by Henrik Ibsen
hurl it straight at his eyes!
SECOND BIRD VOICE: He’s rambling.
VOICE: He’s ours.
FIRST BIRD VOICE: Sisters, sisters, hasten!
PEER: Too much – to buy your life
with an hour’s play
come to grief,
deep-laden with such exhaustion.
He sinks to the ground.
SECOND BIRD VOICE: Boyg, there he fell. Now carry him away.
The sound of church bells and hymn singing can be heard in the distance.
BOYG [shrinks to nothing and just manages to say, between gasps]:
He was too strong for us. The prayers of good women were keeping him safe.
SCENE 8
Sunrise. On the mountain-slope outside AASE’s seter hut. The door is shut. All is quiet, the area appears to be deserted. PEER lies asleep outside, sheltered by the seter wall.
PEER [wakes, looks about him morosely and spits]:
A bit of sharp salted herring would go down a treat.
[Spits again. Catches sight of HELGA, who approaches bearing a basket of food.]
Hey, young ’un, you here! Well, what cheer?
HELGA: It’s Solveig.
PEER [leaping up]:
Solveig? Where?
HELGA: Back of the wall there.
SOLVEIG [staying out of sight]:
If you come near I’ll run.
PEER [pausing]:
Afraid of a man’s hand? Mine?
SOLVEIG: Shame on you!
PEER: Know where I was last night?
The Dovre King’s daughter clung like a leech, that tight!
She’s still after me.
SOLVEIG: So it’s as well
that they rung the church bell.
PEER: Peer Gynt’s not a lad any more,
taking the lure.
What’s that you say?
HELGA [crying]:
She’s running away!
[Starts to run after her.]
Wait, oh wait!
PEER [seizing HELGA by the arm]:
Look what’s in my pocket –
a silver bullet, young ’un, and it’s yours
just as long as you keep me in that head of hers.
HELGA: Let go; let me go!
PEER: But here, look!
HELGA: And now the basket’s broke.
PEER: God help you if you don’t …
HELGA: Don’t what, you bully!
PEER [meekly, releasing her]:
No – no – I simply meant –
beg her not to forget me wholly.
HELGA runs off.
Act Three
SCENE 1
Deep inside a forest of conifers. Gloomy autumn weather. Snow is falling. PEER is in shirt sleeves, felling trees in order to have wood for building.
PEER [chopping at a big pine tree with gnarled branches]:
Yes, you’re a tough ’un, old fellow, but there’s no help for it,
down you must fall, despite that strong coat of chain-mail you wear. It
will be riven by me, you’ll see, no matter how strong it’s become.
Yes, yes, and despite your shaking at me that crooked arm.
Indeed I can quite understand why you’re so angry, old friend.
And yet, as you know, you’ll be brought to your knees at the end.
[Breaks off abruptly.]
What lies I am weaving, what lies! It’s no corseleted veteran,
it’s a tree long past its best, a pine with cracked bark that I mourn.
Because of hard labour, felling these giants for timber,
I find I invent fables for fables I can’t remember.
It’s the very devil when you both hack and dream.
I must find a way through this soul-fog, fantasist that I am.
You’ve been outlawed, my lad, driven from the parish;
you must learn to fend for yourself or else perish.
[Works energetically for a time.]
Outlawed, yes. And you don’t have a mother at call,
spreading the tablecloth, readying your next meal.
Need to eat, my lad, off you must toddle to find,
secreted in forest and watercourse, things that will fend
off hunger a while, though raw, though they have to be skinned.
So then you chop small the resinous wood for kindling
and get a blaze going nicely with self-taught handling.
If you wish to be warmly clad you must hunt reindeer;
if your desire is a stone house, dressed stone does not simply appear.
For a house of wood you fell trees then chop trees into logs,
carry the logs on your back; you soon learn how weight drags,
stack the logs in the yard, and then – oh my word! –
[His axe-arm sinks to his side; he stares straight ahead.]
what a building that building will be: many-towered,
each tower with a weather-vane; a well-sealed ridge to the roof.
At the gable-end a splendid mermaid I’ll carve,
a mermaid formed like a fish from the navel down.
Brass there shall be on doorlock and weathervane.
And glass, yes glass – I must somehow obtain that –
glass a-plenty for passing strangers to marvel at:
‘Whose is that fine house afar-off shining on the hill?’
[Laughs angrily at himself.]
Lies, lies, straight out of hell! My mind is a-whirl.
You’re an outlaw, Peer lad, for that I’m ready to vouch.
[Hacks away violently at the tree.]
It’s a cabin you need, roofed with tight shingles of birch,
that will keep out rainstorms and the soundless bite of frost.
[Looks up through the branches of the tree.]
Well, he’s standing and swaying, just about ready at last.
A kick should do the trick. And over he goes!
