ERIC. [Cynically] Because I am not allowed to love you. [In the meantime he continues to pour down one glass of water after the other] You must not be in love with your step-mother and yet you must love her: that's madness, too.
QUEEN. Why do you call me stepmother?
ERIC. Because that's the word, and that's what you are. Is that clear? If it is, then that isn't madness at least.
QUEEN. You have the tongue of a viper.
ERIC. And the reason, too.
QUEEN, But no heart!
ERIC. What could I do with it? Throw it at the feet of the women to be defiled by them?—My heart lies buried in my mother's coffin in the vault of the Upsala cathedral. I was only four years old when it was put there, but there it lies with her, and they tell me there was a hole in her head as if she had been struck by the hammer of Thor—which I did not see, however. When I asked to see my mother for the last time at the burial, they had already screwed on the coffin lid. Well, there lies my heart—the only one I ever had What have you to do with my entrails, for that matter? Or with my feelings?—Look out for my reason; that's all! I grasp your thoughts before you have squeezed them out of yourself. I understand perfectly that you would like to see the crown placed on the red hair of that red devil whom you call son, and whom I must needs call brother. He insists that he has more ancestors than I, and that he is descended from Danish kings. If that's so, he has a lot of fine relatives. Eric Ploughpenny had his head cut off. Abel killed his brother and was killed in turn. Christoffer was poisoned. Eric the Blinking was stuck like a pig.—I have no elegant relatives like those, but if heredity counts, I must keep an eye on my dear brother.
QUEEN. Nobody can talk of anything but blood and poison to-day. The sun must have risen on the wrong side this fine morning!
ERIC. The sun is a deceiver; don't trust it. Blood will be shed in this place before nightfall. Eric and Abel were the names of those elegant relatives; not Cain and Abel! And that time it was Abel who killed Cain—no, Eric, I mean! That's a fine omen to start with! Eric was killed! Poor Eric!
QUEEN. Alas, alas!