ACT 2
(A hillside, wooded with great soughing trees. Stars are gleaming through the leaves; birds are singing in the tree-tops. A GREEN-CLAD WOMAN is crossing the hillside; PEER GYNT follows her, with all sorts of lover-like antics.)
(stops and turns round).
Is it true?
As true as my name is Peer;-
as true as that you are a lovely woman!
Will you have me? You'll see what a fine man I'll be;
you shall neither tread the loom nor turn the spindle.
You shall eat all you want, till you're ready to burst.
I never will drag you about by the hair-
Nor beat me?
No, can you think I would?
We kings' sons never beat women and such.
You're a king's son?
Yes.
I'm the Dovre-King's daughter.
Are you? See there, now, how well that fits in!
Deep in the Ronde has father his palace.
My mother's is bigger, or much I'm mistaken.
Do you know my father? His name is King Brose.
Do you know my mother? Her name is Queen ÅSE.
When my father is angry the mountains are riven.
They reel when my mother by chance falls a-scolding.
My father can kick e'en the loftiest roof-tree.
My mother can ride through the rapidest river.
Have you other garments besides those rags?
Ho, you should just see my Sunday clothes!
My week-day gown is of gold and silk.
It looks to me liker tow and straws.
Ay, there is one thing you must remember:-
this is the Ronde-folk's use and wont:
all our possessions have twofold form.
When you shall come to my father's hall,
it well may chance that you're on the point
of thinking you stand in a dismal moraine.
Well now, with us it's precisely the same.
Our gold will seem to you litter and trash!
And you'll think, mayhap, every glittering pane
is nought but a bunch of old stockings and clouts.
Black it seems white, and ugly seems fair.
Big it seems little, and dirty seems clean.
Ay, Peer, now I see that we fit, you and I!
Like the leg and the trouser, the hair and the comb.
Bridal-steed! Bridal-steed! bridal-steed mine!
(A gigantic pig comes running in with a rope's end for a bridle and an old sack for a saddle. PEER GYNT vaults on its back, and seats the GREEN-CLAD ONE in front of him.)
Hark-away! Through the Ronde-gate gallop we in!
Gee-up, gee-up, my courser fine!
Ah, but lately I wandered and moped and pined-.
One never can tell what may happen to one!
You may know the great by their riding-gear!
PGENG
