Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)

Peer Gynt

Translated by Robert Farquharson Sharp

Act II

Scene 3

(Low, treeless heights, close under the mountain moorlands; peaks in the distance. The shadows are long; it is late in the day.)

(Peer Gynt comes running at full speed, and stops short on the hillside.)

PEER. The parish is all at my heels in a pack! Every man of them armed with gun or with club. Foremost I hear the old Hegstad-churl howling.—Now it’s noised far and wide that Peer Gynt is abroad! It is different, this, from a bout with a smith! This is life! Every limb grows as strong as a bear’s. (Strikes out with his arms and leaps in the air.) To crush, overturn, stem the rush of the foes! To strike! Wrench the fir-tree right up by the root! This is life! This both hardens and lifts one high! To hell then with all of the savourless lies!

THREE SAETER GIRLS (rush across the hillside, screaming and singing). Trond of the Valfjeld! Bard and Kare! Troll-pack! To-night would you sleep in our arms?

PEER. To whom are you calling?

THE GIRLS. To the trolls! to the trolls!

FIRST GIRL. Trond, come with kindness!

SECOND GIRL. Bard, come with force!

THIRD GIRL. The cots in the saeter are all standing empty!

FIRST GIRL. Force is kindness!

SECOND GIRL. And kindness is force!

THIRD GIRL. If lads are a-wanting, one plays with the trolls!

PEER. Why, where are the lads, then?

ALL THREE (with a horse-laugh). They cannot come hither!

FIRST GIRL. Mine called me his sweetheart and called me his darling. Now he has married a grey-headed widow.

SECOND GIRL. Mine met a gipsy-wench north on the upland. Now they are tramping the country together.

THIRD GIRL. Mine put an end to our bastard brat. Now his head’s grinning aloft on a stake.

ALL THREE. Trond of the Valfjeld! Bard and Kare! Troll-pack! To-night would you sleep in our arms?

PEER (stands, with a sudden leap, in the midst of them). I’m a three-headed troll, and the boy for three girls!

THE GIRLS. Are you such a lad, eh?

PEER. You shall judge for yourselves!

FIRST GIRL. To the hut! To the hut!

SECOND GIRL. We have mead!

PEER. Let it flow!

THIRD GIRL. No cot shall stand empty this Saturday night!

SECOND GIRL (kissing him). He sparkles and glisters like white-heated iron.

THIRD GIRL (doing likewise). Like a baby’s eyes from the blackest tarn.

PEER (dancing in the midst of them). Heavy of heart and wanton of mind. The eyes full of laughter, the throat of tears!

THE GIRLS (making mocking gestures towards the mountain-tops, screaming and singing). Trond of the Valfjeld! Bard and Kare! Troll-pack!—To-night will you sleep in our arms?

(They dance away over the heights, with Peer Gynt in their midst.)

Act II Scene 2

Act II Scene 4