Latest / The Henrik Ibsen Library / Brand Act II Part 2
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Act II, Part II, of Brand, by Henrik Ibsen. Translated
- 0:06Speaker 1: by Charles Harold Hereford, 1853-1931. This LibriVox recording is in
- 0:12Speaker 1: the public domain. Recording by Expatriate in Bangor, Maine. Act II,
- 0:19Speaker 1: Part II. Brand, after long watching them. homewards one by
- 0:25Speaker 1: one with flagging spirits heavily and slow foreheads bowed in
- 0:30Speaker 1: weary lagging footsteps silently they go each with sorrow in
- 0:35Speaker 1: his eyes walks as from a lifted rod walks like
- 0:38Speaker 1: adam spurned by god from the gates of paradise walks
- 0:42Speaker 1: like him with sin veiled sight sees like him the
- 0:45Speaker 1: gathering night all his gain of knowledge shares all his
- 0:49Speaker 1: loss of blindness bears i have boldly dared to plan
- 0:53Speaker 1: the refashioning of man there's my work sin's image grown
- 0:57Speaker 1: whom god moulded in his own fourth to wider fields
- 1:01Speaker 1: away here's no room for battle-play going but pauses as
- 1:06Speaker 1: he sees agnes by the beach see she listens by
- 1:10Speaker 1: the shore as to airy songs afloat so she listened
- 1:13Speaker 1: in the boat as the stormy surget tore listening to
- 1:16Speaker 1: the fort she clung listening still the sea-foam hoar from
- 1:21Speaker 1: her open forehead flung tis as though her ear were
- 1:24Speaker 1: changing function and her eye were listening he approaches Maiden,
- 1:29Speaker 1: is it o'er those glistening reaches that your eye is ranging? Agnes,
- 1:34Speaker 1: without turning round. neither those nor aught of earth nothing
- 1:38Speaker 1: of them i descry but a greater earth there gleams
- 1:42Speaker 1: sharply outlined on the sky foaming floods and spreading streams
- 1:47Speaker 1: mists and sunshine breaking forth scarlet shafted flames are playing
- 1:52Speaker 1: over cloud-capt mountain heads and an endless desert spreads whereupon
- 1:57Speaker 1: great palms are swaying in the bitter breathing blast swart
- 2:01Speaker 1: the shadows that they cast nowhere any living thing like
- 2:05Speaker 1: a new world at its birth and i hear strange
- 2:08Speaker 1: accents ring and a voice interpreting choose thy endless loss
- 2:12Speaker 1: or gain do thy work and bear thy pain thou
- 2:16Speaker 1: shalt people this new earth brand carried away say what
- 2:20Speaker 1: further agnes laying her hand on her breast in my
- 2:25Speaker 1: soul i can feel new powers awaking i can see
- 2:28Speaker 1: a day-spring breaking i can feel full floods that roll
- 2:32Speaker 1: and my heart grows larger freer clasps the world within
- 2:36Speaker 1: its girth and a voice interprets here shalt thou people
- 2:40Speaker 1: a new earth all the thoughts that men shall utter
- 2:43Speaker 1: all the deeds men shall achieve waken whisper quiver mutter
- 2:48Speaker 1: as if now they were to live and i rather
- 2:50Speaker 1: feel than see him who sits enthroned above feel that
- 2:54Speaker 1: he looks down on me full of sadness and of
- 2:57Speaker 1: love tender bright as morning's breath and yet sorrowing unto
- 3:02Speaker 1: death and i hear strange accents wake now thou must
- 3:06Speaker 1: be made and make choose thy endless loss or gain
- 3:10Speaker 1: do thy work and bear thy pain inwards in o
- 3:15Speaker 1: word of might now i see my way aright in
- 3:19Speaker 1: ourselves is that young earth ripe for the divine new
- 3:22Speaker 1: birth will the fiend must there be slain adam there
- 3:26Speaker 1: be born again let the world then take its way
- 3:29Speaker 1: brutal toil or giddy play but if e'er we meet
- 3:32Speaker 1: in fight if my work it seek to blight then
