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Robinson Jeffers - At The Birth Of An Age
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The story is derived from the closing chapters of the Volsung
Saga, the action of which refers itself to a date fairly correspondent
with the end of the Greco-Roman age and the beginning of this one.
The theme of self-contradiction and self-frustration, in Gudrun`s
nature, intends to express a characteristic quality of this
culture-age, which I think should be called the Christian age, for
it is conditioned by Christianity, and except a few centuries`
lag concurrent with it. Its civilization is the greatest, but also
the most bewildered and self-contradictory, the least integrated,
in some phases the most ignoble, that has ever existed. All these
qualities, together with the characteristic restlessness of the age,
its energy, its extremes of hope and fear, its passion for discovery,
I think are bred from the tension between its two poles, of
Western blood and superimposed Oriental religion. This is the
tension that drew taut the frail arches of Gothic cathedrals, as
now it spins the frail cosmogonies of recent science and the
brittle Utopias of economic theory. This tension is really the
soul of the age, which will begin to die when it ceases. In modern
times the direction of the tension has shifted a little; the Christian
faith is becoming extinct as an influence, compensatorily the
Christian ethic becomes more powerful and conscious, manifesting
itself as generalized philanthropy, liberalism, socialism, communism,
and so forth. But the tension is relaxed, the age prepares
for its long decline. The racial pole is weakened by the physical
and especially the spiritual hybridization that civilized life always
brings with it; the Christian pole is undergoing constant attrition!
steadily losing a little more than it gains.
I believe that we live about the summit of the wave of this age,
and hence can see it more objectively, looking down toward the
troughs on both sides, than our ancestors could or our more remote
descendants will. . . . Is it necessary to add that I am not
speaking as one of the prophets? These are only ideas that came
to me while I was writing what follows, when I wondered "Why
does Gudrun act this way?" Thence they added themselves to
the thought of the poem, and are noted here to explain one
tendency of its thought. The others seem clear enough.
When the north and the east crawled with armed tribes toward
mindless wars,
Barbarians like a shieldful of knives flung random, clashing together,
stabbing, gashing or missing
Through the north darkness, Goth, Hun and Vandal, Saxon and
Frank, and down the hopeless frontiers of Rome:
Three men leading three hundred came to the edge of the forest
to a murdered farm. Hoegni said laughing,
"Hey for the owner!" And Gunnar: "Ay. He hangs there." For a
haltered man
Hung in the oak above the fire-crumbled walls. "This is the
place she named to us: the dead man`s farm,
A hill over a plain, a hanged man, a choked well, a stream at the
hill-foot. Let them drop the gear."
But Hoegni: "I say go on," jutting his chin to the south, the sharp
yellow beard,
"We`ll meet the sooner. Aah, camp here waiting
While they loot Gaul?" "Wolf-eagerness is a treasure in warriors,
caution in kings," answered Gunnar,
Called king for being the head of a little clan between the Saxons
and Franks; his eyes were royal
Over the thick brown beard, deep and ice-blue, dark-browed,
"If Gudrun comes, and gives bonds and promises,
Yet I shall probably turn you back and lead home. I am not in
love with letting my naked face
Into the bear`s mouth." His brother Hoegni groaned and laughed
but not spoke. Then Carling his youngest brother,
A boy still, beardless, brave face, wide eyes, bright hair: "I shall
not turn. Look, brother, how it is clouded
With herds of horses like a summer heaven, clouds beyond
clouds, I never saw anything nor heard a poem
So beautiful as this plain.
Yonder must be the Horde`s encampment: like a hundred cities:
and the horses, the horses, the many-colored,
At pasture around it like a vast wheel. There, there, and there,
are the towers of smoke from the burnt towns.
Yonder a band of war-men far off goes galloping on some great
raid. Sigurd had a horse;
He called him Grayfell." Gunnar said: "Listen, boy. You shall
have horses to ride if we go down there.
But Sigurd is not to be named. Sigurd is not to be named. Remember
we are making peace with Gudrun,
Who is our sister, and has grown powerful too." Hoegni laughed,
Carling said, "I know. It is a pity.
Oh Gunnar it seems to me that my spirit,
After the close fields and forest at home, flies towering up to
the sun like a noon eagle
Above this plain, the space the distance, the immense green freedom
glimmering to blue: as if I could almost
See Rome from here." Hoegni said, "Live and we`ll see it; if those
Goths have left anything. Meanwhile we`ll feed.
They`ll have to hack firewood from the owner`s oak, it`s all that`s
left him. He will not care." "Oh Hoegni!" Carling
Answered, "Oh Gunnar! When Gudrun comes and we`ve dearly
greeted her, then let us
Not seek the Hun`s camp nor friendship with him, but suddenly
help ourselves to keen horses and alone together
Go and see Italy.
Oh Gunnar! that would be the high path for heroes, no talk, no
alliances. I know Sigurd would do it
If he were living. Ride southward like a pointed storm of wild
swans, like a flying lance-head, an axe-head,
Carve our own valley through the Huns and Romans." "What
a pity," Hoegni said,
"To be a fool at sixteen. I warned you Gunnar,
Leave Fool at home." "A flight of horsemen," the youth said
gladly, "this way. Oh look, Oh the lovely fellowship,
Like a long arrow burning with dust for smoke." "You have
young eyes. Ay.
That will be Gudrun. How many?" He answered, "They ride by
fours, less or more. Some ten ranks: forty perhaps."
"Hardskin and Swayn," Gunnar said. "Ay," they answered,
"Patrol the wood-path until I call you.
You east and he west.
Not to be embraced from behind as well. She left us in white
anger, I will not trust her yet."

