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Kalevala: The Epic of the Finnish People (Penguin Classics) - Softcover

 
9780241403068: Kalevala: The Epic of the Finnish People (Penguin Classics)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0241403065 ISBN 13: 9780241403068
Verlag: Penguin Classics, 2021

Inhaltsangabe

'One of the great mythic poems of Europe' The New York Times

Sharing its title with the poetic name for Finland - 'the land of heroes' - Kalevala is the soaring epic poem of its people, a work rich in magic and myth which tells the story of a nation through the ages from the dawn of creation. Sung by rural Finns since prehistoric times, and formally compiled by Elias Lönnrot in the nineteenth century, it is a landmark of Finnish culture and played a vital role in galvanizing its national identity in the decades leading to independence. Its themes, however, reach beyond borders and search the heart of human existence.

Translated with an Introduction by Eino Friberg

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Elias Lönnrot (1802-1884) was a Finnish physician, philologist and collector of traditional Finnish oral poetry. Lönnrot created the Kalevala, Finland's national epic, by recording and compiling fragments of folk tales, ballads, and other oral poems. Following the publication of the Kalevala, Lönnrot served as Professor of Finnish Language and Literature at the University of Helsinki. He tirelessly promoted the Finnish language and is credited with paving the way for modern Finnish literature.

Jukka Korpela is Professor of History at the University of Eastern Finland. He has published ten monographs and more than 150 scientific articles on East European culture and history, including The World of Ladoga (Lit. Verlag: Berlin, 2008).

Eino Friberg (1901-95) was a Finnish-born American author, noted for his 1989 translation the Kalevala.

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Sharing its title with the poetic name for Finland - 'the land of heroes' - Kalevala is the soaring epic poem of its people, a work rich in magic and myth which tells the story of a nation through the ages from the dawn of creation. Sung by rural Finns since prehistoric times, and formally compiled by Elias Lönnrot in the nineteenth century, it is a landmark of Finnish culture and played a vital role in galvanizing its national identity in the decades leading to independence. Its themes, however, reach bey

