NILS STENSSON.
Here, here!
[OLAF SKAKTAVL _comes in with his right hand wrapped
in a clout._
LADY INGER.
Alas, Olaf Skaktavl, you too——!
OLAF SKAKTAVL.
’Twas impossible to break through.
LADY INGER.
You are wounded, I see!
OLAF SKAKTAVL.
A finger the less; that is all.
NILS STENSSON.
Where are the Swedes?
OLAF SKAKTAVL.
At our heels. They are breaking open the gate——
NILS STENSSON.
Oh, God! No, no! I _cannot_—I _will_ not die.
OLAF SKAKTAVL.
A hiding-place, Lady Inger! Is there no corner where we can
hide him?
LADY INGER.
But if they search the castle——?
NILS STENSSON.
Ay, ay; they will find me! And then to be dragged away to
prison, or be strung up——! No, no, Inger Gyldenlöve,—I know
full well,—you will never suffer that to be!
OLAF SKAKTAVL.
[_Listening._] There burst the lock.
LADY INGER.
[_At the window._] Many men rush in at the gateway.
NILS STENSSON.
And to lose my life _now_! Now, when my true life was but
beginning! Now, when I have so lately learnt that I have
aught to live for. No, no, no!—Think not I am a coward,
Inger Gyldenlöve! Might I but have time to show——
LADY INGER.
I hear them now in the hall below.
[_Firmly to_ OLAF SKAKTAVL.
He _must_ be saved—cost what it will!
NILS STENSSON.
[_Seizes her hand._] Oh, I knew it;—you are noble and good!
OLAF SKAKTAVL.
But how? Since we cannot hide him——
NILS STENSSON.
Ah, I have it! I have it! The secret——!
LADY INGER.
The secret?
NILS STENSSON.
Even so; yours and mine!
LADY INGER.
Merciful Heaven—you know it?
NILS STENSSON.
From first to last. And now when ’tis life or death—Where is
Nils Lykke?
LADY INGER.
Fled.
NILS STENSSON.
Fled? Then God help me; for he alone can unseal my lips.—But
what is a promise against a life! When the Swedish captain
comes——
LADY INGER.
What then? What will you do?
NILS STENSSON.
Purchase life and freedom;—tell him all.
LADY INGER.
Oh no, no;—be merciful!
NILS STENSSON.
Nought else can save me. When I have told him what I know——
LADY INGER.
[_Looks at him with suppressed agitation._] You will be
safe?
NILS STENSSON.
Ay, safe! Nils Lykke will speak for me. You see, ’tis the
last resource.
LADY INGER.
[_Composedly, with emphasis._] The last resource? Right,
right—the last resource all are free to try. [_Points to the
left._] See, meanwhile you can hide in there.
NILS STENSSON.
[_In a low voice._] Trust me—you will never repent of this.
LADY INGER.
[_Half to herself._] God grant that you speak the truth!
[NILS STENSSON _goes out hastily by the furthest
door on the left._ OLAF SKAKTAVL _is following;
but Lady Inger detains him._
LADY INGER.
Did you understand his meaning?
OLAF SKAKTAVL.
The dastard! He would betray your secret. He would sacrifice
your son to save himself.
LADY INGER.
When life is at stake, he said, we must try the last
resource.—’Tis well, Olaf Skaktavl,—let it be as he has
said!
OLAF SKAKTAVL.
What mean you?
LADY INGER.
Life against life! One of them must perish.
OLAF SKAKTAVL.
Ah—you would——?
LADY INGER.
If we close not the lips of him that is within ere he come
to speech with the Swedish captain, then is my son lost to
me. But if, on the other hand, he be swept from my path,
when the time comes I can claim all his rights for my own
child. Then shall you see that Inger Ottis’ daughter has
metal in her yet. Of this be assured—you shall not have long
to wait for the vengeance you have thirsted after for twenty
years.—Hark! They are coming up the stairs! Olaf
Skaktavl,—it lies with you whether tomorrow I shall be no
more than a childless woman, or ——
OLAF SKAKTAVL.
