Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)

Peer Gynt

Translated by Robert Farquharson Sharp

Act IV

Scene 1

(On the south-west coast of Morocco. A palm-grove. Under an awning, on ground covered with matting, a table spread for dinner. Further back in the grove hammocks are slung. In the offing lies a steam-yacht, flying the Norwegian and American colours. A jolly-boat drawn up on the beach. It is towards sunset.)

(Peer Gynt, a handsome middle-aged gentleman, in an elegant travelling-dress, with a gold-rimmed double eyeglass hanging at his waistcoat, is doing the honours at the head of the table. Mr. Cotton, Monsieur Ballon, Herr von Eberkopf, and Herr Trumpeterstrale are seated at the table finishing dinner.)

PEER GYNT. Drink, gentlemen! If man is made for pleasure, let him take his fill then. You know ’tis written: Lost is lost, and gone is gone—. What may I hand you?

TRUMPETERSTRALE. As host you’re princely, Brother Gynt!

PEER. I share the honour with my cash, with cook and steward—

MR. COTTON. Very well; let’s pledge a toast to all the four!

MONSIEUR BALLON. Monsieur, you have a gout, a ton that nowadays is seldom met with among men living en garçon,—a certain—what’s the word—?

VON EBERKOPF. A dash, a tinge of free soul-contemplation, and cosmopolitanisation, an outlook through the cloudy rifts by narrow prejudice unhemmed, a stamp of high illumination, an Ur-Natur, with lore of life, to crown the trilogy, united. Nicht wahr, Monsieur, ’twas that you meant?

MONSIEUR BALLON. Yes, very possibly; not quite so loftily it sounds in French.

VON EBERKOPF. Ei was! That language is so stiff.—But the phenomenon’s final cause if we would seek—

PEER. It’s found already. The reason is that I’m unmarried. Yes, gentlemen, completely clear the matter is. What should a man be? Himself, is my concise reply. He should regard himself and his. But can he, as a sumpter-mule for others’ woe and others’ weal?

VON EBERKOPF. But this same in-and-for-yourself-ness, I’ll answer for’t, has cost you strife—

PEER. Ay yes, indeed; in former days; but always I came off with honour. Yet one time I ran very near to being trapped against my will. I was a brisk and handsome lad, and she to whom my heart was given, she was of royal family—

MONSIEUR BALLON. Of royal—?

PEER (carelessly). One of those old stocks, you know the kind—

TRUMPETERSTRALE (thumping the table). Those noble-trolls!

PEER (shrugging his shoulders). Old fossil Highnesses who make it their pride to keep plebeian blots excluded from their line’s escutcheon.

MR. COTTON. Then nothing came of the affair?

MONSIEUR BALLON. The family opposed the marriage?

PEER. Far from it!

MONSIEUR BALLON. Ah!

PEER (with forbearance). You understand that certain circumstances made for their marrying us without delay. But, truth to tell, the whole affair was, first to last, distasteful to me. I’m finical in certain ways, and like to stand on my own feet. And when my father-in-law came out with delicately veiled demands that I should change my name and station, and undergo ennoblement, with much else that was most distasteful, not to say quite inacceptable,—why then I gracefully withdrew, point-blank declined his ultimatum—and so renounced my youthful bride. (Drums on the table with a devout air.) Yes, yes; there is a ruling Fate! On that we mortals may rely; and ’tis a comfortable knowledge.

MONSIEUR BALLON. And so the matter ended, eh?

PEER. Oh, no, far otherwise I found it; for busy-bodies mixed themselves, with furious outcries, in the business. The juniors of the clan were worst; with seven of them I fought a duel. That time I never shall forget, though I came through it all in safety. It cost me blood; but that same blood attests the value of my person, and points encouragingly towards the wise control of Fate aforesaid.

VON EBERKOPF. Your outlook on the course of life exalts you to the rank of thinker. Whilst the mere commonplace empiric sees separately the scattered scenes, and to the last goes groping on, you in one glance can focus all things. One norm to all things you apply. You point each random rule of life, till one and all diverge like rays from one full-orbed philosophy.—And you have never been to college?

