PLAYS
BY
AUGUST STRINDBERG
FOURTH SERIES
THE BRIDAL CROWN
THE SPOOK SONATA
THE FIRST WARNING
GUSTAVUS VASA
TRANSLATED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
EDWIN BJÖRKMAN
AUTHORIZED EDITION
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1916
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
THE BRIDAL CROWN
THE SPOOK SONATA
THE FIRST WARNING
GUSTAVUS VASA
MUSICAL APPENDIX TO "THE BRIDAL CROWN"
INTRODUCTION
The province of Dalecarlia has often been called the heart of Sweden.
It is a centrally located inland province, said to contain a sample
of everything the country can offer in the way of natural beauty. For
centuries it played a remarkable part in Swedish history, taking the
leadership time and again in the long struggle to rid the nation of a
perverted and abused union with Denmark and Norway. It has preserved
the original stock, the original language, and the original customs
of the race as no other province. The dialects used in Dalecarlia are
among the most difficult to understand for outsiders and have an air of
antiquity that irresistibly leads the thought back to old Norse. The
picturesque costumes characteristic of the different parishes are still
in use, and one of these--that of Rättvik--has almost become _the_
national costume of Sweden.
The people are simple and shrewd, stem and kindly, energetic and
obstinate, loyal and independent. They have much in common with the
old New England stock, but possess, in spite of their unmistakably
Puritanical outlook, a great store of spontaneous and pleasant joy
in life. They are thinkers in their own humble way, but not morbid.
In their attitude toward each other and toward the family they are
distinctly and quaintly patriarchal, and in this respect, too, they
preserve a quality that used to be characteristic of the whole
Scandinavian north. It is impossible to read "The Bridal Crown," with
its typical Dalecarlian atmosphere and setting, without being struck
at once by the extent to which the individual plays the part of a
link in the unbroken chain of generations rather than of an isolated,
all-important point of personality. And the same impression is obtained
from Selma Lagerlöf's contemporaneous novel, "Jerusalem."
Always a very religious race, though not always good church-goers, the
Dalecarlians have long had and still have the Puritanical closeness to
the Bible as _the_ book, and they talk naturally in quotations from
that source. At the same time the old Norse stores of legend and homely
wisdom survive among them to an extent that is perhaps paralleled only
in Iceland. And when Strindberg in this play makes his characters quote
the old poetic Edda he violates no law of probability, although it is
doubtful whether the expression in question would actually come in
just such a form from living lips. I mean that the sentiment of such
a phrase as "Vagrant women make bread of mould for their men as only
food" survives among the people, while it is likely to have gradually
changed into a form more wholly their own.
No matter from where the inspiration of their utterances may come,
the Dalecarlians are apt to express themselves picturesquely,
and this inclination to lapse into rhyme and alliteration is
noticeable--sometimes in quoting old saws dating back to heathen times
and sometimes in improvising. Strindberg has used this tendency in
both ways. When the old grandfather says to the bride that she is
"comely as he is homely," he is merely repeating a phrase dear to the
heart of a people strongly bound up in traditions. When, on the other
hand, he lets the fisherman in the last scene answer, "Krummedikke's
castle and Krummedikke's lake, Krummedikke's church, and soon it will
break," he is probably illustrating the tendency toward roughly rhymed
improvisations.
A typical feature of Dalecarlian life has always been the sending of
the cattle to upland pastures during the summer months in care of young
men and women, who, in communication among themselves as well as with
the people at the home farm, have availed themselves of the ancient
alpenhorn, or _lur_, made out of wood and birch bark, as well as of the
horn made out of the natural horn of the ox. And instinctively they
have realised that melodious utterance carries farther than ordinary
speech, and so they have come to sing or hum their communications.
Furthermore, they have grown accustomed to use some song already
familiar to the listener rather than what they might improvise, and
have thus learned to pass on simple pieces of news, or a mere mood,
perhaps, in what might be called a code.
Throughout Sweden such songs and snatches and tunes, made up in olden
days by some more than usually audacious village genius, survived until
far into the past century, and in Dalecarlia and a few neighbouring
provinces they have survived to the present day in actual use. With the
flaring up of a true historical interest that followed the Romantic
movement of the early nineteenth century came a recognition of the
beauty and value of those old songs and tunes. The first man in Sweden
to make a systematic collection of them was Richard Dybeck, who,
during the years 1842-50 published a periodical for lovers of the old
which he called _Runa_--"The Rune." In 1846 the same man published a
separate collection of the folk-material just referred to under the
name of _Svenska Vallvisor och Hornlåtar_--"Swedish Herd-Songs and
Horn-Melodies."
