Six plays, p.19
Six Plays, page 19
The tone of the whole was attacked and defended.
Some fancied the vocal expression too thin,
While some thought the death-shriek too carefully studied;
But all were agreed as to one thing: qua grunt,
The performance was grossly exaggerated.—
Now that, you see, came of the devils stupidity
In not taking the measure of his public first.
[He bows and goes off. A puzzled silence comes over the crowd.]
SCENE FIFTH
Whitsun Eve.—In the depths of the forest.To the back, in a clearing, is a hut with a pair of reindeer horns over the porch-gable.
PEER GYNT is creeping among the undergrowth, gathering wild onions.
PEER
Well, this is one standpoint. Where is the next?
One should try all things and choose the best.
Well, I have done so,—beginning from Cæsar,
And downwards as far as to Nebuchadnezzar.
So I’ve had, after all, to go through Bible history;—
The old boy has come back to his mother again.
After all it is written: Of the earth art thou come.—
The main thing in life is to fill one’s belly.
Fill it with onions? That’s not much good;—
I must take to cunning, and set out snares.
There’s water in the beck here; I shan’t suffer thirst;
And I count as the first ’mong the beasts after all.
When my time comes to die—as most likely it will,—
I shall crawl in under a wind-fallen tree;
Like the bear, I will heap up a leaf-mound above me,
And I’ll scratch in big print on the bark of the tree:
Here rests Peer Gynt, that decent soul
Kaiser o’er all of the other beasts.—
Kaiser?
[Laughs inwardly.]
Why, you old soothsayer’s-dupe!
No Kaiser are you; you are nought but an onion.
I’m going to peel you now, my good Peer!
You won’t escape either by begging or howling.
[Takes an onion and strips off one coat after another.]
There lies the outermost layer, all torn;
That’s the shipwrecked man on the jolly-boat’s keel.
Here’s the passenger layer, scanty and thin;—
And yet in its taste there’s a tang of Peer Gynt.
Next underneath is the gold-digger ego;
The juice is all gone—if it ever had any.
This coarse-grained layer with the hardened skin
Is the peltry hunter by Hudson’s Bay.
The next one looks like a crown;—oh, thanks!
We’ll throw it away without more ado.
Here’s the archæologist, short but sturdy,
And here is the Prophet, juicy and fresh.
He stinks, as the Scripture has it, of lies,
Enough to bring the water to an honest man’s eyes.
This layer that rolls itself softly together
Is the gentleman, living in ease and good cheer.
The next one seems sick. There are black streaks upon it;—
Black symbolises both parsons and niggers.
[Pulls off several layers at once.]
What an enormous number of swathings!
Is not the kernel soon coming to light?
[Pulls the whole onion to pieces.]
I’m blest if it is! To the innermost centre,
It’s nothing but swathings—each smaller and smaller.—
Nature is witty!
[Throws the fragments away.]
The devil take brooding!
If one goes about thinking, one’s apt to stumble.
Well, I can at any rate laugh at that danger;—
For here on all fours I am firmly planted.
[Scratches his head.]
A queer enough business, the whole concern!
Life, as they say, plays with cards up its sleeve;98
But when one snatches at them, they’ve disappeared,
And one grips something else,—or else nothing at all.
[He has come near to the hut; he catches sight of it and starts.]
This hut? On the heath——! Ha!
[Rubs his eyes.]
It seems exactly
As though I had known this same building before.—
The reindeer-horns jutting above the gable!—
A mermaid, shaped like a fish from the navel!—
Lies! there’s no mermaid! But nails—and planks,—
Bars too, to shut out hobgoblin thoughts—
SOLVEIG [Singing in the hut.]
Now all is ready for Whitsun Eve.
Dearest boy of mine, far away,
Comest thou soon?
Is thy burden heavy,
Take time, take time;—
I will await thee;
I promised of old.99
PEER [Rises, quiet and deadly pale.]
One that’s remembered,—and one that’s forgot.
One that has squandered,—and one that has saved.—
Oh, earnest!—and never can the game be played o’er!
Oh, dread!100—here was my Kaiserdom!
[Hurries off along the wood path.]
SCENE SIXTH
Night. A heath, with fir-trees. A forest fire has been raging; charred tree-trunks are seen stretching for miles.White mists here and there clinging to the earth.