So be it! I have yet one sound hand left.
[_Gives her his hand._] Inger Gyldenlöve—your name shall not
die out through me.
_Follows_ NILS STENSSON _into the inner room._
LADY INGER.
[_Pale and trembling._] But dare I——?
[_A noise is heard in the room; she rushes with a
scream towards the door._
No, no,—it must not be!
[_A heavy fall is heard within; she covers her ears
with her hands and hurries back across the hall
with a wild look. After a pause she takes her
hands cautiously away, listens again, and says
softly:_
Now it is over. All is still within——
Thou sawest it, God—I repented me! But Olaf Skaktavl was too
swift of hand.
[OLAF SKAKTAVL _comes silently into the hall._
LADY INGER.
[_After a pause, without looking at him._] Is it done?
OLAF SKAKTAVL.
You need fear him no more; he will betray no one.
LADY INGER.
[_As before._] Then he is dumb?
OLAF SKAKTAVL.
Six inches of steel in his breast. I felled him with my left
hand.
LADY INGER.
Ay, ay—the right was too good for such work.
OLAF SKAKTAVL.
That is your affair;—the thought was yours.—And now to
Sweden! Peace be with you meanwhile! When next we meet at
Östråt, I shall bring another with me.
[_Goes out by the furthest door on the right._
LADY INGER.
Blood on my hands. Then ’twas to come to that!—He begins to
be dear-bought now.
[BIÖRN _comes in, with a number of Swedish_
MEN-AT-ARMS, _by the first door on the right._
ONE OF THE MEN-AT-ARMS.
Pardon, if you are the lady of the house——
LADY INGER.
Is it Count Sture ye seek?
THE MAN-AT-ARMS.
The same.
LADY INGER.
Then you are on the right track. The Count has sought refuge
with me.
THE MAN-AT-ARMS.
Refuge? Pardon, my noble lady,—you have no power to harbour
him; for——
LADY INGER.
That the Count himself has doubtless understood; and
therefore he has—ay, look for yourselves—therefore he has
taken his own life.
THE MAN-AT-ARMS.
His own life!
LADY INGER.
Look for yourselves, I say. You will find the corpse within
there. And since he already stands before another judge, it
is my prayer that he may be borne hence with all the honour
that beseems his noble birth.—Biörn, you know my own coffin
has stood ready this many a year in the secret chamber. [_To
the_ MEN-AT-ARMS.] I pray that in it you will bear Count
Sture’s body to Sweden.
THE MAN-AT-ARMS.
It shall be as you command. [_To one of the others._] Haste
with these tidings to Jens Bielke. He holds the road with
the rest of the troop. We others must in and——
_One of the_ MEN-AT-ARMS _goes out to the right; the
others go with_ BIÖRN _into the room on the
left._
LADY INGER.
[_Moves about for a time in uneasy silence._]
If Count Sture had not taken such hurried leave of the
world, within a month he had hung on a gallows, or had lain
for all his days in a dungeon. Had he been better served
with such a lot?
Or else he had bought his life by betraying my child into
the hands of my foes. Is it _I_, then, that have slain him?
Does not even the wolf defend her cubs? Who dare condemn me
for striking my claws into him that would have reft me of my
flesh and blood?—It had to be. No mother but would have done
even as I.
But ’tis no time for idle musings now. I must to work.
[_Sits down by the table on the left._
I will write to all my friends throughout the land. They
must rise as one man to support the great cause. A new
king,—regent first, and then king——
_Begins to write, but falls into thought, and says
softly:_
Who will be chosen in the dead man’s place?—A king’s
mother—? ’Tis a fair word. It has but one blemish—the
hateful likeness to another word.—King’s _mother_ and—king’s
_murderer_.[21]—King’s murderer—one that takes a king’s
life. King’s mother—one that gives a king life.
[_She rises._
Well, then; I will make good what I have taken.—My son shall
be a king!
_She sits down again and begins writing, but pushes
the paper away again, and leans back in her
chair._
There is ever an eerie feeling in a house where lies a
corpse. ’Tis therefore my mood is so strange. [_Turns her
head to one side as if speaking to some one._] Not
therefore? Why else should it be?
