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A page of
Vasavadutta
Eric
A Dramatic Romance
Characters
ERIC SWEGN GUNTHAR HARDICNUT RAGNAR HARALD
ASLAUG HERTHA
Act I Eric's Palace at Yara. ERIC Eric of Norway, first whom these cold fiords, Deep havens of disunion, from their jagged And fissured crevices at last obey, The monarch of a thousand Vikings! Yes, But how long shall that monarchy endure Which only on the swiftness of a sword Has taken its restless seat? Strength's iron hound Pitilessly bright behind his panting prey Can guard for life's short splendour what it won. But when the sword is broken or when death Proves swifter? All this realm with labour built Dissolving like a transitory cloud Becomes the thing it was, cleft, parcelled out By discord. I have found the way to join, The warrior's sword, builder of unity, But where's the way to solder? where? O Thor And Odin, masters of the northern world, Wisdom and force I have; some strength is hidden I have not; I would find it out. Help me, Whatever power thou art who mov'st the world, To Eric unrevealed. Some sign I ask.
ASLAUG (singing, outside) Love is the hoop of the gods Hearts to combine.
Page – 533 Iron is broken, the sword Sleeps in the grave of its lord. Love is divine. Love is the hoop of the gods Hearts to combine.
ERIC Is that your answer? Freya, mother of heaven, Thou wast forgotten. The heart! the seat is there. For unity is sweet substance of the heart And not a chain that binds, not iron, gold, Nor any helpless thought the reason knows. How shall I seize it? where? give me a net By which the fugitive can be snared. It is Too unsubstantial for my iron mind.
ASLAUG (singing, outside)
When Love desires Love, Then Love is born. Nor golden gifts compel, Nor even beauty's spell Escapes his scorn. When Love desires Love, Then Love is born.
ERIC (calling) Who sings outside? Harald! who sings outside?
HARALD (entering) Two dancing-girls from Gothberg. Shall they come?
ERIC Admit them. Harald goes out. From light lips and casual thoughts The gods speak best as if by chance, nor knows
Page – 534 The speaker that he is an instrument But thinks his mind the mover of his words. Harald returns with Aslaug and Hertha. HARALD King Eric, these are they who sang.
ERIC Women, Who are you? or what god directed you?
ASLAUG The god who rules all men, Necessity.
ERIC It was thou who sangst!
ASLAUG My lips at least were used.
ERIC Thou sayest. Dost thou know by whom?
ASLAUG By Fate. For she alone is prompter on our stage, And all things move by an established doom, Not freely. Eric's sword and Aslaug's song, Music and thunder are the rhythmic chords Of one majestic harp. With equal mind She breaks the tops that she has built; her thrones Are ruins. She treads her way foreseen; our steps Are hers, our wills are blinded by her gaze.
ERIC I think the soul is master. Who art thou?
Page – 535 HERTHA Expelled from Gothberg with displeasure fierce, Norwegians by the wrathful Swede constrained, To Norway we return.
ERIC Why went you forth?
HERTHA From a bleak country rich by spoil alone Of kinder populations, far too cold, Too rough to love the sweetness of a song, The rhythm of a dance, with need for spur, We fled to an entire and cultured race, Whose hearts come apt and liberal from the gods Are steel to steel, but flowers to a flower.
ERIC And wherefore war they upon women now?
ASLAUG By thy aggressions moved.
ERIC A nobler choice Of vengeance I will give them, though more hard. (to Gunthar who enters) Gunthar, thou comest from the front. What news?
GUNTHAR Swegn, earl of Trondhjem, lifts his outlawed head. By desperate churls and broken nobles joined He moves towards the Swede.
ERIC Let Sigurd's force Cut off from Sweden and his lair the rude Page – 536 Revolted lord. He only now resists, Champion of discord, remnant like our seas, The partisan and pattern of the past. They waste their surge of strength in sterile foam, Hungry for movement, careless what they break, Splendid, disastrous, active for no fruit. Such men are better with the gods than here To trouble earth. Taken, let him not live.
ASLAUG Taken! Our words are only an arrogant breath, Who all are here, the doomer and the doomed, As captives of a greater doom than ours, To live or die.
HERTHA Be silent.
ASLAUG I silence my heart Which has remembered what all men forget, That Olaf of the seas was Norway's head And Swegn his son.
