Indriði Einarsson

“ Botolf.—And then there would be peace on earth and good-will among men.
Thorolf.—In Thord's Hall all we, your men, would have to sit upon the lower bench. His men whom we have pursued, wounded, stripped of their clothes, and beaten whenever we engaged them, they would take revenge on us, under cover of him. All of us desire but one of two things, to do battle until we gain peace, or else, to fall with such renown as is granted us.
Asbjorn.—We will follow no other man whilst you live.
The followers of Kolbein.—No, no other man! ”

“ Thorolf.—Yes, gladly (kisses her hand) , now as always before.
Helga (gently) .—You have always been true to me, and that shall be rewarded as soon as ever I can.
(Enter BRAND KOLBEINSSON, BRODDI, DEACON SIGURD, EINAR THE RICH, ALF, HELGI SKAFTASON, together with six others.)
Brand.—Hail, lady!
Helga.—Hail, my nephew! Hail, all of you! My husband has been expecting you with impatience.
Einar (aside) .—Now we shall see how sick a man Kolbein is.
Helga.—We pray you all to say the least possible about the infirmity of my husband; I have no more than sixty armed men about me. ”

“ The most interesting figure in the drama is Brand, a Hamletic character without a Hamlet's zest of retaliation—noble, generous, and beloved; yet ever a loser, because never resolutely willing the means to an end. As Thorolf avers scornfully, 'Brand lacks both the forethought before battle, and that fire in battle which wins the victory,' The reign of lawlessness and bloodshed appalls him, to be sure; but he cannot see that his own irresolution is one of the causes. ”

“ Sigurd.—Spoken like a man, Brand Kolbeinsson! (Exit JORUN.)
Broddi.—We have sworn to each other not to separate before that this our cause was entirely brought to an end; now I see your highmindedness, Brand Kolbeinsson, as I have seen it before. The bishop has torn from under me my trust in the fort. Hence I shall take that council to fare to Flugumyr with you, whilst I maintain that it is entirely doubtful as yet who is to die, Kolbein the Young, Brand, or I; but that I think sure, also, that short time will pass between the death of any one of us three. ”

“ Helga.—You spoke of the love between me and Thorolf Bjarnason. I shall not deny it. Thorolf summoned your husband before the judgment of God before he was put to death. Now he is dead I can do nothing more pleasing to him than to see to it that Brand Kolbeinsson follow the summons in due time.
Jorun.—You are a devil, Helga! You dare to treat thus a chieftain as beloved as Brand Kolbeinsson?
Helga.—Loud you exclaim now, my lady! Yet I am better than you think me. If Brand is as beloved a chieftain as you make him out to be, somebody will surely be ready to die in his place ”

“ Brand.—You know, Broddi, that I egged on neither you nor others to take Thorolf Bjarnason's life. And yet have I done all in my power to collect many men. I sent Deacon Sigurd and Helgi Skaftason——
Broddi.—The priest and the executioner?—and, of course, only these two?
Brand.—Yes, I had but few men at home, at that time.
Broddi.—You do not know how to get a body of men together! You send the priest with the crucifix in his hand. All know that he wishes peace, and no one rises for him. ”

“ Now you, Brand Kolbeinsson and Thorolf Bjarnason, shall be men reconciled and agreeing, wherever you meet, whether on land or on sea, on ship or on ski, on sea or on horseback, on bench or on thwart; and if need be, divide between you oar and scoop, knife and piece of meat; shall be at one with each other as is father with son, or son with father. Join hands now (they grasp each the other's hand) and stand by your truce according to the will of Christ and all those men who now have heard your pledge of faith. May he have the grace of God who keeps the truce, but his wrath he who breaks it. ”

“ Helga.—Little hope I see of a reconciliation. One of Thorolf's slayers dried his blood on the fringes of my veil. And you, Alf of Grof, you reviled me like the worst witch; you wanted to have a sack pulled over my head.
Kolbein (furious) .—Boor!—have a sack pulled over her! A sack,—you devilish fiend! What did you cattle mean? I shall have your skin flayed off you and pull it over your ears after you are dead! I shall never make peace with Alf of Grof!
Helga.—A loutish rustic should never take part in the dealings of men of great account! ”