[_Broodingly._
Is there such a great gulf, then, between openly striking
down a foe and slaying one—thus? Knut Alfson had cleft many
a brow with his sword; yet was his own as peaceful as a
child’s. Why then do I ever see this—[_makes a motion as
though striking with a knife_]—-this stab in the heart—and
the gush of red blood after?
_Rings, and goes on speaking while shifting about
her papers._
Hereafter I will have nought to do with such ugly sights. I
will be at work both day and night. And in a month—in a
month my son will be here——
BIÖRN.
[_Entering._] Did you strike the bell, my lady?
LADY INGER.
[_Writing._] Bring more lights. See to it in future that
there are many lights in the room.
[BIÖRN _goes out again to the left._
LADY INGER.
_After a pause, rises impetuously._] No, no, no;—I cannot
guide the pen to-night! My head is burning and throbbing——
[_Startled, listens._
What is _that_? Ah, they are screwing the lid on the coffin.
They told me when I was a child the story of Sir Aage,[22]
who rose up and walked with his coffin on his back.—If _he_
in there bethought him one night to come with the coffin on
his back, and thank me for the loan? [_Laughs quietly._]
H’m—what have we grown people to do with childish fancies?
[_Vehemently._] Nevertheless, such stories do no good! They
give uneasy dreams. When my son is king, they shall be
forbidden.
_Paces up and down once or twice; then opens the
window._
How long is it, commonly, ere a body begins to rot? All the
rooms must be aired. ’Tis not wholesome here till that be
done.
BIÖRN _comes in with two lighted
branch-candlesticks, which he places on the
tables._
LADY INGER.
[_Who has set to work at the papers again._] It is well. See
you forget not what I have said. Many lights on the table!
What are they about now in there?
BIÖRN.
They are still screwing down the coffin-lid.
LADY INGER.
[_Writing._] Are they screwing it down _tight_?
BIÖRN.
As tight as need be.
LADY INGER.
Ay, ay—who can tell how tight it needs to be? Do you see
that ’tis well done.
[_Goes up to him with her hand full of papers, and
says mysteriously:_
Biörn, you are an old man; but _one_ counsel I will give
you. Be on your guard against all men—both those that are
dead and those that are still to die.—Now go in—go in and
see to it that they screw the lid down tightly.
BIÖRN.
[_Softly, shaking his head._] I cannot make her out.
[_Goes back again into the room on the left._
LADY INGER.
[_Begins to seal a letter, but throws it down half-closed;
walks up and down awhile, and then says vehemently:_] Were I
a coward I had never done it—never to all eternity! Were I a
coward, I had shrieked to myself: Refrain, while there is
yet a shred of hope for the saving of thy soul!
[_Her eye falls on Sten Sture’s picture; she turns
to avoid seeing it, and says softly:_
He is laughing down at me as though he were alive! Pah!
[_Turns the picture to the wall without looking at it._
Wherefore did you laugh? Was it because I did evil to your
son? But the other,—is not he your son too? And he is _mine_
as well; mark that!
[_Glances stealthily along the row of pictures._
So wild as they are to-night, I have never seen them yet.
Their eyes follow me wherever I may go. [_Stamps on the
floor._] I will not have it! I will have peace in my house!
[_Begins to turn all the pictures to the wall._] Ay, if it
were the Holy Virgin herself——Thinkest thou _now_ is the
time——? Why didst thou never hear my prayers, my burning
prayers, that I might have my child again? Why? Because the
monk of Wittenberg is right: There is no mediator between
God and man!
[_She draws her breath heavily, and continues in
ever-increasing distraction._
’Tis well that I know what to think in such things. There
was no one to see what was done in there. There is none to
bear witness against me.
[_Suddenly stretches out her hands and whispers:_
My son! My beloved child! Come to me! Here I am!—Hush! I
will tell you something: They hate me up there—beyond the
stars—because I bore you into the world. ’Twas their will
that I should bear the Lord God’s standard over all the
land. But I went my own way. That is why I have had to
suffer so much and so long.
