ACT FIFTH
The Banquet Hall. It is still night. The hall is but dimly lighted by a branch-candlestick on the table, in front, on the right.
Lady Inger is sitting by the table, deep in thought.
Lady Inger.
[After a pause.] They call me keen-witted beyond all others in the land. I believe they are right. The keenest-witted—No one knows how I became so. For more than twenty years I have fought to save my child. That is the key to the riddle. Ay, that sharpens the wits!
My wits? Where have they flown to-night? What has become of my forethought? There is a ringing and rushing in my ears. I see shapes before me, so lifelike that methinks I could lay hold on them.
[Springs up.
Lord Jesus—what is this? Am I no longer mistress of my reason? Is it to come to that——?
[Presses her clasped hands over her head; sits down again, and says more calmly:
Nay, ’tis nought. ’Twill pass. There is no fear;—it will pass.
How peaceful it is in the hall to-night! No threatening looks from forefathers or kinsfolk. No need to turn their faces to the wall.
[Rises again.
Ay, ’twas well that I took heart at last. We shall conquer;—and then am I at the goal of all my longings. I shall have my child again.
[Takes up the light as if to go, but stops and says musingly:
At the goal? The goal? To have him back? Is that all?—is there nought further?
[Sets the light down on the table.
That heedless word that Nils Lykke threw forth at random—. How could he see my unborn thought?
[More softly.
A king’s mother? A king’s mother, he said—And why not? Have not my fathers before me ruled as kings, even though they bore not the kingly name? Has not my son as good a title as the other to the rights of the house of Sture? In the sight of God he has—if so be there is justice in Heaven.
And in an hour of terror I have signed away his rights. I have recklessly squandered them, as a ransom for his freedom.
If they could be recovered?—Would Heaven be angered, if I—? Would it call down fresh troubles on my head if I were to—? Who knows;—who knows! It may be safest to refrain. [Takes up the light again.] I shall have my child again. That must content me. I will try to rest. All these desperate thoughts,—I will sleep them away.
[Goes towards the back, but stops in the middle of the hall, and says broodingly:
A king’s mother!
[Goes slowly out at the back, to the left.
[After a short pause, Nils Lykke and Elina Gyldenlöve enter noiselessly by the first door on the left. Nils Lykke has a small lantern in his hand.
Nils Lykke.
[Throws the light from his lantern around, so as to search the room.] All is still. I must begone.
Elina.
Oh, let me look but once more into your eyes, before you leave me.
Nils Lykke.
[Embraces her.] Elina!
Elina.
[After a short pause.] Will you come nevermore to Östråt?
Nils Lykke.
How can you doubt that I will come? Are you not henceforth my betrothed?—But will you be true to me, Elina? Will you not forget me ere we meet again?
Elina.
Do you ask if I will be true? Have I any will left then? Have I power to be untrue to you, even if I would?—You came by night; you knocked upon my door;—and I opened to you. You spoke to me. What was it you said? You gazed in my eyes. What was the mystic might that turned my brain, and lured me as into a magic net? [Hides her face on his shoulder.] Oh, look not on me, Nils Lykke! You must not look upon me after this—True, say you? Do you not own me? I am yours;—I must be yours—to all eternity.
Nils Lykke.
Now, by my knightly honour, ere the year be past, you shall sit as my wife in the hall of my fathers!
Elina.
No vows, Nils Lykke! No oaths to me.
Nils Lykke.
What ails you? Why do you shake your head so mournfully?
Elina.
Because I know that the same soft words wherewith you turned my brain, you have whispered to so many a one before. Nay, nay, be not angry, my beloved! In nowise do I reproach you, as I did while yet I knew you not. Now I understand how high above all others is your goal. How can love be aught to you but a pastime, or woman but a toy?
Nils Lykke.
Elina,—hear me!
Elina.
As I grew up, your name was ever in my ears. I hated the name, for meseemed that all women were dishonoured by your life. And yet,—how strange!—when I built up in my dreams the life that should be mine, you were ever my hero, though I knew it not. Now I understand it all. What was it that I felt? It was a foreboding, a mysterious longing for you, you only one—for you that were one day to come and reveal to me all the glory of life.
Nils Lykke.
[Aside, putting down the lantern on the table.] How is it with me? This dizzy fascination—. If this it be to love, then have I never known it till this hour.—Is there not yet time—? Oh horror—Lucia! [Sinks into the chair.
Elina.
What is amiss with you? So heavy a sigh——
Nils Lykke.
O, ’tis nought,—nought!
Elina,—now will I confess all to you. I have beguiled many with both words and glances; I have said to many a one what I whispered to you this night. But trust me——
Elina.
Hush! No more of that. My love is no exchange for that you give me. No, no; I love you because your every glance commands it like a king’s decree. [Lies down at his feet. Oh, let me once more stamp that kingly mandate deep into my soul, though well I know it stands imprinted there for all time and eternity.
