The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays by Gordon Bottomley et al. (best books to read .TXT) 📕

fair,
  And for my face welcomed the danger of me:
  Then am I spent?

(She enters angrily, looking backward through the doorway.)

  Must I shut fast my doors
  And hide myself? Must I wear up the rags
  Of mortal perished beauty and be old?
  Or is there power left upon my mouth
  Like colour, and lilting of ruin in my eyes?
  Am I still rare enough to be your mate?
  Then why must I shame at feasts and bear myself
  In shy ungainly ways, made flushed and conscious
  By squat numb gestures of my shapeless head—
  Ay, and its wagging shadow—clouted up,
  Twice tangled with a bundle of hot hair,
  Like a thick cot-quean's in the settling time?
  There are few women in the Quarter now
  Who do not wear a shapely fine-webbed coif
  Stitched by dark Irish girls in Athcliath
  With golden flies and pearls and glinting things:
  Even my daughter lets her big locks show,
  Show and half show, from a hood gentle and close
  That spans her little head like her husband's hand.

      GUNNAR (entering by the same door)
  I like you when you bear your head so high;
  Lift but your heart as high, you could get crowned
  And rule a kingdom of impossible things.
  You would have moon and sun to shine together,
  Snowflakes to knit for apples on bare boughs,
  Yea, love to thrive upon the terms of hate.
  If I had fared abroad I should have found
  In many countries many marvels for you—
  Though not more comeliness in peopled Romeborg
  And not more haughtiness in Mickligarth
  Nor craftiness in all the isles of the world,
  And only golden coifs in Athcliath:
  Yet you were ardent that I should not sail,
  And when I could not sail you laughed out loud
  And kissed me home….

      HALLGERD (who has been biting her nails)
  And then … and doubtless … and strangely …
  And not more thriftiness in Bergthorsknoll
  Where Njal saves old soft sackcloth for his wife.
  Oh, I must sit with peasants and aged women,
  And keep my head wrapped modestly and seemly.

(She turns to RANNVEIG.)

I must be humble—as one who lives on others.

(She snatches off her wimple, slipping her gold circlet as she does so, and loosens her hair.)

  Unless I may be hooded delicately
  And use the adornment noble women use
  I'll mock you with my flown young widowhood,
  Letting my hair go loose past either cheek
  In two bright clouds and drop beyond my bosom,
  Turning the waving ends under my girdle
  As young glad widows do, and as I did
  Ere ever you saw me—ay, and when you found me
  And met me as a king meets a queen
  In the undying light of a summer night
  With burning robes and glances—stirring the heart with scarlet.

(She tucks the long ends of her hair under her girdle.)

                        RANNVEIG
  You have cast the head-ring of the nobly nurtured,
  Being eager for a bold uncovered head.
  You are conversant with a widow's fancies….
  Ay, you are ready with your widowhood:
  Two men have had you, chilled their bosoms with you,
  And trusted that they held a precious thing—
  Yet your mean passionate wastefulness poured out
  Their lives for joy of seeing something done with.
  Cannot you wait this time? 'Twill not be long.

                        HALLGERD
  I am a hazardous desirable thing,
  A warm unsounded peril, a flashing mischief,
  A divine malice, a disquieting voice:
  Thus I was shapen, and it is my pride
  To nourish all the fires that mingled me.
  I am not long moved, I do not mar my face,
  Though men have sunk in me as in a quicksand.
  Well, death is terrible. Was I not worth it?
  Does not the light change on me as I breathe?
  Could I not take the hearts of generations,
  Walking among their dreams? Oh, I have might,
  Although it drives me too and is not my own deed….
  And Gunnar is great, or he had died long since.
  It is my joy that Gunnar stays with me:
  Indeed the offence is theirs who hunted him,
  His banishment is not just; his wrongs increase,
  His honour and his following shall increase
  If he is steadfast for his blamelessness.

