Ludvig Holberg

“ MONTANUS. Can't you hear? I say "Monsieur Montanus."
JACOB. Mossur Montanus, Mossur Montanus.
MONTANUS. That's right. "Montanus" in Latin is the same as "Berg" in
Danish.
JACOB. Then can't I be called "Jacob Montanus"?
MONTANUS. When you have been to school as long as I have and passed your examinations, then you can give yourself a Latin name, too; but as long as you are a peasant boy, you must be satisfied with plain Jacob Berg. By the way, have you noticed that my sweetheart has been longing for me?
JACOB. Indeed she has. She has been very impatient at your staying away so long, brother. ”

“ In a word, this land seemed to be the habitation of saints and angels;—the only school of virtue.
I was here brought to think of the unreasonableness of those who grumble at the shortness of life,—those quarrellers with providence! Life can be called short when passed in luxury and idleness. The shortest life is long when it is well employed.
In Spelek, on the contrary, all the vices common to erring creatures seem to be congregated. The people have only the present in their minds, for the future has no sensible vanishing point. ”

“ I remember that my sainted father was Niels on the Hill, my grandfather, Jeppe on the Hill, my wife's name is Nille, her switch, Master Erik, my sons, Hans, Christopher and Niels. But see! Now I know: it is the other life, it is paradise, it is heaven! I must have drunk too much yesterday at Jakob Skomager's, died and immediately come to heaven. Death cannot be so awful as they would make one believe, since I didn't even feel it. ”

“ We're all merely men, so we're all likely to make mistakes.
JUDGE. No; you yourself will feel in a few minutes that it is too late, for you have already drunk the poison in the brandy.
JEPPE. Alas, what an unfortunate man I am! Have I taken the poison already? Oh, farewell, Nille! But the beast doesn't deserve that I should take leave of her. Farewell, Jens, Niels, and Christoffer! Farewell, my daughter Marthe! Farewell, apple of my eye! I know I am your father because you were born before that deacon came around, and you take after me so we're like as two drops of water. ”

“ Niels Klim lived to the year 1695. His irreprehensible life and amiable disposition endeared him to all. Yet were the priests now and then angry with him for his great sedateness and reservedness, which they called pride and haughtiness. I, who knew the man, wondered much at the modesty, humility and patience with which he, who had been monarch over many nations, executed his mean and vulgar duties. So long as his strength permitted, he would, at a certain time in the year, ascend the mountain and gaze into the cave, out of which he came to the surface. ”

“ MONTANUS. Little mother, I should like very much to break him of the habit of calling me "brother." It is not decent for a peasant boy to call a learned man "brother." I should like to have him call me "Monsieur."
JEPPE. Do you hear that, Jacob? When you speak to your brother after this, you are to call him Mossur.
MONTANUS. I should like to have the deacon invited here to-day, so that I can see what he is good for.
JEPPE. Yes, surely, it shall be done.
MONTANUS. In the mean time I will go to visit my sweetheart.
NILLE. But I am afraid it is going to rain. Jacob can cany your cloak for you. ”

“ NILLE. I never shall see how people can keep so much in their head.
My head swims just from hearing them talk about it.
JEPPE. That's why learned folk usually aren't quite right in their heads.
NILLE. What nonsense! Do you think our son Rasmus Berg isn't quite right?
JEPPE. It only seems a little queer, mother, that he should write a
Latin letter to me.
PEER. Jeppe's right there, certainly. That was a little foolish. It is just as if I were to talk Greek to the bailiff, to show him that I understood the language.
JEPPE. Do you know Greek, Peer? ”

“ While a mere peasant he appears dull and common-place enough, but give him the opportunity which he gets from the second act and on, and he displays a surprising readiness in his efforts to solve the perplexing problems he has had placed before him. The question of existence or non-existence which he has to answer might well perplex a sage; but while Jeppe is not quite able to unravel the situation, he makes rare use of the powers of logic at his command. When at last he is asked to face death, he does so with resignation, for he has not had much to be thankful for in life. ”

“ The feeling which I owe to my rank and high descent, and the modesty natural to my sex, have until now hindered the sparks of love which have long secretly burned in my bosom, from breaking forth in open flame: but I am weary of the combat, and my heart can no longer resist its bewitching enemy. Have pity for a female, from whom only the utmost degree of burning love could have been able to extort a confession. ”

“ MONTANUS. My name is Montanus.
JESPER (aside to Jeppe) . Montanus? is that the Latin for Rasmus?
JEPPE. Yes, it must be.
JESPER. Listen, my dear Monsieur Montanus Berg. I have heard that learned folk have such extraordinary ideas. Is it true that people in Copenhagen think the earth is round? Here on the hill no one believes it; for how can that be, when the earth looks perfectly flat?
MONTANUS. That is because the earth is so large that one cannot notice its roundness.
JESPER. Yes, it is true, the earth is large; it is almost a half of the universe. ”

“ It is but natural that "he who works like a horse will enjoy himself like a dog." With such ideals it is easy to see how he could imagine that he had been suddenly transported into heaven. With the feeling that his lord's chief business is to pilfer his hard-earned money; that the sexton is a personage whose chief virtue is a powerful voice; and that lawyers and magistrates are black-robed blackguards who juggle with equal facility with justice and Latin phrases, we can see that Jeppe's idea of law and authority was not very exalted. ”

“ NILLE. O—o—o—! What is that? What do I hear? Can a dead man talk?
JEPPE. Don't be afraid, Nille, I shan't hurt you.
NILLE. But, my dearest husband, how can you talk when you're dead?
JEPPE. I don't know myself how it happens. But listen, my dear wife! Run like wildfire and bring me eightpence worth of brandy, for I am thirstier now than I ever was when I was alive.
NILLE. Shame, you beast! You scoundrel! You hopeless drunkard! Haven't you drunk enough brandy in your living lifetime? Are you still thirsty, you sot, now that you are dead? ”

