/lit/ - Literature

ORIBASES.
My noble Princess——
JULIAN.
It is the physician, Helena! [_He takes her hand._] No, here, where I stand.
HELENA.
[_Tearing her hand away._] Faugh! there he was again!
JULIAN.
She does not see me. Here, here, Helena!
HELENA.
The loathsome creature;—he is always about me.
JULIAN.
What does she mean?
ORIBASES.
Stand apart, gracious lord——!
HELENA.
Sweet stillness! He does not dream——; oh my Gallus!
JULIAN.
Gallus!
ORIBASES.
Go, noble Caesar; it is not meet——!
HELENA.
How boldly your close-curling hair curves over your neck! Oh that short, thick neck——
JULIAN.
Abyss of all abysses——!
ORIBASES.
The delirium is increasing——
JULIAN.
I see, I see. We must take note, Oribases!
HELENA.
[_Laughing softly._] Now he would be taking notes again.—Ink on his fingers; book-dust in his hair—unwashed; faugh, faugh, how he stinks.
MYRRHA.
My lord, shall I not——?
JULIAN.
Away with you, woman!
HELENA.
How could you let yourself be conquered by him, you great-limbed, bronzed barbarian? He cannot conquer women. How I loathe this
impotent virtue.
JULIAN.
Stand apart, all of you! Not so near, Oribases! I myself will watch the Princess.
HELENA.
Art thou wroth with me, thou glorious one? Gallus is dead. Beheaded. What a blow that must have been! Be not jealous, oh my first and last? Burn Gallus in hell fire;—it was none but thou, thou, thou——!
JULIAN.
No nearer, Oribases!
HELENA.
Kill the priest, too! I will not see him after this. Thou knowest our sweet secret. Oh thou, my days’ desire, my nights’ delight! It was thou
thyself—in the form of thy servant—in the oratory; yes, yes, thou wast
there; it was thou—in the darkness, in the heavy air, in the shrouding incense-clouds, that night, when the Caesar growing beneath my heart—
—
JULIAN.
[_Recoiling with a cry._] Ah!
HELENA.
[_With outstretched arms._] My lover and my lord! Mine, mine——!
[_She falls swooning on the floor; the slave-girls hasten
forward and crowd round her._
JULIAN.
[_Stands for a moment immovable; then shakes his clenched fist in the
air, and cries_:] Galilean!

>Peer Gynt is a redemption drama, and indeed, just to admit this right away, it is one of the greatest. It is deeper and more comprehensive than any of Shakespeare's, without being any less beautiful; in the significance of its conception it is the equal of, and in the power of its execution it is far above, Goethe's Faust