On the southwest coast of Morocco. A grove of palm trees. A table laid for dinner; there are hammocks. Offshore lies a steam yacht flying both Norwegian and American flags. A dinghy is drawn up on the beach. The sun is sinking. PEER, a distinguished-looking middle-aged gentleman clad in an elegant travelling-suit with a gold pince-nez dangling on his breast, is presiding at table. MR COTTON, MONSIEUR BALLON, HERR VON EBERKOPF and HERR TRUMPETERSTRAALE are his guests. The meal is drawing to a close.
PEER: More wine, my friends, more wine? Since man
is made for pleasure it’s a sin
not to enjoy; once gone ’tis gone.
Come now, some brandy? Or stay with wine?
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: Your table is unmatched, Bror Gynt!
PEER: My cook and butler have some claim,
then, to your thanks; as does my mint
of money.
MR COTTON: Well, a toast to them
as well as you!
M. BALLON: In France we have
refined expressions to extol
such qualities. So few who live
en garçon can retain them all.
V. EBERKOPF: A nuance of free spirit we
detect, combined with, here and there,
the true vein of world-citizenry,
a Weltanschauung, echt und wahr;15
a vision through the storm-clouds breaking,
all unconfined by prejudice;
the Ur-natur, divine self-seeking,
Erhebung of the triune Kreis
united at the Krise16-joint.
I think, monsieur, that’s what you meant.
M. BALLON: Quite possibly. It did not seem
so eloquent in French.
V. EBERKOPF: That’s so.
French cannot summarize a theme
succinctly as we Germans do.
The base of the phenomenon
is …
PEER: My dear sir, summed in a phrase:
that I have lived my life alone.
‘I am what I am’ sounds my success:
the man himself and what he has.
Such the legitimate extent
of his concerns. Securities:
how can he have these if he’s bent
with burdens of another’s being?
V. EBERKOPF: And yet, I’d swear, this epic stance
has cost you dearly more than once!
PEER: Indeed, yes; but I left each field
still carrying both sword and shield.
Once only I, in this regard,
came close to fatal self-betraying.
I was a smart, good-looking lad;
and she for whom my young heart bled
came of some royal lineage …
M. BALLON: Royal, monsieur?
PEER [dismissively]:
Well, so to speak,
the kind so common in this age.
TRUMPETERSTRAALE [thumping the table]:
Ennobled trolls, as I’m a Swede!
PEER [shrugging his shoulders]:
Decayed aristocrats, who make
sure to erase plebeian blood
from their escutcheon.
MR COTTON: So the lass
was lost to you?
M. BALLON: Her next of kin
forbade the match?
PEER: Quite the reverse!
[Speaks with deliberation.]
To be as plain
as delicacy permits, there were
circumstances – ahem, monsieur! –
that argued for an early splicing.
I found the prospect unenticing.
In some things I’m fastidious.
I’d rather stand on my own feet.
So, when my pa-in-law-to-be
dropped hints that seemed more like abuse –
that I should change my name and buy
a patent of nobility –
from him, mark you – together with
suggestions that I won’t repeat,
well, I withdrew forthwith, with all
the pride of rank that I could pull,
renounced my bride and bounty both.
[Assumes a look of piety and drums on the table.]
Ah yes, there is a ruling fate;
on that we mortals can rely;
a comfort in our hard estate …
M. BALLON: And there the matter ended, eh?
PEER: Ah, no; indeed, the opposite;
for those with no call to intrude
did so, and raised a hue and cry.
Worst were the youngest of that brood.
Seven duels with seven sons I fought.
It was a time I’ll not forget.
I emerged victor; and though it cost
blood, yet my self-worth increased;
rose in the world’s eyes too. Things point
conclusively to my grand creed:
the hand of fate’s benevolent!
V. EBERKOPF: You are entitled, worthy sir,
to rank among us as world-seer.
While others merely commentate
on that and this and this and that
and fumble when they half-descry,
you bring all into unity;
and by that norm you measure each
and everything that others touch;
and every nut and bolt you tighten
till every detail of research
is something that your gifts enlighten.
You have no letters to your name?
PEER: I am, as I have said before,
an autodidact pure and simple.
To scholarship I make no claim,
but I have pondered here and there
and found such means of working ample,
know a fair bit about most things.
I started late to cogitate,
by which time ploughing through a book
is heavy labour, shifting rock,
rough with the smooth. The rights and wrongs
of history I’ve sampled piecemeal,
no time to put it all together.
And since, in hard times, one especial-
ly needs faith’s consolations,
I took that in the same way rather,
bits here and there, no turgid notions.
It’s easier to swallow thus,
and to regurgitate for use.
MR COTTON: Business pragmatics at its best!
PEER [lighting a cigar]:
Consider also, if you will,
my life’s course: emigrating west –
in steerage – labouring to live
the moment that I first arrive,
all swallowed as a purgative.
But life is precious, even then,
and death most bitter. Luck was on
my side and fate proved flexible,
as I did too – unhexable!
Within ten years all turned to gold.
In Charleston, Carolina, I
was Croesus as I bought and sold
at ease with that fraternity.
My shipping line was thriving.
MR COTTON: What
did you carry?
PEER: Chiefly I shipped
Negroes to Charleston; and to China
Buddhas made in Carolina.
M. BALLON: Shame on you, sir!
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: Croesus crapped!
PEER: It seems you find my business ethics
too much for your own moral toothpicks.
I too have felt a like revulsion,
believe me! And yet, once you start,
business becomes its own compulsion.
Thousands depend on you, the cogs
keep turning at a faster rate.
Of ‘give it up’, ‘let it all go’,
‘finally retire’, you know,
it’s ‘finally’ that I most hate.
I, on the other hand, admit
to having always known what’s meant
by ‘consequences’ and ‘black dogs’.
Yes, I concede, ‘crossing the line’
is an old phobia of mine.
Besides, I’d started to find hints
of threatening age – you know, hair tints,
full head of hair but touched with grey?
Although my health was excellent
I sensed that lurking jeopardy
and flinched from it. Who knows how soon
the hour will strike, the jury-foreman
pronounce the verdict: sheep? or goats?
Dread of that judgement’s only human.
Yet how to stop, I tell you, that’s
the big brain-teaser. My China-trade
ground on, unstoppable. Well, then!
New trinkets on the old machine.
Each spring I still shipped little Buddhas;
each fall, persons in holy orders
(the mission field was thriving), kitted
them out with things well suited:
socks, bibles, rum and rice.
MR COTTON: You made
a decent profit, I presume.
PEER: Goes without saying. The whole time
they laboured, with both zeal and zest;
for every god we shipped out east
they had a coolie deep-baptized,
ensuring equilibrium.
The mission field was never left
fallow; the little gods they sold
from door to door they later reft
back, for John Chinaman’s a child.
MR COTTON: Do tell us, now, your other trade?
PEER: There also ethics won the day.
As I declined towards old age –
no man can know when he’ll conclude
his journey on this pilgrimage,
on top of which there was the rage
of crazed philanthropists at large,
the perils, too, of reef and rock,
revenue cutters and the like –
these things together clinched the deal.
‘Time, Peer’, I mused, ‘to shorten sail,
put well behind you your past errors.’
I bought land at a bargain price
in the Deep South, and took a lien,
bankrupt stock from a cattle-man –
its quality was indeed first class.
Beasts, once I’d put them out to graze,
grew plump and sleek where they’d been thin.
It raised our spirits, theirs and mine.
It’s fair to say I cherished them.
My profit margins soared like steam.
And, on the proceeds, I built schools,
that moral virtue’s stocks and shares
would never fall below a level
controlled by my thermometers.
But now I’ve done with trade-affairs,
have set the ranch under the gavel,
made a fiesta of farewells,
dispensed free grog to men and women;
widows got snuff into the bargain.
The fact is, so I’ve understood,
who does no evil has done good.
If that is not an empty phrase
the errors of my earlier days
are now forgotten; so that I,
more than most others, perhaps may
against fresh virtues weigh past sins
and find myself in credit still.
V. EBERKOPF [clinking glasses with him]:
How grand it is that you’re at pains
to endow life with principle,
with active principle, no less,
purged of malign obscurities,
dark night of Theorie; deliver
from what hypothesis soever …
PEER [who has been drinking heavily from various bottles during the previous orations]:
We of the north best understand
how things get quickly out of hand
and how to bring strife to an end.
The secret is to keep tight-shut
your lugholes so that creepy crawlies
are something that they don’t admit.
MR COTTON: What do you chiefly have in mind?
PEER: A little mean seductive fiend
within the holiest of holies,
[Drinks yet more.]
when what’s in question is the art
of finding how to even start
and how to keep free will of choice
while facing some malign device,
to feel assured that not all days
of battle end in forfeit ways;
that one who’s crossed a bridge can take
at any time the same bridge back.
