SRI AUROBINDO
Collected Plays and Short Stories
Part One
Eric
Swegn
Hardicnut
Ragnar
Gunthar
Harald
Aslaug
Hertha
Eric's Palace in his town of Yara. The Mountains, Swegn's Fastness.
Eric's palace.
Eric, Aslaug, Hertha, Harold, Gunthar.
Eric of Norway, first whom these cold fiords,
Deep havens of disunion, from their jagged
And fissured crevices at last obey,
The monarch of a thousand Vikings! Yes,
But only by the swiftness of his sword
That monarchy's assured,1 headlong, athirst,
My iron hound pursues its panting prey.2
And when the sword is broken? or when death
Proves swifter? All this realm with labour built,
Dissolving like a transitory cloud,
Becomes the thing it was, cleft, parcelled out
By discord. I have found the way to join, —
The warrior's sword, builder of unity;
But where's the way to solder? where? O Thor
And Odin, masters of the northern world,
Wisdom and force I have; one3 strength's behind
I have not; I would search4 it out. Help me,
Whatever Power thou art that mov'st the world,
To Eric unrevealed. Some sign I ask.
Hearts to combine.
Sleeps in the grave of its lord;
Love is divine. 
Hearts to combine.
Is that your answer? Freya, Mother of Heaven,
Thou wast forgotten. The heart! the seat is there;
For unity is substance of the heart
And not a chain that binds, not iron, gold
Nor any helpless thought that5 reason knows.
How shall I seize it? where? Give me a net
By which the fugitive can be snared. It is
Too unsubstantial for my iron mind.
Then Love is born;
Nor golden gifts compel,
Nor even beauty's spell
Escapes his scorn.
Then Love is born.
Two dancing girls from Gothberg. Shall they come?
Admit them.
From light lips and casual thoughts
The gods speak best, as if by chance, nor knows
The speaker that he is an instrument 
But thinks his mind the mover of his words.
Harald returns with Aslaug and Hertha.
King Eric, these are they who sang.
Women,
Who are you? or what god directed you?
The god that rules all men, Necessity.
'Twas thou that sang'st!
My lips at least were used.
Thou sayest. Dost thou know by whom?6
By Fate.
For she alone is prompter on our stage,
Things seen and unforeseen move by a doom,7
Not freely. Eric's sword and Aslaug's song,
Music and thunder are but petty chords
Of one majestic harp. She builds, she breaks,
She thrones, she slays, as needed for her harmony.8
I think the soul is master.
Who art thou?
Expelled from Gothberg with displeasure fierce,
Norwegians by the wrathful Swede constrained
To Norway we return.
Why went you forth?
From a bleak country rich by spoil alone
Of kinder populations, far too wild,
Too rough to love the sweetness of a song,
The rhythm of a dance, by need coerced
We passed to an entire and cultured race
Whose hearts, come apt and liberal from the Gods,
Are steel to steel but flowers to a flower.
And wherefore war they upon women now?
By thy aggressions moved.
A nobler choice
Of vengeance I will give them, though more hard!
Gunthar, thou comest from the front?9 What news?
Swegn, Earl of Trondhjem, lifts his outlawed head.
By desperate churls and broken nobles joined
He moves towards the Swede.
Let Sigurd's force
From Sweden and his lairs cut off the rude10
Revolted lord. He only now resists,
Champion of discord, ruthless, fell and fierce11
This partisan and pattern of the past.
Such men are better with the Gods than here
To trouble earth. Let him not live, if taken.12
Not live?13
Will you be silent?14
Blame my heart;15
For16 it remembered too17 unseasonably
That Olaf Thorleikson ruled Norway once,18
Swegn was his heir.19
Will you remain with me,
Forgetting Gothberg and your golden20 gains?
Since I have been the fount of your distress,21
Make me the source of your great plenty too.22
A kingly23 bounty shall atone for much.
Nobler atonement's asked for.24
It is yours.
Harald, make room for them within my house.
Go, Gunthar, we will soon converse; now rest.25
Love! If it were this girl with antelope eyes
And the high head so proudly lifted up
Upon a neck as white as any swan's!