A shudder passes through the forest’s tribe of young trees.
[Begins to strip the branches. He stops abruptly and listens, his axe raised.]
Somebody’s coming! So here comes an enemy –
Old Man Hæggstad, still on my trail. Has he seen me?
[Ducks down behind the tree and peers around.]
Well, that’s not old Hæggstad; it’s nobody but a lad;
he’s looking here, there, everywhere, and he seems afraid.
What’s that he’s carrying, hidden under his short coat?
It looks like a pruning knife; he stops now, still looks around,
spreads out his right hand on a fence-post. Great heavens, he’s cut
off a finger, the whole finger! Blood’s gushing from the wound
like when you castrate a bull-calf. He’s wrapped his fist in a cloth
and now he staggers away, he’s gone. What a thing to do!
A queer kind of pluck, that; to maim yourself so.
Nobody forced him to do it. Now I remember though!
Conscription – that’s it! The army wanted to claim him;
he didn’t want – and I can’t say that I blame him.
But to maim yourself like that! It fairly took my breath
just to see him do it, and that’s the truth.
Shakes his head, then resumes work.
SCENE 2
A room down at AASE’s farm. Everything is in disarray. Chests are standing open; clothes are lying scattered around. There is a cat on the bed. AASE and KARI, a crofter’s wife, are busily at work, packing things up and sorting things out.
AASE [running to one side of the room]:
Listen, Kari!
KARI: Listen to what?
AASE [running to the room’s other side]:
Listen! Oh, where
did I put it? – where is it? – what am I looking f
or?
I think I’m going mad – where’s the key to the chest?
KARI: In the lock of the chest.
AASE: What’s that rumbling?
KARI: The last
load on its way to Hæggstad.
AASE [weeping]:
I’d be happier if ’twere me
driven off in a black coffin for all to see.
Oh, what I’ve had to suffer, had to endure,
the good Lord only knows! And now, my house stripped bare.
What old Hæggstad didn’t want, the bailiff made off with,
even the clothes from my back he’s been paid off with.
Shame on all, I say, who have put me through it!
[Sits on the edge of the bed.]
The farmhouse and the land are both forfeit.
Old Man Hæggstad was brutal but the courts were more so,
there was no help whatever and there was no mercy;
Peer nowhere to be found, no neighbours gathered round …
KARI: Well, you can stay on here until you die.
AASE: The cat and me living off charity – ay.
KARI: God keep you, good lady! He did you a bad turn,
he surely did, did your good-for-nothing son.
AASE: Nay, woman, you’re wrong there. Why blame Peer?
Ingrid got back safely to Hæggstad, I hear.
They should have made an outlaw of Old Nick: he’d
more to do with those goings-on than my son had.
KARI: Perhaps, good Mother Gynt, we should send for the pastor.
Things are, I believe, past your poor strength to restore.
AASE: The pastor? Why, yes, I think that perhaps we should.
[Getting abruptly to her feet]
But, dear God, I can’t; I’m the lad’s closest kin.
I’m plighted to give him aid when all have let him down.
They’ve thrown him this old jacket and I must darn it.
And here’s a sheepskin; do I dare to purloin it?
Where are the trousers?
KARI: There, with the rest
of the castaway remnants.
AASE [rooting around in the rags and other junk]:
Well I’m blest!
Look what’s here, Kari; it’s that old casting-ladle
my husband had; that he taught Peer how to handle.
He – young Peer, that is – pretended he was a button-
moulder: melting, then shaping, then stamping the pattern.
One day, in the thick of a feast, the lad comes in
and asks his dad for some pewter to melt down.
‘Not pewter,’ says Jon, ‘but silver, King Christian’s coin!’
God forgive him, my Jon, but it all melted away –
pewter, and silver, and gold, in his drunken sway.
Here are the trousers – agh – there’s less cloth than air;
they must be patched, Kari.
KARI: Ay, they could stand repair.
AASE: And when that’s done I must repair to my bed.
I’m all done in and as weak as a kitten.
[Cries out in joyful excitement.]
Two woollen shirts, Kari, that they’ve forgotten!
Kind fortune be thanked! Put one to one side;
no, hear me, Kari: best both of ’em are hid.
KARI: God save us, Mother Aase, theft is a mortal sin!
AASE: So I’ve heard tell; but you know the pastor preaches
forgiveness for worse sins than stealing shirts and breeches.
SCENE 3
Outside a newly built cabin in the forest. Reindeer horns over the door. High-piled snow. Dusk. PEER standing at the door, nailing a large wooden latch into place.
PEER [breaks into laughter but stops abruptly]:
Locks there must be; locks that can withstand
battering by troll-fiends or the odd brutal human kind.
Locks there must be, locks that withstand the creatures
of darkness, in darkness, aggressive weird natures.
They sidle like shadows; they stand and they batter:
‘Let us in, Peer Gynt, we have come for a merry natter.
