Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906)

Peer Gynt

Translated by Robert Farquharson Sharp

Act V

Scene 2

(Close under the land, among sunken rocks and surf. The ship sinks. The jolly-boat, with two men in her, is seen for a moment through the scud. A sea strikes her; she fills and upsets. A shriek is heard; then all is silent for a while. Shortly afterwards the boat appears floating bottom upwards.)

(Peer Gynt comes to the surface near the boat.)

PEER. Help! Help! A boat! Help! I’ll be drowned! Save me, oh Lord—as saith the text!

(Clutches hold of the boat’s keel.)

THE COOK (comes up on the other side). Oh, Lord God—for my children’s sake, have mercy! Let me reach the land!

(Seizes hold of the keel.)

PEER. Let go!

THE COOK. Let go!

PEER. I’ll strike!

THE COOK. So’ll I!

PEER. I’ll crush you down with kicks and blows! Let go your hold! She won’t float two!

THE COOK. I know it! Yield!

PEER. Yield you!

THE COOK. Oh, yes!

(They fight; one of the cook’s hands is disabled; he clings on with the other.)

PEER. Off with that hand!

THE COOK. Oh, kind sir—spare! Think of my little ones at home!

PEER. I need my life far more than you, for I am lone and childless still.

THE COOK. Let go! You’ve lived, and I am young!

PEER. Quick; haste you; sink;—you drag us down.

THE COOK. Have mercy! Yield, in heaven’s name! There’s none to miss and mourn for you— (His hand slips; he screams:) I’m drowning!

PEER (seizing him). By this wisp of hair I’ll hold you; say your Lord’s Prayer, quick!

THE COOK. I can’t remember; all turns black—

PEER. Come, the essentials in a word—!

THE COOK. Give us this day—!

PEER. Skip that part, Cook; you’ll get all you need, safe enough.

THE COOK. Give us this day—

PEER. The same old song! One sees you were a cook in life—

(The cook slips from his grasp.)

THE COOK (sinking). Give us this day our—

(Disappears.)

PEER. Amen, lad! to the last gasp you were yourself.— (Draws himself up on to the bottom of the boat.) So long as there is life there’s hope—

THE STRANGE PASSENGER (catches hold of the boat). Good morning!

PEER. Hoy!

THE PASSENGER. I heard you shout.—It’s pleasant finding you again. Well? So my prophecy came true!

PEER. Let go! Let go! ’Twill scarce float one!

THE PASSENGER. I’m striking out with my left leg. I’ll float, if only with their tips my fingers rest upon this ledge. But ŕpropos: your body—

PEER. Hush!

THE PASSENGER. The rest, of course, is done for, clean—

PEER. No more!

THE PASSENGER. Exactly as you please.

(Silence.)

PEER. Well?

THE PASSENGER. I am silent.

PEER. Satan’s tricks!—What now?

THE PASSENGER. I’m waiting.

PEER (tearing his hair). I’ll go mad!—What are you?

THE PASSENGER (nods). Friendly.

PEER. What else? Speak!

THE PASSENGER. What think you? Do you know none other that’s like me?

PEER. Do I know the devil—?

THE PASSENGER (in a low voice). Is it his way to light a lantern for life’s night-pilgrimage through fear?

PEER. Ah, come! When once the thing’s cleared up, you’d seem a messenger of light?

THE PASSENGER. Friend,—have you once in each half-year felt all the earnestness of dread?

PEER. Why, one’s afraid when danger threatens;—but all your words have double meanings.

THE PASSENGER. Ay, have you gained but once in life the victory that is given in dread?

PEER (looks at him). Came you to ope for me a door, ’twas stupid not to come before. What sort of sense is there in choosing your time when seas gape to devour one?

THE PASSENGER. Were, then, the victory more likely beside your hearth-stone, snug and quiet?

PEER. Perhaps not; but your talk befooled me. How could you fancy it awakening?

THE PASSENGER. Where I come from, there smiles are prized as highly as pathetic style.

PEER. All has its time; what fits the taxman, so says the text, would damn the bishop.

THE PASSENGER. The host whose dust inurned has slumbered treads not on week-days the cothurnus.

PEER. Avaunt thee, bugbear! Man, begone! I will not die! I must ashore!

THE PASSENGER. Oh, as for that, be reassured;—one dies not midmost of Act Five.

(Glides away.)

PEER. Ah, there he let it out at last;—he was a sorry moralist.

Act V Scene 1

Act V Scene 3