Dear God—how little I have known myself! ’Twas but to-night I said to my mother: “My pride is my life.” And what is now my pride? Is it to know my countrymen free, or my house held in honour throughout many lands? Oh, no, no! My love is my pride. The little dog is proud when he may sit by his master’s feet and eat bread-crumbs from his hand. Even so am I proud, so long as I may sit at your feet, while your looks and your words nourish me with the bread of life. See, therefore, I say to you, even as I said but now to my mother: “My love is my life;” for therein lies all my pride, now and evermore.
Nils Lykke.
[Raises her up on his lap.] Nay, nay—not at my feet, but at my side is your place,—how high soever fate may exalt me. Ay, Elina—you have led me into a better path; and should it one day be granted me to atone by a deed of fame for the sins of my reckless youth, then shall the honour be yours and mine together.
Elina.
Ah, you speak as though I were still that Elina who but this evening flung down the flowers at your feet.
I have read in my books of the many-coloured life in far-off lands. To the winding of horns, the knight rides forth into the greenwood, with his falcon on his wrist. Even so do you go your way through life;—your name rings out before you whithersoever you fare.—All that I desire of the glory, is to rest like the falcon on your arm. Like him was I, too, blind to light and life, till you loosed the hood from my eyes and set me soaring high over the tree-tops.—But trust me—bold as my flight may be, yet shall I ever turn back to my cage.
Nils Lykke.
[Rises.] Then will I bid defiance to the past! See now;—take this ring, and be mine before God and men—mine,—ay, though it should trouble the dreams of the dead.
Elina.
You make me tremble. What is it that——?
Nils Lykke.
’Tis nought. Come, let me place the ring on your finger.—Even so—now are you my betrothed!
Elina.
I Nils Lykke’s bride! It seems but a dream, all that has befallen this night. Oh, but so fair a dream! My breast is so light. No longer is there bitterness and hatred in my soul. I will atone to all whom I have wronged. I have been unloving to my mother. To-morrow will I go to her; she must forgive me where I have erred.
Nils Lykke.
And give her consent to our bond.
Elina.
That will she. Oh, I am sure she will. My mother is kind; all the world is kind;—I can no longer feel hatred for any living soul—save one.
Nils Lykke.
Save one?
Elina.
Ah, ’tis a mournful history. I had a sister——
Nils Lykke.
Lucia?
Elina.
Did you know Lucia?
Nils Lykke.
No, no; I have but heard her name.
Elina.
She too gave her heart to a knight. He betrayed her;—now she is in Heaven.
Nils Lykke.
And you——
Elina.
I hate him.
Nils Lykke.
Hate him not! If there be mercy in your heart, forgive him his sin. Trust me, he bears his punishment in his own breast.
Elina.
Him will I never forgive! I cannot, even if I would; for I have sworn so dear an oath——
[Listening.
Hush! Can you hear——?
Nils Lykke.
What? Where?
Elina.
Without; far off. The noise of many horsemen on the high-road.
Nils Lykke.
Ah, ’tis they! And I had forgotten—! They are coming hither. Then is the danger great! I must begone!
Elina.
But whither? Oh, Nils Lykke, what are you hiding——?
Nils Lykke.
Tomorrow, Elina—; for as God lives, I will return tomorrow.—Quickly now—where is the secret passage whereof you told me?
Elina.
Through the grave-vault. See,—here is the trap-door——
Nils Lykke.
The grave-vault! [To himself.] No matter, he must be saved!
Elina.
[By the window.] The horsemen have reached the gate—— [Hands him the lantern.
Nils Lykke.
Oh, then—— [Begins to descend.
Elina.
Go forward along the passage till you reach the coffin with the death’s-head and the black cross; it is Lucia’s——
Nils Lykke.
[Climbs back hastily and shuts the trapdoor.] Lucia’s! Pah——!
Elina.
What said you?
Nils Lykke.
Nay, nothing. ’Twas the air of the graves that made me dizzy.
Elina.
Hark; they are hammering at the gate!
Nils Lykke.
[Lets the lantern fall.] Ah! too late——!
[Biörn enters hurriedly from the right, carrying a light.
Elina.
[Goes towards him.] What is amiss, Biörn? What is it?
Biörn.
An ambuscade! Count Sture——
Elina.
Count Sture? What of him?
Nils Lykke.
Have they killed him?
Biörn.
[To Elina.] Where is your mother?
Two Retainers.
[Rushing in from the right.] Lady Inger! Lady Inger!
[Lady Inger Gyldenlöve enters by the furthest back door on the left, with a branch-candlestick, lighted, in her hand, and says quickly:
Lady Inger.
I know all. Down with you to the courtyard! Keep the gate open for our friends, but closed against all others!
[Puts down the candlestick on the table to the left. Biörn and the two Retainers go out again to the right.
Lady Inger.
[To Nils Lykke.] So that was the trap, Sir Councillor!
Nils Lykke.
Inger Gyldenlöve, believe me——!
Lady Inger.
An ambuscade that was to snap him up as soon as you had secured the promise that should destroy me!
Nils Lykke.
