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Read Ebook: Fenris the Wolf: A Tragedy by MacKaye Percy
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Ebook has 861 lines and 68238 words, and 18 pages
BALDUR A beast Untamed and tameless.--Ask not with thine eyes!-- Fenris, my brother.
FREYJA Ah!
BALDUR Where art thou going?
FREYJA To greet my lover's kindred. Were it not well?
BALDUR Oh, would it were! Look not; this kin is monstrous.
FREYJA Is it not a god as we?
BALDUR It is a god, Freyja, but not as we.--It is the wolf-god, Lord of the dumb and kithless wild, that live To breed and kill their forms of dreadful beauty-- A vacant sacrifice to him: the doe, That stills all night her knocking heart, to hear The wood-cat's footfall, breathes mute prayer to Fenris; The frothing stag, that blazons the black boar With gules of death, bruits hymns to Fenris; yet Their pangs assuage him not, for he himself Remains the abject deity of lust, His rites, the stretched claw and the stiffened mane; His priest--a sated fang; his altar--fear.
FREYJA But why makes he his sanctuary thus Lonely in desolation?
BALDUR 'Tis the will Of Odin. Ask no more. This cleft he chose Wherein to hide the secret woe of the world, That never thou shouldst look upon its face.
FREYJA
BALDUR Thou, O maiden! Thou art the hope of the world.
FENRIS Freyja!
FREYJA He calls me.
FENRIS Freyja!
FREYJA Hark! He yearns For me!
BALDUR 'Tis Odin's will.
FENRIS Freyja!
FREYJA He cries In pain. Hold me no longer.--Fenris!
ODIN Stay!
FREYJA Allfather! hark his pain. Alas, poor wolf!
ODIN Poor wolf? Poor world! poor blind, precarious Reason, Beneath whose sovereign throne this horror sits, Cat-crouching to usurp it.--Fear him; go!
FENRIS Ai! ai! anarch! Freyja!
FREYJA He yearns for me. Am I not beautiful? Am I not holy? Wherefore should I fear? All living things love Freyja; gods and men, Anses and elves and helpless animals. Where I walk glittering, there lovers press And consecrate their eyes and beat their hearts Like moths against the moon. And shall I go Nor smile once kindly on him? Even the moon Is kinder to her loves.
ODIN He craves no smile From thee, nor ever smiled into the face Of love since his birth-hour. He lusts for thee.
FREYJA Why should he not? Hath Odin never lusted? What mind that knows the lust of intellect Shall mock desire? Ah! Who that ever yearned, Yearned not in ignorance?
BALDUR Have pity, father!
ODIN Child, pitiest thou this thing?
ODIN Yet must now! This bitterness is mine alone to bear. O Freyja! O my Baldur! You of all The creatures of my will, bright lovers, you Only are happy. Be so still. Depart! Forget these wolvish cries; seek not to help Evil unsolvable.
FREYJA What then is evil, That lovers may not solve it?
ODIN Hope of the world!
FENRIS Freyja!
ODIN Behold!
FREYJA Ah me!
BALDUR Fenris, my brother!
FREYJA O pain! Why dost thou look upon me so?
FENRIS Fair art, Freyja; shalt Fenris fear not?
FREYJA What wouldst thou?
FENRIS Lithe thy limbs are; lief am to lie with thee.
FREYJA Are these snows thy dwelling-place? No flowers grow here. Take these.
FENRIS Anarch! anarch!
FREYJA Alas!
BALDUR Peace, brother!
FREYJA Thou lovest me. Why, then, art thou not glad?
FENRIS Chafe, choke me, chains; chaffeth the churl at me!
FREYJA Take heart; we come to bring thee peace. O Baldur!
FENRIS 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! Press thee, panting!
THE PACK Ulfr! Ulfr!
FENRIS Bite--bark at thee--
THE PACK Ulfr! Ulfr!
FENRIS Miles, miles, miles!
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