- 3:35Speaker 1: by heaven i'll smite and slay room within the wide
- 3:39Speaker 1: world spans self completely to fulfil that's a valid right
- 3:43Speaker 1: of man and no more than that i will after
- 3:47Speaker 1: pondering awhile in silence to fulfil oneself and yet with
- 3:52Speaker 1: a heritage of debt pauses and looks out who is
- 3:56Speaker 1: she that stooping deep clamors hither up the steep crooked
- 4:01Speaker 1: back and craning crop now for breath she has to
- 4:04Speaker 1: stop clutches wildly lest she stumble and her skinny fingers
- 4:08Speaker 1: fumble fierce for something that she drags in those deep
- 4:12Speaker 1: and roomy bags skirt like folds of feathered skin dangling
- 4:16Speaker 1: down her shrivelled shin hands a pair of clenched hooks
- 4:20Speaker 1: so the eagle's carcass looks nailed against the barn-door top
- 4:24Speaker 1: in sudden anguish what chill memories upstart oh what gusts
- 4:29Speaker 1: from childhood dart frosty showers on her and other fiercer
- 4:34Speaker 1: frost upon my heart god of grace it is my
- 4:37Speaker 1: mother brand's mother comes up stops when half seen above
- 4:42Speaker 1: the slope holds her hand up to shade her eyes
- 4:45Speaker 1: and looks round he's here they told me coming nearer
- 4:49Speaker 1: drat the blaze it nearly takes away my sight son
- 4:53Speaker 1: is that you brand yes his mother rubbing her eyes
- 4:58Speaker 1: whew those rays they burn one's very eyes outright i
- 5:03Speaker 1: can't tell priest from boor bran sun's light at home
- 5:08Speaker 1: i never saw at all twixt fall of leaf and
- 5:10Speaker 1: cuckoo's call his mother laughing quietly ah there tis good
- 5:16Speaker 1: one's gript with frost like icicles o'er a plunging river
- 5:20Speaker 1: strong to dare anything whatever and yet believe one is
- 5:23Speaker 1: not lost bran farewell my leisure time is spent his
- 5:29Speaker 1: mother ay thou wast ever loth to stay as boy
- 5:33Speaker 1: thou long'st to be away brand it was at your
- 5:37Speaker 1: desire i went his mother ay and good reason too
- 5:42Speaker 1: i say twas needful thou shouldst be a priest examines
- 5:46Speaker 1: him more closely he is grown up strong and tall
- 5:50Speaker 1: but heed this word of mine at least care for
- 5:53Speaker 1: thy life son brand is that all his mother thy
- 5:58Speaker 1: life what's dearer brand i would say have you more
- 6:02Speaker 1: counsels to convey his mother for others use them as
- 6:06Speaker 1: you may and welcome but thy life oh save it
- 6:10Speaker 1: for my sake it was i that gave it angrily
- 6:13Speaker 1: your mad deeds talked of far and near it scares
- 6:17Speaker 1: and harrows me to hear on such a day to
- 6:20Speaker 1: dare the fjord and squander what you're bound to hoard
- 6:23Speaker 1: you of our clan survive alone you are my sun
- 6:27Speaker 1: my flesh and bone the roof-tree beam that copes and
- 6:31Speaker 1: clinches the house i builded up by inches stick fast
- 6:35Speaker 1: hold out endure survive guard your life never let it
- 6:39Speaker 1: go an heir is bound to keep alive and you'll
- 6:42Speaker 1: be mine one day you know indeed and that was
- 6:46Speaker 1: why you planned with loaded purse to seek me here
- 6:49Speaker 1: his mother son are you raving steps back don't come
- 6:54Speaker 1: near stay where you are you'll feel my hand more
- 6:58Speaker 1: calmly what were you meaning just attend i'm getting older
- 7:02Speaker 1: year by year sooner or later comes the end then
- 7:06Speaker 1: you'll inherit all i've treasured tis duly counted weighed and
- 7:09Speaker 1: measured nay nay i've nothing on me now it's all
- 7:12Speaker 1: at home it is but scant but he that gets
- 7:15Speaker 1: it will not want stand back there don't come near