[Takes out the paper and tears it to pieces.] There is your promise. I keep nothing that can bear witness against you.
Lady Inger.
What is this?
Nils Lykke.
From this hour will I put your thoughts of me to shame. If I have sinned against you,—by Heaven I will strive to repair my crime. But now I must out, if I have to hew my way through the gate!—Elina—tell your mother all!—And you, Lady Inger, let our reckoning be forgotten! Be generous—and silent! Trust me, ere dawn of day you shall owe me a life’s gratitude. [Goes out quickly to the right.
Lady Inger.
[Looks after him with exultation.] ’Tis well! I understand him.
[Turns to Elina.
Nils Lykke—? Well——?
Elina.
He knocked upon my door, and set this ring upon my finger.
Lady Inger.
And from his soul he holds you dear?
Elina.
He has said so, and I believe him.
Lady Inger.
Bravely done, Elina! Ha-ha, Sir Knight, now is it my turn!
Elina.
My mother—you are so strange. Ah, yes—I know—’tis my unloving ways that have angered you.
Lady Inger.
Not so, dear Elina! You are an obedient child. You have opened your door to him; you have hearkened to his soft words. I know full well what it must have cost you; for I know your hatred——
Elina.
But, my mother——
Lady Inger.
Hush! We have played into each other’s hands. What wiles did you use, my subtle daughter? I saw the love shine out of his eyes. Hold him fast now! Draw the net closer and closer about him; and then—Ah, Elina, if we could but rend asunder his perjured heart within his breast!
Elina.
Woe is me—what is it you say?
Lady Inger.
Let not your courage fail you. Hearken to me. I know a word that will keep you firm. Know then— [Listening.] They are fighting before the gate. Courage! Now comes the pinch! [Turns again to Elina.] Know then: Nils Lykke was the man that brought your sister to her grave.
Elina.
[With a shriek.] Lucia!
Lady Inger.
He it was, as truly as there is an Avenger above us!
Elina.
Then Heaven be with me!
Lady Inger.
[Appalled.] Elina——?!
Elina.
I am his bride in the sight of God.
Lady Inger.
Unhappy child,—what have you done?
Elina.
[In a toneless voice.] Made shipwreck of my soul.—Good-night, my mother!
[She goes out to the left.
Lady Inger.
Ha-ha-ha! It goes down-hill apace with Inger Gyldenlöve’s house. There went the last of my daughters.
Why could I not keep silence? Had she known nought, it may be she had been happy—after a kind.
It was to be so. It is written up yonder in the stars that I am to break off one green branch after another till the trunk stand leafless at last.
’Tis well, ’tis well! I shall have my son again. Of the others, of my daughters, I will not think.
My reckoning? To face my reckoning?—It falls not due till the last great day of wrath.—That comes not yet awhile.
Nils Stensson.
[Calling from outside on the right.] Ho—shut the gate!
Lady Inger.
Count Sture’s voice——!
Nils Stensson.
[Rushes in, unarmed, and with his clothes torn, and shouts with a laugh of desperation.] Well met again, Inger Gyldenlöve!
Lady Inger.
What have you lost?
Nils Stensson.
My kingdom and my life!
Lady Inger.
And the peasants? My servants?—where are they?
Nils Stensson.
You will find the carcasses along the highway. Who has the rest, I cannot tell you.
Olaf Skaktavl.
[Outside on the right.] Count Sture! Where are you?
Nils Stensson.
Here, here!
[Olaf Skaktavl comes in with his right hand wrapped in a clout.
Lady Inger.
Alas, Olaf Skaktavl, you too——!
Olaf Skaktavl.
’Twas impossible to break through.
Lady Inger.
You are wounded, I see!
Olaf Skaktavl.
A finger the less; that is all.
Nils Stensson.
Where are the Swedes?
Olaf Skaktavl.
At our heels. They are breaking open the gate——
Nils Stensson.
Oh, God! No, no! I cannot—I will not die.
Olaf Skaktavl.
A hiding-place, Lady Inger! Is there no corner where we can hide him?
Lady Inger.
But if they search the castle——?
Nils Stensson.
Ay, ay; they will find me! And then to be dragged away to prison, or be strung up——! No, no, Inger Gyldenlöve,—I know full well,—you will never suffer that to be!
Olaf Skaktavl.
[Listening.] There burst the lock.
Lady Inger.
[At the window.] Many men rush in at the gateway.
Nils Stensson.
And to lose my life now! Now, when my true life was but beginning! Now, when I have so lately learnt that I have aught to live for. No, no, no!—Think not I am a coward, Inger Gyldenlöve! Might I but have time to show——
Lady Inger.
I hear them now in the hall below.
[Firmly to Olaf Skaktavl.
He must be saved—cost what it will!
Nils Stensson.
[Seizes her hand.] Oh, I knew it;—you are noble and good!
Olaf Skaktavl.
But how? Since we cannot hide him——
Nils Stensson.
Ah, I have it! I have it! The secret——!
Lady Inger.
