Families We Choose Lesbians Gays Kinship

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Families We Choose Lesbians Gays
Kinship

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 Families We Choose
Lesbians Gays Kinship

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.
 ACT II
Scene I: A prison chamber, dim, built of stone
On the right stands a high, framed tapestry, the design
partly worked; beside it, on a table, several harps and
instruments of music. On the left, extending centre,
the half-completed model of a structure resembling the
temple in Act I, Scene I; beside it, wooden blocks and
miniature beams; in front of it a stone tablet, upon
which Egil—stooped, with an instrument in his
hand—is laboriously carving runes. Behind him
stands Arfi, at times guiding the hand of his brother,
who is evidently being overcome by weariness, against
which he struggles for concentration. Finally Egil’s
head droops, his hand falls, and his body sinks prone.
At the door, Thordis enters.

THORDIS
Asleep?

ARFI
Quite, quite outworn.

THORDIS
The task is done?
The runes?

ARFI
He has mastered them.

THORDIS
[Sighs unconsciously.]
How swift he learns!

ARFI
Yes, hourly he hath grown through the strange months
Since Ingimund entrusted him to us
To dispossess the beast that plagues him.

THORDIS
 THORDIS
Look
Now where he lies and dreams.

ARFI
There lies a block
Of chaos, for our wills to fuse and kindle
Into a world, glowing with vital forms
Of law and loveliness. Yea, Thordis, we—
We are his being’s seasons, you and I;
The sun and moon, the starshine and the dew,
Of this stark heath and breeding moor of passion,
And the large jurisdiction of our love
Must ripen there the temperate growths of reason,
And stablish the mind’s palaces.

THORDIS
You speak
In sadness.

ARFI
Nay, in awe. The thought grows vast
And awful.

THORDIS
So? I do not feel it, I!
I feel as elemental as the air,
That holds secure within its crystal veins
As many thousand summers and their blooms
As the earth may yearn for.

ARFI
’Tis because you are
Bounteous as the air, that from your presence all
Take breath and power. Since you elected me
Beside the altar stone, even I, that was
A warped and ailing mannikin of woe,
Prickling with sensibilities and pangs,
Have felt myself exalted and at peace
With this poor twisted mask of torse and limb,
So simple it seems, so sane, so actual,
That what I am was your immortal friend
Elsewhere.

THORDIS
And have you felt the same? We two
Have walked eternal mountains hand in hand,
And watched the morning of our little lives
Break over our birth-hour, and we shall stand
Together at the sundown, and behold
The passion clouds of death grow pale.

ARFI
And then
We shall pass on together.

[In his sleep, Egil moans.]

THORDIS
We forget;
We must not leave him as we found him, love.

ARFI
The wolf torments him still in sleep.

THORDIS
Poor dreamer!
And have you told him yet we are to wed
To-morrow?

ARFI
No; I dreaded to rouse up
The old, jealous hate; for since my wound has healed,
He seems to have forgotten that old feud,
A dl k d thi k
And looks on you and me no more, methinks,
As keepers of his prison-house, but rather
As his accomplices, that smuggle in
Subtle devices for his liberation,
To comprehend the use of which he expends
All of his time and powers.

THORDIS
Accomplices:
It may be so; for he, that used to hang
With looks of fire upon my merest motion,
Will gaze beyond me now with eyes that gloat
Blank as a miser’s on some buried hoard.

ARFI
The gold he hoards is knowledge, and ’tis well,
For that preoccupation may assuage
The pain he else might feel, when he shall learn
Our joy to-morrow.

[Egil cries out again.]

THORDIS
Yearning heart! how deep
It labours still in pain! Let us take care
To acquaint him gently with our happiness.
We must divert him.—Why, what’s here?

ARFI
[Smiling.]
A temple;
We’re architects.

THORDIS
He helped you build it?

ARFI
I
 I
Am helping him.

THORDIS
But how shall this avail
To tame the wolf?

ARFI
His genius is destruction;
His breath and bondage—to annihilate;
And therefore Egil must be shown to build
And not destroy; of mean, chaotic things—
These blocks—to make admired harmony,
And shape, however rude, some tangible
Earnest of his constructive will.

THORDIS
I see;
Who would have thought of it but you? Not I!
[Egil moans.]
Hark!

EGIL
[Low, in his sleep.]
Freyja!

THORDIS
Did he call?

EGIL
Freyja!

THORDIS
That name!
You heard?

ARFI
The goddess Spring’s.
 e goddess Sp gs

THORDIS
You taught him, then,
To pray?

