Английская Википедия:I går såg jag ditt barn, min Fröja
Шаблон:Good article Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Infobox musical composition
I går såg jag ditt barn, min Fröja (Yesterday saw I your child, my Freya), is a ballad from the Swedish poet and performer Carl Michael Bellman's 1790 collection, Fredman's Epistles, where it is No. 28. The epistle is subtitled "Om et anstäldt försåt emot Ulla Winblad." (About an ambush of Ulla Winblad). It describes an attempt to arrest the "nymph" Ulla Winblad, based on a real event. The lyrics create a rococo picture of life, blending classical allusion and pastoral description with harsh reality.
Context
Шаблон:Carl Michael Bellman/Context
Song
Music and verse form
The song has five verses, each of 8 lines. The verses have the alternating rhyming pattern ABAB-CDCD. The music is in [[3/4 time|Шаблон:Music time]], and is marked Andante.[1] The melody was reworked by Joseph Martin Kraus from a Languedoc folk tune; it is accompanied throughout by rapid, nervous quavers (eighth notes), giving the Epistle in Edward Matz's view a cinematic slow motion effect.Шаблон:Sfn The melody was used by "several parodists" in the 18th century; it had timbres (named melodies) including "Quoi–" and "Ah! ma voisine, es-tu fâchée?" which the musicologist James Massengale suggests Bellman may have had in mind.Шаблон:Sfn
Lyrics
The song is dated 17 August 1771.[2] The epistle is subtitled "Om et anstäldt försåt emot Ulla Winblad" ("About an attempted ambush of Ulla Winblad"), which Bellman's biographer Lars Lönnroth describes as relatively vague, compared for instance to that of epistle 31, which gives exact co-ordinates in time and space.Шаблон:Sfn The story is at least loosely based on a real event, although the real Ulla Winblad, Maria Kristina Kiellström, was neither a prostitute nor a barmaid, and never prosecuted for wearing unauthorised finery in the form of silk dresses.Шаблон:Sfn
Carl Michael Bellman, 1790Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn | Prose translation | Paul Britten Austin's verse, 1977Шаблон:Sfn |
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<poem>I går såg jag ditt barn, min Fröja,
I Yxsmedsgränd, Klädd i en svart garnerad tröja, Så snörd och spänd; En kullrig vidd af många stubbar, Bjäfs och granlåt och flärd. Men i dess fjät såg jag två gubbar Med långa svärd.</poem> |
<poem>Yesterday I saw thy child, my Freya,
On Yxsmeds Alley, Dressed in a black trimmed top, So laced and tight; A hilly place with many stumps, Finery and show and frivolity. But behind her I saw two men With long swords.</poem> |
<poem>Yestre'en thy child I saw, my goddess
In Yxsmed Street, Clad in a black embroider'd bodice, So trim and neat. Petticoats flounced their frills and laces, All in spite of the laws; Aye, and two wights went in her traces With long drawn swords.</poem> |
Reception
Bellman's biographer, Paul Britten Austin, describes the Epistle as rococo, along with No. 25: Blåsen nu alla (All blow now). In it, Ulla Winblad, "a luxuriant Venus, incarnation of love and beauty" is almost caught by the bailiffs in Yxsmedsgränd, a narrow street in Stockholm's Gamla stan, where Bellman himself lived from 1770 to 1774.Шаблон:Sfn Carina Burman, in her biography of Bellman, wonders whether Bellman found it slightly amusing to move into the street where the bailiffs had pursued Ulla sixteen years earlier.Шаблон:Sfn The epistle describes how she just manages to escape. Bellman simultaneously uses classical and contemporary imagery. He calls Ulla a nymph; she has been given a "myrtle" (crown of leaves) by Freya, the Nordic goddess of love; the Bonde Palace (visible from the corner of Yxsmedsgränd) is called the temple of Themis, classical goddess of justice; and Freya is to be worshipped in Paphos' land, equating her with Venus/Aphrodite. Paphos in Cyprus was where, in the myth, Aphrodite rose naked from the foaming sea, and her temple is nearby. But, non-mythologically, Ulla wears "a black embroider'd bodice" and petticoats with "frills and laces", and she loses her watch in the struggle. Britten Austin translates the entire Epistle.Шаблон:SfnШаблон:Sfn
Burman notes that the cheerful last stanza of the Epistle was one of the Bellman songs used in 19th century student celebrations.Шаблон:Sfn Epistle 28 has been recorded by Cornelis Vreeswijk, a noted Bellman interpreter, on his 1971 studio album Spring mot Ulla, spring! Cornelis sjunger Bellman, among others.Шаблон:Sfn
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Epistle 28 is set in Yxsmedsgränd, an alley in Stockholm's Gamla stan.
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The Bonde Palace, visible from Yxsmedsgränd, is described as the temple of Themis.
References
Sources
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book (contains the most popular Epistles and Songs, in Swedish, with sheet music)
- Шаблон:Cite book (with facsimiles of sheet music from first editions in 1790, 1791)
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
External links
- Text of Epistle 28
- Live 2020 studio recording of 'Bellman 2.0' theatre concert (song starts at 23:00) at Västmanlands Teater by Nikolaj Cederholm and Kåre Bjerkø with their band