nd, som have myrdet Caesar--jeg befrygter det.

Den Fjerde:
De vare Forraedere!--ha, hederlige Maend!

The translation continues to the point where the plebeians, roused to
fury by the cunning appeal of Antony, rush out with the cries:[2]

2. Pleb:
Go fetch fire!

3. Pleb:
Plucke down Benches!

2. Pleb:
Plucke down Formes, Windowes, anything.

[2. _Julius Caesar_. III, 2. 268-70. Variorum Edition Furness.
Phila. 1913.]

But we have not space for a more extended quotation, and the passage
given is sufficiently representative.

The faults are obvious. The translator has not ventured to reproduce
Shakespeare's blank verse, nor, indeed, could that be expected. The
Alexandrine had long held sway in Danish poetry. In _Rolf Krage_ (1770),
Ewald had broken with the tradition and written an heroic tragedy in
prose. Unquestionably he had been moved to take this step by the example
of his great model Klopstock in _Bardiete_.[3] It seems equally certain,
however, that he was also inspired by the plays of Shakespeare, and the
songs of Ossian, which came to him in the translations of Wieland.[4]

[3. Ronning--_Rationalismens Tidsalder_. 11-95.]

[4. Ewald--_Levnet og meninger_. Ed. Bobe. Kbhn. 1911, p. 166.]

A few years later, when he had learned English and read Shakespeare
in the original, he wrote _Balders Dod_ in blank verse and
naturalized Shakespeare's metre in Denmark.[5] At any rate, it
is not surprising that this unknown plodder far north in Trondhjem
had not progressed beyond Klopstock and Ewald. But the result of
turning Shakespeare's poetry into the journeyman prose of a foreign
language is necessarily bad. The translation before us amounts to a
paraphrase,--good, respectable Danish untouched by genius. Two
examples will illustrate this. The lines:

.... Now lies he there,
And none so poor to do him reverence.

[5. _Ibid._ II, 234-235.]

are rendered in the thoroughly matter-of-fact words, appropriate for a
letter or a newspaper "story":

.... Nu ligger han der,
endog den Usleste naegter ham Agtelse.

Again,

I have o'ershot myself to tell you of it,

is translated:

Jeg er gaaen for vidt at jeg sagde Eder noget derom.

On the other hand, the translation presents no glaring errors; such
slips as we do find are due rather to ineptitude, an inability to
find the right word, with the result that the writer has contented
himself with an accidental