AXEL AND VALBORG.*

IN selecting Axel og Valborg out of the long series of Oehlen- schlager's tragedies for translation, Mr. Freeland has, we think, been guided more by popular taste than by the expressed judgment of students and critics, and waiving for a moment the question of the actual merit of this play as a poetical performance, we think even Mr. Freeland will admit that it is not in any way peculiarly characteristic of Oehlenachltiger.

The action is carried on in the Cathedral of Nidaros or Trondh- jem. The time is 1162, and the reigning King of Norway is Hakon Herdebred. Axel Thordson, a young Norse noble, has fallen in love with the fair Valborg, but as they are near of kin, their union has been forbidden ; and five years before the first act opens, Axel has gone Into voluntary exile, and has never since been heard of. In the meanwhile, King Hakon has fallen in love with Valborg, who remains, however, true to her Axel. When the curtain rises, the hero is discovered in the Cathedral with his bosom-friend, Vilhelm, a German. He points to the anagram of iris name and Valborg's carved on a pillar, and so is drawn on to tell his story. He is then led, in true Oehlensch]ager fashion, to dilate on the virtues of the German character. Behold how a Dane could write in 1808 !— Vilhebn. Thou as thy friend didst choose an honest German, And ever in this bosom shalt thou find True sympathy !

Axel. That know I, and right well ! . . . The Goth, then, and the German

Shall prove, through changing time, unchanging friends.

At this juncture, Knud, a monk, the bad hero of the piece, enters, and by way of greeting Axel, taunts him with his love for Valborg in the most insulting way. Axel bears it with exemplary patience, until Knud is led on to say that the maiden is about to wed King Hakon, when Axel becomes violent, and cuts him short with,—

" Disputo with thee I will not ; she is mine ; Aye, mine, in spite of devils and of monks!"

He then goes out ; Knud soliloquises a little, and then starts off to warn the King. Axel re-enters, having put on a pilgrim's hood and staff and cockle-shells. How should Valborg her true love know ?—

"By his cockle-hat and staff And by his sandal shoon,"

it would appear. At this moment she arrives. After a little hesitation, he gives her, in his character of an aged pilgrim, a letter from Axel, which forms in the original an exquisite lyric, Mr. Freeland's rendering of which is not quite simple enough or close enough to please us. This letter informs her that Axel has got a dispensation from the Pope permitting their union. Thereupon follows a very pretty love-scene, but when Axel is trying to fit a ring on Valborg's finger, it slips out of his grasp and rolls into a grave. From this moment we have the poet's authority for stating that the heroine never loses a gloomy foreboding of her death.

* Axed and Valborg: a Tragedy. From the Danish of Gehlensehlager. Translated by H. W. Freelaud. London: Beeves and Turner. The next act takes us to Hakon's Court, whither Knud comes with news of Axel's arrival. Hakon is irritated into decision by Knud's machinations, and determines to gain possession of Valborg at all risks. At this moment Axel presents himself, and demands Valborg. The Kiog fumes and frets; Axel with firmness, reverence, and dignity, holds him to his promise and his duty, and claims his bride, showing the Papal Bull as his authority. At the sight of the last, Hakon despairs, but Knud, obtaining leave to examine it, discovers a fatal flaw in it, which the third act explains.

The third act is in the poet's best style. The venerable and friendly Archbishop Erland is hurrying to perform the ceremony of marriage between the lovers, when Knud interposes, and shows that although the Pope has done away with one difficulty, near- ness of kin, another bar of equal strength remains. Knud has hunted up the register, and proves that the lovers are akin in baptism, and therefore, according to the Roman Church, unable to marry one another. The good Archbishop, almost heart- broken, hastens into the Cathedral, just as the happy bridal party are forming in the choir. Slowly, pitifully, with tears in his eyes, he explains to them the new difficulty. Axel falls at Valborg's feet, and hides his face in her hands. The maidens snatch the garland of red roses from her hair and weave in white ones. King Hakon, whose insolence embitters the grief of the lovers, wishes to separate them at once, but the kindly Archbishop over- rules, and they are left alone in the Cathedral to bid one another farewell. We will give an extract from this scene as a specimen of Mr. Freeland's version :- Axel. Now shalt thou see me once again, wide World,

But not with pilgrim's staff,—my staff is broken! Now shall I wander 'mid rough trunks again In woodland gloom, but without aim or effort ; The first green hillock opening on my track May give me all I ask, a wanderer's grave ; There lies my home !

Valborg. Clouded with tears, my eyes

Will quickly shrink abashed from day's sweet light, But are 'tie closed in death, my gentle mother, The Holy Church, will kindly lend a veil.

Axel. Valborg a nun, 0 Heaven! This golden hair,

And these long locks with all their silken softness Shorn off ! these limbs of matchless beauty hid 'Neath rigid, coarse, black raiment !

Valborg. Then shall I

Roam here through many a night in solitude, Musing on love's sweet dream and thy return, My Axel, and our bitter destiny!