ARFI
Not I.

EGIL
[Starting to his feet.]
Freyja!

THORDIS
Can this be Egil?

EGIL
[Crouched, pacing to and fro.]
Free me, Freyja! Frore am I, frost-bit;
Go we together into greenwood glad!
Mirk under moon-mist mad will meet thee,
Hunt thee from hiding, thy heart-beats hear.

ARFI
It is the wolf that wakes, while Egil slumbers.

EGIL
[Looking, with closed eyes, as toward a height.]
Free me, Freyja! Fair art thou, froward;
Go we together into greenwood glad!
Burns thine eyebeam bright as the bitch-wolf’s;
Longeth Fenris in thy lair to lie.

THORDIS
What other name spake he?

ARFI
I could not hear.
 EGIL
[In sudden terror, seeking to fly.]
Ai! anarch! anarch! Ulfr!

THORDIS
Wake him.

ARFI
Wait;
What this reveals to us may prove of help
To him.

EGIL
[Defiantly.]
Oathless am I!

THORDIS
But see! he suffers.

EGIL
I—I am Allfather!
[Swaying with anguish, as under the blows of a scourge, he
sinks upon the floor, overwhelmed and quivering.]
Oathless—am—I—

THORDIS
Egil, awake! awake! ’Tis nothing.

EGIL
[Gradually waking, rises to his knees.]
Freyja!

THORDIS
No goddess I, poor Egil, but your friend
Thordis, the maiden.

EGIL
 She thou art—the same
Even now that saved me. [Starting.] What is that?

ARFI
Your brother.

EGIL
My brother he is tall and beautiful,
Happy and glorious, and I hate him for’t.

ARFI
Nay, you have hated me, but not for that.
Look on me, Egil.

EGIL
Arfi!

THORDIS
’Twas a dream.

EGIL
What’s that—a dream? Is it a mist that steals
Between the eyelids, filling them with shap
Begot of its own vapour,—shadows? lies?
If so, which shapes are dreams—your forms, or those,
Those even now that beheld me, where I crouched
Among the crater’s hoar crusts, numb with cold,
Yet writhing in the brassy flames, that eat
And crawled into my vitals? Mine? No, no!
That was not I, that nameless thing, not I!
Say “No.”

ARFI
It was the wolf. You fell asleep,
Wearied, and dreamed of him.

EGIL
If th t b l
 If that be sleep,
Then let me sleep no more. O friends, sweet friends,
You that have weaned and reared me from this thing,
Promise I nevermore may droop mine eyes
But you will prod them open.

THORDIS
You forget
How you have grown. Soon you will be once more—
But oh! how milder, mightier, than before—
Egil, the hunter.

EGIL
Till then, Egil the hunted!
O Thordis, could I meet—as many a time
I’ve met within the forest, face to face,
My quarry, and destroyed it—could I so
Confront this inward beast and grapple him
To the death-struggle,—ha! but with a dream!
A spectral wolf, that lurks ever in the dusk
And tangled thickets of my brain and will,
A wraith invulnerable, that makes his lair
In my bosom, that, when I would strike,
I lacerate myself, draw life—myself
The beast, the bait, the hunter and the hunted!

THORDIS
Nay, you are still the hunter, he the quarry,
Only to track him hath grown harder, for
He hath grown duskier as your mind hath dawned,
And can no more take shape, as he was wont,
In tangible horror to the eyes of all.
Yet we will track him—you and I.

EGIL
But how?
 THORDIS
With flaming torches we will set ablaze
His ancient wilderness, till through the gap
Of sundering boughs the quiet stars shall mock him,
Naked and overwhelmed.

EGIL
But where? What boughs?
What fire?

THORDIS
[Taking up, among the instruments, a reed-pipe.]
The way is wild; this pipe shall lead us.
Play, Arfi!

[Sitting beside the block temple, Arfi begins

to play upon the reed.]

EGIL
But this pipe—

THORDIS
Do you not hear
Her voice alluring us? It is a wood-sprite,
The elf-child Harmony.

EGIL
Where can she lead us?
This is a prison.

THORDIS
She can lead us forth
Into the beauteous world. Hark! even now—
Do you not see?—the walls are crumbling, bright
With ivy-dew and morning.—Don’t you hear?
The birds! the birds!—Now, Egil, now your hand!
Now on the dance with me! We’ll follow her
O t th h !
On—to the chase!

