Naar Skyggen er ligest...

Resumé

»When the Shadow comes nearest..«

By Flemming Lundgreen-Nielsen

This small contribution deals with two intricate lines from stanza 5 of Grundtvig’s 1824 poem .The Land of the Living.. They are usually taken to mean that when likeness in the shape of shadows comes nearest the real thing, the little ones observing them weep, because in human poetry and arts which strive to reflect eternity similarity is not and can never be identity. Chr. Thodberg has repeatedly since 1971 suggested a different understanding of the lines to the effect that »ligest« (i.e. .most similar to.) may be interpreted as »most vertical«, referring to the shrinkage or entire disappearance of shadows at noon, when the sun reaches zenith. Thodberg departs from an off-hand commentary by Grundtvig about this natural fact in a sermon delivered on 27 March 1823. The author tries to demonstrate that Grundtvig's varying usage of the

word shadow (»Skygge«) both before and after 1824 makes it impossible to arrive at an unambiguous determination regarding the word in the said lines. Furthermore, the superlative degree »ligest« meaning »most vertical« neither seems to have been recorded in the language of Grundtvig and his contemporaries nor in older periods.

Contrarily, »ligest« meaning »most similar to« can be found in ancient Danish proverbs which Grundtvig studied extensively from 1816 and until he edited and published a collection of them in 1845, and it can also be located in contemporary literature. Returning from there to the meaning of shadow, the author by means of quotes from Grundtvig’s brief but precise historical evaluations of Plato and his philosophy (in 1812 and 1833) is inclined to support the traditional interpretation that the shadows making little ones weep originate in the famous cave metaphor in the fifth book of Plato’s dialogue The Republic. Finally, two other details deriving from Grundtvig’s studies of Danish proverbs in the Peder Syv edition (1688) are mentioned to throw light on a couple of nebulous expressions in two other lyrical poems by him.