Vailing her high tops higher than her ribs. (I, 1-28)

This inverted stress occurs frequently in Norwegian poetry.  Wergeland was a master of it and used it with great effect, for instance, in his poem to Ludvig Daa beginning: 

  Med doden i mit hjerte,
  og smilet om min mund,—­

All this gives to Shakespeare’s verse a marvellous flexibility and power.  Nor are these devices all that the poet had at his disposal.  We frequently find three syllables to the foot, giving the line a certain fluidity which a translator only rarely can reproduce.  Finally, a further difficulty in translating Shakespeare lies in the richness of the English language in words of one syllable.  What literature can rival the grace and smoothness of: 

  In sooth I know not why I am so sad.

Ten monosyllables in succession!  It is enough to drive a translator to despair.  Or take: 

  To be or not to be, that is the question.

To summarize, no other language can rival English in dramatic dialogue in verse, and this is notably true of Shakespeare’s English, where the word order is frequently simpler and more elastic than it is in modern English.

Two reviews of Collin quickly appeared in a pedagogical magazine, Den Hoeiere Skole.  The first of them,[26] by Ivar Alnaes, is a brief, rather perfunctory review.  He points out that The Merchant of Venice is especially adapted to reading in the gymnasium, for it is unified in structure, the characters are clearly presented, the language is not difficult, and the picture is worth while historically.  Collin has, therefore, done a great service in making the play available for teaching purposes.  Alnaes warmly praises the introduction; it is clear, full, interesting, and marked throughout by a tone of genuine appreciation.  But right here lies its weakness.  It is not always easy to distinguish ascertained facts from Collin’s imaginative combinations.  Every page, however, gives evidence of the editor’s endeavor to give to the student fresh, stimulating impressions, and new, revealing points of view.  This is a great merit and throws a cloak over many eccentricities of language.

    [26.  Vol. 5 (1903), pp. 51 ff.]

But Collin was not to escape so easily.  In the same volume Dr. August Western[27] wrote a severe criticism of Collin’s treatment of Shakespeare’s versification.

    [27. Ibid. pp. 142 ff.]

He agrees, as a matter of course, that Shakespeare is a master of versification, but he does not believe that Collin has proved it.  That blank verse is the natural speech of the chief characters or of the minor characters under emotional stress, that prose is usually used by minor characters or by important characters under no emotional strain is, in Dr. Western’s opinion, all wrong.  Nor is prose per se more restful than poetry.  And is not Shylock more emotional