The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1967, Page 85

THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
83
Address delivered to The Icelandic Canadian Club of Winnipeg
Continued from page 61
I nursed a desire to speak to you
tonight about Stephan G. Stephans-
son. But a friend made me conscious
of my limitations; and I gave up the
thought. “Stephansson is too diffioult
a poet,” he said, ”he is the Robert
Browning of Iceland.” I may be per-
mitted to say one thing of him. He
lived in the light of his own counsel:
“No other enticements can answer
When Honor has called to the man
Who gears not his work to his wages,
But wills the results to the ages
And plans to improve what he can.”
These lines are from his poem “The
Brothers’ Destiny” in the translation
of Paul Bjarnason.
One day Dr. Johannesson gave to me
two sheets of foolscap on which were
typed an English translation of part of
Stephansson’s great poem Armistice—
a scorching indictment of war and all
its bitter fruits—the poem which
brought its author to the attention of
the authorities.
I have lost these two sheets, by this
I mean, after changing my home half
a dozen times, in the Canadian gypsy
fashion. I cannot put my hands on
them, and I cannot remember by
whom the translation was made. I
think it was Skull Johnson. I now have
on my shelves a complete translation
of the poem—from the pen of Paul
Bjarnason. I never met Mr. Bjarnason,
I know him only through his books
and through the medium of a brief
correspondence.
I wrote to ask for his permission to
quote at length from his translations
of Guttormsson’s poems. He replied:
“Most certainly you may use anything
you wish from my books. They were
not written with the idea in mind of
making money. I just wanted to ex-
press myself in the open.”
My last letter from him is dated
January 21st, of the present year.
“Though I am old and almost
through,” he wrote, “I would love to
hear from you once more on any sub-
ject or topic. I am just trying to pass
the time with as much comfort as .seems
available.” When he wrote these words,
death was only a few days away. In one
stride came the dark, as he would have
wished it.
For the enlightenment of those, like
myself, to whom Icelandic is a sealed
book, he made a determined assault
upon the language barrier, with his
admirable translations. I should like
to record publicly my thanks to him.
For the past month, while I have been
preparing this talk, his books, Odes
and Echoes, and More Echoes, and
Watson Kirkconnell’s The North Am-
erican Book of Icelandic Verse, have
been my bedside companions. I hope
they have enabled me to catch some-
thing of the essential essence of the
Icelandic mind — a mind which has
given its best manifestation in poetry.
I could say to you tonight something
of present Icelandic friends. I could
speak of one who has brought great
acclaim to your race—Hon. J. T. Thor-
son, who taught me at Manitoba Law
School, and who did me the honor of
writing a preface for one of my books.
I could say a word about Judge W. J.
Lindal—who is with us tonight, who
is more than a mere lawyer, whose
intellectual interests have never been
bounded by his profession.
I could mention Senator G. S. Thor-
valdson—a first rate fellow, though his
politics, particularly for an Icelander,