Henrik Ibsen

“ Erik! Erik! come hither! we must away to our kinsfolk. [Threateningly, while ERIK shows himself in the doorway.] Woe upon you all when I come again!
[He and ERIK go off to the left at the back.
SIGNE. [Softly to GUDMUND.] Oh, tell me, what does all this mean?
GUDMUND. [Whispering.] We must both leave Solhoug this very night.
SIGNE. God shield me—you would—!
GUDMUND. Say nought of it! No word to any one, not even to your sister.
MARGIT. [To herself.] She—it is she! She of whom he had scarce thought before to-night. Had I been free, I know well whom he had chosen.— Aye, free! ”

“ Knut Gesling dares whatever he will. No, 'tis another matter. You know that here in the district, I am held to be a wild, unruly companion—
GUDMUND. Aye, and if rumour lies not—
KNUT. Why no, much that it reports may be true enough. But now, I must tell you—
[They go, conversing, up towards the back.
SIGNE. [To MARGIT, as they come forward beside the house.] I understand you not. You speak as though an unlooked-for happiness had befallen you. What is in your mind?
MARGIT. Signe—you are still a child; you know not what it means to have ever in your heart the dread of— [Suddenly breaking off.] ”

“ My harp! As bright as of yore!
[Striking one or two chords.
Still the old chords ring sweet and clear—
On the wall, untouched, thou shalt hang no more.
MARGIT. [Looking out at the back.]
Our guests are coming.
SIGNE. [While GUDMUND preludes his song.]
Hush—hush! Oh, hear!
GUDMUND. [Sings.]
I roamed through the uplands so heavy of cheer;
The little birds quavered in bush and in brere;
The little birds quavered, around and above:
Wouldst know of the sowing and growing of love?
It grows like the oak tree through slow-rolling years;
'Tis nourished by dreams, and by songs, and by tears ”

“ Drunk—? I and Signe—we meant—
MARGIT. [Screams.] O God, have mercy! Help! Help! They will die!
GUDMUND. [Setting down the goblet.] Margit—!
SIGNE. What ails you, sister?
MARGIT. [Towards the back.] Help, help! Will no one help?
[A HOUSE-CARL rushes in from the passage-way.
HOUSE-CARL. [Calls in a terrified voice.] Lady Margit! Your husband—!
MARGIT. He—has he, too, drunk—!
GUDMUND. [To himself.] Ah! now I understand—
HOUSE-CARL. Knut Gesling has slain him.
SIGNE. Slain!
GUDMUND. [Drawing his sword.] Not yet, I hope. [Whispers to MARGIT.]
Fear not. No one has drunk from your goblet. ”

“ Stands it so, Dame Margit! You think that your sister—
BENGT. [Seeking to calm him.] Nay, nay, Knut Gesling! Have patience, now. You must understand us aright.
MARGIT. There is naught in my words to wound you. My sister knows you only by the songs that are made about you—and these songs sound but ill in gentle ears.
No peaceful home is your father's house. ”

“ KNUT. [Still at a distance.] Gudmund Alfson! Wait; I must speak a word
with you.
[He stops, talking to ERIK. The other GUESTS in the meantime
enter the house.
MARGIT. [To herself.] The joy of his life—! What else can he mean
but—! [Half aloud.] Signe—my dear, dear sister!
[She puts her arm round SIGNE's waist, and they go towards
the back talking to each other.
GUDMUND. [Softly as he follows them with his eyes.] Aye, so it were wisest. Both Signe and I must away from Solhoug. Knut Gesling has shown himself my friend; he will help me. ”

“ My mood of the moment was more in harmony with the literary romanticism of the Middle Ages than with the deeds of the Sagas, with poetical than with prose composition, with the word-melody of the ballad than with the characterisation of the Saga.
Thus it happened that the fermenting, formless design for the tragedy, The Vikings at Helgeland, transformed itself temporarily into the lyric drama, The Feast at Solhoug. ”