The secret?
Nils Stensson.
Even so; yours and mine!
Lady Inger.
Merciful Heaven—you know it?
Nils Stensson.
From first to last. And now when ’tis life or death—Where is Nils Lykke?
Lady Inger.
Fled.
Nils Stensson.
Fled? Then God help me; for he alone can unseal my lips.—But what is a promise against a life! When the Swedish captain comes——
Lady Inger.
What then? What will you do?
Nils Stensson.
Purchase life and freedom;—tell him all.
Lady Inger.
Oh no, no;—be merciful!
Nils Stensson.
Nought else can save me. When I have told him what I know——
Lady Inger.
[Looks at him with suppressed agitation.] You will be safe?
Nils Stensson.
Ay, safe! Nils Lykke will speak for me. You see, ’tis the last resource.
Lady Inger.
[Composedly, with emphasis.] The last resource? Right, right—the last resource all are free to try. [Points to the left.] See, meanwhile you can hide in there.
Nils Stensson.
[In a low voice.] Trust me—you will never repent of this.
Lady Inger.
[Half to herself.] God grant that you speak the truth!
[Nils Stensson goes out hastily by the furthest door on the left. Olaf Skaktavl is following; but Lady Inger detains him.
Lady Inger.
Did you understand his meaning?
Olaf Skaktavl.
The dastard! He would betray your secret. He would sacrifice your son to save himself.
Lady Inger.
When life is at stake, he said, we must try the last resource.—’Tis well, Olaf Skaktavl,—let it be as he has said!
Olaf Skaktavl.
What mean you?
Lady Inger.
Life against life! One of them must perish.
Olaf Skaktavl.
Ah—you would——?
Lady Inger.
If we close not the lips of him that is within ere he come to speech with the Swedish captain, then is my son lost to me. But if, on the other hand, he be swept from my path, when the time comes I can claim all his rights for my own child. Then shall you see that Inger Ottis’ daughter has metal in her yet. Of this be assured—you shall not have long to wait for the vengeance you have thirsted after for twenty years.—Hark! They are coming up the stairs! Olaf Skaktavl,—it lies with you whether tomorrow I shall be no more than a childless woman, or ——
Olaf Skaktavl.
So be it! I have yet one sound hand left.
[Gives her his hand.] Inger Gyldenlöve—your name shall not die out through me.
Follows Nils Stensson into the inner room.
Lady Inger.
[Pale and trembling.] But dare I——?
[A noise is heard in the room; she rushes with a scream towards the door.
No, no,—it must not be!
[A heavy fall is heard within; she covers her ears with her hands and hurries back across the hall with a wild look. After a pause she takes her hands cautiously away, listens again, and says softly:
Now it is over. All is still within——
Thou sawest it, God—I repented me! But Olaf Skaktavl was too swift of hand.
[Olaf Skaktavl comes silently into the hall.
Lady Inger.
[After a pause, without looking at him.] Is it done?
Olaf Skaktavl.
You need fear him no more; he will betray no one.
Lady Inger.
[As before.] Then he is dumb?
Olaf Skaktavl.
Six inches of steel in his breast. I felled him with my left hand.
Lady Inger.
Ay, ay—the right was too good for such work.
Olaf Skaktavl.
That is your affair;—the thought was yours.—And now to Sweden! Peace be with you meanwhile! When next we meet at Östråt, I shall bring another with me.
[Goes out by the furthest door on the right.
Lady Inger.
Blood on my hands. Then ’twas to come to that!—He begins to be dear-bought now.
[Biörn comes in, with a number of Swedish Men-at-Arms, by the first door on the right.
One of the Men-at-Arms.
Pardon, if you are the lady of the house——
Lady Inger.
Is it Count Sture ye seek?
The Man-at-Arms.
The same.
Lady Inger.
Then you are on the right track. The Count has sought refuge with me.
The Man-at-Arms.
Refuge? Pardon, my noble lady,—you have no power to harbour him; for——
Lady Inger.
That the Count himself has doubtless understood; and therefore he has—ay, look for yourselves—therefore he has taken his own life.
The Man-at-Arms.
His own life!
Lady Inger.
Look for yourselves, I say. You will find the corpse within there. And since he already stands before another judge, it is my prayer that he may be borne hence with all the honour that beseems his noble birth.—Biörn, you know my own coffin has stood ready this many a year in the secret chamber. [To the Men-at-Arms.] I pray that in it you will bear Count Sture’s body to Sweden.
The Man-at-Arms.
It shall be as you command. [To one of the others.] Haste with these tidings to Jens Bielke. He holds the road with the rest of the troop. We others must in and——
One of the Men-at-Arms goes out to the right; the others go with Biörn into the room on the left.
Lady Inger.
[Moves about for a time in uneasy silence.]
If Count Sture had not taken such hurried leave of the world, within a month he had hung on a gallows, or had lain for all his days in a dungeon. Had he been better served with such a lot?