That adage has for long sustained me,
tinctured my theories of conduct.
The childhood home I left behind me
gave me those standards, still intact.
M. BALLON: Norvégien?
PEER: I was Norway’s child
but hers no longer. Let me be styled
‘Peer Gynt, first citizen of the world’!
Thus, for my glory and my gain
I thank all things American;
my well-stocked library reveals
the strength of Germany’s ‘New Schools’.
From France my waistcoats I acquire,
my poise, my intellectual flair.
And in my willingness to drudge
for profit, to drive bargains hard,
my self-esteem wears England’s badge.
The Jews have taught me how to bear
whate’er befalls. My dolce far
niente17 came, once, as a gift
from Italy. Caught off my guard
on one occasion, I made shift
to save myself with Swedish steel.
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: I’ll drink to that!
who wielded it I offer Heil!
They clink glasses and drink with PEER, who is increasingly showing the effects of alcohol.
MR COTTON: All this of course sounds very well
but I, sir, wish to hear you talk
of how you’ll put your wealth to work.
PEER [smiling]:
H’m? h’m? Do what?
ALL FOUR [gathering about him]:
Do carry on!
PEER: Well, first, by voyaging abroad;
that’s why I took you four on board
when I dropped anchor at Gibraltar.
You seemed a likely singing-dancing
troupe of topers to set prancing
before my golden calf and altar.
V. EBERKOPF: Amusing, no?
MR COTTON: No one would hoist
sail to be simply all at sea.
You have – I catch it from your eye –
a vision of some destined coast.
That vision is … pray tell us, sir.
PEER: My goal? To become emperor.
ALL FOUR: What?
PEER [nodding]:
Emperor.
ALL FOUR: Of what?
PEER: The world.
M. BALLON: But by what means?
PEER: The power of gold.
There’s nothing new, when all is said;
it was in everything I did
while still a child. In dreams I soared
across deep waters on a cloud.
With streaming cloak, gold sword-sheath, climbed
to eminence; woke frosty-limbed.
But even so, the good remained
It has been writ in scrolls of fire –
I can’t recall precisely where –
that if you gain the world entire
but ‘lose yourself’, all that you’ve won
is but a withered laurel crown
around a shattered brow. Such words
are not damned poetry’s platitudes.
V. EBERKOPF: The Gyntian Selbst,18 mein Herr? Do please
enlighten us.
PEER: Mein Selbst ist dies:19
the world behind the outward brow
determines that I am the law
unto myself and to no other.
And God is not the devil either.
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: Ah! Now I comprehend the thrust!
M. BALLON: Sublimity of thought indeed!
V. EBERKOPF: Such poetry outsoars the best!
PEER [with mounting ardour]:
The Gyntian self – that iron brigade
of wishes, passions and desires,
a massive flood that knows no shores,
vortex of impulse, need and claim,
the world that I entirely am.
God grasps our earth that He may be
Emperor of Eternity.
I too have need to grab for gold
to be the emperor of this world.
M. BALLON: But you have wealth!
PEER: Not wealth enough!
Enough perhaps for half a week
if I sat on Lippe-Detmold’s20 throne
and had patience to sit it through.
L’État c’est moi, c’est moi en bloc!21
The Gynt of Gynts and that alone!
Sir Peter Gynt whose toe-caps shine!
M. BALLON [enraptured]:
La belle Hélène, un grand désir!22
V. EBERKOPF: Johannisberger’s23 greatest year!
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: And swords wrought out of Swedish steel
by Charles the Twelfth’s own armourer!
MR COTTON: Nay, all such things are very well,
but first things first: to look about
for a transaction swift and sweet.
PEER: Already done! The newspapers
today are music to my ears.
It is as if good fortune shows
favours to one who dares and does.
Tonight we set sail for the north,
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: Bror Gynt!
M. BALLON Monsieur!
MR COTTON Old chap!
V. EBERKOPF Mein Herr!
ONE OF THE FOUR: We wait with bated breath to hear!
PEER: A late report reads ‘Greece in tumult’.
ALL FOUR spring up.
ONE OF THE FOUR: Praise be! And has the Turk been humbled?
PEER: The Greeks have risen.
ONE OF THE FOUR: In their wrath!
PEER: The Turks, it adds, are in retreat.
Empties his glass.
M. BALLON: Fair Greece! Her gates of glory open.
I shall assist with my French weapon.
V. EBERKOPF: And I with plaudits from the wings.
MR COTTON: While I shall be supplying things.
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: And I shall go to fatal Bender
King Charles’s spurs perchance to find there.
M. BALLON [embracing PEER]:
Forgive me, friend; for a brief while
I had misjudged you.
V. EBERKOPF [grasping his hands]:
I too judged ill,
thought you a scoundrel. I regret
the slur; I am an idiot.
MR COTTON: That’s a bit strong! Maybe a fathead.
TRUMPETERSTRAALE [attempting to kiss him]:
And I thought you a specimen
of Yankeedom’s degraded spawn.
Forgive me, sir.
V. EBERKOPF: We’d lost our bearings.
PEER: What gabble!
V. EBERKOPF: Now we see united
all aspects of the ‘Gyntian Whole’,
all wishes, passions, all desirings …
M. BALLON [ecstatic with admiration]:
… in-gathered, waiting on the Call.
To Monsieur Gynt’s apotheosis!
PEER: Will you shut up!
M. BALLON: Ne comprenez-vous pas?24
PEER: Niente.25
M. BALLON: We depart tonight
to fight for Greece, am I not right?
PEER [with a snort of contempt]:
Wrong! My assessment of the foes
lacks sentiment. I back the Turks.
M. BALLON: Mon Dieu!26
V. EBERKOPF: Hardly the best of jokes.
PEER [is silent for a while; then, leaning on a chairback, adopts a ‘superior’ expression]:
Gentlemen, it is best we part
before the remnants flicker out
of our brief friendship – call it that.
He who has nothing can risk all.
When your stake in the nation’s but
the shadow prodded by your boot
you’re done for once they start to shoot.
But one self-risen from the seter
as I am, well, his stakes are greater.
So, it’s to Hellas that you sail!
Free weaponry is yours at call.
The higher you four fan the flames
of conflict with heroic games
the stronger I can bend my bow.
Freedom and justice! Off you go,
fight in the vanguard, lead the charge
against the khalif’s entourage;
and end it all with wriggling dances
stuck on the janissaries’ lances.
But, pray excuse me.
[Slaps his pocket.]
I have ‘funds’!
Sir Peter Gynt inspects the grounds.
He opens his parasol and saunters off into the grove, where the hammocks can be faintly discerned.
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: That filthy swine!
M. BALLON: Pah! Sans honneur!27
MR COTTON: What’s honour, though, when all is said?
But, profit! I too like a winner.
If I thought Greece was worth a bid …
M. BALLON: I saw myself with victor’s wounds
bathed by competing female hands!
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: I saw within my Swedish grip
those mystic spurs now mine to keep!
V. EBERKOPF: And I saw my great fatherland’s
Kultur endowing foreign strands.
MR COTTON: The worst, for me, is not to salvage
more of his fortune’s bulk and selvage.
Goddammit, I could weep! I saw
myself hacking Olympus raw:
huge veins of copper to be mined!
Castalia’s waters could have churned
hydro-electric power at
more than a thousand-horsepower rate.
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: I’ll fight – despite! My Swedish sword
will achieve more than Yankee hoard.
MR COTTON: I doubt it. We’d be cannon fodder,
just as he said. Pray reconsider
for there’s no profit if we’re dead.
M. BALLON: Coup de tonnerre!28 To have so sweet
a prospect dying at one’s feet!
MR COTTON [shaking his fist at PEER’s steam yacht]:
That devil’s casket in its hold
brews Negro blood and sweat to gold!
V. EBERKOPF: That’s it! I have it! So, let’s hasten
his nabob’s coffers to unfasten.
Here is my plan …
M. BALLON: Your plan, m’sieur?
V. EBERKOPF: Machtübernahme29 within the hour!
His crew is ready to be bought.
That done, I’ll commandeer the yacht.
MR COTTON: You’ll what?
V. EBERKOPF: I’ll grab it willy-nilly!
He makes his way down to the dinghy.
MR COTTON: Since that’s the bid it might be silly
not to do likewise.
He follows VON EBERKOPF.
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: Villainy!
M. BALLON: Et alors?30 Though I quite agree.
He follows the others.
TRUMPETERSTRAALE: And I must join them too, it seems;
protesting still, and in the strongest terms.
He also makes his way down to the dinghy.
A different part of the coast. Moonlight and scudding clouds. The yacht can be seen, far out to sea, proceeding full steam ahead. PEER, in a state of extreme agitation, runs along the beach. One moment he pinches his arm; the next moment he stares wildly out to sea.
