Chapter 2

It has been seen that during the fifteen years which made Bjoernson in so peculiar a sense the spokesman of his race, he wrote no less than five saga dramas. The first two of these works, "Between the Battles" and "Halte-Hulda," are rather slight performances, and the third, "King Sverre," although a more extended work, is not particularly noteworthy. The grimness of the Viking life is softened by romantic coloring, and the poet has not freed himself from the influence of Oehlenschlaeger. But in "Sigurd Slembe" he found a subject entirely worthy of his genius, and produced one of the noblest masterpieces of all modern literature. This largely planned and magnificently executed dramatic trilogy was written in Munich, and published in 1862. The material is found in the "Heimskringla," but the author has used the prerogative of the artist to simplify the historical outline thus offered into a superb imaginative creation, rich in human interest, and powerful in dramatic presentation. The story is concerned with the efforts of Sigurd, nicknamed "Slembe," to obtain the succession to the throne of Norway during the first half of the twelfth century. He was a son of King Magnus Barfod, and, although of illegitimate birth, might legally make this claim. The secret of his birth has been kept from him until he has come to manhood, and the revelation of this secret by his mother is made in the first section of the trilogy, which is a single act, written in blank verse. Recognizing the futility of urging his birthright at this time, he starts off to win fame as a crusader, the sort of fame that haloed Sigurd Jorsalfar, then king of Norway. The remainder of the work is in prose, and was, in fact, written before this poetical prologue. The second section, in three acts, deals with an episode in the Orkneys, five years later. Sigurd has not even then journeyed to the Holy Land, but he has wandered elsewhere afar, thwarted ambition and the sense of injustice ever gnawing at his heart. He becomes entangled in a feudal quarrel concerning the rule of the islands. Both parties seek to use him for their purposes, but in the end, although leadership is in his grasp, he tears himself away, appalled by the revelation of crime and treachery in his surroundings. In this section of the work we have the subtly conceived and Hamlet-like figure of Earl Harald, in whose interest Frakark, a Norse Lady Macbeth, plots the murder of Earl Paul, only to bring upon Harald himself the terrible death that she has planned for his brother. Here, also, we have the gracious maiden figure of Audhild, perhaps the loveliest of all Bjoernson's delineations of womanhood, a figure worthy to be ranked with the heroines of Shakespeare and Goethe, who remains sweet and fragrant in our memory forever after. With the mutual love of Sigurd and Audhild comes the one hour of sunshine in both their lives, but the love is destined to end in a noble renunciation and to leave only a hallowed memory in token of its brief existence.

Ten more years as a crusader and a wanderer over the face of the earth pass by before we meet with Sigurd again in the third section of the trilogy. But his resolution is taken. He has returned to his native land, and will claim his own. The land is now ruled by Harald Gille, who is, like Sigurd Slembe, an illegitimate son of Magnus Barfod, and who, during the last senile years of Sigurd Jorsalfar's life, had won the recognition that Sigurd Slembe might have won had he not missed the chance, and been acknowledged as the king's brother. When the king died, he left a son named Magnus, who should have been his successor, but whom Harald Gille seized, blinded, and imprisoned that he might himself occupy the throne. The five acts of this third section of the trilogy cover the last two years of Sigurd Slembe's life, years during which he seeks to gain his end, first by conciliation, and afterwards, maddened by the base treachery of the king and his followers, by assassination and violence. He has become a hard man, but, however wild his schemes of revenge, and however desperate his measures, he retains our sympathy to the end because we feel that circumstances have made him the ravager of his country, and that his underlying motive all along has not been a merely personal ambition, but an immense longing to serve his people, and to rule them with justice and wisdom. The final scene of all has a strange and solemn beauty. It is on the eve of the battle in which Sigurd is to be captured and put to death by his enemies. The actual manner of his death was too horrible even for the purposes of tragedy; and the poet has chosen the better part in ending the play with a foreshadowing of the outcome. Sigurd has made his last stand, his Danish allies have deserted him, and he well knows what will be the next day's issue. And here we have one of the noblest illustrations in all literature of that _Versoehnung_ which is the last word of tragic art. For in this supreme hour the peace of mind which he has sought for so many years comes to him when least expected, and all the tempests of life are stilled. That reconciliation which the hour of approaching death brings to men whose lives have been set at tragic pitch, has come to him also; he now sees that this was the inevitable end, and the recognition of the fitness with which events have shaped themselves brings with it an exaltation of soul in which life is seen revealed in its true aspect. No longer veiled in the mists which have hitherto hidden it from his passionate gaze, he takes note of what it really is, and casts it from him. In this hour of passionless contemplation such a renunciation is not a thing torn from the reluctant soul, but the clear solution, so long sought, of the problem so long blindly attempted. That which his passion enslaved self has so struggled to avert, his higher self, at last set free, calmly and gladly accepts.