“ Every time a new author published a book or had a little play acted, our critics were in the habit of flying into an ungovernable passion and behaving as if the publication of the book or the performance of the play were a mortal insult to themselves and the newspapers in which they wrote. ”

“ ANOTHER GUEST. Nay, let that be; it leads but to strife at the feast. [Lowering his voice.] Bear in mind that Knut Gesling is with us to-night.
SEVERAL. [Whispering among themselves.] Aye, aye, that is true. Remember the last time, how he—. Best beware.
AN OLD MAN. But you, Dame Margit—I know your kind had ever wealth of tales in store; and you yourself, even as a child, knew many a fair legend.
MARGIT. Alas! I have forgot them all. But ask Gudmund Alfson, my kinsman; he knows a tale that is merry enough. ”

“ He mocks at my woe as he clasps his bride
And sails away o'er the waters wide.
[Shrieks.
With me all is over; my hill-prison barred;
Unsunned is the day, and the night all unstarred.
[She totters and, fainting, seeks to support herself against
the trunk of a tree.
SIGNE. [Weeping, has rushed up to her, and takes her in her arms.]
Margit! My sister!
GUDMUND. [At the same time, supporting her.] Help! help! she is dying! ”

“ When Knut Gesling is to a bride-ale bound.
Courteous must your mien be when a-feasting you ride;
Let your battle-axe hang at home at the chimney-side—
It ever sits loose in your hand, well you know,
When the mead has gone round and your brain is aglow.
From no man his rightful gear shall you wrest,
You shall harm no harmless maiden ”

“ Aye, but the tale is not finished yet. When you bear away your lady-love, over hill and through forest, be sure you turn not round; be sure you never look back—the huldra sits laughing behind every bush; and when all is done— [In a low voice, coming close up to him.] —you will go no further than she will let you.
[She crosses to the right.
SIGNE. Oh, God! Oh, God!
BENGT. [Going around among the GUESTS in high contentment.] Ha, ha, ha! Dame Margit knows how to set the mirth afoot! When she takes it in hand, she does it much better than I.
GUDMUND. [To himself.] She threatens! ”

“ Like Ragnhild, Kathchen is compelled by a mysterious, inexplicable power to follow the man she loves wherever he goes, to steal secretly after him, to lay herself down to sleep near him, to come back to him, as by some innate compulsion, however often she may be driven away. And other instances of supernatural interference are to be met with both in Kleist's and in Hertz's play. ”

“ But more significant than any resemblance of theme is the similarity of Ibsen's whole method to that of the French school—the way, for instance, in which misunderstandings are kept up through a careful avoidance of the use of proper names, and the way in which a cup of poison, prepared for one person, comes into the hands of another person, is, as a matter of fact, drunk by no one but occasions the acutest agony to the would-be poisoner. ”

“ Despite its lyrical dialogue, The Feast at Solhoug has that crispiness of dramatic action which marks the French plays of the period. It may indeed be called Scribe's Bataille de Dames writ tragic. Here, as in the Bataille de Dames (one of the earliest plays produced under Ibsen's supervision) , we have the rivalry of an older and a younger woman for the love of a man who is proscribed on an unjust accusation, and pursued by the emissaries of the royal power. ”

“ It can surprise no one that this body, the members of which, as critics, supported themselves by borrowing, should have presupposed similar action on my part, as author. Two, possibly more than two, of the newspapers promptly discovered that I had borrowed this, that, and the other thing form Henrik Hertz's play, Svend Dyring's House.
This is a baseless and indefensible critical assertion. It is evidently to be ascribed to the fact that the metre of the ancient ballads is employed in both plays. But my tone is quite different from Hertz's; the language of my play has a different ring ”

“ In writing The Feast of Solhoug in connection with Svend Dyring's House, George Brandes expresses the opinion, not that the former play is founded upon any idea borrowed from the latter, but that it has been written under an influence exercised by the older author upon the younger. Brandes invariably criticises my work in such a friendly spirit that I have all reason to be obliged to him for this suggestion, as for so much else. ”

