Robinson Jeffers

At The Birth Of An Age

The story is derived from the closing chapters of the Volsung Saga, the action of which refers itself to a date fairly correspondent with the end of the Greco-Roman age and the beginning of this one. The theme of self-contradiction and self-frustration, in Gudrun's nature, intends to express a characteristic quality of this culture-age, which I think should be called the Christian age, for it is conditioned by Christianity, and except a few centuries' lag concurrent with it. Its civilization is the greatest, but also the most bewildered and self-contradictory, the least integrated, in some phases the most ignoble, that has ever existed. All these qualities, together with the characteristic restlessness of the age, its energy, its extremes of hope and fear, its passion for discovery, I think are bred from the tension between its two poles, of Western blood and superimposed Oriental religion. This is the tension that drew taut the frail arches of Gothic cathedrals, as now it spins the frail cosmogonies of recent science and the brittle Utopias of economic theory. This tension is really the soul of the age, which will begin to die when it ceases. In modern times the direction of the tension has shifted a little; the Christian faith is becoming extinct as an influence, compensatorily the Christian ethic becomes more powerful and conscious, manifesting itself as generalized philanthropy, liberalism, socialism, communism, and so forth. But the tension is relaxed, the age prepares for its long decline. The racial pole is weakened by the physical and especially the spiritual hybridization that civilized life always brings with it; the Christian pole is undergoing constant attrition! steadily losing a little more than it gains. I believe that we live about the summit of the wave of this age, and hence can see it more objectively, looking down toward the troughs on both sides, than our ancestors could or our more remote descendants will. . . . Is it necessary to add that I am not speaking as one of the prophets? These are only ideas that came to me while I was writing what follows, when I wondered "Why does Gudrun act this way? " Thence they added themselves to the thought of the poem, and are noted here to explain one tendency of its thought. The others seem clear enough. When the north and the east crawled with armed tribes toward mindless wars, Barbarians like a shieldful of knives flung random, clashing together, stabbing, gashing or missing Through the north darkness, Goth, Hun and Vandal, Saxon and Frank, and down the hopeless frontiers of Rome: Three men leading three hundred came to the edge of the forest to a murdered farm. Hoegni said laughing, "Hey for the owner!" And Gunnar: "Ay. He hangs there. " For a haltered man Hung in the oak above the fire-crumbled walls. "This is the place she named to us: the dead man's farm, A hill over a plain, a hanged man, a choked well, a stream at the hill-foot. Let them drop the gear. " But Hoegni: "I say go on," jutting his chin to the south, the sharp yellow beard, "We'll meet the sooner. Aah, camp here waiting While they loot Gaul? " "Wolf-eagerness is a treasure in warriors, caution in kings," answered Gunnar, Called king for being the head of a little clan between the Saxons and Franks; his eyes were royal Over the thick brown beard, deep and ice-blue, dark-browed, "If Gudrun comes, and gives bonds and promises, Yet I shall probably turn you back and lead home. I am not in love with letting my naked face Into the bear's mouth. " His brother Hoegni groaned and laughed but not spoke. Then Carling his youngest brother, A boy still, beardless, brave face, wide eyes, bright hair: "I shall not turn. Look, brother, how it is clouded With herds of horses like a summer heaven, clouds beyond clouds, I never saw anything nor heard a poem So beautiful as this plain. Yonder must be the Horde's encampment: like a hundred cities: and the horses, the horses, the many-colored, At pasture around it like a vast wheel. There, there, and there, are the towers of smoke from the burnt towns. Yonder a band of war-men far off goes galloping on some great raid. Sigurd had a horse; He called him Grayfell. " Gunnar said: "Listen, boy. You shall have horses to ride if we go down there. But Sigurd is not to be named. Sigurd is not to be named. Remember we are making peace with Gudrun, Who is our sister, and has grown powerful too. " Hoegni laughed, Carling said, "I know. It is a pity. Oh Gunnar it seems to me that my spirit, After the close fields and forest at home, flies towering up to the sun like a noon eagle Above this plain, the space the distance, the immense green freedom glimmering to blue: as if I could almost See Rome from here. " Hoegni said, "Live and we'll see it; if those Goths have left anything. Meanwhile we'll feed. They'll have to hack firewood from the owner's oak, it's all that's left him. He will not care. " "Oh Hoegni!" Carling Answered, "Oh Gunnar! When Gudrun comes and we've dearly greeted her, then let us Not seek the Hun's camp nor friendship with him, but suddenly help ourselves to keen horses and alone together Go and see Italy. Oh Gunnar! that would be the high path for heroes, no talk, no alliances. I know Sigurd would do it If he were living. Ride southward like a pointed storm of wild swans, like a flying lance-head, an axe-head, Carve our own valley through the Huns and Romans. " "What a pity," Hoegni said, "To be a fool at sixteen. I warned you Gunnar, Leave Fool at home. " "A flight of horsemen," the youth said gladly, "this way. Oh look, Oh the lovely fellowship, Like a long arrow burning with dust for smoke. " "You have young eyes. Ay. That will be Gudrun. How many? " He answered, "They ride by fours, less or more. Some ten ranks: forty perhaps. " "Hardskin and Swayn," Gunnar said. "Ay," they answered, "Patrol the wood-path until I call you. You east and he west. Not to be embraced from behind as well. She left us in white anger, I will not trust her yet. " II Gudrun dismounted and came to her brothers; tall, blonde and pale, clad in a wine-dark gold-threaded Wide cloak, snatch of some Byzantine altar, sweetly smiling came Gudrun; a black-haired slave-woman, A face like white wax, walked at her side; on the other a swarthy sword-wearing Hun, who scowled and spoke. Two more behind him watched hard under slant brows. Then Gudrun: "Dear brothers! Gunnar: will you bid your men Go ten steps back? Timor here . . . this dark-browed battle-rememberer Is Timor, he is lofty in my lord's attendance. My three brothers, Timor. He is full of safeguards, being as he says Accountable for the priceless treasure of my person. GUNNAR  (waving his men back) Well, sister. Twenty. GUDRUN  My Timor is very faithful, And fears . . . never death . . . torture. Can that be Carling? Oh my dear, Carling, how beautiful you have grown! I always loved you. GUNNAR  We were most happy, Gudrun, In your dear message. Jealousies die but love is immortal. We have come at great pains through the wet woods Only to see your face. I say only, Because it is certain that we are wealthy enough Without Hunnish alliances. Our thought in coming is toward you only; to see the loved face, salute The dear lips, and return. HOEGNI  And ask you how it feels to be married to a toad, for every man told us Huns look like toads: and by God it's true. Pop eyes, no noses, toad color . . . GUDRUN  Hoegni! Be wary of your words a little. HOEGNI  Not I. GUNNAR  As to the precious gatherings of Gaul and Italy: what's gold? We came for love's sake. GUDRUN  (to Hoegni) He understands it well enough, Though for scorn he won't speak it. HOEGNI  Tim Timy you mean? For scorn you say? I am telling you . . . GUDRUN  Understand me, Hoegni. My lord and his race are not mocked. The emperor of northern and middle Europe, all from the Caspian To the North Sea. HOEGNI  Not a toad? Nose-holes Where a nose ought to be . . . GUDRUN  And soon I believe to conquer and rule the whole nation-written War-weary tablet, all the king-scarred earth. HOEGNI  Not me. . . . That is a marvelous piece of a victory Worn on your shoulders, Gudrun. Well, you look young still. GUDRUN  And for gold: look at these Bracelets that bruise my arms; and this neck-chain. HOEGNI  Oh, he loads you. Save up, save up, Lest winter come. GUDRUN  The chain's for King Gunnar. No: I pray you, brother, take it with my love. Though I was bitter, That was quite long ago. And now I live among foreigners . . . GUNNAR  How your lips writhe! Don't cry, my dear, I'll not refuse it nor the love either, but joyfully. . . . Let me kiss you Gudrun, why do you cover your face? I'll kiss the tears. GUDRUN  It was caught in my hair. There. You've a tress with it. Ah, Gunnar, Little you know! GUNNAR  Dear sister. I am far more glad that our love is born again Than for all these great links of gold. GUDRUN  And for my . . . brother Hoegni, these . . . HOEGNI  Don't do it If it hurts you so. You're white as death, Snow-girl. GUDRUN  I remember you used to call me that. We were near the same age. HOEGNI  But now those blue eyes of yours Have wolves in 'em. GUDRUN  The better to see you with, dear! Well, I've been through . . . and seen stark battles: but if These eyes grow hard: not toward my brothers, Hoegni. Bygones are by-gones, that wound's hid . . . healed I mean. You never knew me to lie I believe? So take the bracelets. I guess them nearly the weight in gold Of Gunnar's chain. HOEGNI  Thank you, Gudrun. I wish to do you sometime a worthy service. Why, men Have fought to death for less than a hundredth fraction Of this heavy glitter. GUDRUN  It's nothing: we swim in it. Carling dear: I've something . . . I find myself Wet-eyed to look at you. Because you were much younger than me and Hoegni. . . . I'm not false, I'll hide no thought, if you'd been tall At that time, I believe you'd have helped me. Who knows? Hush, dear, let me dream. This is very vain talk About an old woe. The snows of that year are melted and so is my heart, and I am Attila's wife. You look like ghosts, ah? All but Carling. Oh, it's wiped out. I thought you, Carling, too noble-minded . . . young I should say . . . to care about gold, and so have chosen you A steel jewel, only a sword, yet a rare one. Give it to me, Jukka. (She takes it from one of the dark 'warriors behind her. ) It is said there were great enamel-workers And godlike smiths in Gaul before the back-and-forth grovellings and wash of war Wiped out all. CARLING  Oh Gudrun! What are these gems? Why, the hawk-head hilt Is like a firebrand. GUDRUN  The blade, the blade. The hilt's nothing, a gem-crust. Nor the scabbard either. See How cunningly they let the delicate-colored threads of enamel Into the fierce blank steel. CARLING  Oh Gudrun. GUDRUN  Hawk or eagle the pretty tracery, who cares? It's pretty, ah? I begged it of my lord when he was merry. CARLING  I cannot tell you. . . . Oh Gudrun. GUNNAR  By God, what a smith. I think You've the best, brother, (to Hoegni, quietly , nodding toward the oak) I don't like those two, the ravens. HOEGNI  Mm? Those? Children of nature, attracted by meat like you and me. They take the eyes first. GUNNAR  Caw caw, damn them! Though they're God's birds. Is she true? HOEGNI  It's true gold. CARLING  (admiring the sword) Oh Gudrun, the beauty, the power, the balance! And as for the edge: Look at my thumb: I barely touched it to feel it. GUDRUN  Oh, Oh, my gift! CARLING  ButI love the slight cut. I think it's magical: see, I streak my own blood