"What miracle is this? for in the hour I prayed, the prayer was granted! Peace, perfect peace! Then I will go to-morrow to my last battle as to the altar; peace shall at last be mine for all my longings.

"How this autumn evening brings reconciliation to my soul! Sun and wave and shore and sea flow all together, as in the thought of God all others; never yet has it seemed so fair to me. But it is not mine to rule over this lovely land. How greatly I have done it ill! But how has it all so come to pass? for in my wanderings I saw thy mountains in every sky, I yearned for home as a child longs for Christmas, yet I came no sooner, and when at last I came, I gave thee wound upon wound.

"But now, in contemplative mood, thou gazest upon me, and givest me at parting this fairest autumn night of thine; I will ascend yonder rock and take a long farewell."

The action of "Sigurd Slembe," is interspersed with several lyrics, the most striking of which is herd translated in exact reproduction of the original form:

"Sin and Death, at break of day, Day, day, Spoke together with bated breath; 'Marry thee, sister, that I may stay, Stay, stay, In thy house,' quoth Death. "Death laughed aloud when Sin was wed, Wed, wed, And danced on the bridal day: But bore that night from the bridal bed, Bed, bed, The groom in a shroud away. "Death came to her sister at break of day, Day, day, And Sin drew a weary breath; 'He whom thou lovest is mine for aye, Aye, aye, Mine he is,' quoth Death."

One more saga drama was to be written by Bjoernson, but "Sigurd Slembe" remains his greatest achievement in this field of activity. Its single successor, "Sigurd Jorsalfar," was not published until ten years later, and may not be compared with it for either strength or poetic inspiration. The author called it a "folkplay," and announced the intention, which was never fulfilled, of making several similar experiments with scenes from the sagas, "which should appeal to every eye and every stage of culture, to each in its own way, and at the performance of which all, for the time being, would experience the joy of fellow feeling." The experiment proves interesting, and is carried out without didacticism or straining after sensational effects; the play is vigorous and well planned, but for the reader it has little of the dramatic impressiveness of its predecessor, although as an acting drama it is better fitted for the requirements of the stage.

The two volumes which contain the greater part of Bjoernson's poetry not dramatic in form were both published in 1870. One of them was the collection of his "Poems and Songs," the other was the epic cycle, "Arnljot Gelline," the only long poem that he has written. The volume of lyrics includes many pieces of imperfect quality and slight value,--personal tributes and occasional productions,--but it includes also those national songs that every Norwegian knows by heart, that are sung upon all national occasions by the author's friends and foes alike, and that have made him the greatest of Norway's lyric poets. No translation can ever quite reproduce their cadence or their feeling; they illustrate the one aspect of Bjoernson's many-sided genius that must be taken on trust by those who cannot read his language. A friend once asked him upon what occasion he had felt most fully the joy of being a poet. His reply was as follows:--

"It was when a party from the Right in Christiania came to my house and smashed all my windows. For when they had finished their assault, and were starting home again, they felt that they had to sing something, and so they began to sing, 'Yes, we love this land of ours'--they couldn't help it. They had to sing the song of the man they had attacked."

Into this collection were gathered the lyrics scattered through the peasant tales and the saga dramas, thus making it completely representative of his quality as a singer. A revised and somewhat extended edition of this volume was published about ten years later. Bjoernson has had the rare fortune of having his lyrics set to music by three composers--Nordraak, Kjerulf, and Grieg--as intensely national in spirit as himself, and no festal occasion among Norwegians is celebrated without singing the national hymn, "Yes, We Love This Land of Ours," or the noble choral setting of "Olaf Trygvason." The best folk-singer is he who stands in the whirling round of life, says the poet, and he reveals the very secret of his power when he tells us that life was ever more to him than song, and that existence, where it was worth while, in the thick of the human fray, always had for him a deeper meaning than anything he had written. The longest poem in Bjoernson's collection is called "Bergliot," and is a dramatic monologue in which the foul slaying of her husband Ejnar Tambarskelve and their son Ejndride is mourned by the bereaved wife and mother. The story is from the saga of Harald Haardraada, and is treated with the deepest tragic impressiveness.

"Odin in Valhal I dare not seek For him I forsook in my childhood. And the new God in Gimle? He took all that I had! Revenge:--Who says revenge?-- Can revenge awaken my dead Or shelter me from the cold? Has it comfort for a widow's home Or for a childless mother? Away with your revenge: Let be! Lay him on the litter, him and the son. Come, we will follow them home. The new God in Gimle, the terrible, who took all, Let him also take revenge, for he understands it! Drive slowly: Thus drove Ejnar ever; --Soon enough shall we reach home."

