[Illustration: "Can't you trust me? I'm an honest man."]
JEPPE ON THE HILL
OR
THE TRANSFORMED PEASANT
A COMEDY IN FIVE ACTS
TRANSLATED FROM THE DANISH
OF LUDVIG HOLBERG
BY
WALDEMAR C. WESTERGAARD
AND
MARTIN B. RUUD
WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF HOLBERG BY MORRIS
JOHNSON AND AN INTRODUCTION BY
W. C. WESTERGAARD
FIRST PLAYED IN COPENHAGEN IN 1722
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
PUBLISHED BY THE MIMER CLUB OF THE UNIVERSITY
OF NORTH DAKOTA
1906
THE EVENING TIMES COMPANY
GRAND FORKS, N. D.
Copyrighted 1906 by
W. C. WESTERGAARD
LUDVIG HOLBERG
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries two great spiritual movements
spread over Europe, the Renaissance and the Reformation. The former was
confined principally to southern Europe, and did not influence the life
or literature of the Scandinavian countries to any great extent. The
Reformation, however, caused a new tho brief literary era, especially in
Denmark, where the mother tongue was again accorded its proper place,
and the people again began to think of a national future.
Much had conspired to make the people of Europe lose faith in the old
ideas. Copernicus had demonstrated that the earth was only a planet in
an immense system, and Kepler and Galileo had taught that the earth
circled about the sun, and that there was order and regularity in the
movements of the heavenly bodies. Finally Newton announced his principle
that the law of gravitation governed each and every one of these
movements. All this together with the geographical discoveries of
Columbus, Magellan, De Gama and others, revolutionized people's ideas of
the universe and of the earth.
In December, 1684, just two weeks before Newton gave his first public
lecture explaining his discovery, a child who was destined to become the
founder of the Danish-Norwegian literature was born in Bergen, Norway.
That child was Ludvig Holberg. His parents died while the boy was but a
few years old, and he was brought up by relatives. Too weakly and small
to become a military man as his father had been, he was sent to the
"Latin School" at Bergen. Eighteen years old he became a student at the
University of Copenhagen. Two years later he became a student of
theology. Lack of means compelled him to return to Bergen as a private
tutor. But he soon determined to travel, and with a small sum of money
he set out for Amsterdam. After considerable sickness and misfortune he
returned to Norway. In 1706 there followed a journey to England, where
two years were spent, largely in study at Oxford. Later he made four
other journeys to foreign countries. Two years were spent in France, and
about a year in Italy.
What were the conditions under which Holberg grew up? And what did he
experience abroad? Turning to Denmark we find the religious, political
and educational status very low. We can get an idea of the prevailing
nature of government when we learn that Christian the Sixth was spoken
of in a university address as a king whom God himself "fills with his
wisdom, honors with his friendship, strengthens by his teachings,
satisfies with his communications, perfects with Divine power, a man
with whom he shares His creative strength, one who is beautified by
God's image," and "whose plans evolve from the thoughts of the
Almighty!"
In the religious field, conditions were no better. Intolerance and
persecution were the rule. He who dared depart from the dry orthodox
dogmas was promptly dealt with by law. Coupled with this intolerance was
a huge mass of superstition that hung as a depressing cloud over the
people. An eclipse, a comet or some strange phenomenon was believed to
portend some dire manifestation of the wrath of heaven and bespoke as a
certainty the judgment of God! Belief in witch-craft was common. Only
fourteen years before Holberg's birth, seven witches were burned at one
time in Christiania.
The theology of the day was such as to hinder educational activity.
There was only one student of law, for instance, to several hundred
students of theology. A little philosophy was taught, but chiefly to aid
in carrying on meaningless theological dissertations.
During Holberg's youth the social and literary conditions in Denmark
were slavishly dependent upon those of foreign countries. Latin was the
approved literary language. The new nobility was largely German,
consequently German was the language of the court. German was also
spoken to a great extent among the artisans and merchants as these
classes were largely of the same origin as the nobility. Those of the
middle class who aspired to social distinction necessarily wore powdered
wigs and spoke French. These conditions limited the use of the mother
tongue to the farmers, the fishermen and the lower classes, whose work
was frowned at and whose social condition was as wretched as it was
despised.
Holberg, however, soon acquired different ideas of government religion
and education, of social customs and of literature than those described.
He did not believe that the Scriptures were at variance with all other
doctrines except that of "divine right." He believed in a monarchial
government, but his theory was that government should be a contract
between ruler and people as it was in England and Holland. This was the
first time such a doctrine was taught in Denmark.
Religious compulsion and persecution was also vigorously opposed by
Holberg. He knew but one kind of justifiable fanaticism he said, and
that was fanaticism against the spirit of religious intoleration. The
prevalent belief in witch-craft, too, was a subject against which
Holberg frequently directed his satire.
As far as science and philosophy is concerned, it is sufficient to say
that he was guided by the English philosophers of the time who held that
experience was the safest guide to knowledge. In Holland he was
influenced by Pierre Bayle and LeClerc. In France, Montesquieu,
Montaigne, and Moliere were his teachers, while in Germany he was not
influenced to any great extent.
Holberg's great work consisted in what he did to better the condition of
the common people and to popularize the Danish language. But what was
the reason that Holberg was able to take the most desirable teachings
and customs, from England, France and Holland, and introduce them among
the Scandinavian people? To begin with we must remember that his
childhood was spent in Norway's most cosmopolitan city, Bergen. This
gave him his desire to travel. His contact with people of wide
experience in many different countries would certainly not lessen his
liberal tendencies. Then too while at first his journeys were caused by
mere curiosity, he soon determined to travel for a purpose. He wished to
teach his countrymen. When abroad he made careful observations. Foreign
customs were constantly compared with those of Denmark and Norway. But
though he was liberal, he knew the art of moderation. While much that
was foreign could be used to good advantage, there was also a great deal
that was undesirable. His judgments were remarkably free. They were
founded on his own observations, not on the opinion of others. His
liberal, cosmopolitan views his keen critical discernment, his energy
and application in his work account for his far reaching influence.
There remains for us to notice how the people were influenced by the
work of this man. Holberg wrote for and about the common people. But in
all his writings we observe his remarkable moderation. He knew that if
he were to begin his educational campaign by an open attack on
prevailing conditions, too much opposition would be the result. He
sought the confidence and good will of the reader, and then by his
wealth of wit and satire the reader was led to laugh at his own faults.
But it was not enough to tear down; construction was as necessary as
destruction. The satirical poems, such as "Klim's Underground Journey"
and "Peder Paars" brought the people's faults to view, but desirable
virtues to take their place were just as effectively presented in his
"Epistles" and "Moral Thoughts," virtues which were also exemplified in
the author's private life.
Holberg's writings created a proper recognition of the mother-tongue,
and awakened a new interest in reading especially among the middle and
poorer classes. His writings created in the people an interest in
themselves and in their land, such as they had not possessed before. It
taught them to cherish the best that was Danish, to substitute the
sturdy noble products of their own land for the ephemeric forms which
ignorance and slavish imitation had brought from foreign countries. It
helped them to realize themselves and it gave them prospects for a
bright future as a nation. In Ludvig Holberg we see today, not only the
founder of the Norwegian-Danish literature, the satirical author of
"Peder Paars" or "Nils Klim's Underground Journey," not only a
philosopher and historian, but a teacher who impressed his individuality
on a whole people, and one whose influence as a mighty power for good is
felt today not only in Scandinavian literature, but in all Scandinavian
culture as well.
--MORRIS JOHNSON.
INTRODUCTION.
"Jeppe on the Hill" (Jeppe paa Bjerget) is probably the best known of
Holberg's many comedies. It was first presented in the Danish Theatre in
1722, and has since then been played times without number and with
continued appreciation. It is a plain picture of peasant life, with the
ludicrous side turned out, of course, but so faithful in detail and
comprehensive in character that it has become known as the best
expression of medieval conditions in the Scandinavian language, the
classic representation of the medieval peasant in northern Europe. The
plot of the play is briefly thus:
Jeppe, the principal character, is a poor oppressed peasant, abused by
his wife and trodden down by his superiors. We are introduced in the
opening scene to his wife, Nille, a veritable Xanthippe transplanted to
the eighteenth century. With her shrill voice and stout whip,--Master
Erik, by name,--she drives him out at an unreasonably early hour to go
an unreasonable long distance for an insignificant amount of soap. She
is, in fact, a true counterpart of Dame Van Winkle, wielding authority
over a poor, weak Rip. Without so much as a cup of coffee, he starts
with his dozen pence with which he is to make his purchase. On the way
he stops in at the rascally innkeeper's, Jakob Skomager's, who induces
the vacillating Jeppe to part little by little with his money until the
poor peasant finds himself "broke," and with nothing to show for his
departed coin but a "glorious drunk." After a soliloquy in which he
calls to mind his past life, especially his brief experience in the
army, he is overcome by his intoxication and falls in a drunken stupor
by the wayside. In this senseless condition he is found by his "liege
lord and master," the nobleman, and his servants. They decide to play a
joke on the fellow; they dress him in the baron's clothes, take him to
the castle and put him in the baron's bed, and then wait near by to see
the show.
When he awakes he is certainly the transformed--and perplexed--peasant.