Both this little volume and the issues of "The Rune" must have come
under the attention of Strindberg at an early period, and to both he
remained strongly attached throughout life. In the pages of those
two Dybeck publications he found almost everything that makes "The
Bridal Crown" what it is--a remarkable picture of the external life and
internal spirit of the Dalecarlian people. The musical duet between
_Kersti_ and _Mats_ in the first scene is the basis of the whole play.
It is found in Dybeck's work just as Strindberg has used it--both the
music and the words. The legend has it that a young man and a young
woman, herding cattle in adjoining pastures, fell in love with each
other. The girl bore a child, which they nursed together as they best
could, having tried to legitimise it by going through a simple wedding
ceremony of their own improvisation. Once, when the girl could not get
back to the pasture at night, she used her alpenhorn to communicate
that fact to her lover and ask him to look after the baby. This legend
is found all over Sweden in very slightly modified form.
To the old legend Strindberg has added the still more ancient Montecchi
and Capuletti theme from "Romeo and Juliet," making the two lovers the
offspring of mutually jealous and hostile families, and thereby giving
the play the tragical twist which his mood required. How he was turned
in this direction I don't know, but his work on the historical play,
"Gustavus Vasa"--it was written in 1899, and "The Bridal Crown" seems
to have been completed in the winter of 1900-1--had taken his mind to
Dalecarlia, where its first act is laid. And the idea of a play built
on Swedish folk-themes seems to have been long present in his mind.
For folk-colour as well as for local verisimilitude, he drew freely
both on Dybeck and on other repositories of old Swedish lore and
legend and superstition. One of the beauties of the play is that so
many of the extranatural figures and elements introduced are common
to the whole country. The Neck, or the Man of the Rapids, or the
Brookman (_Necken, Forskarlen_, or _Bäckamannen_) exists in popular
fancy wherever a peasant has put his plough into Swedish soil. He
is a creature of the thousand rivers and brooks that beribbon the
land from the arctic circle down to the fertile planes of Scania, and
always he is associated with an unusual gift of music and with the
fallen angel's longing for the lost Paradise. From Norrland to Scania
is told the anecdote of the tot who heard the Neck sing the song
used by Strindberg--"I am hoping, I am hoping that my Redeemer still
liveth"--and who called out to him: "There is no Redeemer for you." On
returning home, the child told his parents of what had happened and
was ordered to go back with a less discouraging message to the wailing
spirit of the waters.
The _Midwife_, half human, half extranatural, is another familiar
figure, mostly called the Wood-Imp (_Skogsrå_). The queer snatches
uttered by her from time to time are old Swedish riddles or
"guess-rhymes," which Strindberg also found in Dybeck's work, and which
he has employed very effectively as spells or incantations. That quaint
dualistic revenant, which is called the _Mewler_ as an apparition,
and the _Mocker_ as a bodiless voice, exists in the imagination of
the people all over Sweden. It is a creation of the moral instinct,
designed for the discouragement of poor maidens who have born a child
"in hiding," as the old phrase puts it, and who may be tempted into
ridding themselves of such a burden--a crime that has figured too
frequently in the criminal annals of the country.
The word _Myling_, which I have had to translate as _Mewler,_ is said
to come from a verb meaning to kill, to choke, to bury, or to cover
up. It is related to _mylla_, mould, however, and when we find the
same term, _mylingar, Mewlings_, applied to the relatives of _Kersti_,
this characterises them not as "murtherlings," as Strindberg's German
translator would have it, but as "mouldings," as people delving in the
soil. In the original text, the name applied both to the apparition of
_Kersti's_ dead baby and to her relatives is the same. I have thought
this too confusing for English-speaking readers, and have made two
terms to get the needed dearness and distinction.
It remains finally to say a word about the keystone to the whole
dramatic conflict in the play--the desire of _Kersti_ to wear a crown
at her wedding--to be a "crown-bride," as the Swedish phrase and the
name of the original text both have it. The chief ornaments of a
Swedish bride have always been the crown, the wreath, and the veil--and
so they are to this very day. The wreath is generally made out of
myrtle. The crown is nowadays almost invariably made out of the same
material. But it used to be of metal, richly ornamented, and kept ready
for use in every country church throughout the land. It was another
device meant to encourage morality, the convention being that only
a chaste young woman could wear the crown at her wedding--only one
"worthy" of it, as the old phrase had-it. To go to church without that
ornament was, of course, a most humiliating confession, and tended to
detract largely from the riotous joy of the festivity which the Swedish
peasants have always placed above all others--the wedding. Originally
the crown also served another purpose, however. It was, as I have
already said, kept in the church and lent only with the sanction of the
clergy. In other words, it was reserved for the bride whose relatives
consented to have a church wedding at a time when the sacramental
character of the ceremony had not yet become popularly recognised. For
ages the Swedish wedding was wholly a secular ceremony based on the old
custom of bride-barter, and it took the Catholic Church many centuries
to turn it into a religious rite.
