Aleksis Kivi

Aleksis Kivi (October 10, 1834 - December 31, 1872), born Alexis Stenvall, was a Finnish author who wrote the first significant novel in the Finnish language, Seven Brothers (Finnish title: Seitsemän veljestä).

Aleksis Kivi, drawn 1873

Quotes

• Minä elän.
  • Translation: "I live."
  • Last words
    • Eliel Aspelin-Haapkylä "Aleksis Kiven elämäkerta" in the book Seitsemän veljestä (Helsinki: Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura, 1949) p. XXXVIII.

• What is that land of hill and dale
  That is so beautiful,
  The land aglow with summer days,
  Land with the northern lights ablaze,
  Whose beauty all the seasons share,
  What is that land so fair?
  
  There many thousand lakes are bright
  With twinkling stars at night
  There many kanteles resound
  And all around make hillsides sing
  And on the golden heath firs ring:
  That is the Finnish land.
  • The Finnish Land.

• To fall asleep in your embrace,
  Land of our dreams, what bliss,
  O you our cradle, you our grave,
  You the new hope we ever crave,
  Peninsula so beautiful,
  Finland for aye our all!
  • The Finnish Land.

• Grove of Tuoni, grove of night!
  There thy bed of sand is light.
  Thither my baby I lead.
  Mirth and joy each long hour yields
  In the Prince of Tuoni's fields
  Tending the Tuonela cattle.
  Mirth and joy my babe will know,
  Lulled to sleep at evening glow
  By the pale Tuonela maiden.
  Surely joy hours will hold,
  Lying in thy cot of gold,
  Hearing the nightjar singing.
  Grove of Tuoni, grove of peace!
  There all strife and passion cease.
  Distant the treacherous world.
  • "Tuonen lehto, öinen lehto! / Siell' on hieno hietakehto, / Sinnepä lapseni saatan. // Siell' on lapsen lysti olla, / Tuonen herran vainiolla / Kaitsea Tuonelan karjaa. // Siell' on lapsen lysti olla, / Illan tullen tuuditella / Helmassa Tuonelan immen. // Onpa kullan lysti olla, / Kultakehdoss' kellahdella, / Kuullella kehräjälintuu. // Tuonen viita, rauhan viita! / Kaukana on vaino, riita, / Kaukana kavala maailma." (Äiti Aleksis Kiven kuvaamana, koonnut Ukko Kivistö, Turussa, kustannusosakeyhtiö Aura 1948)

• Now dig my grave
  Beneath the bay willows' boughs
  And with blackness cover it over again,
  There for evermore
  Go from my domain:
  I wish to slumber in peace.
  • Weariness.

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Aleksis Kivi on Wikipedia
• Media related to Aleksis Kivi on Wikimedia Commons