ERIC Will you remain with me? Though from my act there flowed on you distress, Make me be fountain of your better days; Your loss shall turn a fall to splendid gains.
HERTHA Thy royal bounty shall atone for much.
ASLAUG (low, to herself ) Nobler atonement's needed.
Page – 537 ERIC It is yours. Harald, make room for them within my house. Gunthar, we will converse some other hour. (alone) Love! If it were this girl with antelope eyes And the high head so proudly lifted up Upon a neck as white as any swan's! But how to sway men's hearts rugged and hard As Norway's mountains, as her glaciers cold, The houses of their violent desires, Whose guests are interest and power and pride? Perhaps this stag-eyed woman comes for that, To teach me. Page – 538
Hertha, Aslaug.
ASLAUG Hertha, we dance before the man tonight. Why not tonight?
HERTHA Because I will not act Lifting in vain a rash frustrated hand. When all is certain, I will strike.
ASLAUG To near, To strike while all posterity applauds! For Norway's poets to the end of time Shall sing in phrases noble as the theme Of Aslaug's dance and Aslaug's dagger.
HERTHA Yes, If we succeed, but who will sing the praise Of foiled assassins? Shall we risk defeat? While we sleep flung in a dishonoured tomb, And Swegn of Norway roams until the end The desperate snows and forest silences Hopeless, proscribed, alone?
ASLAUG No more defeat! Too often, too deeply have we drunk that cup!
Page – 539 HERTHA The man we come to slay, —
ASLAUG A mighty man! He has the face and figure of a god, A marble emperor with brilliant eyes. How came the usurper by a face like that?
HERTHA His father was a son of Odin's stock.
ASLAUG His fable since he rose! A pauper house Of one poor vessel and a narrow fiord And some bare pine-trees possessor, — this was he, The root he sprang from.
HERTHA But from this to tower In three swift summers undisputed lord Of Norway, before years had put their growth Upon his chin! If not of Odin's race, Odin is for him. Are you not afraid, You who see Fate even in a sparrow's flight, When Odin is for him?
ASLAUG Aslaug is against. He has a strength, an iron strength, and Thor Strikes hammerlike in his uplifted sword. But Fate alone decides when all is said, Not Thor, nor Odin. I will try my fate.
HERTHA He is a pure usurper, is he not? Norway's election made him king, men say. Page – 540 ASLAUG Left Olaf Sigualdson no heirs behind? Was his chair vacant?
HERTHA Of Trondhjem; but they cried, The inland and the north were free to choose.
ASLAUG As rebels are.
HERTHA Discord was seated there. To the South rejoicing in her golden gains, Crying, "I am Norway", all the rude-lipped North Blew bronze refusal and its free stark head To breathe cold heaven was lifted like its hills. We sought the arbitration of the sword, That sharp blind last appeal. The sword has judged Against our claim.
ASLAUG The dagger overrides.
HERTHA When it is keen and swift enough! O yet, If kindly peace even now were possible! The suzerainty? it is his. We fought for it, We have lost it. Let it rest where it has fallen.
ASLAUG Better our barren empire of the snows! Better with reindeer herding to survive, Or else a free and miserable death Together!
Page – 541 HERTHA It is well to be resolved. Therefore I flung the doubt before your mind, To strike more surely. Aslaug, did you see The eyes of Eric on you?
ASLAUG (indifferently) I am fair. Men look upon me.
HERTHA You see nothing more?
ASLAUG (disdainfully) What is it to me how he looks? He is My human obstacle and that is all.
HERTHA No, Aslaug, there's much more. Alone with you, Absorbed, — you see it, — suddenly you strike And strike again, swift great exultant blows.
ASLAUG It is too base!
HERTHA Unlulled, he could not perish. Have you not seen his large and wakeful gaze? This is our chance. Must not Swegn mount his throne?
ASLAUG So that I have not to degrade myself, Arrange it as you will. You own a swift, Contriving, careful brain I cannot match. To dare, to act was always Aslaug's part. Page – 542 HERTHA You will not shrink?
ASLAUG I sprang not from the earth To bound my actions by the common rule. I claim my kin with those whom Heaven's gaze Moulded supreme, Swegn's sister, Olaf's child, Aslaug of Norway.
HERTHA Then it must be done.
ASLAUG Hertha, I will not know the plots you weave: But when I see your signal, I will strike.