There are a few minor points that need some clearing up, too. The
position of _Kersti's_ father, the _Soldier_, must be a puzzle to
non-Swedish readers. The presence of the picture of King Charles XV on
the wall of the _Soldier's_ cottage indicates that the action takes
place in the eighteen-sixties, before the reorganisation of the Swedish
army on the basis of universal conscription had been carried out. At
that time each province had to furnish one or more regiments. The
maintenance of this soldiery fell directly on the small landholders,
and from two to ten of these formed a _rote_ or "file" having to
employ, equip, and maintain one soldier. Each soldier had a cottage
and a small patch of soil furnished him by the men responsible for his
up-keep. Under such circumstances the soldier would seem likely to fall
into the position of a servant living under his masters, but that was
not at all the case. The warlike qualities and traditions of the nation
probably counteracted tendencies in that direction. Instead the soldier
became one of the recognised honoratiores of his district, ranking next
to the sexton and often filling the place of that functionary when the
office was vacant.
The use of the name of Krummedikke in connection with the lake is
a mystery I have not been able to clear up. The noble family of
Krummedige or Krummedike belonged originally in the duchy of Holstein,
but moved from there into Denmark and spread gradually into southern
Sweden and Norway. During the period of Sweden's union with Denmark
and Norway two members of that family held the famous old fortress
of Baahus (now Bohus) on behalf of the Danish king. Other members
controlled fortified places in Småland and the province of Halland
along the west coast of present Sweden. But there is no record of any
Krummedike having a "castle" in the northern part of Sweden. Whether
legends connected with this family have actually spread from southern
Sweden to Dalecarlia or the name, simply happened to catch Strindberg's
fancy I cannot tell.
The play in its entirety is one of the most impersonal Strindberg ever
wrote. Echoes of his private life are very rare--which is remarkable,
considering how plentiful they are in such a work as the historical
drama "Gustavus Vasa." In this respect "The Bridal Crown" connects
logically with Strindberg's novels and stories from the islands outside
of Stockholm: "The People at Hemsö," "Fisher Folks," and "At the Edge
of the Sea." It seems that nothing helped more to take him out of
himself and his morbid introspection than a study of the life of the
common people.
How successful he was in that study is indicated by the wide popularity
of the novels and stories in question as well as by the stage history
of "The Bridal Crown." This play has been one of the most frequently
produced of all his dramatic works. The first performance took place
on September 14, 1907, at the Swedish Theatre, Stockholm, and since
that time it has been played more than one hundred times in Stockholm
alone--which is a great deal in Sweden.
* * * * *
The list of characters will suffice to indicate what a weird thing "The
Spook Sonata" is. Rarely has Strindberg's peculiar fancy carried him
further without bringing him to outright disaster. Mingling extreme
realism of portrayal with a symbolism that frequently borders on the
extravagant and the impossible, he has nevertheless produced a work
that bites into the consciousness of the reader and challenges his
thought to an unusual degree. The best characterisation of the play as
a whole might be to call it a symbolistic mosaic pieced together with
fragments of real life.
Reminiscences of the author's own life in all its periods recur
constantly, and yet the play cannot be called autobiographical in any
narrow sense. Not even its general tendency--if it can be said to have
one--is particularly tied up with Strindberg's view of his own fate.
No, the play is in all its aspects a generalisation along the lines
of "The Dream Play," but brought nearer to the level and superficial
appearance of every-day life.
One of its purposes is to illustrate the mysterious relationship
between seemingly disconnected things and events which Strindberg
during his latest period was so prone to discover everywhere.--When in
this super-Swedenborgian mood, he was inclined to regard the slightest
incident of daily life as a mere symbol meant to shadow or foreshadow
vaster incidents on higher levels. It would be dangerous to accept his
readings of life in this mood as so many formulations of truth, but,
on the other hand, it would be unwise to discard them as meaningless.
What must be remembered first and last in the study of Strindberg's
work is that he was primarily, if not wholly, a bearer of suggestions
rather than of final truths. We cannot go to him for knowledge of what
life actually is, but we may be sure of never reading one of his pages
without finding some new angle of approach, the use of which will help
our own thought to enlarge our knowledge of actual life. Those who
demand predigested thought will always be lost in the mazes of his
irresponsible fancy. Those who ask nothing more of literature than to
be set thinking will always find him one of the most fruitful writers
produced by modern times.
