THE COURTIER [Hitting him across the fingers.]

  Gently, you scamp, with a scion of royalty!

  PEER

  A rat-hole!——

  [Runs to it.]

  THE IMPS

  Be quick, Brother Nixie, and block it!

  PEER

  The old one was bad, but the youngsters are worse!

  THE IMPS

  Slash him!

  PEER

  Oh, would I were small as a mouse!

  [Rushing around.

  THE IMPS [Swarming round him.]

  Close the ring! Close the ring!

  PEER [Weeping.]

  Were I only a louse!

  [He falls.]

  THE IMPS

  Now into his eyes!

  PEER [Buried in a heap of IMPS.]

  Mother, help me, I die!

  [Church bells sound far away.]

  THE IMPS

  Bells in the mountain! The Black-Frock’s cows!

  [THE TROLLS take to flight, amid a confused uproar of yells and

  shrieks.The palace collapses; everything disappears.]

  SCENE SEVENTH

  Pitch darkness.

  PEER GYNT is heard beating and slashing about him with a large bough.

  PEER

  Answer! Who are you?

  A VOICE IN THE DARKNESS

  Myself.

  PEER

  Clear the way!

  THE VOICE

  Go roundabout, Peer! The hill’s roomy enough.

  PEER [Tries to force a passage at another place, but strikes against something. ]

  Who are you?

  THE VOICE

  Myself. Can you say the same?

  PEER

  I can say what I will; and my sword can smite!

  Mind yourself! Hu, hei, now the blow falls crushing!

  King Saul slew hundreds; Peer Gynt slew thousands!

  [Cutting and slashing.]

  Who are you?

  THE VOICE

  Myself.

  PEER

  That stupid reply

  You may spare; it doesn’t clear up the matter.

  What are you?

  THE VOICE

  The great Boyg.27

  PEER

  Ah, indeed!

  The riddle was black; now I’d call it grey.

  Clear the way then, Boyg!

  THE VOICE

  Go roundabout, Peer!

  PEER

  No, through!

  [Cuts and slashes.]

  There he fell!

  [Tries to advance, but strikes against something.]

  Ho ho, are there more here?

  THE VOICE

  The Boyg, Peer Gynt! the one and the only!

  It’s the Boyg that’s unwounded, and the Boyg that was hurt,

  Its the Boyg that is dead, and the Boyg that’s alive.

  PEER [Throws away the branch.]

  The weapon is troll-smeared;28 but I have my fists!

  [Fights his way forward.]

  THE VOICE

  Ay, trust to your fists, lad, trust to your body.

  Hee-hee, Peer Gynt, so you’ll reach the summit.

  PEER [Falling back again.]

  Forward or back, and it’s just as far;—

  Out or in, and it’s just as strait!

  He is there! And there! And he’s round the bend!

  No sooner I’m out than I’m back in the ring.—

  Name who you are! Let me see you! What are you?

  THE VOICE

  The Boyg.

  PEER [Groping around.]

  Not dead, not living; all slimy; misty.

  Not so much as a shape! It’s as bad as to battle

  In a cluster of snarling, half-wakened bears!

  [Screams.]

  Strike back at me, can’t you!

  THE VOICE

  The Boyg isn’t mad.

  PEER

  Strike!

  THE VOICE

  The Boyg strikes not.

  PEER

  Fight! You shall!

  THE VOICE

  The great Boyg conquers, but does not fight.

  PEER

  Were there only a nixie here that could prick me!

  Were there only as much as a year-old troll!

  Only something to fight with. But here there is nothing—

  Now he’s snoring! Boyg!

  THE VOICE

  What’s your will?

  PEER

  Use force!

  THE VOICE

  The great Boyg conquers in all things without it.29

  PEER [Biting his own arms and hands.]

  Claws and ravening teeth in my flesh!

  I must feel the drip of my own warm blood.

  [A sound is heard like the wing-strokes of great birds.]

  BIRD-CRIES

  Comes he now, Boyg?

  THE VOICE

  Ay, step by step.

  BIRD-CRIES

  All our sisters far off! Gather here to the tryst!

  PEER

  If you’d save me now, lass, you must do it quick!

  Gaze not adown so, lowly and bending.—

  Your clasp-book! Hurl it straight into his eyes!

  BIRD-CRIES

  He totters!

  THE VOICE

  We have him.

  BIRD-CRIES

  Sisters! Make haste!

  PEER

  Too dear the purchase one pays for life

  In such a heart-wasting hour of strife.

  [Sinks down.]

  BIRD-CRIES

  Boyg, there he’s fallen! Seize him! Seize him!

  [A sound of bells and of psalm-singing is heard far away.]

  THE BOYG [Shrinks up to nothing, and says in a gasp:]

  He was too strong. There were women behind him.

