Early Plays - Catiline, the Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans Part 24

CATILINE. Come, Furia, set me free! Come, take this dagger;-- On it the star of morning I impaled;-- Take it--and plunge it straightway through the corpse; Then it will loose its hold, and I am free.

FURIA. [Takes the dagger.]

Your will be done, whom I have loved in hate!

Shake off your dust and come with me to rest.

[She buries the dagger deep in his heart; he sinks down at the foot of the tree.]

CATILINE. [After a moment comes to consciousness again, pa.s.ses his hand across his forehead, and speaks faintly.] Now, mysterious voice, your prophecy I understand!

I shall perish by my own, yet by a stranger's hand.

Nemesis has wrought her end. Shroud me, gloom of night!

Raise your billows, murky Styx, roll on in all your might!

Ferry me across in safety; speed the vessel on Toward the silent prince's realm, the land of shadows wan.

Two roads there are running yonder; I shall journey dumb Toward the left--

AURELIA. [From the tent, pale and faltering, her bosom b.l.o.o.d.y.] --no, toward the right! Oh, toward Elysium!

CATILINE. [Startled.]

How this bright and lurid picture fills my soul with dread!

She herself it is! Aurelia, speak,--are you not dead?

AURELIA. [Kneels before him.]

No, I live that I may still your agonizing cry,-- Live that I may lean my bosom on your breast and die.

CATILINE. Oh, you live!

AURELIA. I did but swoon; though my two eyes grew blurred, Dimly yet I followed you and heard your every word.

And my love a spouse's strength again unto me gave;-- Breast to breast, my Catiline, we go into the grave!

CATILINE. Oh, how gladly would I go! Yet all in vain you sigh.

We must part. Revenge compels me with a hollow cry.

You can hasten, free and blithesome, forth to peace and light; I must cross the river Lethe down into the night.

[The day dawns in the background.]

AURELIA. [Points toward the increasing light.]

No, the terrors and the gloom of death love scatters far.

See, the storm-clouds vanish; faintly gleams the morning star.

AURELIA. [With uplifted arms.]

Light is victor! Grand and full of freshness dawns the day!

Follow me, then! Death already speeds me on his way.

[She sinks down over him.]

CATILINE. [Presses her to himself and speaks with his last strength.] Oh, how sweet! Now I remember my forgotten dream, How the darkness was dispersed before a radiant beam, How the song of children ushered in the new-born day.

Ah, my eye grows dim, my strength is fading fast away; But my mind is clearer now than ever it has been: All the wanderings of my life loom plainly up within.

Yes, my life a tempest was beneath the lightning blaze; But my death is like the morning's rosy-tinted haze.

[Bends over her.]

CATILINE.

You have driven the gloom away; peace dwells within my breast.

I shall seek with you the dwelling place of light and rest!

CATILINE. [He tears the dagger quickly out of his breast and speaks with dying voice.]

The G.o.ds of dawn are smiling in atonement from above; All the powers of darkness you have conquered with your love!

[During the last scene FURIA has withdrawn farther and farther into the background and disappears at last among the trees.

CATILINE's head sinks down on AURELIA's breast; they die.]

THE WARRIOR'S BARROW

[Kaempehojen]

A Dramatic Poem in One Act

1854

DRAMATIS PERSONae

RODERIK An old recluse.

BLANKA His foster-daughter.

GANDALF A sea-king from Norway.

ASGAUT An old viking.

HROLLOUG " " "

JOSTEJN " " "

Several VIKINGS

HEMMING A young scald in Gandalf's service.

SETTING

The action takes place on a small island off the coast of Sicily shortly before the introduction of Christianity into Norway.

An open place surrounded by trees near the sh.o.r.e. To the left in the background the ruins of an old temple. In the center of the scene a huge barrow upon which is a monument decked with flower wreaths.