Six Plays Read online

  ACT FIRST

  SCENE FIRST

  A wooded hillside near ÅSE’s farm. A river rushes down the slope. On the further side of it an old mill-shed. It is a hot day in summer.

  PEER GYNT, a strongly-built youth of twenty, comes down the pathway. His mother, ÅSE, a small, slightly-built woman, follows him, scolding angrily.

  ÅSE

  Peer, you’re lying!

  PEER [Without stopping.]

  No, I am not!

  ÅSE

  Well then, swear that it is true!

  PEER

  Swear? Why should I?

  ÅSE

  See, you dare not!

  It’s a lie from first to last.

  PEER [Stopping.]

  It is true—each blessed word!

  ÅSE [Confronting him.]

  Don’t you blush before your mother?

  First you skulk among the mountains

  Monthlong in the busiest season,

  Stalking reindeer in the snows;

  Home you come then, torn and tattered,

  Gun amissing, likewise game;—

  And at last, with open eyes,

  Think to get me to believe

  All the wildest hunters’-lies!—

  Well, where did you find the buck, then?

  PEER

  West near Gendin.

  ÅSE [Laughing scornfully.]

  Ah! Indeed.

  PEER

  Keen the blast towards me swept;

  Hidden by an alder-clump,

  He was scraping in the snow-crust

  After lichen——

  ÅSE [As before.]

  Doubtless, yes!

  PEER

  Breathlessly I stood and listened,

  Heard the crunching of his hoof,

  Saw the branches of one antler.

  Softly then among the boulders

  I crept forward on my belly.

  Crouched in the moraine I peered up;—

  Such a buck, so sleek and fat,

  You, I’m sure, have ne’er set eyes on.

  ÅSE

  No, of course not!

  PEER

  Bang! I fired.

  Clean he dropped upon the hillside.

  But the instant that he fell,

  I sat firm astride his back,

  Gripped him by the left ear tightly,

  And had almost sunk my knife-blade

  In his neck, behind his skull—

  When, behold! the brute screamed wildly,

  Sprang upon his feet like lightning,

  With a back-cast of his head

  From my fist made knife and sheath fly,

  Pinned me tightly by the thigh,

  Jammed his horns against my legs,

  Clenched me like a pair of tongs;—

  Then forthwith away he flew

  Right along the Gendin-Edge!

  ÅSE [Involuntarily.]

  Jesus save us——!

  PEER

  Have you ever

  Chanced to see the Gendin-Edge?

  Nigh on four miles long it stretches

  Sharp before you like a scythe.

  Down o’er glaciers, landslips, screes,

  Down the toppling grey moraines,

  You can see, both right and left,

  Straight into the tarns that slumber,

  Black and sluggish, more than seven

  Hundred fathoms deep below you.

  Right along the Edge we two

  Clove our passage through the air.

  Never rode I such a colt!

  Straight before us as we rushed

  ’Twas as though there glittered suns.

  Brown-backed eagles that were sailing

  In the wide and dizzy void

  Half-way ’twixt us and the tarns,

  Dropped behind, like motes in air.

  On the shores crashed hurtling ice-floes,

  But no echo reached my ears.

  Only sprites of dizziness1 sprang,

  Dancing, round;—they sang, they swung,

  Circle-wise, past sight and hearing!

  ÅSE [Dizzy.]

  Oh, God save me!

  PEER

  All at once,

  At a desperate, break-neck spot,

  Rose a great cock-ptarmigan,

  Flapping, cackling, terrified,

  From the crack where he lay hidden

  At the buck’s feet on the Edge.

  Then the buck shied half around,

  Leapt sky-high, and down we plunged,

  Both of us, into the depths!

  [ÅSE totters, and catches at the trunk of a tree. PEER GYNT contin

  ues:]

  Mountain walls behind us, black,

  And below a void unfathomed!

  First we clove through banks of mist,

  Then we clove a flock of sea-gulls,

  So that they, in mid-air startled,

  Flew in all directions, screaming.

  Downward rushed we, ever downward.

  But beneath us something shimmered,

  Whitish, like a reindeer’s belly.—

  Mother, ’twas our own reflection

  In the glass-smooth mountain tarn,

  Shooting up towards the surface

  With the same wild rush of speed

  Wherewith we were shooting downwards.

  ÅSE [Gasping for breath.]

  Peer! God help me——! Quickly, tell——

  PEER

  Buck from over, buck from under,

  In a moment clashed together,

  Scattering foam-flecks all around.

  There we lay then, floating, plashing,—

  But at last we made our way

  Somehow to the northern shore;

  Swam the buck, I clung behind him;—

  I ran homewards——

  ÅSE

  But the buck, dear?

