The Death of Balder

by Johannes Ewald

ACT THE FIRST.

BALDER and THOR are seated upon stones at some distance from each other. Both are armed—THOR with his hammer, and BALDER with spear and sword.

BALDER. Land whose proud and rocky bosom
Braves the sky continually!

THOR. Where should strength and valour blossom,
Land of rocks, if not in thee?

BALDER. Odin’s shafts of ruddy levin
Back from thy hard sides are driven;
Never sun thy snow dispels.

THOR. Sure, he’ll joy in deeds of daring,
Ne’er for ease voluptuous caring,
Who upon the mountain dwells.

BOTH. Land whose proud and rocky bosom
Braves the sky continually!
Where should strength and valour blossom,
Land of rocks, if not in thee?

BALDER (he springs up, but THOR remains sitting, like one in deep thought). Ha! I will quickly fly from thee for ever,
Thou hated land, where everything so proudly
Upbraids me for my weakness—for my fetters:
Where I, pursu’d by pains of hopeless passion,
The live-long nights among deaf rocks do wander—
Whose echoes sport with Balder’s lamentations,
Each cold, each feelingless, as Nanna’s bosom,
The fair, unpitying savage!

THOR. Son of Odin!

BALDER. Speak, mighty Thor!

THOR. Thou sighest, then—and vainly?

BALDER. Vainly: without a glimpse of hope; bewildered.
What, what have I not promised, vow’d, attempted?
How oft have I, O Thor!—I blush, but hear it—
To tears debas’d myself: my tears have trickled—
Have vainly trickled—before Gevar’s daughter.

THOR. Ha! Gevar’s daughter?

BALDER. Yes, the haughty Nanna.

THOR. Dost mean the daughter of the wise King Gevar,
Who reads the actions of the unborn hero,
The will of Fate, malicious foemen’s projects,
And war and death of warriors in the planets:
Dost mean his daughter?

BALDER. Think’st thou other fathers possess a Nanna?

THOR. Gods!

[He again casts his eyes upon the ground, like one who meditates deeply.

BALDER. Behind yon pine wood he built an altar unto thee and Odin,
There thou mayst see the roof of his still dwelling.
There lives the earthly Freia—cruel maiden—
There slumbers she, perhaps—the proud one rests in
Joy’s downy arms, undreaming aught of Balder!
As if I did not love, were not a half-god;
As if by Skalds my name were never chanted
As if I were a demon, bad as Loke!
Ha! if upon my tongue lurked bane and magic,
When fear enchains it and the pale lip trembles;
When broken words and a disordered wailing
Are all with which I can express my bosom’s
Desire intense, and dread unwonted torments.
Ha! were my voice like Find’s when he, distracted,
Goes over Horthedal; as when he bellows,
And wild at last, and blind with fury, splinters
The oaks, the glory of the sacred forest.
Ha! if the blood of maids and unarm’d wretches
Of harmless travellers, stained the hands of Balder—
If ruddy lightnings burnt between these fingers—
Then might’st thou well be pale;
And thou wert right to fly from me, O Nanna!

THOR. Now, Balder, hear my word, and fly from Nanna!

BALDER. From Nanna! Yes, I ought—that see I plainly.
Ha! some accursed fiend my foot has fasten’d
To these wild mountains and to Nanna’s shadow!
And is there nothing then of hope remaining?
When did I first become so grim—so frightful?
When? Tell me, Thor, is breath of mine destructive?
Has death among my tears and smiles its dwelling?
What shall I do? Reply! But thou art silent,
And from thine eyeball flames contemptuous anger.

THOR (he rises). Ha! drivellest thou before the God of Thunder?

BALDER. To Thor, to Odin’s friend, I breathe my sorrow.

THOR. How long dost think, degenerate son of Odin,
Unmanly pining for a foolish maiden,
And all the weary train of love-sick follies,
Will move a bosom that is steeled by virtue?
Thou dotest! Dote and weep, in tears swim ever;
But by thy father’s arm, by Odin’s honour,
Haste, hide thy tears and thee in shades of alder!
Haste to the still, the peace-accustom’d valley,
Where lazy herdsmen dance amid the clover.
There wet each leaf which soft the west wind kisses,
Each plant which breathes around voluptuous odours,
With tears! There sigh and moan and the tired peasant
Shall hear thee, and, behind his ploughshare resting,
Shall wonder at thy grief, and pity Balder!