on the silky blade, that makes it mine for my life-days Faithfully. Oh sister, I'll do such deeds with it . . . some deed for the poets to remember in all the fire-lit music-filled Evenings of rime. Sigurd's great beautiful bone-biter, the sword That he called Anger, never did such a deed . . . Oh! . . . I didn't mean, I didn't want . . . I adore his memory. HOEGNI  Fool. GUDRUN  I know, dear. Hush, Hoegni, let him alone. We may love Sigurd and yet Not hate his . . . killers. He was too great to need any memory but thoughts of love . . . to need any Reprisal. His fame's not slain. . . . What'll you call the sword, Carling? CARLING  I thought of calling him Sea-eagle. Ah Sea-eagle you'll fly in Rome, You'll dazzle the south. ONE OF GUNNAR'S MEN  (shouting from a distance) Troop of horse, a long one. ANOTHER  From the west by the wood's edge. HARDSKIN  (farther off) A thousand horse. HOEGNI Bitten, by God. (Gunnar and Hoegni draw sword, so do the Huns. ) GUNNAR  I will never believe, Gudrun, no never. . . . Timor: we are here As friends, probable allies . . . HOEGNI  Baited and trapped, with a yellow glitter And milky talk, (shouting) Stand to it. Ham-string'em, that stops'em. (to Timor) . . . Well? Toad? Let's begin. GUDRUN  (cuffing her slave-woman, who was about to scream) You are too excitable, you shame me red, brothers, before These quiet dark lords of the East. Those are the horses to mount you. Each man of that troop leads a spare horse. And thus you trust me! I could not allow you to walk, you and your people, To die Emperor's camp. GUNNAR  Ay? why do they come from behind and cut us off from the wood? GUDRUN  They come from the pasture. GUNNAR  So it takes five hundred men To bring us mounts? GUDRUN  For your escort also. There's rough work On the plain. GUNNAR  There'd be rougher If my poor woodsmen forked themselves over horses. No, Gudrun. GUDRUN  The Huns despise you if you come walking. GUNNAR  Are we your prisoners? GUDRUN  Why, brother! GUNNAR  No? Then farewell, Gudrun. We carry back to the great fir-woods, the lonely tarns And little clearings, magnificent memories Of wealth and kingly splendor and kindness, and a sister's great Forgiving heart. HOEGNI  And toads. . . . Come home with us, We'll make you queen of the North. CARLING  Oh. I want to ride with her. GUDRUN  But since I . . . love you, my brothers: how could I let you go? I'd even keep you By force. You see: by force . . . Of loving persuasion. I could hardly persuade my Huns To let such warriors as you . . . not join the Horde. Gunnar: he will conquer the whole world, there's not a doubt: All the wealth, all rings of gold, all tribes of men, all the meat and drink: It rolls to his feet like a ball. . . . Hoegni: Do you love battles? HOEGNI  In moderation, in moderation. GUDRUN  This would be out of scale for you, then. Now the great crowning battle of the world is making, to dazzle all war Before and after, will be fought on this plain within three days. For Rome has bandaged all her sick legions Into one sword, ransacked her waning moon for man-power, and bought peace with the West Goths (Whose king Theodoric is eight feet tall) to try odds against us. They have joined the two armies like axe and helve For one huge stroke. Their last one. HOEGNI  Is Caesar a tall man too? GUDRUN  Which Caesar? None fights. They've an active general, What's his name? I can't think. They are hundreds of thousands together, and ours are three hundred thousand, with the East Goths, Vandals, Gepidae, Franks . . . HOEGNI  Boo, said the goose Counting duckweed. GUDRUN  What? HOEGNI  Tell it to the Swedes, not to us. GUNNAR  No, no, we don't doubt Your good faith, sister: yet there's a dreamy quality About these numberings of multitude. How could such hordes be fed? GUDRUN  Ours, are experienced. They tap their horses' neck-veins and suck the blood, then stop the wound and ride on. Or a man's at a pinch, Ah, Timor? The Goths and Romans I imagine starve. . . . Oh, this Meeting will exceed all measure, enormous, a sword-mountain: you'll stay and see it? And, Carling, after we force them For the sun will fall out of heaven before Attila Fails of a victory the whole fragrant south will lie open, unlocked and helpless, all the sun, all the honey, Rich gardens, rare fruits, all kinds of artist-work. We'll ride on the golden strands of blue seas and drink nothing But purple wine, hear nothing but little Greek slaves That sing like nightingales. GUNNAR  Will you swear by the holiest, By Woden hanged on tree; and by all the Gods of the Huns too, and all other Gods, That you mean well by us? GUDRUN    cannot imagine why you mistrust me. GUNNAR  Will you swear? GUDRUN  Why should I? You have no choice. And you mistrust me vilely. And what are the Gods, who sees them? My Huns have travelled the whole world and now Laugh at the Gods. Yes, I will swear. GUNNAR  By Woden hanged on the tree? GUDRUN  Oh, clearly. And by all the Huns' Gods, And the Roman Christ. GUNNAR  You will be sick and die If you break oath. Well, Hoegni? HOEGNI  I want to see old Hardskin straddling a horse, that's what I want. CARLING  They'll go. Oh Gudrun how beautiful you look. One to stand shining And sworded for the Decider of Battles in the eagle sky In the poem that I've been making. GUDRUN  Do you make poems, Carling? CARLING  Things are so beautiful. Your face, like a white sword Lifting against the blue. I'll make better ones. GUDRUN  Sing me a poem While we ride down. I need it. Life narrows on me, All its events are vicious, whichever I choose. III In front of the curtains. Sentinels post themselves in the midst. Men enter and stand conversing at the extreme right. Gudrun and her brothers, her slave Chrysothemis, and the Hun Jukka, come in from the left. GUNNAR  . . . The pastures are wide and rich, yet all the grass is bitten to the roots. What was that river we forded? GUDRUN  I told you. The Marne. We have to wait here until the trumpet is blown; no one may enter before Attila. HOEGNI  I wish him joy of it. GUNNAR  Marne; the Marne. What a language. Hoegni: did you notice the herd of thick-flanked brood-mares? I believe there were at least two thousand. These things are out of our scale of thought. HOEGNI  Bah! GUDRUN  This building is an old broken place, curtained for the feast. The broken country-house of some dead Roman. The curtains look richly purple in the evening sun, don't they, Carling? If blood would keep its color, what a dye. And cheap. CARLING  Does he not come to bring you in? As I remember Sig . . . I remember Sigurd used to? GUDRUN  No. GUNNAR  Tell me, sister: what do they do when their mares foal on the march? GUDRUN  (impatient) Ah! Another time. Ask Jukka. GUNNAR  I have asked him a number of questions, he only gabbles. It is essential for a ruler to understand . . . GUDRUN  Will you . . . I am trying to make a quietness in my mind. HOEGNI  Yes. I have watched you, Gudrun. You are mad with pride. You think you have married the mountain of the world. Sigurd was not enough . . . GUNNAR  By the honor of God, brother! Keep the peace, will you? HOEGNI  Aahh . . . GUDRUN  I'll tell you plainly then. I am ill in my mind. Pride? No: hardly. I was proud while Sigurd lived, before you killed him, but as things are I've won back a little . . . power . . . not pride. Perhaps you will be able to tell me, being wise, Gunnar, Why it is that I. For it seems that I still love you, for all your. I am not able. We're the one blood, And were gay when we were little together, Yet, when the warmth wins, I remember that yours was the cold contemptible mind that planned his death Because your woman wound you up to be envious. And the cynical hand Was my brother Hoegni's. And how cowardly it was done. HOEGNI  (handling his sword-hilt) I guessed you. Bring on your niggers. GUNNAR  You are bound by the highest and most dangerous of oaths, Gudrun. GUDRUN  (impassively) So that my heart is in heavy trouble between love and hatred. Two snakes in one coil. Which can neither endure nor destroy each other, but each is swollen to bursting with venom From the other's jaws, it spurts on my heart. Ah? Well? . . . Well, that's how it is wi' me. I was saying, to do you a harm would never make Sigurd live, nor be any comfort to myself, so breathe easily. Carling's a poet: do you think killed men want justice, Carling? Don't answer. I think they're nothing, they're lucky. I believe nothing. After you've travelled and seen ten thousand corpses You'll keep your poems in the way of nature. GUNNAR  Indeed, sister, these questions about death are mysteries to all of us; it is wisest perhaps . . . GUDRUN  The men with the red straps wound to the knees are East-Goth nobles. That tall man, who is talking to the Hun, is Alberic the Frank. Yonder are two lords of the Gepidae. I love to see kings cooling their heels at my husband's pleasure. GUNNAR  And those to the left, Gudrun? GUDRUN  Huns. Don't question me! I am not patient. A TRUMPETER  appears between the parting curtains. He sounds the trumpet, and announces in Htmnish and in Gothic: The Lord of Lords has taken his seat. The Masters of War have taken their seats. HOEGNI  The Toads have squatted. The curtains draw aside, and they enter. IV It is the atrium of a ruined Roman country-house. The walls at this end are broken down; the wall seen slant on the left is arcaded with freestone columns, the near ones broken, the farther entire. Strange guests have stopped here since the owner fled. The wall at the back has no colonnade but is adorned with wallpaintings; the panels to left and right indistinguishable, the great central painting scarred but clear. It represents Prometheus bound on Mt. Elboros, the snow-veined rocks, the wound and the vultures. Planks on trestles range parallel to the walks, making an L-shaped table. On the far limb of the (inverted) L, below the colossal Prometheus, Attila is seated among his generals. He is swarthy, thick, gray-haired, with a flat Mongolian face, and robed in barbarian magnificence. He is already feeding and drinking. Gudrun will take a place near the angle of the L, keeping Carling on her right, allowing Gunnar to sit on her left, toward Attila and beside Timor. Gudrwts slave stands behind her. Hoegni sits between Carting and Jukka. The other guests, Huns, Ostrogoths and so forth, are coming in and finding places, and servants are busy. GUDRUN  (standing at her place) My lord. . . . My lord. ATTILA  (at length turning his face toward her) All right? GUDRUN  This is King Gunnar, my brother, of whom I spoke. And my other brothers. ATTILA  Mm. Welcome, (turning back to one of the Huns) I say if Arval fails taking Troyes as he slacked at Orleans, that is the end for him. GUNNAR  Noble Attila: Our sister having by message invited us We come with clear good will and kingly confidence To behold her face, and yours, and the glory of the Horde. She has flown high, she was nourished in a high nest. We have strong places northward and power of warriors, Though fewer . . . horses, I believe . . . And not as a guest from wandering, but as the king Your brother-in-law, retinued with quiet swords . . . ATTILA  (turning and staring) Hm? GUNNAR  We acknowledge your hospitality. ATTILA  Well, well. Sit down. I remember she spoke of you. HEOGNI  (aloud) Toad of toads. GUNNAR  But as for alliance, And to ride with your host . . . ATTILA  Jukka! Converse with him for me. (turning to Blada, who sits next him) So you'll sweep the banners around their loose end, curl it up and cut for the center: the