  PEER

  He’s there still, for aught I know;—

  [Snaps his fingers, turns on his heel, and adds:]

  Catch him, and you’re welcome to him!

  ÅSE

  And your neck you haven’t broken?

  Haven’t broken both your thighs?

  And your backbone, too, is whole?

  Oh, dear Lord—what thanks, what praise,

  Should be thine who helped my boy!

  There’s a rent, though, in your breeches;

  But it’s scarce worth talking of

  When one thinks what dreadful things

  Might have come of such a leap——!

  [Stops suddenly, looks at him open-mouthed and wide-eyed; cannot find

  words for some time, but at last bursts out:]

  Oh, you devil’s story-teller,

  Cross of Christ, how you can lie!

  All this screed you foist upon me,

  I remember now, I knew it

  When I was a girl of twenty.

  Gudbrand Glesnë it befell,

  Never you, you——

  PEER

  Me as well.

  Such a thing can happen twice.

  ÅSE [Exasperated.]

  Yes, a lie, turned topsy-turvy,

  Can be prinked and tinselled out,

  Decked in plumage new and fine,

  Till none knows its lean old carcass.

  That is just what you’ve been doing,

  Vamping up things, wild and grand,

  Garnishing with eagles’ backs

  And with all the other horrors,

  Lying right and lying left,

  Filling me with speechless dread,

  Till at last I recognised not

  What of old I’d heard and known!

  PEER

  If another talked like that

  I’d half kill him for his pains.

  ÅSE [Weeping.]

  Oh, would God I lay a corpse;

  Would the black earth held me sleeping.

  Prayers and tears don’t bite upon him.—

  Peer, you’re lost, and ever will be!

  PEER

  Darling, pretty little mother,

  You are right in every word;—

  Don’t be cross, be happy——

  ÅSE

  Silence!

  Could I, if I would, be happy,

  With a pig like you for son?

  Think how bitter I must find it,

  I, a poor defenceless widow,

  Ever to be put to shame!

  [Weeping again.]

  How much have we now remaining

  From your grandsire’s days of glory?

  Where are now the sacks2 of coin

  Left behind by Rasmus Gynt?

  Ah, your father lent them wings,—

  Lavished them abroad like sand,

  Buying land in every parish,

  Driving round in gilded chariots.

  Where is all the wealth he wasted

  At the famous winter-banquet,

  When each guest sent glass and bottle

  Shivering ’gainst the wall behind him?

  PEER

  Where’s the snow of yester-year?

  ÅSE

  Silence, boy, before your mother!

  See the farmhouse! Every second

  Window-pane is stopped with clouts.

  Hedges, fences, all are down,

  Beasts exposed to wind and weather,

  Fields and meadows lying fallow,

  Every month a new distraint——

  PEER

  Come now, stop this old-wife’s talk!

  Many a time has luck seemed drooping,

  And sprung up as high as ever!

  ÅSE

  Salt-strewn is the soil it grew from.

  Lord, but you’re a rare one, you,—

  Just as pert and jaunty still,

  Just as bold as when the Pastor,

  Newly come from Copenhagen,

  Bade you tell your Christian name,

  And declared that such a headpiece

  Many a Prince down there might envy;

  Till the cob your father gave him,

  With a sledge to boot, in thanks

  For his pleasant, friendly talk.—

  Ah, but things went bravely then!

  Provost,3 Captain, all the rest,

  Dropped in daily, ate and drank,

  Swilling, till they well-nigh burst.

  But ’tis need that tests one’s neighbour.

  Lonely here it grew, and silent,

  From the day that “Gold-bag Jon” 4

  Started with his pack, a pedlar.

  [Dries her eyes with her apron.]

  Ah, you’re big and strong enough,

  You should be a staff and pillar

  For your mother’s frail old age,—

  You should keep the farm-work going,

  Guard the remnants of your gear;—

  [Crying again.]

  Oh, God help me, small’s the profit

  You have been to me, you scamp!

  Lounging by the hearth at home,

  Grubbing in the charcoal embers;

  Or, round all the country, frightening

  Girls away from merry-makings—

  Shaming me in all directions,

  Fighting with the worst rapscallions——

  PEER [Turning away from her.]

  Let me be.

  ÅSE [Following him.]

  Can you deny

  That you were the foremost brawler

  In the mighty battle royal

  Fought the other day at Lundë,

  When you raged like mongrels mad?

  Who was it but you that broke

  Blacksmith Aslak’s arm for him,—

  Or at any rate that wrenched one

  Of his fingers out of joint?

  PEER

  Who has filled you with such prate?