[Taking hands, they dance whilst Arfi blows the mellow

pipe. Eager, impetuous, Egil becomes kindled by the
sound and motion till, in the midst, dropping Thordis’s
hand, he gropes toward the wall.]

EGIL
The chase! the chase! the chase!
Ho, torches for the chase!

ARFI
[Stops playing, and rises.]
A metaphor
Transforms him.

EGIL
Torches!
[Stumbling against the blocks.]
What is this?

ARFI
Our temple;
We’ve left it uncompleted.

EGIL
This!—the chase!
To sit block-building like a little child?
To ask vague questions that await strange answers?
No! do not mock me! Summon the great hunt.
Hand me a torch into my gripping palm,
Point where to leap, and let the whirlwinds sing
And the great jungles crash in conflagration.
The wolf! reveal the wolf! that I may rend
The demon limb from limb.

ARFI
He rages blind
 He rages blind
Now in your eyes.

EGIL
[Controlling himself, shudders.]
Emancipate me!

ARFI
Come;
Here let us sit, as we were boys again,
And pile our blocks.

THORDIS
Go, Egil! Build with him.
The forest-sprite has led you to her temple.

[Going to the tapestry frame, while Egil joins Arfi, she

begins to work upon the embroidery, observing from
time to time their block-building.]

EGIL
A temple! Still they mock me.—’Tis a toy.

ARFI
Why, true, a toy, and yet a temple, if
The mind bring incense here, and the bow’d heart
Make sacrifice.

EGIL
We are not pigmies, we,
To creep under this gable.

ARFI
Are we not?
Are we so great? Who hath not stood beneath
A sparrow’s egg-shell, speckled o’er with stars,
And dwindled there with wonder? Who so small
But hath, to quench desire, drunk of the sun
 ut at , to que c des e, d u o t e su
Or set his parch’d lips to the moon’s pale rim?
So great, so small, neither and both, our stature
Waxes and wanes, inconstant as a shadow
’Twixt night and noon and night. This temple, lad,
Will be as cramped or spacious as the spirit
Which consecrates it.

EGIL
Dark! Thou speakest darkness.

ARFI
Listen! This house of toy-wood is the altar
Where you must supplicate the immortal gods
For freedom.

EGIL
So; the immortal gods! What, then,
Are they that I should sue to them for freedom?

ARFI
They are the powers of the inevitable
To whom we mortals must submit our wills
Or perish.

[Egil’s structure falls.]

EGIL
Ah! it breaks. What made it fall?

ARFI
A god: the same that holds these prison walls
Stone upon stone; the same that mortises
The rock-seams of the solid hills, and hangs
Aloft the glittering roof-tree of the world.—
You builded weak, and the god chided you.

EGIL
Are then the gods so near?

ARFI
In all our acts
We feel the might of their invisible hands,
But only in prayer behold them face to face.

EGIL
In prayer?

ARFI
The abnegation of our wills
For theirs, the affirmation of their laws,
Which to the god’s “Thou must” answers “I will.”

EGIL
And that is freedom?

ARFI
That alone is freedom.

EGIL
I will be free then, Arfi. Why, ’tis simpler
Than playing with these blocks. I will be free!
Teach me to pray.

ARFI
I cannot.

EGIL
Teach me, Thordis.
[She shakes her head and smiles.]
Alas! who will?

ARFI
Yourself alone.

EGIL
 G
But how?
How may I know when I have learned to pray?

ARFI
When, in the full sight of your goal of yearning,
Your spirit, pausing, cries out to the gods—
“This is my heart’s desire—take it—’tis yours!”
That instant of renunciation will
Be prayer and freedom both and the wolf’s passing-bell.
[Enter Wuldor; he goes to Arfi and speaks aside.]
Admit him.

WULDOR
But—

ARFI
Why not?

WULDOR
His looks are wild,
His words were bitter. When he spoke of thee,
He laughed and scowled.

ARFI
Say we will come to him.
[Exit Wuldor.]

THORDIS
[Whom Arfi approaches, with a warning gesture.]
Who is it?

ARFI
[Aside.]
Yorul; he has asked to speak
With Egil.

THORDIS
 Ought we to admit him?

ARFI
It is wise,
For so may Egil measure what he is
By what he was. Look; he has knelt to pray.
The time is fitting; we will leave him so.

THORDIS
[Leaving the tapestry.]
How noble he looks! Shall we not tell him now
About to-morrow?

ARFI
We will tell him all
When he has prayed.
[Exeunt.]

