SCENE FIRST.
Deep in the pine-woods. Grey autumn weather. Snow is falling.
Peer Gynt stands in his shirt-sleeves, felling timber.
Peer.
[Hewing at a large fir-tree with twisted branches.]
Oh ay, you are tough, you ancient churl;
But it's all in vain, for you'll soon be down.
[Hews at it again.
I see well enough you've a chain-mail shirt,
But I'll hew it through, were it never so stout.—
Ay, ay, you're shaking your twisted arms;
You've reason enough for your spite and rage;
But none the less you must bend the knee!
[Breaks off suddenly.
Lies! 'Tis an old tree and nothing more.
Lies! It was never a steel-clad churl;
It's only a fir-tree with fissured bark.—
It is heavy labour this hewing timber;
But the devil and all when you hew and dream too.—
I'll have done with it all—with this dwelling in mist,
And, broad-awake, dreaming your senses away.—
You're an outlaw, lad! You are banned to the woods.
[Hews for a while rapidly.
Ay, an outlaw, ay. You've no mother now
