For the last time, Inger Gyldenlöve—you are not to be moved from your purpose?
Lady Inger.
I can do nought else. And my counsel to you is: do as I do. If it be Heaven’s will that Norway perish utterly, perish it must, for all we may do to save it.
OLAF SKAKTAVL.
And think you I can content my heart with that belief? Shall I sit and look idly on, now that the hour is come? Do you forget the reckoning I have against them? They have robbed me of my lands, and parcelled them out among themselves. My son, my only child, the last of my race, they have slaughtered like a dog. Myself they have outlawed and hunted through forest and fell these twenty years.—Once and again have folk whispered of my death; but this I believe, that they shall not lay me beneath the sod before I have seen my vengeance.
Lady Inger.
There is there a long life before you. What have you in mind to do?
Olaf Skaktavl.
Do? How should I know what I will do? It has never been my part to plot and plan. That is where you must help me. You have the wit for that. I have but my sword and my two arms.
Lady Inger.