But how to sway men's hearts, rugged and hard
As Norway's mountains, as her glaciers cold
To all but interest and power and pride?
Perhaps this stag-eyed woman comes for that, —
Hertha, Aslaug.
Hertha, we dance before the man tonight.
Because I do not choose26
Merely to wound and then be stayed.27
To near,
To strike, while all posterity applauds.
For Norway's poets to the end of time
Shall sing in praises noble as the theme
Of Aslaug's dance and Aslaug's dagger.
Yes,
If we succeed; but who will sing the praise
Of foiled assassins? Shall we28 risk defeat?
Shall29 Swegn of Norway roam until the end
The desperate snows and forest30 silences,
Outlawed, proscribed, pursued?31
Never32 defeat!
The man we come to slay —
A mighty man!
He has the face and figure of a god, —
A marble emperor with brilliant eyes.
How came the usurper by a face like that?
His father was an earl of Odin's stock.
His fable since he rose! A pauper house
Of one poor vessel and a narrow fiord
And some pine-trees possessor, — that was he,
The root he sprang from.
But from that to tower
In three short33 summers undisputed34 lord
Of Norway, before years had put their growth
Upon his chin! If not of Odin's race,
Odin is for him. Are you not afraid,
You who see Fate even in a sparrow's flight,
When Odin is for him?
Aslaug is against.
He has a strength, an iron strength, and Thor
Strikes hammerlike in his uplifted sword.
His voice is like a chant of victory.
But Fate alone decides, when all is said,
Not Thor, not Odin. I will try my Fate.
He is a mere usurper, is he not?
Norway's election made him King, they say.
Left Olaf Thorleikson no heirs behind? 
Of Trondhjem, that's their cry.
The inland35 and the north were free to choose.
As rebels are.
There was a discord there.
The South exulting in her golden gains
Cried, “I am Norway,” but the northern earls
Refused consent or, free auxiliaries,
Admitted only leadership in war.
We chose the arbitration of the sword,
That last appeal of all, — the sword has judged
Against our claim.
Still you come back to that. Yet think this out.37
Rather than by our blood to call38 for his
Is not a gentle peace still possible?39
Swegn might have40 Trondhjem, Eric all41 the north
The suzerainty? It is his. We fought for it.42
We have lost it.43 Think of this before we strike.
Better our barren empire of the snows!
Nobler44 with reindeer herding to survive, 
Or else a free and miserable death
Together.
Therefore I cast the doubt before your mind.
Be sure in striking.46 Aslaug, did you see
The eyes of Eric on you?
It gives us the great chance.
At ease, alone with us, absorbed, suddenly
You strike, I leap in seconding the blow.47
Can he escape then? Swegn shall have his throne.48
Arrange it as you will. You have a swift
Contriving careful brain I cannot match.
To dare, to act was always Aslaug's part.
You will not shrink?
I am not of the earth,
To bound my actions by the common rule.
I claim my kin with those whom Heaven's gaze
Moulded supreme, — Swegn's sister, Olaf's child,
Aslaug of Norway.
Then it must be done.
Hertha, I will not know the plots you weave;
But when I see your signal, I will strike.
Pride violent! loftiness intolerable!
The grandiose kingdom-breaking blow is hers,
The baseness, the deception are for me.
This, the assumption, the magnificence,
Made Swegn her tool. To me, his lover, counsellor,
Wife, worshipper, his ears were coldly deaf.
But, lioness of Norway, thy loud bruit
And leap gigantic are ensnared at last
In my compelling toils. She must be trapped!
She is the fuel for my husband's soul
To burn itself on a disastrous pyre.
Remove its cause, the flame will sink to rest;
Then we in Trondhjem shall live peacefully
Till Eric dies, as some day die he must
In battle or by a revolting sword,
And leaves the spacious world unoccupied;
Then other men may feel the sun once more.
Always she talks of Fate; does she not see
This man was born beneath exultant stars,
Had gods to rock his cradle? He must possess
His date, his strong resistless time, — then comes, —
All things too great end soon, — death, overthrow,
And our late summer when cold spring is past.
Eric, Aslaug.
Come hither.
Thou hast sent for me?
Come hither.
What thou knowest.