“ A civic theater cannot be created by money, although it requires it. Intelligence demands, therefore, when we say 'Civic Theater,' that we think at once and foremost of these other more vital ways of support.
Fortunately we can appeal to historic life for light on these other and more vital ways of support by city or community. Historic life can show us well-ascertained facts concerning drama that has been supported by the civic life of its whole people, and expresses, in consequence, the life of its men of genius, and of its interpretative artists and artisans, along with its racial genius. ”

“ Kolbein.—Why do you speak thus, my lord? You freed the slayers of Thorolf from the interdict; and yet they slew him without the law and its decrees.
Botolf.—It is a labor of love for the Holy Church to pardon the guilty. We do it for God's sake.
Kolbein.—And it is the task of chieftains to administer the laws themselves, and to begin hostilities in order to make others submit to their will. ”

“ Make haste; I see men riding this way. (LADY HELGA and HAF depart.)
Jorun (throwing up her hands in dismay) .—And to-night the Peace of God is at an end! Holy mother of God! Rather extinguish the sun than let my husband be taken from me and put to death. Rather extinguish the sun than let this war continue. The earth does not deserve to exist when no one obeys the command of love and peace.
Brand (enters) .—You are praying?
Jorun.—Lady Helga departed but this moment; she said to me that her husband had promised her the life of a man in this feud, and that she intended to choose yours. ”

“ But if one of these parties become so bereft of his senses that he break this reconciliation, and pledge of truce, or becomes the contriver of the other's death, then shall he be driven from God, and from the commerce of all Christendom, as far as men pursue wolves, Christians visit churches, heathen men sacrifice in temples, mothers bear children, children say mother, fire burns, ships sail, shields flash, the sun shines, snow lies, pines grow, the falcon flies the long spring day, with a fair wind under both his wings. ”

“ Thorolf (from without) .—All's well, companions, I heard a human voice! (Silence.)
Jarngrim.—Thorolf!
Thorolf (from without) .—Where are you?
Jarngrim.—Here!
Thorolf (and two others enter.. THOROLF'S men never see JARNGRIM. They kindle a fire forthwith) .—What is your name, friend?
Jarngrim.—Jarngrim I am called.
Thorolf.—We have lost our way. Will you allow me to sit down at the fire?
Jarngrim.—There is a plenty of dry fuel in the cave.
(THOROLF'S men have been kindling the fire which burns up brightly.
JARNGRIM nods to THOROLF.)
Jarngrim.—This eve we shall drink mead together! ”

“ Never more play war, Kalf! Protect those that are weak! (Embraces THORGEIR, leads the boys to the door, and calls out:) Put Kalf into the dark room for a while!
Broddi (shouts from without) .—I must get to speak with you, Brand Kolbeinsson! Quick, quick!
Jorun.—Broddi here! There comes war incarnate mailed from head to foot. May God have pity on all wives!
(Enter BRAND without arms and BRODDI all armed.)
Broddi.—You have collected a good and well-armed body of men?
Brand.—I have had great difficulty in gathering troops. I have only my tenants and my servants, altogether eighty men. ”

“ Jorun.—And now it may appear to you as though not only Thorolf was to be avenged. Asbjorn fared South with eleven men and returned alone. He lost all men in the winter storms that have been raging now for some time. At last there were only six who returned over the Kjol, without food and worn out. Man after man threw himself down on the frozen ground to die; they cursed the wars that will not let men die in peace with God and men, they cursed Brand Kolbeinsson, and Broddi, and Kolbein the Young, because it is they who are the cause of this war. ”

“ Kolbein.—It is. It is. Six hundred men! Advance bravely after me! My kinsman Brand is in great danger.
Broddi.—Always it is you, Brand! Physician, attend to the sick man.
Salvor.—Carry your chieftain into his bed!
Kolbein.—Woden owns all the slain men! Neither Thord Kakali nor one of his men will return alive over Blanda. Another battle won. A great and glorious victory. Carry away the fallen, I will not see them. Woden owns all the slain men.
Botolf.—So much devilish magic yet living in a Christian country! And this man have I shriven but a short while ago! Woden owns all the slain men! ”

“ Whenever I come down the mountain side there arises tumult in the valleys; wherever I remain all day great battles are fought. The Norns have decreed all that. But now men say that the White God is about to come from the south, with great splendor, and that he will bring with him peace. I ween it will prove a lie.
Thorolf.—Decreed by the Norns! You must be an old man?
Jarngrim.—I was Ingolf's the First Settler's pilot on his journey to Iceland.
Thorolf.—I am not a book-learned man; yet must you, then, be exceedingly old and yet are not gray-haired. ”