  SCENE EIGHTH

  Sunrise.The mountain-side in front of ÅSE’s sœter. The door is shut; all is silent and deserted.

  PEER GYNT is lying asleep by the wall of the sœter.

  PEER [Wakens, and looks about him with dull and heavy eyes. He spits.]

  What wouldn’t I give for a pickled herring!

  [Spits again, and at the same moment catches sight of HELGA, who ap

  pears carrying a basket of food.]

  Ha, child, are you there? What is it you want?

  HELGA

  It is Solveig——

  PEER [Jumping up.]

  Where is she?

  HELGA

  Behind the sæter.

  SOLVEIG [Unseen.]

  If you come nearer, I’ll run away!

  PEER [Stopping short.]

  Perhaps you’re afraid I might take you in my arms?

  SOLVEIG

  For shame.

  PEER

  Do you know where I was last night?—

  Like a horse-fly the Dovrë-King’s daughter is after me.

  SOLVEIG

  Then it was well that the bells were set ringing.

  PEER

  Peer Gynt’s not the lad they can lure astray.—

  What do you say?

  HELGA [Crying.]

  Oh, she’s running away!

  [Running after her.]

  Wait!

  PEER [Catches her by the arm.]

  Look here, what I have in my pocket.

  A silver button, child! You shall have it,—

  Only speak for me!

  HELGA

  Let me be; let me go!

  PEER

  There you have it.

  HELGA

  Let go; there’s the basket of food.

  PEER

  God pity you if you don’t——

  HELGA

  Uf, how you scare me!

  PEER [Gently; letting her go.]

  No, I only meant: beg her not to forget me!

  [HELGA runs off.]

  ACT THIRD

  SCENE FIRST

  Deep in the pine-woods. Grey autumn weather. Snow is falling.

  PEER GYNT stands in his shirt-sleeves, felling timber.

  PEER [Hewing at a large fir-tree with twisted branches.]

  Oh ay, you are tough, you ancient churl;

  But it’s all in vain, for you’ll soon be down.

  [Hews at it again.]

  I see well enough you’ve a chain-mail shirt,

  But I’ll hew it through, were it never so stout.—

  Ay, ay, you’re shaking your twisted arms;

  You’ve reason enough for your spite and rage;

  But none the less you must bend the knee——!

  [Breaks off suddenly.]

  Lies! ’Tis an old tree and nothing more.

  Lies! It was never a steel-clad churl;

  It’s only a fir-tree with fissured bark.—

  It is heavy labour this hewing timber;

  But the devil and all when you hew and dream too.—

  I’ll have done with it all—with this dwelling in mist,

  And, broad-awake, dreaming your senses away.—

  You’re an outlaw, lad! You are banned to the woods.

  [Hews for a while rapidly.]

  Ay, an outlaw, ay. You’ve no mother now

  To spread your table and bring your food.

  If you’d eat, my lad, you must help yourself,

  Fetch your rations raw from the wood and stream,

  Split your own fir-roots30 and light your own fire,

  Bustle around, and arrange and prepare things.

  Would you clothe yourself warmly you must stalk your deer;

  Would you found you a house, you must quarry the stones;

  Would you build up its walls, you must fell the logs,

  And shoulder them all to the building-place.—

  [His axe sinks down; he gazes straight in front of him.]

  Brave shall the building be. Tower and vane

  Shall rise from the roof-tree, high and fair.

  And then I will carve, for the knob on the gable,

  A mermaid, shaped like a fish from the navel.

  Brass shall there be on the vane and the doorlocks.

  Glass I must see and get hold of too.

  Strangers, passing, shall ask amazed:

  What is that glittering far on the hillside?

  [Laughs angrily.]

  Devil’s own lies! There they come again.

  You’re an outlaw, lad!

  [Hewing vigorously.]

  A bark-thatched hovel

  Is shelter enough both in rain and frost.

  [Looks up at the tree.]

  Now he stands wavering. There; only a kick,

  And he topples and measures his length on the ground;—

  The thick-swarming undergrowth shudders around him

  [Begins lopping the branches from the trunk; suddenly he listens, and

  stands motionless with his axe in the air.]

  There’s some one after me.—Ay, are you that sort,

  Old Hegstad-churl; would you play me false?

  [Crouches behind the tree, and peeps over it.]

  A lad! One only. He seems afraid.

  He peers all round him. What’s that he hides

  ’Neath his jacket? A sickle. He stops and looks round,—

  Now he lays his hand on a fence-rail flat.

  What’s this now? Why does he lean like that——?

  Ugh, ugh! Why, he’s chopped his finger off!

  A whole finger off!—He bleeds like an ox.—

  Now he takes to his heels with his fist in a clout.

  [Rises.]

  What a devil of a lad! An unmendable31 finger!