Or else he had bought his life by betraying my child into the hands of my foes. Is it I, then, that have slain him? Does not even the wolf defend her cubs? Who dare condemn me for striking my claws into him that would have reft me of my flesh and blood?—It had to be. No mother but would have done even as I.
But ’tis no time for idle musings now. I must to work.
[Sits down by the table on the left.
I will write to all my friends throughout the land. They must rise as one man to support the great cause. A new king,—regent first, and then king——
Begins to write, but falls into thought, and says softly:
Who will be chosen in the dead man’s place?—A king’s mother—? ’Tis a fair word. It has but one blemish—the hateful likeness to another word.—King’s mother and—king’s murderer.[[21]]—King’s murderer—one that takes a king’s life. King’s mother—one that gives a king life.
[She rises.
Well, then; I will make good what I have taken.—My son shall be a king!
She sits down again and begins writing, but pushes the paper away again, and leans back in her chair.
There is ever an eerie feeling in a house where lies a corpse. ’Tis therefore my mood is so strange. [Turns her head to one side as if speaking to some one.] Not therefore? Why else should it be?
[Broodingly.
Is there such a great gulf, then, between openly striking down a foe and slaying one—thus? Knut Alfson had cleft many a brow with his sword; yet was his own as peaceful as a child’s. Why then do I ever see this—[makes a motion as though striking with a knife]—-this stab in the heart—and the gush of red blood after?
Rings, and goes on speaking while shifting about her papers.
Hereafter I will have nought to do with such ugly sights. I will be at work both day and night. And in a month—in a month my son will be here——
Biörn.
[Entering.] Did you strike the bell, my lady?
Lady Inger.
[Writing.] Bring more lights. See to it in future that there are many lights in the room.
[Biörn goes out again to the left.
Lady Inger.
After a pause, rises impetuously.] No, no, no;—I cannot guide the pen to-night! My head is burning and throbbing——
[Startled, listens.
What is that? Ah, they are screwing the lid on the coffin.
They told me when I was a child the story of Sir Aage,[[22]] who rose up and walked with his coffin on his back.—If he in there bethought him one night to come with the coffin on his back, and thank me for the loan? [Laughs quietly.] H’m—what have we grown people to do with childish fancies? [Vehemently.] Nevertheless, such stories do no good! They give uneasy dreams. When my son is king, they shall be forbidden.
Paces up and down once or twice; then opens the window.
How long is it, commonly, ere a body begins to rot? All the rooms must be aired. ’Tis not wholesome here till that be done.
Biörn comes in with two lighted branch-candlesticks, which he places on the tables.
Lady Inger.
[Who has set to work at the papers again.] It is well. See you forget not what I have said. Many lights on the table!
What are they about now in there?
Biörn.
They are still screwing down the coffin-lid.
Lady Inger.
[Writing.] Are they screwing it down tight?
Biörn.
As tight as need be.
Lady Inger.
Ay, ay—who can tell how tight it needs to be? Do you see that ’tis well done.
[Goes up to him with her hand full of papers, and says mysteriously:
Biörn, you are an old man; but one counsel I will give you. Be on your guard against all men—both those that are dead and those that are still to die.—Now go in—go in and see to it that they screw the lid down tightly.
Biörn.
[Softly, shaking his head.] I cannot make her out.
[Goes back again into the room on the left.
Lady Inger.
[Begins to seal a letter, but throws it down half-closed; walks up and down awhile, and then says vehemently:] Were I a coward I had never done it—never to all eternity! Were I a coward, I had shrieked to myself: Refrain, while there is yet a shred of hope for the saving of thy soul!
[Her eye falls on Sten Sture’s picture; she turns to avoid seeing it, and says softly:
He is laughing down at me as though he were alive! Pah!
[Turns the picture to the wall without looking at it.
Wherefore did you laugh? Was it because I did evil to your son? But the other,—is not he your son too? And he is mine as well; mark that!
[Glances stealthily along the row of pictures.
So wild as they are to-night, I have never seen them yet. Their eyes follow me wherever I may go. [Stamps on the floor.] I will not have it! I will have peace in my house! [Begins to turn all the pictures to the wall.] Ay, if it were the Holy Virgin herself——Thinkest thou now is the time——? Why didst thou never hear my prayers, my burning prayers, that I might have my child again? Why? Because the monk of Wittenberg is right: There is no mediator between God and man!
[She draws her breath heavily, and continues in ever-increasing distraction.
’Tis well that I know what to think in such things. There was no one to see what was done in there. There is none to bear witness against me.
[Suddenly stretches out her hands and whispers:
My son! My beloved child! Come to me! Here I am!—Hush! I will tell you something: They hate me up there—beyond the stars—because I bore you into the world. ’Twas their will that I should bear the Lord God’s standard over all the land. But I went my own way. That is why I have had to suffer so much and so long.
Biörn.
[Comes from the room on the left.] My lady, I have to tell you—Christ save me—what is this?
Lady Inger.
