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    Peer Gynt
    Peer Gynt
    Peer Gynt
    Ebook134 pages1 hour

    Peer Gynt

    By Henrik Ibsen

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    Born in Skien, Norway in 1828, Henrik Ibsen has often been referred to as the founder of modern drama and modernism in theatre. Ibsen was widely known as an atheist and political radical, and channeled some of those sentiments into his works. "Peer Gynt" captures humankind's unsure, imperfect and opportunistic nature in many memorable scenes: a portrait so intimate and accurate that the play has become a classic in Norwegian literature. This five act play was based on the Norwegian fairy tale, "Per Gynt", and broke down the structural barriers of Norwegian theatre, as Ibsen wrote the entire play in verse-form. "Peer Gynt" drifts between the conscious and unconscious, blending realism and folkloric fantasy. Ibsen used this play to satirize transcendentalist ideas, new and revolutionary at the time, that encouraged a return to nature and simplicity. A year after finishing this work, Ibsen suffered his first severe stroke, and never wrote again. This play was incredibly controversial at the time it was written, and holds true to its evocative nature today.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDigireads.com Publishing
    Release dateJan 1, 2011
    ISBN9781420905403
    Author

    Henrik Ibsen

    Born in 1828, Henrik Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright and poet, often associated with the early Modernist movement in theatre. Determined to become a playwright from a young age, Ibsen began writing while working as an apprentice pharmacist to help support his family. Though his early plays were largely unsuccessful, Ibsen was able to take employment at a theatre where he worked as a writer, director, and producer. Ibsen’s first success came with Brand and Peter Gynt, and with later plays like A Doll’s House, Ghosts, and The Master Builder he became one of the most performed playwrights in the world, second only to William Shakespeare. Ibsen died in his home in Norway in 1906 at the age of 78.

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      Book preview

      Peer Gynt - Henrik Ibsen

      PEER GYNT

      A PLAY IN FIVE ACTS IN VERSE

      BY HENRIK IBSEN

      A Digireads.com Book

      Digireads.com Publishing

      Print ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-3896-8

      Ebook ISBN 13: 978-1-4209-0540-3

      This edition copyright © 2011

      Please visit www.digireads.com

      CONTENTS

      DRAMATIS PERSONAE

      THE SCENES.

      ACT I.

      ACT II.

      ACT III.

      ACT IV.

      ACT V.

      DRAMATIS PERSONAE

      PEER GYNT SECOND ELDERLY PEASANT

      ASE, his mother AN ELDERLY WOMAN

      ASLAK, the blacksmith ANOTHER ELDERLY WOMAN

      MADS MOEN, the bridegroom THE GREEN CLAD WOMAN

      HIS FATHER THE DOVRE KING

      HIS MOTHER FIRST TROLL IMP

      SOLVEIG SECOND TROLL IMP

      HELGA, her sister THIRD TROLL IMP

      THEIR FATHER THE UGLY BRAT

      THEIR MOTHER KARI, the cotter's wife

      The Hegstad Farmer MR. COTTON

      INGRID, the bride, his daughter MONSIEUR BALLON

      FIRST PEASANT LAD HERR VON EBERKOPF

      SECOND PEASANT LAD HERR TRUMPETERSTRALE

      THIRD PEASANT LAD ANITRA, a dancing girl

      FOURTH PEASANT LAD CAPTAIN OF THE SHIP

      FIFTH PEASANT LAD THE LOOKOUT

      THE MASTER COOK THE MATE

      FIRST PEASANT GIRL THE BOATSWAIN

      SECOND PEASANT GIRL THE SHIP'S COOK

      THIRD PEASANT GIRL THE CABIN BOY

      FOURTH PEASANT GIRL THE STRANGE PASSENGER

      FIRST ELDERLY PEASANT THE BUTTON MOULDER

      Wedding Guests, Peasants, Lads, Girls, Troll

      Courtiers and Troll Maidens, Dancing Girls, the Ship's Crew and others.

      THE SCENES.

      PART I.

      Act I. Scene 1. Norway. Gynt's Home. The Mill House.

      Scene 2. Hegstad Farm.

      Act II. Scene 1. In the Mountains.

      Scene 2. The Hall of the Dovre King.

      Scene 3. In the Mountains.

      Act III. Scene 1. Peer's Hut in the Forest.

      Scene 2. The Interior of Gynt's Home.

      PART II.

      Act IV. Scene 1. Morocco. A Palm Grove on the Coast.

      Scene 2. An Oasis in the Desert.

      Act V. Scene 1. Norway. A Vision of Solveig Waiting.

