Peer Gynt and Brand

by Henrik Ibsen

  like flocks of wild swans overhead

  that swooped and bore me up, their wings

  the murmur of the multitudes.

  What vistas of imaginings

  I saw outspread; and what clear roads

  and distances to lead me on,

  God’s warrior of world renown!

  What hymns and incense and what gold

  banners brilliantly unfurled,

  my triumph splendid and austere!

  In spirit I was taken up

  to a high place, was tempted there

  with visions of exalted hope

  that faded even as they shone

  and turned to darkness and to stone.

  Now, shadowed by these walls

  of rock, where the light fades

  hours before night falls,

  and the fjord waters hem

  me in, once more I stand

  in the place I must call home.

  There will be no more rides

  on cloud-pawing Pegasus.

  Unsaddled is that wing’d horse.

  And no trumpets sound.

  But let us not … let us not

  falter, nor stoop to regret

  triumphs that might have been.

  I have received the sign.

  I see, now, the true goal

  to strive for: humble toil

  ennobled by belief,

  the sacrificial life.

  AGNES: But what of that false god

  who was to be destroyed,

  you said? Will he not fall,

  then? Ever?

  BRAND:    Fall he shall!

  But not in the wild gaze

  of crowds, not to their vast applause.

  I was wrong, I was wrong.

  In vain we stir the soil

  round the roots of the soul

  unless that soul is strong.

  It is not raucous fame

  that redeems the time.

  It is the will alone

  that can purge and refine,

  that alone has the power

  to make or mar

  what we do, whether the work

  be famed or not.

  [He turns towards the village, where the evening shadows are beginning to gather.]

        You who walk

  with slow and sullen step

  in the narrow and steep

  places of this land,

  I shall teach you to praise,

  with heart and mind and hand

  in true communion

  one with another; to rouse

  from mortal sleep the young lion

  of the immortal will.

  Let us do all things well,

  let the pickaxe, the spade,

  shine like the battle blade.

  Then shall the hand of God

  inscribe His holy word

  upon the human heart

  as though on Sinai slate.

  Let nobleness appear,

  let those who faint and fear

  find strength. Righteousness shall destroy

  falsehood utterly.

  He begins to leave. EINAR meets him.

  EINAR: You there! Yes, you, sir! Give me back

  that which you took!

  BRAND: That which …? Ah! Speak to her.

  Speak, but will she hear?

  EINAR: Agnes, I beg you, stay;

  stay on the sunlit heights,

  not where dark sorrow waits.

  AGNES: I have no choice to make.

  I have one road to take.

  This is the only way.

  EINAR: How can you? How can you leave

  your mother, your sisters?

  AGNES:         Give

  them my love, I shall send

  a letter when I have found

  words to express

  what my soul clearly sees.

  EINAR: Out there, where the great waters gleam,

  The white-sailed vessels scud and skim,

  Dipping their prows in pearly foam,

  Bright emanations of a dream,

  Seeking the fabled shore, the calm

  Landfall and their longed-for home.

  AGNES: Sail with them, then, go east or

  west; but think of me as dead.

  EINAR: Come, come with me; my sister

  if not my bride!

  AGNES: Einar, Einar, I have told

  you. There is an ocean

  of silence. It lies between

  us, wider than the world.

  EINAR: Go home, then. Go, be safe!

  AGNES [softly]:

  I am drawn by this man towards a new life.

  BRAND: Young woman, beware.

  And when you choose, be sure.

  For, choosing, you are chosen.

  In the shadow of these frozen

  peaks, I shall remain

  a forgotten man.

  And life with me will seem

  an endless winter gloom.

  AGNES: Starshine pierces the cloud.

  I am not afraid.

  BRAND: All or nothing. That

  is my demand. The task

  is very great. And the risk,

  also, is very great.

  There’ll be no mercy shown.

  There’s no provision made

  for weakness or dread.

  Falter, and you go down

  into the depths of the sea.

  Mere lifelong sacrifice

  itself may not suffice.

  Would you die willingly?

  EINAR: This is no seaside game.

  It is a dark and cruel

  commandment that can kill.

  BRAND [to AGNES]:

  You stand where the roads cross.

  Once and for all, then! Choose!

  Exit.

  EINAR: Choose between storm and calm.

  Choose between ‘go’ and ‘stay’.

  Choose between joy and grief.

  Choose between night and day.

  Choose between death and life.

  AGNES: Beyond darkness and death

  light dawns upon the earth.

  She follows BRAND. EINAR looks for some time, as if lost, in the direction in which she has gone; then he bows his head and goes out towards the fjord again.

  Act Three

  Three years later. A small garden at the pastor’s house. A high mountain face above it, a stone wall around it. The fjord, narrow and shut in, in the background. The door of the house leads into the garden. Afternoon. BRAND stands on the steps outside the house. AGNES sits on the step below him.

