Early Plays, Henrik Ibsen [best historical fiction books of all time TXT] 📗
- Author: Henrik Ibsen
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When all the things I willed once, came to naught.
CATILINE. [Waves his arms.]
Away,--away from me, ye sallow shades!
What claim you here of me, ye men and women?
I cannot give you--! Oh, this multitude--!
FURIA. To earth your spirit still is closely bound!
These thousand-threaded nets asunder tear!
Come, let me press this wreath upon your locks,--
'Tis gifted with a strong and soothing virtue;
It kills the memory, lulls the soul to rest!
CATILINE. [Huskily.]
It kills the memory? Dare I trust your word?
Then press your poison-wreath upon my forehead.
FURIA. [Puts the wreath on his head.]
Now it is yours! Thus decked you shall appear
Before the prince of darkness, Catiline!
CATILINE. Away! away! I yearn to go below;--
I long to pass into the spirit lands.
Let us together go! What holds me here?
What stays my steps? Behind me here I feel
Upon the morning sky a misty star;--
It holds me in the land of living men;
It draws me as the moon attracts the sea.
FURIA. Away! Away!
CATILINE. It beckons and it twinkles.
I cannot follow you until this light
Is quenched entirely, or by clouds obscured,--
I see it clearly now; 'tis not a star;
It is a human heart, throbbing and warm;
It binds me here; it fascinates and draws me
As draws the evening star the eye of children.
FURIA. Then stop this beating heart!
CATILINE. What do you mean?
FURIA. The dagger in your belt--. A single thrust,--
The star will vanish and the heart will die
That stand between us like an enemy.
CATILINE. Ah, I should--? Sharp and shining is the
dagger--
CATILINE. [With a cry.]
Aurelia! O Aurelia, where--where are you?
Were you but here--! No, no,--I will not see you!
And yet methinks all would be well again,
And peace would come, if I could lay my head
Upon your bosom and repent--repent!
FURIA. And what would you repent?
CATILINE. Oh, everything!
That I have been, that I have ever lived.
FURIA. 'Tis now too late--too late! Whence now you stand
No path leads back again.--Go try it, fool!
Now am I going home. Place you your head
Upon her breast and see if there you find
The blessed peace your weary soul desires.
FURIA. [With increasing wildness.]
Soon will the thousand dead rise up again;
Dishonored women will their numbers join;
And all,--aye, they will all demand of you
The life, the blood, the honor you destroyed.
In terror you will flee into the night,--
Will roam about the earth on every strand,
Like old Actean, hounded by his dogs,--
A shadow hounded by a thousand shades!
CATILINE. I see it, Furia. Here I have no peace.
I am an exile in the world of light!
I'll go with you into the spirit realms;--
The bond that binds me I will tear asunder.
FURIA. Why grope you with the dagger?
CATILINE. She shall die.
[The lightning strikes and the thunder rolls.]
FURIA. The mighty powers rejoice at your resolve!--
See, Catiline,--see, yonder comes your wife.
[AURELIA comes through the forest in an anxious search.]
AURELIA. Where shall I find him? Where--where can he be!
I've searched in vain among the dead--
[Discovers him.]
AURELIA. Great heavens,--
My Catiline!
[She rushes toward him.]
CATILINE. [Bewildered.] Speak not that name again!
AURELIA. You are alive?
[Is about to throw herself in his arms.]
CATILINE. [Thrusting her aside.] Away! I'm not alive.
AURELIA. Oh, hear me, dearest--!
CATILINE. No, I will not hear!
I hate you. I see through your cunning wiles.
You wish to chain me to a living death.
Cease staring at me! Ah, your eyes torment me,--
They pierce like daggers through my very soul!
Ah, yes, the dagger! Die! Come, close your eyes--
[He draws the dagger and seizes her by the hand.]
AURELIA. Keep guard, oh gracious gods, o'er him and me!
CATILINE. Quick, close your eyes; close them, I say;--in them
I see the starlight and the morning sky--.
