Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (79 page)

PAUL FLIDA.
A man who comes from down the fiord brings news that the Birchlegs in Tunsberg have launched their ships, and that many men have gathered in the town in these last days.

KING SKULE.
Good- we will go forth to meet them — to-morrow or the day after.

PAUL FLIDA.
It might chance, my lord King, that the Birchlegs had a mind to meet us first.

KING SKULE.
They have not ships enough for that, nor men.

PAUL FLIDA.
But Arnbiôrn Jonsson is gathering both men and ships, all round in Viken.

KING SKULE.
The better for us; we will crush them at one blow, as we did at Lâka.

PAUL FLIDA.
My lord, ‘tis not so easy to crush the Birchlegs twice following.

KING SKULE.
And wherefore not?

PAUL FLIDA.
Because Norway’s saga tells not that the like has ever befallen. Shall I send forth scouts to Hoved-isle?

KING SKULE.
‘Tis needless; the night is dark, and there is a seafog to boot.

PAUL FLIDA.
Well well, the King knows best; but bethink you, my lord, that all men are against you here in Viken. The townsfolk of Oslo hate you, and should the Birchlegs come, they will make common cause with them.

KING SKULE.
[With animation.]
Paul Flida, were it not possible that I could win over the men of Viken to my side?

PAUL FLIDA.
[Looks at him in astonishment, and shakes his head.] N
o, my lord, it is not possible.

KING SKULE.
And wherefore not?

PAUL FLIDA.
Why, for that you have the Tronders on your side.

KING SKULE.
I will have both the Tronders and the men of Viken!

PAUL FLIDA.
Nay, my lord, that cannot be!

KING SKULE.
Not possible! cannot be! And wherefore — wherefore not?

PAUL FLIDA.
Because the man of Viken is the man of Viken, the Tronder is the Tronder; because so it has always been, and no saga tells of a time when it was otherwise.

KING SKULE.
Ay, ay — you are right. Go.

PAUL FLIDA.
And send forth no scouts?

KING SKULE.
Wait till daybreak.
[Paul Flida goes]
Norway’s saga tells of no such thing; it has never been so vet; Paul Flida answers me as I answered Håkon. Are there, then, upward as well as downward steps? Stands Håkon as high over me as I over Paul Flida? Has Håkon an eye for unborn thoughts, that is lacking in me? Who stood so high as Harold Hârfager in the days when every headland had its king, and he said: Now they must fall — hereafter shall there be but one? He threw the old saga to the winds, and made a new saga.
[A pause; he paces up and down lost in thought; then he stops.]
Can one man take God’s calling from another, as he takes weapons and gold from his fallen foe? Can a Pretender clothe himself in a king’s lifetask, as he can put on the kingly mantle? The oak that is felled to be a ship’s timber, can it say: Nay, I will be the mast, I will take on me the task of the fir tree, point upwards, tall and shining, bear the golden vane at my top, spread bellying white sails to the sunshine, and meet the eyes of all men, from afar! — No, no, thou heavy gnarled oak-trunk, thy place is down in the keel; there shalt thou lie, and do thy work, unheard-of and unseen by those aloft in the daylight; it is thou that shalt hinder the ship from being whelmed in the storm; while the mast with the golden vane and the bellying sail shall bear it forward toward the new, toward the unknown, toward alien strands and the saga of the future!
[Vehemently.]
Since Håkon uttered his great king-thought, I can see no other thought in the world but that only. If I cannot take it and act it out, I see no other thought to fight for.
[Brooding.]
And can I not make it mine? If I cannot, whence comes my great love for Håkon’s thought?

JATGEIR.
[Enters from the back.]
Forgive my coming, lord King —

KING SKULE.
You come to my wish, Skald!

JATGEIR.
I overheard some townsfolk at my lodging talking darkly of —

KING SKULE.
Let that wait. Tell me, Skald: you who have fared far abroad in strange lands, have you ever seen a woman love another’s child? Not only have kindness for it—’tis not that I mean; but love it, love it with the warmest passion of her soul.

JATGEIR.
That do only those women who have no child of their own to love.

KING SKULE.
Only those women — ?

JATGEIR.
And chiefly women who are barren.

KING SKULE.
Chiefly the barren — ? They love the children of others with all their warmest passions?

JATGEIR.
That will oftentimes befall.

KING SKULE.
And does it not sometimes befall that such a barren woman will slay another’s child, because she herself has none?

JATGEIR.
Ay, ay; but in that she does unwisely.

KING SKULE.
Unwisely?

JATGEIR.
Ay, for she gives the gift of sorrow to her whose child she slays.

KING SKULE.
Think you the gift of sorrow is a great good?

JATGEIR.
Yes, lord.

KING SKULE.
[Looks fixedly at him.]
Methinks there are two men in you, Icelander. When you sit amid the household at the merry feast, you draw cloak and hood over all your thoughts; when one is alone with you, sometimes you seem to be of those among whom one were fain to choose his friend. How comes it?

JATGEIR.
When you go to swim in the river, my lord, you would scarce strip you where the people pass by to church; you seek a sheltered privacy.

KING SKULE.
True, true.

JATGEIR.
My soul has the like shamefastness; therefore I do not strip me when there are many in the hall.

KING SKULE.
Ha.
[A short pause.]
Tell me, Jatgeir, how come you to be a skald? Who taught you skaldcraft?