PEER: This is a nightmare, a nonsense. Soon I must surely wake up!
They have put out to sea without me. They devour the sea-miles.
Come, Peer, you’re drunk still and reeling. Or am I perhaps asleep?
Can I be dying, well, can I? I’ll call it a dream.
Yes, a dream let it be; a bad dream for the whiles.
Agh! Dreadful to say, it’s the truth and the truth makes me weep.
My so-called companions – ah, hear me, Lord God,
You who are wise, who are just – give short shrift to them!
[Stretches his arms towards the heavens.]
It’s Peer, d’you hear? Oh do pay attention, Milord!
Look after me, Father, for none else will bother.
Command ‘Put about!’ Why don’t they lower the boat?
Make hue and cry, blast all their rigging awry.
I plead, nay demand, that it’s my woes to which You attend.
The world, as it will, can look after itself pretty well.
Hello? Hello? No change there, for he never listens.
Perhaps He needs some charitable assistance.
[Gesticulates again at the heavens.]
Haven’t I got rid of my Negro slaves?
To Asia I’ve sent missionaries in droves.
One good turn deserves another, eh?
Get me back on board without delay.
I’ll …
A column of fire shoots upwards from the steam yacht, and thick smoke pours out of it; a hollow explosion is heard. PEER shrieks, sinking down upon the sand. Slowly the smoke clears away; the yacht has vanished.
PEER [quietly, almost sotto voce]:
That was the sword of wrath if ever I saw it!
Gone, the whole boiling, and before they even knew it!
Eternal praise be to Him, the god of second chances!
[Deeply moved]
It was something greater than good luck, even, was it not?
I was destined for salvation; they, destined to go to pot.
Praise be to Thee, then, for Thy grand protecting hand.
In despite of my flaws my great cause, as we see, advances.
[Exhales.]
What wondrous security and comfort when you understand
that in some quite unique way you are protected.
Though I am a starving castaway, if I may so describe it,
here too, you may be sure, I am not rejected:
manna, and all that, stuff that Moses’ tribe ate.
[Loudly, ingratiatingly]
He surely will not allow this especial sparrow to perish.
Be of humble cheer, Peer, and give the Lord some time
to reorder the accounts and make all parade-square-ish.
[Leaps up in great alarm.]
Was that a lion roaring? Why doesn’t help come?
[With chattering teeth]
No, not a lion.
[Gathering courage]
A lion it was, for certain!
Well, now, he’s a thinking creature, your average lion;
has the right instincts, sees what’s in front of his eyes;
knows not to attack when he’s outnumbered by foes;
won’t play tag, say, with elephants. I’d best climb a tree.
Acacias and date-palms abundant, all nicely a-sway.
If I climb one of those I’ll be secure from harm.
It might also help were I to recite a psalm.
[Climbs and settles himself.]
‘The day won’t be known until the sun’s gone down’,
as the Psalmist says; well, that’s been much debated.
[Continuing to make himself comfortable]
How good it is to find one’s spirit so elevated.
To think nobly is to know more than the rich have ever known.
Trust Him as thy sure foundation; He knows to what level
of the Chalice of Privation it is my allotted portion to drink
without cavil.
He is like a father towards this creature He has created.
[Looks out to where sea meets sky, sighs, murmurs.]
But economical? Certainly not that, I think!
Nighttime. A Moroccan camp at the edge of the desert. Campfires; SOLDIERS taking their ease.
A SLAVE [enters, tearing at his hair]:
The emperor’s best white stallion has disappeared!
SECOND SLAVE [enters, tearing his garments]:
The emperor’s sacred garments have gone the same road!
ATTENDANT [enters]:
One hundred strokes to the soles of the feet decreed
for all, unless the thief is apprehended with speed.
The SOLDIERS mount their steeds and gallop off in all directions.
Dawn. Acacias and palm trees. PEER is sitting in his tree using a wrenched-off branch to defend himself against a group of monkeys.
PEER: Just my luck; truly, I’ve passed a most wretched night.
[Striking out haphazardly]
Have at you, then! Ha! Ja! Now they’re pelting me with fruit –
ugh, it’s not fruit, the repulsive creatures! It
is written, is it not, ‘Pilgrim, you must watch and fight’?
But I just can’t. Not any more. I am despondent; worn out.
[The monkeys renew the assault.]
Insult capping insult. I cannot let it continue.
If I can manage to snatch one of this devil’s retinue
there may be some way to flay him and don his pelt.
The others might take to me, in a fashion, as a result.
What, after all, are we humans? Nothing but a speck of dust.
Local customs are to be respected where they persist,
as here. Another echelon moving to the attack –
be off! Bah! Boo! It’s as if they were berserk!
How I wish, now, that I still had that yellow tail,
anything that might make me more resemble an animal.
Oh, what now?
[Looks up.]
One of the oldest of their filthy gang
with his paws full …
[Cowers fearfully and keeps still a moment or two. The monkey makes a move. PEER begins to coax it as if it were a dog.]
Hey, up there, me old mate!
Good lad! Good boy! Hey, who’s a friendly fellow?
Who’s not going to throw things? Not even think of that?
Ai-ai! I’ve even got the odd word of theirs to bellow.
My mate here, and me – we’re as one in our family tree.
Sugar tomorrow, a treat! Aagh! Two fistfuls of dung,
smack-on! And the stench! Sickening!
Is it dung, though? It might be food, actually.
It tastes like nothing that I would care to devour
but ‘spit, and hope that habit makes easier’ –
some great thinker said that (his name has slipped my mind).
Here’s the entire progeny. How tragic that mankind,
lord of the world, aspirant to the universe,
is reduced to ‘on guard!’ and ‘behind you! behind!’
The old man was monstrous but his spawn is worse.
Early morning. A stony area looking out across the desert. To one side, a mountain; in the mountain a cleft and a cave. A THIEF and a FENCE are in the cleft, in possession of the emperor’s stolen horse and garments. The horse, richly caparisoned, is tethered to a rock. HORSEMEN can be seen in the distance.
THIEF: The lances’ tongues
lick the light –
see, it is so.
off, blood scattering bright.
Woe, cry woe.
THIEF [folding his arms]:
The father thieved,
so must the son.
FENCE: The father received
goods by theft won.
So it goes on.
THIEF: Fate must be endured,
with none else shared.
I am what I am.
FENCE [alarmed, listening]:
The bushes stir,
we must flee! Where?
THIEF: This cave is deep. Enter.
Great is the prophet, blessed be his name.
They make their escape, abandoning the emperor’s possessions. The distant HORSEMEN vanish over the horizon.
PEER [enters, whittling pan pipes from reeds]:
How blissful the morning at this early hour.
The dung beetle rolls his pellet in the gravel;
the snail’s head creeps from the shell in its slow travel.
Ah, morning truly does have gold in its mouth.
It is, when you think about it, a remarkable power
that nature has endowed the daylight with.
In daylight you feel so secure, feel your courage wax;
you think, ‘If I had to I could take on an ox!’
And the surrounding silence! The sweet depth of rural joy;
how could I have so ignored these things previously?
It’s madness to be self-immured in those barrack-towns,
to leave them only at such times as the mob turns
violent, when, if you can, you slip away.
See how that lizard just flickers about and about,
its pointy little head snippeting without deep thought.
What innocence there is in the lives of animals,
compliant with the voice of their Creator when He calls,
each marked with its own intimate nature indelibly;
utterly itself, whether in quarrel or play,
just as it appeared when the Creator uttered His defining Word.
[Sets his pince-nez on his nose.]
A toad set in the midst of a block of sandstone.
Everything around it stone, alone with its own head,
just brooding there as if from a glass grandstand,
contemplating the world, sufficient to itself.
[Stops, as if the thought had snagged on something.]
Sufficient to itself? Now where did I read or hear that?
I think, in something bulky hauled from a shelf
when I was a boy. That book of sermons? Or, if not,
Solomon’s word-book? It distresses me greatly
that, for some years, and much more so lately,
my grasp of past time and place has been, and is, weakening.
[Sits down in the shade.]
How restful it is just to sit and to stretch out your feet.
Look, here is a fern that has an edible root.
[Tastes a little.]
Well, hardly haute cuisine; but then, ‘Keep a tight rein
on mortal appetite,’ said one or other of our wise men
whose task it is to make a moral reckoning.
‘Pride comes before a fall,’ read, probably, in the same source;
‘He that humbles himself shall be exalted’. Of course.
[Shows signs of unease.]
‘Be exalted.’ I have no doubt that this will be granted me.
I find that I cannot think of anything else.
I shall transcend these things with the blessing of destiny.
This catastrophic reversal will go into reverse.
Things will be made clear; I shall relaunch my career.
This has been a martyr’s ordeal by fire.
