by Henrik Ibsen
not while I live, though Satan himself has led him on.
[Turns to SOLVEIG.]
What cannot be thought of has to be thought of now.
He who did nought by the honest sweat of his brow;
whose only strength is the strength of his fabling jaw –
lies and inventions he works with, you wouldn’t believe,
in sorrow and want he was nourished, in want we must live,
my husband a drunkard, a teller of tall tales,
braggart and broken, forever a-swim in his ales,
our peace and our joy dead with him – my own and my chiel’s.
What could we do, young Peer and me, but endure
and forget the old life? He was nursed by a small fire.
I could both laugh and weep, making a mock of despair,
as others must do. So hard to look fate in the eyes
without flinching. Some take to brandy. Young Peer took to lies,
not that we called them that: legends both mine and his,
stories of princes and trolls, the strangest of tales,
of brides who were stolen, still in their wedding-veils,
not to be seen again in this world of ills.
D’you see why I let fancies – d’you see how hard it has been –
take root in his child-mind, and flourish, and become sin?
Why I cannot speak truthfully with my son?
[Her terror returns.]
Hear that? Hear that? Some water-demon, or orc,
or dragon-man – Peer! Peer! He is there, look!
[Runs up a low hill and stares out across the tarn.]
SOLVEIG’S FAMILY arrives.
AASE: Not a sign. Not a sign.
SOLVEIG’S FATHER: And all the worse for him.
AASE: My poor lost lamb.
FATHER [with a mild expression]:
Lost indeed, ma’am.
AASE: Don’t dare speak of him so,
he’s a bright lad with his own way to go.
FATHER: You deceive yourself.
AASE: Not when
I speak of my fine young son.
FATHER [still speaking in mild tones and gazing on her benignly]:
But his mind is hardened. He is a lost soul.
AASE: The Lord will hearken readily when we call.
FATHER: But can your son repent of his sins, I mean?
AASE [eagerly and as if with new hope]:
With luck he will ride up to heaven astride a buck!
SOLVEIG’S MOTHER: Poor lady, her wits are struck.
FATHER: Do you comprehend quite what you intend, good dame?
AASE: I say that no deed is too strange or too high for him –
as he will show the wide world if he lives.
FATHER: Better to watch him hang among the thieves.
AASE: Jesu save him! And me!
FATHER: Bound with the law’s thongs
he may repent sincerely ere he swings.
He may indeed repent,
Widow Gynt!
AASE: I am dazed with your talk.
We must find the lad quick.
FATHER: Indeed we must, for the sake
of his soul.
AASE: And his body and all!
If in the slough we must hard-haul him; or,
if trolls are his masters, then church bells must clamour.
FATHER: There’s a track just here that cattle have made in the sward.
AASE: May the good Lord grant to you a fair reward.
FATHER: It is our Christian duty, no more, no less,
to labour beside all those in like distress.
AASE: Then what of those heathen from Hæggstad, eh?
Not one of them! Not one step of the way!
FATHER: They know your son too well, ma’am, and his fame.
AASE: Too well? Why, he’s ever too clever for them!
[Wringing her hands]
And now! To think his life hangs by a thread.
FATHER: The mark of a foot, see, here, it’s a man’s tread.
AASE: A sign! A sign!
FATHER: We’ll go to the summer pasture. Follow on.
He and his WIFE set off.
SOLVEIG [to AASE]:
Tell me, tell me much more.
AASE [drying her eyes]:
Much more? Much more? My poor son d’you mean?
SOLVEIG: All that you think, and know, and care
to speak of; and to have me hear.
AASE [lifting her head and looking somewhat more cheerful]:
Well then, young lady, then you will be tired.
SOLVEIG: You with the telling maybe. I, never, for all I have heard.
Exeunt.
SCENE 3
Low, treeless hills near the mountain plateau; peaks in the distance. There are long shadows; it is late in the day.
PEER [enters, running, and halts on the side of the hill]:
The parish has joined in the hunt, Peer!
Popguns and rattles – I can hear
that Old Man Hæggstad’s in good voice:
‘Peer Gynt’s away, halloo-hallay!’
Better than scrapping with Aslak any day.
I’ve the brawn of a bear, grip hard as a vice;
I’ll wrestle the fell, grapple the waterfall.
Here goes a firtree, up by its roots!
This is the way to live! Oh, how it puts
thews in your zest for life. To hell
with piety, its watery gruel!
THREE SETER GIRLS [come running along the slope, shrieking and singing]:
Trond! Baard! Kaare! Trolls of the fells!
Listen to us, you need to lie in our arms.
PEER: Who is it you serenade so?
GIRLS: Our trolls!
Trolls! You deaf?
FIRST GIRL: Oh, Trond, be gentle with our charms!
SECOND GIRL: Don’t listen to her, Baard; knock us about!
THIRD GIRL: The beds stand empty in the seter hut!
FIRST GIRL: In love, gentle and rough are the same thing.
SECOND GIRL: In love, rough and gentle are the game-thing.
THIRD GIRL: No boys to hug, of course we play with trolls!
PEER: Where are the boys?
ALL THREE [shrieking with laughter]:
Found themselves other joys!
FIRST GIRL: Mine was my kinsman and my lover, both.
He’s married a widow pretty long in the tooth.
SECOND GIRL: Mine met a gipsy girl, up in the north parts.
Now both are beggars begging crusts and clouts.
THIRD GIRL: Mine murdered our bastard child. They struck
his head off. Now it grins at me from a stake.
ALL THREE: Trond! Baard! Kaare! Trolls from the fells,
come down and bed with us this very hour.
PEER [takes a leap so that he stands among them]:
I’m a troll with three heads and a lad for three girls!
FIRST GIRL: It’s busy you are!
PEER: Judgement comes later.
FIRST GIRL: So it’s off to the seter!
SECOND GIRL: There’s mead to drink.
PEER: We’ll all get drunk.
THIRD GIRL: There’ll be three beds put to use
tonight in the seter house.
SECOND GIRL [kissing PEER]:
He’s fizzing like white-hot iron, my bonny spark!
THIRD GIRL: Dead baby’s eyes from the black tarn, his look.
PEER [now part of the dancing group]:
Heavy the heart; randy the other part.
Bright the eyes; grief clogs the throat.
GIRLS [thumbing their noses towards the hilltops, screeching their song]:
Trond, Baard, Kaare, poor pack of trolls,
gone your last hope to lie with us lusty girls!
Exeunt.
SCENE 4
In the Rondane mountains
.12 Sunset. Gleaming, snow-covered peaks.
PEER [enters dizzy and bewildered]:
Tower upon tower they rise
and there’s a shining portal.
Are you deceived, my eyes?
The scene fades; what does this foretell?
The cock on the weathervane
makes ready for departure –
all passes into the blue inane,
the mountain resumes its locked nature.
What kind of life-form is that
in a cleave of near-distance?
Ah, giants with herons’ feet!
All’s vacuous here, without substance.
Rainbow patterns disturb
my mind through my sight now.
Whatever is a remote discord
shifts to dull weights on my brow.
And also on my brow is set
a red-hot circlet, a crowning
of some kind; but I forget
who pressed upon me the damn thing.
[Sinks down.]
High over Gjendin – poetry
and damned lies. Over
the hill the bride and me.
Drunk as ever,
hunted by hawks and such,
menaced by trolls, more lies,
damned Poetry (again!) lech-
ery with three houris.
[Stares upward for a considerable time.]
Paired eagles ride – see them! see there!
Wild geese head south, while
I, knee-deep in mire,
trudge to my toil.
[Leaps up.]
I so desire to soar – higher! –
to bathe in keenest winds, plunge
to redemption, to become pure,
naked in keeping with my heart’s pledge.
Seter meadows shall not
detain me. I need to ride
until I’m clean of heart,
rushing far over the salt tide.
On I press, gaze down a moment
at England’s prince. You may well stare,
English lasses, ignorant
as to why I journey here.
Can’t stop! Well, perhaps briefly.
Say again? Those paired eagles?
Old Nick knows where they fly.
In Shadowland, now, I see gables
rise, becoming clearer all the time;
and there, in welcome, the open door.
This – why, this! – is grandad’s new farm!
The old and tattered vestige is no more,
the fence no longer about to fall,
every window a-shine again.
And there’s a feast in the great hall.
I hear the pastor amid the din
rapping with knife on glass.
There the captain hurled that bottle,
and over there the mirror went smash,
all to smithereens, that grand fettle,
but no matter, Mother, all is for the best,
don’t you see? Rich Jon Gynt
presides, the master at his own feast.
His, and our, clan roars triumphant –
what a grand hubbub it all is!
The captain, stentorian,
is heard again, amid the noise,
calling the pastor to wassail the son.
Enter, Peer, thy judgement here!
To thine own worth stand witness.
Great, O Gynt, is thy descent,
secure, thy further greatness!
Runs forward but crashes into the rock face, falls to the ground where he remains stunned.
SCENE 5
A grassy slope with tall soughing deciduous trees. Stars twinkle through the leaves; birds sing in the tree tops. A WOMAN DRESSED IN GREEN is walking in the meadow. PEER follows her, his gestures betraying that he is in love.
WOMAN IN GREEN [stops and turns around]:
Is this true that you say?
PEER [runs his finger across his throat]:
As true, I swear, as that my name is Peer,
as true as your beauty, as the words with which I woo you here.
Will you accept me? Shall I go on? You’ll see how I proceed.
You’ll have no call to work the loom, to spin there’ll be no need.
You shall eat your fill at my table, more even than you’re able.
I will never pull your hair.
WOMAN IN GREEN: Nor beat me, I trust.
PEER: Beat you? No fear!
We who are the sons of kings don’t do such things.
WOMAN IN GREEN: So you’re a king’s son?
PEER: Yes.
WOMAN IN GREEN: And I a princess,
the Dovre King’s daughter.
PEER: Well, isn’t that splendid!
WOMAN IN GREEN: Deep within Mount Ronden,13 far underground,
my father’s castle is to be found.
PEER: Then my mother’s castle is larger, rightly comprehended.
WOMAN IN GREEN: Do you know my father? King Brose is his name.
PEER: Have you met my mother? Queen Aase as she is known to fame.
WOMAN IN GREEN: When my father shakes his fist
the mountains quake and burst.
PEER: When my mother’s less than jolly
rockslides fill the valley.
WOMAN IN GREEN: My father can kick sky-high in the halling.
PEER: My mother can do things even more thrilling.
WOMAN IN GREEN: And do you always go about in rags?
PEER: I have several more opulent rigs.
WOMAN IN GREEN: Every day I am attired in gold and silks.
PEER: Is that what they are? I thought they were old hemp stalks.
WOMAN IN GREEN: That is because – do, please, remember this,
for it is one of our folk mysteries –
all our possessions are twofold in nature,
exist in different dimensions, as it were.
When you reach my father’s domain it
may more resemble – in your eyes – an old stone-pit.
PEER: I’m bound to say it’s likely that you will find
the same out here among us human kind.
Our gold to you may appear mere straw and trash,
and every window pane that we see flash
you may see as a bare frame stuffed with things
I won’t describe.
WOMAN IN GREEN: So black will appear
white, the ugly will seem fair.
PEER: So greatness seems shrunken, the vile appears pure.
WOMAN IN GREEN [clasping him around his neck]:
So each of us to the other best belongs!
PEER: As leg to pants’ leg, or as hair to the comb.
WOMAN IN GREEN [calling across the meadow]:
Bridal horse, bridal horse, bridal horse, come!
An enormous pig comes running with a rope’s end as a bridle and an old sack as a saddle. PEER swings himself up and lifts the WOMAN IN GREEN to sit in front of him.
PEER: We shall gallop through Rondane’s doors at topmost speed!
Giddy-up, giddy-up, giddy-up, then, noble steed!
WOMAN IN GREEN [tenderly]:
But lately I was feeling so very forlorn –
you can never tell how things will move on.
PEER [whipping the pig and trotting along]:
The greatness of a great person appears
in what he wears!
Exeunt.
SCENE 6
The great hall of the DOVRE KING. A large gathering of COURT TROLLS, GNOMES and SUBTERRANEAN SPRITES. The DOVRE KING enthroned, with crown and sceptre. His CHILDREN and other CLOSEST KIN are on either side of the throne. PEER stands before him. General commotion.
A COURT TROLL: To the butcher’s bench with him! The son of a mortal thing –
a Christian too – has led astray the fairest daughter of our king!
A TROLL CHILD: Please, may I
gash his finger?
SECOND CHILD: I want to hack his hair!
TROLL MAIDEN: I’d love to bite him in the thigh, right here, or just there …
A TROLL WITCH [with a ladle]:
Make soup from him!
SECOND TROLL WITCH [with an executioner’s knife]:
Best roast the monster. Turn the spit.
Or bring him slowly to the boil, why not?
DOVRE KING: Temper your hungry relish, I command!
[Summons his trusted COUNSELLORS to approach the throne.]
Let us not deceive ourselves. Of late
our troubles have increased. Whether we’ll stand
or fall in days to come is our debate.
Whatever help we can get, from wherever it comes,
even from mortal kind, is welcome in these times.
This lad’s a perfect beauty, very nearly,
and strong with it also. You can all see, surely?
His having only one head may count against him
with some of you. But my daughter is the same
I’ll have you remember! Trolls with three heads,
two heads, even, are rarely met with now;
and even the heads they have are only make-do.
[Addresses PEER.]
We’re to haggle over my daughter, is that the case?
PEER: Your whole kingdom now; not just half of it: yes!
DOVRE KING: Half of it now, with her; half after I am gone
as one day I shall be, my not-quite-yet son.
PEER: I’ll shake on that.
DOVRE KING: Hold hard! This treaty needs
your pledges also, here, now, before it is sealed,
and which, if reneged on, means all is annulled,
means, for you, instant death. First, you must swear
never to stray more beyond my kingdom so fair,
to shun the light of day, and every action
fit to be seen by daylight: such is my instruction.
PEER: If, to become king, this is all it takes,
show me the treaty, I’ll sign it in two shakes.
DOVRE KING: Not so fast! Let us first put to the test
your mental faculties – in fine fettle, I trust!
THE OLDEST COURT TROLL [to PEER]:
Let’s see if you have a wisdom tooth in your skull
that can break the Dovre King’s puzzle-nut from its shell.
DOVRE KING: What sets our troll-kind apart from your humankind?
PEER: Nothing at all, so far as I now find.
Big trolls want to fry, small trolls need to scratch,
just as we do, but dare they?
DOVRE KING: Ay, there we make a match.
But day remains day, night continues to be night,