by Henrik Ibsen
THIRD BOY: Can you throw in a crown?
PEER: Yes, of the finest straw. And it will fit
the first person who tries it on.
Hey, there’s still more: an egg without
its shell; a madman’s hair (grey); a prophet’s beard.
You can have the lot if you’re prepared
to take me to the heath and set me right.
The finger-post will read: ‘here is your road’.
SHERIFF [accosting him]:
The way that you’re behaving, I don’t doubt
a spell in prison lies within your grasp.
PEER [with his hat in his hand]:
That may be true. But tell me, who was Peer Gynt?
SHERIFF: Think you’re cut out
to be a comedian?
PEER: No, no, it’s facts I want.
SHERIFF: They say he was a damnable fabricator,
fabulator, whatever the right word is.
PEER: A teller of tall tales?
SHERIFF: Whatever was great or
extraordinary,
he invented a story
claiming that he was the genius of such absurdities.
But, look here, Grandad, I have other duties.
Strides officiously away.
PEER: So where is he, this extraordinary creature?
AN ELDERLY MAN: He went overseas to some heathen land or other,
and fared ill; he had a skewed nature.
Whatever it was he did, he swung for it
many years since.
PEER: Hanged was he? Well, he was that sort,
true to himself.
[Prepares to be on his way.]
My thanks, I’ve enjoyed this rather.
[Walks a short distance, then stops.]
But there again, I’ve – hey-ho, lads and lasses,
would you like a tall story of high enterprises?
ONE OF THE CROWD: Yes, do you know any?
PEER: As it happens, this old man does.
[Comes nearer; he adopts a strange, vatic expression.]
In San Francisco, where I worked as a gold miner,
everyone was putting on some kind of an act.
If one of them played a violin with his toes
another would dance the halling but – it’s a fact –
do it while kneeling, ‘Spanish style’. Another shiner
I heard about would compose verses extempore,
‘off the top of his head’, I suppose you could say,
while someone else was drilling through his skull.
Well, at this charlatans’ convention there arrived,
on one occasion, the devil, just to try his luck.
As it turned out, his one and only trick
was to grunt like a pig and do it lifelike.
He had a good sales pitch and so contrived
to fetch in a fair crowd for his first and only appearance.
Expectations ran high, and the theatre was full.
So, on to the stage he strode, an enormous cloak
billowing around him: ‘man muss sich drapieren’,60
as that German proverb says. Of all the confounded cheek!
He’s smuggled in a live pig, swathed in the folds.
So, the performance starts: the devil gives a squeeze,
and the pig gives voice, a bit like a bagpipe scolds.
Its billing was ‘symbolical fantasy
depicting porcine existence bound and free’.
The coup de théâtre was a kind of wheeze
as though the pig had felt the butcher’s knife.
And that was that; the artiste took a bow
and left the stage. Opinion was not wanting.
Some found the range of voice too narrow,
others thought the death-squeal untrue to life;
but all were agreed: as a display of grunting
the whole performance was quite over the top.
You can all draw the lesson from that, I hope.
The devil got ‘thumbs down’ for his insolent stunt
because he did not take public sentiment into account.
He takes his leave. An uneasy silence descends on the crowd.
SCENE 5
Whitsunday Eve. We are at the heart of the forest. Some way off, in a clearing, there is a cabin with reindeer antlers above the door frame. PEER is on his knees in the undergrowth. He is gathering wild onions.
PEER: If this is seeing things from a new angle, I can hardly
wait for the next. The Good Book says to try
all things, make sure you pick the best.
Well, I’ve done all that, top to bottom, you could say,
from Caesar to Nebuchadnezzar, the man who crawled,
who ‘from among his own people was made outcast’.
The Good Book also says, make sure your guts are filled
with things of the earth out of which you were pulled.
Fill my belly with wild onions? Can’t say I fancy them.
Hang snares to catch thrushes
among the high bushes?
That’s a much better scheme.
There’s plenty of nice fresh water in the beck;
I shan’t go thirsty. And if I have to live
like an animal I mean to be lord of the pack.
When I die – I can’t live indefinitely
however many japes I may contrive –
I shall make my last hideout under a fallen tree,
rake a great mound of leaves and crawl into it
just like a bear when it’s time to hibernate.
And I’ll carve somehow my epitaph for all to see:
‘Here lies Peer Gynt; he was a decent fellow,
emperor of the forest creatures’.
[Laughs quietly to himself.]
You old fool, though!
You’re not an emperor; you’re an onion,
in need of peeling, my friend Peer.
You can weep all you like; it still has to be done.
[Picks an onion and begins to peel it.]
Here is the outermost split layer.
Call it the shipwrecked man on the dinghy’s keel.