After it comes salvation. I trust my physique
will be up to it; and that faith brings me luck.
[Shakes off any uneasy thoughts; lights a cigar; stretches; stares out across the desert.]
What an immeasurable limitless desert this is.
Over there a solitary ostrich is strutting.
What could you deduce here of God’s purposes,
what, in this dead emptiness, is He permitting?
In this blank terrain, inimical to life,
all-consuming, all-consumed, totally burned up and out,
totally unsupportive of humanity’s self-belief;
this fragment, or segment, of a world-self that is not;
this corpse which, never since the earth was born,
has given its creator a single word in return.
Why did He do it? Nature’s both lavish and deadly.
Over there, eastward, that flat glittering expanse:
is it the ocean, laid there so absurdly?
The ocean lies to westward, where the hills fence
it off from the desert, somewhat like a dam.
[He has a brainwave.]
A dam31 it should be possible to breach
therefore; those hills have low contours.
Breach them, and a flood of new life pours
over the desert its life-creating foam.
That done, this red-hot wilderness that is like Mars
settles itself into a new and fertile calm.
Oases will be renewed as islands that it is joy to reach.
Mount Atlas,32 to northward, shall grow green, a mountainous coast,
tall ships in full sail go where only camels have crossed
in earlier times; life-giving, life-enriching air
create a sweet turbulence, and dew be nightly refreshed.
And soon the builders of cities will arrive here,
hanging gardens a-plenty, as many as might be wished.
Regions to the southward, behind Sahara’s barren wall,
enjoying a new status, a true costa del sol;33
steam power renews the ancient powerhouses of Timbuctoo,
northern Nigeria’s reborn, the place of choice to go.
Now through Abyssinia34 I see expert researchers travel
in specially reserved luxury trains to the Upper Nile.
In the midst of this New Atlantis35 I propose to settle
Norwegians of the finest mental and physical fettle
(the pure blood of our valleys equals that of royalty,
almost); then to cross-breed them with the best Arab stock.
Also I shall require expert practitioners in realty
since, on a sloping shore that gently enfolds,
on three sides, a bay, imagination unfolds
the plan of my new city, Peeropolis, capital
of Gyntiana, unveiled before the earth’s astonished people.
[Leaping up with intense excitement]
Capital investment, then, is all that will be needed
and the thing is done: gateway to a grand Mare Nostrum;
vision versus sterility, the powers of death ceded
without a struggle; the miser throws open his sack!
To those who in every land pursue their dream of freedom,
as did the ass in the Ark,
I shall send forth a call, bringing to the benighted
hope of liberation; and, to this lovely littoral,
liberation also from its present sterile thrall.
En avant! From wheresoe’er thou mayst come, O venture-capital!
‘My kingdom,’ let’s say half a kingdom, ‘for a horse’!
[The emperor’s stolen horse whinnies from the cleft.]
Great heavens! A charger, and jewels, and a set of robes
an emperor would be proud to wear!
[Moves closer.]
It’s not possible, surely? I’ve heard that willpower
will move mountains. But a horse? Yet a horse it is,
ab esse ad posse36 notwithstanding, philosophical niceties.
[Puts on the robes over his European clothes and inspects the result.]
Let’s see how you look, Sir Peter. Quite splendid of course,
befitting the emperor of golden tribes,
with Grane the dragon-slayer to ride upon,
[Climbs into the saddle.]
gracing the silver stirrups with my golden shoon.
It is by their appearance that you know the noblest of men!
He gallops off into the desert.
The tent of an Arab chieftain standing solitary in an oasis. PEER, dressed as an Arab, reclines on long, low cushions. He drinks coffee and smokes a long pipe. ANITRA and a CHOIR OF GIRLS are dancing and singing in his presence.
CHOIR OF GIRLS: The prophet has come,
the prophet, the lord, the all-knowing,
across the barren region once our home,
like a clean wind over the sands blowing,
the prophet, the lord, he who is without sin,
has come to us, and we have welcomed him in.
Sound! Sound! O you flutes and you drums!
Cry ‘It is the prophet, oh it is the prophet who comes!’
ANITRA: His steed is milk white
like the river that flows
through paradise-gate;
his eyes are the stars:
they are mild, they are fierce;
and none of earth’s children
can keep from their gaze.
We are smitten, beholden,
to Him with No Name.
His breast gleams with golden
adornment close-pearled.
Where he rode it grew light
and old darkness refurled.
Behind, the simoom37
fell back into its dust
and the ghosts of our thirst.
Before him, bowed heads
and bent knees fresh-proclaim
the joy that has come
on the palest of steeds.
And Kaba38 stands void
as he said it should.
CHOIR OF GIRLS: Sound! Sound! Oh, you flutes and you drums!
Cry ‘It is the prophet, oh, it is the prophet who comes!’
The GIRLS dance to a quiet music.
PEER: The saying is true – I have read it in print even –
‘Save in his own land no man is without honour.’
Well, this life I now lead appeals to me far more
than life back in Charleston as a shipowner.
There was something hollow about my life there,
alien; one might almost say unproven.
I was never truly at home in their company;
never truly paid my professional dues; so why
did I think to find myself by acting the galley slave,
feeding on scraps grabbed from the garbage of business?
When I think about it, it just doesn’t seem right;
dealing with approximations rather than true closeness.
‘It just happened to happen’ can’t be the final truth of it,
you tell yourself, finding in the end it is all you have.
Establishing yourself on a foundation of gold,
you are shocked when you find it is on sand that you build.
For a retirement-presentation, gold watches, rings and suchlike,
folk wag their behinds and contrive to abase themselves sillier,
to royal insignia doff their equally silly hats,
although insignia, gold signets and other memorabilia
carry no hint of the inward self that does not need suits.
But speak the word ‘prophet’: about that there is something torchlike!
If people applaud you it is you the people applaud,
not what you may have in bank-vaults at home and abroad.
You are what you are, there are no two ways about it;
you are indebted neither to chance nor luck;
patents and royalties don’t enter the account.
‘Prophet’! Now there’s a grand name with which to be stuck!
Even though in my case the acquiring was inadvertent,
by chance acquisition of gifts – who would have thought it? –
because I came riding out of the desert one day,
meeting these children of nature along the way.
The prophet had come; for them the coming was revelation,
and they brought out for me the singers and dancers.
I was not acting to deceive; it just happened.
There is a difference between lies and prophetic answers,
and I can always surrender my stipend,
so to speak, and ease myself from the situation.
The entire business can be regarded as private
arrangements between consenting partners to date;
and when it is dissolved, why, Grane stands ready
to bear me away. No ill feelings from, or to, anybody.
ANITRA [approaching him from the tent-entrance]:
Prophetic majesty!
PEER: What does my slave crave?
ANITRA: She bears supplication from the Sons of the Plain
for admittance to thy presence –
PEER: Say to such men,
‘Keep your distance, you who do not truly believe.
We will overhear your pleas distantly. Men are not welcome here.’
Best to add that. All men, Anitra, my child,
are the weaker vessels; uncaring even when they have to care.
In your innocence you cannot begin to conceive
how cruelly womenfolk are eternally beguiled
by such trickst … sinners is the more appropriate term.
Well, I have spoken. Dance me your dances, come!
The prophet desires to be disencumbered of shame.
GIRLS [singing and dancing]:
The prophet is a holy man, wholly without sin.
He is grieved by the evils of the sons of dust.
The prophet is without wrath; his mildness be praised!
He opens paradise so that sinners may enter in.
PEER [watching ANITRA as she dances]:
Her legs twiddle as fast as drumsticks,
I’ve got a taste for her, the little hussy.
She nicely overfills that dress – I
really admire the way her bum twerks.
A bit too ripe, judged by our norms of beauty.
But beauty itself is merely convention,
a coin performing a standard duty.
Overripeness focuses the attention
when you have drained temperance to the dregs.
The hygienic body cheats you of your thrills.
Skin-and-bone or blubber I need my girls,
tempting child-virgin or old maid who begs,
flesh that is supple or the flesh that sags.
With what the norm serves up I’ve been cold-sated.
Anitra, here, contrives to be smelly-footed
while waving a dirty paw. Yet we are suited.
Her value to me is not reduced by her filth.
I would call it a precondition of sensual wealth.
Listen to me, Anitra!
ANITRA: Master, I hear! I …
PEER: You are a seductive child. Your prophet is much moved.
Do you doubt me? I would rather you believed.
To the keepers of paradise I shall commend you as an houri.
ANITRA: Master, that cannot be!
PEER: My child, I am entirely serious!
ANITRA: But, Master, I do not possess a soul.
PEER: Then get one!
ANITRA: How, Master?
PEER: No problem at all.
It’s true that you’re up to the gills in stupidity
but in this particular that’s not deleterious.