JATGEIR.
Skaldcraft cannot be taught, my lord.

KING SKULE.
Cannot be taught? How came it then?

JATGEIR.
The gift of sorrow came to me, and I was a skald.

KING SKULE.
Then ‘tis the gift of sorrow the skald has need of?

JATGEIR.
I
needed sorrow; others there may be who need faith, or joy — or doubt —

KING SKULE.
Doubt as well?

JATGEIR.
Ay; but then must the doubter be strong and sound.

KING SKULE.
And whom call you the unsound doubter?

JATGEIR.
He who doubts of his own doubt.

KING SKULE.
[Slowly.]
That, methinks, were death.

JATGEIR.
‘Tis worse; ‘tis neither day nor night.

KING SKULE.
[Quickly, as if shaking off his thoughts.]
Where are my weapons? I will fight and act — not think. What was it you would have told me when you came?

JATGEIR.
‘Twas what I noted in my lodging. The townsmen whisper together secretly, and laugh mockingly, and ask if we be well assured that King Håkon is in the westland; there is somewhat they are in glee over.

KING SKULK.
They are men of Viken, and therefore against me.

JATGEIR.
They scoff because King Olaf’s shrine could not be brought out to the mote-stead when you were chosen king; they say it boded ill.

KING SKULE.
When next I come to Nidaros, the shrine shall out! It shall stand under the open sky, though I should have to tear down St. Olaf’s church and widen out the motestead over the spot where it stood.

JATGEIR.
That were a strong deed; but I shall make a song of it, as strong as the deed itself.

KING SKULE.
 
— Have you many unmade songs within you, Jatgeir?

JATGEIR.
Nay, but many unborn; they are conceived one after the other, come to life, and are brought forth.

KING SKULE.
And if I, who am King and have the might, if I were to have you slain, would all the unborn skald-thoughts you bear within you die along with you?

JATGEIR.
My lord, it is a great sin to slay a fair thought.

KING SKULE.
I ask not if it be a sin; I ask if it be possible!

JATGEIR.
I know not.

KING SKULE.
Have you never had another skald for your friend, and has he never unfolded to you a great and noble song he thought to make?

JATGEIR.
Yes, lord.

KING SKULE.
Did you not then wish that you could slay him, to take his thought and make the song yourself?

JATGEIR.
My lord, I am not barren; I have children of my own; I need not to love those of other men. —
[Goes.

KING SKULE.
[After a pause.]
The Icelander is in very deed a skald. He speaks God’s deepest truth and knows it not —
I
am as a barren woman. Therefore I love Håkon’s kingly thought-child, love it with the warmest passion of my soul. Oh, that I could but adopt it! It would die in my hands. Which were best, that it should die in my hands, or wax great in his? Should I ever have peace of soul if that came to pass? Can I forego all? Can I stand by and see Håkon make himself famous for all time! How dead and empty is all within me — and around me. No friend — ; ah, the Icelander!
[Goes to the door and calls:]
Has the skald gone from the palace? A Guard.
[Outside.]
No, my lord; he stands in the outer hall talking with the watch.

KING SKULE.
Bid him come hither.
[Goes forward to the table; presently Jatgeir enters.]
I cannot sleep, Jatgeir; ‘tis all my great kingly thoughts that keep me awake, you see.

JATGEIR.
‘Tis with the king’s thoughts as with the skald’s, I doubt not. They fly highest and grow quickest when there is night and stillness around.

KING SKULE.
Is it so with the skald’s thoughts too?

JATGEIR.
Ay, lord; no song is born by daylight; it may be written down in the sunshine; but it makes itself in the silent night.

KING SKULE.
Who gave you the gift of sorrow, Jatgeir?

JATGEIR.
She whom I loved.

KING SKULE.
She died, then.

JATGEIR.
No, she deceived me.

KING SKULE.
And then you became a skald?

JATGEIR.
Ay, then I became a skald.

KING SKULE.
[Seizes him by the arm.]
What gift do
I
need to become a king?

JATGEIR.
Not the gift of doubt; else would you not question so.

KING SKULE.
What gift do I need?

JATGEIR.
My lord, you are a king.

KING SKULE.
Have you at all times full faith that you are a skald? Jatgeir.
[Looks silently at him for a while, and asks.]
Have you never loved?

KING SKULE.
Yes, once — burningly, blissfully, and in sin.

JATGEIR.
You have a wife. King Skule. Her I took to bear me sons.

JATGEIR.
But you have a daughter, my lord — a gracious and noble daughter.

KING SKULE.
Were my daughter a son, I would not ask you what gift I need.
[Vehemently.]
I must have some one by me who sinks his own will utterly in mine — who believes in me unflinchingly, who will cling close to me in good hap and ill, who lives only to shed light and warmth over my life, and must die if I fall. Give me counsel, Jatgeir Skald!

JATGEIR.
Buy yourself a dog, my lord.

KING SKULE.
Would no man suffice?

JATGEIR.
You would have to search long for such a man.

KING SKULE.
[Suddenly.]
Will you be that man to me, Jatgeir? Will you be a son to me? You shall have Norway’s crown to your heritage — the whole land shall be your?, if you will be a son to me, and live for my life-work, and believe in me.

JATGEIR.
And what should be my warranty that I did not feign — ?