by Henrik Ibsen
Forgive me, sir.
V. EBERKOPF: We’d lost our bearings.
PEER: What gabble!
V. EBERKOPF: Now we see united
all aspects of the ‘Gyntian Whole’,
all wishes, passions, all desirings …
M. BALLON [ecstatic with admiration]:
… in-gathered, waiting on the Call.
To Monsieur Gynt’s apotheosis!
PEER: Will you shut up!
M. BALLON: Ne comprenez-vous pas?24
PEER: Niente.25
M. BALLON: We depart tonight
to fight for Greece, am I not right?
PEER [with a snort of contempt]:
Wrong! My assessment of the foes
lacks sentiment. I back the Turks.
M. BALLON: Mon Dieu!26
V. EBERKOPF: Hardly the best of jokes.
PEER [is silent for a while; then, leaning on a chairback, adopts a ‘superior’ expression]:
Gentlemen, it is best we part
before the remnants flicker out
of our brief friendship – call it that.
He who has nothing can risk all.
When your stake in the nation’s but
the shadow prodded by your boot
you’re done for once they start to shoot.
But one self-risen from the seter
as I am, well, his stakes are greater.
So, it’s to Hellas that you sail!
Free weaponry is yours at call.
The higher you four fan the flames
of conflict with heroic games
the stronger I can bend my bow.
Freedom and justice! Off you go,
fight in the vanguard, lead the charge
against the khalif’s entourage;
and end it all with wriggling dances
stuck on the janissaries’ lances.
But, pray excuse me.
[Slaps his pocket.]
I have ‘funds’!
Sir Peter Gynt inspects the grounds.
He opens his parasol and saunters off into the grove, where the hammocks can be faintly discerned.
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: That filthy swine!
M. BALLON: Pah! Sans honneur!27
MR COTTON: What’s honour, though, when all is said?
But, profit! I too like a winner.
If I thought Greece was worth a bid …
M. BALLON: I saw myself with victor’s wounds
bathed by competing female hands!
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: I saw within my Swedish grip
those mystic spurs now mine to keep!
V. EBERKOPF: And I saw my great fatherland’s
Kultur endowing foreign strands.
MR COTTON: The worst, for me, is not to salvage
more of his fortune’s bulk and selvage.
Goddammit, I could weep! I saw
myself hacking Olympus raw:
huge veins of copper to be mined!
Castalia’s waters could have churned
hydro-electric power at
more than a thousand-horsepower rate.
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: I’ll fight – despite! My Swedish sword
will achieve more than Yankee hoard.
MR COTTON: I doubt it. We’d be cannon fodder,
just as he said. Pray reconsider
for there’s no profit if we’re dead.
M. BALLON: Coup de tonnerre!28 To have so sweet
a prospect dying at one’s feet!
MR COTTON [shaking his fist at PEER’s steam yacht]:
That devil’s casket in its hold
brews Negro blood and sweat to gold!
V. EBERKOPF: That’s it! I have it! So, let’s hasten
his nabob’s coffers to unfasten.
Here is my plan …
M. BALLON: Your plan, m’sieur?
V. EBERKOPF: Machtübernahme29 within the hour!
His crew is ready to be bought.
That done, I’ll commandeer the yacht.
MR COTTON: You’ll what?
V. EBERKOPF: I’ll grab it willy-nilly!
He makes his way down to the dinghy.
MR COTTON: Since that’s the bid it might be silly
not to do likewise.
He follows VON EBERKOPF.
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: Villainy!
M. BALLON: Et alors?30 Though I quite agree.
He follows the others.
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: And I must join them too, it seems;
protesting still, and in the strongest terms.
He also makes his way down to the dinghy.
SCENE 2
A different part of the coast. Moonlight and scudding clouds. The yacht can be seen, far out to sea, proceeding full steam ahead. PEER, in a state of extreme agitation, runs along the beach. One moment he pinches his arm; the next moment he stares wildly out to sea.
PEER: This is a nightmare, a nonsense. Soon I must surely wake up!
They have put out to sea without me. They devour the sea-miles.
Come, Peer, you’re drunk still and reeling. Or am I perhaps asleep?
Can I be dying, well, can I? I’ll call it a dream.
Yes, a dream let it be; a bad dream for the whiles.
Agh! Dreadful to say, it’s the truth and the truth makes me weep.
My so-called companions – ah, hear me, Lord God,
You who are wise, who are just – give short shrift to them!
[Stretches his arms towards the heavens.]
It’s Peer, d’you hear? Oh do pay attention, Milord!
Look after me, Father, for none else will bother.
Command ‘Put about!’ Why don’t they lower the boat?
Make hue and cry, blast all their rigging awry.
I plead, nay demand, that it’s my woes to which You attend.
The world, as it will, can look after itself pretty well.
Hello? Hello? No change there, for he never listens.
Perhaps He needs some charitable assistance.
