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Poet Lore
SWORD AND CROZIER
Drama in Five Acts
BY INDRIDI EINARSSON
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
BOTOLF, bishop of Holar
KOLBEIN ARNORSSON 'THE YOUNG,' chieftain of the 'North Quarter of Iceland,' thirty-four years old
HELGA, his wife
SALVOR, woman physician
THOROLF BJARNASON } ASBJORN ILLUGASON } Henchmen of Kolbein Arnorsson HAF BJARNASON }
KOLBEIN KALDALJOS, kinsman of Kolbein Arnorsson and steward of the bishopric of Holar, seventy years old
BRAND KOLBEINSSON, his son, chieftain of Reynistad, thirty-three years old
JORUN, his wife
KALF, eight years old } their sons THORGEIR, six years old }
BRODDI THORLEIFSSON, brother-in-law of Kolbein Arnorsson
SIGURD, deacon
HELGI SKAFTASON } henchmen of Brand ALF OF GROF }
EINAR THE RICH, of Vik
HELGI, priest at Holar
ILLUGI, the blind beggar BOY LEADING ILLUGI
JARNGRIM
Followers of Thorolf Bjarnason, of Brand, and of Kolbein Arnorsson. People of Holar in Hjaltadel.
The scene is laid in the district of Skagafirth, in the North of Iceland. The action takes place during the winter previous to the battle of Hunafloi, 1244 A.D.
ACT I
SCENE I
SCENE II
ACT II
KOLBEIN KALDALJOS.--Oh the enormity to take the bishop prisoner in his own cathedral. And yet we have won the victory. I shall let the 'Peace of God' be rung out over the land, and that will protect the bishop from all danger and also give my son Brand time to collect his forces.
ACT IV
ACT V
Heroes head their warlike forces, Mailed fists 'gainst shields are clashing, Over Herad's water-courses Thunder thousand hoofs of horses, Over fords and bridges dashing. Long afar moans Likabong.
Death foretells the cock's dawn-greeting: Many a fey man's fair limbs mangles Soon the sword and spear in meeting. Hot the Northland blood is beating! Low and dull weeps Likabong. The shiv'ring Southron sea-cod angles.
INDRIDI EINARSSON: ICELANDIC DRAMATIST AND HIS SAGA DRAMA
BY LEE M. HOLLANDER
Indridi Einarsson's 'Sword and Crozier' is the first Icelandic play to be done into English. Very probably, the well-informed reader will wonder, not so much that a translation 'should be so late in forthcoming,' but that, of all things, there should exist a dramatic literature worthy the name in that Ultima Thule. He is, indeed, not in any way to be blamed for not suspecting the possibility of a highly developed drama under conditions such as obtain in Iceland, even though he may well be aware that lyric poetry has been cultivated there with ardor and success.
When authors of small nations, such as Denmark and Holland, have been known to complain about the limited circle they can hope to reach, how true, how pathetically true, is this of Iceland, with its scant eighty thousand inhabitants of poor fishermen and farmers thinly spread over the lordly spaces of their far-away, rugged and barren island! What audience can an author expect there? Nor is it to be thought that his very difficult mother-tongue will permit a comprehension of his work among the reading public of the other Scandinavian lands.
It stands to reason--whatever enthusiasts on the subject have said to the contrary--that, by its very nature, the drama can attain independent and legitimate growth only in centers of human habitation, where the stage--very necessarily--epitomizes the tendencies of the times, and, if occupied by a real literature in every sense, is the self-expression of a great community. As late as 1886 a sober-minded author on Scandinavian literature was able to say, with some justice, 'Iceland lacks all conditions for a dramatic literature.' And the situation has not changed essentially since. Whatever has been done in that line in recent times is to all intents and purposes due to stimulation from abroad and, in so far, artificial. So far, none of the more ambitious native efforts have been on the program of the stage of Reykjavik to be performed by the very estimable amateur players of that town.
The above is by no means said in a spirit of reproach. On the contrary, all honor to the patriotic men who, by writing dramas in their mother-tongue, are willing to forego the emoluments and recognition to be gained from audiences in more favored lands: for the sake of enriching their native literature; for the sake of showing both the world and their own people that neither in this art are they inferior to other nations; for the sake of demonstrating to their satisfaction that a contribution of Iceland to world-literature is no more an impossibility now than in the older times, when it enriched us with lore and history, and gave the world what Greece and Rome did not, the realistic novel.