[Has climbed up into the high-seat by the right-hand wall.] Hush! Hush! I am the King’s mother. My son has been chosen king. The struggle was hard ere it came to this—for ’twas with the Almighty One himself I had to strive.
Nils Lykke.
[Comes in breathless from the right.] He is saved! I have Jens Bielke’s promise. Lady Inger,—know that——
Lady Inger.
Peace, I say! look how the people swarm.
[A funeral hymn is heard from the room within.
There comes the coronation train. What a throng! All men bow themselves before the King’s mother. Ay, ay; has she not fought for her son—even till her hands grew red withal?—Where are my daughters? I see them not.
Nils Lykke.
God’s blood!—what has befallen here?
Lady Inger.
My daughters—my fair daughters! I have none any more. I had one left, and her I lost even as she was mounting her bridal bed. [Whispers.] In it lay Lucia dead. There was no room for two.
Nils Lykke.
Ah—it has come to this! The Lord’s vengeance is upon me.
Lady Inger.
Can you see him? Look, look! ’Tis the King. It is Inger Gyldenlöve’s son! I know him by the crown and by Sten Sture’s ring that he wears round his neck. Hark, what a joyful sound! He is coming! Soon will he be in my arms! Ha-ha!—who conquers, God or I?
[The Men-at-Arms come out with the coffin.
Lady Inger.
[Clutches at her head and shrieks.] The corpse! [Whispers.] Pah! ’Tis a hideous dream. [Sinks back into the high-seat.
Jens Bielke.
[Who has come in from the right, stops and cries in astonishment.] Dead! Then after all——
One of the Men-at-Arms.
’Twas he himself that——
Jens Bielke.
[With a look at Nils Lykke.] He himself——?
Nils Lykke.
Hush!
Lady Inger.
[Faintly, coming to herself.] Ay, right;—now I remember all.
Jens Bielke.
[To the Men-at-Arms.] Set down the corpse. It is not Count Sture.
One of the Men-at-Arms.
Your pardon, Captain;—this ring that he wore around his neck——
Nils Lykke.
[Seizes his arm.] Be still!
Lady Inger.
[Starts up.] The ring? The ring!
[Rushes up and snatches the ring from him.
Sten Sture’s ring! [With a shriek.] Oh God, oh God—my son!
[Throws herself down on the coffin.
The Men-at-Arms.
Her son?
Jens Bielke.
[At the same time.] Inger Gyldenlöve’s son?
Nils Lykke.
So is it.
Jens Bielke.
But why did you not tell me——?
Biörn.
[Trying to raise her up.] Help! help! My lady—what ails you? what lack you?
Lady Inger.
[In a faint voice, half raising herself.] What lack I? One coffin more. A grave beside my child——
[Sinks again, senseless, on the coffin. Nils Lykke goes hastily out to the right. General consternation among the rest.
[12]. Pronounce Knoot.
[13]. Pronounce Stoorë.
[14]. Pronounce Stayn Stoorë.
[15]. Pronounce Tronyem.
[16]. Pronounce Mayraytë.
[17]. Pronounce Loonghë.
[18]. Pronounce Ahkers-hoos.
[19]. That is, Peter the Chancellor.
[20]. King Christian II. of Denmark (the perpetrator of the massacre at Stockholm known as the Blood-Bath) fled to Holland in 1523, five years before the date assigned to this play, in order to escape death or imprisonment at the hands of his rebellious nobles, who summoned his uncle, Frederick I., to the throne. Returning to Denmark in 1532, Christian was thrown into prison, where he spent the last twenty-seven years of his life.
[21]. The words in the original are “Kongemoder” and “Kongemorder,” a difference of one letter only.
[22]. Pronounce Oaghë.
THE FEAST AT SOLHOUG
(1856)
THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE
SECOND EDITION
I wrote The Feast at Solhoug in Bergen in the summer of 1855—that is to say, about twenty-eight years ago.
The play was acted for the first time on January 2, 1856, also at Bergen, as a gala performance on the anniversary of the foundation of the Norwegian Stage.
As I was then stage-manager of the Bergen Theatre, it was I myself who conducted the rehearsals of my play. It received an excellent, a remarkably sympathetic interpretation. Acted with pleasure and enthusiasm, it was received in the same spirit. The “Bergen emotionalism,” which is said to have decided the result of the latest elections in those parts, ran high that evening in the crowded theatre. The performance ended with repeated calls for the author and for the actors. Later in the evening I was serenaded by the orchestra, accompanied by a great part of the audience. I almost think that I went so far as to make some kind of speech from my window; certain I am that I felt extremely happy.
A couple of months later, The Feast at Solhoug was played in Christiania. There also it was received by the public with much approbation, and the day after the first performance Björnson wrote a friendly, youthfully ardent article on it in the Morgenblad. It was not a notice or criticism proper, but rather a free, fanciful improvisation on the play and the performance.
On this, however, followed the real criticism, written by the real critics.
How did a man in the Christiania of those days—by which I mean the years between 1850 and 1860, or thereabouts—become a real literary, and in particular dramatic, critic?