We can squeeze one in. Come, let me measure your skull.
There’s plenty of room; I knew there would be.
As I’ve said, things will never go very deep
where you’re concerned; but even so a soul
you shall have, my child; though one that’s small.
Good enough to get by with I should hope.
ANITRA: The prophet is generous, but …
PEER: What, child? Speak up!
ANITRA: Not having a soul …
PEER: Yes, yes, go on.
ANITRA: Instead of a soul may I have that precious stone?
She gestures towards a large opal in his turban.
PEER [delightedly extracts the jewel and hands it to her]:
Anitra, to me you are Eve’s natural daughter!
As you are the magnet, so I am the man.
For, as was written by some distinguished author,
‘Das Ewig-Weibliche ziehet uns an.’39
A moonlit night. A grove of palm trees outside ANITRA’s tent. PEER, with an Arab lute, is sitting under a tree. His beard and his hair are trimmed; he looks considerably younger.
PEER [playing and singing]:
I turned the lock on paradise
and bore away the key.
Towards the south I set my course;
and lovely women mourned their loss:
the loss they mourned was me.
Oh, ever southward did my prow
divide the ocean stream;
till, where the stately palm trees grow,
wreathing a bay in tranquil show,
I fed it to the flame.
I rode instead, across the sands,
a ship that journeyed well,
obedient to my guiding hands,
four legs responding, as responds
to wind and wave a gull.
Anitra, sweet fermenting juice
of palm wine, love me, do!
Angora goat’s cheese has its place
in my desires, but not so choice
a place, my dear, as you!
[Hangs the lute from his shoulder by its strap and approaches her.]
Silence? Does the fair one hear me?
Has she heard my modest warbling?
Who’s to say she isn’t near me,
veils and suchlike swift-discarding?
Hist! I heard a pop-and-burble,
something fresh out of a bottle?
There again, a little louder;
sighs of love? A murmuration,
whispers like a fizz of soda?
Slow decoction of a potion?
No, it is my sweet girl snoring.
Nightingale, so self-adoring,
you have now a rival near you;
cease your challenge, I can’t hear you.
Wait a moment, Peer! ’Tis written
nightingale is truly smitten.
I myself am such a singer
praising all things tweeting-tender.
Nightingale, I am your fellow-
warbler of th’enchanted hollow.
Cool of night is our twin bower,
songs of love our double power,
I am you as you are me,
single in twinned harmony:
thus resolved, my girl’s a snorer
grants me licence to adore her.
No higher joy exists in love
than stooping with chaste lips above
the chalice you decline to taste.
But there she is, the dove, at last!
My cup runneth when she appears.
ANITRA [still within the tent]:
Master, you call? Your servant hears!
PEER: Your master calls and has been calling.
He was awakened by a cat
making a nocturne of its prowling.
ANITRA: Dear master, it was worse than that.
PEER: Worse?
ANITRA: Spare my blushes at the thought.
PEER [moving closer]:
Was it something like the feeling
I had when I, soul-revealing,
to your care gave up my opal?
ANITRA [scandalized]:
Master, it was nothing like that!
Sounds you make are nothing like cat
on cat makes when they couple,
sacred being!
PEER: Ah, my clever
dancer with some limitations,
never does true love dissever
cat’s cries from our fleshed commotions
or prophetic comminations.
ANITRA: Master, with how sweet a cadence
do you chastise me.
PEER: Dearest child,
like others of your sex you cling
to outward forms, by them beguiled.
Inwardly I am rich in humour,
most at my ease in private chamber,
with winning grace remove the mask
of public office, cry good riddance
to daily round and common task –
they do not furnish all I ask.
Prophetic wrath is fresh-applied
each morning ere I step outside;
it’s such a superficial thing,
all nonsense! In a tête-à-tête
I’m simple Peer to you, my sweet.
You have me to yourself. Tonight
we keep the prophet waiting, right?
[Sits down under a tree and pulls her towards him.]
Come, Anitra, let us rest,
with palm tree fans our brows caressed.
I shall whisper, you will smile;
later we’ll switch roles a while.
You with your honeyed lips will move
the balmy air to acts of love.
ANITRA [now reclining at his feet]:
Your every word is like a song
of which I understand but little.
Might your daughter, ere too long,
learn a soul from such recital?
PEER: A soul, a spirit, knowledge, diction,
you may acquire from my instruction,
as, in the east, first rosy streaks
announce ‘It is the sun who speaks’;
gold letters, next, in typed display
confirm his hold upon the day:
thus we’ll commence your education.
But, in the all-embracing darkness,
wisdom must sleep while passion hearkens.
Pedagogy spurns emotion.
In any case it’s not the soul
that I would grant the leading role
in these affairs. It is the heart
that judges wisely, is it not?
ANITRA: Master, when you caress this theme
the opals, that I love so, gleam.
PEER: To be too clever’s to be stupid.
And cruelty’s the opened bud
of cowardice. I’ve seen it happen.
And truth, each time that it’s pursued
past reason, turns itself around,
goes widdershins and all misshapen.
My child, I cannot tell a lie:
there’s folk with over-active souls
who handle their affairs like fools
and cannot see for clarity.
I knew a fellow, once, like that,
the best, I’d say, of the whole band,
who failed his promise and misread his fate.
The teeming sands round this oasis
would be transformed at my command,
the waters of the neighbouring seas
pour in to flash and fertilize.
But I would be an ignoramus
if I did that but to be famous.
Anitra, child, can you conceive
the meaning of the verb ‘to live’?
ANITRA: I long to hear!
PEER: It means to glide
along time’s river still dryshod;
to be oneself at each extreme
of agency in space and time.
The very core, the I am I,
of selfhood’s self, such potency!
With lapse of years the eagle moults
his final moult, the old man halts,
the widow loses her last teeth,
miserdom parts one wizened soul
among the pack of them. Ah, Youth!
It is with you I seek to rule
just like a sultan, hot and whole!
Not on the shores of Gyntiana
with palms and vines and wreathed liana,
but in that virgin wilderness
a woman’s heart and mind are, solely.
Now do you see why, with such grace,
I charmed you to possess you wholly?
’Tis in your heart I mean to set
foundations for the caliphate
of my grand Selfhood. So, your passions
become imperial possessions
in which I govern as dictator –
you, mine, alone, we two, alone!
Can you conceive what must be done?
I’ll see that you become enthralled
as though with opals or with gold;
and if, at any time, we sever,
life and love – for you – are over.
It is your self that I create here,
every last fibre of your being,
no free will left you, no self-seeing,
utterly subsumed you’ll be,
your midnight tresses spread so free,
and everything that you might name
desirable through space and time,
Babylon’s gardens40 at the heart
of human longing, I’ll convert
into a sultan’s place of sport.
So, basically, it’s no bad thing
your skull has such a hollow ring.
Soul’s an encumbrance, you would find;
self-searching and self-knowledge bind
us to those things that are beyond.
A pretty fetter for your ankle
shall utter its sweet lisp and tinkle.
All that I take, that All you give!
Mine is the soul you’ll never have.
[ANITA snores.]
Ha! More snoring! Has it smitten
addled dreams, my exhortation?
This but reconfirms my powers.
Thoughts most intimately hers
paddle in streams of my desires.
[Stands up and begins to heap jewellery in her lap.]
Here are brooches and more opals.
Sleep, Anitra; dream of Peer
as you’d dream of golden apples.
You have crowned him emperor.
Dream’s the feigner, you unfeigning;
Peer as two in one self-reigning.
A caravan trail. The oasis is seen far behind. PEER on his white horse is galloping through the desert. He holds ANITRA in front of him, supported by the pommel.
ANITRA: Let me loose, I’m a biter!
PEER: Well, aren’t we the little spit-fire!
ANITRA: What is it you want?
PEER: What? To play hawk and dove!
To kidnap you! Play any old kind of crazy game!
ANITRA: And you a prophet! Don’t you have any feelings of shame?
PEER: Nonsense, the prophet is in his prime, you goose!
Do these tricks suggest age and overuse,
my intermittently attractive love?
ANITRA: Agh, leave me be! I want to get off home!
PEER: Stop playing hard to get, you little coquette!
Home to the in-laws? That would be a fine thing!
We’re two crazy birds let loose and free on the wing.
Daren’t show our faces back there ever again.
Besides, my sweeting, it’s a well-proven fact
that if you stay too long in the same place
what you gain in knowledge you lose in respect;
especially so, if you’ve been in some kind of disguise,
acting the prophet, to cite a recent case.
Best to be ephemeral, like a poem.
That visit’s over, and it was high time!
They are fickle converts, these children of the plain.
Neither frankincense nor progress were much in evidence
by the time we made our farewells. I say good riddance.
ANITRA: Tell truth, now: are you a prophet?
PEER: Emperor
is the choice of title I now prefer.