'I was born in the North of Iceland, on April 30, 1851, and was a farmer's boy of good old family. My chief work at home was haymaking in summer, and in winter being a shepherd. Every spring I was up all the long bright nights, watching the flock that they should not damage the cultivated soil by eating the young grass. I think that solitude has fostered my fancy and imagination and dipped me deep in the romanticism of that time . In 1865 I went to Reykjavik, and was initiated at the Lyceum in the spring of 1866. I went through the Lyceum in ordinary course. When I began to read Virgilius I felt as if I got wings on my immortal soul, and I think I shall never lose them wholly again. I began to read the poets, starting with the comedies of Old Holberg the Dane, and passing to Schiller and Goethe and Heine. I read all plays of Shakespeare . I studied "Oidipous Tyrannos," Sophocles' awful tragedy, in the original, and read Plautus and Terentius as other boys, Icelandic and Danish fiction.
'During my first year at college I saw Matth?as Jochumsson's "Utilegumenn" performed at Reykjavik: they had then very fine Icelandic scenery, and went home in ecstasy over the performance, feeling that I had seen the brightest and strongest play in the world. Of my reading I thought "Macbeth," "Gretchen im Carcer" , and "Oidipous Tyrannos" finest and fullest. While at Reykjavik I wrote "Ny?rsn?ttin" and got it acted at the college, with the greatest possible success. That drama formed a turning point in my life--as the author of it I went to Copenhagen to pursue my studies as graduate student. I left college made to half of what I am.
'While studying Political Science at Copenhagen I wrote the drama, "Hellismenn" . I had come south with two other dramas in my mind. But the atmosphere in Copenhagen was strongly realistic at that time; my Romanticism was not able to withstand it. Without my knowledge I turned to Realism, and when I began to think about my intended dramas I could not write on them because all my thoughts had taken another direction. After completing my examinations I returned, Copenhagen having made the other half of what I am. In 1880 I was appointed auditor of the Official Accounts of Iceland, and got married. During the ten ensuing years I was buried under an avalanche of accounts and official documents and could hardly hold my head up above the waters. The wings of my soul drooped with exhaustion. My dramatic muse awakened several times, but I could not receive her visits. At last, in 1890, I began to write "Skipit sekkur" , parts of which I rewrote seven times; so badly had I treated my muse that she began to work so slowly....'
To this I shall only add that the poet has modestly omitted to state that in his capacity of Chief of the Department of Statistics he is the compiler of an excellent year-book on the trade relations and industries of his native isle; that he is the author of several dramas not mentioned by him; and that 'Sword and Crozier,' his latest drama , has already been translated into German and Danish.
I subjoin a synopsis of this play, in order to facilitate an appreciation of it at the first reading.
The subject of the above drama was suggested by two or three rather meagre pages of the 'Islendingasaga' of Sturla Thordsson . To my notion, the poet has succeeded admirably in reproducing the cool coloring, the ironic-pessimistic attitude, that uncompromisingly masculine sentiment we know so well in their refreshing acerbity from the best sagas. Not the least meritorious thing in the play, by the way, is the very slight insistence on Thorolf's relations to Helga, notwithstanding its temptation to the author of a social drama betraying strong influence of Ibsen; for the saga--it is to be borne in mind--is the literature of revenge and ambition as ruling motives, love having an incomparably smaller sphere allotted to it. Too much weight laid on that relation would have been ruinous to the total conception of the play.
In conformity to that conception are also the terse, pithy language which allows us to surmise the unlimited possibilities hidden in the saga literature, and the equally succinct manner of character drawing.
Both in poetic value and technically--excepting for the staginess of the three meetings in the cave--the second act is the most successful of the drama. It is, in fact, a little masterpiece. The action is impetuous, strong, and telling. The dramatic germs potentially present in the situation are developed here with a fine consistency. Thorolf's death is made the central fact on which hinges the whole action of the play, while by Brand's fatal vacillations and the insults offered to Helga by his henchmen important tributary impulses are given toward the following development. Unfortunately, the third act, dramatically considered, is concerned chiefly with details. It suffers, even more than the first act, from a certain prolixity which is not wholly made good by its theatrically effective ending. However bright and skillfully wrought in the incident of the fraudulent miracle, it might well be spared, with a view for the whole. And the same is true of a considerable part of the dialogue.
Finally a word on the subject of the drama. Our readers are beginning to become so accustomed to the spiced dishes of Continental Problem drama,--reaction against which has set in there long ago,--that fears may well be entertained that the rude simple fare of the Historic Drama will be rejected with scorn. This would indeed be regrettable, as tending to show that we are still far from a sober catholicity of taste, and still in the leading-strings of the Old World, not yet having obtained that independence and maturity of judgment which consists in being wise enough to gather nourishment suitable to one's needs from whatever be offered to us, even it be not labeled with the ism of the hour.
THE NEW DRAMA
THE PLAYFARER
BY HOMER H. HOWARD
THE BIJOU
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