HERTHA (alone) Pride violent! loftiness intolerable! The grandiose kingdom-breaking blow is hers, The baseness, the deception are for me. It was this, the assumption, the magnificence, Made Swegn her tool. To me his lover, counsellor, Wife, worshipper, his ears were coldly deaf. But, lioness of Norway, thy loud bruit And leap gigantic are ensnared at last In my compelling toils. She must be trapped! She is the fuel for my husband's soul To burn itself on a disastrous pyre. Remove its cause, the flame will sink to rest, — And we in Trondhjem shall live peacefully Till Eric dies, as some day die he must, In battle or by a revolting sword, And leaves the spacious world unoccupied. Then other men may feel the sun once more. Always she talks of Fate: does she not see, This man was born beneath exultant stars,
Page – 543 Had gods to rock his cradle? He must possess His date, his strong and unresisted time When Fate herself runs on his feet. Then comes, — All things too great end soon, — death, overthrow, The slow revenges of the jealous gods. Submitting we shall save ourselves alive For a late summer when cold spring is past. Page – 544
Eric, Aslaug.
ERIC Come hither.
ASLAUG Thou hast sent for me?
ERIC Come hither. What art thou?
ASLAUG What thou knowest.
ERIC Do I know?
ASLAUG (to herself ) Does he suspect? (aloud) I am a dancing-girl. My name is Aslaug. That thou knowest.
ERIC Where Did Odin forge thy sweet imperious eyes, Thy noble stature and thy lofty look? Thou dancest, — yes, thou hast that motion; song, The natural expression of thy soul, Comes from thy lips, floats, hovers and returns Like a wild bird which wings around its nest. This art the princesses of Sweden use,
Page – 545 And those Norwegian girls who frame themselves On Sweden.
ASLAUG It may be, my birth and past Were nobler than my present fortunes are.
ERIC Why cam'st thou to me?
ASLAUG (to herself ) Does Death admonish him Of danger? does he feel the impending stroke? Hertha could turn the question.
ERIC Why soughtst thou out Eric of Norway? Wherefore broughtst thou here This beauty as compelling as thy song No man can gaze on and possess his soul?
ASLAUG I am a dancing-girl; my song, my face Are my best stock. I carried them for gain Here to the richest market.
ERIC Hast thou so? I buy them for a price. Aslaug, thy body too.
ASLAUG Release me! Wilt thou lay thy hands on death? (wrenching herself free) All Norway has not sold itself thy slave.
ERIC This was not spoken like a dancing-girl! Page – 546 ASLAUG (to herself ) What is this siege? I have no dagger with me. Will he discover me? will he compel?
ERIC Though Norway has not sold itself my slave, Thou hast. Remember what thou art, or else Thou feignst to be.
ASLAUG (to herself ) I am caught in his snare. He is subtle, terrible. I see the thing He drives at and admire unwillingly The marble tyrant.
ERIC Better play thy part Or leave it. If thou wert fashioned nobler than thou feignst, Confess that mightier name and lay thyself Between my hands. But if a dancing-girl, I have bought thee for a hire, thy face, thy song, Thy body. I turn not, girl, from any way I can possess thee, more than the sea hesitates To engulf what it embraces.
ASLAUG Thou speakest words I scorn to answer.
ERIC Or to understand? Thou art an enemy who in disguise Invad'st my house to spy upon my fate.
ASLAUG What if I were?
Page – 547 ERIC Thou hast too lightly then Devised thy chains and close imprisonment, Too thoughtlessly adventured a divine And glorious stake, this body, heaven's hold, This face, the earth's desire.
ASLAUG What canst thou do? I do not think I am afraid of death.
ERIC Far be death from thee who, if heaven were just, Wouldst walk immortal! Thou seest no nearer peril?
ASLAUG None that I tremble at or wish to flee.
ERIC Let this shake thee that thou art by thy choice Caged with the danger of the lion's mood, Helpless hast seen the hunger of his eyes And feelst on thee the breath of his desire.
ASLAUG (alarmed) I came not here to spy.
ERIC Why cam'st thou then?
ASLAUG To sing, to dance, to earn.
ERIC Richly then earn. Thou hast a brain, and knowest why I looked On thee, why I have kept thee in my house. Page – 548 My house! what fate has brought thy steps within? Thou, thou hast found the way to my desire! Thinkst thou thy feet have entered to escape As lightly as a wild bee from a flower, The lair and antre of thy enemy? Disguise? Canst thou disguise thy splendid soul? Then if thy face and speech more nobly express The truth of thee than this vocation can, Reveal it and deserve my clemency.