He is quite overcome by the splendor of his surroundings, thinks at one
moment that he is in a dream, and next decides that he must be in
paradise; he calls for his wife, receives no reply, and wonders whether
he is really himself or someone else. He tries in vain to connect the
past with the present. When the uniformed servants answer his cry for
help the situation becomes comical indeed. When Jeppe is finally
convinced by servants and doctors that he is the baron, he assumes his
new role with a vengeance and begins by tyrannizing over the servants
and calling them to account. He does not forget to satisfy his desire
for good things to eat and drink and after some fast music and a dance
with the overseer's wife, he is overcome once more, this time by the
wines and excitement, and falls again into a stupor of intoxication. He
is dressed in his old clothes and put back on the dungheap where he
first was found. When he awakes he finds himself by the old familiar
wayside in all his old toggery,--plain "Jeppe on the Hill" once more. He
is now thoroughly convinced that he really was in paradise, and begins
to take another nap in the hope of again coming into his former glory,
but when his wife, Nille, steals up and administers a resounding whack
on his back with old Master Erik, he is convinced beyond a reasonable
doubt that he is in paradise no longer. The situation is further
complicated for poor Jeppe and made the more ludicrous to the spectators
when he is hauled before a magistrate for taking possession of the
baron's house and tyrannizing over his servants. At the mock trial,
which is one of the most humorous situations in the play, he stands
ready to embrace the lawyer who defends him while he is wishing he could
knock down or hang the lawyer who accuses him.
When he finds himself solemnly condemned to die by poison and hanging,
he implores in vain for pardon, asks for some whiskey to keep up his
courage, bids farewell to wife, family and dumb friends, and falls as
before into a deep stupor. As he gradually regains consciousness, it is
but to find himself hanging from the gallows,--by the arm pits, to be
sure, but looking dead enough to cause his wife a few brief moments of
remorse for her past treatment of her departed spouse. After he has been
sentenced to life again by the same court that sentenced him to death
before, the magistrate gives him four Rixdollars, a great sum for him,
and he finds himself again the same old "Jeppe." When at last he is
free, and the cause of his perplexities and bewildering metamorphoses
has been revealed to him in startling fashion by the irrepressible
Magnus, his chagrin is deep, indeed. The play closes after the old
fashion by the reappearance of the perpetrators, the baron and his
attendants, the former drawing the moral from the incident.
* * * * *
Such is the simple plot of this immortal comedy. Now a few words as to
its significance. Jeppe, the hero and central figure of the play, is a
type of the oppressed, circumscribed, and despirited serf of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, despised by his superiors and
abused by his wife, drunken as an almost inevitable result of his
condition and mercilessly driven from his own home. Drink is practically
his only recourse and is to him the nearest and easiest approach to
happiness. It is as the eminent Danish critic, Brandes, suggests, a sort
of other life to Jeppe,--it is to him what music and poetry is to us.
What may we gather from his reminiscences as he calls them up in his
intoxication? His soldier days, his smattering of German, and his
campaigns are particularly vivid, and although the latter were probably
not especially glorious, they furnish him his proudest memories. Indeed
the most honorable words he could put in the mouth of the sexton as he
imagined him at his own funeral are those words so unspeakably comical,
that "he lived like a soldier and died like a soldier."
What does this peasant know, and where did he get his knowledge? The
source is not far to seek. His figures have the flavor of the stable and
the Bible and he is far more certain of his use of the former than of
the latter. He has also come by just enough of folklore to misapply
it, as note his reference to Abner and Roland. Who are his most intimate
friends? There is Mo'ns Christofferson who gives him excellent advice
which he fails to follow, but dearest of all is his dappled horse, a
trifle lazier, if such a thing is possible, than himself. But poor he
has always been, and while baron he shows that he knows to a much
greater degree than the baron himself the value of money; for though he
has, so far as he knows, more money than he has ever seen in all his
peasant days, he remains niggardly in his use of it even when he has all
he wants.
What is this man's highest idea of enjoyment, what does he demand when
his greatest wish can be fulfilled? Simply a good bed, fine clothes,
plenty to eat, sweet wine in abundance, many servants, and a handmaid.
If he has any greater ambition it would be to have more and better
things to eat and drink, and more and finer things to wear. It is but
natural that "he who works like a horse will enjoy himself like a dog."
With such ideals it is easy to see how he could imagine that he had been
suddenly transported into heaven. With the feeling that his lord's chief
business is to pilfer his hard-earned money; that the sexton is a
personage whose chief virtue is a powerful voice; and that lawyers and
magistrates are black-robed blackguards who juggle with equal facility
with justice and Latin phrases, we can see that Jeppe's idea of law and
authority was not very exalted. His highest idea of justice was embodied
in his toast, "God keep our friends, and may the devil take all our
enemies!"