“ But America has no endowed nor municipal theater.
I would in no way decry opera, but it is very clear that some of the energy which is now being used for opera might far better be put into the wider field of drama. Because of its very nature, opera is bound to appeal to and to reach fewer people than drama. As a force and a power for education and general uplift, it can never compare with drama. There is a considerable number of people who attend the opera because they love it, but a much larger number attend because it is fashionable. ”

“ All the drama leagues and numberless organizations which are trying to cultivate taste for good plays and to better the drama are on the wrong track. It is not a cultivated, appreciative public that is needed. Let those interested in drama learn a lesson from opera. Let them employ their energies to make drama fashionable. When it becomes incumbent upon society leaders to occupy stalls in the theater for a season, we shall have an endowed theater and not until then. ”

“ Yet because we all, first of all, are the children of our current notions, and only in a deeper sense, when we think below the bias of the moment, the children of all life's experience, I shall call attention first to two or three facts of civic life here in Massachusetts which illustrate merely the financial support of a theater by a city or community. ”

“ Act I.—The chieftain of the North Quarter of Iceland, Kolbein the Young, lies sick unto death from the after-effects of an old wound and sends for his kinsmen and other nobles of the Quarter. While delivering his message to them, Thorolf, his favorite (secretly the lover of the chieftain's wife, Helga) , and long a thorn in the flesh of these proud men as an upstart, infuriates them anew by his insolent bearing. Obedient to the call of their chief, they assemble about him to determine on measures for the defence of the land, and to learn of the disposition of his dominions. ”

“ To give Iceland to him is as bad as yielding up one's soul to the devil.
Brand.—But who is to receive the lands?
Kolbein.—I shall give all my dominions to Thord Kakali, and thus atone for the killing of his father and brothers. Your own cases would then be at his mercy. I expect that you will fare well in this, because just then did Thord prove to be my best friend when I entrusted my matters entirely to him; at that time you were also on friendly terms, you and the men from Skagafirth.
Botolf.—That would be a disposition promising peace, if the king himself is not to receive the dominion. ”

“ A very interesting experiment is being tried there by the Pittsfield Theater Company—a company of gentlemen—who believe that in a town like Pittsfield the theater justifies a consideration not dissimilar to that with which we regard our public library or our art museum! These gentlemen are leading the way in a movement which ought to be widespread. They have faced, not a theory, but a condition, and they will discover that, so far as immediate popular use is concerned, the theater is of more importance in a community than either the art museum or the public library. ”

“ Helga.—When I was given to Kolbein I never once was asked whether I would love him, so that if I have been much lacking in this matter I have never deceived him in any way. Your husband may rest assured that if any one offer to die instead of so highly beloved a chieftain, then shall I take that man's life, and not Brand's. ”

“ As soon as my brother-in-law Kolbein has made an onset at our fort and lost many men he will himself see fit to obtain conditions of peace from us.
Brand.—That will he never!
Broddi.—Maybe, maybe.
Brand.—It will cost many lives to attack and defend Holar this time. Ought we to sacrifice them all merely to lengthen our own lives by a few years?
Broddi.—Lives? Worth, each, one or two hundred ounces of silver! Brand, you do not know the joy there is in fighting! Every man in the fort has sworn to fall at his post. ”

“ Brand.—Look you, Helga my kinswoman, you will not reach your prisoner so very easily for the first. (DEACON SIGURD picks up HELGI SKAFTASON'S axe, for he is weaponless. They take JORUN in their midst.)
Helga.—To arms! Wrest my prisoner from among them!
Broddi.—Hold my place for a moment, my men, if it should be vacant a short while.—Is it really so, Kolbein the Young, that your wife has made you so senselessly mad that you are about to attack us in order to butcher a woman? ”

“ Kolbein.—Leader of the Birchlegs! [A] That is a goodly army! No, for that my health suffices no more—they all are brisk men! Tell the archbishop that even if I were always in good health I would think it a nobler thing to do battle against the Birchlegs than with them.
[Footnote A: The name of the Norwegian king Sverre's hardy soldiers.]
Botolf.—You are the only Icelander who hates Norway and its king, Kolbein!
Kolbein.—I remember too well that my father died in Norway an enemy of the king and the archbishop. At that time I was thirteen years and dull it seemed to me in Norway thereafter. ”