PEER. I am, as I’ve already said, exclusively a self-taught man. Methodically naught I’ve learned; but I have thought and speculated, and done much desultory reading. I started somewhat late in life, and then, you know, it’s rather hard to plough ahead through page on page, and take in all of everything. I’ve done my history piecemeal; I never have had time for more. And, as one needs in days of trial some certainty to place one’s trust in, I took religion intermittently. That way it goes more smoothly down. One should not read to swallow all, but rather see what one has use for.

MR. COTTON. Ay, that is practical!

PEER (lights a cigar). Dear friends, just think of my career in general. In what case came I to the West? A poor young fellow, empty-handed. I had to battle sore for bread; trust me, I often found it hard. But life, my friends, ah, life is dear, and, as the phrase goes, death is bitter. Well! Luck, you see, was kind to me; old Fate, too, was accommodating. I prospered; and, by versatility, I prospered better still and better. In ten years’ time I bore the name of Croesus ’mongst the Charleston shippers. My fame flew wide from port to port, and fortune sailed on board my vessels—

MR. COTTON. What did you trade in?

PEER. I did most in Negro slaves for Carolina, and idol-images for China.

MONSIEUR BALLON. Fi donc!

TRUMPETERSTRALE. The devil, Uncle Gynt!

PEER. You think, no doubt, the business hovered on the outer verge of the allowable? Myself I felt the same thing keenly. It struck me even as odious. But, trust me, when you’ve once begun, it’s hard to break away again. At any rate it’s no light thing, in such a vast trade-enterprise, that keeps whole thousands in employ, to break off wholly, once for all. That “once for all” I can’t abide, but own, upon the other side, that I have always felt respect for what are known as consequences; and that to overstep the bounds has ever somewhat daunted me. Besides, I had begun to age, was getting on towards the fifties;—my hair was slowly growing grizzled; and, though my health was excellent, yet painfully the thought beset me: Who knows how soon the hour may strike, the jury-verdict be delivered that parts the sheep and goats asunder? What could I do? To stop the trade with China was impossible. A plan I hit on—opened straightway a new trade with the self-same land. I shipped off idols every spring, each autumn sent forth missionaries, supplying them with all they needed, as stockings, Bibles, rum, and rice—

MR. COTTON. Yes, at a profit?

PEER. Why, of course. It prospered. Dauntlessly they toiled. For every idol that was sold they got a coolie well baptised, so that the effect was neutralised. The mission-field lay never fallow, for still the idol-propaganda the missionaries held in check.

MR. COTTON. Well, but the African commodities?

PEER. There, too, my ethics won the day. I saw the traffic was a wrong one for people of a certain age. One may drop off before one dreams of it. And then there were the thousand pitfalls laid by the philanthropic camp; besides, of course, the hostile cruisers, and all the wind-and-weather risks. All this together won the day. I thought: Now, Peter, reef your sails; see to it you amend your faults! So in the South I bought some land, and kept the last meat-importation, which chanced to be a superfine one. They throve so, grew so fat and sleek, that ’twas a joy to me, and them too. Yes, without boasting, I may say I acted as a father to them,—and found my profit in so doing. I built them schools, too, so that virtue might uniformly be maintained at a certain general niveau, and kept strict watch that never its thermometer should sink below it. Now, furthermore, from all this business I’ve beat a definite retreat;—I’ve sold the whole plantation, and its tale of live-stock, hide and hair. At parting, too, I served around, to big and little, gratis grog, so men and women all got drunk, and widows got their snuff as well. So that is why I trust,—provided the saying is not idle breath: Whoso does not do ill, does good,—my former errors are forgotten, and I, much more than most, can hold my misdeeds balanced by my virtues.

VON EBERKOPF (clinking glasses with him). How strengthening it is to hear a principle thus acted out, freed from the night of theory, unshaken by the outward ferment!

PEER (who has been drinking freely during the preceding passages). We Northland men know how to carry our battle through! The key to the art of life’s affairs is simply this: to keep one’s ear close shut against the ingress of one dangerous viper.

MR. COTTON. What sort of viper, pray, dear friend?