plain is wide. BLADA  Ay, Master. They'll have reserve, I must have more weight than can be delayed . . . JUKKA  (to Gunnar) He say he ver' glad you here. GUNNAR  He seems a laconic man. Between kings, courtesy should be religion. HOEGNI  Whisper, Gudrun. How does it feel? They say the Black Forest women have to do wi' wolves, but a toad, my God! Have you got warts? GUDRUN  Do not tempt me . . . JUKKA  (to Gurmar) He make plan 'bout . . . big fighting. Soon he drink more, then make speech to you maybe. GUDRUN  . . . toward a black duty. I have what I sought in marriage, that's power. I am not hardened yet To its uses. . . . Oh Oh, Carling, I wish I had died with him. There were blue campions around him beside the spring, All changed in color, his blood had filled all their cups. I wish the wet red earth sweet with young flowers Had swallowed my life with Sigurd's, for I am not strong enough to be his avenger. (Nothing, Jukka, Oh nothing: an old feud of our tribe. ) Gunnar: Look down the table, you see the three boys beyond Blada and Bela-Nor? They are sons of Attila. He has no other male relatives, for he killed his brothers, it is their custom. These fresh boys will cut each other's throats when the time comes. You'll leave early to-morrow, I shall arrange it. Tell Hoegni . . . tell Hoegni his hand . . . was crueller than mine. Carling: Stay with me? CARLING  I long to. You are good and beautiful, and here is the main door of the world. . . . I am Gunnar's man. GUDRUN  Because I am lonely and hate myself. And though this camp-life is always dangerous, and has no root In nature, nothing but wars, rapine and wandering; this people would need ennobling to pass for wolves: But Gunnar too and Hoegni are murderers. If you should ever do anything glorious they'd knife you for it. In the back. GUNNAR  I am glad you are not an oath-breaker. You cannot have him. GUDRUN  Can I not? GUNNAR  You'll go home with us, Carling. GUDRUN  You make him unhappy and nothing is decided. Drink, brother. The trumpeter comes in, on the serving-side of the table, drops on one knee before Attila, and whispers to Blada. BLADA  The bishop of Troyes, Master. One of those Roman holy-men. He came through the lines at Troyes saying he had gifts for you, so they brought him here. What was his name? What? THE TRUMPETER  Lupus, my lord. Bishop Lupus. ATTILA  We lack entertainment since the juggler was brained. Ah? Bring him in. HOEGNI  (to Gudrun) Are you done raging? What's a juggler? GUDRUN  (to Carling) The poor man was doing tricks for them. At first they threw pennies, but when they were drunk they threw bones. Bishop Lupus and his followers are led in, and set to stand facing Attila. The bishop is a tired white-bearded old man, noble in distress. His robe is torn and soiled; he carries a crozier. ATTILA  Well, old beard? Talk. BISHOP LUPUS    I come to plead for a Roman town Your troops are troubling; that your majesty may deign to spare it for a fit ransom. I am the unhappy shepherd That has to kneel to the wolf. ATTILA  Your name? LUPUS  I thought they had told you. I am the unhappy Bishop of Troyes, Which lies like an egg in your hand to spare or crush. ATTILA  (like a play-actor', pretending vast anger) Spy! Do you hide your name? LUPUS  Lupus, my lord. ATTILA  Lupus. I thought so. Unmasked, ah? This seeming-reverend benign old man, that styles himself A shepherd: what kind of shepherd? A stealthy ravening and murderous wolf. I'll pluck that mock-saintly beard, See the great fangs grin in the jaws. LUPUS  It is only my name, my lord, I cannot help it. Your majesty Delights in mockery. GUNNAR  (to Gudruri) What is this ah-ah-ah talk, so smooth and soft? Do you understand it? GUDRUN  (who has drawn a straight bright dagger from a hidden sheath, and plays with it on the table before her, regarding it gravely, as if she were reading it like a sad poem, in silence but with moving lips) Roman. No. GUNNAR  I wish I could understand it. (seeing the dagger) That is a nice brave thing, do you cut your meat with it? GUDRUN  I keep it clean, (turning to her slave-woman) Chrysothemis: What are they saying? (Chrysothemis interprets in her ear from time to time, Gudrun does not listen, but reads her knife. ) ATTILA  (continuing, to the bishop) Well, then: what ransom? LUPUS  All that we have in the city, except a few loaves of mercy Against starvation. For if you destroy the hive you'll have the honey, my lord, but burnt and damaged. Much rather take the honey and let the hive live, and season after season returning take New tribute. ATTILA  You have a great store of wealth then. Oh, little, my lord. The Goths have stripped us yearly, and the Alans Before them: we can only give all that we have. ATTILA  All, hm? That's to say, all. Including your virgins, Young wives, all other livestock. LUPUS  My lord, I have stood humbly before you bearing your mockeries. ATTILA  Very well. Open your gates to-morrow in the morning, my officers will examine your houses. LUPUS  You are right, Attila, To judge me both fool and coward, that I have prayed mercy Where no mercy is. ATTILA  You guess badly again. I am as full of mercy as the comb is of honey. But unfortunately I have not enough wine for all my people, nor beer either. We must drink the rivers. LUPUS  I doubt your meaning, my lord. We will roll out all we have, every keg, every jug. ATTILA  It is not enough. Your misfortune is that your city is on the Seine and pollutes the water. My horses bloated when we passed there. And now that we move west again: you understand? For sanitation, for sanitation. Man, woman, and child: every soul that drops excrement. LUPUS  You are great and cruel, and are pleased to mock at us. I have borne it humbly. I have been deceiving you, Attila: you are not the mighty one here. You range the dark world From the Danube to the western sea; no man resists you, no power confines you; your numbers like the shore sands, And deadlier and crueller than the sea waves; so that the tall white ignorant heathen that humble Rome Horde upon horde fall helpless before you. They fall and scream at your feet; you ride them like horses or you drive them like deer. . . . Yet I say to you That the King whom I serve sometimes weeps in his sleep, pitying Attila. ATTILA  Ho! In the pillow? Paternoster, ah? Paternoster. We know you. . . . What is that hook? LUPUS  For though you are great on earth, And seem to prosper invincibly: alas, there is only one little step for a man between life and death, Vast pride and bloody destruction. ATTILA  I step, but not down. What is that hook in your hand? Answer. LUPUS  My crozier. The shepherd staff, the sign of my office. ATTILA  Hm? . . . Dog! Attila glares at him in silence, with a stagy look oj black ferocity. Lupus begins to tremble', but returns the stare 'with courage. GUNNAR  (to Gudruri) What now, what now? What did he say? GUDRUN  He is trying to scare the old man. HOEGNI  Eh: Gudrun. What d' y' keep reading your knife for? Has it runes in it? GUDRUN  This? . . . I will tell you. It is clean and straight. It speaks to me. It says: "Justice. Faithfulness. Honor. Courage. Duty. " . . . But I am not able. I am not just, but a woman with kindred. Not honorable, not faithful to the eagle I loved. But passive, corrupt, merciful. HOEGNI  Do you say so! Sheathe it then. ATTILA  Hear me, companions. I have wound this babbler in the net of his own words, and he has confessed. He is the spy of a great king (that soaks pillows), and he is sent to hook me down with that hook: do you see that hook? See it jiggle in his hand. Judge. HUNS AND GOTHS  (some in earnesty others shouting 'with laughter) Death. Flaying. The blood-eagle. By his beard hang him. LUPUS  Lord Christ, I entrust my spirit to thy wounded hands Very cheerfully. Speak to thy Father, Lord, For the poor people of my city; and that he have mercy Even on Attila. ATTILA  You tremble, however. Wait! . . . Reprieved, old man. I never offend a God on the eve of battle. My secretary Gratiano will arrange a fair ransom with you before you go home: he is a Christian too. Now . . . What's this picture on the wall behind me? Is it your God? Gratiano thinks so. The sun is setting, its level rays burn on the painting. Attilcfs imposing shadow, at the feet of the Prometheus, moves as he turns. LUPUS  No. (He wavers, as if to fall. ) 1 have tasted death. I wish to remember that it holds no bitterness; But lined with eternal life, solemn with joy. As for that picture . . . The picture, my lord? ATTILA  Come, come. LUPUS  (wearily, passing his hand over his forehead) A fable of the pagans; we read it in school. A wise giant that loved mankind: the God of the pagans crucified . . . I mean hanged him for it. ATTILA  Bah. I took the ransom because I thought your God was here. Drink, friends, it's a sick world! , . . Why was yours hanged? LUPUS  What did you say, my lord? ATTILA  Yours too was hanged for loving mankind. LUPUS  Yes . . . yes. I am terribly tired. He gave himself willingly. ATTILA  It is all the same thing. Keep your feet, old man! If you fall your city falls. (The bishop sways and faints, but is held up from falling by the priests with him) Ricimer: why was yours hanged? RICIMER, A GOTH  Who? Me, master? ATTILA  When you swear by your hanged God, when you promise me faithfulness. Was he hanged for loving mankind? RICIMER  Ho! We love our friends, not mankind. GUNNAR  (to Gudrun reading her dagger) You have sworn, Gudrun. RICIMER  We say that he hanged himself up as a sacrifice to himself. They hang up heroes and white horses to him but that's not enough; he wanted the greatest sacrifice. There is nothing greater than himself, so he hanged himself up. Or another story . . . GUDRUN  (suddenly standing) I, my lord! I, my lord! ATTILA  Eh? Go on. GUDRUN  I was brought up in it. We think there's a great wisdom in pain that's hidden from the happy. Woden's our God of Gods and no power could hurt him: then he must hurt himself to learn it: how else, Wisdom's higher half? It's false, though; I learn nothing. I . . . Oh tell me, my lord, do the dead care What the living . . . what we do? ATTILA  Take care of your words; we are feasting, not prophesying. GUDRUN  Or even a punishment Is death? Quick pain and eternal quietness: that's a reward. Or do they lie groaning? Ignorant, my lord? But I can't act without knowing! Ask your companions, Attila, ask your lords of war, Attila! What: have you sent so many thousands to death, and not know what death is? Never frown at me, my lord, I am not drunk, Or only on the bitterness. Because my spirit's been rushing back and forth all day and dashing itself On both sides of decision like a fish in a doubled net. I can neither do it nor not do it . . . I'll speak quietly. ATTILA  (scowling) Do what? GUDRUN  I will tell you. . . . I pray you to let the old man lie down, my lord. We are cruel In needs and nature, but not to use it for amusement. That old sick innocence. HOEGNI  (to Carling) Boy: slip away before it explodes. Gunnar and I are hanging on a widow's hair: never fear, we'll take some with us: but you . . . survive, survive. Do as if you were drunk and must find a place to relieve yourself. CARLING  You mistake her terribly. ATTILA  Gudrun: we never allow women to drink with us: I honored you because you seemed white and still and well-bred. I was wrong to make an exception. You do for the bed but not the board. Keep standing, old man; on your feet! or all's lost. When it grows dark I'll set a torch-bearer by you To light you all night: if you fall we sack Troyes. I am not to be moved by women. You old white weariness, Can you not watch with me for one night? I too am aging, the snows of time in my hair like winter on the black pinewoods that wind that Grecian Fire-mountain Aetna: the frightful heart never cools, and when the fire bursts forth where is the snow? But still I am aging, and carry the enormous burden of the world. Night after hollow night my friends here Eat flesh, drink and wax merry, my armies that cover all the plain feed by straw fires and sleep, my companions Rest in their tents; but for me no slumber, no rest, no relief. My herds of horses Lie down under the stars before dawn, the herders forget to herd them, all the mounted sentinels Nod lower, their heads droop over to the horses' manes. The last drunkard sleeps in his song; the inveterate Gamblers dicing for bits of conquest, by a candle hooded with double leather, let fall their yellow Eyelids, their fingers relax. Even the little flowers of the fields have closed their faces and sleep . . . Who watches then? Who takes care? Who upholds The troublesome and groaning earth, revolving it like a vast iron ball in the torrent of his mind, devising Its better courses? Which one of your Caesars? Or does a Goth Uphold the whole earth, night and day, never sleeping? Is it Attila? And yet your thankless Romans and brutal West Goths conspire. Whom I shall crush with one mangling battle, in streams of blood exterminate rebellion And settle the world; no man again to make war, no man to be masterless, but laboring in orderly peace Under my lordship, the peace and happiness of the whole earth. . . . Hold up your face, man. If you fall, or fail to attend me, remember: every roof burnt, every man slain, each woman and child For a sport to the horse-herders. Eh, old man? . . . Tell me: I, watching all the nights through, toiling all day, sustaining the earth: am I not like your God That gave himself up to torture to save humanity, because he loved them? . . . Take off your hands from him! Let him stand alone. . . . Eh? Answer. LUPUS  Have mercy . . . ATTILA  And who, except my own people stuffed with incessant spoils, Has any gratitude? You in Troyes, shutting your gates? The Romans, that opened their mouths to swallow the earth And have choked on it? Or Theodoric the Goth, bought with Rome's gold? I shall not leave one alive. HOEGNI  (to Carling, as Gudrun rises again) Make off, will you. Warn our folk if you can. CARLING  She is good. You are dreaming. GUDRUN  My lord, you are great and men are ungrateful. You have told your sufferings, our pity is moved. May I mention mine? I shall make no disturbance; I have found decision and can speak quietly. My prayer is for simple justice, And you only in the world have power. I have stood in your favor. ATTILA  Promotion for your brothers, I suppose. Let them earn it in the near battle, it will taste the sweeter. GUDRUN  (sighing sharply) Ah. A kind of promotion. Yes, my lord. My youngest brother is perfectly without guilt in the matter: he must be saved. And my brother's men Are guiltless: I pray you let them go home. ATTILA  Hm? Stop there. Twilight's a bad counsellor. Bring in the torches. HOEGNI  (gently) Snow-girl: Snow-girl: do you expect to outlive us? We are not disarmed. GUNNAR  (out of the corner of his mouth, to Hoegni) Hold your hand, brother. That would finish it. Patience and cunning may find the ford yet. . . . Gudrun . . . sister . . . Torch-bearers have come in. Some take their places behind the top of the table, so that the Prometheus is illuminated, but Attila a thick overbearing bulk against the light; others, at Attiltfs gesture, stand opposite Gudrun and her brothers, and one by Lupus; much of the company is in shadow, but these brightly lighted. GUDRUN  Carling dear, can't you quiet them Until I have finished speaking? . . . You remember, my lord, how curiously I inquired (and never an answer!) On the subject of death? But now I think that if it is good I will do them good, for I love them. If evil, evil: for I hate them too. The thing they did to Sigurd I will do to them. (And quite ready To tempt it myself, Hoegni. Jukka: watch him. He threatens my life. ) Ah but this is a miserable story, my lord, of spites and jealousies In a back-woods corner between the swamp and the trees. In winter we have no sun and bleach white, in the spring We kill each other; blue campions blossom. You can hardly imagine our heavy narrowness, one thought a year And there it sticks. You plains-riders pass over and look at new things. I knew an eagle in my youth, but the warrior-woman Brynhild had enjoyed him when he was a boy. She married my brother Gunnar here, still loving Sigurd, Who was mine. . . . Wave the torch-man, my lord, nearer my face While I speak of him, because I must praise him For Brynhild's reasons. Myself being wedded to the Hun-king, the captain of the earth, Would hardly . . . care . . . to remember How beautiful (to that bison-boned woman I mean) Sigurd appeared. Oh, he was tall, and rather Pale than ruddy, with golden brown hair and eyes like the . . . He was like a lonely eagle in the van of attack and like an iron tower (Brynhild Believed) in the closed battle when it bled at his base. Yet gayer at the feast and gender than any girl . . . At least of such as we breed northward . . . She preferred him to Gunnar and wooed him secretly and he disdained her. I too was a little scornful, because the woman was built too big and masculine to go about sighing With eyes like a sick wood-pigeon's, Then Brynhild in a cold and patient fury wrought on her husband, my brother here, saying daily That Sigurd outbraved him, Sigurd was the better man, Sigurd plotted to wrench his kingdom away, And so forth, and we in ignorance. The more noble are the more helpless in these whispering wars. So they killed Sigurd. Gunnar my brother and my brother Hoegni knifed him from behind, while he was kneeling to drink At a spring in the forest and you observe, my lord, That my face has not twitched nor my tongue faltered; the wrong I suffered led me up to the sun Of your countenance and burns to a benefit. ATTILA  Gives you that icicle look: Hm? GUDRUN  The whole world is injured If wickedness flowers unpunished. ATTILA  What do you want? GUDRUN  The woman, my lord, killed herself. Here are the men. I told the story to amuse you. ATTILA  You have a crooked mind. If you know what you want I will do it. GUDRUN  That my brother Carling be spared, because he had no part in the matter, he was then a young child. CARLING  Oh . . . Gudruri* GUNNAR  (standing) My lord she has not shown you the half of this business. We are here as your guests and hers . . . HOEGNI  (laying his sword on the table in front of Jukka) Take it, toad, (rising 'while Jukka reaches for it) I have its little twin. He leans across Carling, striking at Gudrun with his dagger; but Carling, his right arm engaged under Hoegnfs weight, catches the blade of the dagger in his left hand. Chrysothemis screams. Jukka and others overpower Hoegm from behind. Gunnar, leaping back and half drawing his sword, is overpowered by Timor and others. ATTILA  (roaring with angry laughter) Ho! . . . Are you hurt? GUDRUN  (to Carling) Your hand, your hand! CARLING  (his hand raining blood on the table) What have you done, Gudrun! ATTILA  (angrily shouting) I say are you hurt? GUDRUN  My . . . No, my lord. My little brother . . . Oh, Chrysothemis, tear your linen and tie it up. Here, here. (Gudrun gives her the dagger that she had been playing with) Cut strips. . . . Not hurt, my master. My brother took in his hand the blade . . . ATTILA  What kind of death will you choose for them? . . . Drink, friends, it's no harm. GUDRUN  I . . . (moaning over Carling's hand) Does it hurt? Oo, Ooh . . . I am so awakened From such a dream . . . I was not the one That wanted them, that wanted . . . Oh no, my lord; and I do pray you . . . ATTILA  By God, again? GUDRUN  As in a nightmare We do what day would damn us for, I have been wanting . . . What have I done! My brothers, my lord: I grew up wi* them. . . . As if I had walked in the narrow cave of a dream and could never turn, But now have wakened. No, no, no. If he struck at me, He knew that I was mad and trying for his life. . . . Oh, truly my lord It was only a play of mine to amuse you. I have sisterly grudges, I sought to frighten them. ATTILA  Ay? We've drunk too much For you to jest with. GUDRUN  It went too far. Yes, my lord. ATTILA  Well, Timor? Ah? Whatever she wants, They have brawled at our table. Take them out, do what my law requires. Leave the pale boy. HOEGNI  Damn you, Carling, that saved the toad's slut! But there, boy. Take heart. Live merrily. JUKKA  (to Hoegni) Come on, you. Your last walk. TIMOR  (to Gunnar) Come. GUDRUN  (who has been standing death-white and passive, with eyes staring at no mark) I am in such a hell . . . GUNNAR  Nobles of the Goths: is this justly done? You princely East Goths and Franks . . . It was sworn to me by Woden hanged on the tree, by the agony of God . . . (A hand is clapped on his mouth. ) ATTILA  (sharply, to Lupus) Keep on your feet, Bishop the beard. GUDRUN  (to Chrysothemis) Give me that! (She takes the dagger and sets the point against her breast) Attila, my master! If anyone comes near me before I speak . . . or if they are taken off before you have heard me . . . I know not that you care, but I'll do this. ATTILA  Fool. GUDRUN  Perfectly, my lord. That is my name. One who swore vengeance by the great self-tortured God I then believed in; and consecrated my helpless life to it, went spying through the world for power to accomplish it . . . (Her eyes rove continually, watching against interference) Tell your servants to stand away from me, my lord, Or in goes the needle-point. . . . I heard that the power in the world was Attila: I knew not then that I was to love you, But solely playing my life to kill Sigurd's murderers . . . That was my constant passion, whether we rode In Greece or pleasured in Persia, or on the mirage- Glimmering Hungarian plain. At length we campaign in Gaul; I laid the trap when we crossed the Rhine, And sprung it by the Marne, and I cannot bear it. I seem contemptible to Sigurd but let him lie. Let them go! Oh, Oh, quietly. I promise. For two reasons, my lord: for if I have accomplished my brothers' destruction it will seem to all men that I love Sigurd dead more than you living. And also I shall kill myself. ATTILA  These are dreams from the wine-cup bottoms. You have drunk yourself mad. GUDRUN  Forgive me, Carling. . . . Hands off! RICIMER THE GOTH  Master. . . . For undoubtedly they are guests; and it seems a crooked occasion. Might it be well to wait judgment until the morning? Two messengers have come in. They are dressed for the field, capped 'with iron and stained 'with riding. The gaudily dressed trumpeter is with them, trying to prevent them. THE TRUMPETER  No, no, no, let me announce you. ONE OF THE MESSENGERS  It is haste. GUDRUN  Oh noble Ricimer! Pray to my master! The messengers stand beside Bishop Lupus and his companions. ATTILA  What. You're well splashed. You, Haiga? HAIGA  Master. They have made forced marches and have forded the Seine at five miles from Troyes. Your servants there are vigilant. ATTILA  It is time. HAIGA  I have ordered raids, we shall have a few captives for questioning. The horses are being brought in. ATTILA  This is not courage. These wretches rush on their fate like trembling culprits That pray the executioner