BIÖRN.
[_Comes from the room on the left._] My lady, I have to tell
you—Christ save me—what is this?
LADY INGER.
[_Has climbed up into the high-seat by the right-hand
wall._] Hush! Hush! I am the King’s mother. My son has been
chosen king. The struggle was hard ere it came to this—for
’twas with the Almighty One himself I had to strive.
NILS LYKKE.
[_Comes in breathless from the right._] He is saved! I have
Jens Bielke’s promise. Lady Inger,—know that——
LADY INGER.
Peace, I say! look how the people swarm.
[_A funeral hymn is heard from the room within._
There comes the coronation train. What a throng! All men bow
themselves before the King’s mother. Ay, ay; has she not
fought for her son—even till her hands grew red
withal?—Where are my daughters? I see them not.
NILS LYKKE.
God’s blood!—what has befallen here?
LADY INGER.
My daughters—my fair daughters! I have none any more. I had
_one_ left, and her I lost even as she was mounting her
bridal bed. [_Whispers._] In it lay Lucia dead. There was no
room for two.
NILS LYKKE.
Ah—it has come to this! The Lord’s vengeance is upon me.
LADY INGER.
Can you see him? Look, look! ’Tis the King. It is Inger
Gyldenlöve’s son! I know him by the crown and by Sten
Sture’s ring that he wears round his neck. Hark, what a
joyful sound! He is coming! Soon will he be in my arms!
Ha-ha!—who conquers, God or I?
[_The_ MEN-AT-ARMS _come out with the coffin._
LADY INGER.
[_Clutches at her head and shrieks._] The corpse!
[_Whispers._] Pah! ’Tis a hideous dream. [_Sinks back
into the high-seat._
JENS BIELKE.
[_Who has come in from the right, stops and cries in
astonishment._] Dead! Then after all——
ONE OF THE MEN-AT-ARMS.
’Twas he himself that——
JENS BIELKE.
[_With a look at_ NILS LYKKE.] He himself——?
NILS LYKKE.
Hush!
LADY INGER.
[_Faintly, coming to herself._] Ay, right;—now I remember
all.
JENS BIELKE.
[_To the_ MEN-AT-ARMS.] Set down the corpse. It is not Count
Sture.
ONE OF THE MEN-AT-ARMS.
Your pardon, Captain;—this ring that he wore around his
neck——
NILS LYKKE.
[_Seizes his arm._] Be still!
LADY INGER.
[_Starts up._] The ring? The ring!
[_Rushes up and snatches the ring from him._
Sten Sture’s ring! [_With a shriek._] Oh God, oh God—my son!
[_Throws herself down on the coffin._
THE MEN-AT-ARMS.
Her son?
JENS BIELKE.
[_At the same time._] Inger Gyldenlöve’s son?
NILS LYKKE.
So is it.
JENS BIELKE.
But why did you not tell me——?
BIÖRN.
[_Trying to raise her up._] Help! help! My lady—what ails
you? what lack you?
LADY INGER.
[_In a faint voice, half raising herself._] What lack I? One
coffin more. A grave beside my child——
[_Sinks again, senseless, on the coffin._ NILS LYKKE
_goes hastily out to the right. General
consternation among the rest._
-----
Footnote 12:
Pronounce _Knoot_.
Footnote 13:
Pronounce _Stoorë_.
Footnote 14:
Pronounce _Stayn Stoorë_.
Footnote 15:
Pronounce _Tronyem_.
Footnote 16:
Pronounce _Mayraytë_.
Footnote 17:
Pronounce _Loonghë_.
Footnote 18:
Pronounce _Ahkers-hoos_.
Footnote 19:
That is, Peter the Chancellor.
Footnote 20:
King Christian II. of Denmark (the perpetrator of the
massacre at Stockholm known as the Blood-Bath) fled to
Holland in 1523, five years before the date assigned to
this play, in order to escape death or imprisonment at the
hands of his rebellious nobles, who summoned his uncle,
Frederick I., to the throne. Returning to Denmark in 1532,
Christian was thrown into prison, where he spent the last
twenty-seven years of his life.
