Page:History of the Literature of the Scandinavian North.djvu/121

Rh the book became accessible to the world of letters, it became greatly admired. The learned Latin scholars with one accord extolled the excellence of the style. Erasmus of Rotterdam goes the farthest in his encomiums. Not long after the publication of the book, he says of Saxo: "He has written the history of his country in a style both splendid and sublime. I praise his vivid, ardent spirit, his diction, which never betrays nagging or exhaustion, no less than the wondrous richness of his style, his wealth of sound principles and remarkable variety of imagery. One constantly wonders whence a Dane in that age derived all that copious flow of grandly vigorous eloquence." And in truth Saxo has well deserved all the praise that has been bestowed on him. In point of style and in the art of historical narration, he not only surpasses all other Danish writers of the middle age, which is in fact not saying much, but he also surpasses them to such a degree that he takes high rank among the Latin writers of Europe. In the numerous translations of old poetry which are found in his work he proved himself an uncommonly gifted and able Latin poet. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that in his free, verbose and elegant paraphrases of the old songs, he strayed so far away from the spirit and character of the original, that the latter is wholly lost. But the problem could hardly be solved in any other way, and he performed his task with great ability and excellent taste. The fact is, however, that had he rendered the old poems in a strictly literal prose translation, or had he written his work in the national vernacular, it would have become a priceless treasure, the like of which few other nations would be able to boast. Still, such as it is, it is fairly entitled to the rank of a first-class work. That it was written in Latin was owing to the conditions that have been described, and which couid not well have been otherwise.

Saxo's history of Denmark consists of two parts, which derive their contents from sources essentially different, and which consequently are essentially different in character.