ASLAUG (violently) Thy clemency! (restraining herself ) I am a dancing-girl; I came to earn.
ERIC Thou art obstinate in pride! Choose yet.
ASLAUG I have not any choice to make.
ERIC Wilt thou still struggle vainly in the net? Because thou hast the lioness in thy mood, Thou thoughtst to play with Eric! It is I Who play with thee; thou liest in my grasp, As surely as if I held thee on my knees. I am enamoured of thy golden hair, Thy body like the snow, thy antelope eyes, This neck that seems to know it carries heaven Upon it easily. Thy song, thy speech, This gracious rhythmic motion of thy limbs Walking or dancing, all the careless pride That undulates in every gesture and tone, Have seized upon me smiling to possess. Page – 549 But I have only learned from Fate and strength To seize by force, master, enjoy, compel, As I will thee. Enemy and prisoner, Or dancing-girl and purchased chattel, choose! Thou wilt not speak? thou findest no reply?
ASLAUG Because I am troubled by thy violent words. I cannot answer thee, or will not yet. (turning away) How could he see this death? Is he a god And knows men's hearts? This is a terrible And iron pressure!
ERIC What was thy design? To spy? to slay? For thou art capable Even of such daring.
ASLAUG (to herself ) Swiftly, swiftly done It might be still! To put him off an hour, Some minutes, — O, to strike!
ERIC What hast thou chosen?
ASLAUG (turning to him) King, mend thy words and end this comedy. I have laughed till now and dallied with thy thoughts, A little amazed. Unfearing I stand here, Who come with open heart to seek a king, Pure of all hostile purpose, innocent Of all the guileful thoughts and blood-stained plans Thou burdenest thy fierce suspicions with. This is the Nemesis of men who rise Too suddenly by fraud or violence Page – 550 That they suspect all hearts, yes, every word Of sheltering some direr violence, Some subtler fraud, and they expect their fall Sudden and savage as their rise has been.
ERIC Thou art my dancing-girl and nothing more? Assume this chain, this necklace, for thy life. Nor think it even thy price. She dashes the necklace to the ground. Thou art not subtle!
ASLAUG (agitated) It is not so that women's hearts are wooed.
ERIC Yet so I woo thee, so do all men woo Enamoured of what thou hast claimed to be. Art thou the dancing-girl of Norway still Or some disguised high-reaching nobler soul?
ASLAUG (suddenly) I am thy dancing-girl, King Eric. Look, I lift thy necklace.
ERIC Take it, yet be free. Thou canst not slip out from my hands by this. No feigned decision will I let thee make, But one which binds us both. I give thee time, In hope thy saner mind will yet prevail, Not courage most perverse, though ardent, rule. Only one way thou hast to save thyself: Reveal thy treason, Aslaug, trust thy king. Aslaug, alone, lifts the chain, admires it and throws it on a chair.
Page – 551 ASLAUG You are too much like drops of royal blood. She lifts it again. A necklace? No, my chain! Or wilt thou prove A god's death-warrant? She puts it round her neck. Hertha, Hertha, here! (to Hertha, as she enters) O counsellor, art thou come?
HERTHA I heard thee call.
ASLAUG I called. Why did I call? See, Hertha, see How richly Norway's Eric buys his doom!
HERTHA He gave thee this? It is a kingdom's price.
ASLAUG A kingdom's price! the kingdom of the slain! A price to rid the nations of a god. O Hertha, what has earth to do with gods, Who suffers only human weight? Will she Not go too swiftly downward from her base If Eric treads her long?
HERTHA Sister of Swegn, There are new lustres in thy face and eyes. What said he to thee?
ASLAUG What did Eric say, Eric to Aslaug, sister of King Swegn? A kingdom's price! Swegn's kingdom! And for him, Page – 552 My marble emperor, my god who loves, This mortal Odin? What for him? By force Shall he return to his effulgent throne?
HERTHA You were not used to a divided mind.
ASLAUG Nor am I altered now, nor heart-perplexed. But these are thoughts which naturally arise.
HERTHA He loves you then?
ASLAUG He loves and he suspects.
HERTHA What, Aslaug?
ASLAUG What we are and we intend.
HERTHA If he suspects!
ASLAUG It cannot matter much, If we are rapid.