[Attempts a kiss.]
Just so, the woodpecker jerks back her natty head!
ANITRA: Give me that ring.
PEER: Take the lot; trash to trash, could be said.
ANITRA: Your words are like sweetest music to my ears.
PEER: One’s blest in a love that’s as profound as yours.
Let me dismount and go on foot, as your slave
leading the horse.
[Hands her the whip and dismounts.]
There now, my rose,
my splendiferous flower; I will struggle through the sand
till I’m smitten by sunstroke and get my just deserts.
I’m still young, Anitra; I’d have you keep that in mind.
My antics are performed merely to amuse,
not to be judged in scales that are over-precise.
If your mood had not lately become so grave
you would recognize that I’m a bright lad of parts,
my gracious oleander.
ANITRA: So you’re young, all right? Got any more rings and things?
PEER: Here, take your pick. See, I can leap like a buck!
If there were vine-leaves I should weave myself a garland here.
For indeed I am young! I am about to break into song.
[Dances and sings.]
O I am a jolly cockerel!
Peck me, my biddybaddy hen!
I will prance while you count to ten!
O I am a jolly cockerel!
ANITRA: Prophet, you are sweating; I’m afraid you will melt.
Pass me that heavy weight that’s dangling from your belt.
PEER: Sweet solicitude! Henceforth be custodian of my purse.
Loving hearts delight in each other; gold is a curse.
[Dances and sings again.]
Young Peer Gynt, oh, he’s a madcap.
He doesn’t know which foot is left and which is right.
Pooh, says Peer, I could still dance all night.
Peer Gynt’s a cockerel in its red cap!
ANITRA: Joy to the world! The prophet joins the dance!
PEER: That old fraud? Let us swap gaud for gaud!
Get undressed …
ANITRA: Your kaftan’s
too long; this cummerbund must have been a fat man’s;
I can’t get these stockings on.
PEER: So nothing fits. Eh bien.
[Kneeling]
But grant me, I beg you, an exquisite sorrow.
That is a sweetness that all true hearts should know,
when we return at long last to my castle …
ANITRA: Paradise
you declared it. Is it a long ride?
PEER: Well, yes,
a thousand miles more or less.
ANITRA: Too far for me.
PEER: But listen, when we arrive
you will be granted the soul that I said I would give …
ANITRA: Thanks for nothing, then. I shall get by without it.
That sorrow you so desired?
PEER: That sorrow, right,
short but intense, not more than two or three days …
ANITRA: The prophet’s wish is my command! Farewell!
She delivers a stinging blow to his fingers and gallops furiously away, towards the distant oasis.
PEER: Well, I’ll …
The same place, an hour later. PEER, appearing thoughtful and composed, is taking off his Arab garments piece by piece. Finally he takes his little travelling hat out of his coat pocket and puts it on. He is once more clad à l’européenne.
PEER [throwing his turban as far as he can]:
There lies the Ottoman, and I am still standing!
This un-Christian way of life is not me at all.
I’m lucky that it was in the clothes and the smell,
not gashes in my flesh and not branding.
What was I doing sweating on that galley?
I believe one should live the Christian life fully,
with sober self-judging, not peacocking about,
but basing your actions on the moral law,
thinking ‘I am what I am’; and, when you’ve had your lot,
deserving a final eulogy, a few decent wreaths on show.
[Walks a few steps, cogitating.]
That little tart, she came as near as dammit
to turning my head. Call me ‘troll’ if you will,
her hold over me is incomprehensible
now. Staggering-drunk I was with – you name it.
I’m well rid of her. If the joke had been carried
a step farther I’d have had good cause to be worried.
My error was issue of the situation;
it wasn’t the essential Peer who succumbed
to temptation;
it’s the prophetic career that should be blamed,
lounging around in tents all day and all night,
no wonder one becomes utterly sick of it.
Prophesying – anywhere – is thoroughly unrewarding;
you’re in a fog officially and at the fog’s bidding.
If you’re wide awake, sober, you’re not a prophet.
In the ways I knew best I was being true to my role
in slobbering over that chit and playing the fool.
But, even so—
[Bursts into laughter.]
Oh, but you have to laugh; it
is, after all, priceless: vying to halt time
by prancing and dancing or trying to swim
against the stream,
by monkeying and tail-flunkeying,
harping, throwing the occasional fit,
strutting like a cockerel. Pfui! I was plucked all right!
Good thing I do have a little bit of cash,
lucky I hid it; and back in the States a small stash.
I’m not totally destitute,
the ‘golden mean’ and all that!
I’m no longer dependent on the vagaries of servants,
grooms, coaches, porters losing your luggage;
in short, as they say, I’m henceforth my own master;
choice is all mine; there are many ways to choose from.
Bad choice, good choice, is what divides fools from savants.
My business life is buried in its vault,
my love-life galloped off with Anitra, the sweet baggage!
The crayfish may walk backwards, in his wisdom,
but I don’t have to follow him by default.
Bitter experience is the best loss-adjuster.
‘Forwards or backwards the distance is the same,
in or out, whichever way, a tight fit.’
That brilliant text – such a pleasure to recite!
So, pastures new, and a new programme,
a cause well worth the cost of taking up.
Authorship, then? The story of my life,
‘full and frank’, ‘holds nothing back’, ‘shocking’.
Moral reflections, stages on life’s way?
Perhaps not. Or, since my time’s my own,
a travelling ‘independent scholar’ type
might be my métier. Forms of depraved belief
in pagan times? Yes, I’d enjoy working
on that: historiography,
the study of facts, keeping close to the bone.
As a boy I loved the old chronicles,
the facts and figures of historical cycles.
I will swim like a feather on the stream of history,
knowing that the story of greatness is my story;
heroic battling for what is great and good,
though at a safe distance, as an observer merely;
see philosophers perish, martyrs in their own blood,
see kingdoms rise and fall, vast epochs emerge
from small beginnings on time’s verge.
It’s history’s finest cream I’ll skim off for myself surely!
I must get hold of an odd volume of Becker,41
going back in time as far as I can trek there.
The inner mechanisms of history are elusive,
but – oddsbodkins! – where the point of departure
best evades commonsense plodding, the nature
of things is such that ingeniously persuasive
results are obtained. How energizing it is
to set yourself a goal and to win the prize
against every obstacle that’s set in the path
of truth—
[Appears quietly moved.]
To break, thoroughly and completely, the bonds
that bind you to home, parents and friends,
to dynamite your worldly goods, scatter them to the sky,
and, if necessary,
to bid farewell to the happiness of love
in order that truth may live –
[wiping away a tear]
that is what drives forward all research!
My present joy defies
measure; I have solved the insoluble riddle
of the true nature of my life’s vocation.
It surely will be thought excusable
if I stand here overcome by emotion,
knowing myself to be once more in touch
with Gynthood as it truly is,
Gyntism, alias
Imperialism of the New Humanity;
to have repossessed
the key that had been lost,
this is to be the prize that’s mine alone.
Of research into the present age there shall be none.
The present age is not worth the sole of my shoe.
Mankind at present is rich only in puny excesses;
it is earthbound yet lacks gravity. I will take no excuses!
[Shrugs his shoulders.]
And womankind? Well, womankind is worthless too.
He leaves.
A summer’s day in the far north. A cabin deep in the forest. An open door with a large wooden latch. Reindeer horns over the door. A flock of goats is grazing alongside the cabin wall. A middle-aged woman, fair-haired and comely, is spinning and singing. The sun is radiant.
SOLVEIG: Perchance there will pass both the winter and spring
and next summer too, what the whole year will bring;
but one day you will come; I know that in my heart;
I shall wait as I promised on that day we drew apart.
May God give you strength in this world that is so strong.
May God give you joy if with Him you belong.
As my thread I have spun, so in prayer I have striven.
We shall meet, O my love, on this earth or in heaven.
Egypt. Dawn. The statue of Memnon massive amid the sands. PEER enters on foot and stands for a while, surveying the scene.
PEER: Here we might fittingly begin our quest: Peer Gynt
now in the guise of an Egyptian gent
who yet manifests the pure Gyntian thesis
in the land of Isis.
Afterwards I shall make tracks for Assyria,
but I’ll leave well alone the Creation-era;
push the Bible story completely to one side;
it’s always available if there’s a need.
And to niggle at it with a fine-tooth comb
seems to me a recipe for boredom.
[Sits on a stone.]
I shall rest and, with the patience I can command,
await Memnon’s much-advertised aubade to the sand.
Breakfast over, I shall ascend the Pyramid;
if there’s time, turn next to examine what’s hid-
den in the bowels of that grand edifice.
A trip by land to the Red Sea will next take place;
King Potiphar’s grave I might easily discover.
Assyria then, as noted. Babylon of course;
the famous hanging gardens and the famous whores,
with other features of cultural merit.
