Spring

Dear reader, this time I have for you a rare delight. The letter of a romantic poet, Icelandic, to a sheriff, in which the poet complains about the attention that he gets from a specific woman.

Reykjavík April 19'th, 1842.

(Private!)
You know this shrew - Þóra is her name, a simpleton/lunatic as far as I know, and has panty-fever and stalks me day and night, indoors and out, so that I never have peace and here is like in Hell. I can swear on my honor and on God if that is demanded, that I never in work nor act given her an occasion for these assaults, but I have heard that while I lay sick she dreamt that I would come alive again, "and become her second husband". This is as you can see yourself intolerable; she slowed down for a while, but has now suddenly become again more than intolerable; I had to cover my window, so I shouldn't all day have to look into those disgusting and geriatric slut-eyes.

I wish you were for an hourglass-grain in my place, so that you might see how just it is that the police neglects it's first duty: to defend innocent citizens. God knows that I am innocent, and have now had to suffer this disgrace for over two years. But patience has expired; if I in my rage drive a rock or a stick out through the window into her mouth, then I will be fined, but yours is "the moral responsibility."

Your J. Hallgrímsson.

P.S. Confront the shrew and she will admit that they are all empty fantasies or pranks of hers. I will not flee the town because of this disgraceful persecution, which shames the town and the police more than [it shames] me; do something rather than doing nothing, summon me before a court, though I would be more than very sorry for it. But peace I want to have, I am in full right to demand it. I also apologize for not speaking with you in person, but I am almost bedridden by bitterness and all this senseless and unrelenting persecution from a very old and heinous slut is above that for me such a contemptible thing and the neglect of the police is in such a way not understandable that I couldn't name it with cold blood.

J.H.
(One line as a response I request to return swiftly, for now I am going to go a bit outside the law and take myself to court(?); then you are to sentence me. (The pen is worse than a grass straw.))

The Icelandic Original:

Jónas Hallgrímsson, til Stefáns Gunnlaugssonnar fógeta.
Rkv. 19/4 '42.

(Prívat!)
Þú þekkir þessa kerlingu - Þóra heitir hún, vitlaus að ég held, og hefir brókarsótt og situr um mig nótt og dag, úti og inni, svo ég hef aldrei frið og hér er eins og í helvíti. Nú get ég svarið við æru mína og við guð ef þess er krafist, að ég hefi aldrei í orði né verki gefið henni tilefni til þessarar aðferðar, en ég hef heyrt að meðan ég lá veikur hafi hana dreymt ég mundi lifna aftur við "og verða seinni maðurinn sinn". Þetta er eins og þú sérð sjálfur óþolandi; hún hafði hægt á sér um stund, en er nú aftur allt í einu orðin meir en óþolandi; ég verð að þekja fyrir gluggann minn, svo ég skuli ekki allan daginn þurfa að sjá í þessi svívirðilegu og afgömlu pútuaugu.

Ég vildi þú værir stundarkorn kominn í minn stað, svo þú gætir séð hvursu réttlátt það er að "pólitíið" trassar fyrstu skylduna sína: að vernda saklausa borgara. Guð veit ég er saklaus og hef nú orðið að þola þessa svívirðing á þriðja ár. En þolinmæðin er þrotin; ef ég í bræði minni rek stein eða spýtu út um rúðu í kjaftinn á henni, þá verð ég sektaður, en þú átt "det moralske ansvar."

Þinn J. Hallgrímsson.

P.S.
Gakktu á kerlinguna og hún mun viðurkenna að þetta eru tómar grillur eða hrekkir úr henni sjálfri. Ég flý ekki bæinn fyrir þessari svívirðilegu ásókn, sem smánar bæinn og pólitíið meir en mig; gerðu eitthvað heldur en að gera ekki neitt, kallaðu mig fyrir rétt, þó mér sé það meir en dauðleitt. En frið vil ég hafa, ég á fullan rétt á að krefjast þess. Mér hæfir og að afsaka að ég tala ekki við þig munnlega, en ég er næstum lagstur af gremju og öll þessi vitlausa og óþverrandi ásókn af afgamallri og svívirðilegri pútu er mér þess utan svo mikil viðurstyggð og trassaskapur pólitíisins svo óskiljanlegur að ég gæti ekki nefnt það með köldu blóði.

J.H.
(Eina línu sem ég svar óska ég fljótt til baka, því ég ætla nú úr þessu að fara ögn út fyrir lögin og "tage mig selv til rette"; svo átt þú að dæma mig. (Penninn er verri en puntstrá.))

Jónas Hallgrímsson was very important in the Icelandic romantic-nationalist-independence-etcetera movement. (You should remember, dear reader, that any place as sparsely populated as Iceland is likely to have individual characters taking on multiple roles, even sometimes contradictory ones.)

I have adopted the translation shared at the site of the University of Wisconsin, which I found to be deviating a little too much from the original for my taste. As my friend frequently repeats to me, a translation is like a woman, that there are beautiful women and then there are faithful women, and that it is rare to find a woman of both qualities. Let me then here redress this one as more faithful:

Iceland, land of fortunes and frost-white mother of prosperities,
where is your fame of antiquity, freedom and virtue greatest?
All things in the world are transient, and the moment of your most beautiful elation
lights like a flash in a night long into an age gone.

The Icelandic original is as follows:

Ísland, farsælda frón og hagsælda hrímhvíta móðir,
hvar er þín fornaldar frægð, frelsið og manndáðin best?
Allt er í heiminum hverfult, og stund þíns fegursta frama
lýsir sem leiftur um nótt langt fram á horfinni öld.

In fact, the other translation, this one offered by the University of Wisconsin, infuriates me. The first verse is exemplar: the poet has an excellent description of the glory of the past appearing to him when viewing the past like a lightning flashing in a long night, which that translator seems to substitute with a weak comparison to a flickering flame, which is not what the poet is saying, at all.

Perhaps this is yet another sign that I am out of touch with reality. I get upset with bad translations which no one reads. I do not, however, get upset upon reading news of the world, of calamities or warfare. Some might say that this is just because situations are distant, but I did not get upset either over the collapsing Icelandic economy, although the noise surrounding the situation did bother me.

In any case, the accuracy of a translation, unlike the idea of now-greatly-unfavorable future-prospects, is something that can shake me to the core.


The poem itself is significantly longer, but it is rare that any Icelander remembers or quotes any other part. It is all in the same spirit, I suppose. Firstly praising the beauty of Iceland, secondly lamenting the state of it's current inhabitants.

I liked the letter, firstly because it was so outrageously unlike the idea of the poet I had in my mind since primary school, secondly because it is more common to hear of how romantic poets were womanizing, as this one was in his early years, going around Reykjavík, supposedly wearing some fancy blue hat, but it is not at all as common to read letters in which they feel negatively about attention from the opposite gender.

Poor woman though, I imagine she was quite lonely.