II
Gudrun dismounted and came to her brothers; tall, blonde and
pale, clad in a wine-dark gold-threaded
Wide cloak, snatch of some Byzantine altar, sweetly smiling
came Gudrun; a black-haired slave-woman,
A face like white wax, walked at her side; on the other a
swarthy sword-wearing Hun, who scowled and spoke.
Two more behind him watched hard under slant brows. Then
Gudrun: "Dear brothers! Gunnar: will you bid your men
Go ten steps back? Timor here . . . this dark-browed battle-rememberer
Is Timor, he is lofty in my lord`s attendance. My three brothers,
Timor. He is full of safeguards, being as he says
Accountable for the priceless treasure of my person.
GUNNAR   (waving his men back) Well, sister. Twenty.
GUDRUN   My Timor is very faithful,
And fears . . . never death . . . torture. Can that be Carling?
Oh my dear, Carling, how beautiful you have grown!
I always loved you.
GUNNAR   We were most happy, Gudrun,
In your dear message. Jealousies die but love is immortal. We
have come at great pains through the wet woods
Only to see your face. I say only,
Because it is certain that we are wealthy enough
Without Hunnish alliances. Our thought in coming is toward
you only; to see the loved face, salute
The dear lips, and return.
HOEGNI   And ask you how it feels to be married
to a toad, for every man told us
Huns look like toads: and by God it`s true. Pop eyes, no noses,
toad color . . .
GUDRUN   Hoegni!
Be wary of your words a little.
HOEGNI   Not I.
GUNNAR   As to the precious gatherings
of Gaul and Italy: what`s gold?
We came for love`s sake.
GUDRUN   (to Hoegni) He understands it well enough,
Though for scorn he won`t speak it.
HOEGNI   Tim Timy you mean?
For scorn you say? I am telling you . . .
GUDRUN   Understand me,
Hoegni. My lord and his race are not mocked. The emperor of
northern and middle Europe, all from the Caspian
To the North Sea.
HOEGNI   Not a toad? Nose-holes
Where a nose ought to be ...
GUDRUN   And soon I believe to conquer
and rule the whole nation-written
War-weary tablet, all the king-scarred earth.
HOEGNI   Not me. . . . That
is a marvelous piece of a victory
Worn on your shoulders, Gudrun. Well, you look young still.
GUDRUN   And for gold: look at these
Bracelets that bruise my arms; and this neck-chain.
HOEGNI   Oh, he loads
you. Save up, save up,
Lest winter come.
GUDRUN   The chain`s for King Gunnar. No: I pray
you, brother, take it with my love. Though I was bitter,
That was quite long ago. And now I live among foreigners . . .
GUNNAR   How your lips writhe!
Don`t cry, my dear,
I`ll not refuse it nor the love either, but joyfully. . . . Let me
kiss you Gudrun, why do you cover your face?
I`ll kiss the tears.
GUDRUN   It was caught in my hair. There. You`ve a
tress with it. Ah, Gunnar,
Little you know!
GUNNAR   Dear sister. I am far more glad that our love
is born again
Than for all these great links of gold.
GUDRUN   And for my . . . brother
Hoegni, these . . .
HOEGNI   Don`t do it
If it hurts you so. You`re white as death,
Snow-girl.
GUDRUN   I remember you used to call me that. We were near
the same age.
HOEGNI   But now those blue eyes of yours
Have wolves in `em.
GUDRUN   The better to see you with, dear! Well,
I`ve been through . . . and seen stark battles: but if
These eyes grow hard: not toward my brothers, Hoegni. Bygones
are by-gones, that wound`s hid . . . healed I mean.
You never knew me to lie I believe? So take the bracelets. I guess
them nearly the weight in gold
Of Gunnar`s chain.
HOEGNI   Thank you, Gudrun. I wish to do you sometime
a worthy service. Why, men
Have fought to death for less than a hundredth fraction
Of this heavy glitter.
GUDRUN   It`s nothing: we swim in it. Carling dear:
I`ve something ... I find myself
Wet-eyed to look at you.
Because you were much younger than me and Hoegni. . . . I`m
not false, I`ll hide no thought, if you`d been tall
At that time, I believe you`d have helped me. Who knows?
Hush, dear, let me dream. This is very vain talk
About an old woe. The snows of that year are melted and so is
my heart, and I am Attila`s wife.
You look like ghosts, ah? All but Carling. Oh, it`s wiped out.
I thought you, Carling, too noble-minded . . . young I should
say ... to care about gold, and so have chosen you
A steel jewel, only a sword, yet a rare one. Give it to me, Jukka.
(She takes it from one of the dark `warriors behind her.) It
is said there were great enamel-workers
And godlike smiths in Gaul before the back-and-forth grovellings
and wash of war
Wiped out all.
CARLING   Oh Gudrun! What are these gems? Why, the
hawk-head hilt
Is like a firebrand.
GUDRUN   The blade, the blade. The hilt`s nothing, a
gem-crust. Nor the scabbard either. See
How cunningly they let the delicate-colored threads of enamel
Into the fierce blank steel.
CARLING   Oh Gudrun.
GUDRUN   Hawk or eagle the pretty
tracery, who cares? It`s pretty, ah?
I begged it of my lord when he was merry.
CARLING   I cannot tell you.
. . . Oh Gudrun.
GUNNAR   By God, what a smith. I think
You`ve the best, brother, (to Hoegni, quietly , nodding toward
the oak) I don`t like those two, the ravens.
HOEGNI   Mm? Those?
Children of nature, attracted by meat like you and me. They
take the eyes first.
GUNNAR  Caw caw, damn them!
Though they`re God`s birds. Is she true?
HOEGNI   It`s true gold.
CARLING   (admiring the sword) Oh Gudrun,
the beauty, the power, the balance! And as for the edge:
Look at my thumb: I barely touched it to feel it.
GUDRUN   Oh, Oh, my gift!
CARLING   ButI love the slight cut.