For this very reason it would be futile to attempt any explanatory
analysis of "The Spook Sonata." There must, in fact, be a separate
analysis of that kind for every thinking reader. One may say, of
course, that its name as well as the strange function which forms
its central scene, points to an interpretation of all human life as a
ghostly reflection of wasted and buried possibilities. But there is
charity as well as bitterness in the play, and it seems to preach the
lesson that we owe tolerance to every man but him who thinks himself
better than the rest. It warns, too, against that interference with
other lives which seems to have been one of the haunting spectres of
Strindberg's own existence. In other words, the play may be regarded as
a final passionate expression of his will to live his own life in his
own way and of his resentment against real or fancied efforts to balk I
that will.
Dramatically this play is well worthy of study, It contains some points
that, whether successful or no in this particular connection, should
not be passed over by future playwrights. Such a point, for instance,
is the continued presence on the stage of several dumb characters
during almost the entire first scene. I do not know whether it will
come home to readers of the play that, while the conversation is going
on between the _Student_ and _Old Hummel_, for example, the _Janitress_
and the _Dark Lady_ are all the time present in the background as
living reminders of the secret threads of human life underlying the
conflict between the two men that do the talking. And the idea of
trying to render simultaneous portrayal of life within and without a
human habitation has again been tried by Strindberg in this play with
very remarkable and suggestive results.
There are several signs which indicate that Strindberg changed his plan
of the play while he was writing it. There is one character present
on the list of characters in the Swedish text that never appears--the
_Janitor_. On the other hand, that list does not contain the name of
the _Cook_, who plays such a strange part in the final scene--a sort of
infernalised Greek chorus with a Japanese soy bottle for its Dionysian
emblem. The arrangement of the stage directions in the Swedish original
indicates, too, that he intended a single setting to serve for the
whole play. He hoped probably to be able to let the action laid within
the house be seen from the outside, but, warned by his strong sense of
theatrical feasibility, he changed his plans unhesitatingly, and with
them his scenery.
Several of the minor themes running through the play may to the reader
seem not only minor but hopelessly trivial. I am thinking principally
of the constantly recurring charge against servants that they take
the nourishment out of food before serving it to their masters. This
suspicion seems to have been one of Strindberg's fixed ideas, occurring
in almost every work where the relationship between masters and
servants is at all mentioned. I think he has harped too much on this
theme, both in "The Spook Sonata" and elsewhere. I think, too, that he
is wrong in placing the responsibility with the servants. On the other
hand, I think one of his services is that he works with modern science
to bring us a better realisation of the dose interrelation between
the material basis of our existences and the more important spiritual
overtones.
"The Spook Sonata" was written and published in 1907. It was played for
the first time on January 27, 1908, at the Intimate Theatre, Stockholm,
reaching a total of twelve performances.
* * * * *
The little scene named "The First Warning" is frankly autobiographical.
It relates an actual incident from Strindberg's first marriage, to
which, I think, he makes reference in "A Fool's Confession"--a work, by
the bye, which should really be named "A Fool's Plea" in English.
In spite of sinister undertones, "The First Warning" is distinctly
a comedy, and practically the only short thing in a lighter vein
written by Strindberg. At first he named it "The First Tooth," but he
had adopted the present title before the original publication--with
three other one-act plays--occurred, in 1893. In Germany the play is
known under the name "Signs of Autumn" (_Herbstzeichen_). Beginning on
September 10, 1910, it was given eight times in all at the Intimate
Theatre, Stockholm, but long before that time it had been played a
number of times on various German stages.
* * * * *
King Gustavus I, founder of the Vasa dynasty, which reigned over Sweden
until 1818, has rightly been called the "father" of his country and the
builder of modern Sweden. He finished the war of liberation, by which
the hampering and unsatisfactory union between Sweden and the other two
Scandinavian kingdoms was finally severed. But he did much more. He
reorganised the whole country, in all its departments, on such a basis
of efficiency that it became able to play the part of a great European
power for more than a century. Some have pictured him as a sort of
superman. Others have called him a mere country squire, applying the
methods of stable and barn to a whole country. Both those views of him
are probably correct as well as incorrect. He was undoubtedly first of
all an able and conscientious peasant on a large scale, but as such he
was very much in place at a time when agriculture was the only source
of income that could be called national. And his cares on behalf of
commerce and mining show him to have had a very broad and foresighted
view of husbandry.
