[3.  See Vol.  III (1855), pp. 378 ff.]

He begins by saying that if any author deserves translation it is Shakespeare, for in him the whole poetic, romantic ideal of Protestantism finds expression.  He is the Luther of poetry, though between Luther and Shakespeare there is all the difference between religious zeal and the quiet contemplation of the beautiful.  Both belong to the whole world, Shakespeare because his characters, humor, art, reflections, are universal in their validity and their appeal.  Wherever he is read he becomes the spokesman against narrowness, dogmatism, and intolerance.  To translate Shakespeare, he points out, is difficult because of the archaic language, the obscure allusions, and the intense originality of the expression.  Shakespeare, indeed, is as much the creator as the user of his mother-tongue.  The one translation of Macbeth in existence, Foersom’s, is good, but it is only in part Shakespeare, and the times require something more adequate and “something more distinctly our own.”  Monrad feels that this should not be altogether impossible “when we consider the intimate relations between England and Norway, and the further coincidence that the Norwegian language today is in the same state of flux and transition, as was Elizabethan English.”  All translations at present, he continues, can be but experiments, and should aim primarily at a faithful rendering of the text.  Monrad calls attention to the fact—­in which he was, of course, mistaken—­that this is the first translation of the original Macbeth into Dano-Norwegian or into Danish.  It is a work of undoubted merit, though here and there a little stiff and hazy, “but Shakespeare is not easily clarified.”  The humorous passages, thinks the reviewer, are a severe test of a translator’s powers and this test Hauge has met with conspicuous success.  Also he has aquitted himself well in the difficult matter of putting Shakespeare’s meter into Norwegian.

The last two pages are taken up with a detailed study of single passages.  The only serious error Monrad has noticed is the following:  In Act II, 3 one of the murderers calls out “A light!  A light!” Regarding this passage Monrad remarks:  “It is certainly a mistake to have the second murderer call out, “Bring a light here!” (Lys hid!) The murderer does not demand a light, but he detects a shimmer from Banquo’s approaching torch.”  The rest of the section is devoted to mere trifles.

This is the sort of review which we should expect from an intelligent and well-informed man.  Monrad was not a scholar, nor even a man of delicate and penetrating reactions.  But he had sound sense and perfect self-assurance, which made him something of a Samuel Johnson in the little provincial Kristiania of his day.  At any rate, he was the only one who took the trouble to review Hauge’s translation, and even he was doubtless led to the task because of his personal interest in the translator.  If we may judge from the stir it made in periodical literature, Macbeth fell dead from the press.