Under your bed we rustle. With fear you shall awaken.
We disturb the ashes; in the stove-pipe act the fire-draken.
Hee-hee, Peer Gynt, do you yet trust nails and planking
to keep out of your thoughts thoughts that the trolls are thinking?’
SOLVEIG is seen approaching, on skis, across the heath. She has a large shawl wrapped around her head and carries a bundle in her hand.
SOLVEIG: God’s blessing upon your labour. You must not turn me away.
You sent for me to come; I have come through the short day.
PEER: Solveig? It can’t be …? Yes, it is you! You’re not still afraid
of my nearness?
SOLVEIG: She told me – Helga – what you had said;
and there were other messages – from wind and silence,
from your mother chatterboxing her cares for the nonce;
words half-caught on the wing as dreams drifted past;
nights heavy, days empty, and then your summons at last.
Back there in the village it seemed that life was suspended;
I could not laugh or cry as if I minded;
I, minding only your moods, knowing the moods that had been;
sure only of one purpose. I now have no kin.
I have been set at variance, as that gospel tells,
with father and mother; am alone in the world’s toils.
PEER: Solveig, my fair, my fair one, you have come away
to find me, to be mine alone: is that what you say?
SOLVEIG: To be alone with you and to be yours alone,
my friend, my comforter; other friends have I none.
[Weeping]
To leave my little sister, that was the worst part;
no, to wound my father was the worst thrust; and the last,
surely, was to leave her at whose heart
I had long since been carried. The supreme woe
was the grief on all three faces as I turned to go.
PEER: Have you heard the court’s sentence that was passed this spring?
It strips me of farm, inheritance, everything.
SOLVEIG: Do you think it was for property and inheritance
that I cut myself off from the life I had loved once?
PEER: And do you know the village? Once out of this forest
I am liable to citizen’s arrest
by anyone whom I may see, but who sees me first.
SOLVEIG: I have journeyed on skis, I have asked, I have lost, my way.
When questioned I replied ‘I am going home today.’
PEER: So, off with the nailed boards!
No reason to dread more those elvish lords.
Since you dare enter the cave of the hunter
great blessings will be bestowed on him and his.
Solveig! Ah, let me look at you – not too close! –
simply behold: how fair and delicate you are.
Let me lift you: how slight and how light you are.
And if I carry you, Solveig, I shall never grow weary;
I’ll not sully you with my folly; with outstretched arms
shall part you from my baseness, as from all harms.
Beneficent lovely creature – every feature –
oh, who would have thought that I could so have brought,
even with the magnetic force of my longing,
night and day, for what you are now bringing,
your divine grace to this place so meanly wrought!
This hut of logs, my love, it is ugly and poor.
I shall raze and rebuild it worthy of your …
SOLVEIG: Poor it may be; it is everything I desire
.
The wind that roars in the trees is a free air.
Back in the village everything was constrained;
I had to be free of that, free in my own mind –
it is partly that which has brought me – the tall trees
soughing by day and night – what song, what stillnesses!
Here is my true home.
PEER: Art thou so sure,
my lass? For the length of thy days?
SOLVEIG: This path I have made to your door
can never be unmade.
PEER: And so I have you! Enter!
I will set you by my hearth; I will fetch resinous wood
for the burning; I will make all good.
Snug you shall be. And mine. And all will shine.
You shall take your ease and never shall you freeze.
[He opens the door; SOLVEIG enters. He waits a moment; then, laughing, gleeful, he leaps and shouts.]
My king’s daughter! Now at last I have caught her!
My palace fit for a king – rebuilt, it will be a grand thing!
He takes up the axe and begins to leave; at the same moment an ELDERLY WOMAN wearing a ragged green skirt emerges from the copse. An UGLY CHILD carrying a wooden ale bowl limps after her, clutching at her skirt.
WOMAN: Evening, my lightfoot lad!
PEER: Who’s there? What’s up?
WOMAN: We’re friends, Peer,
old friends, you could say; we’re neighbours. My hut is very near.
PEER: That’s news to me.
WOMAN: While your hut was a-building mine
was a-building too.
PEER [restless]:
I’m in haste to be gone.
WOMAN: You always were, you always are, in a great hurry, my lad.
I’ll trudge along after you; meet you at the end of the road.
PEER: You’re in error, old dame.
WOMAN: I was greatly mistaken before:
that time you promised me wonders by the score.
PEER: I promised you? You? What are you on about,
you old witch?
WOMAN: You’ve forgotten, then, the evening that
you drank with my father? How could you possibly forget?
PEER: How can you remind me of what was never in my mind?
Thou’rt out of thine, granny! So, when did we meet last?
WOMAN: We met last when we met first.
Offer your father a drink, child; I’m sure he has a thirst.
PEER: ‘Your father’?