The figure of the first Vasa took an early hold of Strindberg's
imagination. He introduced it in the first version of his first great
play, "Master Olov." But there the king was a subordinate character--so
much so, in fact, that he did not appear at all in the final metrical
version of the play, completed in 1877. At that time Strindberg was
more interested in _Master Olov_, the dreaming idealist who placed
religious reform above political and economical reorganisation. When,
in 1899, he returned to "old King Gustav," his interest had shifted,
and in this play, said to be his greatest historical drama--and one of
the greatest of its kind in the annals of modern literature--the royal
figure dominates absolute.
When I first contemplated a translation of this play I feared it would
be necessary to preface it with a condensed history of Sweden during
the early sixteenth century. Having finished my task, I find that an
elaborate historical introduction would merely be a duplication of the
work done by the playwright. Barring a few minor points that have been
illuminated by notes, all the history needed for the understanding of
the play will be found within the play itself. The truth of the matter
is that Strindberg was not writing history but poetry, and that he
was more anxious to portray human character than to set forth all too
familiar historical events.
He portrayed his main character in more than one way and sense,
however. The _King_, as we find him in the drama, is a wonderfully
vivid and faithful reconstruction of a great man that has writ
himself in large letters on the map of his country. But he is also
a symbolisation of a type that will always remain one of the most
fascinating of all that people the earth: that of the ruler who is
conscious both his mission and of the price that must be paid for its
fulfilment. The problem of Strindberg's play might be said to be this:
granted such a mission, how much has a man the right to pay for its
proper fulfilment? And as behoves a poet Strindberg has brought this
problem to no triumphant "Q.E.D." His ambiguous, yet tremendously
significant, answer seems to be: "Such a man has the right to do
whatever his mission demands, even though it may go against his grain
as an individual, but he must be humble about it and not confuse
himself with Providence." _Gustavus_ is humbled and made to suffer, not
because of this or that act, but because of an inclination to consider
his own mission the only one in sight.
A few words need to be said about the chronology of the play. In
accordance with his theories in regard to historical playwriting
Strindberg has dealt very freely with dates and facts. The play
occupies a period of about two years, which length of time separates
the first act from the four last. These take place within a few days.
The historical events that enter as material into the play were spread
over nearly twenty years, and Strindberg has not hesitated to introduce
them in reversed order either. This license must be considered in
the light of what I have already said about his intentions. His main
concern was to show how the principal character would act under certain
given circumstances, and to use those circumstances in the manner most
apt to throw light on the character in question. And in this respect he
has undoubtedly been successful.
The Swedes think so, at least. "Gustavus Vasa" has drawn grudging
approval from Strindberg's worst enemies among his own countrymen. The
first performance of the play, which took place on October 17, 1899,
at the Swedish Theatre, Stockholm, turned at the time into a national
event. The play has since then been revived several times, particularly
in connection with the celebration of its author's sixtieth and
sixty-third birthday anniversaries, in 1909 and 1912. In all, the play
has been performed about one hundred times in Stockholm alone, and it
has been given on several German stages with striking success.
* * * * *
A word should be said concerning the spelling of Swedish names used in
this volume. It can hardly be called a system at all. It is neither
Swedish nor English. It is a frank compromise, designed exclusively to
make the reading of the plays as easy as possible to English-speaking
readers. Some time in the future, when the knowledge of the
Scandinavian literatures and languages has reached a more advanced
stage in this country, I should like to see a revised edition with the
original Swedish spelling of all names preserved throughout.
THE BRIDAL CROWN
(KRONBRUDEN)
A FOLK-PLAY IN SIX SCENES
1902
CHARACTERS
MATS
KERSTI
_The_ MOTHER _of_ KERSTI
_The_ SOLDIER, _her father_
_The_ VERGER, _her grandfather_
BRITA, _the grown-up sister of_ MATS
_The_ GRANDFATHER }
_The_ GRANDMOTHER }
_The_ FATHER } _of_ MATS
_The_ MOTHER }
ANNA }
LIT-KAREN } _younger sisters of_ MATS
LIT-MATS, _the small brother of_ MATS
_The_ SHERIFF
_The_ PASTOR
_The_ FISHERMAN
_The_ MIDWIFE
_The_ NECK
_The_ CHILD IN WHITE
_The_ MEWLER (_Mylingen_), _an apparition_
_The_ MOCKER (_Skratten_), _a voice_
_The_ HEADSMAN
MATS'S RELATIVES, _called the_ MILL-FOLK
KERSTI'S RELATIVES, _called the_ MEWLINGS (_Mylingarne_)
FOUR BRIDESMAIDS
SIX SERVANT-GIRLS
TWO FIDDLERS
TWO SOLDIERS
SCENARIO
SCENE I. THE HILL PASTURE