      Scene 2. On Board a Ship in the North Sea.

      Scene 3. Norway. Solveig's Hut.

      Thirty years are supposed to have elapsed between Parts I and II.

      PEER GYNT.

      ACT I.

      SCENE I.

      (A wooded hillside in the mountains of Norway. An old  mill shed and Gynt's home.)

      (PEER GYNT, a strongly-built youth, comes down the pathway. His mother, ASE, a small, slightly-built woman, follows him, scolding angrily.)

      ASE. Peer, you're lying.

      PEER (without stopping). No, I am not!

      ASE. Well then, swear that it is true!

      PEER. Swear? Why should I?

      ASE. See, you dare not!

      It's a lie from first to last.

      PEER (stopping). It is true—each blessed word!

      ASE (confronting him). Don't you blush before your mother?

      First you skulk among the mountains

      monthlong in the busiest season,

      stalking reindeer in the snows;

      home you come then, torn and tattered,

      gun amissing, likewise game;—

      and at last, with open eyes,

      think to get me to believe

      all the wildest hunters'-lies!—

      Well, where did you find the buck, then?

      PEER. West near Gendin.{1}

      ASE (laughing scornfully). Ah! Indeed!

      PEER. Keen the blast towards me swept;

      hidden by an alder-clump,

      he was scraping in the snow-crust

      after lichen——

      ASE (as before). Doubtless, yes!

      PEER. Breathlessly I stood and listened,

      heard the crunching of his hoof,

      saw the branches of one antler.

      Softly then among the boulders

      I crept forward on my belly.

      Crouched in the moraine I peered up;—

      such a buck, so sleek and fat,

      you, I'm sure, have ne'er set eyes on.

      ASE. No, of course not!

      PEER. Bang! I fired!

      Clean he dropped upon the hillside.

      But the instant that he fell

      I sat firm astride his back,

      gripped him by the left ear tightly,

      and had almost sunk my knife-blade

      in his neck, behind his skull—

      when, behold! the brute screamed wildly,

      sprang upon his feet like lightning,

      with a back-cast of his head

      from my fist made knife and sheath fly,

      pinned me tightly by the thigh,

      jammed his horns against my legs,

      clenched me like a pair of tongs;—

      then forthwith away he flew

      right along the Gendin-Edge!

      ASE (involuntary). Jesus save us——!

      PEER. Have you ever

      chanced to see the Gendin-Edge?

      Nigh on four miles long it stretches

      sharp before you like a scythe.

      Down o'er glaciers, landslips, scaurs,

      down the toppling grey moraines

      you can see, both right and left,

      straight into the tarns that slumber,

      black and sluggish, more than seven

      hundred fathoms deep below you.

      Right along the Edge we two

      clove our passage through the air.

      ASE (dizzy). Oh, God save me!

      PEER. All at once,

      at a desperate, break-neck spot,

      rose a great cock-ptarmigan,

      flapping, cackling, terrified,

      from the crack where he lay hidden

      at the buck's feet on the Edge.

      Then the buck shied half around,

      leapt sky-high, and down we plunged

      both of us into the depths!

      Mountain walls behind us, black,

      and below a void unfathomed!

      Downward rushed we, ever downward.

      But beneath us something shimmered,

      whitish, like a reindeer's belly.—

      Mother, 'twas our own reflection

      in the glass-smooth mountain tarn.

      ASE (gasping for breath). Peer! God help me——! Quickly, tell——!

      PEER. Buck from over, buck from under,

      in a moment clashed together,

      scattering foam-flecks all around.

      There we lay then, floating, plashing,—

      But at last we made our way

      somehow to the northern shore;

      buck, he swam, I clung behind him:—

      I ran homewards——

      ASE. But the buck, dear?

      PEER. He's there still, for aught I know;—

      (Snaps his fingers, turns on his heel, and adds:)

      catch him, and you're welcome to him!

      ASE. And you're neck you haven't broken?

      Haven't broken both your thighs?

      and your backbone, too, is whole?

      Oh, dear Lord—what thanks, what praise,

      should be thine who helped my boy!

      There's a rent, though, in your breeches;

      but it's scarce worth talking of

      when one thinks what dreadful things

      might have come of such a leap——!

      (Stops suddenly, looks at him open-mouthed and wide-eyed; cannot find words for some time, but at last bursts out:)

      Oh, you devil's story-teller,

      Cross of Christ, how you can lie!

      All this screed you foist upon me,

      I remember now, I knew it

      when I was a girl of twenty.

      Gudbrand

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