to hurry the stroke. Dear hearts! it's ready. I shall so hug you, Theodoric, And you, Roman Aetius . . . (to Haiga) You will tell me the rest after we clear the hall. . . . Out, you unneeded. For the forest-men: take them and tie them up and set a guard: your business, Jukka. Except that pale boy: treat him with honor. Set a strong watch on their people. . . . For this old whitemuzzled sheep-dog . . . go pray, totter-knees. Give him a tent. Out with you. (As they go out) Close the curtains, we take counsel. V GUDRUN  (standing this side of the closing curtains; 'with Chrysothemis. Carling has left her, going Do you see him forget me, that pale bright thankless boy? Yet his blood's What washed my courage away and made me a merciful . . . piece for contempt. We are all four That bright foul blood. That foul bright . . . Am I insane or what? Look how Attila lights for action like a joy-fire, how Hoegni flamed up for it . . . (tearing at herself) Oh! Wet punk. You were born a Roman. CHRYSOTHEMIS  I? Yes, my lady, a Greek. GUDRUN  Men stole from your parents when you were ten years old. CHRYSOTHEMIS  Yes. GUDRUN  You were beaten without mercy, raped and starved and sold to a trader, and so began your pilgrimage. If your robbe? s were laid at your feet, what would you do? CHRYSOTHEMIS  Alas, my lady. Nothing. GUDRUN  How, nothing? CHRYSOTHEMIS  I would let them go. We were taught to forgive evil and love our enemies. But also I have known too much suffering ever to wish to inflict it, even on the wickedest . . . GUDRUN  (striking her) Coward. Slave. A slave by nature. (They go out. ) VI The scene is empty and darkened. Again and again horses are heard galloping from a sudden start: Attila's messengers to the four quarters of the field. The curtains are darkened out of sight, so that the person 'who comes in seems to walk abstract and aloney on a great plain at night. He sleeps the plain 'with a broom. THE SWEEPER I am sweeping the Catalaunian plain, Seine to Marne, Marne to Seine. Back and forth, south and north, For another battle this old earth. North and south, Blood of your sons will fill your mouth. West and east, Warrior's fall is worm's feast. East and west, Who can say but death's best? Here a track for the Hun stallions, Here a stand for Goth battalions, I must make all smooth and plain Along the Catalaunian plain. Here the legions, here for a king . . . To fall . . . here for a king . . . I forget the rhyme, I cannot help it. At every new era we have to learn a new set of verses, but damn this tinkle-tankle. God curse all rhymes I have to learn because of changing times. Fair, ah? I made it out of my head. Times change and we have to tag along, Learn a new song. I am the wind, I am the rain Over Chalons and along the plain, The tortured grass to grow again . . . Wi' poppies in it too. The stars shine weakly . . . Stop. What are you? (Two heroic shadows pass in the air. ) ONE OF THE SHADOWS Weep for the living, Brynhild, not for us dead. We cannot be betrayed nor betray ourselves; We have power, though unwilled; and only shadows of pain. (They fade and pass. ) THE SWEEPER  (shivering) Booh! I am the wind, I am the rain, Sweep the Catalaunian plain, The dead they flit, the living remain, Lives like grass and blood like water, The women will breed and it's no matter. (He goes out, sweeping. ) VII Starlight. A few distant red campfires. CARLING  (entering alone) What was that? . . . Nothing. But their guards never sleep. Gunnar and Hoegni are held in a pit under a wall, bound hand and foot, and I am not allowed to come near them. I will glide through the army and rouse our people. We'll show these brown men whether the western axe has an edge, whether Gunnar is a king or a servile Goth. We are few, but the many sleep. What does it say in the poem? Let only a few but resolute arise, The tyrannies of darkness are not invincible. The soul of man is greater than the winter giants. Ah sweet sword, Sea-eagle how you vibrate against my thigh. We never guessed that so soon . . . Ah? We are going to act A nobler poem than any sung one: if I shake it's with eagerness. That red torch Antares Stands high in the south of summer midnight and we shall hew out of here before dawn. Now. Quietly. (He goes out. ) VIII Interior of a tent, lighted by a small lamp. Darkness outside. Chrysothemis lies asleep in a corner of the tent. GUDRUN  A slave's dream, but a sweet one, That love is her law and God. She has slept on it, with a little breath of a Roman prayer, her hand Under her cheek. "Snow-girl," he called me, the pet-name, even in his hissing anger. And poor Gunnar's Pitiful bewildered kingliness. . . . Yes? Was not Sigurd Pitiable too? No, never, in his life or death. Betrayed, then? Betrayed and stabbed, cowardly and shamefully. I have given my life and lived with a loathed husband, made myself the Hun's flattering harlot, to avenge it. Lived in the filth of the camp, lain in the sweat of his bed, my cold white body accepting entrances It ought to have died not to endure. No wonder my mind's divided in two: how can I tell Which half's the real one? . . . It's because I've lost religion; travel and the Christians corrupt me. I see the armies Like worms crawling, and the Gods a cloudy growth of deception, and laws and justice only habitual Fear and imposed violence. I'll kill the half of my mind and not change again: how they'll laugh at me When safe at home. But Oh, the futile proceedings of life henceforward, its purpose gone, disgraced And beggared, sold for nothing, empty and vile. Empty and vile. Yes, but Lordly Sigurd is nothing either; Sigurd is ashes. What value in ashes? that desire nothing, And are not desired; no courage in ashes, no joy, no loveliness, no eyes, no song. Am I to have killed My brothers for the sake of a cup of ashes? . . . Yes, but if Sigurd and the wish to serve him die out of me, Then Sigurd is dead indeed. Oh . . . (staring) I am in such a hell of emptiness . . . I will not change. I have forgiven them. Wake up, will you. (shaking Chrysothemis by the shoulder) Up! CHRYSOTHEMIS  Ah, no, my lady, I am sure It can't be lost. I laid it in the cinnamon-wood casket With the other silver. GUDRUN  You must get up. CHRYSOTHEMIS  Yes, my lady. GUDRUN  They took my brothers to that cellar-hole Under the broken wall by the linden tree, near Blada's encampment. You'll bear them a message for me. Tell them I pledge my life for theirs and will see them safe. Tell them that, as you say so grandly, "Love has conquered. " I have the will and the power. . . . But after that. After that, woe to me harborless, Without direction or virtue. Well. Go. CHRYSOTHEMIS  How long I have prayed to die. Oh not at night, my lady, Through the fierce camp! GUDRUN  Poor doll, what do you fear, you were deflowered twenty years ago. No one will touch you, you are known for mine. And you are old, you are old. CHRYSOTHEMIS  (kneeling) I dare not. I cannot, though you kill me. They are horrible. GUDRUN  You are not wise, my dear. There is a worse wolf here than in the hundred thousand. I have tied up his jaws as well as I can, but speak softly. Chrysothemis goes, but stops outside the tent, in the light from the tent-flap, wringing her hands. GUDRUN  Assure them they're safe, and will soon be free. . . . Little Christ-God of hers: apparently you are the last of the Gods for Gudrun, who has sloughed them all. You'll never go far in the world: I wish you could. A few women, a few slaves; but the nature of things is a wolf and your throat in his. A woman and the Roman slaves. I was a little more than a woman, and not a slave, though put to it To do craftily, when I made the plan and brought it perfect. I have played the slave's part until it fits; Ah? Slaved myself to the Hun and sold away my body's and spirit's nobility for an exact Payment of nothing, what a bargain. I have been bewildered. This is the curse of having been childless; the unspent milk swims in my blood, Honor, action, fierce faithfulness cannot live in me; but female, female mercy, female compunctions, And be inferior forever. You! Chryso! CHRYSOTHEMIS  ('wringing her hands) I stand between death and death. GUDRUN  She's gone: I forgot. No matter. This other message is mine to carry, on my knife's point. She goes through the tent-flap and comes on Chrysothemis, 'who drops to her knees. GUDRUN  (coldly) Baby. Get up and follow. (Noise of horses galloping) Wait while the horsemen pass: Attila's messagebirds That fly all night when killing's in the air. He is filthy to touch or smell but a man of war. I Could respect him. Come . . . Ah? Thafs something. (Distant shoutings and anger in the darkness. Clash of arms, as of an enemy raid driven into the encampment. ) Have they pulled open the iron flower of battle Untimely under weak stars? Listen (A stampede of horses is heard. Men calling from all directions. The central anger seems moving distantly, from left to right) it's pretty. Shine, killers. What! Will your Christians Fight? It makes Tyr and Woden itch in my blood, all the unbelieved absurdities like thirsty fleas. Wonderful, to feel one's mind for a moment unfixed from misery. Baby, come. I want to see it. (draining Chrysothemis by the wrist) Come I say. Gudruris tent-sentinel has been standing motionless in the darkness. He comes into the light that shines from the tentdoor. SENTINEL  Regret, my lady, it is not fitting that our lord's lady . . . GUDRUN  Quiet, you. Guard my gear, (shuddering) What was that? SENTINEL  . . . wander through the night camp . . . My lady? GUDRUN  Blind I have been. I never thought of it, mixed in my misery. My own folk's death-shout. My own blood spilling Made me merry just now. I drove 'em to it: Carling has called their troop and I am the fool. SENTINEL  My lady . . . GUDRUN  Follow down then. (They go into the darkness. ) Men are heard roundabout, moving in the darkness, calling to each other. Which way? I said the bridle. Is it you, Katta? A VOICE  (farther bouck) Nothing: some riotous captives. They are being dealt with. A VOICE  Go back to your places and lie down. A VOICE  Help me turn the horses if you are mounted, Katta. This is no storm. IX A length of broken wall. There are many dead at the wall-foot. A campfire flickers to one side; toward the center, warriors of the Huns, and men with torches. Others are investigating the fallen. Blada enters. A HUNNISH CAPTAIN  My lord Blada! They brought it on themselves, we only quelled them. . . . The Chief will understand. BLADA  I hope so. You are responsible. You must understand that this was the clan of the Lady Gudrun. THE CAPTAIN  They started up suddenly and attacked. BLADA  Have you questioned your prisoners? And there are live men in the heap, I can hear them gasping. THE CAPTAIN  I have sent for a Prankish man who can gather their language. Here he comes I think. Merovech? Come here. A HUN SOLDIER  (lifting up Corling from among the slain) Here is one living, an arrow right through him. And still grips a broken sword-hilt. ANOTHER SOLDIER  Oh! That youth was their leader. BLADA  Question him, Frank. What were they attempting? MEROVECH  Were you their leader, young man? What is your name? CARLING  (painfully) A free . . . fool. Whoever you are, you had better be lying here . . . than serve the Hun. MEROVECH  Come, come, your name. CARLING  Nobler than yours. MEROVECH  (to Blada) I cannot do well with him: his mind wanders. ANOTHER SOLDIER  (turning over a wounded man) Ho! Here is one of the two that were bound in the cellar-pit, whom they