THORDIS No, More than all those, for you alone of those Had need of me.—And so you have my secret. I fear indeed it is a wicked one; For I have been like a too-doting nurse That lets her heart hang backward in regret And whispers her loved one, “Grow, but do not leave me!”
EGIL For what then have I grown, O gods?
THORDIS For this: To be yourself, and free of that nurse-bondage.
EGIL Free! but alone, adrift! Oh, take me back Into the bosom of your care. Once more Nestle me there, the wild thing!
THORDIS That once more So you might struggle for your freedom? Nay, The wild thing now is dead.
[Enter Wuldor, left; he goes to Egil.]
WULDOR I cannot speak With him. When I approached, he fled from me, Silent. I called, but both his hands he pressed Over his ears, and silently among The trees eluded me.
EGIL [Seizing Wuldor’s wrists, speaks huskily.] I have not willed this; They cannot lay this crime on me—these gods, For I have annulled it, I have cancelled it. Come here, look in my heart; is it not clean? Woe thou mayest see there, yearning, pain, but not— Say, canst thou see there—murder? Answer not, But go! What will come will come; what have I To do with it? Go, go, I say. [Exit Wuldor, right, looking darkly.]
THORDIS You are ill, Your gestures—they are wild.
EGIL Why should they not be? The wild thing is not dead, but is exalted. Gods, why should we, your hinds, coin and devise Dreams of emancipation! We are quibblers And hypocrites, damned, every slave of us, To hug our chains in secret. Rather than Acknowledge what we are, the mind outwits The heart, the heart hoodwinks the mind, the tongue Cajoles and counterplots them both, while truth— [Breaks into laughter.]