, or to carry over an Old Norse spirit into English. Of this second achievement we shall speak further in considering _Sigurd the Volsung_.

There is one more tale in _The Earthly Paradise_ which originated in Norse legend. "The Fostering of Aslaug" is drawn from Thorpe's _Northern Mythology_, which epitomizes older sources. Aslaug is the daughter of Iceland's great hero, Sigurd, and Iceland's great heroine, Brynhild, and her life is set down in this poem most beautifully. Again we note that the added touches of later poets fail to leave the sense of the strenuous in the picture. Aslaug is like a favorite representation of Brynhild that we have seen, a lily-maid in aspect, or a Marguerite. Her mother's masculinity is gone, and with it the Old Norse flavor. It is the privilege of our age to enjoy both the virility of the Old Norse and the delicacy of the mediaeval conceptions, and William Morris has caught both.

3.

In the opening lines of "The Fostering of Aslaug," our poet wrote his doubts about his ability to sing the life of Sigurd in be-fitting manner. At that time he said:

But now have I no heart to raise That mighty sorrow laid asleep, That love so sweet, so strong and deep, That as ye hear the wonder told In those few strenuous words of old, The whole world seems to rend apart When heart is torn away from heart.

(Vol. III, p. 28.)

It is a common complaint against the poetry of William Morris that it is too long-winded. Each to his taste in this matter, but we beg to call attention to one line in the above pa.s.sage:

In those few strenuous words of old.

Whatever may have been Morris' tendency when he wrote his own poetry, he knew when concision was a virtue in the poetry of others. There is no better description of the _Volsunga Saga_ than the above line, and William Morris gave the English people a literal version of the saga, if mayhap that strenuous paucity might translate the old spirit. But, as if he knew that many readers would fail to make much of this version, he tried again on a larger scale, and the great volume _Sigurd the Volsung_, epic in character and proportions, was the result. Of these two we shall now speak.

The _Volsunga Saga_ was published in 1870, only two years after Morris had begun to study Icelandic with Eirikr Magnusson. The latter's name is on the t.i.tle page as the first of the two co-translators. The _Saga_ was supplemented by certain songs from the _Elder Edda_ which were introduced by the translators at points where they would come naturally in the story. The work, both in prose and verse, is well done, and the attempt was successful to make, as the preface proposes, the "rendering close and accurate, and, if it might be so, at the same time, not over prosaic." The last two paragraphs of this preface are particularly interesting to one who is tracing the influence of Old Norse literature on English literature, because they are words with power, that have stirred men and will stir men to learn more about a wonderful land and its lore. We copy them entire:

"As to the literary quality of this work we might say much, but we think we may well trust the reader of poetic insight to break through whatever entanglement of strange manners or unused element may at first trouble him, and to meet the nature and beauty with which it is filled: we cannot doubt that such a reader will be intensely touched by finding, amidst all its wildness and remoteness, such startling realism, such subtilty, such close sympathy with all the pa.s.sions that may move himself to-day.

"In conclusion, we must again say how strange it seems to us, that this Volsung Tale, which is in fact an unversified poem, should never before have been translated into English. For this is the Great Story of the North, which should be to all our race what the Tale of Troy was to the Greeks--to all our race first, and afterwards, when the change of the world has made our race nothing more than a name of what has been--a story too--then should it be to those that come after us no less than the Tale of Troy has been to us."

Morris wrote a prologue in verse for this volume, and it is an exquisite poem, such as only he seemed able to indite. So often does the reader of Morris come upon gems like this, that one is tempted to rail against the common ignorance about him:

O hearken, ye who speak the English Tongue, How in a waste land ages long ago, The very heart of the North bloomed into song After long brooding o'er this tale of woe!

Yea, in the first gray dawning of our race, This ruth-crowned tangle to sad hearts was dear.

So draw ye round and hearken, English Folk, Unto the best tale pity ever wrought!

Of how from dark to dark bright Sigurd broke, Of Brynhild's glorious soul with love distraught, Of Gudrun's weary wandering unto naught, Of utter love defeated utterly, Of Grief too strong to give Love time to die!

4.

Six years later, in 1877 (English edition), Morris published the long poem, _The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and The Fall of the Niblungs_, and in it gave the peerless crown of all English poems springing from Old Norse sources. The poet considered this his most important work, and he was prouder of it than of any other literary work that he did. One who studies it can understand this pride, but he cannot understand the neglect by the reading public of this remarkable poem. The history of book-selling in the last decade shows strange revivals of interest in authors long dead; it will be safe to prophesy such a revival for William Morris, because valuable treasures will not always remain hidden. In his case, however, it will not be a revival, because there has not been an awakening yet. That awakening must come, and thousands will see that William Morris was a great poet who have not yet heard of his name. Let us look at his greatest work with some degree of minuteness.

The opening lines are a good model of the meter, and we find it different from any that we have considered so far. There are certain peculiarities about it that make it seem a perfect medium for translating the Old Norse spirit. Most of these peculiarities are in the opening lines, and so we may transfer them to this page:[32]

There was a dwelling of Kings ere the world was waxen old; Dukes were the door-wards there, and the roofs were thatched with gold; Earls were the wrights that wrought it, and silver nailed its doors; Earls' wives were the weaving-women, queens' daughters strewed its floors, And the masters of its song-craft were the mightiest men that cast The sails of the storm of battle adown the bickering blast.