set free. BLADA  (to Merovech) Try that one. Quick: he is going out. MEROVECH  (kneeling over the wounded) Were you a chief of theirs? Your name, your name. HOEGNI  (whispering) Go to hell. MEROVECH  I wish to be your friend. You have death in your belly. HOEGNI  (whispering) I will tell my name . . . to your master the Hun but not to you. MEROVECH  (to Blada) He says he will tell you his name, but not to me. Blada stoops close to hear him. Hoegni strikes a dagger into his skull and shouts: Hoegni! Do you like it? MEROVECH  God! THE CAPTAIN  Ah . . . rat . . . (driving the lance he carries through Hoegnfs body) MEROVECH  You need not have troubled: both dead already, both dead. THE CAPTAIN  Oh noble Blada. He can't have died thus: help me! MEROVECH  He can't have lived very well, the long blade in his brain and the hilt his horn. My God, a one-horn, a unicorn. THE CAPTAIN  Oh tent-pole of battles we shall miss you tomorrow. Oh star of the horses. . . . God, God, it's not possible. (To a soldier) Report this to Lord Timor . . . no, no, to Jukka first. Oh dreadful accident! Straighten his body, draw out the dagger. A SOLDIER  How the dead forest-man grins in his yellow axe of a beard. Gudrun comes, 'with her tent-sentinel and Chrysothemis. GUDRUN  I know what has happened. Are any living? THE CAPTAIN  The noble Blada! Murdered, murdered. MEROVECH  My lady! GUDRUN  (quietly) I see. I have come to ask about my brothers: have you killed them all? I bear the blame: but for pity . . . I am slack and patient you know, I can bear anything and smile at it, so answer me. Two of them were Captive, one a brave boy. (She sees Hoegnfs body) Oh. . . . It was cruel. . . . Is anyone alive? THE CAPTAIN  My lady: a dreadful accident. The noble Blada . . . GUDRUN  I see. Where's Ca . . . King Gunnar? Were any taken Alive? MEROVECH  I have come just now. There's a fair boy still breathing . . . If you look carefully You'll see twin flecks of light in the heap: he's down but his head's lifted: his eyes in the torchlight . . . strange, eh? . . . Fixed on us. CARLING  Gudrun: come here. But do not touch me for the pain . . . I never guessed: nobody speaks About the pain . . . GUDRUN  (moaning above him) Oh, Oh. CARLING  I roused our men, hoping to save my brothers. You and I between us Ha' done it, we've done it. . . . I dreamed of being a poet and a warrior and am a piece of skewered meat. The sword You gave me snapped, it was rotten with enamellings. I hate you, but not for that. Look along by the wall-foot, Gunnar like a dead lion. GUDRUN  Oh his mouth bleeds and fills: beasts! help me will you . . . CARLING  (painfully) Drown yourself, Gudrun. Save pain. GUDRUN  Die, dear . . . dear . . . dear . . . Quietly; like sleeping. Poor wet forehead. Oh, never? Oh how you shudder. Again? . . . Again? . . . The last, (rising) Now Blood-men be quiet. One beautiful and innocent, worth all your Horde And smoky victories, has died, (seeming to weep) Oh. Oh. . . I am false to the bones: I feel nothing: only weariness And sticky fingers. MEROVECH  My God! the Chief! A stir among the soldiers. Attila enters, with Jukka and others. ATTILA  Where? (seeing Blades body and Gudrun standing near, it) To your tent. A man has died. GUDRUN  Many have, my lord: from time to time. ATTILA  (to the captain) Are you of Blada's men? THE CAPTAIN  Oh, master. Timor's. ATTILA  (to a soldier) You? THE SOLDIER  Truly. ATTILA  Can you follow Bela-Nor as boldly? Your master would have led the encircling charge to-morrow, the hook that brings home the battle: he was my right hand and is cut off: Bela-Nor must lead it. You and your comrades will know that he is in Blada's place, it is Blada's soul in him. You will know. Your leader is not dead, his soul has gone into Bela- Nor. Do you hear, Blada's men? SOLDIER  Ay! Master. Bela-Nor! ATTILA  For these rioters: if any lives, kill, (to Gudruri) And you . . . T’ your tent! GUDRUN  Well, I bear the whole blame. I have managed neither justice nor mercy; slacked and let happen. I am one of those cowards that let go the bridle and brutal chance rule all. I ought to be whipped to death. But who's to do it, Attila? You? ATTILA  Are you mad? GUDRUN  No. Slacking again. Look, I pray you: this one's The best corpse of them all, his hand still bandaged from saving my precious life, his brave sword snapped. A lovely boy but not formed for war. He had beautiful music in his breast, and if he had lived might possibly . . . Ha' charmed cockroaches. And take care of my poor little slave-woman: be kind, be kind. I've lived wi' masterly killers, Taking instruction. (Her knife-blade winks in the torch-light. ) ATTILA  Catch her hand! GUDRUN  Do this to the Romans tomorrow. She has carefully placed the point on her breast, and drives it in convulsively with both hands, a gesture of straining embrace, and falls. The bystanders cry out. Chrysotbentis kneels by her. CHRYSOTHEMIS  Oh. Dearest - , , JUKKA,  (stooping by the body) Master. ATTILA  It is deep? JUKKA  To the bottom. It is finished. ATTILA  (furiously) Stand away from her then! . . Ah the white beast. What ailed her in God's name? She wanted her brothers killed . . . wanted, not wanted, gets what she wanted, And drinks a knife. It makes me mad, Jukka: I liked her well. CHRYSOTHEMIS  Dear Savior, care for her spirit. She was bewildered, and she was kind. She might have come to thee. ATTILA  All these long white women have devils. Pah-the eve of battle-the same spiteful hour My right-hand friend and my favorite too. A cursed omen. He stands, blackly brooding. Meanwhile a thin, fractional, insubstantial Gudrun disengages herself from the body of Gudrun and stands beside it, among the living but neither seen by them nor seeing them, and stares with wide empty eyes. ATTILA  (to Gudruris tent-sentinel') Why did you not catch her hand? Whose man are you? THE SOLDIER  (in terror) My lord my lord. I was not near enough. Timor's. ATTILA  He can spare you. (to the Captain) Have him bound: and bind the slave-woman. Bury them living in the Lady Gudrun's grave, not to lack attendance, CHRYSOTHEMIS  (moaning) Oh. Oh. (But neither she nor the soldier offers resistance. ) ATTILA  For high-born Blada whom I loved: bury him not until after the battle. There will be thousands of Goths for him, thousands of Romans. GUDRUN'S SHADOW  (with vague monotonous voice delirious after the shock of death) I know not moon nor stars, How low you lie, lynx. You must 'a' bled in the wars. Edgyth to whom he drinks, Or Fredegond: Me to womb he thinks . . . JUKKA  (to Attila) May I speak? . , . Shall we convey the bodies to their tents, master? ATTILA  Do it. Their tents? Yes, do it. JUKKA  I'll have beds brought to carry them. (To a soldier) You, Elvi. And you. You. From Blada's quarters: hide stretched on spears, or what you can find, but hastily. GUDRUN'S SHADOW  Tall sit the wolves around The lynx in the snow, Hanging their tongues beyond Their tails I know, (calling) Chrysothemis! (quietly) No, no. I know. In a row around the red pool In the snow, (calling) Sigurd? (quietly) Snow, no. ATTILA  (over Gudrurfs body) She looks less than tall now. Lying wantonly with what a craving mouth. I ought to have . . . what she asked for . . . whipped to death . . . GUDRUN'S SHADOW  (which has already moved to some distance from the body) Oh when my (mother's) maiden lynx Bled on the spear in the snow, (calling) Father? (quietly) No: snow. Folded close will my petals open When the tenth moon has broken Silence? (calling) Mother? (quietly) No snow either. I am in the whom alone. ATTILA  (touching with his fingers the face and throat of the body) I ought to 'a' killed you when you came riding that first time. You were damned from the first. Farewell, Harlot-gold hair. He withdraws from the body and turns his back on it, while men come in with stretchers. GUDRUN'S SHADOW  My darkness begins to crawl. . . . Lynx are you there? . . . I begin to remember a loathsome thing That the living call life. (She stands staring. ) ATTILA  (to Jukka) D' y' think it'll dawn clear? JUKKA Master? Oh, ay, I think so. There were low clouds but the moon outsoars them. I think we shall have perfect weather, my lord. ATTILA  We had better, (fiercely) Attend to that business: see it done with dignity. GUDRUN'S SHADOW  Am I to go down the darkness eternally Chewing such a filthy cud of memories between my eyelids? Poor youth-broken Carling whimpering In the dead men's haycock . . . and Hoegni the poison-white sidelong slayer . . . the plain careful fool Gunnar making a speech. Or a horrible beater of drums like Attila. Or myself, whored and treacherous Plotter too weak to see it through, (tearing at herself) Shadow cannot hurt shadow, No knife can save me. The bodies are being borne away, accompanied by torchbearers: and with Gudrun's, Chrysothemis and the tent-sentinel are led. Chrysothemis screams suddenly, and Attila turns. JUKKA  Stop that. Strike her mouth. She is silenced; the bodies are taken out. Attila shudders and draws his cloak to his face. THE CAPTAIN  (to Jukka, quietly) The Chief . . . look. JUKKA Oh master. If I dare: what is it . . . ATTILA (making a noise like anger) There was none like Gudrun . . . Blada. . . . Things are not right here, do you feel that? There is no tension in the air. Always before a battle we've lain Twitching in the stored womb of thunder, where the hair starts from the skin, men ha' snapped at each other Like famished hounds, horses neighed all night. Now: by God, listen. Not a fierce note in the camp. GUDRUN'S SHADOW  Ah, but My eagle. Conquering Sigurd, for whose dead sake . . . I suppose there is no meeting among the dead; But each in his lonely darkness, after the drunken insanity and sweat of life, remembers disgust. ATTILA  Nothing. Murmurs. Sleepy patience, walking horses, stinking omens. JUKKA  Master, we have Attila. ATTILA  Oh, ay, we'll cook them and eat them. Come. . . . Aetius and his Romans: Theodoric his West Goths and so forth: when I gather them in my mind, then they are under my hand. I am still Attila. (Attila and Jukka go out 'with their following. ) GUDRUN'S SHADOW  ('while soldiers heap the fire, and hold torches to strip the better-furnished of the slain) For my killed eagle. Love, the base instinct, the leader of captivities. How low you lie, lynx, I've sweated pleasure Under Attila's brown bag of a body when I thought of his power. Love? . . . I think my deformity Was only ambition: to fly at the highest. Therefore I valued Sigurd, famous for killing, but horrible Attila's ten thousand to him. Oh, vile Vile heroic flesh. Brynhild have him If any residue's to find, I know he hankered. Worthy of each other, both heroes, dog-wolf and bitch-wolf. But I will give myself to the earth-hating wind, in hope to be washed clean of the stains and scalding And that crime of being born; and praying to find the black honey of annihilation in some comb of darkness Back of the stars. At worst I shall find no deeper defilements nor no worse captivities. Fling me far, wind. (She goes out. ) X The Sweeper, as in VI, passes along the closed curtain, carrying his broom. He seems inhumanly remote and tall, in spite of the bonhomie of his mask. THE SWEEPER  A fair field, as they say, well swept. I’ve labored all night and seen the yellow lions of day Creep on the Argonne hills peering for prey. Plenty: they're breaking each other's bones already. Go it, Goth. Sick 'em, Hun. Now I can take a few hours off and back to work in the afternoon, for Hun brag and hound bay, This broom