  Right off! And with no one compelling him to it!

  Ho, now I remember! It’s only thus

  You can ’scape from having to serve the King.

  That’s it. They wanted to send him soldiering,

  And of course the lad didn’t want to go.—

  But to chop off——? To sever for good and all——?

  Ay, think of it—wish it done—will it to boot,—

  But do it——! No, that’s past my understanding!

  [Shakes his head a little; then goes on with his work.]

  SCENE SECOND

  A room in ÅSE’s house. Everything in disorder; boxes standing open; wearing apparel strewn around. A cat is lying on the bed.

  ÅSE and the COTTAR’S WIFE are hard at work packing things together and putting them straight.

  ÅSE [Running to one side.]

  Kari, come here!

  KARI

  What now?

  ÅSE [On the other side.]

  Come here——?

  Where is——? Where shall I find——? Tell me where——?

  What am I seeking? I’m out of my wits!

  Where is the key of the chest?

  KARI

  In the key-hole.

  ÅSE

  What is that rumbling?

  KARI

  The last cart-load. They’re driving to Hegstad.

  ÅSE [Weeping.]

  How glad I’d be

  In the black chest myself to be driven away!

  Oh, what must a mortal abide and live through!

  God help me in mercy! The whole house is bare!

  What the Hegstad-churl left now the Bailiff32 has taken.

  Not even the clothes on my back have they spared.

  Fie! Shame on them all that have judged so hardly!

  [Seats herself on the edge of the bed.]

  Both the land and the farm-place are lost to our line;

  The old man was hard, but the law was still harder;—

  There was no one to help me, and none would show mercy;

  Peer was away; not a soul to give counsel.

  KARI

  But here, in this house, you may dwell till you die.

  ÅSE

  Ay, the cat and I live on charity.

  KARI

  God help you, mother; your Peer’s cost you dear.

  ÅSE

  Peer? Why, you’re out of your senses, sure!

  Ingrid came home none the worse in the end.

  The right thing had been to hold Satan to reckoning;—

  He was the sinner, ay, he and none other;

  The ugly beast tempted my poor boy astray.

  KARI

  Had I not better send word to the parson?

  Mayhap you’re worse than you think you are.

  ÅSE

  To the parson? Truly I almost think so.

  [Starts up.]

  But, oh God, I can’t! I’m the boy’s own mother;

  And help him I must; it’s no more than my duty;

  I must do what I can when the rest forsake him.

  They’ve left him his coat; I must patch it up.

  I wish I dared snap up the fur-rug as well!

  What’s come of the hose?

  KARI

  They are there, ’mid that rubbish.

  ÅSE

  [Rummaging about.]

  Why, what have we here? I declare it’s an old

  Casting-ladle, Kari! With this he would play

  Button-moulder, would melt, and then shape, and then stamp

  them.

  One day—there was company—in the boy came,

  And begged of his father a lump of tin.

  “Not tin,” says Jon, “but King Christian’s coin;

  Silver; to show you’re the son of Jon Gynt.”

  God pardon him, Jon; he was drunk, you see,

  And then he cared neither for tin nor for gold.

  Here are the hose. Oh, they’re nothing but holes;

  They want darning, Kari!

  KARI

  Indeed but they do.

  ÅSE

  When that is done, I must get to bed;

  I feel so broken, and frail, and ill——

  [Joyfully.]

  Two woollen-shirts, Kari;—they’ve passed them by!

  KARI

  So they have indeed.

  ÅSE

  It’s a bit of luck.

  One of the two you may put aside;

  Or rather, I think we’ll e’en take them both;—

  The one he has on is so worn and thin.

  KARI

  But oh, Mother Åse, I fear it’s a sin.

  ÅSE

  Maybe; but remember the priest holds out

  Pardon for this and our other sinnings.

  SCENE THIRD

  In front of a settler’s newly built hut in the forest. A reindeer’s horns over the door.The snow is lying deep around. It is dusk.

  PEER GYNT is standing outside the door, fastening a large wooden bar to it.

  PEER [Laughing between whiles.]

  Bars I must fix me; bars that can fasten

  The door against troll-folk, and men, and women.

  Bars I must fix me; bars that can shut out

  All the cantankerous little hobgoblins.—

  They come with the darkness, they knock and they rattle:

  Open, Peer Gynt, we’re as nimble as thoughts are!

  ’Neath the bedstead we bustle, we rake in the ashes,

  Down the chimney we hustle like fiery-eyed dragons.

  Hee-hee! Peer Gynt; think you staples and planks

  Can shut out cantankerous hobgoblin-thoughts?

  [SOLVEIG comes on snow-shoes over the heath; she has a shawl over her

  head, and a bundle in her hand.]

  SOLVEIG

  God prosper your labour. You must not reject me.