"Thou hatest Bele's sons! but wherefore hate them?
Forsooth, because that to a yeoman's child
They would not give their sister,--she, descended
From Seming's blood, th' illustrious Odin's offspring!
Yes, sprung from Valhal's throne is Bele's race,--
Bright genealogy, just source of pride!
But birth is chance, is fortune, thou observest,
And cannot be a merit. Know, my son,
That man still boasts of fortune, not of merit.
Say! is't not gen'rous gods who were the givers,
Should any noble quality adorn us?
With haughty pride thou art thyself inflamed
At all thy hero exploits, all thy fierce-nerv'd
Resistless strength; but did'st thou give thyself
This force?'"[10]
The speech on Oscar's wedding-day, and the final chord in "Fridthjof's
Saga," mark an epoch in the career of the poet, when his political
views of life had found repose in a fitful harmony, for which he had
struggled with unwearied persistence. A few years earlier and the
Revolutionary fermentation was seething with passionate impatience
within his breast; a few years later and his displeasure at the early
stages of Swedish liberalism drove him to the opposite extreme; but
on the dividing line that separated these two currents, there was
vouchsafed to him a bright and inspired moment, with a free poetic
horizon on either side.