decides the day. Roman hold and Hun ride, My broom will decide. Strictly according to orders: I'll recite them for you. First: to blow Attila back to the Danube. Second: to clear the air of the cluttering ghosts of the slain. Third: to pat down the battle-corpses and gloss over everything. So much anger, so much toil, All to make soil. So much fury to feed grass Comes to pass. All the horror, all the pain . . . What's horror and pain? If I could understand the words I might remember the rhyme, (scratching his head) . . . Well, but Some day cabbages and vineyards Will spring out of the warriors' inwards. (He goes out, absent-mindedly sweeping. ) XI Gudrun, at first alone. The factors of the scene do not become visible until she perceives them. GUDRUN  Thin storm, no farther? The air hisses and fails, dying like a sick snake. Far down below me the meteors Spin green fire-threads; almost infinitely far down, the glaciers make faint light at the mountain-foot. The peak is hidden in that cloud of stars. . . . Ah, it's not here, What I was hoping. My knife was a fool and could only thread the meat of the breast, missed this unlucky Point it was sent to find . . . spirit, soul . . . me apparently . . . the dead body's lost dog, Howls in the silence. Will it starve at last? Or is it perhaps . . . Immortal? . . . that would be a sick thing. I thought this height had no human stain: but someone . . . The star-vapor Drifts off and clears him. Another of death's white lies I suppose. (A figure becomes visible, standing on a rock a little higher than Gudrun) Red stars in his hands and feet, a blood-comet Cut in his side. He is berserk-naked, young and gray-haired, one of the shieldless that burn young. He seems to be praying to the peak, as our childish priests used to pray to oak trees . . . and other handless Gods . . . (addressing the young man) And get the same answer. What are you praying for, annihilation? If you find it, tell me. THE YOUNG MAN  Did you believe in me once, that you rub salt in my wound? GUDRUN  What? No. If you are the Roman God that my slave described to me: how bleak your heaven is. THE YOUNG MAN  I was deceived; and love is a fire; I cannot end until my banked longing burns itself out. SINGERS  (coming tip from below, and going about the rock the young man stands on) . . . No angel flew To unwind us when the flesh died, No light no song for a guide, I cannot guess how we knew The way up to you. I died in childbirth crying to you. I died of old age in your faith. I of a crueller death. All my life was my flying to you. We on the spear and sword, Fighting for Christian Rome. The running pestilence, Lord. Open the enchanted home, Open the glory of God. Savior, I on the road Running to your wars. Open the joy, break back the stars. Because my faith Haughtily trampled on death. The wings, the victory, the shrill Song on the height. The violent blossoming, the life the light After the mortal strife. He will tell us the gate is open: be still. The star-gates. Endless life. THE YOUNG MAN  When I could not bear it . . . Betrayed children, I was deceived before I deceived you. I have stood here long And seen my betrayed come to my feet, and bitterly seen the soul more mortal than flesh, and found No blood to weep for it. When the earlier dead came crying to me, my first martyrs, from jails and gibbets, Who had endured all evil for my sake, led by my words to misery, my promises to death by torture: And even my own dear friends whom I had touched with my hands . . . when I could not bear it, I lied and said "Life is here. Wait but a little, my Father is preparing your places behind the stars. " They waited in hope, soon they were nothing. They faded and wasted and were gone away, but not into joy. I will not lie to you. You are dead; your lives are finished; there is nothing more. The spirit is a distant echo From the other mountain, dying in a moment. Or a blown fading smoke of burnt grass. My dream was a fool. My promises were a love-drunken madness. Alas that you are too weary shadows to cry out and curse me And drown my long self-torment in your seas of bitterness. If Judas for a single betrayal hanged himself, What for me, that betrayed the world? SINGERS  Our Saviour says Wait, for the star-gates move; While I gaze on his face, While I faint on his love. THE YOUNG MAN  You have not understood me. I would not deceive any soul Again forever. While I lived I saw my people beaten and deprived, therefore I imagined a world Beyond life, out of time, righteousness triumphing. I saw it so clearly, towers of light, domes of music, God's love the wings and the flame. But sometimes I thought my vision was only a symbol of much greater realities. Thus passionately I raised myself up to be mocked and pitied. . . . There is nothing good after death. As to God: I know not whether he is good. I know not whether he exists. I have stood and gazed at the star- Swarming cloud. . . . Out of huge delusion My truth is born. It has nothing to do with the dead; I loved the living and taught them to love each other. Even now on earth my love makes war upon death and misery, not like a sword, like a young seed, And not men's souls, but far down the terrible fertile future their children, changed and saved by love, May build the beauty of an earthly heaven on all our dead anguishes, and living inherit it. SINGERS  Do you hear? He says that we inherit Heaven on the instant and the roofs are tiled With the flame-wings, the high-singing angels, the rose-color wings, the wild Fire-color wings, the violet-fire feathers and spirit over spirit For tile over tile overlapping from the ridges downward . . . OTHER SINGERS  (hoarse voices; a heavier tune) The arrow is like air but the held spear enters. The pike is a pearl, pushes its path. Ha! says the sword, ham-strings the horses. The hooking halberd, the Hun from the saddle-ridge, Ha! says the halberd . . . (more quietly) the fear, the pain. The knees that sag while the blood runs out, the dizzy sickness, The choking struggle, the horror of death . . . GUDRUN  Another variety of dreamers. They pass like pulses from a cut artery. I saw Hoegni in the press Furiously stabbing imaginary princes; and Blada leading his lonely fancy of ten thousand horse, His private death-dream. OTHER SINGERS  Claw, green cat, Roll it home to Roua. Cat of the standard! You have felt the claws, Goth? The teeth excel them. (quietly) Oh, the terror. The darkness of wounds, the fallen riders, the red agonies. OTHER SINGERS  Wolves for your hunger horse-meat and Hunmeat. Weary not, West-wolves, worry to the bone. (quietly) The horror, the hidden cowardice, The stifling agonies. GUDRUN  What a wretched fisherman is death, That lets his catch lie kicking in the nets of delusion like living men. . . . A sudden silence has covered them. THE YOUNG MAN  The cloud that veiled it: Oh breaking, breaking. The stars like dust flee apart, perhaps for the face of God . . . The height clears. It is the great cliff under the mountain-peak, precipitous, with a shallow concavity and over-balance, like the face of a breaking wave. A vast form, in appearance youthful and human, beautiful and powerful, is bound against the rock, banging on heavy chains from the wrists, and bleeding from wounds. The figure resembles the Prometheus painted on the wall of the ruined house where Attila feasted; but this is more beautiful, and not a painting. THE YOUNG MAN  I hoped. I am finally betrayed and perfectly fooled to the end. It is only my dream of my own death Hanged on the sky. Blind stars, return. SINGERS  Oh stars return, Oh mind Remember the earth or be suddenly blind. I see the pride of an eagle nailed up alive. A leopard pierced with spears that transfix the stone. Enormous helpless shoulder-storms of an eagle nailed there: yet strive, wings, strive. Sharp strength come down, be free. Oh lonely virtue, Oh alone Beauty and power. Bright snake nailed on the stone. GUDRUN  Leopard, serpent, eagle? Wounded power? Oh, but lovelier. The hanged God that my childish blood loves. This is my barbarous blood from the north, from the sick swamps and the heavy forest, white fogs and frosts, My vicious blood . . . was it spilt? . . i my vicious love flies to him like sighing fire like the tides of the sea* I know not moon nor stars, how low you lie, lynx, I have come to my love, I have found him. Here is the dignity We adored in rocks and waters, the reticent self-contained self-watchful passion of the gray rock The greatness of high rivers going west; here is the comeliness I knew in heroes, the high beauty of the helmets, The praise of Sigurd; here is the pain in myself and all. Here is reality, All that my living eyes ever saw was phantom Shadows of this. Myself too: I was nothing but only a sigh toward him. For this I killed my brothers, For this I let Sigurd be killed: I never knew myself Before this moment: I know that I consented in Sigurd's death. Layer after layer I am stripped Of falsehood under falsehood and fear under fear, and know my naked center in the flame of reality, The sun of this beauty, the song of burning. To this I am willingly sacrificed, I have come to my love, I have found him, I have aped him and shared his life, like the white horses the Swedes hang up to Odin, from the porch lintels Of pillared Upsala. THE YOUNG MAN  He is not a phantom. The stubborn violent rays and strain of reality Glow from those tortured limbs, I know them, I have found what I was all my life seeking, and all my death, The power my life-delusion called Father, and never feared him and never . . . hated him . . . before this time. I wish the waters of Palestine had been white fire, devouring the flesh with the spirit before I sought to him. I wish my mother had been slain with a sword before she conceived me, or shame had killed her when the unknown seed Knocked at the womb. He is terribly beautiful. He is like a great flower of fire on a mountain in the night of victory, he is like a great star that fills all the night, He is like the music and harmony of all the stars if all their shining were harp-music. He has no righteousness, No mercy, no love. SINGERS  Peace, and the vast Expanse of the soaring storms, the peace of the eagle Forever circling Perfectly forever alone, no prey and no mate. What peace but pain? His eyes are put out, he has fountains of blood for eyes, He endures the anguish. But if he had eyes there is nothing for him to see But his own blood falling, He is all that exists. . . . GUDRUN  It is bitter in me That I fled out of life, while I see the beauty of power overcoming pain, and the earnest eyes. I think that Gunnar was born a fool, and now I know Carling. Hoegni had a glimmer of the beauty, he burned A little pure, if pure killer. And Brynhild beautifully did evil and died. Sigurd . . . a noise Flung up by fortune. I have come to my love, if only in a partial vision: his greater part No poet can know. THE YOUNG MAN  The fire on the mountain Lights all my depth: I see the ridiculous delusion that gave me power and the ways that led up to Golgotha, The delusion dies, the power survives it. I am not conquered. I set myself up against you, Oh merciless God not my father. On earth an old wave of time is fallen and a new one draws From the trough to tower higher: my spirit is the light in it, I am remembered, this age is mine. I have bought it with the stubborn faith of my people, and my own Insane idealism, the wine of my wounds, the tension of intolerable hope. Let me remembered Be a new spirit