Träd fram du nattens gud
"Träd fram du Nattens Gud" | |
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Art song | |
![]() First page of sheet music | |
English | Step forth, thou god of night |
Written | 1780, reworked 1784 |
Text | poem by Carl Michael Bellman |
Language | Swedish |
Melody | Unknown source, possibly Bellman's own |
Dedication | Fru assessorskan Weltzin |
Published | 1791 in Fredman's Songs |
Scoring | voice and cittern |
"Träd fram du nattens gud" (Step forth, thou god of night), "Aftonkväde" (Song at Nightfall), or Fredmans sånger no. 32[1] is a nature-lyrical Swedish song by Carl Michael Bellman, a nocturne in the style of Edward Young's Night-Thoughts.[2]
The song depicts gods and other mythological beings, and a summer night after a long drought. In the night landscape are peace and rest, but also threatening creatures, both natural, like snakes and martens, and supernatural. Nature is strongly mythologised; night falls because a god commands it, bringing sleep to the mythical beings. The song ends with an announcement that the narrator is falling asleep.
Context
Carl Michael Bellman is a central figure in the Swedish ballad tradition and a powerful influence in Swedish music, known for his 1790 Fredman's Epistles and his 1791 Fredman's Songs.[3] A solo entertainer, he played the cittern, accompanying himself as he performed his songs at the royal court.[4][5][6]
Jean Fredman (1712 or 1713–1767) was a real watchmaker of Bellman's Stockholm. The fictional Fredman, alive after 1767, but without employment, is the supposed narrator in Bellman's epistles and songs.[7] The epistles, written and performed in different styles, from drinking songs and laments to pastorales, paint a complex picture of the life of the city during the 18th century. A frequent theme is the demimonde, with Fredman's cheerfully drunk Order of Bacchus,[8] a loose company of ragged men who favour strong drink and prostitutes. At the same time as depicting this realist side of life, Bellman creates a rococo picture, full of classical allusion, following the French post-Baroque poets. The women, including the beautiful Ulla Winblad, are "nymphs", while Neptune's festive troop of followers and sea-creatures sport in Stockholm's waters.[9] The juxtaposition of elegant and low life is humorous, sometimes burlesque, but always graceful and sympathetic.[4][10] The songs are "most ingeniously" set to their music, which is nearly always borrowed and skilfully adapted.[11]
Song
Music and verse form
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/87/Gnome-mime-sound-openclipart.svg/50px-Gnome-mime-sound-openclipart.svg.png)
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The song is in 2
4 time and is marked Andante.[12] No source has been found for the elegant and neat melody, implying it may be Bellman's own composition; the metre is certainly Bellman's. Each stanza is of five lines, consisting of two alexandrines, a hemistich (half-length line), an alexandrine, and a final hemistich;[13] the rhyming scheme follows the same pattern, AABAB.[12]
Lyrics
"Aftonkväde" is included among Bellman's 1791 Fredman's songs as number 32; its first version was written in 1780, but it was reworked in 1784 prior to printing. From being a classicist depiction of an animated archaic landscape peopled by ancient gods, it contains more realistic details in the spirit of James Thomson. The verse size is similar to that used by Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna in his poem Natten (Night).[14] The poem first appeared in Bellman's 1780 En stuf rim, a collection of his earliest poems with some new compositions, like this one, imitating Oxenstierna, who in turn was following Edward Young's popular Night-Thoughts, published 1742–1745.[13] The poem has been translated by Paul Britten Austin.[13]
Aftonkväde, 1791 Carl Michael Bellman[12] | Evening Song Prose translation | Song at Nightfall, 1967[13] Paul Britten Austin |
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Ditt täcke gömmer allt... Betraktom Floras gårdar! | Your quilt covers everything... Look at Flora's gardens! | All hid beneath thy cape, see Flora's gardens slumber; |
Night-Thoughts 1742–1745 Edward Young[15] | Natten, 1770 Johan Gabriel Oxenstierna[16] | Night Prose translation |
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Night, sable goddess! from her ebon throne, | Den vind, som smyger hit, bland täta löf försvinner: | The wind that creeps here, among dense leaves disappears: |
Analysis
![18th century painting of figures from classical mythology](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/47/Schall%2C_Frederic_-_Zephyr_Crowning_Flora_-.jpg/300px-Schall%2C_Frederic_-_Zephyr_Crowning_Flora_-.jpg)
In terms of content, the poem combines a poetic integration of gods and other mythological beings, with a realistic, though idealized, depiction of a summer night after a long period of drought. Technically, it resembles several of Fredman's epistles, since the poet commands "the god of the night" to transform day to night and bring coolness to the world and the minds of the people, which are thus linked together. The nightly landscape, however, offers not only peace and rest, but threatening creatures - initially "moles, snakes, and martens", then cyclopes, fauns and supernatural guests, who, however, are asked by the shepherd Alexis to lie down to rest. After he has similarly quieted the powers of the wind and the water, the poem's last stanza shows a typical ambiguity for Bellman, when Arachne (a Greek nymph, her name meaning "Spider") is asked to trap Alexis's needle: is it a question of the myth or a poetic rewriting for the spider, related to the serpents and the martens? Regardless, the poem ends with another typical scene, with the announcement that the narrator is about to fall asleep, which certainly was meant to be depicted at the performance.[14]
The suggestion that the poem depicts the farm Sågtorp at Erstavik, based on its dedication to the assessor Weltzin, who had this farm as a summer residence, is doubtful.[14]
Carina Burman writes in her biography of Bellman that the song's fifteen stanzas describe how night falls. In a strongly mythologised Nature, night does not fall because of the laws of physics but because a god commands it, as acknowledged in the line "Your quilt covers everything". This applies on the large scale and the small: the lake cools, as does people's blood. Both humans and Nature's mythical beings – "cyclopes, fauns" – are made to be quiet: "Apollo himself is playing". The god's performance brings sleep to the mythical beings, and the poet himself ends the song by going to sleep: "But now – now I shall sleep". Burman comments that the poet's sleep brings the whole world to rest, as no-one is left to portray it in song.[17]
References
- ^ Bellman, Carl Michael (1766). "N:o 32 Träd fram du nattens gud" (in Swedish). Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- ^ "N:o 32" (in Swedish). Retrieved 5 June 2019.