Though he is a peasant he knows life and human nature and has, too, a
philosophy of life,--a philosophy which to him is his salvation. He does
not look on life in any bitter or hopeless way, yet he has that distrust
and suspicion so characteristic of the Danish peasant. He is always
master of the situation, and is cautious and sly enough never to allow
himself to be caught off his guard. He weeps in sheer gratitude when his
lawyer defends him, and he offers him a chew of his tobacco, but when
the lawyer answers that he did it from a sense of Christian charity he
answers, sarcastically, "I beg your pardon, Mr. Lawyer, I had not
thought you people were so honest." In the last act (Act V., Scene 2) we
see another illustration of his native shrewdness. When he has been
sentenced back to life we would naturally expect a profuse expression of
gratitude from Jeppe on his delivery from death. But when the judge says
to him, "Thank us, that we have been so gracious as to sentence you back
to life," Jeppe gives the unexpected answer that "if you had not hanged
me yourself, I should have been glad to thank you that you let me down
again."
While a mere peasant he appears dull and common-place enough, but give
him the opportunity which he gets from the second act and on, and he
displays a surprising readiness in his efforts to solve the perplexing
problems he has had placed before him. The question of existence or
non-existence which he has to answer might well perplex a sage; but
while Jeppe is not quite able to unravel the situation, he makes rare
use of the powers of logic at his command. When at last he is asked to
face death, he does so with resignation, for he has not had much to be
thankful for in life. In the supposed hour of his death he turns, not to
the Bible of which he is so blissfully ignorant, but to that
never-failing comforter through life--the whiskey bottle. When he bids
farewell, as he supposes, to this world, he includes the whole circle of
his interest, and says, "Goodbye," and "Thanks for good company" to his
family and his animal friends, including his dappled horse, his faithful
dog, and even "Mo'ns," his black cat.
We have then in Jeppe a character furnishing on the one hand
entertainment to the young and light of heart, and on the other an
interesting study for the psychologist, the statesman, the socialist,
the historian and the philanthropist.
Thus the author has depicted through the various burlesque and humorous
situations of a comedy a concrete yet typical character, he has given us
the pathetic history of a poor, oppressed peasant, a whole human life
from the cradle to the grave.
--W. C. W.
Jeppe on the Hill
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
As played in the original language at the Metropolitan Theater, Grand
Forks, N. D., May 17, 1906.
Jeppe on the Hill John M. Anderson
Nille, his wife W. C. Westergaard
Baron Nilus Olger Burtness
Secretary Henry Kyllo
Valet Norris Nelson
Erik, lackey Magnus Ruud
Second lackey Bernhard Sandlie
Jakob Skomager, innkeeper Edward Hansen
Two Doctors { Ingvold Knudson
{ Nels Dolve
Overseer Reuben Stee
Overseer's wife M. Ruud
The Judge O. B. Burtness
Two Lawyers { Martin B. Ruud
{ N. O. Dolve
Magnus H. Kyllo
Armed men, attendants, etc.
The scene, a peasant village in Sealand, Denmark; time, about the year
1700.
JEPPE ON THE HILL
ACT I.
Scene 1.
=Nille= (alone)--I don't believe there is such a lazy rascal in the whole
district as my husband. I can hardly wake him up when I pull him out of
bed by the hair. To-day the rascal knows that it is market day, but
still he lies and sleeps so long. Herr Paul said to me lately, "Nille,
you are too hard on your husband. He is and ought to be master of the
household." But I answered him, "No, my dear Herr Paul, if I should let
him boss this house for a single year then neither the landlord would
get his rent nor the rector his fee, since he would squander in drink
all that I have in the house. Should I let such a man rule this
household, who is ready to sell farm, wife, children--yes, even
himself--for drink?" Whereupon Herr Paul became silent and thoughtfully
stroked his chin. The overseer of the estate sides with me and says,
"Little woman, don't you mind what the preacher says. Although the
ritual says that you must honor and obey your husband, your lease, which
is newer than the ritual, says that you must keep up your place and pay
your rent, which it would be impossible for you to do if you did not
drag your old man out of bed by the hair every morning and drive him to
work." Just now I jerked him out of bed and went out to the barn to see
how the work was getting on, and when I came back he was sitting with
his trousers over one leg, and so the switch had to be taken off the peg
and my good old Jeppe dressed down until he became quite awake again.
The only thing he is afraid of is Master Erick, (that is what I call the
switch.) Hey, Jeppe, aren't you up yet, you lazy bones? Would you like
to speak with Master Erik once more? Hey, Jeppe, come out!