of mercy in the new age, a new equality between men, that each Unblinded behold the beauty of all others: thence happiness and peace . . . my longing chokes me. . . . When men are happy Let them cut the crosses out of the churches, no man remember me. GUDRUN  He is beautiful, this easterner, but like a child Desiring what men despise. Happiness? For all the living? How shamefacedly we should have to kill it As if it were evil. Hoegni'd run white and stabbing through the world, and well stabbed, Hoegni. I can't think why. SINGERS  (Scattered multitude, seen moving among the rocks at the Hanged God's feet, or like meteors across the sky at his knees) If once I could see the poplars again that ring the cistern Whiten their leaves I could bear to have died. They are fed with sun and the flashing water, from the high thunder-cloud Falls a stray wind To the mountain foot. What enemy has maimed you and nothing perfect? The cloud on the mountain is black, on the plain a small golden dust-cloud Where men race horses; The cool round cistern's Blue eye glitters, the pale poplars for eyelashes; dark Rises the mountain To the roaring cloud. Oh wounds of God, storm of stars, broken wings. At Cartagena on the broken sea-wall spikes of white grass Used to be shuddering, You saw blue water Through the spikes of dry grass, Oh why must I weep for those Pale rays wavering In sea-cloud wind? I would the enemy that wounded him had killed him. The Christinas fir-trees crack with burdens of snow, how low Low you lie, lynx, The torn throat's flow Is red but the wolves glitter with frost and snow, their spears Red in a row Around the red pool. He is beautiful, I fear his wounds are not mortal. Ah Sigurd that I was mourning Adonis the mistletoe lance, Hoegni nail hard The hero's hands To the eagle wings, make him more than a man, die for me Christ, Thammuz to death, Dermot go down. What boar's tusk opened God's flank; what enemy has bound his wrists, Nailed him on the eagle Wave of the mountain? Die, dear . . . dear . . . quietly like sleeping, Carling, drink sleep. Oh how you shudder. Again? Again? The cool black water Oh red lips of fever, burning harsh lips, Dear, die. Oh dreadful Agony of God can you never die? The mountain storm-cloud of stars, mounded and towering, multitude, thunder-cloud Dark with the blinding arrogance of light: what a black Lightning from that! I say have you learned from the Roman Christ to be meek and hang there, For love of humanity perhaps! Hanged like a beast's hide? Bound captive who looks like power, like the eagle of battles, when you shudder in the agony huge bands of strength Move in the arms to the groove of the breast as if you might conquer many but an enemy has conquered you. By craft then? Or like the young Jew For you loved your enemy perhaps! Why do you call him impure, there is no impurity in fire there's pain, Me Attila and Christ defiled in vain. The grave slow sunset bleeding at the end of enormous lands, Always to bleed, Never go down, I would I had worn my life with a little valor while I lived And the earnest beauty of things Was always reproaching me. O sola beatitude, Lonely bleeding star So high, so high Over the multitudes. I believe because it is unbelievable, there is my victory. What is that rushing in the air, That moaning on earth? Witches and Maries at the foot of the gallows And over the post and the peak and the superscription in the furiously pouring Rage of the stars Riding Valkyries. Come up Grimalkin my long-nosed sister. Is it you, Birdalow? Naked and greased Swim in the storm. I am old and have flapping breasts. Bind a birth-strangled man-child's February bud In the hollow between them. Oh hell's the horror. Hush! Hell's the horror. Shut your mouth, woman! Lord Satan wishes That hell hushes. Blood fire in the mouths of eternal furnaces, Oh Oh no hope no help no end, save me Christ. No. You must be sacrificed. I'll hang with my lord then, my beautiful honey-love Satan. Snow no. It's God. Satan was burnt. Ah! but to nothing. Gone, destroyed, nothing. Loathing? Snow, nothing. Oh lucky prince. Do you hear the storm of the wind rattling the gibbet Chains? The lynx has got out of chains, what reins Will now bridle him? The wind's idle hymn, The girls on black horses, the chaste Valkyries. And who is to lead us in that day? The gnomes of the chaste machines? Not they. What, the scared rich? Snow: the sword. Into the ditch. Man has no nobler lord. Now the age points to the pit, all our vocation Is to teach babes to jump. Oh sterile Process of Caesars, all the barren Caesars. Look at us, God, we are part of you: not defiled? not imbecile Children sold for the seventh Share in a toy, a motor or a music-box, push-button comforts, a paper world? I would the enemy that wounded you had killed you. I would the shores and the valleys were sheeted with fire and the mountain volcano's Vomit on the plains, when the feet were burnt off we should fall on our hands and fire Lap at the wrists and cut them and the faces fall in it. We are many, and strangely Powerful, knowing metals, knowing drugs, we have counted the stars, we have conquered the mastery of wings, and there's not one of us Worthy to live, pure enough, proud enough. So they say. What, they think life is great? I have had my day: Life is too little to love, too little to hate. Temperately share the house With beetle and louse. At the head of the beautiful glen The mountain is crowned with dawn and his purple shoulders . . . There are fox-gloves here, at the foot How the sea flames. The sun will come through it in a moment, Saying "I desire to die, let me die. I hate myself, I writhe from myself in fountains of fire And fall back frustrate, something escapes, wastes into light, waste is my want, I pour my body on the eyeless night And a few planets the rain Of golden pain, But knowing that annihilation's no promise, but on and on New flesh catches old bone . . . " INHUMAN VOICES  I am the whale's way. What, for their woes? I am the old Dragon of blue water. Rock and the snow, Aconcagua, Gosainthan, Kinchinjunga, all High-builded cloud-knives, Heads of the earth, here is our sky-head. Blazing I gaze, I am the sun, never to find Purpose nor worth: why do I shine? Why shall I die? I am the sun. Fire-swarm of wheeling vultures of light, torch-multitude Turning in the emptiness, Hungry for darkness, I am the galaxy. Darkness for all-heal? I am an old Out-lier, a cloud of Coal-black vultures, universe of slag, caught in the fork. I have eaten darkness. I am the shoreless Ocean of stars, crazy to shed My desire from me. I am power, Pushing so close against the fountain that I can hardly Distinguish myself from him; I am the doer, pale with desire, never to know What is my want, where is the end; stone-eyed and lightning- Handed and sleepless. VOICES  What horse will you ride, Katta? The crazy black. I was broken yesterday. Life was an idiot dreaming, death's his kept ape. Sir, we guessed that last August in Macedonia, The night we turned atheist by a dry-weed campfire Drinking bitterness and spitting vinegar. Hush it thunders. THE HANGED GOD  Pain and their endless cries. How they cry to me: but they are I: let them ask themselves. I am they, and there is nothing beside. I am alone and time passes, time also is in me, the long Beat of this unquiet heart, the quick drip of this blood, the whirl and returning waves of these stars, The course of this thought. My particles have companions and happy fulfilments, each star has stars to answer him and hungry night To take his shining, and turn it again and make it a star; each beast has food to find and his mating, And the hostile and helpful world; each atom has related atoms, and hungry emptiness around him to take His little shining cry and cry it back; but I am all, the emptiness and all, the shining and the night. All alone, I alone. If I were quiet and emptied myself of pain, breaking these bonds, Healing these wounds: without strain there is nothing. Without pressure, without conditions, without pain, Is peace; that's nothing, not-being; the pure night, the perfect freedom, the black crystal. I have chosen Being; therefore wounds, bonds, limits and pain; the crowded mind and the anguished nerves, experience and ecstasy. Whatever electron or atom or flesh or star or universe cries to me, Or endures in shut silence: it is my cry, my silence; I am the nerve, I am the agony, I am the endurance. I torture myself To discover myself; trying with a little or extreme experiment each nerve and fibril, all forms Of being, of life, of cold substance; all motions and netted complications of event, All poisons of desire, love, hatred, joy, partial peace, partial vision. Discovery is deep and endless, Each moment of being is new: therefore I still refrain my burning thirst from the crystal-black Water of an end. My lips crack with their longing for it, My wounds are fires, the white bones glitter in my iron-eaten wrists, blood slowly falls, blinding white bands Of fire flow through the strained shoulder-blades, so that I groan for an enemy to kill: there is none: I alone. Stars are condensed from cloud and flame as it were immortally, and faint and have ceased, and their slag finds After enormous ages the mother cloud; self-regenerating universes all but eternally Shine, tire, and die; new stars fling out new planets, strange growths appear on them, new-formed little lamps of flickering Flesh for the same flame. . . . On earth rise and fall the ages of man, going higher for a time; this age will give them Wings, their old dream, and unexampled extensions of mind; and slowly break itself bloodily; one later Will give them to visit their neighbor planets and colonize the evening star; their colonies die there; the waves Of human dominion dwindle down their long twilight; another nature of life will dominate the earth, Feathered birds, drawing in their turn the planetary Consciousness up to bright painful points, and accuse me of inflicting what I endure. These also pass, And new things are; and the shining pain. . . . Every discovery is a broken shield, a new knife of consciousness Whetted for its own hurt; pain rises like a red river: but also the heroic beauty of being, That all experience builds higher, the stones are the warring torches, towers on the flood. I have not chosen To endure eternally; I know not that I shall choose to cease; I have long strength and can bear much. I have also my peace; it is in this mountain. I am this mountain that I am hanged on, and I am the flesh That suffers on it, I am tortured against the summit of my own peace and hanged on the face of quietness. I am also the outer nothing and the wandering infinite night. These are my mercy and my goodness, these My peace. Without the pain, no knowledge of peace, nothing. Without the peace, No value in the pain. I have long strength. SINGERS  The long river Dreams in the sunset fire Shuddering and shining. All the drops of his blood are torches. I am one with him, I will share his being. Alas to me the deep wells of peace are a dearer water. GUDRUN  I will enter the cloud of stars, I will eat the whole serpent again. SINGERS  His beauty redeems his acts, it is good for God Not to be quiet, but for men not to live long. Forever if I could: his intelligencer Spying the wild loveliness. But after I have rested as it were a moment Against the deep wells, and then I am willing to eat the whole serpent again . . . The river down the long darkness Shining writhes like a fire, The stars return.