Eric
ACT Three
Eric’s Chamber.
Scene 1
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!
'
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?
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?
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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,
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.
ERIC
Is’t a condition? I am lord of thee
And lord of Swegn to slay him or to spare.
ASLAUG
No, an entreaty. I am fallen here,
My head is at thy feet, my life is in thy hands:
The luxury of fall is in my heart.
ERIC
Rise up then, Aslaug, and obey thy lord.
ASLAUG
What is thy will with me?
ERIC
This, Aslaug, first.
Take up thy dagger, Aslaug, dance thy dance
Of Thiordis with the dagger. See thou near me;
For I shall sit, nor shouldst thou strike, defend.
What thy passion chose, let thy freed heart confirm;
My life and kingdom twice are in thy hands
And I will keep them only as thy gift.
ASLAUG
So are they thine already; but I obey.
She dances and then lays the dagger at his feet.
Eric, my king and Norway’s, my life is mine
No longer, but for thee to keep or break.
ERIC
Swegn’s life I hold. Thou gavest it to me
With the dagger.
ASLAUG
It is thine to save.
ERIC
Norway
Thou hast given, casting it for ever away
From Olaf’s line.
ASLAUG
What thou hast taken, I give.
ERIC
And last thyself without one covering left
Against my passionate, strong, devouring love.
Thou seest I leave thee nothing.
ASLAUG
I am thine.
Do what thou wilt with me.
ERIC
Because thou hast no help?
ASLAUG
I have no help. My gods have brought me here
And given me into thy dreadful hands.
ERIC
Thou art content at last that they have breathed
Thy plot into thy mind to snare thy soul
In its own violence, bring to me a slave,
A bright-limbed prisoner and thee to thy lord?
See Odin’s sign to thee.
ASLAUG
I know it now.
I recognise with prostrate heart my fate
And I will quietly put on my chains
Nor ever strive nor wish to break them more.
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.
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!
Scene 2
ASLAUG
The world has changed for me within one night.
O surely, surely all shall yet go well,
Since Love is crowned.
ERIC (entering)
Aslaug, the hour arrives
When I must leave thee. For the dawn looks pale
Into our chamber and these first rare sounds
Expect the arising sun, the daylight world.
ASLAUG
Eric, thou goest hence to war with Swegn,
My brother?
ERIC
What knows thy heart?
ASLAUG
That Swegn shall live.
ERIC
Thou knowst his safety from deliberate swords.
None shall dare touch the head that Aslaug loves.
But if some evil chance came edged with doom,
Which Odin and my will shall not allow,
Thou wouldst not hold me guilty of his death,
Aslaug?
ASLAUG
Fate orders all and Fate I now
Have recognised as the world’s mystic Will
That loves and labours.
ERIC
Because it knows and loves,
Our hearts, our wills are counted, are indulged.
Aslaug, for a few days in love and trust
Anchor thy mind. I shall bring back thy joy.
For now I go with mercy and from love.
He embraces her and goes.
ASLAUG
Swegn lives. A Mind, not iron gods with laws
Deaf and inevitable, overrules.
