The Gold Horns
Guldhornene fortæller historien om to gyldne horn, der som en gave fra fortiden og guderne dukker op af mosens dyb i Slesvig. De skænkes til mennesker, der higer og søger efter oldtidens storhed — først til en uskyldig pige, siden til en bonde, der pløjer dem frem. Men samtiden viser sig uværdig: hornene betragtes blot som rige klenodier og museumsgenstande, ikke som hellige tegn fra en svunden gylden tid. Til straf lader de højere magter skatten forsvinde igen, ledsaget af et tordenbrag, og guldhornene er for stedse tabt.
Digtet fra 1802 regnes som det danske gennembrud for romantikken og markerer Oehlenschlägers egen omvendelse til de nye idéer. Det forener nordisk oldtidslængsel, naturmystik og kritik af en kølig, materialistisk nutid, der ikke evner at se det åndelige. Med sit klangfulde sprog og sin myteagtige kraft står værket som en hjørnesten i dansk litteratur.
How it begins
Transcribed from the 1913 Thomas J. Wise pamphlet by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org. Many thanks to Norfolk and Norwich Millennium Library, UK, for kindly supplying the images from which this transcription was made. THE GOLD HORNS translated by GEORGE BORROW from the Danish of ADAM GOTTLOB OEHLENSCHLÄGER Edited with an Introduction by EDMUND GOSSE, C.B. London : printed for private circulation 1913 Copyright in the United States of America by Houghton , Mifflin & Co. for Clement Shorter . INTRODUCTION Early in the present year Mr. Thos. J. Wise discovered among the miscellaneous MSS. of Borrow a fragment which proved to be part of a version of Oehlenschläger’s Gold Horns . His attention being drawn to the fact, hitherto unknown, that Borrow had translated this famous poem, he sought for, and presently found, a complete MS. of the poem, and from this copy the present text has been printed. The paper on which it is written is watermarked 1824, and it is probable that the version was composed in 1826. The hand-writing coincides with that of several of the pieces included in the Romantic Ballads of that year, and there can be little doubt that Borrow intended The Gold Horns for that volume, and rejected it at last.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain.