A narrow mountain path up in the heights. It is early morning. PEER, in an ill temper, walks quickly along the path. INGRID, wearing vestiges of her wedding finery, tries to delay him.
PEER: Keep your distance.
INGRID [weeping]:
After this
what’s left for us?
And where?
PEER: As far as you can fare.
We part here.
INGRID [wringing her hands]:
Oh, I feel so betrayed.
PEER: Well, there’s no need
to quarrel.
INGRID: We are tied
by what we did.
Our crime is our bond.
PEER: The devil take
you; and all womankind,
save for her alone.
INGRID: Who is that one?
PEER: Never you mind.
INGRID: Tell me.
PEER: No. Go back
foot it to Hæggstad.
INGRID: My sweeting!
PEER: No bleating!
INGRID: I can’t believe you mean
what you say.
PEER: I can,
I do!
INGRID: Spoil and reject,
is that it?
PEER: Cash the bond!
INGRID: Hæggstad, and all I can expect
when my old dad’s in the ground.
PEER: But do you have a psalm book bound in cloth?
Have you long golden hair that stays unbound?
No, on my oath!
Do you glance down so modestly? Is your hand
still holding fast to your mother’s kirtle band?
How could you answer?
INGRID: I …
PEER: Were you confirmed
last spring? Have you …
INGRID: Oh, Peer …
PEER: … made me ashamed?
Could you, as she has, so disdain my thirst
for things ill-famed? No, nor the rest!
When I see you, does that day always peal
with a perpetual sabbath?
INGRID: Well …
PEER: Of course not. So what’s there to mourn?
INGRID: You do yourself an ill turn.
If you betray me, it’s no game,
it’s a hanging crime.
PEER: So I’ve heard say.
That’s no cause to stay.
INGRID: You could be a rich
man, after we wed.
PEER: Your bride-price is too much.
PEER: You were hungry to bed me.
INGRID: I was heartbroken.
PEER: And I was drunken.
INGRID [threateningly]:
This will cost you dear.
PEER: As you have made clear.
INGRID: You are set on
this ending?
PEER: As stone.
INGRID: And we fight?
PEER: Right!
INGRID walks away down the hill.
PEER [stands quietly watching for a while. Abruptly he cries out]:
To the devil with all
such memories, and to hell
with all women!
INGRID [turns and shouts up to him, scornfully]:
All save one?
PEER: All – but for her alone!
They go their separate ways.
By a mountain pool; around it, marshy ground. A storm gathers. AASE, frantic, is shouting, first staring in one direction, then in another. SOLVEIG has trouble in keeping up with her. Her FATHER, MOTHER and sister HELGA follow closely behind.
AASE [waving her arms wildly; tearing her hair]:
Everything pitched against me and against him –
earth, sky, the mountains that stand so grim.
Cold fog’s on the boil, closes about his way;
moor-tarns lurking and luring where he will stray;
the mountains stride after him with their dour trek,
with rock-fall and snow-slide, forever at his back;
and now and forever the rage of our own folk;
they will murder him for the evil thing he has done.
No, they shall not kill him, my own dear changeling son,
not while I live, though Satan himself has led him on.
[Turns to SOLVEIG.]
What cannot be thought of has to be thought of now.
He who did nought by the honest sweat of his brow;
whose only strength is the strength of his fabling jaw –
lies and inventions he works with, you wouldn’t believe,
in sorrow and want he was nourished, in want we must live,
my husband a drunkard, a teller of tall tales,
braggart and broken, forever a-swim in his ales,
our peace and our joy dead with him – my own and my chiel’s.
What could we do, young Peer and me, but endure
and forget the old life? He was nursed by a small fire.
I could both laugh and weep, making a mock of despair,
as others must do. So hard to look fate in the eyes
without flinching. Some take to brandy. Young Peer took to lies,
not that we called them that: legends both mine and his,
stories of princes and trolls, the strangest of tales,
of brides who were stolen, still in their wedding-veils,
not to be seen again in this world of ills.
D’you see why I let fancies – d’you see how hard it has been –
take root in his child-mind, and flourish, and become sin?
Why I cannot speak truthfully with my son?
[Her terror returns.]
Hear that? Hear that? Some water-demon, or orc,
or dragon-man – Peer! Peer! He is there, look!
[Runs up a low hill and stares out across the tarn.]
SOLVEIG’S FAMILY arrives.
AASE: Not a sign. Not a sign.
SOLVEIG’S FATHER: And all the worse for him.
AASE: My poor lost lamb.
FATHER [with a mild expression]:
Lost indeed, ma’am.
AASE: Don’t dare speak of him so,
he’s a bright lad with his own way to go.
AASE: Not when
I speak of my fine young son.
FATHER [still speaking in mild tones and gazing on her benignly]:
But his mind is hardened. He is a lost soul.
AASE: The Lord will hearken readily when we call.
FATHER: But can your son repent of his sins, I mean?
AASE [eagerly and as if with new hope]:
With luck he will ride up to heaven astride a buck!
SOLVEIG’S MOTHER: Poor lady, her wits are struck.
FATHER: Do you comprehend quite what you intend, good dame?
AASE: I say that no deed is too strange or too high for him –
as he will show the wide world if he lives.
FATHER: Better to watch him hang among the thieves.
AASE: Jesu save him! And me!
FATHER: Bound with the law’s thongs
he may repent sincerely ere he swings.
He may indeed repent,
Widow Gynt!
AASE: I am dazed with your talk.
We must find the lad quick.
FATHER: Indeed we must, for the sake
of his soul.
AASE: And his body and all!
If in the slough we must hard-haul him; or,
if trolls are his masters, then church bells must clamour.
FATHER: There’s a track just here that cattle have made in the sward.
AASE: May the good Lord grant to you a fair reward.
FATHER: It is our Christian duty, no more, no less,
to labour beside all those in like distress.
AASE: Then what of those heathen from Hæggstad, eh?
Not one of them! Not one step of the way!
FATHER: They know your son too well, ma’am, and his fame.
AASE: Too well? Why, he’s ever too clever for them!
[Wringing her hands]
And now! To think his life hangs by a thread.
FATHER: The mark of a foot, see, here, it’s a man’s tread.
AASE: A sign! A sign!
FATHER: We’ll go to the summer pasture. Follow on.
He and his WIFE set off.
SOLVEIG [to AASE]:
Tell me, tell me much more.
AASE [drying her eyes]:
Much more? Much more? My poor son d’you mean?
SOLVEIG: All that you think, and know, and care
to speak of; and to have me hear.
AASE [lifting her head and looking somewhat more cheerful]:
Well then, young lady, then you will be tired.
SOLVEIG: You with the telling maybe. I, never, for all I have heard.
Exeunt.
Low, treeless hills near the mountain plateau; peaks in the distance. There are long shadows; it is late in the day.
PEER [enters, running, and halts on the side of the hill]:
The parish has joined in the hunt, Peer!
Popguns and rattles – I can hear
that Old Man Hæggstad’s in good voice:
‘Peer Gynt’s away, halloo-hallay!’
Better than scrapping with Aslak any day.
I’ve the brawn of a bear, grip hard as a vice;
I’ll wrestle the fell, grapple the waterfall.
Here goes a firtree, up by its roots!
This is the way to live! Oh, how it puts
thews in your zest for life. To hell
with piety, its watery gruel!
THREE SETER GIRLS [come running along the slope, shrieking and singing]:
Trond! Baard! Kaare! Trolls of the fells!
Listen to us, you need to lie in our arms.
PEER: Who is it you serenade so?
GIRLS: Our trolls!
Trolls! You deaf?
FIRST GIRL: Oh, Trond, be gentle with our charms!
SECOND GIRL: Don’t listen to her, Baard; knock us about!
THIRD GIRL: The beds stand empty in the seter hut!
FIRST GIRL: In love, gentle and rough are the same thing.
SECOND GIRL: In love, rough and gentle are the game-thing.
THIRD GIRL: No boys to hug, of course we play with trolls!
PEER: Where are the boys?
ALL THREE [shrieking with laughter]:
Found themselves other joys!
FIRST GIRL: Mine was my kinsman and my lover, both.
He’s married a widow pretty long in the tooth.
SECOND GIRL: Mine met a gipsy girl, up in the north parts.
Now both are beggars begging crusts and clouts.
THIRD GIRL: Mine murdered our bastard child. They struck
his head off. Now it grins at me from a stake.
ALL THREE: Trond! Baard! Kaare! Trolls from the fells,
come down and bed with us this very hour.
PEER [takes a leap so that he stands among them]:
I’m a troll with three heads and a lad for three girls!
FIRST GIRL: It’s busy you are!
PEER: Judgement comes later.
FIRST GIRL: So it’s off to the seter!
SECOND GIRL: There’s mead to drink.
PEER: We’ll all get drunk.
THIRD GIRL: There’ll be three beds put to use
tonight in the seter house.
SECOND GIRL [kissing PEER]:
He’s fizzing like white-hot iron, my bonny spark!
THIRD GIRL: Dead baby’s eyes from the black tarn, his look.
PEER [now part of the dancing group]:
Heavy the heart; randy the other part.
Bright the eyes; grief clogs the throat.
GIRLS [thumbing their noses towards the hilltops, screeching their song]:
Trond, Baard, Kaare, poor pack of trolls,
gone your last hope to lie with us lusty girls!
Exeunt.
In the Rondane mountains.12 Sunset. Gleaming, snow-covered peaks.
PEER [enters dizzy and bewildered]:
Tower upon tower they rise
and there’s a shining portal.
Are you deceived, my eyes?
The scene fades; what does this foretell?
The cock on the weathervane
makes ready for departure –
all passes into the blue inane,
the mountain resumes its locked nature.
What kind of life-form is that
in a cleave of near-distance?
Ah, giants with herons’ feet!
All’s vacuous here, without substance.
Rainbow patterns disturb
my mind through my sight now.
Whatever is a remote discord
shifts to dull weights on my brow.
And also on my brow is set
a red-hot circlet, a crowning
of some kind; but I forget
who pressed upon me the damn thing.
[Sinks down.]
High over Gjendin – poetry
and damned lies. Over
the hill the bride and me.
Drunk as ever,
hunted by hawks and such,
menaced by trolls, more lies,
ery with three houris.
[Stares upward for a considerable time.]
Paired eagles ride – see them! see there!
Wild geese head south, while
I, knee-deep in mire,
trudge to my toil.
[Leaps up.]
I so desire to soar – higher! –
to bathe in keenest winds, plunge
to redemption, to become pure,
naked in keeping with my heart’s pledge.
Seter meadows shall not
detain me. I need to ride
until I’m clean of heart,
rushing far over the salt tide.
On I press, gaze down a moment
at England’s prince. You may well stare,
English lasses, ignorant
as to why I journey here.
Can’t stop! Well, perhaps briefly.
Say again? Those paired eagles?
Old Nick knows where they fly.
In Shadowland, now, I see gables
rise, becoming clearer all the time;
and there, in welcome, the open door.
This – why, this! – is grandad’s new farm!
The old and tattered vestige is no more,
the fence no longer about to fall,
every window a-shine again.
And there’s a feast in the great hall.
I hear the pastor amid the din
rapping with knife on glass.
There the captain hurled that bottle,
and over there the mirror went smash,
all to smithereens, that grand fettle,
but no matter, Mother, all is for the best,
don’t you see? Rich Jon Gynt
presides, the master at his own feast.
His, and our, clan roars triumphant –
what a grand hubbub it all is!
The captain, stentorian,
is heard again, amid the noise,
calling the pastor to wassail the son.
Enter, Peer, thy judgement here!
To thine own worth stand witness.
Great, O Gynt, is thy descent,
secure, thy further greatness!
Runs forward but crashes into the rock face, falls to the ground where he remains stunned.
A grassy slope with tall soughing deciduous trees. Stars twinkle through the leaves; birds sing in the tree tops. A WOMAN DRESSED IN GREEN is walking in the meadow. PEER follows her, his gestures betraying that he is in love.
WOMAN IN GREEN [stops and turns around]:
Is this true that you say?
PEER [runs his finger across his throat]:
As true, I swear, as that my name is Peer,
as true as your beauty, as the words with which I woo you here.
Will you accept me? Shall I go on? You’ll see how I proceed.
You’ll have no call to work the loom, to spin there’ll be no need.
You shall eat your fill at my table, more even than you’re able.
I will never pull your hair.
WOMAN IN GREEN: Nor beat me, I trust.
PEER: Beat you? No fear!
We who are the sons of kings don’t do such things.
WOMAN IN GREEN: So you’re a king’s son?
PEER: Yes.
WOMAN IN GREEN: And I a princess,
PEER: Well, isn’t that splendid!
WOMAN IN GREEN: Deep within Mount Ronden,13 far underground,
my father’s castle is to be found.
PEER: Then my mother’s castle is larger, rightly comprehended.
WOMAN IN GREEN: Do you know my father? King Brose is his name.
PEER: Have you met my mother? Queen Aase as she is known to fame.
WOMAN IN GREEN: When my father shakes his fist
the mountains quake and burst.
PEER: When my mother’s less than jolly
rockslides fill the valley.
WOMAN IN GREEN: My father can kick sky-high in the halling.
PEER: My mother can do things even more thrilling.
WOMAN IN GREEN: And do you always go about in rags?
PEER: I have several more opulent rigs.
WOMAN IN GREEN: Every day I am attired in gold and silks.
PEER: Is that what they are? I thought they were old hemp stalks.
WOMAN IN GREEN: That is because – do, please, remember this,
for it is one of our folk mysteries –
all our possessions are twofold in nature,
exist in different dimensions, as it were.
When you reach my father’s domain it
may more resemble – in your eyes – an old stone-pit.
PEER: I’m bound to say it’s likely that you will find
the same out here among us human kind.
Our gold to you may appear mere straw and trash,
and every window pane that we see flash
you may see as a bare frame stuffed with things
I won’t describe.
WOMAN IN GREEN: So black will appear
white, the ugly will seem fair.
PEER: So greatness seems shrunken, the vile appears pure.
WOMAN IN GREEN [clasping him around his neck]:
So each of us to the other best belongs!
PEER: As leg to pants’ leg, or as hair to the comb.
WOMAN IN GREEN [calling across the meadow]:
Bridal horse, bridal horse, bridal horse, come!
An enormous pig comes running with a rope’s end as a bridle and an old sack as a saddle. PEER swings himself up and lifts the WOMAN IN GREEN to sit in front of him.
PEER: We shall gallop through Rondane’s doors at topmost speed!
Giddy-up, giddy-up, giddy-up, then, noble steed!
WOMAN IN GREEN [tenderly]:
But lately I was feeling so very forlorn –
you can never tell how things will move on.
PEER [whipping the pig and trotting along]:
The greatness of a great person appears
in what he wears!
Exeunt.
The great hall of the DOVRE KING. A large gathering of COURT TROLLS, GNOMES and SUBTERRANEAN SPRITES. The DOVRE KING enthroned, with crown and sceptre. His CHILDREN and other CLOSEST KIN are on either side of the throne. PEER stands before him. General commotion.
A COURT TROLL: To the butcher’s bench with him! The son of a mortal thing –
a Christian too – has led astray the fairest daughter of our king!
A TROLL CHILD: Please, may I gash his finger?
SECOND CHILD: I want to hack his hair!
TROLL MAIDEN: I’d love to bite him in the thigh, right here, or just there …
A TROLL WITCH [with a ladle]:
Make soup from him!
SECOND TROLL WITCH [with an executioner’s knife]:
Best roast the monster. Turn the spit.
Or bring him slowly to the boil, why not?
DOVRE KING: Temper your hungry relish, I command!
[Summons his trusted COUNSELLORS to approach the throne.]
Let us not deceive ourselves. Of late
our troubles have increased. Whether we’ll stand
or fall in days to come is our debate.
Whatever help we can get, from wherever it comes,
even from mortal kind, is welcome in these times.
This lad’s a perfect beauty, very nearly,
and strong with it also. You can all see, surely?
His having only one head may count against him
with some of you. But my daughter is the same
I’ll have you remember! Trolls with three heads,
two heads, even, are rarely met with now;
and even the heads they have are only make-do.
[Addresses PEER.]
We’re to haggle over my daughter, is that the case?
PEER: Your whole kingdom now; not just half of it: yes!
DOVRE KING: Half of it now, with her; half after I am gone
as one day I shall be, my not-quite-yet son.
PEER: I’ll shake on that.
DOVRE KING: Hold hard! This treaty needs
your pledges also, here, now, before it is sealed,
and which, if reneged on, means all is annulled,
means, for you, instant death. First, you must swear
never to stray more beyond my kingdom so fair,
to shun the light of day, and every action
fit to be seen by daylight: such is my instruction.
PEER: If, to become king, this is all it takes,
show me the treaty, I’ll sign it in two shakes.
DOVRE KING: Not so fast! Let us first put to the test
your mental faculties – in fine fettle, I trust!
THE OLDEST COURT TROLL [to PEER]:
Let’s see if you have a wisdom tooth in your skull
that can break the Dovre King’s puzzle-nut from its shell.
DOVRE KING: What sets our troll-kind apart from your humankind?
PEER: Nothing at all, so far as I now find.
Big trolls want to fry, small trolls need to scratch,
just as we do, but dare they?
DOVRE KING: Ay, there we make a match.
But day remains day, night continues to be night,
and differences remain between us, despite
all that we share. Let me therefore explain
the rift that abides between trolls and the tribe of men.
Out there – remember? – under the sky’s high-gleaming vault,
‘be thyself, be thyself, even to thy most inward fault’
is the great injunction. Down here, with the race of trolls,
‘be to thyself sufficient’ is the motto that appeals.
A COURT TROLL [to PEER]:
Can you find the profundity there?
PEER: Well, I can’t say for sure.
DOVRE KING: ‘Sufficient’, sufficient unto thyself, O Peer,
‘sufficient’ drives its wedge betwixt serf and sire,
set it on thy scutcheon …
PEER: But …
DOVRE KING: … if you mean to be master here!
PEER: Oh well, what the hell, if it means nothing worse than that!
DOVRE KING: And you must also be taught to appreciate
our folksy ways; things you would do well to heed.
[He beckons; TWO TROLLS with pigs’ heads, white nightcaps, etc., bring food and drink.]
Here are tasty cow-pancakes, and from the ox fresh mead.
Sweet or sour you must drink it for it is home-brewed:
Home-grown, home-made, home-is-best—
PEER [pushing away the food and drink]:
and home-pissed!
To the devil with your tasty domestic fare;
I’ll never be at home with what is here.
DOVRE KING: The golden bowl will be yours when you are my heir.
My daughter’s favours attend such heirlooms.
PEER: It is well put
by one who knows: ‘Govern first thine own self. That is what,
before all else, will turn sour to sweet.’
So, ‘skol!’
DOVRE KING: That was indeed a wise observation.
You’re spluttering!
PEER: I’ll grow accustomed to my portion,
given time, no doubt.
DOVRE KING: Further, you must divest
yourself: that heavy Christian habit must be cast
aside. You must be fettled like us. It is our pride
to wear nothing that is not mountain-made
apart from the silken bows on the ends of our tails.
PEER: We have no need of such prehensiles.
DOVRE KING: Here you do. Court Troll!
Stick my Sunday tail, firmly, on his rump.
PEER: Hey! Hey! Hands off! I’ll look a right fool!
DOVRE KING: Do not dare to approach my child with a bare cul.
PEER: You cannot stamp
men into beastly patterns.
DOVRE KING: That is your error, my son.
I’m making you fit for the role.
You shall have a brimstone yellow bow for your tail,
one of the highest honours that can be won,
so we reckon.
PEER [pauses to thinks]:
It is taught that no man is more than dust.
What argues, then, against placing one’s trust
in local belief and practice? Tie it on!
DOVRE KING: Dear fellow, you’re too kind.
A COURT TROLL: Twitch your behind,
you’ll soon be told how fetchingly it moves.
PEER [irritated]:
What else do you want of me while we’re at shoves?
How about faith, my Christian
birthright, my heritage as a man?
DOVRE KING: Birthright-belief – you can maintain that
in peace and quiet.
Belief is free, untaxed; it’s the crust and cut
that reveal the troll.
Just so long as we’re identical
in manner and style
of undress, speech is free.
By all means call faith what we call monstrosity.
PEER: Despite the prohibitions and conditions, you’ve now appeared
as a more decent cove than I had feared.
DOVRE KING: We trolls are indeed better than our reputation
paints us; that’s what distinguishes trolls from men.
I see that we are now done with nutrition,
let’s treat our ears and eyes. Music girl, come, tune!
Let the great Dovre harp sing us its finest refrain.
Come, dancing girl, make throb the roof of our hall!
Harp playing and dancing begin.
A COURT TROLL: How do you like it?
PEER: Like it? H’m …
DOVRE KING: Speak without fear of reproof.
PEER: A belled cow striking a gut-stringed instrument with her hoof,
a sow in trunk-hose mincing to the beat …!
SECOND COURT TROLL: He is condemned to be eaten. Let us eat!
