Balder

“ Breidablik, on whose columns Balder graved
The enchantments that recall the dead to life.
For wise he was, and many curious arts,
Postures of runes, and healing herbs he knew;
Unhappy! but that art he did not know,
To keep his own life safe, and see the sun.
There to his hall the Gods brought Balder home,
And each bespake him as he laid him down:—
"Would that ourselves, O Balder, we were borne
Home to our halls, with torchlight, by our kin,
So thou might'st live, and still delight the Gods!"
They spake; and each went home to his own house. ”

“ Yes, Balder, worthy of thyself continue!
Canst thou wish Nanna to abandon Hother?
Wish her whose virtue thy high soul so worships
Should weak and base become for thy advantage?
But—does she love him? has he won her promise?
Who knoweth but she merely has dissembled,
And shown a fictious flame to prove thee, Balder!
Transporting dream!
NANNA, BALDER.
NANNA (rushes in, terrified) . Ha! Balder if thou lovest—Ah, if thou—
BALDER (casts himself at NANNA’S feet) . Heavens,
Nanna! canst thou doubt it? ”

“ HOTHER. BALDER.
BALDER (without perceiving HOTHER) . Gloomy was this night and horrid!
Around about me angry gods consulted.
What seek they? To affright the soul of Balder?
Now all is still.
HOTHER. Now unconcern’d and haughty
Walks the high demigod! Ah, little thinks he
Each breath he draweth is the gift of Hother.
BALDER. Who utter’d Hother’s name? I heard it utter’d,
But all is hushed as death. ”

“ Balder was the most godlike of all the gods, because he was the purest and the best. Wherever he went his coming was like the coming of sunshine, and all the beauty of summer was but the shining of his face. When men's hearts were white like the light, and their lives clear as the day, it was because Balder was looking down upon them with those soft, clear eyes that were open windows to the soul of God. He had always lived in such a glow of brightness that no darkness had ever touched him; but one morning, after Idun and Brage had gone, Balder's face was sad and troubled. ”

“ BALDER. Thine—as thou callest him—thine Hother liveth.
NANNA (whilst she recognizes BALDER) . Ha Balder! thou hast slain him! Ah, forgive me!
My dream confuses me—thou see’st I tremble.
I heard the fall of gods—the gods lamenting;
And bloody by the Hall there stood a spectre:
Big was the ruddy wound whereto it pointed.
Like one deep musing it conceal’d its visage;
But big the tears were through its fingers streaming:
Ah, the pale son of night was tall as Hother!
BALDER. Ha! Hother can’t be dead.
NANNA. I do believe thee ”

“ Thou know'st, thou know'st, what grief we have in Heaven
For Balder, whom thou hold'st by right below.
Restore him! for what part fulfils he here?
Shall he shed cheer over the cheerless seats,
And touch the apathetic ghosts with joy?
Not for such end, O queen, thou hold'st thy realm.
For Heaven was Balder born, the city of Gods
And Heroes, where they live in light and joy.
Thither restore him, for his place is there!"
He spoke; and grave replied the solemn queen:—
"Hermod, for he thou art, thou son of Heaven!
A strange unlikely errand, sure, is thine. ”

“ With Balder also groweth up in every soul
His brother Hoder, blind, the child of night; for blind
At birth is evil always, like the young of bears, and night
Its mantle, but the good of earth rejoice in light.
The tempter, busy Loke, always ready stands
To guide the blind one's murderous hand. The missile oft
To Valhal's love is sent, to Balder's tender breast.
Then Hate awakes and Violence upon its prey
Springs forth; the hungry sword-wolf prowls o'er hill and dale.
And fiercest dragons wild swim o'er the bloody waves. ”

“ Balder could bear the burden no longer. He went out, called all the gods together, and told them the terrible dreams of the night. Every face was heavy with care. The death of Balder would be like the going out of the sun, and after a long, sad council the gods resolved to protect him from harm by pledging all things to stand between him and any hurt. So Frigg, his mother, went forth and made everything promise, on a solemn oath, not to injure her son. ”