BALDER. And is this all the comfort thou canst offer?

THOR. I gave thee counsel: fly from her who flies thee!
What holds thee here, where thou canst hope for nothing?

BALDER. And can I? Ah, my friend, that is my duty!
But fly! And never, never see thee, Nanna!
And ne’er again behold the roof where under
Thou sleepest! Honour the mere thought destroyeth!
Ere that, I’ll perish here, unfamed, forgotten!

THOR. Well, perish, then! I see too plain ’tis useless
Against a harsh, eternal fate to struggle!

The hill fiend dreads my hammer’s might
Before it turns the Jotun white,
And rocks, whereon I strike, give way.
But nothing cruel fate can move;
And what Allfather there above
Resolves upon, stands firm for aye.

Know, son of Odin, thou whom reason, friendship,
Whom scorn—e’en scorn—to move are all unable,
Know that prophetic were thy words! Fate hastens!
The Valkyrie prepares the spear already,
Its deadly point already does she sharpen.
Ah, see! the prince of battle holds it brandish’d;
He strikes! he strikes! and all the Aser sorrow.

BALDER. Dark is thy speech, O Thor! dark as thy visage.

THOR. Before my eyes are murky shadows flitting.
A mortal youth, with blood of Asa crimson’d!
The fight and death of gods, the fall of Asgara!
Hear, son of Odin, wretched slave of passion,
Think not that dreams, that magic’s foul deception,
That spectres of the night my brain bewilder;
And oh! think not that merely chance has led me
To Balder’s presence, and to these high forests!
I sought thee, came with speed to give thee warning:
Fear, then! It is thy friend, ’tis Thor, who’s speaking!
And on my lips I bear the words of Odin.
Thou know’st there grows in night’s mysterious valley
A tree, as yet by men or gods seen never;
It bears a bough, which bough, when once ’tis harden’d
In Nastroud’s flames, can slay thee.

BALDER. Yes, I know it.

THOR. That knowest thou, friend! And is it a mere slumber,
A fleeting trance, a pleasant dream of battle,
With which the spear’s impregnated in Nastroud?
Ha! whom it slays wakes never up in Valhall;
In mist and darkness must he lie for ever.
From gods and men alike for ever parted,
Must Balder be detested—Hæla’s booty,
Not Odin’s quest?

BALDER. Aye; when the tree’s discover’d.

THOR. Well, now, attend and heed a father’s warning!
When Odin high from Lidskialf saw thee raving,
In toils of love, ’mong Norway’s snowy mountains,
The speech of Mimmer on his heart fell heavy.
Hear it and tremble! Not for death, O Balder!
Nor e’en for Hæla, but thy father’s anguish;
“The year”—such was his word (thou knowest Mimmer,
And scarce canst think he’d breathe the words of falsehood)—
“The year when Norway’s desert hills shall echo
The half-god’s wasted love-caus’d lamentations,
When he’s rejected by a prophet’s daughter,
That year shall see the spear which holds his ruin,
Shall see the gods in grief, and Odin weeping.”
Hear that and quake! And fly, and spare thy father!
If not, dote on and die, for that’s thy fortune!

[He disappears among the trees.

BALDER (alone). And must I die? Ah well, I merely forfeit
A worthless breath, which is by Nanna hated.
Ha! hated. How that thought that Nanna hates me
Torments my breast! Death, only death, can drown it.
It burns, it scorches me, like Nastroud’s blazes.
Come, tenfold death, come quickly, and extinguish
The thought: destroy it, crush it, with this bosom.
Thanks be to Thor, for he my eyelids lifted,
Disclosing I had chance of rest—of dying!
E’en Surtur, he whose hostile fingers planted
The tree, the black tree, by the feeble starlight;
Who nurs’d its infant root with blood fresh taken
From slaughter’d babes, and drew a circle round it,
And mutter’d magic words, and gave it power
To shoot the bane of Nastroud in my bosom,
Was not so cruel as thyself, O Nanna!
What! cruel? No, by Odin! Pity drove him
To rear up remedy benign and grateful
For the dire wound with which thou torment’st me.
Ah, maid! thou mak’st me look to death with longing
And yet to die! and die from thee! and never—
Ha! my heart freezes! The mere word would kill me!
But then, most likely thou wilt pity Balder,
And with a hot, a precious tear bedew him!