HERTHA If we spoil it all! I will not torture Swegn with useless tears Perishing vainly. I will slay and die. He shall remember that he wears his crown By our great sacrifice and soothe his grief With the strong magnificent circle, or else bear it
Page – 553 A noble duty to the nobly dead. (after a moment's reflection) Child, you must humour him, you must consent.
ASLAUG To what?
HERTHA To all.
ASLAUG Hast thou at all perused The infamy which thou advisest?
HERTHA Yes. I do not bid you yield, but seem to yield. Even I who am Swegn's wife, would do as much. But though you talk, you still are less in love, Valuing an empty outward purity Before your brother's life, your brother's crown.
ASLAUG You know the way to bend me to your will!
HERTHA Give freedom, but no licence to his love, For when he thinks to embrace, we shall have struck.
ASLAUG And, Hertha, if a swift and violent heart Betrayed my will and overturned your plans? Is there no danger, Hertha, there?
HERTHA Till now I feared not that from Aslaug, sister of Swegn. Page – 554 But if you fear it!
ASLAUG No, since I consent. You shall not blame again my selfishness, Nor my defect of love.
HERTHA (alone) Swegn then might rule! (with a laugh) I had almost forgotten Fate between Smiling, alert, and his too partial gods. Page – 555
ERIC They say the anarchy of love disturbs Gods even: shaken are the marble natures, The deathless hearts are melted to the pang And rapture. I would be, O Odin, still Monarch of my calm royalty within, My thoughts my subjects. Do I hear her come? (to Aslaug who enters) Thou com'st? thou art resolved? thou hast made thy choice?
ASLAUG I choose, if there is anything to choose, The truth.
ERIC Who art thou?
ASLAUG Aslaug, who am now A dancing-woman.
ERIC And afterwards? Hast thou then Understood nothing?
ASLAUG What should I understand?
ERIC What I shall do with thee. This earthly heaven In which thou liv'st shall not be thine at all.
Page – 556 It was not fashioned for thy joy but mine And only made for my immense desire. This hast thou understood?
ASLAUG (pale and troubled) Thou triest me still.
ERIC I saw thee shake.
ASLAUG It is not easily A woman's heart sinks prostrate in such absolute Surrender.
ERIC Thy heart? Is it thy heart that yields? O thou unparalleled enchanting frame For housing of a strong immortal guest, If man could seize the heart as palpably, The form, the limbs, the substance of this soul! That, that we ask for; all else can be seized So vainly! Walled from ours are other hearts: For if life's barriers twixt our souls were broken, Men would be free and one, earth paradise And the gods live neglected.
ASLAUG This heart of mine? Purchase it richly, for it is for sale.
ERIC Yes, speak.
ASLAUG With love; I meant no more.
Page – 557 ERIC With love? Thou namest lightly a tremendous word. If thou hadst known this mightiest thing on earth And named it, should it not have upon thy lips So moving an impulsion for a man That he would barter worlds to hear it once? Words are but ghosts unless they speak the heart.
ASLAUG I have yielded.
ERIC Then tonight. Thou shak'st?
ASLAUG There is A trouble in my blood. I do not shake.
ERIC Thou heardst me?
ASLAUG Not tonight. Thou art too swift, Too sudden.
ERIC Thou hast had leisure to consult Thy comrade smaller, subtler than thyself? Better hadst thou chosen candour and thy frank soul Consulted, not a guile by others breathed.
ASLAUG What guile, who give all for an equal price? Thou giv'st thy blood of rubies; I my life. Page – 558 ERIC Thou hast not chosen then to understand.
ASLAUG Because I sell myself, yet keep my pride?
ERIC Thou shalt keep nothing that I choose to take. I see a tyranny I will delight in And force a oneness; I will violently Compel the goddess that thou art. But I know What soul is lodged within thee, thou as yet Ignorest mine. I still hold in my strength, Though it hungers like a lion for the leap, And give thee time once more; misuse it not. Beware, provoke not the fierce god too much; Have dread of his flame round thee.
ASLAUG (alone) Odin and Freya, you have snares! But see, I have not thrown the dagger from my heart, But clutch it still. How strange that look and tone, That things of a corporeal potency Not only travel coursing through the nerves But seem to touch the seated soul within! It was a moment's wave, for it has passed And the high purpose in my soul lives on Unconquerably intending to fulfil.
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