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The translations which we have thus far considered were mere fragments—­brief soliloquies or a single sonnet, and they were done into a dialect which was not then and is not now the prevailing literary language of the country.  They were earnest and, in the case of Aasen, successful attempts to show that Landsmaal was adequate to the most varied and remote of styles.  But many years were to elapse before anyone attempted the far more difficult task of turning any considerable part of Shakespeare into “Modern Norwegian.”

Norway still relied, with no apparent sense of humiliation, on the translations of Shakespeare as they came up from Copenhagen.  In 1881, however, Hartvig Lassen (1824-1897) translated The Merchant of Venice.[19] Lassen matriculated as a student in 1842, and from 1850 supported himself as a literateur, writing reviews of books and plays for Krydseren and Aftenposten.  In 1872 he was appointed Artistic Censor at the theater, and in that office translated a multitude of plays from almost every language of Western Europe.  His published translations of Shakespeare are, however, quite unrelated to his theatrical work.  They were done for school use and published by Selskabet for Folkeoplysningens Fremme (Society for the Promotion of Popular Education).

[19. Kjobmanden i Venedig—­Et Skuespil af William Shakespeare.  Oversat af Hartvig Lassen.  Udgivet af Selskabet for Folkeoplysningens Fremme som andet Tillaegshefte til Folkevennen for 1881.  Kristiania, 1881.]

To Kjobmanden i Venedig there is no introduction and no notes—­merely a postscript in which the translator declares that he has endeavored everywhere faithfully to reproduce the peculiar tone of the play and to preserve the concentration of style which is everywhere characteristic of Shakespeare.  He acknowledges his indebtedness to the Swedish translation by Hagberg and the German by Schlegel.  Inasmuch as this work was published for wide, general distribution and for reading in the schools, Lassen cut out the passages which he deemed unsuitable for the untutored mind.  “But,” he adds, “with the exception of the last scene of Act III, which, in its expurgated form, would be too fragmentary (and which, indeed, does not bear any immediate relation to the action), only a few isolated passages have been cut.  Shakespeare has lost next to nothing, and a great deal has been gained if I have hereby removed one ground for the hesitation which most teachers would feel in using the book in the public schools.”  In Act III, Scene 5 is omitted entirely, and obvious passages in other parts of the play.

It has frequently been said that Lassen did little more than “norvagicize” Lembcke’s Danish renderings.  And certainly even the most cursory reading will show that he had Lembcke at hand.  But comparison will also show that variations from Lembcke are numerous and considerable.  Lassen was a man of letters, a critic, and a good student of foreign languages, but he was no poet, and his Merchant of Venice is, generally speaking, much inferior to Lembcke’s.  Compare, for example, the exquisite opening of the fifth act: