by Henrik Ibsen
and differences remain between us, despite
all that we share. Let me therefore explain
the rift that abides between trolls and the tribe of men.
Out there – remember? – under the sky’s high-gleaming vault,
‘be thyself, be thyself, even to thy most inward fault’
is the great injunction. Down here, with the race of trolls,
‘be to thyself sufficient’ is the motto that appeals.
A COURT TROLL [to PEER]:
Can you find the profundity there?
PEER: Well, I can’t say for sure.
DOVRE KING: ‘Sufficient’, sufficient unto thyself, O Peer,
‘sufficient’ drives its wedge betwixt serf and sire,
set it on thy scutcheon …
PEER: But …
DOVRE KING: … if you mean to be master here!
PEER: Oh well, what the hell, if it means nothing worse than that!
DOVRE KING: And you must also be taught to appreciate
our folksy ways; things you would do well to heed.
[He beckons; TWO TROLLS with pigs’ heads, white nightcaps, etc., bring food and drink.]
Here are tasty cow-pancakes, and from the ox fresh mead.
Sweet or sour you must drink it for it is home-brewed:
Home-grown, home-made, home-is-best—
PEER [pushing away the food and drink]:
and home-pissed!
To the devil with your tasty domestic fare;
I’ll never be at home with what is here.
DOVRE KING: The golden bowl will be yours when you are my heir.
My daughter’s favours attend such heirlooms.
PEER: It is well put
by one who knows: ‘Govern first thine own self. That is what,
before all else, will turn sour to sweet.’
So, ‘skol!’
DOVRE KING: That was indeed a wise observation.
You’re spluttering!
PEER: I’ll grow accustomed to my portion,
given time, no doubt.
DOVRE KING: Further, you must divest
yourself: that heavy Christian habit must be cast
aside. You must be fettled like us. It is our pride
to wear nothing that is not mountain-made
apart from the silken bows on the ends of our tails.
PEER: We have no need of such prehensiles.
DOVRE KING: Here you do. Court Troll!
Stick my Sunday tail, firmly, on his rump.
PEER: Hey! Hey! Hands off! I’ll look a right fool!
DOVRE KING: Do not dare to approach my child with a bare cul.
PEER: You cannot stamp
men into beastly patterns.
DOVRE KING: That is your error, my son.
I’m making you fit for the role.
You shall have a brimstone yellow bow for your tail,
one of the highest honours that can be won,
so we reckon.
PEER [pauses to thinks]:
It is taught that no man is more than dust.
What argues, then, against placing one’s trust
in local belief and practice? Tie it on!
DOVRE KING: Dear fellow, you’re too kind.
A COURT TROLL: Twitch your behind,
you’ll soon be told how fetchingly it moves.
PEER [irritated]:
What else do you want of me while we’re at shoves?
How about faith, my Christian
birthright, my heritage as a man?
DOVRE KING: Birthright-belief – you can maintain that
in peace and quiet.
Belief is free, untaxed; it’s the crust and cut
that reveal the troll.
Just so long as we’re identical
in manner and style
of undress, speech is free.
By all means call faith what we call monstrosity.
PEER: Despite the prohibitions and conditions, you’ve now appeared
as a more decent cove than I had feared.
DOVRE KING: We trolls are indeed better than our reputation
paints us; that’s what distinguishes trolls from men.
I see that we are now done with nutrition,
let’s treat our ears and eyes. Music girl, come, tune!
Let the great Dovre harp sing us its finest refrain.
Come, dancing girl, make throb the roof of our hall!
Harp playing and dancing begin.
A COURT TROLL: How do you like it?
PEER: Like it? H’m …
DOVRE KING: Speak without fear of reproof.
PEER: A belled cow striking a gut-stringed instrument with her hoof,
a sow in trunk-hose mincing to the beat …!
SECOND COURT TROLL: He is condemned to be eaten. Let us eat!
DOVRE KING: Remember his human senses and sensibilities.
TROLL MAIDEN: Aarrgh! Tear out his ears and eyes!
WOMAN IN GREEN [sobbing]:
Boo-hoo! Such things my sweet sister and I
are forced to endure whenever we dance and play.
PEER: Ahem! Was it you? Merely a party game?
I do assure you that I meant no harm.
WOMAN IN GREEN: I put you on oath!
PEER: The dancing and harping, both,
were really pretty. Katten flay me if I speak untruth.
DOVRE KING: That’s the odd thing about human nature:
it’s so remarkably persistent a feature.
If, during clashes with us, its blood is drawn,
the gash, though not imaginary, mends amazingly soon.
My son-in-law obeys me almost too well;
his Christian unmentionables quickly fell,
he tossed back his draught of mead, as you all
witnessed; he even submitted to wearing a yellow tail.
I was reassured, even, that he had been ex-Adam’d
finally, and felt suitably ashamed
of what he once was. But, look, in a split second,
we find that once more he has the upper hand.
Ah, well, my son, it seems you must take the cure
against these lingering signs of your human nature.
PEER: Hey! What are you doing to me?
DOVRE KING: In your left eye
I’ll make a little scratch, so that you’ll see askew
ever after; all will appear to be splendidly new.
Next I’ll excise the right-hand quizzing-pane …
PEER: You’re drunk!
DOVRE KING [placing some sharp instruments on the table]:
Here are my glazier’s tools. And then
we’ll fix to your skull what is fixed to the skull
of a vicious ox to stop it breaking its stall
and attacking people. Then you will understand
that your bride is the loveliest lady underground,
and never again will your sight be distorted –
belled cows and mincing sows as you reported …
PEER: That’s crazy talk!
THE OLDEST COURT TROLL: Nay! Our great king’s best style of address.
You are the crazy talker, he the wise.
DOVRE KING: Consider how much torment
you will be spared, moment by moment,
and over the years to come.
It is a human distortion of the eyes
that brings about men’s tears with their bitter lyes.
Their vision is their doom.
PEER: I have to agree with that.
‘If your eye offends you, pluck it out’
it says in the old book of sermons.
But – hey – tell me: when
you have scratched my eye, will it ever again
be healed, be my old human sight, if you see what I mean?
/> DOVRE KING: Never! Forever this, your troll-vision, remains.
PEER: In that case, ‘no thanks, and goodbye!’
DOVRE KING: What do you need out there?
PEER: I need to be on my way.
DOVRE KING: Hold hard! The Dovre King’s gate will not open
inwards to outwards; it just doesn’t happen.
PEER: You would keep me by force here?
DOVRE KING: Be sensible, Prince Peer!
You have a gift for the ways and arts of us trolls.
Does he not, my people, already have some of our skills?
Your highest ambition
is to join our nation?
PEER: It is indeed, by God; I would give an arm
and a leg for my bride and my promised kingdom.
But that’s the limit. I let them pin on that tail,
it’s true, that prestidigitation by a Court Troll,
but things done can be undone, things undone be restored.
I can once more, surely, be decently trousered.
And doubtless, also, I can cast myself off
from this Dovrean way of life.
I don’t mind swearing a cow is a girl for a day –
an oath is something you can always unsay –
but to be stuck forever
in the world of the trolls – that makes me shiver.
To know you can never be free,
that you can’t even die
decently among your kind
that’s what shakes the mind!
To lose all hope of at last returning to God –
that makes me feel really bad.
I’ll not accept that bargain.
DOVRE KING: As true as I am upright-upside-down,
I am not to be insulted by you, vile man,
pining-for-daylight starveling! Do you still not know
who I am, or what the fury of our law?
First you seduce my daughter …
PEER: That’s a lie for a start!
DOVRE KING: … and now you must marry her.
PEER: I’ll not be forced into that!
DOVRE KING: You mean to deny
casting upon her your lascivious eye?
PEER [huffing]:
Lascivious eye? Oh, is that all? A quibble –
‘Whoever looketh …’ as it says in the Bible –
nobody cares about that these days.
DOVRE KING: Your humankind is truly set in its ways.
You chew spiritual cud,
your jaws chomping, hands grasping at your true good,
the riches of the world and all that it conveys.
So, you discount lust
of the eyes, do you? We’ll put that to the test.
PEER: You’ll not trap me with legal niceties!
WOMAN IN GREEN: Is that what you think it is?
I tell you, before the year’s turn
your child shall be born.
PEER: Please – let me pass …
DOVRE KING: Sewn into a goat-skin.
You’ll see it turn up
on your doorstep.
PEER [wiping sweat from his face]:
When shall I awaken?
DOVRE KING: Where would you have us convey the child?
To your palace threshold?
PEER: The little bastard
had better be fostered!
DOVRE KING: Very well, Prince Peer, the choice is yours.
But remember this: over the years
what’s done is done. Your child will grow,
as mixed-blood creatures do,
so rapidly it will astonish all!
PEER: Young lady, please be reasonable.
Old fellow, stubborn as an ox,
I beg you, relax,
accept a settlement.
I’m not rich; nor do I have a prince’s entitlement.
You may wish to weigh me in the scales
with diamonds or gold, or what best pleases trolls,
but you’ll find how quickly I kick the beam.
The WOMAN IN GREEN goes into labour and is carried out by the TROLL MAIDENS.
DOVRE KING [glances briefly at PEER with utter contempt and raps out]:
Break him, my children! Against the mountain wall! Break him!
A TROLL CHILD: Papa, may we first play ‘Owl and Eagle’?
SECOND TROLL CHILD: No, no, the ‘Wolf Game’!
THIRD TROLL CHILD: No, no, ‘The Mouse and the Cat with Ember Eyes’!
DOVRE KING: My children, I am weary and out of sorts.
Be brief, then. And not too high-pitched the sports.
Exit.
PEER [chased by TROLL CHILDREN]:
Let me go, devil’s spawn!
Tries to escape up the chimney.
TROLL CHILDREN: Goblins and Pixies! Goblins and Pixies!
FIRST TROLL CHILD: Bite his arse!
PEER: Yarrooo-oo!
Tries to escape through the trapdoor into the cellar.
SECOND TROLL CHILD: Seal all the cracks!
A COURT TROLL: The little innocents! What japes, what jokes!
PEER [struggling with a small TROLL CHILD which has fastened upon his ear with its teeth]:
Let go, you little shite!
A COURT TROLL [rapping his knuckles]:
That’s to requite,
base serf, your taking hold
of a royal child!
PEER: A rathole!
Makes a dash for it.
FIRST TROLL CHILD: Stop him! That’s right!
PEER: The old man was monstrous but his spawn’s much worse!
SECOND TROLL CHILD: Shred him! Shred him!
PEER: How I wish I were a mouse!
Runs frantically from one spot to another.
THIRD TROLL CHILD [as they swarm around and over him]:
Shut the gate! Shut the gate! He’s not to get away!
PEER [weeping with terror]:
How I wish I were a flea!
FIRST TROLL CHILD: And now each eye!
PEER [half-buried under a mound of TROLL CHILDREN]:
Help, Ma! I’m dying! I’m meat for trolls!
Church bells heard distantly ringing.
TROLL CHILDREN: Bells in the mountain! Bells in the mountain! The black priest’s cattle-bells!
The TROLLS flee, screaming, among enormous seismic rumblings and quakings. The great hall falls in ruins. Everything vanishes.
SCENE 7
Pitch darkness.
PEER [can be heard lashing out at things around him. From the sound it could be with a tree-branch]:
Who are you? Answer!
VOICE IN THE DARKNESS: I am what I am.
PEER: Well, thing with no name,
make way for me.
VOICE: Take a detour, Peer;
there’s space for us both
on this broad heath.
PEER [heard trying to break through in another place; it sounds as though he is blocked by something]:
Who are you?
VOICE: I am what I am.
Can you say the same?
PEER: I can say all I need
with my sword’s bright gleed!
On guard! Ha! Ja! Peer Gynt has slain a horde!
King Saul blundered:
he slew barely a hundred.
[Heard once more hacking wildly.]
Again – who are you?
VOICE: I am what I am.
PEER: Well, let’s forget
how slow you are. Let me change the question a bit.
What are you?
VOICE: The Boyg. I am the great Boyg.
PEER: Not yet there.
The mystery was total.
Now it’s a kind of a mottle.
&nbs
p; Shift yourself, Boyg!
VOICE: Best not try here, Peer!
PEER: Through, though, coming through!
[Strikes, lashes out as before.]
Hit something! Heard it fall.
[Tries to move forward; collides with something.]
Ha! What the –! Are more here?
VOICE: Just the Boyg, Peer. All is one and one is all:
the Boyg still unharmed, the Boyg that is hurt sore;
the Boyg that is dead; the Boyg that for aye shall endure.
PEER [hurling his branch to the ground]:
This sword’s under a spell
but my fists he shall feel!
Lashes out, struggling to break through the unseen opposition.
VOICE: Ay, trust to the fists, brute strength of body.
Hee-hee, Peer Gynt, then you’ll be top-noddy!
PEER [staggering back]:
Forwards, backwards, out and in,
in and out too blurred to scry
yet tight as in a needle’s eye
there he is, there he’s just been,
I struggle out, I’m in the midst of the ring.
Your name again! Let me see who you are. Or what kind of thing.
VOICE: The Boyg. I am the Boyg.
PEER [stumbling and fumbling around]:
Neither dead nor alive; a sort of slimy fog.
Formless, then. I feel I’ve been struggling for years
in a pit of snarling but still sleepy bears.
[Yells.]
Strike, damn you, strike! Why won’t you strike me?
VOICE: Boyg’s not mad and you can’t make me.
PEER: Hit me! Go on! Biff! Bash!
VOICE: The Boyg is – I am – never so rash.
PEER: Look here! I’ve given you my ultimatum!
VOICE: The great Boyg has his way with mortals though he doesn’t fight ’em.
PEER: Is there no one here, no pixie, no infant troll,
that I could scrap with, you know, back-to-the-wall?
Nothing, no one, no one but him,
and now he’s snoring. Boyg!
VOICE: What, you again?
PEER: Boyg, it’s your call!
VOICE: The great Boyg hazards nothing and wins all.
PEER [biting his own hands and arms]:
Grrr! Grrr! Now I feel ’em, tearing claws and teeth
in my own flesh. Feels great, like a rebirth!
A sound like the wingbeats of great birds.
FIRST BIRD VOICE: Dear sisters from afar,
all must gather here.
PEER: Lass, if you mean
to save me, do it soon;
don’t cast your eyes down
with such a modest demean-
our, fixed upon the ground.
That book in your hand,
the one with the clasps, yes,