Next to Troy which has been famous for ever.
Thence to Athens by the direct sea route.
Near Athens is located the world-famous pass
so expertly defended by Leonidas,42
which I will closely examine stone by stone;
as I shall the place where they made Socrates fatally drunk.
But – that’s not possible, why didn’t I think?
I can’t visit Greece at present; there’s a war going on.
Hellenism must be postponed.
[Looks at his watch.]
One waits
far too long for sunrise in Egypt; there are limits
to the free time one has. Where had I got to?
[Stands up, startled, and listening attentively.]
What’s that peculiar humming I can hear?
Sunrise.
THE STATUE OF MEMNON [sings]:
From the ashes of one not wholly a god arises
the birds’ war-chorus.
All-knowing Zeus
created them thus.
O Wisdom’s owl,
where shall they all
sleep? Resolve it, or die,
my riddling monody.
PEER: I seriously believe it was the statue!
That sound came from the statue, I do declare.
The rising and falling of a stone voice is what I heard.
I shall submit my notes to a learned society
of proven sobriety.
[Makes notes in a small pocket book.]
‘The statue distinctly sang. I could not grasp a word
of its song. Doubtless some illusion.
Nothing else today worthy of mention.’
He walks away.
Near the settlement of Giza. The great Sphinx. In the far distance Cairo’s spires and minarets are just visible. PEER enters; he examines the Sphinx with increasingly close attention. He peers through his pince-nez; he employs the hollow of a hand, like a viewing-tube.
PEER: Where on earth have I met, before and elsewhere, this monstrosity?
Something, somewhere, half-remembered, half-forgotten …
A human being, was it? And, if so, which one?
Back in the far north? Or later? The thought now occurs
that Memnon resembled the old so-called courtiers
of the Dovre King (such disgusting ferocity!).
The way he sat there, solid and rigid,
with his backside
a fixture on the stumps of broken columns.
And, now, this thing, this weird half-breed, changeling,
stuck part way between lion and woman: it’s a strange thing
but this also strikes chords. Folk tales? Old rhymes?
Something from real life? Something from my past?
That’s it! I met this old fellow first
when I clouted the Boyg (or did I dream the Boyg
in my fever sleep?).
[Gets closer.]
Yes, same eyes,
same lips, a little more cunning and a bit less slug-
gish; but, generally speaking, the same otherwise.
So here we are then, Boyg, old fellow. You resemble a lion
when met in broad daylight and rear-end-on.
Are you still doing riddles? Let’s try one out.
If you know the answer just give a shout.
[He bellows at the Sphinx.]
Hey, Boyg, who are you?
A VOICE FROM BEHIND THE SPHINX: Ach, Sfinx, wer bist du?43
PEER: ‘Echo employs the German tongue. A significant fact.’
VOICE: Wer bist du?
PEER: And fluently, too.
I must set my own stamp on this observation:
[Enters in his notebook.]
‘Albeit employing the Berliner dialect.’
BEGRIFFENFELDT [appears from behind the Sphinx]:
What you thought an echo was the man you see.
PEER: H’m. Him? Scholarly record requires modification.
[Makes a second notebook entry.]
‘Further observation suggests a different category.’
BEGRIFFENFELDT [making various nervous gestures]:
I beg you forgive this intrusion, mein Herr!
I have to put to you the following Lebensfrage:44
‘What precisely is the purpose of your journey here?’
PEER: I’ve come to visit a friend from long ago.
BEGRIFFENFELDT: How splendid! And after such a night!
My head’s being pounded by a pile-driver!
You know him? Speak! Answer! Can you name
was er ist?45
PEER: What he is? Yes, I can do that
easily enough. He is him-
self.
BEGRIFFENFELDT [with a little skip and jump]:
I see the mystery of things quiver,
flashing before my eyes.
I have your absolute
assurance on this?
PEER: That’s what he says.
BEGRIFFENFELDT: Himself! The Revolution’s now in motion!
[Taking off his hat]
May I have the honour of knowing your name, mein Herr?
PEER: My family name is Gynt. My baptismal name is Peer.
BEGRIFFENFELDT [in hushed admiration]:
Peer Gynt beginnt! Which, as I interpret,
signifies ‘the coming one’, ‘the new man’;
‘he whose coming was foretold by the prophet’.
PEER: No, really? And now you are here to get …?
BEGRIFFENFELDT: ‘Peer Gynt beginnt.’ Profound, mysterious, searching,
each word unfathomable yet profound teaching.
I ask again, who are you?
PEER [modestly]: I have always sought
to be myself. You may examine my passport.
BEGRIFFENFELDT: Again that prophetic name. It is the Sign!
[Taking hold of PEER’s wrist]
To Cairo we must go. The divine
revelator is come!
PEER: Who?
BEGRIFFENFELDT: Make haste!
PEER: And am I truly known …?
BEGRIFFENFELDT: Selbstgrundlage!46 The divine self-revelator! Him!
In Cairo. A large courtyard with high walls. Buildings with barred windows. Metal cages. Three GUARDS in the courtyard. A fourth enters.
FOURTH GUARD: The Herr Direktor, Schafmann? Where has he gone?
GUARD: He left this morning, well before dawn.
FOURTH GUARD: Something deeply disturbing must have happened, then?
Last night …
GUARD: Be quiet; he’s back; he’s at the gate.
BEGRIFFENFELDT leads PEER in, locks the gate and puts the key in his pocket.
PEER [to himself]:
Truly, an extremely gifted mind.
His words fly above my head, at any rate.
[Looking around]
So this is the Scholars’ Club?
BEGRIFFENFELDT: I think you’ll find
they’re all alive and able.
‘Septuagint’ was the original label
but numbers have increased to more than double
in recent weeks.
[Calling the guards]
Schlingelberg, Fuchs,
into the cages with you, schnell!47
GUARDS: Us, Herr Direktor?
BEGRIFFENFELDT: Who else? Off you go!
While the world is spinning we must spin too!
[Pushes them into a cage.]
Our most recent arrival is the grand Gynt.
Work it out for yourselves. I shall be silent.
Locks the cage and throws the key down a well.
PEER: Herr Direktor, Herr Doktor, whichever you prefer …?
BEGRIFFENFELDT: I am not now entitled to such nomenclature.
I bore them once. Can you keep secrets, Herr Peer?
I need to make a confession.
PEER [increasingly uneasy]:
Well, I …
BEGRIFFENFELDT: You must promise not to tremble.
PEER: I shall try.
BEGRIFFENFELDT [drags him into a corner and whispers]:
I must inform you that I witnessed Absolute Reason
expire last night: eleven o’clock, on the dot.
PEER: Great heavens!
BEGRIFFENFELDT: Indeed. Most deeply I wish he had not.
For a professional
in my position
it is especially painful.
This institution,
heretofore, stood in high repute
as a madhouse.
PEER: A madhouse?
BEGRIFFENFELDT: No longer so, of course.
PEER [pale and quiet]:
How well, now, I understand.
This fellow is raving, and the sane are blind.
Moves away.
BEGRIFFENFELDT [following him around]:
By the way, I trust you have understood:
when I say he’s dead I am speaking in code.
he’s leaped out of his own skin
as the fox leaps out of its pelt in Münchhausen.48
PEER: Excuse me a moment.
BEGRIFFENFELDT [holding on to him tightly]:
More like an eel
than a fox. With a pin through his eye
he squirmed on the wall.
PEER: I must escape, and soon!
BEGRIFFENFELDT: A snip round the neck and then –
presto! – he was up and away!
PEER: Tragic, obscene …
BEGRIFFENFELDT: It’s plain to see, it’s impossible to conceal.
This ‘from-oneself-going’ will have as a result
something resembling a geological fault.
Those who previously had been labelled ‘mad’
at eleven o’clock last night suddenly became fit to plead,
in conformity with reason in its new phase.
And if you look at the matter correctly, furthermore
it is evident that, from the aforementioned hour,
all so-called sane people have become crazy.
PEER: You spoke of a clock striking. My time is short.
BEGRIFFENFELDT: Your time? You compel me to speak. Come forth,
I say, Time’s Future is upon us,
reason is dead, Peer Gynt answers the summons.
Good new dawn to you all, well met.
The dawn of the new dispensation is indeed sweet.
Your emperor has this moment arrived.
PEER: Emperor?
I am not worthy of such an honour, I fear.
BEGRIFFENFELDT: Do not let senseless modesty degrade
this moment.
PEER: But I’m stupefied.
BEGRIFFENFELDT: One who has solved that dire conundrum
posed by the Sphinx? Who is selfhood’s self? None worthier
than thou to be our grand panjandrum.
PEER: I am indeed myself in toto;49 but therein,
if I correctly read your mind, we snag.