- 7:19Speaker 1: i vow i'll fling no stiver of my store down
- 7:22Speaker 1: fissures nor in spot unknown hide any nor below a
- 7:25Speaker 1: stone in wall or underneath a floor all shall be
- 7:29Speaker 1: your's son you shall be my sole and single legatee
- 7:34Speaker 1: brand and the conditions his mother one i make no
- 7:39Speaker 1: more don't set your life at stake keep up our
- 7:42Speaker 1: family and name that's all the gratitude i claim then
- 7:46Speaker 1: see that nothing go to waste not be divided or
- 7:49Speaker 1: displaced add much or little as you will but oh
- 7:53Speaker 1: preserve preserve it still brand after a short pause one
- 7:58Speaker 1: thing needs clearing twixt us two from childhood i have
- 8:02Speaker 1: thwarted you you've been no mother i no son till
- 8:06Speaker 1: you are grey my childhood gone his mother i do
- 8:10Speaker 1: not ask to be caressed be what you please i
- 8:13Speaker 1: am not nice be stern be fierce be cold as
- 8:17Speaker 1: ice it will not cleave my armoured breast keep though
- 8:20Speaker 1: you hurt it what was mine and never let it
- 8:22Speaker 1: leave our line brand going a step nearer and if
- 8:26Speaker 1: i took it in my head to strew it to
- 8:29Speaker 1: the winds instead his mother reeling back strew what through
- 8:34Speaker 1: all these years of care has bent my back and
- 8:37Speaker 1: bleached my hair brand nodding slowly to strew it his
- 8:42Speaker 1: mother strew it if you do it is my soul
- 8:46Speaker 1: that you will strew brand and if i do it
- 8:49Speaker 1: even so if i one evening vigil keep with lighted
- 8:53Speaker 1: taper by your bed while you with claspd psalters sleep
- 8:57Speaker 1: the first night's slumber of the dead if i then
- 9:00Speaker 1: fumble round about draw treasure after treasure out take up
- 9:04Speaker 1: the taper hold it low his mother approaching excitedly whence
- 9:08Speaker 1: comes this fancy bran would you know his mother brand
- 9:15Speaker 1: from a childish scene that still lives in my mind
- 9:18Speaker 1: and ever will that seems my soul with foul device
- 9:22Speaker 1: like an infestering cicatrice it was an autumn evening dead
- 9:26Speaker 1: was father you lay sick in bed i stole where
- 9:30Speaker 1: he was laid by night all pallid in the silver
- 9:33Speaker 1: light i stood and watched him from my nook saw
- 9:36Speaker 1: how his two hands clasped the book i marvelled why
- 9:40Speaker 1: he slept so long marked his thin wrists and smelt
- 9:43Speaker 1: the strong odour of linen newly dried and then i
- 9:47Speaker 1: heard a step outside a woman entered strode apace up
- 9:51Speaker 1: to the bed nor saw my face then she began
- 9:54Speaker 1: to grope and pry first put the corpse's vesture by
- 9:58Speaker 1: drew forth a bundle then a store counted and whispered
- 10:01Speaker 1: there is more then grubbing deeper in the ground clutched
- 10:05Speaker 1: a sealed packet tightly bound with trembling fingers strove and
- 10:10Speaker 1: tore bit it in two groped deeper found counted and
- 10:14Speaker 1: whispered there is more she cried she cursed she wailed
- 10:17Speaker 1: she wept she scented where the treasure lay and then
- 10:21Speaker 1: with eager anguish swept down like a falcon on her
- 10:24Speaker 1: prey when she had ransacked all the room she turned
- 10:27Speaker 1: like one who hears her doom wrapped up her booty
- 10:30Speaker 1: in a shawl and faintly groaned so that was all
- 10:33Speaker 1: his mother i needed much i little won and very
- 10:38Speaker 1: dearly was it bought brand even more dearly than you
- 10:43Speaker 1: thought son's heart you shattered in your son his mother
- 10:47Speaker 1: tut tut to barter hearts for gold was customary from
- 10:51Speaker 1: of old still dearer once i had to pay i