Then shall my heart to Heaven devoutly rise In prayer and choral orisons, and prayer Shall bring down grace from heaven to soothe thy heart.

Had Oehlenschlager been content to close his drama here, it would have been very well, for the two final acts are melodra- matic and absurd. Vilhelm coaxes the weak-minded old arch- bishop into letting him put on the robes of St. Olaf, which rest in the cathedral coffers. With these upon him, be prepares to frighten a guard of soldiers which Hakon has put in the cathedral to keep Axel from running away. Accordingly, just at midnight, when the soldiers, with Knud among them, have been exciting themselves with gruesome stories of ghosts, Vilhelm, dressed up to look like St. Olaf, marches round the church in a very stiff and sepulchral manner, repeating with great emphasis an absurd little poem about the dead being disturbed in their resting-place. Of course all the warriors scamper out as fast as their heels can carry them, and Knud, who suspects the cheat, and returns, has a spear put through his breast by the apparition. The clock, which a few minutes before had struck twelve, loses its presence of mind in all this fuss, and strikes a quarter to one. That is the signal for Axel, Valborg, and the Archbishop to come in simultaneously from different sides. Just as the lovers are starting off together, news comes that the enemies of Hakon are attacking Nidaros. Instead of flying, therefore, Axel leaves Valborg in the Archbishop's care, and starts off to fight for his liege. In the next act Axel brings Hakon in wounded, but penitent. Hakon is in such a nice frame of mind, that Axel plucks up courage to ask for Valborg, and the request is granted. At this moment the enemies rush into the church, Axel snatches the King's purple robe, and putting it on, stands in regal state. The enemy hew him down. But at the very instant Vilhelm also rushes in and turns the assailants out. Axel recites a rather heavy poem in four stanzas and then expires ; at the very moment Valborg rushes in. After a good deal of general conversation, Valborg sits down by Axel's body, and Vilhelm takes a harp and sings a ballad. During this ballad Valborg gradually dies. Vilhelm stands beside the bodies in a graceful tableau, and down goes the curtain to the sound of martial music.

Chronologically, Axel og Valborg is the fourth of Oehlen- schlliger's tragedies, and it is the first in which any sign of weak- ness finds room. Hakon Jarl had opened the series with an enormous success. It was the first poetical study of the heroic life of pagan antiquity in the North that had appeared on the Danish stage. The antiquarian interest and heroic force of this work had been united to a strain of romantic sentiment in the love-passages of Hakon and Thora, and this had charmed every- body. In his next work, the beautiful choral tragedy of Baldur hiin gode, Oehlenschlager had risen into the translunary atmosphere of the ancient Valhalla, and had treated with exquisite purity and spirituality a wholly mythological theme. Next, in Palnatoke, be had descended again to heroic ground, with greater severity of treatment than in Hakon Jarl. Not a single female character takes a part in Palnatoke, and the public showed its resentment at this on the first representation of that noble but somewhat cold tragedy. Oehlenschlager, who by this time was beginning to write under the influence of Goethe, and was above all things anxious to win a stage-success, wrote in the spring of 1808 Axel og Valborg, in which love is everything from beginning to end. In his book of memories, Erindringer, he speaks thus of his motive :—" I wrote this plarois a picture of fidelity in love, as a few years later, in Ilagbaft og Signe, I strove to sketch the passion of love in its first outburst ; the first was between a pair of young Christians, the second between a pair of young pagans, but both heroic and with Scandinavian feeling. With the sensual, glowing, Southern love of Romeo and Juliet I did not wish to compete ; but the mild September moon in a Scandinavian beech- wood can also have its influence, although it is very different from the night of an Italian summer."

This drama was the last written during the poet's stay in Paris. The society of the amiable Norwegian family of Knudtzen led the thoughts of Oehlenschliiger in this mild and somewhat sentimental channel, and he attributed to the company of these friends the fresh- ness of the Scandinavian colouring he believed that he had thrown over the poem. The last two acts were hurried into existence while the poet, thoroughly weary of Paris, was travelling into Germany by way of Strasburg. Axel og Valborg was not printed until 1810 ; when it was first acted it made an immense furore, and as the printing was delayed, a great number of manuscript copies were produced and sold, to satisfy the demand of the piece's admirers. When at last it was published, the edition of 3,000 copies was exhausted in a few months. Oehlenschlager was aware of the absurdity of the end, though he for a long time vehemently fought against it. There exists a later draft, in which Valborg does not die, but goes into a convent, but this has never been adopted in lieu of the original text. In spite of all its faults, this play continues to be an immense favourite on the Copenhagen stage.

Mr. Freeland's version is scholarly and skilful, though rather stiff. We hope he will be encouraged by the success of this book to enter on other translations. We venture to recommend to his attention Stberkodder, as being one of the noblest of Oeblenschlager's tragedies, and as quite unknown to the English public ; but what- ever be selects to translate, we shall be glad to welcome him again in the field.