Footnote 21:
The words in the original are “Kongemoder” and
“Kongemorder,” a difference of one letter only.
Footnote 22:
Pronounce _Oaghë_.
-----
THE FEAST AT SOLHOUG
(1856)
THE AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE
SECOND EDITION
I wrote _The Feast at Solhoug_ in Bergen in the summer of 1855—that
is to say, about twenty-eight years ago.
The play was acted for the first time on January 2, 1856, also at
Bergen, as a gala performance on the anniversary of the foundation
of the Norwegian Stage.
As I was then stage-manager of the Bergen Theatre, it was I myself
who conducted the rehearsals of my play. It received an excellent, a
remarkably sympathetic interpretation. Acted with pleasure and
enthusiasm, it was received in the same spirit. The “Bergen
emotionalism,” which is said to have decided the result of the
latest elections in those parts, ran high that evening in the
crowded theatre. The performance ended with repeated calls for the
author and for the actors. Later in the evening I was serenaded by
the orchestra, accompanied by a great part of the audience. I almost
think that I went so far as to make some kind of speech from my
window; certain I am that I felt extremely happy.
A couple of months later, _The Feast at Solhoug_ was played in
Christiania. There also it was received by the public with much
approbation, and the day after the first performance Björnson wrote
a friendly, youthfully ardent article on it in the _Morgenblad_. It
was not a notice or criticism proper, but rather a free, fanciful
improvisation on the play and the performance.
On this, however, followed the real criticism, written by the real
critics.
How did a man in the Christiania of those days—by which I mean the
years between 1850 and 1860, or thereabouts—become a real literary,
and in particular dramatic, critic?
As a rule, the process was as follows: After some preparatory
exercises in the columns of the _Samfundsblad_, and after having
frequently listened to the discussions which went on in Treschow’s
café or at “Ingebret’s” after the play, the future critic betook
himself to Johan Dahl’s bookshop and ordered from Copenhagen a copy
of J. L. Heiberg’s _Prose Works_, among which was to be found—so he
had heard it said—an essay entitled _On the Vaudeville_. This essay
was in due course read, ruminated on, and possibly to a certain
extent understood. From Heiberg’s writings the young man, moreover,
learned of a controversy which that author had carried on in his day
with Professor Oehlenschläger and with the Sorö poet, Hauch. And he
was simultaneously made aware that J. L. Baggesen (the author of
_Letters from the Dead_) had at a still earlier period made a
similar attack on the great author who wrote both _Axel and Valborg_
and _Hakon Jarl_.
A quantity of other information useful to a critic was to be
extracted from these writings. From them one learned, for instance,
that taste obliged a good critic to be scandalised by a hiatus. Did
the young critical Jeronimuses of Christiania encounter such a
monstrosity in any new verse, they were as certain as their
prototype in Holberg to shout their “Hoity-toity! the world will not
last till Easter!”
The origin of another peculiar characteristic of the criticism then
prevalent in the Norwegian capital was long a puzzle to me. Every
time a new author published a book or had a little play acted, our
critics were in the habit of flying into an ungovernable passion and
behaving as if the publication of the book or the performance of the
play were a mortal insult to themselves and the newspapers in which
they wrote. As already remarked, I puzzled long over this
peculiarity. At last I got to the bottom of the matter. Whilst
reading the Danish _Monthly Journal of Literature_ I was struck by
the fact that old State-Councillor Molbech was invariably seized
with a fit of rage when a young author published a book or had a
play acted in Copenhagen.
Thus, or in a manner closely resembling this, had the tribunal
qualified itself, which now, in the daily press, summoned _The Feast
at Solhoug_ to the bar of criticism in Christiania. It was
principally composed of young men who, as regards criticism, lived
upon loans from various quarters. Their critical thoughts had long
ago been thought and expressed by others; their opinions had long
ere now been formulated elsewhere. Their æsthetic principles were
borrowed; their critical method was borrowed; the polemical tactics
they employed were borrowed in every particular, great and small.