- 10:54Speaker 1: think i gave my life away something i gave that
- 10:57Speaker 1: now is not i seem to see it flash in
- 10:59Speaker 1: air like something foolish and yet fair i gave i
- 11:03Speaker 1: know not rightly what love was the name it used
- 11:06Speaker 1: to bear i know it was a bitter choice i
- 11:09Speaker 1: know my father gave his voice forget the peasant boy
- 11:12Speaker 1: and wed the other spite his frosty pate a fellow
- 11:16Speaker 1: with a knowing head he'll fairly double the estate i
- 11:19Speaker 1: took him and he brought me shame the doubled gettings
- 11:22Speaker 1: never came but i have drudged with streaming brow and
- 11:25Speaker 1: there is little lacking now Brand, and do you, as
- 11:29Speaker 1: you near your grave, know that it was your soul
- 11:32Speaker 1: you gave? His mother, it's clear that I knew that,
- 11:36Speaker 1: at least, giving my son to be a priest. When
- 11:39Speaker 1: the hour comes, a grateful heir of my salvation will
- 11:42Speaker 1: take care. I own the acres and the pence, and
- 11:45Speaker 1: you the deathbed eloquence. Brand, with all your cunning you mistook.
- 11:52Speaker 1: You read me wrong in childhood's book. and many dwell
- 11:56Speaker 1: by bank and bray who love their children in that
- 11:58Speaker 1: way a child's a steward you suppose of the parental
- 12:02Speaker 1: cast-off clothes a glimpse of the eternal flits at times
- 12:06Speaker 1: across your wandering wits you snatch at it and dream
- 12:09Speaker 1: you spring into the essence of the thing by grafting
- 12:13Speaker 1: riches upon race that death with life you can displace
- 12:17Speaker 1: that years have steadily amassed will yield eternity at last
- 12:21Speaker 1: His mother, don't rummage in your mother's mind, but take
- 12:25Speaker 1: what she will leave behind. Brand, the debt as well?
- 12:30Speaker 1: His mother, the debt? What debt? There is none. Brand,
- 12:34Speaker 1: very good, but yet suppose there were. I should be
- 12:38Speaker 1: bound to settle every claim I found. The son must
- 12:41Speaker 1: satisfy each call before the mother's burial. Though but four
- 12:45Speaker 1: empty walls I took, I still should own your debit book.
- 12:49Speaker 1: his mother no law commands it brand not the kind
- 12:54Speaker 1: that ink on parchment ever writ but deep in every
- 12:57Speaker 1: honest mind another law is burnt and bit and that
- 13:01Speaker 1: i execute thou blind learn to have sight thou hast
- 13:06Speaker 1: debased the dwelling-place of god on earth the spirit he
- 13:09Speaker 1: lent thee hast laid waste the image that thou borest
- 13:12Speaker 1: at birth with mould and filthiness defaced thy soul that
- 13:17Speaker 1: once had flight and song thrust clipped among the common
- 13:21Speaker 1: throng that is your debt what will you do when
- 13:23Speaker 1: god demands his own of you his mother confused what
- 13:28Speaker 1: will i do do brand never fear i take your
- 13:33Speaker 1: debt upon me whole god's image blotted in your soul
- 13:36Speaker 1: in mine will cleansed shall stand clear go with good
- 13:40Speaker 1: courage to your rest by debt you shall not sleep
- 13:43Speaker 1: oppress'd his mother my debt and sin you'll wipe away
- 13:48Speaker 1: brand your debt the debt no more your debt alone
- 13:53Speaker 1: i can repay your sin yourself must answer for the
- 13:57Speaker 1: sum of native human worth crush'd in the brutish toil
- 14:01Speaker 1: of earth can verily by human aid to the last
- 14:04Speaker 1: atom be repaid but in the losing of it lies
- 14:07Speaker 1: the sin which who repents not dies his mother uneasily
- 14:13Speaker 1: twere best i took my homeward way to the deep
- 14:15Speaker 1: valley to the gloom such rank and poisonous fancies bloom