“ SCENE 3 JEPPE. Now I've lived half a hundred years, but in all that time I haven't had so much happen to me as in these two days. It is a devil of a story, now that I come to think of it: one hour a drunken peasant, the next a baron, then another hour a peasant again; now dead, now alive on a gallows, which is the most wonderful of all. Perhaps it is that when they hang living people they die, and when they hang dead people they come to life again. It seems to me that, after all, a glass of brandy would taste magnificent. Hey, Jacob Shoemaker! ”

“ MONTANUS. For all that, he may have no learning at all.
JEPPE. He preaches beautifully, too.
MONTANUS. For all that, too, he might have no learning at all.
NILLE. Oh, honored son! How can a man lack learning if he preaches well?
MONTANUS. Surely, mother! All the ignorant folk preach well, for inasmuch as they can't compose anything out of their own heads, they use borrowed sermons, and learn good men's compositions by heart, though sometimes they don't understand them themselves. A learned man, on the other hand, won't use such methods; he composes out of his own head. ”

“ I am so much afraid, my dear, that you will make some mistake before you get accustomed to the position that you have attained.—Henrich, run get a tea-table and some cups, and tell the girl to run out and get fourpence' worth of coffee—one can always buy more later.—You make it a rule, my dear, not to talk much until you learn to carry on refined conversation. You must not be too humble, either, but stand upon your dignity, and strive in every way to get the old tinkering habits out of your head, and try to imagine that you have been a burgomaster's wife for years. ”

“ HENRICH. What are you going to be, then? You're not a mere maiden, so you must be a young lady. That is surely the next degree of honor to which you rise when you lose your maidenhood.
ENGELKE. I had rather be a peasant's daughter. Then I could be sure of getting the man on whom I have set my heart.
HENRICH. Oh, is that all the young lady is crying about—that she wants to get married? Now she can get married in the shortest possible time to any man she points at, for half the town will besiege the house to be a burgomaster's son-in-law. ”

“ Monsieur, you have a devilish bad Latin pronunciation. Speak your mother-tongue, and you will do better. I don't say this because I have any prejudice against Latin, for I sometimes sit and talk Latin with my servant for hours at a time. Isn't that so, Henrich?
HENRICH. It is wonderful to hear his Honor talk Latin; I swear the tears come into my eyes when I think of it. It is like listening to peas boiling in a pot, the words come so quickly from his mouth. The devil himself doesn't know how a man can manage to talk so fluently. But what won't long practice do for you? ”

“ GESKE. My husband has been made burgomaster.
HENRICH. What of?
GESKE. What of? Of Hamburg!
HENRICH. The deuce you say! That certainly is the devil's own jump for a tinker!
HERMAN. Henrich, speak with more respect. You must know that you are now the lackey of a man of prominence.
HENRICH. Lackey! Then I don't advance nearly so much!
HERMAN. You shall advance in time. You may even be a reutendiener some day. Only keep still. Your duty for a few days is to act as lackey until I can get a servant.—He can wear my brown coat, my dear, till we get a livery. ”

“ ANTONIUS. Your husband has his head full of political whims, and has a burgomastership on his brain. He turns up his nose at working-people like me and my kind. He imagines that he is cleverer than the notary public himself.
GESKE. The fool! The idiot! Will you heed him? I believe he's more likely to become a vagrant and have to beg his bread, than to become a burgomaster. Dear Antonius! you mustn't pay attention to him, and you mustn't lose the affection you have for my daughter.
ANTONIUS. Von Bremen swears she shall take no one who is not a politician. ”

“ MONTANUS. I shall not allow myself to be drawn into dispute with a rogue of a peasant like you. If you understood Latin, I should readily oblige you. I am not accustomed to disputation in Danish.
JACOB. That is to say, Mossur has become so learned that he cannot make clear his meaning in his mother-tongue.
MONTANUS. Be silent, audacissime juvenis! Why should I exert myself to explain my opinions to coarse and common folk, who don't know what universalia entia rationis formae substantiales are? It certainly is absurdissimum to try to prate of colors to the blind. ”

“ I should begin my speech like this: "I thank you, wise and noble gentlemen, for the honor you have done a wretched tinker like me in making him burgomaster—"
HERMAN. You always bring in your confounded "tinker." It is not proper to talk like that at the City Hall, where I must act as if I had been born a burgomaster. If I were to make such a speech, I should only be scorned and mocked. No, no, Henrich, you would make a poor orator. He is a rogue who says I was ever a tinker. I have merely tinkered a little to pass the time away when I have been tired of studying. ”

“ HERMAN. Quiet, wife! You will be Madam Burgomaster before you know it. Do you think that I go out just to pass the time? Ay, I do ten times as much work as all of you in the house: the rest of you work with your hands only; I work with my brain.
GESKE. All crazy people work that way, building castles in the air just as you do, cudgelling their brains with bosh and nonsense, imagining that they are doing something of importance when it is really nothing at all.
GERT. If she were my wife, she would not talk that way more than once. ”

“ SECOND LAWYER. Keep your tobacco, Jeppe! I speak for you not in the hope of receiving gifts, but merely from Christian charity.
JEPPE. Pardon me, Master Attorney! I didn't know you folks were so honorable.
FIRST LAWYER. What my colleague advances in favor of this man's acquittal is based entirely on conjecture. The question is not whether such a thing could happen or not, because that it did happen is proved both by witnesses and by the man's own confession.
SECOND LAWYER. What a man says from fear and awe has no weight as a confession. ”