- ^ Bellman 1790.
- ^ a b "Carl Michael Bellmans liv och verk. En minibiografi (The Life and Works of Carl Michael Bellman. A Short Biography)" (in Swedish). Bellman Society. Archived from the original on 10 August 2015. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
- ^ "Bellman in Mariefred". The Royal Palaces [of Sweden]. Archived from the original on 21 June 2022. Retrieved 19 September 2022.
- ^ Johnson, Anna (1989). "Stockholm in the Gustavian Era". In Zaslaw, Neal (ed.). The Classical Era: from the 1740s to the end of the 18th century. Macmillan. pp. 327–349. ISBN 978-0131369207.
- ^ Britten Austin 1967, pp. 60–61.
- ^ Britten Austin 1967, p. 39.
- ^ Britten Austin 1967, pp. 81–83, 108.
- ^ Britten Austin 1967, pp. 71–72 "In a tissue of dramatic antitheses—furious realism and graceful elegance, details of low-life and mythological embellishments, emotional immediacy and ironic detachment, humour and melancholy—the poet presents what might be called a fragmentary chronicle of the seedy fringe of Stockholm life in the 'sixties.".
- ^ Britten Austin 1967, p. 63.
- ^ a b c Hassler & Dahl 1989, pp. 213–217.
- ^ a b c d e Britten Austin 1967, pp. 130–132
- ^ a b c Lönnroth 2005, pp. 225–228
- ^ Young, Edward. "The Complaint: or, Night-Thoughts on Life, Death & Immortality". Eighteenth Century Poetry. Retrieved 5 December 2021.
- ^ Oxenstierna, Johan Gabriel (1770). "Natten". Litteraturbanken. Retrieved 5 December 2021.
- ^ Burman 2019, pp. 548–550.
Sources
- Bellman, Carl Michael (1790). Fredmans epistlar. Stockholm: By Royal Privilege.
- Britten Austin, Paul (1967). The Life and Songs of Carl Michael Bellman: Genius of the Swedish Rococo. New York: Allhem, Malmö American-Scandinavian Foundation. ISBN 978-3-932759-00-0.
- Burman, Carina (2019). Bellman. Biografin [Bellman: The Biography] (in Swedish). Stockholm: Albert Bonniers Förlag. ISBN 978-9100141790.
- Hassler, Göran; Dahl, Peter (illus.) (1989). Bellman – en antologi [Bellman – an anthology]. En bok för alla. ISBN 91-7448-742-6.
- Kleveland, Åse; Ehrén, Svenolov (illus.) (1984). Fredmans epistlar & sånger [The songs and epistles of Fredman]. Stockholm: Informationsförlaget. ISBN 91-7736-059-1. (with facsimiles of sheet music from first editions in 1790, 1791)
- Lönnroth, Lars (2005). Ljuva karneval!: om Carl Michael Bellmans diktning. Stockholm: Bonnier. ISBN 91-0-057245-4.
External links
- Träd fram, du nattens gud (full text)
- v
- t
- e
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c4/Carl_Michael_Bellman%2C_portrayed_by_Per_Krafft_1779.jpg/60px-Carl_Michael_Bellman%2C_portrayed_by_Per_Krafft_1779.jpg)
Albums
- 1960, 1963 Fredmans Epistlar & Sånger Sjungna Av Sven-Bertil Taube
- William Clauson
- Fred Åkerström
- 1969 Fred sjunger Bellman
- 1974 Glimmande nymf
- 1977 Vila vid denna källa
- Martin Bagge
- Sven-Bertil Taube
- Cornelis Vreeswijk
- Martin Best
- 1982 Songs of Carl Michael Bellman
- Mikael Samuelson
- 1988 Music of Carl Michael Bellman
Translators
- Institutions
- Illustrators