Here’s the skin I’ll call ‘Strange Passenger’,
not yielding much, though with a whiffy scent,
somehow, of slick Gynt.
What do we have next as I continue to peel?
Inside here we have the gold-digger’s spoil,
no longer worth tasting, if it ever was.
The tough part here, with a sharpish edge, must be
the fur-trader section up at Hudson’s Bay.
Inside that again, a skin that looks like a crown.
Well, that’s something I’m quite happy to disown.
The archaeologist: a strong taste still it has.
And here we uncover the prophet; the strongest taint,
I must say, of the entire peeling –
he stinks of wickedness, as the Good Book says,
so that an honest man can get tears in his eyes.
We’re coming closer to the final unveiling.
This next layer, which is soft and self-infurled,
represents, I imagine, the wealthy man of the world.
The next, inlaid with black stripes, seems diseased,
black representing either Negro or priest.
[Pulls off several layers at once.]
What a tiresome quantity of the things!
When will I uncover the core within these rings?
[Pulls the whole onion apart in a burst of irritation.]
Well, I’ll be damned! I’ve pulled the thing apart
and, what d’you know? it doesn’t have a heart.
Nature is exceedingly witty, is she not?
[Throws the mess away.]
So, let the devil brood on what this means.
The introspective man who walks alone
can do himself some harm, but since I’ve go
ne
on all fours for some time, it should be safe
enough, I’d say, even to scoff.
[Scratching his neck]
Life’s a strange business, though; rarely explains.
It has a fox behind its ear, but try
to grab it and the creature’s pretty spry.
You’re left with something else between your fingers
you’d be better without and which lingers.
[He has been getting closer, during his onion picking, to the cabin, which he now takes note of for the first time. He appears disconcerted.]
That cabin, there! House on the heath? It seems
like a vivid recollection of old claims.
The reindeer skull that stands out on the gable,
a mermaid formed like a fish below the waist,
what fantasies I spin myself! What trouble
I invent. There’s no mermaid. But old planks nailed with rust,
yes, there are those; locks to keep out troll dreams.
SOLVEIG [heard singing inside the cabin]:
Now all is made ready for the Whitsun Eve.
And oh, my dearest boy, my blessèd one,
those logs that you have,
are they a great burden?
Take all the time you need.
Whether late or soon,
I shall wait as I said.
PEER [gets to his feet, quiet and deathly pale]:
Ah! One who remembered and one who forgot.
One who lost faith while the other did not.
Dire gravitational pull of things never to be reversed.
Here was my right true empire but I was self-deposed.
He stumbles away along the forest path.
SCENE 6
Night. Among the pine barrens. The area has been devastated by a forest fire. Charred tree trunks as far as the eye can see. Clouds of grey mist here and there over the forest floor. PEER hastens through this wilderness.
PEER: Ash and fog and dust a-smother.
Blighted plenitude to build on.
Stench and rottenness together,
whited sepulchre. Beholden,
I, to dreams and stillborn knowledge,
bad foundations mired in fullage,
see a pyramid arising
based on lies and false appraising;
vacant truth and void repentance
topping out my life’s self-sentence,
crowing like the Petrine rooster
pinnacled upon disaster.
Petrus Gyntus Caesar fecit.61
[Listens.]
There’s a sound of children weeping
might yet be their singing gladly.
Self-projection, as I take it,
of my guilty un-self-keeping.
Balls of yarn, now, rolling madly
at my feet …
[Kicks out.]
… troll thoughts a-gripping.
BALLS OF YARN [on the ground]:
Thoughts we are not.
You should have thought us;
babes unbegot,
you did not beget us.
PEER [steps aside]:
Him I fathered was a troll-child,
brain askew, his body crippled.
BALLS OF YARN: We should have risen
as voices in song;
we were not chosen;
snarled here our wrong.
PEER [tripping over them]:
Yarn ball, misbegotten cruddle,
more like man-trap than cat’s cradle.
He extricates himself and attempts to leave them behind.
WITHERED LEAVES [blown by the wind]:
We’re a conundrum
too long unsolved.
We heard the wind drum
while rain delved.
Worms have reduced us
to our small skeletons;
when in right justice
we are your laureate crowns.
PEER: I don’t think you’ve done too badly.
Make good compost; do it gladly.
A RUSHING IN THE AIR: We are the rhymes
you did not sing us.
A thousand times
you chose to wrong us.
In your heart’s chamber
we’ve lain, mute song,
years without number.
May your throat ever be wrung!
PEER: I should have stifled such complaining
long years since; damned poetic whining.
Attempts to take a short cut.
DROPS OF DEW [dripping from the branches]:
We are the tears
that were never shed.
Ice-daggers through the years
we would have melted.