  AGNES: My dear, why do you gaze

  endlessly over the fjord,

  and with such anxious eyes,

  unwilling to rest?

  BRAND: These three years past

  I’ve waited for some word

  from my mother. Now I hear

  she lies at death’s door;

  yet I’ve received no sign

  that she’s dead to her sin.

  Therefore I wait.

  AGNES [softly and lovingly]:

  Why do you hesitate

  to go now? Go to her,

  go to her!

  BRAND [shaking his head]:

      Let her repent,

  then; let her sacrifice

  everything that she has.

  No solace, no sacrament,

  until that’s done.

  AGNES:     But your

  own mother, Brand …

  BRAND:       Own? Own?

  Would you have me bow down

  to every household god

  of clay and blood?

  AGNES: So harsh …

  BRAND:      To you?

  AGNES:         Ah, no.

  BRAND:           I saw

  what must be; foresaw and foretold

  struggle and bitter cold.

  AGNES [smiling]:

  O my deare
st, Brand’s law

  sometimes is fallible,

  it seems. Look, I can smile.

  BRAND: Life withers; and your cheeks

  grow pale now; mind and soul

  burn in the icy chill.

  The glacier looms; the black rocks

  threaten our house.

  AGNES: Look how they shelter us.

  Even under the glacier’s rim

  we’re safe; and when, in spring, the stream

  leaps from the cliff, we live

  quiet, unharmed,

  behind the waterfall

  in our ferny cave.

  BRAND: In a deep cave, unwarmed

  by any shred of sun.

  AGNES:       Isn’t the sun-

  light lovely to look at when

  it shines on the high fell!

  BRAND: Shines, Agnes? When? For a few weeks

  perhaps, a brief glimmer

  at midsummer.

  AGNES [looking firmly at him and getting up]:

  There’s something here that makes

  even you afraid.

  BRAND: Surely it is your heart

  that’s thrilled by some secret

  dread, some abyss of dread.

  It’s as though you stand

  staring into that abyss.

  AGNES: Sometimes, I confess,

  sometimes, yes, I’ve trembled …

  BRAND: Trembled?

  AGNES:      For our child,

  for Alf.

  BRAND: For Alf!

  AGNES:    Ah, you see, Brand,

  you tremble too!

  BRAND:      Agnes, at times

  I fear for our little son.

  But he’ll get well;

  God is just; not cruel …

  not cruel … Where is Alf now?

  AGNES: Asleep.

  BRAND [looking in through the door]:

       So he is! No dreams

  of sickness or pain

  haunt his pillow

  with their gaunt phantom shapes.

  AGNES: But he’s so pale.

  BRAND:        It will pass,

  it will pass.

  AGNES:    How sweetly he sleeps.

  BRAND [closing the door]:

  Sleep and grow strong. God bless

  you, my own child! God bless you both

  for the gifts that you bring with

  such an instinct of grace. Labour

  and grief, now, are easy to bear.

  Day after day I am filled

  with new strength as the child

  plays, as I watch him at play.

  God summoned me to stay.

  I made the sacrifice.

  It seemed a martyrdom

  that I embraced. How altered

  now: here, in the wilderness,

  manna for one who starved.

  AGNES: For one who toiled, and served,

  and never faltered.

  I know what tears you’ve shed

  in secret, tears of blood.

  You have earned your fame.

  BRAND: Love touched me; now each thing

  I do is blest. Spring awakening

  in heart and in mind,

  that is what I have found

  with you, and with none other.

  Neither father nor mother

  had kindled the least spark

  of love. I do believe all

  the tenderness of my soul

  that was clamped into the dark

  is here released to shine

  on what is truly mine.

  AGNES: And upon all who come

  to your hearth and home:

  the poor and the downtrodden,

  the fatherless child, bidden

  to enter, each one a guest

  at your heart’s truth’s feast.

  BRAND: What I am, what I do, I owe

  to Alf and to you: two

  souls who crossed the gulf

  into my inmost self.

  I was too long alone.

  Spirit had become stone.

  AGNES: Where you caress, you strike.

  Those whom you bless, you break.

  BRAND: Not you, Agnes?

  AGNES:       No, Brand.

  But that which you demand,

  ‘all or nothing’, has driven

  souls out of Heaven.

  BRAND: That which the world calls ‘love’

  I do not wish to have.

  God’s love is hard to bear,

  I know that. Those who fear

  have cause enough to dread

  the summons. When Christ prayed,

  ‘Lord, take away this cup,’

  shivering in his sweat,

  what answer did he get?

  None, Christ had to drain

  the terror and the pain

  and taste the dregs.

  AGNES:       What hope

  is there for us poor souls

  weighed on such judgement scales?

  BRAND: Who’s doomed by God’s just law?