PEER. A little one that slyly wiles you to tempt the irretrievable. (Drinking again.) The essence of the art of daring, the art of bravery in act, is this: To stand with choice-free foot amid the treacherous snares of life,—to know for sure that other days remain beyond the day of battle,—to know that ever in the rear a bridge for your retreat stands open. This theory has borne me on, has given my whole career its colour; and this same theory I inherit, a race-gift, from my childhood’s home.

MONSIEUR BALLON. You are Norwegian?

PEER. Yes, by birth; but cosmopolitan in spirit. For fortune such as I’ve enjoyed I have to thank America. My amply-furnished library I owe to Germany’s later schools. From France, again, I get my waistcoats, my manners, and my spice of wit,—from England an industrious hand, and keen sense for my own advantage. The Jew has taught me how to wait. Some taste for dolce far niente I have received from Italy,—and one time, in a perilous pass, to eke the measure of my days, I had recourse to Swedish steel.

TRUMPETERSTRALE (lifting up his glass). Ay, Swedish steel—?

VON EBERKOPF. The weapon’s wielder demands our homage first of all!

(They clink glasses and drink with him. The wine begins to go to his head.)

MR. COTTON. All this is very good indeed;—but, sir, I’m curious to know what with your gold you think of doing.

PEER (smiling). Hm; doing? Eh?

ALL FOUR (coming closer). Yes, let us hear!

PEER. Well, first of all, I want to travel. You see, that’s why I shipped you four, to keep me company, at Gibraltar. I needed such a dancing-choir of friends around my gold-calf-altar—

VON EBERKOPF. Most witty!

MR. COTTON. Well, but no one hoists his sails for nothing but the sailing. Beyond all doubt, you have a goal; and that is—?

PEER. To be Emperor.

ALL FOUR. What?

PEER (nodding). Emperor!

THE FOUR. Where?

PEER. O’er all the world.

MONSIEUR BALLON. But how, friend—?

PEER. By the might of gold! That plan is not at all a new one; it’s been the soul of my career. Even as a boy, I swept in dreams far o’er the ocean on a cloud. I soared with train and golden scabbard,—and flopped down on all-fours again. But still my goal, my friends, stood fast.—There is a text, or else a saying, somewhere, I don’t remember where, that if you gained the whole wide world, but lost yourself, your gain were but a garland on a cloven skull. That is the text—or something like it; and that remark is sober truth.

VON EBERKOPF. But what then is the Gyntish Self?

PEER. The world behind my forehead’s arch, in force of which I’m no one else than I, no more than God’s the Devil.

TRUMPETERSTRALE. I understand now where you’re aiming!

MONSIEUR BALLON. Thinker sublime!

VON EBERKOPF. Exalted poet!

PEER (more and more elevated). The Gyntish Self—it is the host of wishes, appetites, desires,—the Gyntish Self, it is the sea of fancies, exigencies, claims, all that, in short, makes my breast heave, and whereby I, as I, exist. But as our Lord requires the clay to constitute him God o’ the world, so I, too, stand in need of gold, if I as Emperor would figure.

MONSIEUR BALLON. You have the gold, though!

PEER. Not enough. Ay, maybe for a nine-days’ flourish, as Emperor à la Lippe-Detmold. But I must be myself en bloc, must be the Gynt of all the planet, Sir Gynt throughout, from top to toe!

MONSIEUR BALLON. (enraptured). Possess the earth’s most exquisite beauty!

VON EBERKOPF. All century-old Johannisberger!

TRUMPETERSTRALE. And all the blades of Charles the Twelfth!

MR. COTTON. But first a profitable opening for business—

PEER. That’s already found; our anchoring here supplied me with it. To-night we set off northward ho! The papers I received on board have brought me tidings of importance—! (Rises with uplifted glass.) It seems that Fortune ceaselessly aids him who has the pluck to seize it—

THE GUESTS. Well? Tell us—!

PEER. Greece is in revolt.

ALL FOUR (springing up). What! Greece—?

PEER. The Greeks have risen in Hellas.

THE FOUR. Hurrah!

PEER. And Turkey’s in a fix! (Empties his glass.)

MONSIEUR BALLON. To Hellas! Glory’s gate stands open! I’ll help them with the sword of France!

VON EBERKOPF. And I with war-whoops—from a distance!

MR. COTTON. And I as well—by taking contracts!

