Chapter 4Scene 4

ERIC They say the anarchy of love disturbs Gods even: shaken are the marble natures, The deathless hearts are melted to the pang And rapture. I would be, O Odin, still Monarch of my calm royalty within, My thoughts my subjects. Do I hear her come? (to Aslaug who enters) Thou com’st? thou art resolved? thou hast made thy choice? ASLAUG I choose, if there is anything to choose, The truth. ERIC Who art thou? ASLAUG Aslaug, who am now A dancing-woman. ERIC And afterwards? Hast thou then Understood nothing? ASLAUG What should I understand? ERIC What I shall do with thee. This earthly heaven In which thou liv’st shall not be thine at all.

Act I, Scene 4 It was not fashioned for thy joy but mine And only made for my immense desire. This hast thou understood? ASLAUG (pale and troubled) Thou triest me still. ERIC I saw thee shake. ASLAUG It is not easily A woman’s heart sinks prostrate in such absolute Surrender. ERIC 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 form, 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: For if life’s barriers twixt our souls were broken, Men would be free and one, earth paradise And the gods live neglected. ASLAUG This heart of mine? Purchase it richly, for it is for sale. ERIC Yes, speak. ASLAUG With love; I meant no more.

Eric ERIC 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. ASLAUG I have yielded. ERIC Then tonight. Thou shak’st? ASLAUG There is A trouble in my blood. I do not shake. ERIC Thou heardst me? ASLAUG Not tonight. Thou art too swift, Too sudden. ERIC 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. ASLAUG What guile, who give all for an equal price? Thou giv’st thy blood of rubies; I my life.

Act I, Scene 4 ERIC Thou hast not chosen then to understand. ASLAUG Because I sell myself, yet keep my pride? ERIC 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 (alone) 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.