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May Seventeenth (1883)
By Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson
(See Note 78)
Wergeland's statue on May seventeenth
Saw the procession. And as its rear-guard,
Slow marching masses,
Strong men, and women with flower-decked presence;
Come now the peasants, come now the peasants.
Österdal's forest's magnificent chieftain
Bore the old banner. Soon as we see it
Blood-red uplifted,
Greet it the thousands in thought of its story:
That is our glory, that is our glory!
Never that lion bore crown that was foreign,
Never that cloth was by Dannebrog cloven.
I saw the future,
When with that banner by Wergeland's column
Peasants stood solemn, peasants stood solemn.
Most of our loss in the times that have vanished,
Most of our victories, most of our longing,
Most that is vital:
Deeds of the past and the future's bold daring
Peasants are bearing, peasants are bearing.
Sorely they suffered for sins once committed,
But they arise now. Here in the Storting
Stalwart they prove it,
All, as they come from our land's every region,
Peasants Norwegian, peasants Norwegian.
Hold what they won, with a will to go farther;
Whole we must have independence and honor!
All of us know it:
Wergeland's summer bears soon its best flower, -
Power in peasants, peasants in power.
Extra Info:
TRANSLATED FROM THE NORWEGIAN IN THE ORIGINAL METERS BY ARTHUR HUBBELL PALMER
Professor of the German Language and Literature In Yale University
Note 78.
MAY SEVENTEENTH. In memory of the unveiling of Henrik Wergeland's
statue in Christiania on the 17th of May, 1881, when Björnson also
delivered a great oration. Henrik Arnold Wergeland was born June 17,
1808, in Christiansand, and died August 12, 1845, in Christiania.
Though he studied theology, he devoted his life to poetry and
politics. His earliest writings, farces and poems, showed powerful,
but uncontrolled, genius. His great popularity began in 1829
with his active entrance into public life. He labored for the
enlightemnent of his people through his writings and his personal
influence in journeyings all over the land, and especially through
speeches at political meetings. His chief poetic work, the
rationalistic-republican didactic poem, Creation, Man, and
Messiah, appeared in 1830. It was severely criticised in a special,
polemical writing by Welhaven, who continued his
attack on all Wergeland's views and teachings in his Norway's Dawn.
Thus arose the Wergeland-Welhaven conflict, which was carried on
hotly for many years by their adherents, and contributed much to the
intellectual development of the nation. Wergeland was very
productive as editor, publicist, and poet. In 1840 he was appointed
Keeper of the Archives, and held this government office until his
death.
In his own time Wergeland was in spirit the head of the radical-
national "Peasant party," which was indeed patriotic and democratic,
but too narrowly Norwegian, in opposition to all that was Danish,
European, foreign. During the years preceding 1881 he had come to
be in the constitutional conflict a national hero, the idol of the
peasants, as their political power increased.
Come now the peasants. In this volume of translations "peasant"
is the rendering of the Norwegian word "bonde." The meaning is
"farmer," i.e., in general the independrnt owner of land, which he
cultivates and on which he lives. In Norway the conditions have for
many centuries been more favorable for the "peasant" than in any
other European country; this is due to the topography and to the
absence of a powerful nobility. At the present time scarcely one-
twentieth of the tilled area in Norway is cultivated by tenants.
The Norwegian "peasants" have always had great self-consciousness in
the best sense, and importance in the political, economic, and
social life of the country, especially since the adoption of the
democratic Constitution of 1814. Very often the "peasants" have an
aristocratic pride in a lineage traced back to ancient "kings," and
in their own distinctively "Norse" culture.
Österdal's ... chieftain, a peasant of large stature, named
Hjelmstad, a radical member of the Storting.
The old banner. A flag much used in earlier times as specifically
Norwegian, dating back to King Erik (1280-1299), before the union
with Demnark, showed on a red ground a lion wearing a golden crown
and bearing an axe. As late as 1698 it flew over the fortress
Akershus in Christiania. The future, i.e., the independence
realized in 1905 through the dissolution of the union with Sweden.
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