TRUMPETERSTRALE. Lead on! I’ll find again in Bender the world-renowned spur-strap-buckles!

MONSIEUR BALLON (falling on Peer Gynt’s neck). Forgive me, friend, that I at first misjudged you quite!

VON EBERKOPF (pressing his hands). I, stupid hound, took you for next door to a scoundrel!

MR. COTTON. Too strong, that; only for a fool—

TRUMPETERSTRALE (trying to kiss him). I, Uncle, for a specimen of Yankee riff-raff’s meanest spawn—! Forgive me—!

VON EBERKOPF. We’ve been in the dark—

PEER. What stuff is this?

VON EBERKOPF. We now see gathered in glory all the Gyntish host of wishes, appetites, and desires—!

MONSIEUR BALLON (admiringly). So this is being Monsieur Gynt!

VON EBERKOPF (in the same tone). This I call being Gynt with honour!

PEER. But tell me—?

MONSIEUR BALLON. Don’t you understand?

PEER. May I be hanged if I begin to!

MONSIEUR BALLON. What? Are you not upon your way to join the Greeks, with ship and money—?

PEER (contemptuously). No, many thanks! I side with strength, and lend my money to the Turks.

MONSIEUR BALLON. Impossible!

VON EBERKOPF. Witty, but a jest!

PEER (after a short silence, leaning on a chair and assuming a dignified mien). Come, gentlemen, I think it best we part before the last remains of friendship melt away like smoke. Who nothing owns will lightly risk it. When in the world one scarce commands the strip of earth one’s shadow covers, one’s born to serve as food for powder. But when a man stands safely landed, as I do, then his stake is greater. Go you to Hellas. I will put you ashore, and arm you gratis too. The more you eke the flames of strife, the better will it serve my purpose. Strike home for freedom and for right! Fight! storm! make hell hot for the Turks;—and gloriously end your days upon the Janissaries’ lances.—But I—excuse me—(Slaps his pocket.) I have cash, and am myself, Sir Peter Gynt.

(Puts up his sunshade, and goes into the grove, where the hammocks are partly visible.)

TRUMPETERSTRALE. The swinish cur!

MONSIEUR BALLON. No taste for glory—!

MR. COTTON. Oh, glory’s neither here nor there; but think of the enormous profits we’d reap if Greece should free herself.

MONSIEUR BALLON. I saw myself a conqueror, by lovely Grecian maids encircled.

TRUMPETERSTRALE. Grasped in my Swedish hands, I saw the great, heroic spur-strap-buckles!

VON EBERKOPF. I my gigantic Fatherland’s culture saw spread o’er earth and sea—!

MR. COTTON. The worst’s the loss in solid cash. God damn! I scarce can keep from weeping! I saw me owner of Olympus. If to its fame the mountain answers, there must be veins of copper in it, that could be opened up again. And furthermore, that stream Castalia, which people talk so much about, with fall on fall, at lowest reckoning, must mean a thousand horse-power good—!

TRUMPETERSTRALE. Still I will go! My Swedish sword is worth far more than Yankee gold!

MR. COTTON. Perhaps; but, jammed into the ranks, amid the press we’d all be drowned; and then where would the profit be?

MONSIEUR BALLON. Accurst! So near to fortune’s summit, and now stopped short beside its grave!

MR. COTTON (shakes his fist towards the yacht). That long black chest holds coffered up the nabob’s golden nigger-sweat—!

VON EBERKOPF. A royal notion! Quick! Away! It’s all up with his empire now! Hurrah!

MONSIEUR BALLON. What would you?

VON EBERKOPF. Seize the power! The crew can easily be bought. On board then! I annex the yacht!

MR. COTTON. You—what—?

VON EBERKOPF. I grab the whole concern!

(Goes down to the jolly-boat.)

MR. COTTON. Why then self-interest commands me to grab my share.

(Goes after him.)

TRUMPETERSTRALE. What scoundrelism!

MONSIEUR BALLON. A scurvy business—but—enfin!

(Follows the others.)

TRUMPETERSTRALE. I’ll have to follow, I suppose,—but I protest to all the world—!

(Follows.)

Act III Scene 4

Act IV Scene 2