The Death of Balder
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About this ebook
Johannes Ewald was a Danish national dramatist, psalm writer and poet. This play brings audiences into the wilderness of Norway and right into Norse mythology. Epic battles, triumphant victories, and crushing defeats mark this play and have made it a favorite among theater-goers since it was first performed. Written in a visceral and descriptive manner, the story of the Balder and his death play just as vividly in a reader's mind as they would on a stage.
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The Death of Balder - Johannes Ewald
Johannes Ewald
The Death of Balder
Published by Good Press, 2019
goodpress@okpublishing.info
EAN 4064066228286
Table of Contents
PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION.
THE PERSONS.
ACT THE FIRST.
ACT THE SECOND.
ACT THE THIRD.
EXPLANATION OF THE MYTHOLOGICAL WORDS AND NAMES.
PREFACE TO THE TRANSLATION.
Table of Contents
The works of the late poet Ewald are deservedly popular in Denmark. The present tragedy, and the opera of The Fishermen
(Fiskerne
), in which occurs the bold lyric which has become the national song of the Danes, are esteemed his best productions.
For the fidelity with which the present version has been made I appeal to those of my countrymen who understand the original, and demand whether I have given a thought or expression equivalents to which are not to be found in the Danish tragedy.
I have imitated the peculiar species of blank verse in which the original is composed, in order that the English reader may form an exact idea thereof, and though by having done so my poetry may have somewhat of a cramped, embarrassed gait, I have a firm hope that I shall not meet very severe reprehension for having sacrificed elegance to fidelity.
GEORGE BORROW.
THE PERSONS.
Table of Contents
Balder. Hother.
Thor. Nanna.
Loke. The Three Valkyrier.
The place of action is a pine-wood on the Norwegian mountains. Round about it are seen steep and uneven rocks. The top of the hindermost and highest is covered with snow.
ACT THE FIRST.
Table of Contents
BALDER and THOR are seated upon stones at some distance from each other. Both are armed—THOR with his hammer, and BALDER with spear and sword.
BALDER. Land whose proud and rocky bosom
Braves the sky continually!
THOR. Where should strength and valour blossom,
Land of rocks, if not in thee?
BALDER. Odin’s shafts of ruddy levin
Back from thy hard sides are driven;
Never sun thy snow dispels.
THOR. Sure, he’ll joy in deeds of daring,
Ne’er for ease voluptuous caring,
Who upon the mountain dwells.
BOTH. Land whose proud and rocky bosom
Braves the sky continually!
Where should strength and valour blossom,
Land of rocks, if not in thee?
BALDER (he springs up, but THOR remains sitting, like one in deep thought). Ha! I will quickly fly from thee for ever,
Thou hated land, where everything so proudly
Upbraids me for my weakness—for my fetters:
Where I, pursu’d by pains of hopeless passion,
The live-long nights among deaf rocks do wander—
Whose echoes sport with Balder’s lamentations,
Each cold, each feelingless, as Nanna’s bosom,
The fair, unpitying savage!
THOR. Son of Odin!
BALDER. Speak, mighty Thor!
THOR. Thou sighest, then—and vainly?
BALDER. Vainly: without a glimpse of hope; bewildered.
What, what have I not promised, vow’d, attempted?
How oft have I, O Thor!—I blush, but hear it—
To tears debas’d myself: my tears have trickled—
Have vainly trickled—before Gevar’s daughter.
THOR. Ha! Gevar’s daughter?
BALDER. Yes, the haughty Nanna.
THOR. Dost mean the daughter of the wise King Gevar,
Who reads the actions of the unborn hero,
The will of Fate, malicious foemen’s projects,
And war and death of warriors in the planets:
Dost mean his daughter?
BALDER. Think’st thou other fathers possess a Nanna?
THOR. Gods!
[He again casts his eyes upon the ground, like one who meditates deeply.
BALDER. Behind yon pine wood he built an altar unto thee and Odin,
There thou mayst see the roof of his still dwelling.
There lives the earthly Freia—cruel maiden—
There slumbers she, perhaps—the proud one rests in
Joy’s downy arms, undreaming aught of Balder!
As if I did not love, were not a half-god;
As if by Skalds my name were never chanted
As if I were a demon, bad as Loke!
Ha! if upon my tongue lurked bane and magic,
When fear enchains it and the pale lip trembles;
When broken words and a disordered wailing
Are all with which I can express my bosom’s
Desire intense, and dread unwonted torments.
Ha! were my voice like Find’s when he, distracted,
Goes over Horthedal; as when he bellows,
And wild at last, and blind with fury, splinters
The oaks, the glory of the sacred forest.
Ha! if the blood of maids and unarm’d wretches
Of harmless travellers, stained the hands of Balder—