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SIGURD THE DRAGON-SLAYER, E.M. Smith-Dampier
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
THESE inadequate Translations do their best to be
accurate, and to follow the variations of the original metre—which,
be it borne in mind, are inseparable from the music and movement of the
Dance. Everyone can perceive the pitfalls into which I have floundered, but no
one without practical experience can realize the strength of the temptations
which I have tried to resist. The best service this book can do for the student
is the arousing of a Divine Discontent, which will lead him to acquire the
Icelandic tongue, with its Faroëse offshoot, and read the Ballads as they ought
to be read.
In the case of proper names,
I have, with one exception, followed the Faroëse forms. That exception is the
important case of Sigurd the Dragon-Slayer himself. 'Sjurð'
is, to our eyes, unfamiliar—but, far more important, 'Sjurð'
is a monosyllable; and our English ballad-vocabulary is only too largely
monosyllabic. The Faroëse language, on the other hand, retains many Icelandic
inflections. The difficulties of rendering the one into the other were already
very great; had I not taken refuge in 'Sigurd,' I should have found them
insuperable. This inaccuracy, then, sprang from deliberate choice. All others
are unintentional.
The Danish Ballads have been
added on the principle that one half-hour of comparison is worth many hours of
hearsay. Even at second-hand, their differences from the
Faroëse in scheme, tone, and diction
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2 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
cannot fail to be perceived,
and to throw some little light on subtle national variations, and the workings
of men's mutable souls. Let scholars sift, trace, and compare as they will, the
secret of why any given poet re-echoes an old story after his own fashion and
none other, must always remain a secret hidden in the depths of human nature
itself.
NOTE.
My best thanks are due to Professor Arthur G. Brodeur,
of Berkeley University, California, and to Mr. G. H. Helweg,
Reader in Danish, University College, London, for much helpful advice and constructive
criticism.
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