                        RANNVEIG
  Law is not justice, but the sacrifice
  Of singular virtues to the dull world's ease of mind;
  It measures men by the most vicious men;
  It is a bargaining with vanities,
  Lest too much right should make men hate each other
  And hasten the last battle of all the nations.
  Gunnar should have kept the atonement set,
  For then those men would turn to other quarrels.

                        GUNNAR
  I know not why it is I must be fighting,
  For ever fighting, when the slaying of men
  Is a more weary and aimless thing to me
  Than most men think it … and most women too.
  There is a woman here who grieves she loves me,
  And she too must be fighting me for ever
  With her dim ravenous unsated mind….
  Ay, Hallgerd, there's that in her which desires
  Men to fight on for ever because she lives:
  When she took form she did it like a hunger
  To nibble earth's lip away until the sea
  Poured down the darkness. Why then should I sail
  Upon a voyage that can end but here?
  She means that I shall fight until I die:
  Why must she be put off by whittled years,
  When none can die until his time has come?

(He turns to the hound by the fire.)

  Samm, drowsy friend, dost scent a prey in dreams?
  Shake off thy shag of sleep and get to thy watch:
  'Tis time to be our eyes till the next light.
  Out, out to the yard, good Samm.

  (He goes to the left, followed by the hound. In the meantime
  HALLGERD has seated herself in the high-seat near the sewing
  women, turning herself away and tugging at a strand of her hair,
  the end of which she bites.)

      RANNVEIG (intercepting him)
  Nay, let me take him.
  It is not safe—there may be men who hide….
  Hallgerd, look up; call Gunnar to you there:

  (HALLGERD is motionless.)
  Lad, she beckons. I say you shall not come.

      GUNNAR (laughing)
  Fierce woman, teach me to be brave in age,
  And let us see if it is safe for you.

  (Leads RANNVEIG out, his hand on her shoulder; the hound goes
  with them.)

                        STEINVOR
  Mistress, my heart is big with mutinies
  For your proud sake: does not your heart mount up?
  He is an outlaw now and could not hold you
  If you should choose to leave him. Is it not law?
  Is it not law that you could loose this marriage—
  Nay, that he loosed it shamefully years ago
  By a hard blow that bruised your innocent cheek,
  Dishonouring you to lesser women and chiefs?
  See, it burns up again at the stroke of thought.
  Come, leave him, mistress; we will go with you.
  There is no woman in the country now
  Whose name can kindle men as yours can do—
  Ay, many would pile for you the silks he grudges;
  And if you did withdraw your potent presence
  Fire would not spare this house so reverently.

                        HALLGERD
  Am I a wandering flame that sears and passes?
  We must bide here, good Steinvor, and be quiet.
  Without a man a woman cannot rule,
  Nor kill without a knife; and where's the man
  That I shall put before this goodly Gunnar?
  I will not be made less by a less man.
  There is no man so great as my man Gunnar:
  I have set men at him to show forth his might;
  I have planned thefts and breakings of his word
  When my pent heart grew sore with fermentation
  Of malice too long undone, yet could not stir him.
  Oh, I will make a battle of the Thing,
  Where men vow holy peace, to magnify him.
  Is it not rare to sit and wait o' nights,
  Knowing that murderousness may even now
  Be coming down outside like second darkness
  Because my man is greater?

      STEINVOR (shuddering)
  Is it not rare.

                        HALLGERD
  That blow upon the face
  So long ago is best not spoken of.
  I drave a thrall to steal and burn at Otkell's
  Who would not sell to us in famine time
  But denied Gunnar as if he were suppliant:
  Then at our feast when men rode from the Thing
  I spread the stolen food and Gunnar knew.
  He smote me upon the face—indeed he smote me.
  Oh, Gunnar smote me and had shame of me
  And said he'd not partake with any thief;
  Although I stole to injure his despiser….
  But if he had abandoned me as well
  'Tis I who should have been unmated now;
  For many men would soon have judged me thief
  And shut me from this land until I died—
  And then I should have lost him. Yet he smote me—