Do I know?
My name is Aslaug. That thou knowest.
Where
Did Odin forge thy sweet imperious eyes,
Thy noble stature and thy lofty look?
Thou dancest, — yes; thou hast the art, and song,
The natural expression of thy soul,
Comes from thy lips, floats, hovers and returns
Like a wild bird that wings around its nest.
This art the princesses of Sweden learn
And those Norwegian girls who frame themselves
On Sweden.
It may be my birth and past
Were nobler than my present fortunes are.
Why cam'st thou to me?
Of danger? Does he feel the impending stroke?
Hertha could turn the question.
Why sought'st thou out
Eric of Norway? Wherefore brought'st thou here
That beauty as compelling as thy song,
No man can gaze on and possess his soul?
I am a dancing-girl. My song and face
Are all my stock; I have carried them for gain
To the most wealthy market.
I buy these50 from thee. Aslaug, thy body too!
Release me! Wilt thou lay thy hands on death?
All Norway has not sold itself thy slave?
This was not spoken like a dancing-girl!
What is this siege?
I have no dagger with me. 
Will he discover me? Will he compel?
If Norway has not sold itself my slave,
Thou hast. Remember what thou art — or claim'st to be.51
He is subtle, terrible. I see the thing
He drives at and admire unwillingly
The mighty tyrant.
If thou art really nobler than thou feign'st,
Declare it. If53 thou art a dancing-girl,
I have bought54 thee for my55 hire, thy song, thy dance,
Thy body. I shrink not from whatever way I can
Possess thee more than hesitates the sea to engulf
King, thou speakest words
I scorn to answer.
Or even to understand?
Thou art an enemy who57 in disguise
Enterest my court to know and break my plans.58
What if I were?
Thou hast too lightly then
Devised thy chains and long imprisonment,59
Too thoughtlessly adventured a divine
And glorious stake, thyself.
I do not think I am afraid of death.
Far be death from thee who, if heaven were just,
Wouldst walk immortal! Thou seest no greater peril?
Than death? None that I tremble at or shun.
Dost thou not see that thou art by thy choice
Caged with the danger of the lion's mood?61
Dost thou not see the hunger of his eyes,
Feel on thy face the breath of his desire?
Why cam'st thou then?
To sing, to dance and earn.
Aslaug, even then63 thou knowest why I looked
Upon thee, why I kept thee in my house.
Thou, thou hast given the means of my desire!64
Yet if thy form and speech more nobly express
The truth of thee than thy vocation can,
Avow it, beg my clemency.
I am a dancing-girl. I came to earn.
Choose yet.
I have not anything to choose.
Because thou hast the lioness in thy mood,
Thou thought'st to play with Eric. It is I
Who play with thee. Thou liest in my grasp.
How wilt thou now escape my passionate will?
I am enamoured of thy golden hair,
Thy body like the snow, thy antelope eyes,
Thy neck that seems to know it carries heaven
Upon it easily. Thy song, thy speech,
The rhythmic motion of thy gracious limbs
Walking or dancing, and the careless pride
That undulates in every gesture and tone,
Have seized upon me smiling sweet control. 
I have not learnt to yield to any power,
But to surprise, to force and to command.
So will I hold thee. Prisoner and enemy,
Or dancing-girl and purchased chattel, choose.
Thou art perturbed? Thou findest no reply?
Because I am troubled by thy violent words,
I cannot answer thee or will not yet.
How could he see this death? Is he a god
And knows men's hearts? This is a terrible
And iron pressure.
What was thy design?
To spy or slay? For thou art capable
Even of such daring.
It may be yet. To put him off an hour,
Some minutes and to strike!
What dost thou choose?
I have laughed till now. Unthinking I came here
And dallied with thy thoughts, a little amazed,
Pure of all hostile purpose, innocent
Of all the guileful thoughts and blood-stained plans
Thou burdenest thy fierce suspicions with.
This is the Nemesis of men who rise
Too suddenly, by fraud or65 violence,
That they suspect all hearts, yes, every word
Of sheltering a kindred violence
Or subtler fraud, and they expect their fall
Sudden and savage as their rise has been.
I am a dancing-girl and nothing more.
