The Icelandic Canadian - 01.12.1963, Side 47

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
45
an G. Stephansson, though not so often
quoted as “nottlaus voraldar verold
J>ar sem vISsyniS skin”, which are the
main theme in the poem and appear
as the second half of both the first and
last stanza, are translated by Paid as
follows:
‘‘Friend of glacier and glenside,
Kin to geyser and mount,
Niece of long-ness and ling-heath,
Son of land-ice and fount.”
The words glenside, long-ness ling-
heath and land-ice are creations of the
translator, and it is doubtful if the
English speaking reader will catch the
force and true intent of the original.
To translate such a powerful and sus-
tained figure of speech a translator
should have in mind what the poet
sought to convey, which in simple lan-
guage may be put thus: “No matter
where you go you are part of Iceland,
no matter what of beauty, strength
and inspiration there is in Iceland,
you are related to it”. Word phrases
and figures of speech should be select-
ed to convey that meaning. That, as
Rossetti says, is fidelity to a theme not
necessarily literality, and “when such
object can only be attached by para-
phrase, that is his (the translators)
only path.” Here Paul Bjarnason at-
tempted to combine alliteration and
literality. If he had paraphrased and
if necessary used other figures of
speech to express a relationship which
nothing can sever, he in all probability
would have transposed words of gran-
ite in Icelandic, into other words and
figures of speech of equal strength and
power in English.
In Icelandic prosody there are many
special features besides alliteration. A
fine illustration, beautifully trans-
posed into English, is the first verse
of Jubilee Ode, by Unnur Benedikts-
dottir (Hulda).
Who owns a fairer fatherland,
With fell and dale and glinting sand
The northern lights’ wide blazing band
To burnish lea and tor,
With simple homes of happy life,
’Mid hills so far from wordly strife?
May God forever guide our land
And give us peace, not war.
MORE EGHOES are a valuable ad-
dition to our Islandica Canadiana et
Americana. W. J. Lindal
HEADSTONE EOR VILHJALMUR
In September a dark grey-green
rock weighing more than a ton was
flown out of the Canadian Arctic for
use as the headstone on the grave at
Hanover, New Hampshire, U.S.A. of
famed Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur
Stefansson.
The huge rock was found on Ellef
Ringnes Island, some 1,000 miles from
the North Pole, by members of the
Canadian polar continental shelf pro-
STEFANSSON GRAVE
ject staff near a point where Mr. Stef-
ansson camped in 1917 during one of
his Arctic expeditions. It was flown
aboard a four-motored transport air-
craft 2,000 miles to Calgary, Alberta,
and taken thence by train to Hanover.
It had been hoped that a suitable
rock would be found on one of the
six Arctic islands discovered by the
Manitoba-born explorer in 1915-16 and
claimed by him in the name of Canada.