I think it`s magical: see, I streak my own blood on the silky
blade, that makes it mine for my life-days
Faithfully. Oh sister, I`ll do such deeds with it ... some deed
for the poets to remember in all the fire-lit music-filled
Evenings of rime. Sigurd`s great beautiful bone-biter, the sword
That he called Anger, never did such a deed . . . Oh! . . .
I didn`t mean, I didn`t want . . .
I adore his memory.
HOEGNI   Fool.
GUDRUN   I know, dear. Hush, Hoegni, let
him alone. We may love Sigurd and yet
Not hate his ... killers. He was too great to need any memory
but thoughts of love ... to need any
Reprisal. His fame`s not slain. . . . What`ll you call the sword,
Carling?
CARLING   I thought of calling him
Sea-eagle. Ah Sea-eagle you`ll fly in Rome,
You`ll dazzle the south.
ONE OF GUNNAR`S MEN   (shouting from a distance)
Troop of horse, a long one.
ANOTHER   From the west by the wood`s edge.
HARDSKIN   (farther off) A thousand horse.
HOEGNI Bitten, by God. (Gunnar and Hoegni draw sword, so
do the Huns.)
GUNNAR   I will never believe, Gudrun, no never.
. . . Timor: we are here
As friends, probable allies . . .
HOEGNI   Baited and trapped,
with a yellow glitter
And milky talk, (shouting) Stand to it. Ham-string`em, that
stops`em. (to Timor) . . . Well?
Toad? Let`s begin.
GUDRUN   (cuffing her slave-woman, who was about to scream)
You are too excitable, you shame me red,
brothers, before
These quiet dark lords of the East. Those are the horses to mount
you. Each man of that troop leads a spare horse.
And thus you trust me! I could not allow you to walk, you and
your people,
To die Emperor`s camp.
GUNNAR   Ay? why do they come from behind
and cut us off from the wood?
GUDRUN   They come from the pasture.
GUNNAR   So it takes five hundred men
To bring us mounts?
GUDRUN   For your escort also. There`s rough work
On the plain.
GUNNAR   There`d be rougher
If my poor woodsmen forked themselves over horses.
No, Gudrun.
GUDRUN   The Huns despise you if you come walking.
GUNNAR   Are we your prisoners?
GUDRUN   Why, brother!
GUNNAR   No? Then
farewell, Gudrun.
We carry back to the great fir-woods, the lonely tarns
And little clearings, magnificent memories
Of wealth and kingly splendor and kindness, and a sister`s great
Forgiving heart.
HOEGNI   And toads. . . . Come home with us,
We`ll make you queen of the North.
CARLING   Oh. I want to ride with her.
GUDRUN   But since I ... love you, my brothers: how could
I let you go? I`d even keep you
By force. You see: by force . . .
Of loving persuasion. I could hardly persuade my Huns
To let such warriors as you . . . not join the Horde.
Gunnar: he will conquer the whole world, there`s not a doubt:
All the wealth, all rings of gold, all tribes of men, all the meat
and drink:
It rolls to his feet like a ball. . . . Hoegni:
Do you love battles?
HOEGNI   In moderation, in moderation.
GUDRUN   This would be out of scale for you, then.
Now the great crowning battle of the world is making, to
dazzle all war
Before and after, will be fought on this plain within three days.
For Rome has bandaged all her sick legions
Into one sword, ransacked her waning moon for man-power,
and bought peace with the West Goths
(Whose king Theodoric is eight feet tall) to try odds against
us. They have joined the two armies like axe and helve
For one huge stroke. Their last one.
HOEGNI   Is Caesar a tall man too?
GUDRUN   Which Caesar?
None fights. They`ve an active general,
What`s his name? I can`t think. They are hundreds of thousands
together, and ours are three hundred thousand, with the
East Goths,
Vandals, Gepidae, Franks . . .
HOEGNI   Boo, said the goose
Counting duckweed.
GUDRUN   What?
HOEGNI   Tell it to the Swedes, not to us.
GUNNAR   No, no, we don`t doubt
Your good faith, sister: yet there`s a dreamy quality
About these numberings of multitude. How could such hordes
be fed?
GUDRUN   Ours, are experienced.
They tap their horses` neck-veins and suck the blood, then stop
the wound and ride on. Or a man`s at a pinch,
Ah, Timor? The Goths and Romans I imagine starve. . . . Oh, this
Meeting will exceed all measure, enormous, a sword-mountain:
you`ll stay and see it? And, Carling, after we force them
For the sun will fall out of heaven before Attila
Fails of a victory the whole fragrant south will lie open, unlocked
and helpless, all the sun, all the honey,
Rich gardens, rare fruits, all kinds of artist-work. We`ll ride on
the golden strands of blue seas and drink nothing
But purple wine, hear nothing but little Greek slaves
That sing like nightingales.
GUNNAR   Will you swear by the holiest,
By Woden hanged on tree; and by all the Gods of the Huns too,
and all other Gods,
That you mean well by us?
GUDRUN    cannot imagine why you mistrust me.
GUNNAR   Will you swear?
GUDRUN   Why should I? You have no choice.
And you mistrust me vilely. And what are the Gods, who sees
them? My Huns have travelled the whole world and now
Laugh at the Gods. Yes, I will swear.
GUNNAR   By Woden hanged on the tree?
GUDRUN   Oh, clearly. And by all the Huns` Gods,
And the Roman Christ.
GUNNAR   You will be sick and die
If you break oath. Well, Hoegni?
HOEGNI   I want to see old Hardskin
straddling a horse, that`s what I want.
CARLING   They`ll go. Oh Gudrun
how beautiful you look. One to stand shining
And sworded for the Decider of Battles in the eagle sky
In the poem that I`ve been making.
