영어로 읽는 고전 _ 헨리크 입센의 솔하우그의 잔치
『솔하우그의 잔치』는 1855년에 쓰인 희곡이다. 결혼기념일 잔치를 배경으로, 부유한 지주 벵트 가우테손과의 결혼을 후회하는 마르기트의 이야기가 펼쳐진다. 옛 연인 구드문이 무법자의 신세로 나타나자, 마르기트는 자신의 운명을 바꿀 기회를 엿본다. 그러나 동생 시그네 또한 구드문의 마음을 사로잡는다. 국왕의 관리가 포위망을 좁혀 오고 위험한 계략이 진행되는 가운데, 충심은 시험대에 오르고 치명적인 선택이 다가온다. 옛 스칸디나비아 발라드에서 영감을 얻은 서정적인 희곡이다.
Classics Read in English _ The feast at Solhoug by Henrik Ibsen
Three years wed and the hall at Solhoug is hung for the feast, but the lady of the house has no heart for the harping. Margit sold herself to Bengt Gauteson for his lands and his loud table, and every night since she has counted the cost. There is a golden circlet in her chest and a phial beside it, and she has looked at both more often than she will say.
Then the door opens on Gudmund Alfson, her kinsman and her first love, come home with the king's men behind him and a price upon his head. Margit takes it for the turn of the wheel — that Heaven has at last remembered her — and does not see what everyone else sees at once: that Gudmund's eyes have gone to her young sister Signe, and Signe's to him.
What follows is what the old songs always tell. A cup is prepared and set out. The wrong man drinks from a different cup and dies in the dark by the wall, and the guilt for it settles on the wrong shoulders. Knights ride, the sheriff comes, a pardon arrives one hour later than it should have, and by morning two sisters have learned which of them is loved. Ibsen was twenty-seven when he wrote it, working in a small theatre in Bergen and steeped in medieval balladry, and the play is closer to those songs than to anything he would write later — but the woman at its centre, who traded her life for a fine house and cannot stop reckoning what she gave, is already unmistakably his.
Summary
ERIK.
[Rising at the table.] In one word, now, what answer have you to make to my wooing on Knut Gesling's behalf?
BENGT.
[Glancing uneasily towards his wife.] Well, I—to me it seems— [As she remains silent.] H'm, Margit, let us first hear your thought in the matter.
MARGIT.
[Rising.] Sir Knut Gesling, I have long known all that Erik of Hegge has told of you. I know full well that you come of a lordly house; you are rich in gold and gear, and you stand in high favour with our royal master.
BENGT.
[To KNUT.] In high favour—so say I too.