EGIL
[Solus.]
To pray—to pray is simple:
“This is my heart’s desire—take it—’tis yours!”
And so—emancipation. O you gods,
If through these prison walls you may behold
The mock rites of this childish temple, hear me!
Knowledge—knowledge, that is my heart’s desire.
That is the soul-inebriating cup
Which hath transformed me half unto your image
And still hath drugg’d the other brutish half
To lethargy and dreams. To know, to learn,
And evermore to learn! To watch new worlds
Kindling from out the dark of consciousness,
Fresh firmaments gathering from drop to drop
Of common morning dew; to be upborne
On the light-trailing wings of understanding
And scan far off the former crawling-place
And wolf-haunt of the spirit, to spread those wings
 d o au t o t e sp t, to sp ead t ose gs
At one’s own will and mount into the sun,
Searing the mind with ecstasy—you gods!
That is my heart’s desire: take it from me!
Take it, ’tis yours, for it hath come from you,
But when of that you have bereft me, leave
Freedom instead, and innocence.
[Enter Yorul.]
What’s there?
Speak.

YORUL
[As Egil starts up, bows himself at his feet.]
Thy betrayer.

EGIL
Oh, art thou a god?
And art thou come in answer to my prayer?

YORUL
Master—

EGIL
I know thy voice.

YORUL
[Turning upward his face.]
Destroy me.

EGIL
[Dreamily.]
Yorul!
Yorul, my liegeman!

YORUL
Once thou named me so;
Once and the world was sweet—once and ’twas
sweet.
 EGIL
Why have they sent thee, Yorul?

YORUL
Who, my lord?

EGIL
Thou art their messenger; be swift; declare
Their grace, or doom.—Shall I go free?

YORUL
Destroy me
With blows of steel, not of remorse. None sent me.
Myself hath driven me here, here to the cell
Wherein my treachery consigned my master.
Hear me!

EGIL
I hear thee, Yorul.

YORUL
Since that night,
That bitter sunset when she—since that night
Till now, I have not left the forest, nor
Spoken with friend or foe; but I have stopped
My heart in the deep silentness of trees
Till it hath burst for pain. My wrong and thine,
Thy wrong and mine—I dared to balance them,
To let my woe condone my treachery
And prove it justified, as if my heart
Were not itself thy vassal, and its pangs
Feudal to thy desires. And so I sinned
Until to-day.

EGIL
These are enigmas. Speak!
How have the gods made answer to my prayer?

YORUL
To-day I met with peasants in the wood
Who drove their herds of swine all garlanded
With green arbutus. Hailing me, they cried,
“Why come ye not with us to Odin’s stone
Against to-morrow’s wedding-day?” “Who weds?”
Quoth I. “Our priestess Thordis weds the dwarf;
Come with us!” Then I bit my arm and vowed
That I would come to thee and speak my shame,
And say, “Destroy me, lord, or let me serve thee.”

EGIL
Peasants they were; they said—what was’t they said?

YORUL
“To-morrow our priestess Thordis”—

EGIL
“Weds the dwarf!”
Those were thy words; thou shalt not change them now.

YORUL
I would not change them.

EGIL
Wouldst thou not? Well said!
“To-morrow the maiden Thordis”—nay, not so;
“To-morrow our priestess Thordis—weds the dwarf.”
And all their swine were garlanded.—Was it so?

YORUL
Even so, and I—

EGIL
Even so!
 YORUL
I vowed to come—

EGIL
[Laughing.]
Knowledge—knowledge—that was my heart’s desire!

YORUL
And make confession—

EGIL
Why, here have I sat
And licked the crumbs of knowledge from his hand
As I had been his beagle; and for what?
To grow! to be transmuted from a wolf
Into my brother’s ape! To evolve a mind
That knows at last the rapture it must lose.
Oh, noble!

YORUL
And make confession of my crime
As of my love.

EGIL
[Beginning to pace back and forth.]
Ha!

YORUL
For I loved her well,
More than I dreamed. Love leads us from the truth
And blinds us to ourselves.

EGIL
Ah!

YORUL
So when I
Beheld that deed—forgive me!

EGIL
Ah!

YORUL
I spake
Those traitor’s words that damned thee to this cell;
For I was mad. O God! the memory
Maddens me now.

EGIL
Ha!

YORUL
Look not on me so,
For I am weak and passionate. Take care!
The truth deserts me!—Nay, forgive me, master,
’Tis love is falsehood.

EGIL
Ah!

YORUL
I am thy liegeman,
And what was mine was thine to take, unquestioned.

EGIL
Ah!