As a rule, the process was as follows: After some preparatory exercises in the columns of the Samfundsblad, and after having frequently listened to the discussions which went on in Treschow’s café or at “Ingebret’s” after the play, the future critic betook himself to Johan Dahl’s bookshop and ordered from Copenhagen a copy of J. L. Heiberg’s Prose Works, among which was to be found—so he had heard it said—an essay entitled On the Vaudeville. This essay was in due course read, ruminated on, and possibly to a certain extent understood. From Heiberg’s writings the young man, moreover, learned of a controversy which that author had carried on in his day with Professor Oehlenschläger and with the Sorö poet, Hauch. And he was simultaneously made aware that J. L. Baggesen (the author of Letters from the Dead) had at a still earlier period made a similar attack on the great author who wrote both Axel and Valborg and Hakon Jarl.
A quantity of other information useful to a critic was to be extracted from these writings. From them one learned, for instance, that taste obliged a good critic to be scandalised by a hiatus. Did the young critical Jeronimuses of Christiania encounter such a monstrosity in any new verse, they were as certain as their prototype in Holberg to shout their “Hoity-toity! the world will not last till Easter!”
The origin of another peculiar characteristic of the criticism then prevalent in the Norwegian capital was long a puzzle to me. Every time a new author published a book or had a little play acted, our critics were in the habit of flying into an ungovernable passion and behaving as if the publication of the book or the performance of the play were a mortal insult to themselves and the newspapers in which they wrote. As already remarked, I puzzled long over this peculiarity. At last I got to the bottom of the matter. Whilst reading the Danish Monthly Journal of Literature I was struck by the fact that old State-Councillor Molbech was invariably seized with a fit of rage when a young author published a book or had a play acted in Copenhagen.
Thus, or in a manner closely resembling this, had the tribunal qualified itself, which now, in the daily press, summoned The Feast at Solhoug to the bar of criticism in Christiania. It was principally composed of young men who, as regards criticism, lived upon loans from various quarters. Their critical thoughts had long ago been thought and expressed by others; their opinions had long ere now been formulated elsewhere. Their æsthetic principles were borrowed; their critical method was borrowed; the polemical tactics they employed were borrowed in every particular, great and small. Their very frame of mind was borrowed. Borrowing, borrowing, here, there, and everywhere! The single original thing about them was that they invariably made a wrong and unseasonable application of their borrowings.
It can surprise no one that this body, the members of which, as critics, supported themselves by borrowing, should have presupposed similar action on my part, as author. Two, possibly more than two, of the newspapers promptly discovered that I had borrowed this, that, and the other thing from Henrik Hertz’s play, Svend Dyring’s House.
This is a baseless and indefensible critical assertion. It is evidently to be ascribed to the fact that the metre of the ancient ballads is employed in both plays. But my tone is quite different from Hertz’s; the language of my play has a different ring; a light summer breeze plays over the rhythm of my verse; over that of Hertz’s brood the storms of autumn.
Nor, as regards the characters, the action, and the contents of the plays generally, is there any other or any greater resemblance between them than that which is a natural consequence of the derivation of the subjects of both from the narrow circle of ideas in which the ancient ballads move.
It might be maintained with quite as much, or even more, reason that Hertz in his Svend Dyring’s House had borrowed, and that to no inconsiderable extent, from Heinrich von Kleist’s Käthchen von Heilbronn, a play written at the beginning of this century. Käthchen’s relation to Count Wetterstrahl is in all essentials the same as Ragnhild’s to the knight, Stig Hvide. Like Ragnhild, Käthchen is compelled by a mysterious, inexplicable power to follow the man she loves wherever he goes, to steal secretly after him, to lay herself down to sleep near him, to come back to him, as by some innate compulsion, however often she may be driven away. And other instances of supernatural interference are to be met with both in Kleist’s and in Hertz’s play.
But does any one doubt that it would be possible, with a little good- or a little ill-will, to discover among still older dramatic literature a play from which it could be maintained that Kleist had borrowed here and there in his Käthchen von Heilbronn? I, for my part, do not doubt it. But such suggestions of indebtedness are futile. What makes a work of art the spiritual property of its creator is the fact that he has imprinted on it the stamp of his own personality. Therefore I hold that, in spite of the above-mentioned points of resemblance, Svend Dyring’s House is as incontestably and entirely an original work by Henrik Hertz as Käthchen von Heilbronn is an original work by Heinrich von Kleist.
I advance the same claim on my own behalf as regards The Feast at Solhoug, and I trust that, for the future, each of the three namesakes[[23]] will be permitted to keep, in its entirety, what rightfully belongs to him.
In writing of The Feast at Solhoug in connection with Svend Dyring’s House, George Brandes expresses the opinion, not that the former play is founded upon any idea borrowed from the latter, but that it has been written under an influence exercised by the older author upon the younger. Brandes invariably criticises my work in such a friendly spirit that I have all reason to be obliged to him for this suggestion, as for so much else.