PEER GYNT comes running over the heath.
PEER
Ashes, fog-scuds, dust wind-driven,—
Here’s enough for building with!
Stench and rottenness within it;
All a whited sepulchre.
Figments, dreams, and still born knowledge
Lay the pyramid’s foundation;
O’er them shall the work mount upwards,
With its step on step of falsehood.
Earnest shunned, repentance dreaded,
Flaunt at the apex like a scutcheon,
Fill the trump of judgment with their:
“Petrus Gyntus Cæsar fecit!”
[Listens.]
What is this, like children’s weeping?
Weeping, but half-way to song.—
Thread-balls101 at my feet are rolling!—
[Kicking at them.]
Off with you! You block my path!
THE THREAD-BALLS [On the ground.]
We are thoughts;
Thou shouldst have thought us;—
Feet to run on
Thou shouldst have given us!
PEER [Going round about.]
I have given life to one;—
’Twas a bungled, crook-legged thing!
THE THREAD-BALLS
We should have soared up
Like clangorous voices,—
And here we must trundle
As grey-yarn thread-balls.
PEER [Stumbling.]
Thread-clue! you accursed scamp!
Would you trip your father’s heels?
[Flees.]
WITHERED LEAVES [Flying before the wind.]
We are a watchword;
Thou shouldst have proclaimed us!
See how thy dozing
Has wofully riddled us.
The worm has gnawed us
In every crevice;
We have never twined us
Like wreaths round fruitage.
PEER
Not in vain your birth, however;—
Lie but still and serve as manure.
A SIGHING IN THE AIR
We are songs;
Thou shouldst have sung us!—
A thousand times over
Hast thou cowed us and smothered us.
Down in thy heart’s pit
We have lain and waited;—
We were never called forth.
Thy gorge we poison!
PEER
Poison thee, thou foolish stave!
Had I time for verse and stuff?
[Attempts a short cut.]
DEWDROPS [Dripping from the branches.]
We are tears
Unshed for ever.
Ice-spears, sharp-wounding,
We could have melted.
Now the barb rankles
In the shaggy bosom;—
The wound is closed over;
Our power is ended.
PEER
Thanks;—I wept in Rondë-cloisters,—
None the less my tail-part smarted!
BROKEN STRAWS
We are deeds;
Thou shouldst have achieved us!
Doubt, the throttler,
Has crippled and riven us.
On the Day of Judgment
We’ll come a-flock,
And tell the story,—
Then woe to you!
PEER
Rascal-tricks! How dare you debit
What is negative against me?
[Hastens away.]
ÅSE’S VOICE [Far away.]
Fie, what a post-boy!
Hu, you’ve upset me
Here in the slush, boy!
Sadly it’s smirched me.—
You’ve driven me the wrong way.
Peer, where’s the castle?
The Fiend has misled you
With the switch from the cupboard.
PEER
Better haste away, poor fellow!
With the devil’s sins upon you,
Soon you’ll faint upon the hillside;—
Hard enough to bear one’s own sins.
[Runs off.]
SCENE SEVENTH
Another part of the heath.
PEER GYNT [Sings.]
A sexton! A sexton! where are you, hounds?
A song from braying precentor-mouths;
Around your hat-brim a mourning band;—
My dead are many; I must follow their biers!
THE BUTTON-MOULDER, with a box of tools and a large casting-ladle, comes from a side path.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
Well met, old gaffer!
PEER
Good evening, friend!
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
The man’s in a hurry. Why, where is he going?
PEER
To a grave-feast.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
Indeed? My sight’s not very good;—
Excuse me,—your name doesn’t chance to be Peer?
PEER
Peer Gynt, as the saying is.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
That I call luck!
It’s precisely Peer Gynt I am sent for to-night.
PEER
You’re sent for? What do you want?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
Why, see here;
I mould buttons; and you must go into my ladle.
PEER
What to do there?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
To be melted up.
PEER
To be melted?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
Here it is, empty and scoured.
Your grave is dug ready, your coffin bespoke.
The worms in your body will live at their ease;—
But I have orders, without delay,
On Master’s behalf to fetch in your soul.
PEER
It can’t be! Like this, without any warning——!
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
It’s an old tradition at burials and births
To appoint in secret the day of the feast,
With no warning at all to the guest of honour.
PEER
Ay, ay, that’s true. All my brain’s awhirl.