Say, O maid! when thou dost pour
From thine eyes the briny shower
O’er a lifeless lump of clay!
Cease thy weeping, cruel maiden:
All thy grief is vainly vented:
See the breast so long tormented
Which thy pity now should gladden,
Beats no more and rots away!
O Nanna! Nanna!

[He sits down and holds both his hands before his eyes.

LOKE (in the shape of an old Finman). Balder!

[He walks in a crooked attitude, and supports himself upon a knotted staff. He enters so that his back is turned to BALDER.

Help, ye gods of heaven!
Oh, I unfortunate! that frost and hunger,
And fear of bears and wolves and evil spirits
Should now destroy me on these frightful mountains!
Oh, that I but beheld a smoke uprising,
A single trace of a bewildered hunter!
That I but heard a cheery horn resounding!
But nothing, nothing! Never, never rises
A friendly sound among these wildernesses,
Which human feet till now has never trodden.
Ah! who will succour me?

BALDER (goes towards him and takes him kindly by the arm). What ails thee, father?

LOKE (as if terrified). Aha! I can no more! Ah!

BALDER. Come and rest thee!
Here lean upon my arm!

LOKE. Ah!

BALDER. How thou tremblest,
My hoary friend! But cast thy terrors from thee—
There thou art safe: this breast is warmed by pity.

LOKE. Forgive me, sir; forsooth, I was confounded!
Thou see’st in me a poor and ancient Finman.
Far, far away from these terrific mountains,
This year I built of flags and stones my hovel;
I sought for reindeer—all my wealth; they doubtless
Were captured by the bear! I, wretched being!
My sight is feeble, and the night surprised me;
The wind, as I observe too late, has shifted,
And not a star is gleaming in the heavens:
Ah! far must be the way unto my hovel!
My feet are wearied out, for I have wandered
The long and chilly night among the mountains.

BALDER. What wishest thou?

LOKE. I die of frost and hunger.
Whoe’er thou art, and if thou feelest pity—
Excuse my doubt—yet wouldst thou save the remnant
Of life which trembles on my lips, conduct me
Straight to the cheering hearth where bask thy servants.

BALDER. The way would prove for thee too far; but see’st thou
The lofty roof behind the forest yonder,
There, there resides of earth the fairest daughter:
Thither repair, thou fortunate old stranger!
There she resides.—Ah! thou wilt be to Nanna
A dear, a welcome guest! She loves the wretched;
Her noble heart swells always with compassion
For every sufferer. Only not—Thou stayest!
Why go’st thou not?

LOKE. I go; but thou wast speaking,
Methinks, of Nanna?

BALDER. Yes.

LOKE. Of Gevar’s daughter?

BALDER (astonished). Thou know’st her?

LOKE. No; but oftentimes her bridegroom
Has come fatigued with hunting, to my hovel.

BALDER. Ah who—

LOKE (turns away as if to depart). She dwells there, does she?

BALDER (seizes him by the arm). Stay! who is the bride-groom?
Speak, reptile, speak! Who? When? Reply, thou traitor,
Or here thou diest!

LOKE. Spare me, sir, in mercy!
I faint with terror!

BALDER. Speak! by all the powers,
Thy smallest hair is sacred! I have promised.
Now, speak!

LOKE. I am an old and harmless creature.

BALDER. But Nanna’s bridegroom?

LOKE. Truly, sir, I wonder,
That one like thee, a dweller ’mongst these mountains,
Should know him not, the noblest and the bravest
Of all the sons of earth.

BALDER. Ye gods of heaven!
And who? His name?

LOKE. One who is bold as Odin,
And strong as Thor, and beautiful as Balder.

BALDER. Ha! kill me not, but answer: name him.

LOKE (with a loud voice). Hother!

BALDER (with agitation). What! Who? The Leire King?
The Skioldung Hother?

LOKE. Who here is foster’d up by Nanna’s father.

BALDER. Thou killest me! Thou see’st how I tremble!
Yet, that I never saw him here! Where is he?

LOKE. At Gevar’s.

BALDER. By the gods, it overcomes me!
What, under Nanna’s roof?