YORUL
Yet my soul would question, and I claimed her
In spite of thee, for that same night—
[Draws nearer and whispers.]
I killed her.
Mine! She is mine! Thou canst not touch her now.
She lies out yonder with the virgin stars
Whit d i i l bl D d h i i
White and inviolable. Dead, she is mine
Whom, living, ’twas thy title not to spare.
Master, pity my triumph! Leave me yet
This foible of my arrogance, for which
Henceforth I am thy loyal slave, to do
Or die for thee.

EGIL
Wouldst serve me—ah?

YORUL
Say how!

EGIL
Seems thou canst kill.

YORUL
Speak but that word.

[They look long at each other.]

EGIL
’Tis spoken.
Go!—Stay!

YORUL
What more?

EGIL
Thine oath!—for sometimes, Yorul,
The resolute grow sick with afterthought,
And hot will cool—thine oath, to shun my sight,
To speak not nor be spoken with, until
’Tis done.

YORUL
[Raising his right arm.]
By Frida’s cold and virgin hand,
 y da s co d a d g a d,
To shun my master’s sight, to speak not, nor
Be spoken with, until ’tis done.

EGIL
’Tis sworn;
Go now.
[Yorul covers his face, and exit.]
To-morrow she shall wed—not him.
O dupe of lovers! Bond-slave to a dwarf!
O gods, your fool! your fool!

[Throwing himself down beside the temple of blocks, he

destroys it, insensate, and crouches, laughing, amid the ruins.]

Scene II
[The curtain rises presently upon the same: a taper burns
low. Thordis, seated with a harp, is playing; near
her Egil stands amid the block ruins. Ceasing to
play, Thordis rises, looks at Egil (who stands
oblivious), passes silently to the window and
looks out.]

THORDIS
The moon has set.

EGIL
[Stirs as from a trance.]
Can, then, the eternal cease?
That perfect architecture pale in air?
You built again my temple of sweet sounds
And peopled it with deathless visitants,
And shed around their forms a nameless grace
Medicinal as moonlight, and as calm.
I walked with them, and they discoursed with me.
Almost it seemed myself was one of them.—
And then you ceased.

THORDIS
’Tis beauty’s paradox
To prove itself immortal—and to die.

EGIL
Die? Must this godlike transmutation lapse
Into the lurking wolf again? Ah, no!
That music died in labour, and its yearning
Hath borne a man-child, that lives after it
Here in my soul. Henceforth I nevermore
May be that groping hypocrite of prayer
Whom you uplifted from this ruined altar,
With passion-sealèd eyes seeking the light
Of freedom. No, henceforth I shall be strong,
O eedo o, e ce o t s a be st o g,
Clear-eyed, serene, and dauntless. See! I take
Your hand and bid you go from me.—Thou only,
Thou art my heart’s desire. See! I renounce thee.
Go from me, for I love you. Leave me! Yet
You leave me not alone; that passionate presence
Which the blind wrath and hunger for possession
Cries out for from my clay—of that I am
Bereft indeed; but losing that, I gain
The stellar part of you, the exceeding light
Of fellowship and human sympathy.—
Leave me! I love you.

THORDIS
Is this Egil speaks?

EGIL
Egil, your lover, I!

THORDIS
The gods are mighty,
And music is the lordliest. O Egil,
Thou art emancipated, and to-morrow
They will fling wide thy prison doors.—Good night!
[Giving him the harp.]
Keep here thy god with thee.
[At the door, as they clasp hands.]
Brother!—Good night.
[Exit.]

EGIL
Sister!—Emancipated! Mine at last
Freedom and innocence! The occult beast
That crouched beside the sweet wells of my spirit
Is exorcised at last.—To-morrow dawn
I shall go forth and taste the wild, spring air,
And gather the hamlet children in the woods
To pluck arbutus for her wedding day
To pluck arbutus for her wedding-day,
Her wedding-day—and his. I have renounced her.
Emancipated—but I have renounced her
Even for that, for freedom. What were freedom
Without—his! his! forever his own! And I
Am happy, rapt, triumphant? His! What power
Hath wrought in me this ignominy?
[Lifting the harp.]
Thou!
Wast thou, imperious instrument! Wast thou,
Delirious god!
[Fiercely he plucks out several strings.]
Thou hast decoyed me!
[Pausing.]
Still,
There’s Yorul; Yorul’s true.
[Wrenching with both hands the harp’s frame, he breaks it
in halves, and exultant, raises them above his head,
with a great breath.]
Emancipated!
 ACT III
Scene: A forest glade