Forth to the mountains, come!
As the bee hurries from her winter home!
A twofold music in my breast I bear,
A cither with diversely sounding strings,
One for life's joy, a treble loud and clear,
And one deep note that quivers as it sings.
[To individuals among the STUDENTS.
You have the palette?--You the note-book? Good,
Swarm then, my bees, into the leafy wood,
Till at night-fall with pollen-laden thigh,
Home to our mighty mother-queen we fly!
[Turning to the company, while the STUDENTS depart and
and the Chorus of the First Act is faintly heard outside.
Forgive me my offences great and small,
I resent nothing;-- [Softly.
but remember all.
STRAWMAN [beaming with happiness].
Now fortune's garden once again is green!
My wife has hopes,--a sweet presentiment--
[Draws him whispering apart.
She lately whispered of a glad event--
[Inaudible words intervene.
If all goes well . . . at Michaelmas . . . thirteen!
STIVER [With MISS JAY on his arm, turning to FALK, smiles
triumphantly, and says, pointing to STRAWMAN:
I'm going to start a household, flush of pelf!
MISS JAY [with an ironical courtesy].
I shall put on my wedding-ring next Yule.
ANNA [similarly, as she takes LIND's arm].
My Lind will stay, the Church can mind itself--
LIND [hiding his embarrassment].
And seek an opening in a ladies' school.
MRS. HALM.
I cultivate my Anna's capabilities--
GULDSTAD [gravely].
An unromantic poem I mean to make
Of one who only lives for duty's sake.
FALK [with a smile to the whole company].
I go to scale the Future's possibilities!
Farewell! [Softly to SVANHILD.
God bless thee, bride of my life's dawn,
Where'er I be, to nobler deed thou'lt wake me.
[Waves his hat and follows the STUDENTS.
SVANHILD [Looks after him a moment, then says softly but firmly:
Now over is my life, by lea and lawn,
The leaves are falling;--now the world may take me.
[At this moment the piano strikes up a dance, and
champagne corks explode in the background. The
gentlemen hurry to and fro with their ladies on
their arms. GULDSTAD approaches SVANHILD and
bows: she starts momentarily, then collects
herself and gives him her hand. MRS. HALM and
her family, who have watched the scene in suspense,
throng about them with expressions of rapture,
which are overpowered by the music and the
merriment of the dancers in the garden.
[But from the country the following chorus rings
loud and defiant through the dance music:
CHORUS OF FALK AND THE STUDENTS.
And what if I shattered my roaming bark,
It was passing sweet to be roaming!
MOST OF THE COMPANY.
Hurrah!
[Dance and merriment; the curtain falls.
NOTES
1. "_William Russel._" An original historic tragedy, found upon
the career of the ill-fated Lord William Russell, by Andreas Munch,
cousin of the historian P. A. Munch. It was produced at
Christiania in 1857, the year of Ibsen's return from Bergen,
and reviewed by him in the _Illusteret Nyhedsblad_ for that year,
Nos. 61 and 52. Professor Johan Storm of Christiania, to whose
kindness I owe these particulars, adds that "it is rather a fine
play and created a certain sensation in its time; but Munch is
forgotten."
2. _A grey old stager_. Ibsen's friend P. Botten-Hansen, author
of the play _Hyldrebryllupet_.
3. _A Svanhild like the old_. In the tale of the Volsungs Svanhild
was the daughter of Sigurd and Gudrun,--the _Siegfried_ and Kriemhild
of _Nibelungenlied_. The fierce King Jormunrek, hearing of her
matchless beauty, sends his son Randwer to woo her in his name.
Randwer is, however, induced to woo her in his own, and the girl
approves. Jormunrek thereupon causes Randwer to be arrested and
hanged, and meeting with Svanhild, as he and his men ride home
from the hunt, tramples her to death under their horses' hoofs.
Gudrun incites her sons Sorli and Hamdir to avenge their sister:
they boldly enter Jormunrek's hall, and succeed in cutting off
his hands and feet, but are themselves slain by his men. This
last dramatic episode is told in the Eddic _Hamthismol_.
4. _In the remotest east there grows a plant_. The germ of the
famous tea-simile is due to Fru Collett's romance, "The Officials
Daughters" (cf. Introduction, p. ix.). But she exploits the idea
only under a single and obvious aspect, viz., the comparison of
the tender bloom of love with the precious firstling blade which
brews the quintessential tea for the Chinese emperor's table;
what the world calls love being, like what it calls tea a coarse
and flavourless after-crop. Ibsen has, it will be seen given a
number of ingenious developments to the analogy. I know Fru
Collett's work only through the accounts of it given by Brandes
and Jaeger.
5. _Another Burns_. In the original: "Dolen" ("The Dalesman"),
that is A. O. Vinje, Ibsen's friend and literary comrade, editor
of the journal so-called and hence known familiarly by its name.
See the Introduction.
6. _Like Old Montanus_. The hero of Holberg's comedy _Erasmus
Montanus_, who returns from foreign travel to his native parish
with the discovery that the world is _not_ flat. Public indignation
is aroused, and Montanus finds it expedient to announce that his
eyes had deceived him, that "the world _is_ flat, gentlemen."