[Gesticulates again at the heavens.]
Haven’t I got rid of my Negro slaves?
To Asia I’ve sent missionaries in droves.
One good turn deserves another, eh?
Get me back on board without delay.
I’ll …
A column of fire shoots upwards from the steam yacht, and thick smoke pours out of it; a hollow explosion is heard. PEER shrieks, sinking down upon the sand. Slowly the smoke clears away; the yacht has vanished.
PEER [quietly, almost sotto voce]:
That was the sword of wrath if ever I saw it!
Gone, the whole boiling, and before they even knew it!
Eternal praise be to Him, the god of second chances!
[Deeply moved]
It was something greater than good luck, even, was it not?
I was destined for salvation; they, destined to go to pot.
Praise be to Thee, then, for Thy grand protecting hand.
In despite of my flaws my great cause, as we see, advances.
[Exhales.]
What wondrous security and comfort when you understand
that in some quite unique way you are protected.
Though I am a starving castaway, if I may so describe it,
here too, you may be sure, I am not rejected:
manna, and all that, stuff that Moses’ tribe ate.
[Loudly, ingratiatingly]
He surely will not allow this especial sparrow to perish.
Be of humble cheer, Peer, and give the Lord some time
to reorder the accounts and make all parade-square-ish.
[Leaps up in great alarm.]
Was that a lion roaring? Why doesn’t help come?
[With chattering teeth]
No, not a lion.
[Gathering courage]
A lion it was, for certain!
Well, now, he’s a thinking creature, your a
verage lion;
has the right instincts, sees what’s in front of his eyes;
knows not to attack when he’s outnumbered by foes;
won’t play tag, say, with elephants. I’d best climb a tree.
Acacias and date-palms abundant, all nicely a-sway.
If I climb one of those I’ll be secure from harm.
It might also help were I to recite a psalm.
[Climbs and settles himself.]
‘The day won’t be known until the sun’s gone down’,
as the Psalmist says; well, that’s been much debated.
[Continuing to make himself comfortable]
How good it is to find one’s spirit so elevated.
To think nobly is to know more than the rich have ever known.
Trust Him as thy sure foundation; He knows to what level
of the Chalice of Privation it is my allotted portion to drink
without cavil.
He is like a father towards this creature He has created.
[Looks out to where sea meets sky, sighs, murmurs.]
But economical? Certainly not that, I think!
SCENE 3
Nighttime. A Moroccan camp at the edge of the desert. Campfires; SOLDIERS taking their ease.
A SLAVE [enters, tearing at his hair]:
The emperor’s best white stallion has disappeared!
SECOND SLAVE [enters, tearing his garments]:
The emperor’s sacred garments have gone the same road!
ATTENDANT [enters]:
One hundred strokes to the soles of the feet decreed
for all, unless the thief is apprehended with speed.
The SOLDIERS mount their steeds and gallop off in all directions.
SCENE 4
Dawn. Acacias and palm trees. PEER is sitting in his tree using a wrenched-off branch to defend himself against a group of monkeys.
PEER: Just my luck; truly, I’ve passed a most wretched night.
[Striking out haphazardly]
Have at you, then! Ha! Ja! Now they’re pelting me with fruit –
ugh, it’s not fruit, the repulsive creatures! It
is written, is it not, ‘Pilgrim, you must watch and fight’?
But I just can’t. Not any more. I am despondent; worn out.
[The monkeys renew the assault.]
Insult capping insult. I cannot let it continue.
If I can manage to snatch one of this devil’s retinue
there may be some way to flay him and don his pelt.
The others might take to me, in a fashion, as a result.
What, after all, are we humans? Nothing but a speck of dust.
Local customs are to be respected where they persist,
as here. Another echelon moving to the attack –
be off! Bah! Boo! It’s as if they were berserk!
How I wish, now, that I still had that yellow tail,
anything that might make me more resemble an animal.
Oh, what now?
[Looks up.]
One of the oldest of their filthy gang
with his paws full …
[Cowers fearfully and keeps still a moment or two. The monkey makes a move. PEER begins to coax it as if it were a dog.]
Hey, up there, me old mate!
Good lad! Good boy! Hey, who’s a friendly fellow?
Who’s not going to throw things? Not even think of that?
Ai-ai! I’ve even got the odd word of theirs to bellow.
My mate here, and me – we’re as one in our family tree.
Sugar tomorrow, a treat! Aagh! Two fistfuls of dung,
smack-on! And the stench! Sickening!
Is it dung, though? It might be food, actually.
It tastes like nothing that I would care to devour
but ‘spit, and hope that habit makes easier’ –
some great thinker said that (his name has slipped my mind).
Here’s the entire progeny. How tragic that mankind,
lord of the world, aspirant to the universe,
is reduced to ‘on guard!’ and ‘behind you! behind!’
The old man was monstrous but his spawn is worse.