Thou art my dancing-girl and nothing more?
Wear then this necklace and submit thyself, —
Aslaug dashes the necklace to the ground.
It is not thus that women's hearts are wooed.
If so I woo thee, so do all men woo,
Enamoured of what thou hast claimed to be.
Was't falsely claimed? Wilt thou deny it now
And hope to earn thy pardon with a smile?
Art thou the dancing-girl of Norway still,
Or some disguised, high-reaching, nobler soul?
I am thy dancing-girl, King Eric. See
I take thy necklace.
Take it; still be free
As thou decidest, thy price or else my gift.
No light decision I would have thee make,
But one that binds us both. I give thee time.
Ponder and let thy saner mind prevail,
Not courage most perverse, though ardent, rule.
Confess thy treason, Aslaug, trust thy King.
He goes out. Aslaug, after a silence,
takes the chain from her neck, admires
it and throws it on a chair.66
You are too much like drops of royal blood.
After another pause she takes it again.67
A necklace? No, a chain! Or wilt thou prove
A god's death-warrant?
(resuming the necklace on her neck)68
Hertha, Hertha, here!
I heard thee call.
I called. Why did I call? See, Hertha, see,
How richly Norway's Eric buys his doom!
He gave thee this? It is a kingdom's price.
A kingdom's price! the kingdom of the slain!
A price to rid the nations of a god!
O Hertha, what has earth to do with gods,
Who suffers only human weight? Will she
Not go too swiftly downward from her base,
If Eric treads her long?
Sister of Swegn,
There are new lustres in thy face and eyes.
What did Eric say?
Eric to Aslaug, sister of King Swegn!
A kingdom's price! Swegn's kingdom! And for him,
My marble emperor, my god who loves,
This mortal Odin? What for him? By force
Shall he return to his effulgent throne?
You were not used to a divided mind.
Nor am I altered now, not heart-perplexed:
But these are thoughts that naturally arise.
He loves you then?
He loves and he suspects.
What, Aslaug?
What we are and we intend.
If he suspects!
It cannot matter much
If we are rapid.
If we spoil it all!
I will not torture Swegn with useless tears,
Perishing vainly, I will slay and die.
He shall remember that he owes his crown
To our great sacrifice and soothe his grief,
That it was necessary, or else bear it,
A noble duty to the nobly dead.
Child, you must humour him, you must consent.
To what?
To all.
Hast thou at all perused
The infamy that thou advisest?
Yes.
I do not bid you yield, but seem to yield.
Even I who am Swegn's wife, would do as much;
But though you talk, you still are less in love,
Valuing an empty outward purity
Before your brother's life, your brother's crown.
You know the way to bend me to your will.
Give freedom but no license to his love.
For when he thinks to embrace, we shall have struck.
And, Hertha, if a swift and violent heart
Betrayed my will and overturned your plans?
Is there no danger, Hertha, there?
Till now
I feared not that from Aslaug, sister of Swegn.
No, since I consent.
You shall not blame again my selfishness,
Nor my defect of love.
I had almost forgotten Fate between
Smiling, alert, and the unconquered gods.
Eric, Aslaug.
They say the anarchy of love disturbs
Gods even, shaken are the marble natures,
The deathless69 hearts are melted to the pang
And rapture. Still, O Odin, I would be
Monarch of a calm royalty within,
My blood my subject. But I hear her come.
Art thou resolved and hast thou made thy choice?
I choose, if there is anything to choose,
The truth.
Who art thou?
Aslaug, who am now
A dancing-woman.
Understood nothing?70
Aslaug
What I shall do with thee. This earthly heaven
In which thou liv'st shall not be thine at all;
It was not shaped to bear71 thy joy but mine
And only made for my immense desire.
I saw thee shake.
It is not easily
A woman's heart sinks72 prostrate in such absolute
Surrender.
Thy heart! Is it thy heart that yields?
O thou unparalleled enchanting frame
For housing of a strong immortal guest!
If man could seize the heart as palpably,
The forms, the limbs, the substance of this soul!
That, that we ask for; all else can be seized
So vainly! Walled from ours are other hearts:
He touches her eyes and body as he speaks.