LOKE. At night-time only,
As I believe; for ere the east hills redden,
Upstarts he, lovely as a young spring morning,
And griping firm his lusty spear, he wanders
Among the rocks. Ah, master! thou hast seen him—
Withouten doubt thou hast. ’Tis true he hideth
For some time past his god-like form in wadmal, [{1}]
And rolls beneath a rugged cap his tresses—
I wonder, wherefore.

BALDER. Ha! thou flash of lightning,
Which clear’st all up at once! I, wretched madman!
How senseless was I, and by pride how blinded
To sons of earth my eyes I never lower’d.
Ah! is my proud solicitude thus baffled?
But she can only love the gods, I’m certain!

LOKE. Excuse me, sir, I do not understand thee.
She loves not Odin half so much as Hother.

BALDER. Fly, slave—begone! for Udgaard, Loke’s poison,
Is on thy tongue! That foe of gods has sent thee:
Thou art his messenger, thou art—thou art, thou traitor!
Dost dare to linger? But thou art in safety,
For, worm, thy weakness and my oath protect thee.
Ha! I myself will fly before my fury. [He goes.

LOKE (he looks contemptuously after BALDER, then raises himself to his full height, discards at once his assumed figure, and appears as LOKE). My weakness, mighty Balder? Do not scorn it!
To dust and ashes, boaster, it shall crush thee.
Not Loke’s messenger, but Loke, stung thee.
Already bellows the young god with torment:
Hear, Odin! hear thy lov’d one, hear him howling!
Delay thee not! enjoy his voice and feel it!
Harmonious is it to the ears of Loke.
Quick, quick! thou ne’er again, perchance, will hear it.
Survey him near: how swells each vein with poison,
Which I have poured into his breast with cunning!
Soon Odin, soon will thy beloved be silent;
Soon from thy sight will Balder flit for ever;
Then will it be thy turn to mourn, O tyrant!
It comes—the long-protracted day of vengeance!
It comes—the sigh’d-for hour of retribution!
How long hast thou not tortur’d Loke’s bowels,
And fearless trampled ’neath thy feet his offspring?
Hear Hæl and Fenris’ Wolf, and Midgaard’s Serpent—
Loud howl they!—hear them night and day proclaiming
Thy unmatched cruelty with frightful voices!
Each of them was a god, and fair as Balder,
But now to earth and heaven, and to myself, a horror:
Each is a monster, bow’d with chains of darkness.
The hour’s at hand, the tardy hour of vengeance:
Already blow I in war’s horn: to combat,
Up, up ye mighty gods, and rescue Balder!
There see I him, the hero youth, who only,
Arm’d with the tree of death by Odin’s maidens,
Can be—so Fate decrees—this Balder’s slayer.
And he shall be it: quickly shall he brandish
The life-destroying bough, if Asa Loke,
By mighty art and wonderful delusions,
Knows how to work the maidens to his purpose.
He comes! I will conceal myself, and listen.

HOTHER, and presently LOKE—the first dressed like a Norwegian peasant, with a hunting-spear in his hand; the other undistinguished.

HOTHER (he comes down from the rocks and unbinds the skiers [{2}] from his feet ere he steps forward on the scene).

Upon the oak’s summit,
A squirrel at play
Deceives with a rustle
The hunter so gay;
He starts, and, low crouching,
His spear he grasps tight,
And, swelling up, boundeth
His hand with delight.

Now quick—be not daunted!
He’s coming—take heed!
The bold bear, the old bear,
Doth hitherward speed.
Oh, sound the most pleasant
This ear ever knew!
He cometh—a bigger
This weapon ne’er slew.

Thou sovereign of forests!
Thou pride of thy race!
Oh, fortunate hunter—
Oh, glorious chase!
Now quick! be not daunted,
He comes—be prepared!
Where is he, the savage?
His bellow, who heard?

No more on the oak-top
The squirrel doth play;
Deceived has a rustle
The hunter so gay;
No sound as he listens
His hearing assails,
Save the pattering of leaves
That are moved by the gales.

There comes he—where? Oh, what a foolish stripling
Am I, who here about four days have wandered
In quest of a mere phantom! Surely, Nanna,
Thou dost deceive me—dost but prove thy lover;
And think’st thou, virtuous one, that if a godhead
Came down in light effulgent, and before thee
Knelt and laid heaven at thy feet—Ha! think’st
Thou that fear, base doubt of Nanna’s faith and
Honour, would sully Hother’s breast? I know thou
Lovest me—thou hast avowed it: what shall then
This wooer avail—this wooer who must not be
Anger’d? Why the deception?