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Runo 1

Creation and the Birthof Väinämöinen

Prelude


I am wanting, I am thinking
To arise and go forth singing,
Sing my songs and say my sayings,
Hymns ancestral harmonizing,
Lore of kindred lyricking.
In my mouth the words are melting;
Utterances overflowing
To my tongue are hurrying,
Even against my teeth they burst.
Come good brother, little brother,
Pretty playmate of my childhood,
Start now with me for the singing
Sit together for the speaking,
Now that we have met together,
After separate pathways travelled;
Seldom do we come together,
Rarely do we have each other
In these ragged border regions,
These benighted northern marches.
Strike we now hand into hand,
Fingers into curve of fingers,
So that we may sing good songs,
Voice the best of all our legends
For the hearing of our loved ones,
Those who want to learn them from us,
Those among the rising young ones
Of the growing generation.
Magic verses we have gathered,
Kindled by the inspiration
From the belt of Väinämöinen,
Under forge of Ilmarinen,
Sword blade of the man far- minded,
Aim of Joukahainen’s crossbow,
From the way- back fields of Northland,
From the heaths of Kalevala.
Long ago my father sang them
As he carved his ax’s handle
And my mother also taught me
Though she kept her spindle spinning,
As I, milk- bearded mischief maker,
Clabber- mouthed and tiny tumbler,
Rolled about the floor before her:
Magic never failed the Sampo,
Louhi never lacked for spells;
Old in story grew the Sampo,
In her spells old Louhi vanished,
In his singing Vipunen,
Lemminkäinen in his capers
There are other words of magic,
Incantations I have learned,
Plucked in passing from the wayside,
Some I broke off from the heather,
Some I gathered from the bushes,
Others pulled from tender saplings,
Rubbed from haytips, snatched from hedges
Where I roamed about the cowpaths
As a youngster herding cattle,
Minding cows in cattle pastures
On honeyed hills and hillocks golden
By the side of spotted Frisky,
Trailing Muurikki, the black one.
Then the frost was singing verses,
Many a rhyme the rain recited,
Other poems the winds delivered,
On the seawaves songs came drifting,
Magic charms the birds have added
And the treetops incantations.
These I rolled up in a ball, 
Made a fitting yarnball of them,
On my sled I put the yarnball,
On my sleigh I hauled it home
Right up to the threshing barn,
Hid it in a copper casket
On a shelf- end in the storehouse.
Long and lone in the darkness, 
In the cold my verses lie.
Shall I take my verses out,
Save my songs from freezing weather,
Bring the casket to the cottage,
Set it on the bench- end there
Underneath this famous rooftree
And beneath this splendid ceiling?
Shall I open up the casket,
Treasure box of magic sayings,
Snip the end off from the yarnball
And undo the knot entirely?
I will sing a good song for you
And I’ll make it beautiful:
Do it on a rye bread diet,
Wash it down with barley beer.
If it chance no beer is brought me,
No drink offered to the singer,
From a leaner mouth I’ll warble,
Sing along on water only
To make this evening’s joy more joyful
Honoring this famous day,
Or tomorrow’s joy it may be–
With the dawn the new day opens.
. . . . . . . . . .
Thus I heard the poems recited,
Learned how verses were composed.
Lonely come the nights upon us,
Kalevala
Lonely dawn the brightening days;
Lonely born was Väinämöinen,
All alone, the poet immortal,
From the beautiful who bore him,
From his mother, Ilmatar–
She, the virgin of the air,
Beautiful maiden, Nature’s child,
Long maintained in holiness
Her eternal maidenhood
In the far- horizoned heavens,
Level meadows of the air.
But in time she wearied of it,
Was estranged from this odd living,
Always being by herself,
Ever living as a virgin
In those far- horizoned heavens,
In those vast and empty spaces.
So at length she then descended
To the seawaves down below,
To the open clear sea surface
Out upon the open ocean.
Suddenly a storm wind blew,
Out of the east an angry blast
Blew the water to a foam
Heaving up the rollers high.
By the wind the maid was rocked,
On a wave the maid was driven
Round about the blue sea surface
By the whirling whitecaps lifted
Where her womb the wind awakened
And the sea- foam impregnated.
Thus a full womb now she carried,
Long she bore her burdened belly,
Seven hundred years she bore it
For nine lifetimes of a man,
Yet the borning was unborn,
Still the fetus undelivered.
As the mother of the water
Aimlessly the virgin drifted:
She swam eastward, she swam westward,
She swam south and northwestward,
Swimming round the whole horizon
In the anguish of her birth pangs,
In her belly’s bursting pains.
Yet the borning was unborn,
Still the fetus undelivered.
Then she fell to weeping softly,
Said a word and spoke out thus:
“Woe is me, the water wanderer,
Luckless girl, misfortune’s child!
Now already I’m in trouble,
Shelterless beneath the sky,
Ever rocking on the seawaves
To be cradled by the wind,
To be driven by the billows
On these far- extending waters,
Endlessly repeated billows.
“Better had it been for me
To have stayed the airy virgin
Than to be as I am now
Drifting as the water- mother.
It’s too cold for me to stay here,
Painful to be drifting here,
Wallowing in this watery waste.
“O thou Ukko, lord of all,
Hear me, thou the all- sustainer:
Come, O come where thou art needed;
Come, O come where thou art called!
Loose the maiden from her misery
And the woman from her womb- ache;
Come thou quickly, soon arriving
Where thy help is sooner needed.”
Then a bit of time passed over
Like a tiny rash of rain,
When a scaup, the honest bird,
Came on hovering here and there
Searching for a nesting place,
For a spot to build her home on.
She flew eastward, she flew westward,
Flew to northwest and to southward
But she cannot find a spot
Even in the worst of places
Where to build her needful nest,
Where to take up her abode.
Hovering, fluttering back and forth
Thus she thought and pondered it:
“Must I make my home on wind,
Build my hut upon the billows
Where the wind can blow it over
Or a wave can wash away?”
So the mother of the water,
Water mother, airy maiden,
Raised her knee above the surface
And her shoulder from the wave
As a refuge for the scaup
And a welcome nesting place.
Then that scaup, the lovely bird,
Fluttering round and hovering over
Spied the water- mother’s knee
Lifted from the sea’s blue surface;
Took it for a grassy tussock
Or a tuft of new- grown turf.
Flies about, flitting here and there,
Settles on the lifted kneecap.
It is there she builds her nest,
There she laid her golden eggs–
Six were the golden eggs she laid,
But the seventh was of iron.
She began to hatch the eggs there,
Heating up the lifted kneecap;
Brooded one day, brooded two days,
Even on the third day brooding.
Then the mother of the water,
Little mother, airy maiden,
Felt the rising heat upon her,
Felt as if her skin were scorching,
Thought her kneecap was on fire,
That her very veins were...

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Verlag
Penguin Classics
Erscheinungsdatum
2021
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0241403065
ISBN 13 
9780241403068
Einband
Taschenbuch
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
656
Herausgeber
Lönnrot Elias
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe GmbH
kundenservice@penguinrandomhouse.de

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