It was also to the "Heimskringla" that Bjoernson turned for the subject of his epic cycle, "Arnljot Gelline." Here we read in various rhythms of Arnljot the outlaw, how the hands of all men are against him; how he offers to stay his wrath and end the blood feud if the fair Ingigerd, Trand's daughter, may be bestowed upon him; how, being refused, he sets fire to Trand's house and bears Ingigerd away captive; how her tears prevail upon him to release her, and how she seeks refuge in a southern cloister; how Arnljot wanders restless over sea and land until he comes to King Olaf, on the eve of the great battle, receives the Christian faith, fights fiercely in the vanguard against the hosts of the heathen, and, smiling, falls with his king on the field of Stiklestad. One song from this cycle, "The Cloister in the South" is here reproduced in an exact copy of the original metre, in the hope that even this imperfect representation of the poem may be better than none at all.

"Who would enter so late the cloister in?" "A maid forlorn from the land of snow." "What sorrow is thine, and what thy sin?" "The deepest sorrow the heart can know. I have nothing done Yet must still endeavor, Though my strength be none, To wander ever. Let me in, to seek for my pain surcease, I can find no peace."

"From what far-off land hast thou taken flight?" "From the land of the North, a weary way." "What stayed thy feet at our gate this night?" "The chant of the nuns, for I heard them pray, And the song gave peace To my soul, and blessed me; It offered release From the grief that oppressed me. Let me in, so if peace to give be thine, I may make it mine."

"Name me the grief that thy life hath crossed." "Rest may I never, never know." "Thy father, thy lover, thou hast then lost?" "I lost them both at a single blow, And all I held dear In my deepest affection; Aye, all that was near To my heart's recollection. Let me in, I am failing, I beg, I implore, I can bear no more."

"How was it that thou thy father lost?" "He was slain, and I saw the deed." "How was it that thou thy lover lost?" "My father he slew, and I saw the deed. I wept so bitterly When he roughly would woo me, He at last set me free, And forbore to pursue me. Let me in, for the horror my soul doth fill. That I love him still."

_Chorus of nuns within the Church._

"Come child, come bride, To God's own side, From grief find rest On Jesus' breast. Rest thy burden of sorrow. On Horeb's height; Like the lark, with to-morrow Shall thy soul take flight.

Here stilled is all yearning, No passion returning; No terror come near thee When the Saviour can hear thee. For He, if in need be Thy storm-beaten soul, Though it bruised as a reed be, Shall raise it up whole."

Despite the power and beauty of an occasional manifestation of his genius during the late sixties and early seventies, the poetic impulse that had made Bjoernson the most famous of Norwegian authors seemed, toward the close of the fifteen-year period just now under review, to be well nigh exhausted. Even among those who had followed his career most closely there were few who could anticipate the splendid new outburst of activity for which he was preparing. These years seemed to be a dead time, not only in Bjoernson's life, but also in the general intellectual life of the Scandinavian countries. Dr. Brandes thus describes the feelings of a thoughtful observer during that period of stagnation. "In the North one had the feeling of being shut off from the intellectual life of the time. We were sitting with closed doors, a few brains struggling fruitlessly with the problem of how to get them opened... With whole schools of foreign literature the cultivated Dane had almost no acquaintance; and when, finally, as a consequence of political animosity, intellectual intercourse with Germany was broken off, the main channel was closed through which the intellectual developments of the day had been communicated to Norway as well as Denmark. French influence was dreaded as immoral, and there was but little understanding of either the English language or spirit." But an intellectual renaissance was at hand, an intellectual reawakening with a cosmopolitan outlook, and, Bjoernson was destined to become its leader, much as he had been the leader of the national movement of an earlier decade. During these years of seeming inactivity, comparatively speaking, he had read and thought much, and the new thought of the age had fecundated his mind. Historical and religious criticism, educational and social problems, had taken possession of his thought, and the philosophy of evolution had transformed the whole tenor of his ideas, shaping them to, deeper issues and more practical purposes than had hitherto engaged them. He had read widely and variously in Darwin, Spencer, Mill, Mueller, and Taine; he had, in short, scaled the "lofty mountains" that had so hemmed in his early view, and made his way into the intellectual kingdoms of the modern world that lay beyond. The _Weltgeist_ had appealed to him with its irresistible behest, just as it appealed at about the same time to Ibsen and Tolstoy and Ruskin, and had made him a man of new interests and ideals.