LOKE. Hail, thou son of Hothbrod!

HOTHER (astonished). Ha! scarcely do I know myself!
By Odin,
I look more like a rugged elf than Hother.
And who art thou, that knowest me? who art thou?

LOKE. My name is Vanfred! When thy mother bore thee
I was at hand and swore unto thee friendship.

HOTHER. Grim is thy visage, and thine eye doth promise,
But little good. What dost thou seek?

LOKE. Whom, Skolding,
Whom fearest thou? Why hide in yonder vestments?

HOTHER. I fear? thou warlock! Wise thou wert in speaking
Of friendship!

LOKE. Spare thy wrath my youthful warrior!
Reserve it for thy foes!

HOTHER. They shall not miss it!

LOKE. And yet ’tis plain thou hidest thee from some one.

HOTHER. It was Nanna bade me. Ha! I blush by heaven!
When Nanna spake I always blindly listen’d.
She has disguised me, as thou see’st, stranger;
She plagues me with her fears; the dreamer would not—
Would really not—for all the wide world’s riches,
That the wood goblin, or perhaps some lover
Invisible, should know me.

LOKE. Pretty folly!
Balder invisible! the handsome half-god!

HOTHER. What! Balder, son of Odin? He her lover?
O heaven! Say, where is he? where?

LOKE. With Nanna.

HOTHER. There? Now? (After some refection.) She drove me out.

LOKE. Perhaps, thou see’st
That she has rid herself of thee by cunning.

HOTHER. I simply thought the Alf had caus’d thy terror;
But Balder, false one, he shall soon experience
That I fear no one. [About to go.

LOKE. Softly, prince! be cautious!
I see thy courage; but thy foe is mighty.

HOTHER. Is my arm weak?

LOKE. It is against a half-god;
Yet he can die. I know a spear which slayeth.

HOTHER. Thou dreamest!

LOKE. Spare thy doubts. That spear or nothing
Can wound his breast.—But see, the sun is rising,
And I must fly to subterranean places;
But I’ll forsake thee not. This horn I give thee,
And when thy need is greatest, then, O Hother!
Blow strongly in that horn, and turning westward,
Call thrice aloud on Vanfred—Vanfred! Vanfred!

[The two last times he cries it with a hollow voice, after having disappeared among the rocks, and the last time of all evidently farther away than the other. Immediately thereupon a noise is heard among the rocks, as of distant thunder.

HOTHER, and presently NANNA.

HOTHER (casts away the horn). Accurs’d be thou, thy horn, and all thy magic!
Is Hother fearful? Does he crave in battle
The aid of warlocks and of arts ignoble?
Is not my arm sufficient? Ha! I’ll show thee!

[He is going; but NANNA meets him at the entrance of the scene.

NANNA. Where now?

HOTHER. I go to dare the wrath of Balder.

NANNA (affrighted). Ah!

HOTHER. His stern look may teach me how to tremble.

NANNA. O Heaven!

HOTHER. Hold me not!

NANNA (anxiously and affectionately). Where now, my Hother?

HOTHER. I soon shall find him!

[He goes in spite of NANNA’S endeavour to detain him.

NANNA. Ah! he goes—he rages;
And Balder yells with wrath. Some serpent surely
Has breath’d to-day his poison in their bosoms.
They hate, they seek each other! Who asunder
Will hold the raging bears. Ah! who will soften
The foaming ones? I have this hour expected,
And long by art have I delay’d its coming;
But now is art, and prayer, and all else useless:
E’en now they meet in conflict. I am powerless!
What can my tears avail? Alas! blood only
Will satiate them and Heaven: thine must trickle,
My Hother. What art thou against a half-god?
When thy fire, Ourath, but glimmers,
Tears can quench it instantly;
But it flames, and now ’twere wonder
Could the weak drops keep it under.
Ah! thy blazes fierce and cruel
In the lov’d one’s grief find fuel,
And are fann’d by plaintive cry.
Tear, with which mine eye is swelling,
Thou canst not remove the ill;
O keep in thou fruitless wailing,
Let my bosom hide thee still. [She goes.