DOVRE KING: Remember his human senses and sensibilities.
TROLL MAIDEN: Aarrgh! Tear out his ears and eyes!
WOMAN IN GREEN [sobbing]:
Boo-hoo! Such things my sweet sister and I
are forced to endure whenever we dance and play.
PEER: Ahem! Was it you? Merely a party game?
I do assure you that I meant no harm.
WOMAN IN GREEN: I put you on oath!
PEER: The dancing and harping, both,
were really pretty. Katten flay me if I speak untruth.
DOVRE KING: That’s the odd thing about human nature:
it’s so remarkably persistent a feature.
If, during clashes with us, its blood is drawn,
the gash, though not imaginary, mends amazingly soon.
My son-in-law obeys me almost too well;
his Christian unmentionables quickly fell,
he tossed back his draught of mead, as you all
witnessed; he even submitted to wearing a yellow tail.
I was reassured, even, that he had been ex-Adam’d
finally, and felt suitably ashamed
of what he once was. But, look, in a split second,
we find that once more he has the upper hand.
Ah, well, my son, it seems you must take the cure
against these lingering signs of your human nature.
PEER: Hey! What are you doing to me?
DOVRE KING: In your left eye
I’ll make a little scratch, so that you’ll see askew
ever after; all will appear to be splendidly new.
Next I’ll excise the right-hand quizzing-pane …
PEER: You’re drunk!
DOVRE KING [placing some sharp instruments on the table]:
Here are my glazier’s tools. And then
we’ll fix to your skull what is fixed to the skull
of a vicious ox to stop it breaking its stall
and attacking people. Then you will understand
that your bride is the loveliest lady underground,
and never again will your sight be distorted –
belled cows and mincing sows as you reported …
PEER: That’s crazy talk!
THE OLDEST COURT TROLL: Nay! Our great king’s best style of address.
You are the crazy talker, he the wise.
DOVRE KING: Consider how much torment
you will be spared, moment by moment,
and over the years to come.
It is a human distortion of the eyes
that brings about men’s tears with their bitter lyes.
Their vision is their doom.
PEER: I have to agree with that.
‘If your eye offends you, pluck it out’
it says in the old book of sermons.
But – hey – tell me: when
you have scratched my eye, will it ever again
be healed, be my old human sight, if you see what I mean?
DOVRE KING: Never! Forever this, your troll-vision, remains.
PEER: In that case, ‘no thanks, and goodbye!’
DOVRE KING: What do you need out there?
PEER: I need to be on my way.
DOVRE KING: Hold hard! The Dovre King’s gate will not open
inwards to outwards; it just doesn’t happen.
PEER: You would keep me by force here?
DOVRE KING: Be sensible, Prince Peer!
You have a gift for the ways and arts of us trolls.
Does he not, my people, already have some of our skills?
Your highest ambition
is to join our nation?
PEER: It is indeed, by God; I would give an arm
and a leg for my bride and my promised kingdom.
But that’s the limit. I let them pin on that tail,
it’s true, that prestidigitation by a Court Troll,
but things done can be undone, things undone be restored.
I can once more, surely, be decently trousered.
And doubtless, also, I can cast myself off
from this Dovrean way of life.
I don’t mind swearing a cow is a girl for a day –
an oath is something you can always unsay –
but to be stuck forever
in the world of the trolls – that makes me shiver.
To know you can never be free,
that you can’t even die
decently among your kind
that’s what shakes the mind!
To lose all hope of at last returning to God –
that makes me feel really bad.
I’ll not accept that bargain.
DOVRE KING: As true as I am upright-upside-down,
I am not to be insulted by you, vile man,
pining-for-daylight starveling! Do you still not know
who I am, or what the fury of our law?
First you seduce my daughter …
PEER: That’s a lie for a start!
DOVRE KING: … and now you must marry her.
PEER: I’ll not be forced into that!
DOVRE KING: You mean to deny
casting upon her your lascivious eye?
PEER [huffing]:
Lascivious eye? Oh, is that all? A quibble –
‘Whoever looketh …’ as it says in the Bible –
nobody cares about that these days.
DOVRE KING: Your humankind is truly set in its ways.
You chew spiritual cud,
your jaws chomping, hands grasping at your true good,
the riches of the world and all that it conveys.