“ Whilst reading the Danish Monthly Journal of Literature I was struck by the fact that old State-Councillor Molbech was invariably seized with a fit of rage when a young author published a book or had a play acted in Copenhagen.
Thus, or in a manner closely resembling this, had the tribunal qualified itself, which now, in the daily press, summoned The Feast at Solhoug to the bar of criticism in Christiania. It was principally composed of young men who, as regards criticism, lived upon loans from various quarters. Their critical thought had long ago been thought and expressed by others ”

“ A quantity of other information useful to a critic was to be extracted from these writings. From them one learned, for instance, that taste obliged a good critic to be scandalised by a hiatus. Did the young critical Jeronimuses of Christiania encounter such a monstrosity in any new verse, they were as certain as their prototype in Holberg to shout their "Hoity-toity! the world will not last till Easter!"
The origin of another peculiar characteristic of the criticism then prevalent in the Norwegian capital was long a puzzle to me. ”

“ Yes, then! [A short pause.] 'Twas a strange tale, that of the Princess who— She held another dear, and then— Aye, those women of far-off lands— I have heard it before—they are not weak as we are; they do not fear to pass from thought to deed. [Takes up a goblet which stands on the table.] 'Twas in this beaker that Gudmund and I, when he went away, drank to his happy return. 'Tis well-nigh the only heirloom I brought with me to Solhoug. [Putting the goblet away in a cupboard.] ”

“ O'er Solhoug's roof for ever may
Bright as to-day
The heavens abide.
ACT SECOND A birch grove adjoining the house, one corner of which is seen to the left. At the back, a footpath leads up the hillside. To the right of the footpath a river comes tumbling down a ravine and loses itself among boulders and stones. It is a light summer evening. The door leading to the house stands open; the windows are lighted up. Music is heard from within.
THE GUESTS. [Singing in the Feast Hall.] ”

“ What makes a work of art the spiritual property of its creator is the fact that he has imprinted on it the stamp of his own personality. Therefore I hold that, in spite of the above-mentioned points of resemblance, Svend Dyring's House is as incontestably and entirely an original work by Henrick Hertz as Katchen von Heilbronn is an original work by Heinrich von Kleist.
I advance the same claim on my own behalf as regards The Feast at Solhoug, and I trust that, for the future, each of the three namesakes* will be permitted to keep, in its entirety, what rightfully belongs to him. ”

“ One might even, though this would be forcing the point, find an analogy in the fact that the elder woman (in both plays a strong and determined character) has in Scribe's comedy a cowardly suitor, while in Ibsen's tragedy, or melodrama, she has a cowardly husband. In every other respect the plays are as dissimilar as possible; yet it seems to me far from unlikely that an unconscious reminiscence of the Bataille de Dames may have contributed to the shaping of The Feast at Solhoug in Ibsen's mind. ”

“ But the fact remains that the versified parts of the dialogue of both The Feast at Solhoug and Olaf Liliekrans are written in that imitation of the tone and style of the heroic ballad, of which Hertz was the happily-inspired originator. There seems to me to be no depreciation whatever of Ibsen in the assertion of Hertz's right to rank as his model. Even the greatest must have learnt from some one. ”

“ Ibsen was greatly attached to his gentle and retiring sister-in-law, who died unmarried in 1874.
The Feast at Solhoug has been translated by Miss Morison and myself, only because no one else could be found to undertake the task. We have done our best; but neither of us lays claim to any great metrical skill, and the light movement of Ibsen's verse is often, if not always, rendered in a sadly halting fashion. ”

“ The only comment that need be made upon his rejoinder to his critics has been made, with perfect fairness as it seems to me, by George Brandes in the following passage:** "No one who is unacquainted with the Scandinavian languages can fully understand the charm that the style and melody of the old ballads exercise upon the Scandinavian mind. The beautiful ballads and songs of Des Knaben Wunderhorn have perhaps had a similar power over German minds ”