Their very frame of mind was borrowed. Borrowing, borrowing, here,
there, and everywhere! The single original thing about them was that
they invariably made a wrong and unseasonable application of their
borrowings.
It can surprise no one that this body, the members of which, as
critics, supported themselves by borrowing, should have presupposed
similar action on my part, as author. Two, possibly more than two,
of the newspapers promptly discovered that I had borrowed this,
that, and the other thing from Henrik Hertz’s play, _Svend Dyring’s
House_.
This is a baseless and indefensible critical assertion. It is
evidently to be ascribed to the fact that the metre of the ancient
ballads is employed in both plays. But my tone is quite different
from Hertz’s; the language of my play has a different ring; a light
summer breeze plays over the rhythm of my verse; over that of
Hertz’s brood the storms of autumn.
Nor, as regards the characters, the action, and the contents of the
plays generally, is there any other or any greater resemblance
between them than that which is a natural consequence of the
derivation of the subjects of both from the narrow circle of ideas
in which the ancient ballads move.
It might be maintained with quite as much, or even more, reason that
Hertz in his _Svend Dyring’s House_ had borrowed, and that to no
inconsiderable extent, from Heinrich von Kleist’s _Käthchen von
Heilbronn_, a play written at the beginning of this century.
Käthchen’s relation to Count Wetterstrahl is in all essentials the
same as Ragnhild’s to the knight, Stig Hvide. Like Ragnhild,
Käthchen is compelled by a mysterious, inexplicable power to follow
the man she loves wherever he goes, to steal secretly after him, to
lay herself down to sleep near him, to come back to him, as by some
innate compulsion, however often she may be driven away. And other
instances of supernatural interference are to be met with both in
Kleist’s and in Hertz’s play.
But does any one doubt that it would be possible, with a little
good- or a little ill-will, to discover among still older dramatic
literature a play from which it could be maintained that Kleist had
borrowed here and there in his _Käthchen von Heilbronn_? I, for my
part, do not doubt it. But such suggestions of indebtedness are
futile. What makes a work of art the spiritual property of its
creator is the fact that he has imprinted on it the stamp of his own
personality. Therefore I hold that, in spite of the above-mentioned
points of resemblance, _Svend Dyring’s House_ is as incontestably
and entirely an original work by Henrik Hertz as _Käthchen von
Heilbronn_ is an original work by Heinrich von Kleist.
I advance the same claim on my own behalf as regards _The Feast at
Solhoug_, and I trust that, for the future, each of the three
namesakes[23] will be permitted to keep, in its entirety, what
rightfully belongs to him.
In writing of _The Feast at Solhoug_ in connection with _Svend
Dyring’s House_, George Brandes expresses the opinion, not that the
former play is founded upon any idea borrowed from the latter, but
that it has been written under an influence exercised by the older
author upon the younger. Brandes invariably criticises my work in
such a friendly spirit that I have all reason to be obliged to him
for this suggestion, as for so much else.
Nevertheless I must maintain that he, too, is in this instance
mistaken. I have never specially admired Henrik Hertz as a
dramatist. Hence it is impossible for me to believe that he should,
unknown to myself, have been able to exercise any influence on my
dramatic production.
As regards this point and the matter in general, I might confine
myself to referring those interested to the writings of Dr. Valfrid
Vasenius, lecturer on Æsthetics at the University of Helsingfors. In
the thesis which gained him his degree of Doctor of Philosophy,
_Henrik Ibsen’s Dramatic Poetry in its First Stage_ (1879), and also
in _Henrik Ibsen: The Portrait of a Skald_ (Jos. Seligman & Co.,
Stockholm, 1882), Vasenius states and supports his views on the
subject of the play at present in question, supplementing them in
the latter work by what I told him, very briefly, when we were
together at Munich three years ago.
But, to prevent all misconception, I will now myself give a short
account of the origin of _The Feast at Solhoug_.
I began this Preface with the statement that _The Feast at Solhoug_
was written in the summer of 1855.