Eric's Chamber.

Eric, Harald.

ERIC

At dawn have all things ready for my march.

Let none be near tonight. Send here to me

Aslaug the dancing-girl.

Harald goes out.

I have resumed

The empire and the knowledge of myself.

For this strong angel Love, this violent

And glorious guest, let it possess my heart

Without a rival, not invade the brain,

Not with imperious discord cleave my soul

Jangling its ordered harmonies, nor turn

The manifold music of humanity

Into a single and a maddening note.

Strength in the spirit, wisdom in the mind,

Love in the heart complete the trinity

Of glorious manhood. There was the wide flaw, —

The coldness of the radiance that I was.

This was the vacant space I could not fill.

It left my soul the torso of a god,

A great design unfinished, and my works

Mighty but crude like things admired that pass

Bare of the immortality which keeps

The ages. O, the word they spoke was true!

Page – 579

'Tis Love, 'tis Love fills up the gulfs of Time!

By Love we find our kinship with the stars,

The spacious uses of the sky. God's image

Lives nobly perfect in the soul he made,

When Love completes the godhead in a man.

Aslaug enters.

Thou com'st to me! I give thee grace no more.

What hast thou in thy bosom?

ASLAUG

Only a heart.

ERIC

A noble heart, though wayward. Give it me,

Aslaug, to be the secret of the dawns,

The heart of sweetness housed in Aslaug's breast

Delivered from revolt and ruled by love.

ASLAUG

Why hast thou sent for me and forced to come?

Wilt thou have pity on me even yet

And on thyself?

ERIC

I am a warrior, one

Who have known not mercy. Wilt thou teach it me?

I have learned, Aslaug, from my soul and Life

The great wise pitiless calmness of the gods,

Found for my strength the proud swift blows they deal

At all resistance to their absolute walk,

Thor's hammer-stroke upon the unshaped world.

Its will is beaten on a dreadful forge,

Its roads are hewn by violence divine.

Is there a greater and a sweeter way?

Knowst thou it? Wilt thou lead me there? Thy step

Swift and exultant, canst thou tread its flowers?

Page – 580

ASLAUG

I know not who inspires thy speech; it probes.

ERIC

My mind tonight is full of Norway's needs.

Aslaug, she takes thy image.

ASLAUG

Mine! O if

Tonight I were not Norway!

ERIC

Thou knowest Swegn?

ASLAUG

I knew and I remember.

ERIC

Yes, Swegn, —  a soul

Brilliant and furious, violent and great,

A storm, a wind-swept ocean, not a man.

That would seize Norway? that will make it one?

But Odin gave the work to me. I came

Into this mortal frame for Odin's work.

ASLAUG

So deify ambition and desire.

ERIC

If one could snap this mortal body, then

Swegn even might rule, —  not govern himself, yet govern

All Norway! Aslaug, canst thou rule thyself?

'Tis difficult for great and passionate hearts.

ASLAUG

Then Swegn must die that Eric still may rule!

Was there no other way the gods could find?

Page – 581

ERIC

A deadly duel are the feuds of kings.

ASLAUG

They are so.

She feels for her dagger.

ERIC

Aslaug, thou feelest for thy heart?

Unruled it follows violent impulses

This way, that way, working calamity

Dreams that it helps the world. What shall I do,

Aslaug, with an unruly noble heart?

Shall I not load it with the chains of love

And rob it of its treasured pain and wrath

And bind it to its own supreme desire?

Richly 'twould beat beneath an absolute rule

And sweetly liberated from itself

By a golden bondage.

ASLAUG

And what of other impulses it holds?

Shall they not once rebel?

ERIC

They shall keep still;

They shall not cry nor question; they shall trust.

ASLAUG

It cannot be that he reads all my heart!

The gods play with me in his speech.

ERIC

Thou knowest

Why thou art called?

Page – 582

ASLAUG

I know why I am here.

ERIC

Few know that, Aslaug, why they have come here,

For that is heaven's secret. Sit down beside me

Nearer my heart. No hesitating! come.

I do not seize thy hands.

ASLAUG

They yet are free.

Is it the gods who bid me to strike soon?

My heart reels down into a flaming gulf.

If thou wouldst rule with love, must thou not spare

Thy enemies?

ERIC

When they have yielded. Is thy choice made?

Whatever defence thou hast against me yet

Use quickly, before I seize these restless hands

And thy more restless heart that flees from bliss.

Aslaug rises trembling.

ASLAUG

Desiredst thou me not to dance tonight,

O King, before thee?

ERIC

It was my will. Is it thine

Now? Dance, while yet thy limbs are thine.

ASLAUG

I dance

The dance of Thiordis with the dagger, taught

To Hertha in Trondhjem and by her to me.

Page – 583

ERIC (smiling)

Aslaug, my dancing-girl, thou and thy dance

Have daring, but too little subtlety.

ASLAUG (moving to a distance)

What use to struggle longer in the net?

Vain agony! he watches and he knows!

I'll strike him suddenly. It cannot be

The senses will so overtake the will

As to forbid its godlike motion. If

I feared not my wild heart, I could lean down

And lull suspicion with a fatal gift.

My blood would cleanse what shame was in the touch.

So would one act who knew her tranquil will

But none thus in the burning heart sunk down.

ERIC

Wilt thou play vainly with that fatal toy?

Dance now.

ASLAUG

My limbs refuse.

ERIC

They have no right.

ASLAUG

O Gods, I did not know myself till now,

Thrown in this furnace. Odin's irony

Shaped me from Olaf's seed! I am in love

With chains and servitude and my heart desires

Fluttering like a wild bird within its cage

A tyrant's harshness.

ERIC

Wilt thou dance? or wait

Till the enamoured motion of thy limbs

Page – 584

Remember joy of me? So would I have

Thy perfect motion grow a dream of love.

Tomorrow at the dawning will I march

To violent battle and the sword of Swegn

Bring back to be thy plaything, a support

Appropriate to thy action in the dance.

Aslaug, it shall replace thy dagger.

ASLAUG

Fate

Still drives me with his speech and Eric calls

My weakness on to slaughter Eric. Yes,

But he suspects, he knows! Yet will I strike,

Yet will I tread down my rebellious heart,

And then I too can die and end remorse.

ERIC

Where is thy chain

I gave thee, Aslaug? I would watch it rise,

Rubies of passion on a bosom of snow,

And climb for ever on thy breast aheave

With the sea's rhythm as thou dancest. Dance

Weaving my life a measure with thy feet

And of thy dancing I will weave the stroke

That conquers Swegn.

ASLAUG

The necklace? I will bring it.

Rubies of passion! Blood-drops still of death!

She goes out.

ERIC

The power to strike has gone out of her arm

And only in her stubborn thought survives.

She thinks that she will strike. Let it be tried!

He lies back and feigns to

sleep. Aslaug returns.

Page – 585

ASLAUG

Now I could slay him. But he will open his eyes

Appalling with the beauty of his gaze.

He did not know of peril! All he has said

Was only at a venture thought and spoken, —

Or spoken by Fate? Sleeps he his latest sleep?

Might I not touch him only once in love

And no one know of it but death and I,

Whom I must slay like one who hates? Not hate,

O Eric, but the hard necessity

The gods have sent upon our lives, —  two flames

That meet to quench each other. Once, Eric! then

The cruel rest. Why did I touch him? I am faint!

My strength ebbs from me. O thou glorious god,

Why wast thou Swegn's and Aslaug's enemy?

We might so utterly have loved. But death

Now intervenes and claims thee at my hands —

And this alone he leaves to me, to slay thee

And die with thee, our only wedlock. Death!

Whose death? Eric's or Swegn's? For one I kill.

Dreadful necessity of choice! His breath

Comes quietly and with a happy rhythm,

His eyes are closed like Odin's in heaven's sleep.

I must strike blindly out or not at all

Screening out with my lashes love, —  as now —  or now!

For Time is like a sapper mining still

The little resolution that I keep.

Swegn's death or life upon that little stands.

Swegn's death or life and such an easy stroke,

Yet so impossible to lift my hand!

To wait? To watch more moments these closed lids,

This quiet face and try to dream that all

Is different! But the moments are Fate's thoughts

Watching me. While I pause, my brother's slain,

Myself am doomed his concubine and slave.

I must not think of him! Close, mind, close, eyes.

Free the unthinking hand to its harsh work.

Page – 586

She lifts twice the dagger, lowers it twice,

then flings it on the ground.

Eric of Norway, live and do thy will

With Aslaug, sister of Swegn and Olaf's child,

Aslaug of Trondhjem. For her thought is now

A harlot and her heart a concubine,

Her hand her brother's murderess.

ERIC

Thou hast broken

At last.

ASLAUG

Ah, I am broken by my weak

And evil nature. Spare me not, O King,

One vileness, one humiliation known

To tyranny. Be not unjustly merciful!

For I deserve and I consent to all.

ERIC

Aslaug!

ASLAUG

No, I deny my name and parentage.

I am not she who lived in Trondhjem: she

Would not have failed, but slain even though she loved.

Let no voice call me Aslaug any more.

ERIC

Sister of Swegn, thou knowest that I love.

Daughter of Olaf, shouldst thou not aspire

To sit by me on Norway's throne?

ASLAUG

Desist!

Thou shalt not utterly pollute the seat

Where Olaf sat. If I had struck and slain,

Page – 587

I would deserve a more than regal chair.

But not on such must Norway's diadem rest,

A weakling with a hand as impotent

And faltering as her heart, a sensual slave

Whose passionate body overcomes her high

Intention. Rather do thy tyrant will.

King, if thou spare me, I will slay thee yet.

ERIC

Recoil not from thy heart, but strongly see

And let its choice be absolute over thy soul.

Its way once taken thou shalt find thy heart

Rapid; for absolute and extreme in all,

In yielding as in slaying thou must be,

Sweet violent spirit whom thy gods surprise.

Submit thyself without ashamed reserve.

ASLAUG

What more canst thou demand than I have given?

I am prone to thee, prostrate, yielded.

ERIC

Throw from thee

The bitterness of thy self-abasement. Find

That thou hast only joy in being mine.

Thou tremblest?

ASLAUG

Yes, with shame and grief and love.

Thou art my Fate and I am in thy grasp.

ERIC

And shall it spare thee?

ASLAUG

Spare Swegn. I am in thy hands.

Page – 588

ERIC

Yield up to me the burden of thy fate

And treasure of thy limbs and priceless life.

I will be careful of the golden trust.

It was unsafe with thee. And now submit

Gladly at last. Surrender body and soul,

O Aslaug, to thy lover and thy lord.

ASLAUG

Compel me, they cannot resist thy will.

ERIC

I will have thy heart's heart's surrender, not

Its body only. Give me up thy heart.

Open its secret chambers, yield their keys.

ASLAUG

O Eric, is not my heart already thine,

My body thine, my soul into thy grasp

Delivered? I rejoice that God has played

The grand comedian with my tragedy

And trapped me in the snare of thy delight.

ERIC

Aslaug, the world's sole woman! thou cam'st here

To save for us our hidden hope of joy

Parted by old confusion. Some day surely

The world too shall be saved from death by love.

Thou hast saved Swegn, helped Norway. Aslaug, see,

Freya within her niche commands this room

And incense burns to her. Not Thor for thee,

But Freya.

ASLAUG

Thou for me! not other gods.

Page – 591

ERIC

Aslaug, thou hast a ring upon thy hand.

Before Freya give it me and wear instead

This ancient circle of Norwegian rites.

The thing this means shall bind thee to our joy,

Beloved, while the upbuilded worlds endure.

Then if thy spirit wander from its home,

Freya shall find her thrall and lead her back

A million years from now.

ASLAUG

A million lives!

Page – 592