For if life's barriers twixt our souls were broken
Men would be free and our earth paradise
And the gods live neglected.
Purchase it richly, for it is for sale.
Yes, speak!
With love?
Thou namest lightly a tremendous word.
If thou hadst known this mightiest thing on earth
And named it, should it not have upon thy lips
So moving an impulsion for a man
That he would barter worlds to hear it once?
Words are but ghosts unless they speak the heart.
I have yielded.
There is
A trouble in my blood. I do not shake.
Thou heard'st me?
Not tonight. Thou art too swift,
Too sudden.
Thou hast had leisure to consult
Thy comrade smaller, subtler than thyself?
Better hadst thou chosen candour and thy frank soul
Consulted, not a guile by others breathed.
What guile, who gave73 all for an equal price?
Thou giv'st thy blood of rubies, I my life.
Thou hast not chosen then to understand.
Thy soul is truthfuller, Aslaug, than thy words:
Thy lips consent, thy eyes defy me still.
Because I sell myself, yet keep my pride?
Thou shalt keep nothing that I choose to take.
I see a tyranny I will delight in
And force a oneness; I will violently
Compel the goddess that thou art. But I know
What soul is lodged within thee, thou as yet
Ignorest mine. I still hold in my strength,
Though it hungers like a lion for the leap,
And give thee time once more; misuse it not.
Beware, provoke not the fierce god too much;
Have dread of his flame round thee.
Aslaug (breaking into a laugh)
Odin and Freya, you have snares! But see,
I have not thrown the dagger from my heart,
But clutch it still. How strange that look and tone
That things of a corporeal potency
Not only travel coursing through the nerves
But seem to touch the seated soul within!
It was a moment's wave; for it has passed
And the high purpose in my soul lives on
Unconquerably intending to fulfil.
1 secured
2 Ineffugably that pursues its prey.
3 some
4 must find
5 our | the
6 Thou knowest. Know'st thou too by whom?
7 And all things move by an established doom
8 for the balance of her harmonies.
9 host
10 fierce
11 bold
12 (i) Let him not live, o'ercome. (ii) Let him not live, if seized. (iii) Taken, let him not live.
13 (i) And yet... (ii) Taken, who shall live?
14 Be silent.
15 (i) 'Twas my heart (ii) It was my heart
16 And
17 though
18 was Norway's Lord
19 And Swegn his son
20 Swedish
21 Since I was reason that you are distressed,
22 Let me be reason of your plenty too.
23 The royal
24 needed.
25 Gunthar, we will converse ere they depart.|
Gunthar, we will converse within the hour.
26 Because I will not strike,
27 Wound perhaps only and be stayed.
28 Will you | If we
29 Must
30 mountain
31 and poor?
32 Not again
33 brief | swift
34 the magnificent
35 centre
36 The dagger overrides.
37 (i) Now think it out. (ii) But think a little.
38 pay
39 Is not a composition possible?
40 rule
41 in
42 (i) The suzerainty his: we fought for it. (ii) The suzerainty? Is it not his? We fought,
43 And lost it.
44 Better
45 It is good to be resolved.
46 One strikes more (out) surely.
47 Suddenly you strike, I come in, widen the blow.
48 Shall not Swegn have the throne?
49 Dost thou, girl?
50 I have bought them
51 Thou hast. Remember what thou art — or else
I am caught in a snare.
52 Therefore choose thy part.
53 But
54 I hold
55 a
56 Alternative to “I shrink...embraces”
57 that
58 Seekest my court to spy upon my plans.
59 Devised thy capture and imprisonment,
60 What canst thou do?
61 paw?
62 Then earn, Aslaug.
63 Thou art no fool,
64 Two cancelled lines after this:
Nor think thy feet have entered to escape
Unchained the antre of thy enemy.
65 and
66 Aslaug alone, lifts the chain, admires it and throws it on a chair.
67 She lifts it again.
68 She puts it round her neck
69 iron
70 Another version, starting with this line, omits the next speech of Aslaug and continues Eric's words:
Yet nothing understood? Or art thou, Aslaug,
Surrendered to thy fate? This earthly heaven
71 It was not fashioned for
72 falls
73 give
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