SCENE 5
Early morning. A stony area looking out across the desert. To one side, a mountain; in the mountain a cleft and a cave. A THIEF and a FENCE are in the cleft, in possession of the emperor’s stolen horse and garments. The horse, richly caparisoned, is tethered to a rock. HORSEMEN can be seen in the distance.
THIEF: The lances’ tongues
lick the light –
see, it is so.
FENCE: The head springs
off, blood scattering bright.
Woe, cry woe.
THIEF [folding his arms]:
The father thieved,
so must the son.
FENCE: The father received
goods by theft won.
So it goes on.
THIEF: Fate must be endured,
with none else shared.
I am what I am.
FENCE [alarmed, listening]:
The bushes stir,
we must flee! Where?
THIEF: This cave is deep. Enter.
Great is the prophet, blessed be his name.
They make their escape, abandoning the emperor’s possessions. The distant HORSEMEN vanish over the horizon.
PEER [enters, whittling pan pipes from reeds]:
How blissful the morning at this early hour.
The dung beetle rolls his pellet in the gravel;
the snail’s head creeps from the shell in its slow travel.
Ah, morning truly does have gold in its mouth.
It is, when you think about it, a remarkable power
that nature has endowed the daylight with.
In daylight you feel so secure, feel your courage wax;
you think, ‘If I had to I could take on an ox!’
And the surrounding silence! The sweet depth of rural joy;
how could I have so ignored these things previously?
It’s madness to be self-immured in those barrack-towns,
to leave them only at such times as the mob turns
violent, when, if you can, you slip away.
See how that lizard just flickers about and about,
its pointy little head snippeting without deep thought.
What innocence there is in the lives of animals,
compliant with the voice of their Creator when He calls,
each marked with its own intimate nature indelibly;
utterly itself, whether in quarrel or play,
just as it appeared when the Creator uttered His defining Word.
[Sets his pince-nez on his nose.]
A toad set in the midst of a block of sandstone.
Everything around it stone, alone with its own head,
just brooding there as if from a glass grandstand,
contemplating the world, sufficient to itself.
[Stops, as if the thought had snagged on something.]
Sufficient to itself? Now where did I read or hear that?
I think, in something bulky hauled from a shelf
when I was a boy. That book of sermons? Or, if not,
Solomon’s word-book? It distresses me greatly
that, for some years, and much more so lately,
my grasp of past time and place has been, and is, weakening.
[Sits down in the shade.]
How restful it is just to sit and to stretch out your feet.
Look, here is a fern that has an edible root.
[Tastes a little.]
Well, hardly haute cuisine; but then, ‘Keep a tight rein
on mortal appetite,’ said one or other of our wise men
whose task it is to make a moral reckoning.
‘Pride comes before a fall,’ read, probably, in the same source;
‘He that humbles himself shall be exalted’. Of course.
[
Shows signs of unease.]
‘Be exalted.’ I have no doubt that this will be granted me.
I find that I cannot think of anything else.
I shall transcend these things with the blessing of destiny.
This catastrophic reversal will go into reverse.
Things will be made clear; I shall relaunch my career.
This has been a martyr’s ordeal by fire.
After it comes salvation. I trust my physique
will be up to it; and that faith brings me luck.
[Shakes off any uneasy thoughts; lights a cigar; stretches; stares out across the desert.]
What an immeasurable limitless desert this is.
Over there a solitary ostrich is strutting.
What could you deduce here of God’s purposes,
what, in this dead emptiness, is He permitting?
In this blank terrain, inimical to life,
all-consuming, all-consumed, totally burned up and out,
totally unsupportive of humanity’s self-belief;
this fragment, or segment, of a world-self that is not;
this corpse which, never since the earth was born,
has given its creator a single word in return.
Why did He do it? Nature’s both lavish and deadly.
Over there, eastward, that flat glittering expanse:
is it the ocean, laid there so absurdly?
The ocean lies to westward, where the hills fence
it off from the desert, somewhat like a dam.
[He has a brainwave.]
A dam31 it should be possible to breach
therefore; those hills have low contours.
Breach them, and a flood of new life pours
over the desert its life-creating foam.
That done, this red-hot wilderness that is like Mars
settles itself into a new and fertile calm.
Oases will be renewed as islands that it is joy to reach.
Mount Atlas,32 to northward, shall grow green, a mountainous coast,
tall ships in full sail go where only camels have crossed
in earlier times; life-giving, life-enriching air
create a sweet turbulence, and dew be nightly refreshed.
And soon the builders of cities will arrive here,
hanging gardens a-plenty, as many as might be wished.
Regions to the southward, behind Sahara’s barren wall,
enjoying a new status, a true costa del sol;33
steam power renews the ancient powerhouses of Timbuctoo,
northern Nigeria’s reborn, the place of choice to go.
Now through Abyssinia34 I see expert researchers travel
in specially reserved luxury trains to the Upper Nile.