GUDRUN   Do you make poems, Carling?
CARLING   Things are so beautiful. Your face, like a white sword
Lifting against the blue. I`ll make better ones.
GUDRUN   Sing me a poem
While we ride down. I need it. Life narrows on me,
All its events are vicious, whichever I choose.

III
In front of the curtains. Sentinels post themselves in the midst.
Men enter and stand conversing at the extreme right. Gudrun and
her brothers, her slave Chrysothemis, and the Hun Jukka, come
in from the left.
GUNNAR   . . . The pastures are wide and rich, yet all the grass
is bitten to the roots. What was that river we forded?
GUDRUN   I told you. The Marne. We have to wait here until
the trumpet is blown; no one may enter before Attila.
HOEGNI   I wish him joy of it.
GUNNAR   Marne; the Marne. What a language. Hoegni: did you
notice the herd of thick-flanked brood-mares? I believe there
were at least two thousand. These things are out of our scale
of thought.
HOEGNI   Bah!
GUDRUN   This building is an old broken place, curtained for the
feast. The broken country-house of some dead Roman. The
curtains look richly purple in the evening sun, don`t they,
Carling? If blood would keep its color, what a dye. And
cheap.
CARLING   Does he not come to bring you in? As I remember
Sig . . . I remember Sigurd used to?
GUDRUN   No.
GUNNAR   Tell me, sister: what do they do when their mares
foal on the march?
GUDRUN   (impatient) Ah! Another time. Ask Jukka.
GUNNAR   I have asked him a number of questions, he only
gabbles. It is essential for a ruler to understand . . .
GUDRUN   Will you ... I am trying to make a quietness in my
mind.
HOEGNI   Yes. I have watched you, Gudrun. You are mad with
pride.
You think you have married the mountain of the world. Sigurd
was not enough . . .
GUNNAR   By the honor of God, brother!
Keep the peace, will you?
HOEGNI   Aahh . . .
GUDRUN   I`ll tell you plainly then.
I am ill in my mind.
Pride? No: hardly. I was proud while Sigurd lived, before you
killed him, but as things are
I`ve won back a little . . . power . . . not pride. Perhaps you
will be able to tell me, being wise, Gunnar,
Why it is that I. For it seems that I still love you, for all your.
I am not able. We`re the one blood,
And were gay when we were little together,
Yet, when the warmth wins, I remember that yours was the
cold contemptible mind that planned his death
Because your woman wound you up to be envious. And the
cynical hand
Was my brother Hoegni`s. And how cowardly it was done.
HOEGNI   (handling his sword-hilt)
I guessed you. Bring on your niggers.
GUNNAR   You are bound by the highest and most dangerous of
oaths, Gudrun.
GUDRUN  (impassively) So that my heart is in heavy trouble between
love and hatred.
Two snakes in one coil. Which can neither endure nor destroy
each other, but each is swollen to bursting with venom
From the other`s jaws, it spurts on my heart. Ah? Well? . . .
Well, that`s how it is wi` me.
I was saying, to do you a harm would never make Sigurd live,
nor be any comfort to myself, so breathe easily. Carling`s
a poet: do you think killed men want justice, Carling? Don`t
answer. I think they`re nothing, they`re lucky. I believe
nothing.
After you`ve travelled and seen ten thousand corpses
You`ll keep your poems in the way of nature.
GUNNAR   Indeed, sister, these questions about death are mysteries
to all of us; it is wisest perhaps . . .
GUDRUN   The men with the red straps wound to the knees are
East-Goth nobles. That tall man, who is talking to the Hun,
is Alberic the Frank. Yonder are two lords of the Gepidae.
I love to see kings cooling their heels at my husband`s pleasure.
GUNNAR   And those to the left, Gudrun?
GUDRUN   Huns. Don`t question me! I am not patient.
A TRUMPETER   appears between the parting curtains. He sounds
the trumpet, and announces in Htmnish and in Gothic:
The Lord of Lords has taken his seat. The Masters of War have
taken their seats.
HOEGNI  The Toads have squatted.
The curtains draw aside, and they enter.

IV
It is the atrium of a ruined Roman country-house. The walls at
this end are broken down; the wall seen slant on the left is arcaded
with freestone columns, the near ones broken, the farther
entire. Strange guests have stopped here since the owner fled.
The wall at the back has no colonnade but is adorned with wallpaintings;
the panels to left and right indistinguishable, the great
central painting scarred but clear. It represents Prometheus bound
on Mt. Elboros, the snow-veined rocks, the wound and the
vultures.
Planks on trestles range parallel to the walks, making an L-shaped
table. On the far limb of the (inverted) L, below the colossal
Prometheus, Attila is seated among his generals. He is swarthy,
thick, gray-haired, with a flat Mongolian face, and robed in barbarian
magnificence. He is already feeding and drinking.
Gudrun will take a place near the angle of the L, keeping Carling
on her right, allowing Gunnar to sit on her left, toward Attila
and beside Timor. Gudrwts slave stands behind her. Hoegni sits
between Carting and Jukka. The other guests, Huns, Ostrogoths
and so forth, are coming in and finding places, and servants
are busy.
GUDRUN   (standing at her place) My lord. . . . My lord.
ATTILA   (at length turning his face toward her) All right?
GUDRUN   This is King Gunnar, my brother, of whom I spoke.
And my other brothers.
ATTILA   Mm. Welcome, (turning back to one of the Huns)
I say if Arval fails taking Troyes as he slacked at Orleans,
that is the end for him.
GUNNAR   Noble Attila:
Our sister having by message invited us
We come with clear good will and kingly confidence
To behold her face, and yours, and the glory of the Horde.
She has flown high, she was nourished in a high nest.
We have strong places northward and power of warriors,
Though fewer . . . horses, I believe . . .