One might have found foreshadowings of this transformation in certain of his earlier works,--in "The Newly Married Couple," for example, with its delicate analysis, of a common domestic relation, or in "The Fisher Maiden," with its touch of modernity,--but from these suggestions one could hardly have prophesied the enthusiasm and the genial force with which Bjoernson was to project his personality into the controversial arena of modern life. The series of works which have come from his pen during the past thirty-five years have dealt with most of the graver problems which concern society as a whole,--politics, religion, education, the status of women, the license of the press, the demand of the socialist for a reconstruction of the old order. They have also dealt with many of the delicate questions of individual ethics,--the relations of husband and wife, of parent and child, the responsibility of the merchant to his creditors and of the employer to his dependants, the double standard of morality for men and women, and the duty devolving upon both to transmit a vigorous strain to their offspring. These are some of the themes that have engaged the novelist and dramatist; they have also engaged the public speaker and lay preacher of enlightenment, as well as themes of a more strictly political character, such as the separation of Norway from the Dual Monarchy, the renewal of the ancient bond between Norway and Iceland, the free development of parliamentary government, the cause of Pangermanism, and the furtherance of peace between the nations. An extensive programme, surely, even in this summary enumeration of its more salient features, but one to which his capacity has not proved unequal, and which he has carried out by the force of his immense energy and superabundant vitality. The burden of all this tendencious matter has caused his art to suffer at times, no doubt, but his inspiration has retained throughout much of the marvellous freshness of the earlier years, and the genius of the poet still flashes upon us from a prosaic environment, sometimes in a lovely lyric, more frequently, however, in the turn of a phrase or the psychological envisagement of some supreme moment in the action of the story or the drama.

The great transformation in Bjoernson's literary manner and choice of subjects was marked by his sending home from abroad, in the season of 1874-75, two plays, "The Editor" and "A Bankruptcy." It was two years later that Ibsen sent home from abroad "The Pillars of Society," which marked a similar turning point in his artistic career. It is a curious coincidence that the plays of modern life produced during this second period by these two men are the same in number, an even dozen in each case. Besides the two above named, these modern plays of Bjoernson are, with their dates, the following: "The King" (1877), "Leonarda" (1879), "The New System" (1879), "A Glove" (1883), "Beyond the Strength I." (1883), "Geography and Love" (1885), "Beyond the Strength II." (1895), "Paul Lange and Tora Parsberg" (1898), "Laboremus" (1901), and "At Storhove" (1902). Since the cessation of Ibsen's activity, Bjoernson has outrun him in the race, adding "Daglannet" (1904), and "When the New Wine Blooms" (1909) to the list above given. Besides these fourteen plays, however, he has published seven important volumes of prose fiction during the last thirty-five years. The titles and dates are as follows: "Magnhild" (1877), "Captain Mansana" (1879), "Dust" (1882), "Flags Are Flying in City and Harbor" (1884), "In God's Ways," (1889), "New Tales" (1894), (of which collection "Absalom's Hair" is the longest and most important), and "Mary" (1906). The achievement represented by this list is all the more extraordinary when we consider the fact that for the greater part of the thirty-five years which these plays and novels cover, their author has been, both as a public speaker and as a writer for the periodical press, an active participant in the political and social life of his country.

Most of these books must be dismissed with a few words in order that our remaining space may be given to the four or five that are of the greatest power and significance. "The Editor," the first of the modern plays, offers a fierce satire upon modern journalism, its dishonesty, its corrupt and malicious power, its personal and partisan prejudice. The character of the editor in this play was unmistakeably drawn, in its leading characteristics, from the figure of a well known conservative journalist in Christiania, although Bjoernson vigorously maintained that the protraiture was typical rather than personal.

"In various other countries than my own, I have observed the type of journalist who is here depicted. It is characterized by acting upon a basis of sheer egotism, passionate and boundless, and by terrorism in such fashion that it frightens honest people away from every liberal movement, and visits upon the individual an unscrupulous persecution."

This play was not particularly successful upon the stage, but the book was widely read, and occasioned much excited personal controversy. "A Bankruptcy," on the other hand, proved a brilliant stage success. Its matter was less contentious, and its technical execution was effective and brilliant. It was not in vain that Bjoernson had at different times been the director of three theatres. This play has for its theme the ethics of business life, and more especially the question of the extent to which a man whose finances are embarrassed is justified in continued speculation for the ultimate protection of himself and his creditors. Despite its treatment of this serious problem, the play is lighter and more genial in vein than the author's plays are wont to be, and the element of humor is unusually conspicuous. Jaeger remarks that "A Bankruptcy" did two new things for Norwegian dramatic literature. It made money affairs a legitimate subject for literary treatment, and it raised the curtain upon the Norwegian home. "It was with 'A Bankruptcy' that the home made its first appearance upon the stage, the home with its joys and sorrows, with its conflicts and its tenderness."