- 14:20Speaker 1: in this insufferable ray i'm almost fainting at the fume
- 14:26Speaker 1: seek you the shadow i abide and if you long
- 14:29Speaker 1: for light and sky and fain would see me ere
- 14:32Speaker 1: you die call me and i am by your side
- 14:35Speaker 1: his mother yes with a sermon on my doom brand
- 14:40Speaker 1: no tender both as priest and child i'll shield you
- 14:44Speaker 1: from the wind of dread and singing low beside your
- 14:47Speaker 1: bed lull to repose your anguish wild his mother and
- 14:52Speaker 1: that with lifted hand you swear brand when you repent
- 14:57Speaker 1: i will be there approaching her but i too make
- 15:01Speaker 1: conditions here whatever in this world is dear willingly you
- 15:05Speaker 1: must from you rend and naked to the grave descend
- 15:09Speaker 1: his mother wildly repulsing him bid fire be sever'd from
- 15:13Speaker 1: its heat snow from its cold wave from its wet
- 15:17Speaker 1: ask less toss a babe overboard and beg the blessing
- 15:22Speaker 1: of the lord his mother ask something else ask hunger
- 15:27Speaker 1: thirst but not what all men deem the worst brand
- 15:31Speaker 1: if just that worst is ask'd in vain no other
- 15:34Speaker 1: can his grace obtain his mother a money alms i
- 15:38Speaker 1: will present you brand all his mother all son will
- 15:44Speaker 1: not much content you brand your guilt you never shall
- 15:48Speaker 1: put by till you like job in ashes die his
- 15:52Speaker 1: mother wringing her hands my life destroyed my soul denied
- 15:58Speaker 1: my goods soon scattered far and wide home then and
- 16:02Speaker 1: in these fond arms twine all that i still can
- 16:05Speaker 1: say is mine my treasure child in anguish born for
- 16:09Speaker 1: thee my bleeding breast was torn home then and weep
- 16:13Speaker 1: as mothers weep o'er their sickly babes asleep why did
- 16:17Speaker 1: my soul in flesh take breath if love of flesh
- 16:20Speaker 1: is a soul's death stay near me priest i am
- 16:23Speaker 1: not clear how i shall feel when death is near
- 16:27Speaker 1: naked into the grave descend i'll wait at least until
- 16:30Speaker 1: the end brand gazing after her yes thy son shall
- 16:36Speaker 1: still be near call to him and he shall hear
- 16:39Speaker 1: stretch thy hand and cold and perished at his heart
- 16:43Speaker 1: it shall be cherished goes down to agnes as the
- 16:47Speaker 1: morn not so the night then my soul was set
- 16:50Speaker 1: on fight then i heard the war-drum rattle yearn the
- 16:54Speaker 1: sword of wrath to swing lies to trample trolls to
- 16:58Speaker 1: fling fill the world with clashing battle agnes has turned
- 17:02Speaker 1: round to him and looks radiantly up by the night
- 17:06Speaker 1: the morn was pale then i sought the joys that
- 17:09Speaker 1: fail sought to triumph by attaining what in losing i
- 17:12Speaker 1: am gaining brand, visions stirring, visions splendid, like a flock
- 17:18Speaker 1: of swans descended, on their spreading wings abhor me, and
- 17:22Speaker 1: I saw my way before me, sin, subduer of the age,
- 17:26Speaker 1: sternly stemming, seas that rage, church processions, banners streaming, anthems rolling,
- 17:33Speaker 1: incense steaming, golden goblets, victor songs, rapt applause of surging throngs,
- 17:39Speaker 1: made a glory where I fought, all in dazzling hues
- 17:42Speaker 1: was wrought, yet it was an empty dream a brief
- 17:46Speaker 1: mountain vision caught half in glare and half in gleam
- 17:50Speaker 1: now i stand where twilight grey long forestalls the ebb
- 17:54Speaker 1: of day twixt the water and the wild from the
- 17:57Speaker 1: busy world exiled just a strip of heaven's blue dome
- 18:01Speaker 1: visible but this is home now my sabbath dream is