Now shall I quench the heavenly star of dawn!
[The thunder rolls again.]
CATILINE. Your heart; your blood! Now speak the gods of life
Their last farewell to you and Catiline!
[He lifts the dagger toward her bosom; she escapes into the
tent; he pursues her.]
FURIA. [Listens.] She stretches out her hand imploringly.
She pleads with him for life. He hears her not.
He strikes her down! She reels in her own blood!
[CATILINE comes slowly out of the tent with the dagger in his
hand.]
CATILINE. Now am I free. Soon I shall cease to be.
Now sinks my soul in vague oblivion.
My eyes are growing dim, my hearing faint,
As if through rushing waters. Ah, do you know
What I have slain with this my little dagger?
Not her alone,--but all the hearts on earth,--
All living things, all things that grow and bloom;--
The starlight have I dimmed, the crescent moon,
The flaming sun. Ah, see,--it fails to rise;
'Twill never rise again; the sun is dead.
Now is the whole wide realm of earth transformed
Into a huge and clammy sepulchre,
Its vault of leaden grey;--beneath this vault
Stand you and I, bereft of light and darkness,
Of death and life,--two restless exiled shadows.
FURIA. Now stand we, Catiline, before our goal!
CATILINE. No, one step more--before I reach my goal.
Relieve me of my burden! Do you not see,
I bend beneath the corpse of Catiline?
A dagger through the corpse of Catiline!
[He shows her the dagger.]
CATILINE. Come, Furia, set me free! Come, take this dagger;--
On it the star of morning I impaled;--
Take it--and plunge it straightway through the corpse;
Then it will loose its hold, and I am free.
FURIA. [Takes the dagger.]
Your will be done, whom I have loved in hate!
Shake off your dust and come with me to rest.
[She buries the dagger deep in his heart; he sinks down at the
foot of the tree.]
CATILINE. [After a moment comes to consciousness
again, passes his hand across his forehead, and speaks
faintly.] Now, mysterious voice, your prophecy I understand!
I shall perish by my own, yet by a stranger's hand.
Nemesis has wrought her end. Shroud me, gloom of night!
Raise your billows, murky Styx, roll on in all your might!
Ferry me across in safety; speed the vessel on
Toward the silent prince's realm, the land of shadows wan.
Two roads there are running yonder; I shall journey dumb
Toward the left--
AURELIA. [From the tent, pale and faltering, her
bosom bloody.] --no, toward the right! Oh, toward Elysium!
CATILINE. [Startled.]
How this bright and lurid picture fills my soul with dread!
She herself it is! Aurelia, speak,--are you not dead?
AURELIA. [Kneels before him.]
No, I live that I may still your agonizing cry,--
Live that I may lean my bosom on your breast and die.
CATILINE. Oh, you live!
AURELIA. I did but swoon; though my two eyes grew blurred,
Dimly yet I followed you and heard your every word.
And my love a spouse's strength again unto me gave;--
Breast to breast, my Catiline, we go into the grave!
CATILINE. Oh, how gladly would I go! Yet all in vain you sigh.
We must part. Revenge compels me with a hollow cry.
You can hasten, free and blithesome, forth to peace and light;
I must cross the river Lethe down into the night.
[The day dawns in the background.]
AURELIA. [Points toward the increasing light.]
No, the terrors and the gloom of death love scatters far.
See, the storm-clouds vanish; faintly gleams the morning star.
AURELIA. [With uplifted arms.]
Light is victor! Grand and full of freshness dawns the day!
Follow me, then! Death already speeds me on his way.
[She sinks down over him.]
CATILINE. [Presses her to himself and speaks with his last
strength.] Oh, how sweet! Now I remember my forgotten dream,
How the darkness was dispersed before a radiant beam,
How the song of children ushered in the new-born day.
Ah, my eye grows dim, my strength is fading fast away;
But my mind is clearer now than ever it has been:
All the wanderings of my life loom plainly up within.
Yes, my life a tempest was beneath the lightning blaze;
But my death is like the morning's rosy-tinted haze.