  Oh do not seek to know!

  Enough that you understand

  ‘Be faithful and endure’

  written by His own hand

  in letters of fire.

  To those who, striving, fall,

  God will be merciful.

  Those who refuse to strive

  He will not forgive.

  Agnes, in my book

  the first commandment says,

  ‘You shall not compromise’.

  Half-done, ill-done work

  thwarting the soul’s power,

  dooms the ill-doer.

  Yes, Agnes, it is so.

  AGNES [throwing her arms around his neck]:

  Where you go, I shall go.

  BRAND: Where love goes, no road

  is too steep or hard.

  The DOCTOR has come down the road and stops outside the garden wall.

  DOCTOR: And what are you doing?

  Ah, billing and cooing

  among these sylvan groves,

  pretty turtle-doves!

  AGNES [running to open the garden gate]:

  Doctor, come in! Do, please!

  DOCTOR: Now you know very well

  that I won’t. I’m so cross.

  Really, why must you stay

  in this place? Call it ‘home’?

  It’s a troll-cave of gloom,

  all glacier, no sky.

  Brr … it shrivels your soul!

  BRAND: Not my soul.

  DOCTOR:      Tch, man!

  You know what I mean.

  With you, ‘a promise made

  is a promise kept’ indeed.

  AGNES: Where love is, there’s no need of sun

  to bring the whole of summer in.

  DOCTOR: H’m. I’ve a call to make.

  BRAND: My mother?

  DOCTOR:      Very sick.

  A few more hours, and then …

  But you know that of course.

  You’ll have been to her house.

  Just back, are you?

  BRAND:      I’ve not been.

  DOCTOR: Well, now I’ve heard it all!

  I’ve trudged mile after mile

  across whinstone and bog,

  tight-fisted old hag

  though she is, just for her!

  BRAND: God bless you for that –

  all your skill and care.

  DOCTOR: God bless my soft heart.

  Perhaps you’d rather

  that we went there together …

  BRAND: Doctor, unless I hear

  that she’s ready to pay

  the full penalty,

  not one inch will I stir.

  DOCTOR [to AGNES]:

  His heart’s as hard as rock.

  You poor defenceless lamb,

  I’m sorry for your sake.

  AGNES: Don’t be. What’s more, he’d give

&n
bsp; all his heart’s blood to save

  that woman’s soul.

  BRAND:      I am her son.

  Am I not pledged to atone,

  to honour every claim?

  I tell you, every debt

  shall be wiped out!

  DOCTOR: By one who’s a pauper

  himself? Most improper.

  BRAND: I have made my choice

  freely. Let that suffice.

  DOCTOR [looking hard at him]:

  Pastor, your ledger’s full

  of ‘God’s law’ and ‘man’s will’.

  But the column marked ‘love’,

  that’s still blank, I believe.

  Exit.

  BRAND [gazing after him for a while]:

  Nothing is so much soiled

  by the commerce of the world

  as the word ‘love’: this veil

  hiding the deformed soul.

  Man’s pathway’s dark and steep:

  here’s ‘love’ to guide his step.

  He wallows in his sin:

  ‘love’ hauls him out again.

  He cringes from the fight:

  with ‘love’ there’s no defeat.

  AGNES: I know such things are false.

  Love is something else.

  BRAND: Agnes, if souls are athirst

  for truth and righteousness,

  let us assuage that longing first;

  then speak of love.

  Merely to perish on the cross,

  or to writhe in the flame,

  daily to be buried alive,

  this is not martyrdom.

  But to make a burned offering

  out of the suffering,

  to ordain the anguish

  of our spirit and our flesh,

  that is salvation, there we seize

  hold of martyrdom’s prize!

  AGNES [clinging tightly to him]:

  Brand, when I weaken,

  when I flinch from the task,

  speak then as you have spoken

  now. That much I do ask.

  BRAND: Man’s will must blaze the way

  for God’s victory,

  so that love can alight,

  the white dove with the olive-leaf

  of mercy and new life.

  But – until then – hate!

  [In terror]

  Hatred, the one redeeming word!

  Hatred, the angel of the Lord!

  He hurries into the house.

  AGNES [looking in through the open door]:

  Now he’s with Alf, kneeling by his bed.

  I think he’s crying; he rocks

  to and fro, to and fro. He seeks

  comfort; that great-hearted man

  seeks comfort from a child

  innocent of the world.

  But he’s … is the child ill? What is it?

  [Cries out in fear.]

  Brand, what is it? What have you seen

  that makes you so afraid?

  BRAND comes out on to the steps.

  BRAND: Was that …? I heard the gate,

  I thought. No messenger?

  AGNES: None.

  BRAND [looking back into the house]:

       His pulse is much too fast

  and his skin’s like fire.

  Agnes, be strong.