“ NANNA, BALDER.
NANNA. Woe’s me! he will destroy himself.
BALDER. By Odin!
He shall not! Be composed! believe, I’ve power
To hinder it! Believe thy Balder, Nanna!
NANNA (she takes with fervour his hand and bends herself for some time over it) . I do believe thee, noble one, I know thee!
I feel all thy exaltedness. Thy virtues
I hold in reverence. Oh! that all my friendship,
That these hot tears were able to reward thee!
BALDER (casts himself upon his knees before her) . Oh glimpse! Oh wave of hope, in which I’m drowning!
NANNA (agitated) . What hopest thou? ”

“ NANNA. Ah! he goes—he rages;
And Balder yells with wrath. Some serpent surely
Has breath’d to-day his poison in their bosoms.
They hate, they seek each other! Who asunder
Will hold the raging bears. Ah! who will soften
The foaming ones? I have this hour expected,
And long by art have I delay’d its coming;
But now is art, and prayer, and all else useless:
E’en now they meet in conflict. I am powerless!
What can my tears avail? Alas! blood only
Will satiate them and Heaven: thine must trickle,
My Hother. What art thou against a half-god? ”

“ Balder has met his death, and ye survive.
Weep him an hour, but what can grief avail?
For ye yourselves, ye gods, shall meet your doom,—
All ye who hear me, and inhabit heaven,
And I too, Odin too, the lord of all.
But ours we shall not meet, when that day comes,
With women’s tears and weak complaining cries:
Why should we meet another’s portion so? ”

“ He strikes LOKE on the head with the spear, and he instantly sinks howling into the earth. He is no sooner out of sight than everything becomes quiet. The sun rises in its full majesty. After HOTHER has for some time looked on all this with astonishment, he says:
Like thee fall every traitor
Who breatheth wickedness in the Skiolding’s bosom!
Ha, Balder! ”

“ He was eminent by culture; she by nature only. But Balder's culture had not greatened him. Greatness is not of the brain, save as allied to the deep, pure chords which thrill at the base of the human symphony. He might have stood for our age; she, for that more primitive but profounder era which is at once man's beginning and his goal.
Balder's eyes could not frankly hold their own against her gaze of awful simplicity. All he had ever done amiss arose and put him to the blush. ”

“ As it was so natural for Balder the beautiful to be smiling and happy, the gods were greatly troubled when on a day they began to notice a change in his bearing. Gradually the light died out of his blue eyes, a careworn look came into his face, and his step grew heavy and slow. Odin and Frigga, seeing their beloved son’s evident depression, tenderly implored him to reveal the cause of his silent grief. ”

“ But with it trembles yet my lip—oh, canst thou
Pay virtue its reward—forget for ever thy Hother,
And—in course of time—love Balder?
NANNA. Oh, hush! oh, hush! my Hother!
HOTHER. He is virtuous,
He loves thee well, and Odin is his father.
NANNA. How cruel!
HOTHER. I must fly from thee for ever!
NANNA. Oh horror! Whither? What is thy intention?
HOTHER. To die! Thou know’st my oath! Ha! the sun hastens!
Seest thou how high? I swore by Hothbrod’s ashes
With Balder not to live a day! Release me! ”

“ It is time we ceased talking about our barbarous ancestors, for, if we rightly comprehend this myth of Balder, we know that they appreciated, nay, profoundly and poetically appreciated, the light that fills the eye and blesses the heart, and were sensitive to the pain that cuts through the bosom of man even into its finest and most delicate fibers. In this myth of Balder is interwoven the most delicate feelings with the sublimest sentiments. ”

“ Did the memory of these things bring no blush to Balder's cheeks? There he sat, as indifferent, to all outward seeming, as though he were asleep. But this may have been the apathy consequent on the abandonment of lofty pretensions and sublime ambitions; betraying proud sensitiveness rather than base lack of feeling. Balder Helwyse was not the first man of parts to appear in an undignified and unheroic light. The foremost man of all this world once whined like a sick girl for his physic, and preposterously overestimated his swimming powers ”

“ There had, indeed, been a misunderstanding at their last encounter, and Balder had so far forgotten himself as to throw Hiero into the sea; but it was the part of good-breeding, as well as of Christianity, to forget such errors, and heal the bruise with an extra application of balsamic verbiage.
Why so speechless, Balder? Do you wait for your host to speak first? Nay, never stand on ceremony. He is an eccentric recluse, unused to the ways of society, while a man of the world like you has at his tongue's tip a score of phrases just suited to the occasion. ”

