Heaven and Hell (16 page)

Authors: Jon Kalman Stefansson

Tags: #Historical, #Contemporary, #Fiction

BOOK: Heaven and Hell

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Bárður reads from the Icelandic translation of Milton’s
Paradise Lost
done by Reverend Jón Þorláksson (1744–1819), a prolific translator, poet, and exponent of Enlightenment ideals in Iceland. To preserve the spirit of Bárður’s reading of the poem in translation and to give a sense of how the text reads in Icelandic, I have retranslated Reverend Jón’s lines into English, but here provide Milton’s original lines for comparison:

see here,
“A cowl casts over all, accompanied by silence”—Milton: “Now came still Evning on, and Twilight gray / Had in her sober Liverie all things clad; / Silence accompanied” (Book IV, 3286–8).

see here,
“And birds in nests for the night reposed”—Milton: “Now came still Evning on, and Twilight gray / Had in her sober Liverie all things clad; / Silence accompanied, for Beast and Bird, / They to thir grassie Couch, these to thir Nests / Were slunk” (Book IV, 3286–9).

see here,
“of early-rising birds, a delight to the ears”—Milton: “Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, / With charm of earliest Birds; pleasant the Sun / When first on this delightful Land he spreads / His orient Beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flour, / Glistring with dew; fragrant the fertil earth” (Book IV, 3330–4).

A Guide to the Pronunciation of Icelandic Consonants, Vowels, and Vowel Combinations

ð, like the voiced
th
in
mother

þ, like the unvoiced
th
in
thin

æ
, like the
i
in
time

á
, like the
ow
in
town

é
, like the
ye
in
yes

í
, like the
ee
in
green

ó
, like the
o
in
tote

ö
, like the
u
in
but

ú
, like the
oo
in
loon

ý
, like the
ee
in
green

ei
and
ey
, like the
ay
in
fray