So, you discount lust
of the eyes, do you? We’ll put that to the test.
PEER: You’ll not trap me with legal niceties!
WOMAN IN GREEN: Is that what you think it is?
I tell you, before the year’s turn
your child shall be born.
PEER: Please – let me pass …
DOVRE KING: Sewn into a goat-skin.
You’ll see it turn up
on your doorstep.
PEER [wiping sweat from his face]:
When shall I awaken?
DOVRE KING: Where would you have us convey the child?
To your palace threshold?
PEER: The little bastard
had better be fostered!
DOVRE KING: Very well, Prince Peer, the choice is yours.
But remember this: over the years
what’s done is done. Your child will grow,
as mixed-blood creatures do,
so rapidly it will astonish all!
PEER: Young lady, please be reasonable.
Old fellow, stubborn as an ox,
accept a settlement.
I’m not rich; nor do I have a prince’s entitlement.
You may wish to weigh me in the scales
with diamonds or gold, or what best pleases trolls,
but you’ll find how quickly I kick the beam.
The WOMAN IN GREEN goes into labour and is carried out by the TROLL MAIDENS.
DOVRE KING [glances briefly at PEER with utter contempt and raps out]:
Break him, my children! Against the mountain wall! Break him!
A TROLL CHILD: Papa, may we first play ‘Owl and Eagle’?
SECOND TROLL CHILD: No, no, the ‘Wolf Game’!
THIRD TROLL CHILD: No, no, ‘The Mouse and the Cat with Ember Eyes’!
DOVRE KING: My children, I am weary and out of sorts.
Be brief, then. And not too high-pitched the sports.
Exit.
PEER [chased by TROLL CHILDREN]:
Let me go, devil’s spawn!
Tries to escape up the chimney.
TROLL CHILDREN: Goblins and Pixies! Goblins and Pixies!
FIRST TROLL CHILD: Bite his arse!
PEER: Yarrooo-oo!
Tries to escape through the trapdoor into the cellar.
SECOND TROLL CHILD: Seal all the cracks!
A COURT TROLL: The little innocents! What japes, what jokes!
PEER [struggling with a small TROLL CHILD which has fastened upon his ear with its teeth]:
Let go, you little shite!
A COURT TROLL [rapping his knuckles]:
That’s to requite,
base serf, your taking hold
of a royal child!
PEER: A rathole!
Makes a dash for it.
FIRST TROLL CHILD: Stop him! That’s right!
PEER: The old man was monstrous but his spawn’s much worse!
SECOND TROLL CHILD: Shred him! Shred him!
PEER: How I wish I were a mouse!
Runs frantically from one spot to another.
THIRD TROLL CHILD [as they swarm around and over him]:
Shut the gate! Shut the gate! He’s not to get away!
PEER [weeping with terror]:
How I wish I were a flea!
FIRST TROLL CHILD: And now each eye!
PEER [half-buried under a mound of TROLL CHILDREN]:
Help, Ma! I’m dying! I’m meat for trolls!
Church bells heard distantly ringing.
TROLL CHILDREN: Bells in the mountain! Bells in the mountain! The black priest’s cattle-bells!
The TROLLS flee, screaming, among enormous seismic rumblings and quakings. The great hall falls in ruins. Everything vanishes.
Pitch darkness.
PEER [can be heard lashing out at things around him. From the sound it could be with a tree-branch]:
Who are you? Answer!
VOICE IN THE DARKNESS: I am what I am.
PEER: Well, thing with no name,
make way for me.
VOICE: Take a detour, Peer;
there’s space for us both
on this broad heath.
PEER [heard trying to break through in another place; it sounds as though he is blocked by something]:
Who are you?
VOICE: I am what I am.
Can you say the same?
with my sword’s bright gleed!
On guard! Ha! Ja! Peer Gynt has slain a horde!
King Saul blundered:
he slew barely a hundred.
[Heard once more hacking wildly.]
Again – who are you?
VOICE: I am what I am.
PEER: Well, let’s forget
how slow you are. Let me change the question a bit.
What are you?
VOICE: The Boyg. I am the great Boyg.
PEER: Not yet there.
The mystery was total.
Now it’s a kind of a mottle.
Shift yourself, Boyg!
VOICE: Best not try here, Peer!
PEER: Through, though, coming through!
[Strikes, lashes out as before.]
Hit something! Heard it fall.