Nevertheless I must maintain that he, too, is in this instance mistaken. I have never specially admired Henrik Hertz as a dramatist. Hence it is impossible for me to believe that he should, unknown to myself, have been able to exercise any influence on my dramatic production.
As regards this point and the matter in general, I might confine myself to referring those interested to the writings of Dr. Valfrid Vasenius, lecturer on Æsthetics at the University of Helsingfors. In the thesis which gained him his degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Henrik Ibsen’s Dramatic Poetry in its First Stage (1879), and also in Henrik Ibsen: The Portrait of a Skald (Jos. Seligman & Co., Stockholm, 1882), Vasenius states and supports his views on the subject of the play at present in question, supplementing them in the latter work by what I told him, very briefly, when we were together at Munich three years ago.
But, to prevent all misconception, I will now myself give a short account of the origin of The Feast at Solhoug.
I began this Preface with the statement that The Feast at Solhoug was written in the summer of 1855.
In 1854 I had written Lady Inger of Östråt. This was a task which had obliged me to devote much attention to the literature and history of Norway during the Middle Ages, especially the latter part of that period. I did my utmost to familiarise myself with the manners and customs, with the emotions, thoughts, and language, of the men of those days.
The period, however, is not one over which the student is tempted to linger, nor does it present much material suitable for dramatic treatment.
Consequently I soon deserted it for the Saga period. But the Sagas of the Kings, and in general the more strictly historical traditions of that far-off age, did not attract me greatly; at that time I was unable to put the quarrels between kings and chieftains, parties and clans, to any dramatic purpose. This was to happen later.
In the Icelandic “family” Sagas, on the other hand, I found in abundance what I required in the shape of human garb for the moods, conceptions, and thoughts which at that time occupied me, or were, at least, more or less distinctly present in my mind. With these Old-Norse contributions to the personal history of our Saga period I had had no previous acquaintance; I had hardly so much as heard them named. But now N. M. Petersen’s excellent translation—excellent, at least, as far as the style is concerned—fell into my hands. In the pages of these family chronicles, with their variety of scenes and of relations between man and man, between woman and woman, in short, between human being and human being, there met me a personal, eventful, really living life; and as the result of my intercourse with all these distinctly individual men and women, there presented themselves to my mind’s eye the first rough, indistinct outlines of The Vikings at Helgeland.
How far the details of that drama then took shape, I am no longer able to say. But I remember perfectly that the two figures of which I first caught sight were the two women who in course of time became Hiördis and Dagny. There was to be a great banquet in the play, with passion-rousing, fateful quarrels during its course. Of other characters and passions, and situations produced by these, I meant to include whatever seemed to me most typical of the life which the Sagas reveal. In short, it was my intention to reproduce dramatically exactly what the Saga of the Volsungs gives in epic form.
I made no complete, connected plan at that time; but it was evident to me that such a drama was to be my first undertaking.
Various obstacles intervened. Most of them were of a personal nature, and these were probably the most decisive; but it undoubtedly had its significance that I happened just at this time to make a careful study of Landstad’s collection of Norwegian ballads, published two years previously. My mood of the moment was more in harmony with the literary romanticism of the Middle Ages than with the deeds of the Sagas, with poetical than with prose composition, with the word-melody of the ballad than with the characterisation of the Saga.
Thus it happened that the fermenting, formless design for the tragedy, The Vikings at Helgeland, transformed itself temporarily into the lyric drama, The Feast at Solhoug.
The two female characters, the foster sisters Hiördis and Dagny, of the projected tragedy, became the sisters Margit and Signë of the completed lyric drama. The derivation of the latter pair from the two women of the Saga at once becomes apparent when attention is drawn to it. The relationship is unmistakable. The tragic hero, so far only vaguely outlined, Sigurd, the far-travelled Viking, the welcome guest at the courts of kings, became the knight and minstrel, Gudmund Alfson, who has likewise been long absent in foreign lands, and has lived in the king’s household. His attitude towards the two sisters was changed, to bring it into accordance with the change in time and circumstances; but the position of both sisters to him remained practically the same as that in the projected and afterwards completed tragedy. The fateful banquet, the presentation of which had seemed to me of the first importance in my original plan, became in the drama the scene upon which its personages made their appearance; it became the background against which the action stood out, and communicated to the picture as a whole the general tone at which I aimed. The ending of the play was, undoubtedly, softened and subdued into harmony with its character as drama, not tragedy; but orthodox æstheticians may still, perhaps, find it disputable whether, in this ending, a touch of pure tragedy has not been left behind, to testify to the origin of the drama.
Upon this subject, however, I shall not enter further at present. My object has simply been to maintain and prove that the play under consideration, like all my other dramatic works, is an inevitable outcome of the tenor of my life at a certain period. It had its origin within, and was not the result of any outward impression or influence.
This, and no other, is the true account of the genesis of The Feast at Solhoug.
Henrik Ibsen.
Rome, April, 1883.
[23]. Heinrich von Kleist, Henrik Hertz, Henrik Ibsen.