And not as a guest from wandering, but as the king
Your brother-in-law, retinued with quiet swords . . .
ATTILA   (turning and staring) Hm?
GUNNAR   We acknowledge your hospitality.
ATTILA   Well, well.
Sit down. I remember she spoke of you.
HEOGNI   (aloud) Toad of toads.
GUNNAR   But as
for alliance,
And to ride with your host . . .
ATTILA   Jukka! Converse with him for
me. (turning to Blada, who sits next him) So you`ll sweep
the banners around their loose end, curl it up and cut for the
center: the plain is wide.
BLADA   Ay, Master. They`ll have reserve, I must have more
weight than can be delayed . . .
JUKKA   (to Gunnar) He say he ver` glad you here.
GUNNAR   He seems a laconic man. Between kings, courtesy
should be religion.
HOEGNI   Whisper, Gudrun. How does it feel? They say the
Black Forest women have to do wi` wolves, but a toad, my
God! Have you got warts?
GUDRUN   Do not tempt me . . .
JUKKA   (to Gurmar) He make plan `bout . . . big fighting.
Soon he drink more, then make speech to you maybe.
GUDRUN   . . . toward a black duty. I have what I sought in
marriage, that`s power. I am not hardened yet
To its uses. . . . Oh Oh, Carling, I wish I had died with him.
There were blue campions around him beside the spring,
All changed in color, his blood had filled all their cups.
I wish the wet red earth sweet with young flowers
Had swallowed my life with Sigurd`s, for I am not strong enough
to be his avenger. (Nothing, Jukka,
Oh nothing: an old feud of our tribe.) Gunnar:
Look down the table, you see the three boys beyond Blada and Bela-Nor?
They are sons of Attila. He has no other male relatives, for he
killed his brothers, it is their custom. These fresh boys will
cut each other`s throats when the time comes.
You`ll leave early to-morrow, I shall arrange it.
Tell Hoegni . . . tell Hoegni his hand . . . was crueller than
mine. Carling:
Stay with me?
CARLING   I long to. You are good and beautiful, and here
is the main door of the world. ... I am Gunnar`s man.
GUDRUN   Because I am lonely and hate myself. And though this
camp-life is always dangerous, and has no root
In nature, nothing but wars, rapine and wandering; this people
would need ennobling to pass for wolves:
But Gunnar too and Hoegni are murderers. If you should ever
do anything glorious they`d knife you for it.
In the back.
GUNNAR   I am glad you are not an oath-breaker. You cannot
have him.
GUDRUN   Can I not?
GUNNAR   You`ll go home with us, Carling.
GUDRUN   You make him unhappy and nothing is decided. Drink,
brother.
The trumpeter comes in, on the serving-side of the table, drops
on one knee before Attila, and whispers to Blada.
BLADA   The bishop of Troyes, Master. One of those Roman
holy-men. He came through the lines at Troyes saying he
had gifts for you, so they brought him here. What was his
name? What?
THE TRUMPETER   Lupus, my lord. Bishop Lupus.
ATTILA   We lack entertainment since the juggler was brained.
Ah? Bring him in.
HOEGNI   (to Gudrun) Are you done raging? What`s a juggler?
GUDRUN   (to Carling) The poor man was doing tricks for them.
At first they threw pennies, but when they were drunk they
threw bones.
Bishop Lupus and his followers are led in, and set to stand facing
Attila. The bishop is a tired white-bearded old man, noble in
distress. His robe is torn and soiled; he carries a crozier.
ATTILA   Well, old beard? Talk.
BISHOP LUPUS    I come to plead for a Roman town
Your troops are troubling; that your majesty may deign to spare
it for a fit ransom. I am the unhappy shepherd
That has to kneel to the wolf.
ATTILA   Your name?
LUPUS   I thought they had
told you. I am the unhappy Bishop of Troyes,
Which lies like an egg in your hand to spare or crush.
ATTILA   (like a play-actor`, pretending vast anger)
Spy! Do you hide your name?
LUPUS   Lupus, my lord.
ATTILA   Lupus. I thought so. Unmasked, ah? This seeming-reverend
benign old man, that styles himself
A shepherd: what kind of shepherd? A stealthy ravening and
murderous wolf. I`ll pluck that mock-saintly beard,
See the great fangs grin in the jaws.
LUPUS   It is only my name, my lord,
I cannot help it. Your majesty
Delights in mockery.
GUNNAR   (to Gudruri) What is this ah-ah-ah talk, so smooth and
soft? Do you understand it?
GUDRUN   (who has drawn a straight bright dagger from a hidden
sheath, and plays with it on the table before her, regarding
it gravely, as if she were reading it like a sad poem, in silence
but with moving lips)
Roman. No.
GUNNAR   I wish I could understand it. (seeing the dagger) That
is a nice brave thing, do you cut your meat with it?
GUDRUN   I keep it clean, (turning to her slave-woman) Chrysothemis:
What are they saying? (Chrysothemis interprets in her ear from
time to time, Gudrun does not listen, but reads her knife.)
ATTILA   (continuing, to the bishop) Well, then: what ransom?
LUPUS   All that we have in the city, except a few loaves of mercy
Against starvation. For if you destroy the hive you`ll have the
honey, my lord, but burnt and damaged.
Much rather take the honey and let the hive live, and season
after season returning take
New tribute.
ATTILA   You have a great store of wealth then.
   Oh, little,
my lord. The Goths have stripped us yearly, and the Alans
Before them: we can only give all that we have.
ATTILA   All, hm? That`s
to say, all. Including your virgins,
Young wives, all other livestock.
LUPUS   My lord, I have stood humbly
before you bearing your mockeries.
ATTILA   Very well.
Open your gates to-morrow in the morning, my officers will examine
your houses.