The deepest ice-wound
is in your heart yet,
though the flesh looks sound
over the heart.
PEER: I was imprisoned by the trolls;
wept; but no one came to my calls.
BROKEN STRAWS: We are the deeds
you failed to deliver.
Doubt with its many heads
the sole receiver.
We shall come in a swarm
on Judgement Day
and speak you harm.
You will blench at what we say.
PEER: Nasty tricksters, adding the final sum
to my account, but in the debit column.
He hurries away.
AASE’S VOICE [heard as though from a great distance]:
Shame on you, such dreadful driving,
almost tipped me out you did, lad!
There’s been fresh deep snow arriving.
Well, you’ve bruised me pretty bad.
Driven me the wrong way, have you?
Where’s the castle we were close to?
Devil’s made you misbehave – you! –
with that stick out of the closet.
PEER: Think it wise and think it needful
for this lost soul just to vanish.
Carrying the devil’s spadeful,
and your own, spells heavy finish.
Runs off.
SCENE 7
Another part of the heath.
PEER [singing]:
A gravedigger! A gravedigger! Where are you, curs?
I must be one who hears
music in a sexton’s bleat.
I need a mourning ribbon round the brim of my hat.
I have so many dead I must follow through the lychgate.
The BUTTON MOULDER appears from a pathway to one side. He carries a tool chest and a large casting-ladle.
BUTTON MOULDER: Greetings to you, old sir!
PEER: And to you, friend.
BUTTON MOULDER: Gentleman’s in a hurry. Whither does he wend?
PEER: To a wake.
BUTTON MOULDER: To a wake, is it? I don’t see too well.
Forgive the question; might your name be Peer?
PEER: Peer, yes. Peer Gynt.
BUTTON MOULDER: Peer Gynt. I call
that luck! For I am to meet you here
this very night.
PEER: Are you indeed? And why the need?
BUTTON MOULDER: You’re to go in this ladle o’mine.
PEER: And to what end?
BUTTON MOULDER: To be melted down.
PEER: Melted?
BUTTON MOULDER [shows the ladle]:
It’s freshly scoured,
ready, waiting; grave dug, the coffin ordered,
the worms have whetted appetites for the feast.
And I am bid to find you with all speed,
and in the Master’s name to fetch your soul.
PEER: And I must tell you that’s not possible.
To be called like this, at some stranger’s behest …
BUTTON MOULDER: There is a quaint old custom in these parts,
for christenings and for funerals
to be somewhat arbitrary in their dates;
these to be settled witho
ut due regard
to diaries of those new born or newly dead.
PEER: That may be so, but – ach, my head!
Tell me again; you are …
BUTTON MOULDER: You heard me the first time. A button moulder.
PEER: I suppose it hardly matters what one calls
you: a cherished child has many names,
the saying is. So, Peer, you’ll not grow older.
But look’ee here, my man, it’s a low trick
you’ve played me, with these sudden games.
I deserve gentler handling; although some make
out I’m a scoundrel, I have done much good
during my time on earth. At worst a fool.
My sins, I’d say, were unremarkable.
BUTTON MOULDER: And that’s the nub of the problem, you see, squire:
the fact that you’re so middling. Worst kinds of torture
you’re likely to be spared, that’s understood.
Like most, your prize is my old casting-ladle.
PEER: Well, call it what you will; whether brimstone lake
or your big spoon, it’s nothing but a fiddle.
Home-brewed and import are both kinds of beer.
Get thee behind me!
BUTTON MOULDER: I’m quite shocked to hear
such coarseness from your lips. No one believes,
in these enlightened times, that where you’ve feet I’ve hooves.
PEER: Horse’s hoof or fox’s claw, be gone,
pick your way back over stock and stone.
BUTTON MOULDER: Once more I have to say how sorry
I am to hear you speak so. We must hurry,
the pair of us, and take a few shortcuts.
I shall but briefly reason with your doubts.
You have, as you have said, not greatly sinned.
In the judgement of your own mind
you are somewhat of middling kind.
PEER: I approve your thoughts
as here expressed.
BUTTON MOULDER: Be patient yet awhile.
But to call you a minor saint would go too far?
PEER: I’ve no claim to the highest style
of conduct, that I accept.
BUTTON MOULDER: You are,
then, we’re agreed, a kind of entrepreneur,
an opportunist, a middle man.
Old monstrous heroic sinners one doesn’t meet
with, these days, on your average street.
Their kind of sin demands high seriousness;
great willpower, grand design.
PEER: That’s near enough, I’d guess.
With them it was full pelt, like the old berserkers.
BUTTON MOULDER: You, on the other hand, were among the workers
of expedient things.
PEER: Yes, a quick dabble
when chance allowed; tried to keep out of trouble.