“ A palisade enclosed the hallowed ground, and within it stood a spacious temple with the images of many gods, but none of them was worshipped with such devotion as Balder. So great was the awe with which the heathen regarded the place that no man might harm another there, nor steal his cattle, nor defile himself with women. But women cared for the images of the gods in the temple; they warmed them at the fire, anointed them with oil, and dried them with cloths.260
The legendary death of Balder resembles the legendary death of the Persian hero Isfendiyar in the epic of Firdusi. ”

“ Balder, the beautiful and youthful god of eloquence and just decision, the innocent who appears brilliant as the lily, and in honour of whom the whitest flower received the name of Baldrian, was slain with a spear of the misletoe by the blind god Hoder, whose violent deeds the gods never forget, but whose name they never hear pronounced. ”

“ LOKE. I am an old and harmless creature.
BALDER. But Nanna’s bridegroom?
LOKE. Truly, sir, I wonder,
That one like thee, a dweller ’mongst these mountains,
Should know him not, the noblest and the bravest
Of all the sons of earth.
BALDER. Ye gods of heaven!
And who? His name?
LOKE. One who is bold as Odin,
And strong as Thor, and beautiful as Balder.
BALDER. Ha! kill me not, but answer: name him.
LOKE (with a loud voice) . Hother!
BALDER (with agitation) . What! Who? The Leire King?
The Skioldung Hother?
LOKE. Who here is foster’d up by Nanna’s father.
BALDER. Thou killest me! ”

“ Among all these gods Balder is the most richly endowed, the best, the handsomest and the most virtuous—Balder, the Bright God, by eminence. Although the son of Odin and Frigg, he might be taken for a son of Freya, on account of his strong resemblance to Love itself, not to the turbulent, passionate, and capricious Love of the Greeks, but to Love in the widest and noblest sense of the word,—Love, in fine, in its Christian meaning. Balder represents that universal goodness, loyalty, affection, and harmony, which binds all beings to each other; Bragi, the poet is his brother ”

“ When air is chilliest, and the stars sunk low;
Then Balder's spirit through the gloom drew near,
In garb, in form, in feature as he was,
Alive; and still the rays were round his head
Which were his glorious mark in Heaven; he stood
Over against the curtain of the bed,
And gazed on Nanna as she slept, and spake:—
"Poor lamb, thou sleepest, and forgett'st thy woe!
Tears stand upon the lashes of thine eyes,
Tears wet the pillow by thy cheek; but thou,
Like a young child, hast cried thyself to sleep.
Sleep on; I watch thee, and am here to aid. ”

“ Balder had sank back on the bed and closed his eyes again. His pale face was almost transfigured, he looked like a hero resting after a victory, and for the moment did not even feel the pain in his chest. The room was perfectly still, the sunlight played amid the palm leaves, the mask of the youthful prisoner, suffused with a rosy light which came from the open door of the stove, seemed to breathe and whisper to its image on the narrow couch: "Die, your death shall be painless!" ”

“ In the zenith was a white lustre which obliterated distinction of form as much as did the cloudy obscurity at the end of the room. Now the design seemed about to unfold itself; then again it eluded the gazer's grasp. Suddenly at length it stood revealed. A gigantic face, with wide-floating hair and beard, looked down into Balder's own. Its expression was of infinite malignity and despair. The impersonation of all that is wicked and miserable, its place was at the top of Heaven; it was moulded of those aspiring forms of light, and was the goal which the brightest attained. ”

“ Writing about the end of the twelfth century, the old Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus tells the story of Balder in a form which professes to be historical. According to him, Balder and Hother were rival suitors for the hand of Nanna, daughter of Gewar, King of Norway. Now Balder was a demigod and common steel could not wound his sacred body. ”

“ HOTHER. I know thou fearest for the generous Balder;
But, noble maid, if thou my heart see’st into,
Thou know’st that he is safe as Thor in Valhall.
ROTA. Think’st thou to thwart the Norna’s will, young hero?
She pointed out the hidden tree; she bade me
Break off the bough of death; she bade me harden
Its point in Nastroud’s flames; she— But what will I?
My tears are wasted, like thy noble project.
Well, then: use thou this spear! Death is its surname,
And whom it smites eternal sleep shall fetter
In Hælheim’s silent night, if he is mortal ”