  ÅSE [Hotly.]

  Cottar Kari heard the yells!

  PEER [Rubbing his elbow.]

  Maybe, but ’twas I that howled.

  ÅSE

  You?

  PEER

  Yes, mother,—I got beaten.

  ÅSE

  What d’you say?

  PEER

  He’s limber, he is.

  ÅSE

  Who?

  PEER

  Why Aslak, to be sure.

  ÅSE

  Shame—and shame; I spit upon you!

  Such a worthless sot as that,

  Such a brawler, such a sodden

  Dram-sponge to have beaten you!

  [Weeping again.]

  Many a shame and slight I’ve suffered;

  But that this should come to pass

  Is the worst disgrace of all.

  What if he be ne’er so limber,

  Need you therefore be a weakling?

  PEER

  Though I hammer or am hammered,—

  Still we must have lamentations.

  [Laughing.]

  Cheer up, mother——

  ÅSE

  What? You’re lying

  Now again?

  PEER

  Yes, just this once.

  Come now, wipe your tears away;—

  [Clenching his left hand.]

  See,—with this same pair of tongs,

  Thus I held the smith bent double,

  While my sledge-hammer right fist——

  ÅSE

  Oh, you brawler! You will bring me

  With your doings to the grave!

  PEER

  No, you’re worth a better fate;

  Better twenty thousand times!

  Little, ugly, dear old mother,

  You may safely trust my word,—

  All the parish shall exalt you;

  Only wait till I have done

  Something—something really grand.

  ÅSE [Contemptuously.]

  You!

  PEER

  Who knows what may befall one.

  ÅSE

  Could you but find so much sense,

  One day, as to do the darning

  Of your breeches for yourself!

  PEER [Hotly.]

  I will be a king, a kaiser!

  ÅSE

  Oh, God comfort me, he’s losing

  All the little wits he’d left!

  PEER

  Yes, I will! Just give me time!

  ÅSE

  Give you time, you’ll be a prince,

  So the saying goes, I think!

  PEER

  You shall see!

  ÅSE

  Oh, hold your tongue

  You’re as mad as mad can be.—

  Ah, and yet it’s true enough,—

  Something might have come of you,

  Had you not been steeped for ever

  In your lies and trash and moonshine.

  Hegstad’s girl was fond of you.

  Easily you could have won her

  Had you wooed her with a will——

  PEER

  Could I?

  ÅSE

  The old man’s too feeble

  Not to give his child her way.

  He is stiff-necked in a fashion;

  But at last ’tis Ingrid rules;

  And where she leads, step by step

  Stumps the gaffer, grumbling, after.

  [Begins to cry again.]

  Ah, my Peer!—a golden girl—

  Land entailed on her! Just think,

  Had you set your mind upon it,

  You’d be now a bridegroom brave,—

  You that stand here grimed and tattered!

  PEER [Briskly.]

  Come, we’ll go a-wooing then!

  ÅSE

  Where?

  PEER

  At Hegstad!

  ÅSE

  Ah, poor boy;

  Hegstad way is barred to wooers!

  PEER

  How is that?

  ÅSE

  Ah, woe is me!

  Lost the moment, lost the luck——

  PEER

  Speak!

  ÅSE [Sobbing.]

  While in the Wester-hills

  You in air were riding reindeer,

  Here Mads Moen’s won the girl!

  PEER

  What! That women’s-bugbear! He——

  ÅSE

  Ay, she’s taking him for husband.

  PEER

  Wait you here till I have harnessed

  Horse and waggon——

  [Going.]

  ÅSE

  Spare your pains.

  They are to be wed to-morrow——

  PEER

  Pooh; this evening I’ll be there!

  ÅSE

  Fie now! Would you crown our miseries

  With a load of all men’s scorn?

  PEER

  Never fear; ’twill all go well.

  [Shouting and laughing at the same time.]

  Mother, jump! We’ll spare the waggon;

  ’Twould take time to fetch the mare up——

  [Lifts her up in his arms.]

  ÅSE

  Put me down!

  PEER

  No, in my arms

  I will bear you to the wedding!

  [Wades out into the stream.]

  ÅSE

  Help! The Lord have mercy on us!

  Peer! We’re drowning——

  PEER

  I was born

  For a braver death——

  ÅSE

  Ay, true;

  Sure enough you’ll hang at last!

  [Tugging at his hair.]

  Oh, you brute!

  PEER

  Keep quiet now;

  Here the bottom’s slippery-slimy.

  ÅSE

  Ass!

  PEER

  That’s right, don’t spare your tongue;

  That does no one any harm.

  Now it’s shelving up again——

  ÅSE

  Don’t you drop me!