The photo above is of Gamla Stan (Old Town) in Stockholm, Sweden. It is the oldest part of the city, dating from the 13th century. The green-roofed building on the left is the Royal Palace where King Carl VI Gustav lives. I was in Stockholm in 1969, from February 1 to March 1, when King Gustav VI Adolf lived in the palace (Carl is his son). I've retained a warm place in my memory for a very cold month during which I visited Drottningholm, Hötorget, Stadhuset, Östermalmstorg, Strandvägen, Lidingö, and other things Swedish.I'm showing Gamla Stan to you because of a strange thing (strange to me, at least) that I found on the Internet: Edgar Allan Poe's poem, “The Raven,” in Swedish. The poem was first published in 1845 (in English), and at one time thousands of American schoolchildren were forced, forced I tell you, to memorize part of it along with “Annabel Lee” and “The Village Blacksmith” and “Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard” and “Flower In The Crannied Wall (I Pluck You Out Of The Crannies).” Maybe you remember the first stanza of Poe's “The Raven”:
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“'Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door;
Only this, and nothing more.”
Well, in Swedish, the title becomes “Korpen” and the first stanza is:
Trött en natt jag satt och drömde vid en gammal bok, där glömde,
bakom seklers förlåt gömde tankar hägrade förbi.
Knappt jag börjat slumra, förrän något knackade på dörren,
något pickade på dörren, ticketick det ljöd däri.
Upp jag blickade och sade, väckt ut ur mitt drömmeri:
“Nå stig in! Vem söker ni?”
Excuse me. Vem söker ni? Vem söker ni? I don't see a question mark in the English version of the first stanza. Do you? Underneath the Swedish title on the Internet page were the words “Översättning av Viktor Rydberg” which I presume mean “translation by Viktor Rydberg.” Maybe Viktor should go back to the drawing board; something of the essence of Edgar Allan Poe seems to have been lost in the översättning.