LUPUS   You are right, Attila,
To judge me both fool and coward, that I have prayed mercy
Where no mercy is.
ATTILA   You guess badly again. I am as full of mercy as the
comb is of honey. But unfortunately I have not enough wine
for all my people, nor beer either. We must drink the rivers.
LUPUS   I doubt your meaning, my lord. We will roll out all we
have, every keg, every jug.
ATTILA   It is not enough. Your misfortune is that your city is on
the Seine and pollutes the water. My horses bloated when we
passed there. And now that we move west again: you understand?
For sanitation, for sanitation. Man, woman, and child:
every soul that drops excrement.
LUPUS   You are great and cruel, and are pleased to mock at us.
I have borne it humbly. I have been deceiving you, Attila: you
are not the mighty one here. You range the dark world
From the Danube to the western sea; no man resists you, no
power confines you; your numbers like the shore sands,
And deadlier and crueller than the sea waves; so that the tall white
ignorant heathen that humble Rome
Horde upon horde fall helpless before you.
They fall and scream at your feet; you ride them like horses or
you drive them like deer. . . . Yet I say to you
That the King whom I serve sometimes weeps in his sleep, pitying
Attila.
ATTILA   Ho! In the pillow?
Paternoster, ah? Paternoster. We know you. . . . What is that
hook?
LUPUS   For though you are great on earth,
And seem to prosper invincibly: alas, there is only one little step
for a man between life and death,
Vast pride and bloody destruction.
ATTILA   I step, but not down. What
is that hook in your hand? Answer.
LUPUS   My crozier. The shepherd
staff, the sign of my office.
ATTILA   Hm? . . . Dog!
Attila glares at him in silence, with a stagy look oj black
ferocity. Lupus begins to tremble`, but returns the stare `with
courage.
GUNNAR   (to Gudruri) What now, what now? What did he say?
GUDRUN   He is trying to scare the old man.
HOEGNI   Eh: Gudrun. What d` y` keep reading your knife for?
Has it runes in it?
GUDRUN   This? ... I will tell you.
It is clean and straight. It speaks to me. It says: "Justice.
Faithfulness. Honor. Courage. Duty." . . . But I am not able.
I am not just, but a woman with kindred.
Not honorable, not faithful to the eagle I loved.
But passive, corrupt, merciful.
HOEGNI   Do you say so! Sheathe it then.
ATTILA   Hear me, companions. I have wound this babbler in the
net of his own words, and he has confessed. He is the spy of
a great king (that soaks pillows), and he is sent to hook me
down with that hook: do you see that hook? See it jiggle
in his hand. Judge.
HUNS AND GOTHS   (some in earnesty others shouting `with laughter)
Death. Flaying.
The blood-eagle. By his beard hang him.
LUPUS   Lord Christ, I entrust my spirit to thy wounded hands
Very cheerfully. Speak to thy Father, Lord,
For the poor people of my city; and that he have mercy
Even on Attila.
ATTILA   You tremble, however. Wait! . . . Reprieved, old man.
I never offend a God on the eve of battle. My secretary
Gratiano will arrange a fair ransom with you before you go
home: he is a Christian too. Now . . . What`s this picture
on the wall behind me? Is it your God? Gratiano thinks so.
The sun is setting, its level rays burn on the painting. Attilcfs
imposing shadow, at the feet of the Prometheus, moves as he
turns.
LUPUS   No. (He wavers, as if to fall.)
1 have tasted death. I wish to remember that it holds no bitterness;
But lined with eternal life, solemn with joy.
As for that picture . . . The picture, my lord?
ATTILA   Come, come.
LUPUS   (wearily, passing his hand over his forehead)
A fable of the pagans; we read it in school. A wise giant that
loved mankind: the God of the pagans crucified ... I mean
hanged him for it.
ATTILA   Bah. I took the ransom because I thought your God was
here.
Drink, friends, it`s a sick world! , . . Why was yours hanged?
LUPUS   What did you say, my lord?
ATTILA   Yours too was hanged for loving mankind.
LUPUS   Yes . . . yes. I am terribly tired. He gave himself
willingly.
ATTILA   It is all the same thing. Keep your feet, old man! If you
fall your city falls. (The bishop sways and faints, but is held
up from falling by the priests with him) Ricimer: why was
yours hanged?
RICIMER, A GOTH   Who? Me, master?
ATTILA   When you swear by your hanged God, when you promise
me faithfulness.
Was he hanged for loving mankind?
RICIMER   Ho! We love our friends, not mankind.
GUNNAR   (to Gudrun reading her dagger) You have sworn,
Gudrun.
RICIMER   We say that he hanged himself up as a sacrifice to himself.
They hang up heroes and white horses to him but that`s
not enough; he wanted the greatest sacrifice. There is nothing
greater than himself, so he hanged himself up. Or another
story . . .
GUDRUN   (suddenly standing) I, my lord! I, my lord!
ATTILA   Eh? Go on.
GUDRUN   I was brought up in it. We think there`s a great wisdom
in pain that`s hidden from the happy.
Woden`s our God of Gods and no power could hurt him: then
he must hurt himself to learn it: how else,
Wisdom`s higher half? It`s false, though; I learn nothing. I ...
Oh tell me, my lord, do the dead care
What the living . . . what we do?
ATTILA   Take care of your words; we
are feasting, not prophesying.
GUDRUN   Or even a punishment
Is death? Quick pain and eternal quietness: that`s a reward. Or do
they lie groaning? Ignorant, my lord?
But I can`t act without knowing! Ask your companions, Attila,
ask your lords of war, Attila!
What: have you sent so many thousands to death, and not know
what death is?
Never frown at me, my lord, I am not drunk,
Or only on the bitterness. Because my spirit`s been rushing back
and forth all day and dashing itself
On both sides of decision like a fish in a doubled net. I can neither
do it nor not do it ...