- 18:05Speaker 1: dark to the stall my winged steed but i see
- 18:09Speaker 1: a higher mark than to wield the nightly sabre daily
- 18:13Speaker 1: duty daily labour hallowed to a sabbath deed agnes and
- 18:18Speaker 1: that god who was to fall brand he shall none
- 18:22Speaker 1: the less be felled but in secret unbeheld not before
- 18:26Speaker 1: the eyes of all now i see i judged astray
- 18:30Speaker 1: where the folk's salvation lay not by high heroic charges
- 18:34Speaker 1: can you make the people whole that which faculty enlarges
- 18:38Speaker 1: does not heal the fissured soul it is will alone
- 18:42Speaker 1: that matters will alone that mars or makes will that
- 18:46Speaker 1: no distraction scatters and that no resistance breaks turns towards
- 18:52Speaker 1: the hamlet where the shades of night are beginning to
- 18:55Speaker 1: fall come then men who downcast roam the pent valley
- 19:00Speaker 1: of my home close conversing we will try our own
- 19:03Speaker 1: souls to purify slackness curb and falsehood kill rouse the
- 19:08Speaker 1: lion's cub of will manly as the hands that smite
- 19:12Speaker 1: are the hands that hold the hoe there is one
- 19:15Speaker 1: end for all to grow tablets whereon god may write
- 19:19Speaker 1: he is going einar confronts him einar stand and what
- 19:24Speaker 1: you took restore brand is it she you see her
- 19:28Speaker 1: there einar to agnes choose between the sunny shore and
- 19:33Speaker 1: this savage den of care agnes there i have no
- 19:37Speaker 1: choice to make einar agnes agnes hear me yet the
- 19:42Speaker 1: old saying you forget light to lift and hard to
- 19:45Speaker 1: bear agnes go with god thou tempter fair i shall
- 19:49Speaker 1: bear until i break einar for thy mother's sister's sake
- 19:54Speaker 1: agnes bring my greetings to my home i will write
- 19:58Speaker 1: if words should come einar over ocean's gleaming breast white
- 20:03Speaker 1: sails hurry from the strand like the size of dreaming
- 20:06Speaker 1: brows lofty diamond beaded prows speed them to their haven
- 20:11Speaker 1: rest in a far-off visioned land agnes sail to westward
- 20:16Speaker 1: sail to east think of me as one deceased einar
- 20:21Speaker 1: as a sister come with me agnes shaking her head
- 20:25Speaker 1: twixt us rolls a boundless sea einar oh then homeward
- 20:30Speaker 1: to thy mother agnes not from master friend and brother
- 20:36Speaker 1: brand coming a step nearer youthful maiden weigh it well
- 20:41Speaker 1: in this mountain prison pent oversword by crag and fell
- 20:46Speaker 1: in this dim and yawning rent life henceforward shall be
- 20:49Speaker 1: grey as an ebbing autumn day agnes gloom appals no
- 20:55Speaker 1: more afar through the cloud-rack gleams a star brand know
- 21:00Speaker 1: that i am stern to crave all or nothing i
- 21:03Speaker 1: will have if that call you disobey you have flung
- 21:06Speaker 1: your life away no abatement in distress and for sin
- 21:10Speaker 1: no tenderness if life's service god refuse life you joyfully
- 21:14Speaker 1: must lose einar fly this wild insensate play spurn the
- 21:21Speaker 1: sullen doomer's sway live the life you know you may
- 21:25Speaker 1: brand at the cross-way stand'st thou choose goes einar choose
- 21:32Speaker 1: the stillness or the strife for the choice to go
- 21:35Speaker 1: or stay is a choice of calm or fray is
- 21:39Speaker 1: a choice of night or day is a choice of
- 21:41Speaker 1: death or life Agnes rises and then says slowly, On
- 21:46Speaker 1: through death, on into night, Dawn beyond glows rosy bright.
- 21:52Speaker 1: She follows where Brand has gone. Einar gazes a moment
- 21:56Speaker 1: in bewilderment after her, Then bows his head and goes
- 22:00Speaker 1: back to the fjord.