[Tries to move forward; collides with something.]
Ha! What the –! Are more here?
VOICE: Just the Boyg, Peer. All is one and one is all:
the Boyg still unharmed, the Boyg that is hurt sore;
the Boyg that is dead; the Boyg that for aye shall endure.
PEER [hurling his branch to the ground]:
This sword’s under a spell
but my fists he shall feel!
Lashes out, struggling to break through the unseen opposition.
VOICE: Ay, trust to the fists, brute strength of body.
Hee-hee, Peer Gynt, then you’ll be top-noddy!
PEER [staggering back]:
Forwards, backwards, out and in,
in and out too blurred to scry
yet tight as in a needle’s eye
there he is, there he’s just been,
I struggle out, I’m in the midst of the ring.
Your name again! Let me see who you are. Or what kind of thing.
VOICE: The Boyg. I am the Boyg.
PEER [stumbling and fumbling around]:
Neither dead nor alive; a sort of slimy fog.
Formless, then. I feel I’ve been struggling for years
in a pit of snarling but still sleepy bears.
[Yells.]
Strike, damn you, strike! Why won’t you strike me?
VOICE: Boyg’s not mad and you can’t make me.
PEER: Hit me! Go on! Biff! Bash!
VOICE: The Boyg is – I am – never so rash.
PEER: Look here! I’ve given you my ultimatum!
VOICE: The great Boyg has his way with mortals though he doesn’t fight ’em.
PEER: Is there no one here, no pixie, no infant troll,
that I could scrap with, you know, back-to-the-wall?
Nothing, no one, no one but him,
and now he’s snoring. Boyg!
VOICE: What, you again?
PEER: Boyg, it’s your call!
VOICE: The great Boyg hazards nothing and wins all.
PEER [biting his own hands and arms]:
Grrr! Grrr! Now I feel ’em, tearing claws and teeth
in my own flesh. Feels great, like a rebirth!
A sound like the wingbeats of great birds.
FIRST BIRD VOICE: Dear sisters from afar,
all must gather here.
PEER: Lass, if you mean
to save me, do it soon;
don’t cast your eyes down
with such a modest demean-
our, fixed upon the ground.
That book in your hand,
the one with the clasps, yes,
hurl it straight at his eyes!
SECOND BIRD VOICE: He’s rambling.
VOICE: He’s ours.
FIRST BIRD VOICE: Sisters, sisters, hasten!
PEER: Too much – to buy your life
with an hour’s play
come to grief,
deep-laden with such exhaustion.
He sinks to the ground.
SECOND BIRD VOICE: Boyg, there he fell. Now carry him away.
The sound of church bells and hymn singing can be heard in the distance.
BOYG [shrinks to nothing and just manages to say, between gasps]:
He was too strong for us. The prayers of good women were keeping him safe.
Sunrise. On the mountain-slope outside AASE’s seter hut. The door is shut. All is quiet, the area appears to be deserted. PEER lies asleep outside, sheltered by the seter wall.
PEER [wakes, looks about him morosely and spits]:
A bit of sharp salted herring would go down a treat.
[Spits again. Catches sight of HELGA, who approaches bearing a basket of food.]
Hey, young ’un, you here! Well, what cheer?
HELGA: It’s Solveig.
PEER [leaping up]:
Solveig? Where?
HELGA: Back of the wall there.
SOLVEIG [staying out of sight]:
If you come near I’ll run.
PEER [pausing]:
Afraid of a man’s hand? Mine?
SOLVEIG: Shame on you!
PEER: Know where I was last night?
The Dovre King’s daughter clung like a leech, that tight!
She’s still after me.
SOLVEIG: So it’s as well
that they rung the church bell.
PEER: Peer Gynt’s not a lad any more,
taking the lure.
What’s that you say?
HELGA [crying]:
She’s running away!
[Starts to run after her.]
Wait, oh wait!
PEER [seizing HELGA by the arm]:
Look what’s in my pocket –
a silver bullet, young ’un, and it’s yours
just as long as you keep me in that head of hers.
HELGA: Let go; let me go!
PEER: But here, look!
HELGA: And now the basket’s broke.
PEER: God help you if you don’t …
HELGA: Don’t what, you bully!
PEER [meekly, releasing her]:
No – no – I simply meant –
beg her not to forget me wholly.
HELGA runs off.