I`ll speak quietly.
ATTILA   (scowling) Do what?
GUDRUN   I will tell you. ... I pray you
to let the old man lie down, my lord. We are cruel
In needs and nature, but not to use it for amusement. That old sick
innocence.
HOEGNI   (to Carling) Boy: slip away before it explodes. Gunnar
and I are hanging on a widow`s hair: never fear, we`ll take
some with us: but you . . . survive, survive. Do as if you
were drunk and must find a place to relieve yourself.
CARLING   You mistake her terribly.
ATTILA   Gudrun: we never allow women to drink with us: I honored
you because you seemed white and still and well-bred.
I was wrong to make an exception. You do for the bed but
not the board.
Keep standing, old man; on your feet! or all`s lost.
When it grows dark I`ll set a torch-bearer by you
To light you all night: if you fall we sack Troyes. I am not to be
moved by women. You old white weariness,
Can you not watch with me for one night?
I too am aging, the snows of time in my hair like winter on the
black pinewoods that wind that Grecian
Fire-mountain Aetna: the frightful heart never cools, and when
the fire bursts forth where is the snow?
But still I am aging, and carry the enormous burden of the world.
Night after hollow night my friends here
Eat flesh, drink and wax merry, my armies that cover all the plain
feed by straw fires and sleep, my companions
Rest in their tents; but for me no slumber, no rest, no relief. My
herds of horses
Lie down under the stars before dawn, the herders forget to herd
them, all the mounted sentinels
Nod lower, their heads droop over to the horses` manes. The
last drunkard sleeps in his song; the inveterate
Gamblers dicing for bits of conquest, by a candle hooded with
double leather, let fall their yellow
Eyelids, their fingers relax. Even the little flowers of the fields
have closed their faces and sleep . . .
Who watches then? Who takes care? Who upholds
The troublesome and groaning earth, revolving it like a vast iron
ball in the torrent of his mind, devising
Its better courses? Which one of your Caesars? Or does a Goth
Uphold the whole earth, night and day, never sleeping? Is it
Attila? And yet your thankless Romans and brutal
West Goths conspire. Whom I shall crush with one mangling
battle, in streams of blood exterminate rebellion
And settle the world; no man again to make war, no man to be
masterless, but laboring in orderly peace
Under my lordship, the peace and happiness of the whole earth.
. . . Hold up your face, man.
If you fall, or fail to attend me, remember: every roof burnt,
every man slain, each woman and child
For a sport to the horse-herders. Eh, old man? . . . Tell me:
I, watching all the nights through, toiling all day, sustaining the
earth: am I not like your God
That gave himself up to torture to save humanity, because he
loved them? . . . Take off your hands from him!
Let him stand alone. . . . Eh? Answer.
LUPUS   Have mercy . . .
ATTILA   And
who, except my own people stuffed with incessant spoils,
Has any gratitude? You in Troyes, shutting your gates? The
Romans, that opened their mouths to swallow the earth
And have choked on it? Or Theodoric the Goth, bought with
Rome`s gold? I shall not leave one alive.
HOEGNI   (to Carling, as Gudrun rises again) Make off, will you.
Warn our folk if you can.
CARLING   She is good. You are dreaming.
GUDRUN   My lord, you are great and men are ungrateful. You
have told your sufferings, our pity is moved. May I mention
mine?
I shall make no disturbance; I have found decision and can speak
quietly. My prayer is for simple justice,
And you only in the world have power. I have stood in your
favor.
ATTILA   Promotion for your brothers, I suppose. Let them earn
it in the near battle, it will taste the sweeter.
GUDRUN   (sighing sharply) Ah. A kind of promotion. Yes, my
lord.
My youngest brother is perfectly without guilt in the matter: he
must be saved. And my brother`s men
Are guiltless: I pray you let them go home.
ATTILA   Hm? Stop there.
Twilight`s a bad counsellor. Bring in the torches.
HOEGNI   (gently) Snow-girl:
Snow-girl: do you expect to outlive us?
We are not disarmed.
GUNNAR   (out of the corner of his mouth, to Hoegni)
Hold your hand, brother. That would
finish it.
Patience and cunning may find the ford yet. . . . Gudrun . . .
sister . . .
Torch-bearers have come in. Some take their places behind
the top of the table, so that the Prometheus is illuminated, but
Attila a thick overbearing bulk against the light; others, at
Attiltfs gesture, stand opposite Gudrun and her brothers, and
one by Lupus; much of the company is in shadow, but these
brightly lighted.
GUDRUN  Carling dear, can`t you quiet them
Until I have finished speaking? . . . You remember, my lord,
how curiously I inquired (and never an answer!)
On the subject of death? But now I think that if it is good I will
do them good, for I love them.
If evil, evil: for I hate them too. The thing they did to Sigurd
I will do to them. (And quite ready
To tempt it myself, Hoegni. Jukka: watch him. He threatens my life.)
Ah but this is a miserable story, my lord, of spites and jealousies
In a back-woods corner between the swamp and the trees. In
winter we have no sun and bleach white, in the spring
We kill each other; blue campions blossom. You can hardly
imagine our heavy narrowness, one thought a year
And there it sticks. You plains-riders pass over and look at new things.
I knew an eagle in my youth, but the warrior-woman
Brynhild had enjoyed him when he was a boy.
She married my brother Gunnar here, still loving Sigurd,
Who was mine. . . . Wave the torch-man, my lord, nearer my face
While I speak of him, because I must praise him
For Brynhild`s reasons. Myself being wedded to the Hun-king,
the captain of the earth,
Would hardly . . . care ... to remember
How beautiful (to that bison-boned woman I mean) Sigurd appeared.
Oh, he was tall, and rather
Pale than ruddy, with golden brown hair and eyes like the ...