You are——?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
Why, I told you—a button-moulder.
PEER
I see! A pet child has many nicknames.
So that’s it, Peer; it is there you’re to harbour,
But these, my good man, are most unfair proceedings!
I’m sure I deserve better treatment than this;—
I’m not nearly so bad as perhaps you think,—
Indeed I’ve done more or less good in the world;—
At worst you may call me a sort of a bungler,—
But certainly not an exceptional sinner.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
Why that is precisely the rub, my man;
You’re no sinner at all in the higher sense;
That’s why you’re excused all the torture-pangs,
And, like others, land in the casting-ladle.
PEER
Give it what name you please—call it ladle or pool;102
Spruce ale and swipes, they are both of them beer.
Avaunt from me, Satan!
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
You can’t be so rude
As to take my foot for a horse’s hoof?
PEER
On horse’s hoof or on fox’s claws103—
Be off; and be careful what you’re about!
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
My friend, you’re making a great mistake.
We’re both in a hurry, and so, to save time,
I’ll explain the reason of the whole affair.
You are, with your own lips you told me so,
No sinner on the so called heroic scale,—
Scarce middling even——
PEER
Ah, now you’re beginning
To talk common sense—
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
Just have patience a bit—
But to call you a good man were going too far.—
PEER
Well, you know I have never laid claim to that.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
You’re nor one thing nor t’other then, only so-so.
A sinner of really grandiose style
Is nowadays not to be met on the highways.
It wants much more than merely to wallow in mire;
For both vigour and earnestness go to a sin.
PEER
Ay, it’s very true that remark of yours;
One has to lay on, like the old Berserkers.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
You, friend, on the other hand, took your sin lightly.
PEER Only outwardly, friend, like a splash of mud.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
Ah, we’ll soon be at one now. The sulphur pool
Is no place for you, who but plashed in the mire.
PEER
And in consequence, friend, I may go as I came?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
No, in consequence, friend, I must melt you up.
PEER
What tricks are these that you’ve hit upon
At home here, while I’ve been in foreign parts?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
The custom’s as old as the Snake’s creation;
It’s designed to prevent loss of good material.
You’ve worked at the craft—you must know that often
A casting turns out, to speak plainly, mere dross;
The buttons, for instance, have sometimes no loop to them.
What did you do then?
PEER
Flung the rubbish away.
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
Ah, yes; Jon Gynt was well known for a waster,
So long as he’d aught left in wallet or purse.
But Master, you see, he is thrifty, he is;
And that is why he’s so well-to-do.
He flings nothing away as entirely worthless
That can be made use of as raw material.
Now, you were designed for a shining button
On the vest of the world; but your loop gave way;
So into the waste-box you needs must go,
And then, as they phrase it, be merged in the mass.
PEER
You’re surely not meaning to melt me up,
With Dick, Tom, and Hal,104 into something new?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
That’s just what I do mean, and nothing else.
We’ve done it already to plenty of folks.
At Kongsberg105 they do just the same with coin
That’s been current so long that its impress is lost.
PEER
But this is the wretchedest miserliness!
My dear good friend, let me get off free;—
A loopless button, a worn out farthing,—
What is that to a man in your Master’s position?
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
Oh, so long as, and seeing, the spirit is in you,
You always have value as so much metal.
PEER
No, I say! No! With both teeth and claws
I’ll fight against this! Sooner anything else!
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
But what else? Come now, be reasonable.
You know you’re not airy enough for heaven——
PEER
I’m not hard to content; I don’t aim so high;—
But I won’t be deprived of one doit of my Self.
Have me judged by the law in the old-fashioned way!
For a certain time place me with Him of the Hoof;—
Say a hundred years, come the worst to the worst;
That, now, is a thing that one surely can bear;
They say that the torment is moral no more,
So it can’t be so pyramid-like after all.
It is, as ’tis written, a mere transition;
And as the fox said: One waits; there comes
An hour of deliverance; one lives in seclusion,
And hopes in the meantime for happier days.—
But this other notion—to have to be merged,
Like a mote, in the carcass of some outsider,—
This casting-ladle business, this Gynt-cessation,—
It stirs up my innermost soul in revolt!
THE BUTTON-MOULDER
Bless me, my dear Peer, there is surely no need
To get so wrought up about trifles like this.