Self here, you say, is absolute Nonself. I must beg
to stand down, to abdicate, to be left alone.
BEGRIFFENFELDT: No one’s himself, emperor, don’t you see,
but here: each is himself, here, to the nth degree.
Each to himself, impurities excised,
himself at sea with all the canvas raised.
Bunged in the barrel of himself, fermenting,
hermetically sealed-in with self-cementing.
Wood-preservative-selfhood’s all the rage;
no tears for others’ woes from selfhood’s cage;
no tolerance for what’s judged alien;
self at the limit of the diving board,
self on display, unchallenged, self-admired:
none but you so perfectly fits that bill.
PEER: God! No!
BEGRIFFENFELDT: Let neither modesty nor dismay
prevent acceptance. We’re making a new start
and that can be unsettling. Tell you what!
I’ll pick someone at random, put him before your eye.
You’ll see how things can stand open-and-shut.
[To a shrouded figure]
Good day to you, Huhu, my lad; are you still
of the mind that modern things go ill?
HUHU: Can I otherwise conclude?
Generations, now, have died
nameless, uninterpreted.
[To PEER]
You’re the stranger who’s been thrust
upon us. D’you want the list?
PEER [bows]:
Please, by all means.
HUHU: Lend me your ear.
Look at the coasts of Malabar50
far to the east; its wreaths of flowers
clapped on the skulls of foreign powers.
The Portuguese, the Dutch, arrive.
Culture’s merchandisings thrive.
make their mark – that’s something else tho’!
Portuguese, Dutch, Malibari
mix their languages like curry;
together, in some sort, proclaim
such lordships as God’s paradigm.
Yet, in a lost primeval age,
the orang-outang was in charge;
child of the forest and its master;
fought and hunted; yawned at rest there;
screams of triumph, screams of pain,
reverberant in his domain,
primeval and primordial,
till Man conveyed his murder-deal.
Four hundred years of commerce-making51
gave darkness to the orang-outang;
little indigenous survives;
the forest closes on its lives,
the growls, the murmurations, all,
the language of the common soul.
If we’re to speak of these, our tongues’
emancipation’s fettered things,
compulsion must assign us freedom;
Portuguese, Dutch, pure bred, mixed race,
must self-dissolve in a grand Ur-dom,
the purest song of our distress.
I have endeavoured with truth’s blade
to preach the aboriginal;
tried to resuscitate the corpse;
maintained the people’s right to curse;
and, in my isolation, tried
variants of that ancient call.
We must revive the folk-song if
the truth of things is to survive,
but none will hearken. You may feel
now, your highness, why I grieve.
Thank you for listening. If you have
any suggestions I will listen.
It is written, one must howl
when wolves are running, just to live.
[Aloud]
My friend, I seem to recollect,
Morocco had some bushes packed
with orang-outangs: they appeared
to be without a single bard.
Their language, I’ve no doubt, is full
of sounds on which your skills could fasten;
to me it sounded Malabarian
but I’m no expert. With your brain
and expertise and colleagues, could
you not arrange to take the Word
to where such gifts might work great good?
HUHU: Words most persuasively precise.
I’ll act on your advice.
[With a grand gesture]
The bard
rejected in his own land’s heard
by apes upon a foreign strand!
He leaves.
BEGRIFFENFELDT: Was his the Nonself’s selfhood? Could you understand?
I say it was, in some remote kind.
He is his Nonself’s maestro, that alone,
in everything he pours forth, Archimedean point,
beside himself, both in and out of joint.
Attend, please, for I have another patient
who, since last night, has been indisputably sane.
[To a FELLAH carrying a mummy on his back]
King Apis,52 how do you do, my noble lord?
FELLAH [wildly, to PEER]:
Am I King Apis?
PEER [hiding behind the doctor]:
I am obliged to confess
that I do not possess the full details of your case;
but, judging by your symptoms, I would diagnose …
BEGRIFFENFELDT: It would help us to achieve
a diagnosis if, Your Highness, you could give
a full account of things; perhaps relive …
FELLAH [turning to address PEER]:
This fellow I’m here carrying,
King Apis was his name.
He’s what they call a mummy.
He’s as dead as they come.
Pyramids were his buildings.
He chiselled the great Beast.
As the Doc says, he battled
those Turks from the east.
So, by the whole of Egypt
he was worshipped as a god.
They stood him in their temples,
an ox as he stood.
Now I’m him with that power,
I see it clear as day.
If you are blind, listen;
I’ll tell it my way.
King Apis he went hunting
and he was caught short,
went on great-grandad’s property
for to take a shit.
The field that he manured,
it has fed me with corn.
If final proof’s needed
I’ve got invisible horns.
Is it not most damnable
no one speaks of my power?
By rights I am King Apis
though I’m damned poor.
If you know any remedies –
let’s have no deceit –
tell me how I might be becoming
King Apis the great.
PEER: Your Highness must build pyramids
and battle, as the Doc has told you,
a Turkish phalanx.
FELLAH: Ah well, that’s some fine talkin’:
that’s as far as it gets.
I’ve enough keeping my lean-to
free of rats.
Come up with something better
is my plea and desire,
to have me feel as good as
King Apis here.
PEER: What if you hanged yourself,
Your Highness, and then,
snug in that old coffin,
have a grand time on your own?
FELLAH: Yessir! A rope to take me,
both my skin and my bone.
At first I’ll not look like him,
but later on …
Walks away and prepares to hang himself.
BEGRIFFENFELDT:
So there was one well stuck on himself, Herr Peer,
mit Methode.
PEER: I suppose I must concur.
But – he can’t be going to hang himself from that hook?
Oh, my God, he is! This is terrible!
My thoughts are spinning beyond my self-will!
I’m becoming ill!
BEGRIFFENFELDT: A very brief transitional phase of shock.
PEER: Transition to what, God help me? I have to be gone!
BEGRIFFENFELDT [grasping him and speaking overbearingly]:
What? Leaving? Are you mad?
PEER [quietly]:
That judgement’s not yet made.
A general agitation, people milling about. MINISTER HUSSEIN forces his way through the crowd.
HUSSEIN: An emperor’s arrival’s now officially made known.
That is you, excellency?
PEER [desperately]:
Everyone seems agreed that I am he.
HUSSEIN: Very good. Here are some notes that need your
immediate answer.
PEER [tugging at his hair, in a kind of frantic gaiety]:
High jinks at the nadir!
HUSSEIN: Will you honour me with a dip?
[Bows deeply.]
I am a quill.
PEER [bowing even more deeply]:
And I have the honour of being a fully inscribed
imperial parchment.
HUSSEIN: My history, Excellency, I shall briefly tell.
I am used as a sand-shaker when in fact I’m a pen.
PEER: My history, Chief Minister Quill, appears to have been scrubbed.
I am a sheet of paper on which nothing is written.
HUSSEIN: I have capacities that no one can comprehend.
I wish to write well, and yet I scatter sand.
PEER: I was a book with a silver clasp53 in a woman’s hand.
Whether sane or insane we are the same printer’s error.
HUSSEIN: But pray bear in mind my debilitated life:
I am a quill pen that has never tasted the knife.
PEER [giving a high kick, as in the halling]:
Just think – to be that reindeer buck! He plunges
into a void of air, exquisite terror,
no hoof-print is ever found.
HUSSEIN: I am a blunt knife. My edge must be reground.
The world will die for want of such changes.
PEER: That’s a great shame for the world, which, like all other
self-made things, our Lord believed to be sound.
BEGRIFFENFELDT: A knife, Freiherr!
HUSSEIN [snatching it]:
How I shall slather
myself with red ink! The ecstasy of that wound!
He slashes his own throat.
BEGRIFFENFELDT [turning sharply away]:
Don’t splash! Tch!
PEER [clearly appalled]:
Hold him!
HUSSEIN: Hold! A good word to have found!
I am a dulled edge ground
down. Put paper. Hold pen.
Let there be a postscript, a ‘last inscribed work’.
You set it down:
‘He lived so that, through him, illiterates might leave a mark’.
PEER [in a state of near collapse]:
What should I …? What am I …? Oh, Lord! Hold fast!
Whatever You want me to be – Turk, sinner,
or mountain troll – there was a thing that burst –
I nearly became a trolls’ dinner.
[Screams.]
Can’t quite call You to mind, sorry!
‘Our Lord is the guardian of fools.’ Some story.
Sinks down unconscious.
BEGRIFFENFELDT [with a wreath of straw in his hand sits down on top of PEER, straddling him]:
See how his filth becomes him now.
Ausser sich.54 A straw wreath for his brow.
[Crams the wreath – it looks obscenely rakish – on PEER’s head and proclaims:]
Long may he last – Self’s emperor!
SCHAFMANN [from the cage]:
Es lebe hoch der grosse Peer!55