[Bends over her.]
CATILINE.
You have driven the gloom away; peace dwells within my breast.
I shall seek with you the dwelling place of light and rest!
CATILINE. [He tears the dagger quickly out of his breast and
speaks with dying voice.]
The gods of dawn are smiling in atonement from above;
All the powers of darkness you have conquered with your love!
[During the last scene FURIA has withdrawn farther and farther
into the background and disappears at last among the trees.
CATILINE's head sinks down on AURELIA's breast; they die.]
THE WARRIOR'S BARROW_SCENE1
[At the right of the stage sits RODERIK writing. To
the left BLANKA in a half reclining position.]
BLANKA. Lo! the sky in dying glory
Surges like a sea ablaze,--
It is all so still before me,
Still as in a sylvan maze.
Summer evening's mellow power
Settles round us like a dove,
Hovers like a swan above
Ocean wave and forest flower.
In the orange thicket slumber
Gods and goddesses of yore,
Stone reminders in great number
Of a world that is no more.
Virtue, valor, trust are gone,
Rich in memory alone;
Could there be a more complete
Picture of the South effete?
[Rises.]
BLANKA. But my father has related
Stories of a distant land,
Of a life, fresh, unabated,
Neither carved nor wrought by hand!
Here the spirit has forever
Vanished into stone and wave,--
There it breathes as free as ever,
Like a warrior strong and brave!
When the evening's crystallizing
Vapors settle on my breast,
Lo! I see before me rising
Norway's snow-illumined crest!
Here is life decayed and dying,
Sunk in torpor, still, forlorn,--
There go avalanches flying,
Life anew in death is born!
If I had the white swan's coat--
RODERIK. [After a pause writing.]
"Then, it is said, will Ragnarok have stilled
The wilder powers, brought forth a chastened life;
All-Father, Balder, and the gentle Freya
Will rule again the race of man in peace!"--
[After having watched her for a moment.]
RODERIK. But, Blanka, now you dream away again;
You stare through space completely lost in thought,--
What is it that you seek?
BLANKA. [Draws near.] Forgive me, father!
I merely followed for a space the swan,
That sailed on snowy wings across the sea.
RODERIK. And if I had not stopped you in your flight,
My young and pretty little swan! who knows
How far you might have flown away from me,--
Perchance to Thule?
BLANKA. And indeed why not?
To Thule flies the swan in early spring,
If only to return again each fall.
[Seats herself at his feet.]
BLANKA. Yet I--I am no swan,--no, call me rather
A captured falcon, sitting tame and true,
A golden ring about his foot.
RODERIK. Well,--and the ring?
BLANKA. The ring? That is my love for you, dear father!
With that you have your youthful falcon bound,
I cannot fly,--not even though I wished to.
[Rises.]
BLANKA. But when I see the swan sail o'er the wave,
Light as a cloud before the summer wind,
Then I remember all that you have told
Of the heroic life in distant Thule;
Then, as it seems, the bird is like a bark
With dragon head and wings of burnished gold;
I see the youthful hero in the prow,
A copper helmet on his yellow locks,
With eyes of blue, a manly, heaving breast,
His sword held firmly in his mighty hand.
I follow him upon his rapid course,
And all my dreams run riot round his bark,
And frolic sportively like merry dolphins
In fancy's deep and cooling sea!
RODERIK. O you,--
You are an ardent dreamer, my good child,--
I almost fear your thoughts too often dwell
Upon the people in the rugged North.
BLANKA. And, father, whose the fault, if it were so?
RODERIK. You mean that I--?
BLANKA. Yes, what else could I mean;
You live yourself but in the memory
Of early days among these mighty Norsemen;
Do not deny that often as you speak
Of warlike forays, combats, fights,
Your cheek begins to flush, your eye to glow;
It seems to me that you grow young again.
RODERIK. Yes, yes, but I have reason so to do;
For I have lived among them in the North,
And every bit that memory calls to mind
Is
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