                        ASTRID
  He kept you his—yea, and maybe saved you
  From a debasement that could madden or kill,
  For women thieves ere now have felt a knife
  Severing ear or nose. And yet the feud
  You sowed with Otkell's house shall murder Gunnar.
  Otkell was slain: then Gunnar's enviers,
  Who could not crush him under his own horse
  At the big horse-fight, stirred up Otkell's son
  To avenge his father; for should he be slain
  Two in one stock would prove old Njal's foretelling,
  And Gunnar's place be emptied either way
  For those high helpless men who cannot fill it.
  O mistress, you have hurt us all in this:
  You have cut off your strength, you have maimed yourself,
  You are losing power and worship and men's trust.
  When Gunnar dies no other man dare take you.

                        HALLGERD
  You gather poison in your mouth for me.
  A high-born woman may handle what she fancies
  Without being ear-pruned like a pilfering beggar.
  Look to your ears if you touch ought of mine:
  Ay, you shall join the mumping sisterhood
  And tramp and learn your difference from me.

(She turns from ASTRID.)

  Steinvor, I have remembered the great veil,
  The woven cloud, the tissue of gold and garlands,
  That Gunnar took from some outlandish ship
  And thinks was made in Greekland or in Hind:
  Fetch it from the ambry in the bower.

(STEINVOR goes out by the dais door.)

                        ASTRID
  Mistress, indeed you are a cherished woman.
  That veil is worth a lifetime's weight of coifs:
  I have heard a queen offered her daughter for it,
  But Gunnar said it should come home and wait—
  And then gave it to you. The half of Iceland
  Tells fabulous legends of a fabulous thing,
  Yet never saw it: I know they never saw it,
  For ere it reached the ambry I came on it
  Tumbled in the loft with ragged kirtles.

                        HALLGERD
  What, are you there again? Let Gunnar alone.

  (STEINVOR enters with the veil folded. HALLGERD takes
  it with one hand and shakes it into a heap.)

  This is the cloth. He brought it out at night,
  In the first hour that we were left together,
  And begged of me to wear it at high feasts
  And more outshine all women of my time:
  He shaped it to my head with my gold circlet,
  Saying my hair smouldered like Rhine-fire through,
  He let it fall about my neck, and fall
  About my shoulders, mingle with my skirts,
  And billow in the draught along the floor.

(She rises and holds the veil behind her head.)

  I know I dazzled as if I entered in
  And walked upon a windy sunset and drank it,
  Yet must I stammer with such strange uncouthness
  And tear it from me, tangling my arms in it.
  Why should I so befool myself and seem
  A laughable bundle in each woman's eyes,
  Wearing such things as no one ever wore,
  Useless … no head-cloth … too unlike my fellows.
  Yet he turns miser for a tiny coif.
  It would cut into many golden coifs
  And dim some women in their Irish clouts—
  But no; I'll shape and stitch it into shifts,
  Smirch it like linen, patch it with rags, to watch
  His silent anger when he sees my answer.
  Give me thy shears, girl Oddny.

                        ODDNY
  You'll not part it?

                        HALLGERD
  I'll shorten it.

                        ODDNY
  I have no shears with me.

                        HALLGERD
  No matter; I can start it with my teeth
  And tear it down the folds. So. So. So. So.
  Here's a fine shift for summer: and another.
  I'll find my shears and chop out waists and neck-holes.
  Ay, Gunnar, Gunnar!

  (She throws the tissue on the ground, and goes out by
  the dais door.)

      ODDNY (lifting one of the pieces)
  O me! A wonder has vanished.

                        STEINVOR
  What is a wonder less? She has done finely,
  Setting her worth above dead marvels and shows.

(The deep menacing baying of the hound is heard near at hand. A woman's cry follows it.)

They come, they come! Let us flee by the bower!

  (Starting up, she stumbles in the tissue and sinks upon it. The
  others rise.)

  You are leaving me—will you not wait for me—
  Take, take