Everybody knows that alliteration was a principle of Icelandic verse. It strikes the ear that hears Icelandic poetry for the first time--or the eye that sees it, since most of us read it silently--as unpleasantly insistent, but on fuller acquaintance, we lose this sense of obtrusiveness. Morris, in this poem, uses alliteration, but so skilfully that only the reader that seeks it discovers it. A less superb artist would have made it stick out in every line, so that the device would be a hindrance to the story-telling. As it is, nowhere in the more than nine thousand lines of _Sigurd the Volsung_ is this alliteration an excrescence, but everywhere it is woven into the grand design of a fabric which is the richer for its foreign workmanship.

Notice that _duke_ and _battle_ and _master_ are the only words not thoroughly Teutonic. This overwhelming predominance of the Anglo-Saxon element over the French is in keeping with the original of the story. Of course it is an accident that so small a proportion of Latin derivatives is found in these six lines, but the fact remains that Morris set himself to tell a Teutonic story in Teutonic idiom. That idiom is not very strange to present-day readers, indeed we may say it has but a fillip of strangeness. Archaisms are characteristic of poetic diction, and those found in this poem that are not common to other poetry are used to gain an Old Norse flavor. The following words taken from Book I of the poem are the only unfamiliar ones: _benight_, meaning "at night"; "so _win_ the long years over"; _eel-grig_; _sackless_; _bursten_, a participle. The compounds _door-ward_ and _song-craft_ are representative of others that are sprinkled in fair number through the poem. They are the best that our language can do to reproduce the fine combinations that the Icelandic language formed so readily. English lends itself well to this device, as the many compounds show that Morris took from common usage. Such words as _roof-tree_, _song-craft_, _empty-handed_, _grave-mound_, _store-house_, taken at random from the pages of this poem, show that the genius of our language permits such formations. When Morris carries the practice a little further, and makes for his poem such words as _door-ward_, _chance-hap_, _slumber-tide_, _troth-word_, _G.o.d-home_, and a thousand others, he is not taking liberties with the language, and he is using a powerful aid in translating the Old Norse spirit.

One more peculiar characteristic of Icelandic is admirably exhibited in this poem. We have seen that Warton recognized in the "Runic poets" a warmth of fancy which expressed itself in "circ.u.mlocution and comparisons, not as a matter of necessity, but of choice and skill."

Certainly Morris in using these circ.u.mlocutions in _Sigurd the Volsung_, has exercised remarkable skill in weaving them into his story. Like the alliterations, they are part of an harmonious design. Examples abound, like:

Adown unto the swan-bath the Volsung Children ride;

and this other for the same thing, the sea:

While sleepeth the fields of the fishes amidst the summer-tide.

Still others for the water are _swan-mead_, and "bed-gear of the swan."

"The serpent of death" and _war-flame_, for sword; _earth-bone_, for rock; _fight-sheaves_, for armed hosts; _seaburg_, for boats, are other striking examples.

So much for the mechanical details of this poem. Its literary features are so exceptional that we must examine them at length.

Book I is ent.i.tled "Sigmund" and the description is set at the head of it. "In this book is told of the earlier days of the Volsungs, and of Sigmund the father of Sigurd, and of his deeds, and of how he died while Sigurd was yet unborn in his mother's womb."

There are many departures from the _Volsunga Saga_ in this poetic version, and all seem to be accounted for by a desire to impress present-day readers with this story. The poem begins with Volsung, omitting, therefore, the marvelous birth of that king and the oath of the unborn child to "flee in fear from neither fire nor the sword." The saga makes the wolf kill one of Volsung's sons every night; the poem changes the number to two. A magnificent scene is invented by Morris in the midnight visit of Signy to the wood where her brothers had been slain. She speaks to the brother that is left, desiring to know what he is doing:

O yea, I am living indeed, and this labor of mine hand Is to bury the bones of the Volsungs; and lo, it is well nigh done.

So draw near, Volsung's daughter, and pile we many a stone Where lie the gray wolf s gleanings of what was once so good.

(P. 23.)

The dialogue of brother and sister is a mighty conception, and surely the old Icelanders would have called Morris a rare singer. Sigmund tells the story of the deaths of his brothers, adding:

But now was I wroth with the G.o.ds, that had made the Volsungs for nought; And I said: in the Day of their Doom a man's help shall they miss.

(P. 24.)

But Signy is reconciled to the workings of Fate:

I am nothing so wroth as thou art with the ways of death and h.e.l.l, For thereof had I a deeming when all things were seeming well.

The day to come shall set their woes right:

There as thou drawest thy sword, thou shall think of the days that were And the foul shall still seem foul, and the fair shall still seem fair; But thy wit shall then be awakened, and thou shalt know indeed Why the brave man's spear is broken, and his war shield fails at need; Why the loving is unbeloved; why the just man falls from his state; Why the liar gains in a day what the soothfast strives for late.

Yea, and thy deeds shalt thou know, and great shall thy gladness be; As a picture all of gold thy life-days shalt thou see, And know that thou wert a G.o.d to abide through the hurry and haste; A G.o.d in the golden hall, a G.o.d in the rain-swept waste, A G.o.d in the battle triumphant, a G.o.d on the heap of the slain: And thine hope shall arise and blossom, and thy love shall be quickened again: And then shalt thou see before thee the face of all earthly ill; Thou shalt drink of the cup of awakening that thine hand hath holpen to fill; By the side of the sons of Odin shalt thou fashion a tale to be told In the hall of the happy Baldur.

(P. 25.)

In this wise one Christian might hearten another to accept the dealings of Providence to-day. While we do not think that a worshipper of Odin would have spoken all these words, they are not an undue exaggeration of the n.o.blest traits of the old Icelandic religion.