He was like a lonely eagle in the van of attack and like an iron
tower (Brynhild
Believed) in the closed battle when it bled at his base. Yet gayer
at the feast and gender than any girl . . .
At least of such as we breed northward . . . She preferred him
to Gunnar and wooed him secretly and he disdained her.
I too was a little scornful, because the woman was built too big
and masculine to go about sighing
With eyes like a sick wood-pigeon`s,
Then Brynhild in a cold and patient fury wrought on her husband,
my brother here, saying daily
That Sigurd outbraved him, Sigurd was the better man, Sigurd
plotted to wrench his kingdom away,
And so forth, and we in ignorance. The more noble are the more
helpless in these whispering wars. So they killed Sigurd.
Gunnar my brother and my brother Hoegni knifed him from
behind, while he was kneeling to drink
At a spring in the forest and you observe, my lord,
That my face has not twitched nor my tongue faltered; the wrong
I suffered led me up to the sun
Of your countenance and burns to a benefit.
ATTILA   Gives you that icicle
look: Hm?
GUDRUN   The whole world is injured
If wickedness flowers unpunished.
ATTILA   What do you want?
GUDRUN   The woman, my lord, killed herself.
Here are the men. I told the story to amuse you.
ATTILA   You have a crooked mind. If you know what you want
I will do it.
GUDRUN   That my brother Carling be spared, because he had no
part in the matter, he was then a young child.
CARLING   Oh ... Gudruri*
GUNNAR   (standing) My lord she has not shown you the half of
this business.
We are here as your guests and hers . . .
HOEGNI   (laying his sword on the table in front of Jukka) Take
it, toad, (rising `while Jukka reaches for it) I have its little twin.
He leans across Carling, striking at Gudrun with his dagger;
but Carling, his right arm engaged under Hoegnfs weight,
catches the blade of the dagger in his left hand.
Chrysothemis screams. Jukka and others overpower Hoegm
from behind. Gunnar, leaping back and half drawing his
sword, is overpowered by Timor and others.
ATTILA   (roaring with angry laughter) Ho! . . . Are you hurt?
GUDRUN   (to Carling) Your hand, your hand!
CARLING   (his hand raining blood on the table)
What have you done, Gudrun!
ATTILA   (angrily shouting) I say are you hurt?
GUDRUN   My . . . No, my lord. My little brother . . . Oh,
Chrysothemis, tear your linen and tie it up. Here, here.
(Gudrun gives her the dagger that she had been playing
with) Cut strips. . . . Not hurt, my master. My brother
took in his hand the blade . . .
ATTILA   What kind of death will you choose for them? . . .
Drink, friends, it`s no harm.
GUDRUN   I ... (moaning over Carling`s
hand) Does it hurt? Oo, Ooh ... I am so awakened
From such a dream . . . I was not the one
That wanted them, that wanted ... Oh no, my lord; and I do
pray you . . .
ATTILA   By God, again?
GUDRUN   As in a nightmare
We do what day would damn us for,
I have been wanting . . . What have I done!
My brothers, my lord: I grew up wi* them. . . .
As if I had walked in the narrow cave of a dream and could never turn,
But now have wakened. No, no, no. If he struck at me,
He knew that I was mad and trying for his life. . . . Oh, truly my lord
It was only a play of mine to amuse you. I have sisterly grudges,
I sought to frighten them.
ATTILA   Ay? We`ve drunk too much
For you to jest with.
GUDRUN   It went too far. Yes, my lord.
ATTILA   Well, Timor?
Ah? Whatever she wants,
They have brawled at our table. Take them out, do what my law
requires. Leave the pale boy.
HOEGNI   Damn you, Carling, that saved the toad`s slut! But there,
boy. Take heart. Live merrily.
JUKKA   (to Hoegni) Come on, you. Your last walk.
TIMOR   (to Gunnar) Come.
GUDRUN   (who has been standing death-white and passive, with
eyes staring at no mark) I am in such a hell . . .
GUNNAR  Nobles of the Goths: is this justly done? You princely
East Goths and Franks . . .
It was sworn to me by Woden hanged on the tree, by the agony
of God . . . (A hand is clapped on his mouth.)
ATTILA   (sharply, to Lupus) Keep on your feet, Bishop the
beard.
GUDRUN   (to Chrysothemis) Give me that! (She takes the dagger
and sets the point against her breast) Attila, my master! If
anyone comes near me before I speak ... or if they are
taken off before you have heard me ... I know not that
you care, but I`ll do this.
ATTILA   Fool.
GUDRUN   Perfectly, my lord. That is my name. One who swore
vengeance by the great self-tortured God
I then believed in; and consecrated my helpless life to it, went
spying through the world for power to accomplish it ...
(Her eyes rove continually, watching against interference)
Tell your servants to stand away from me, my lord,
Or in goes the needle-point. ... I heard that the power in the
world was Attila: I knew not then that I was to love you,
But solely playing my life to kill Sigurd`s murderers . . . That
was my constant passion, whether we rode
In Greece or pleasured in Persia, or on the mirage-
Glimmering Hungarian plain. At length we campaign in Gaul;
I laid the trap when we crossed the Rhine,
And sprung it by the Marne, and I cannot bear it.
I seem contemptible to Sigurd but let him lie. Let them go!
Oh, Oh, quietly. I promise.
For two reasons, my lord: for if I have accomplished my brothers`
destruction it will seem to all men that I love Sigurd dead
more than you living. And also I shall kill myself.
ATTILA   These are dreams from the wine-cup bottoms. You have
drunk yourself mad.
GUDRUN   Forgive me, Carling. . . . Hands off!
RICIMER THE GOTH   Master. . . . For undoubtedly they are
guests; and it seems a crooked occasion. Might it be well to
wait judgment until the morning?
Source
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