9. Solveig’s Cradle Song
Solveig, the guardian angel of Peer’s life, represents and appeals to all that is good in his nature. Her influence, even in the midst of his maddest escapades, has never wholly deserted him, and serves at last as the magnet to draw him back to her and home. The last scene in the drama represents Solveig, now a serene-faced, silver-haired old lady, stepping forth from the door of the forest hut, on her way to church. Peer, who in his chaotic fashion has become a prey to disappointment, to remorse, and to fear of death, appears suddenly before her, calling himself a sinner and crying for condemnation from the lips of the woman whom he has most sinned against. Solveig sinks upon a bench at the door of the hut. Peer drops upon his knees at her feet and buries his face in her lap. The sun rises and the curtain falls as she sings her lullaby song of peace and happiness. Grieg has set these last stanzas of the drama to music under the title of Solveig’s Wiegenlied, or Cradle Song. They are translated as follows:
“Sleep thou, dearest boy of mine!
I will cradle thee, I will watch thee.
The boy has been sitting on his mother’s lap,
The two have been playing all the life-day long.
The boy has been resting at his mother’s breast
All the life-day long. God’s blessing on my joy.
The boy has been lying close in to my heart
All the life-day long. He is weary now.
Sleep thee, dearest boy of mine!
I will cradle thee, I will watch thee.
Sleep and dream thou, dear my boy!”
These lines seem to indicate a transition from wifely love to maternal love in the affection of Solveig, with the advent of age.
The moral of the drama, not a very ethical one, but one which has possessed the minds of many devoted women since the world began, appears to be that in love alone is salvation. Whatever the errors and sins and follies of the man, he is won at last and saved, even at the eleventh hour, by the faith, the hope, and the love of one devoted woman.