영어로 읽는 고전 _ 헨리크 입센의 왕위를 노리는 자들
『헨리크 입센 전집 제2권』은 19세기 중반에 쓰인 희곡들을 엮은 모음집으로, 그중 하나가 「왕위를 노리는 자들」이다. 이 권에 실린 작품들은 복잡한 인물 관계와 사회적 역할, 그리고 개인의 야망과 도덕적 책임이 맞부딪치는 지점을 북유럽의 전통과 신화를 배경으로 탐구한다.
「왕위를 노리는 자들」은 베르겐의 그리스도 교회 앞마당에서 벌어지는 신명재판 장면으로 시작한다. 호콘 호콘손의 어머니 잉가가 아들이 선왕의 핏줄임을 증명하기 위해 달군 쇠를 손에 들고 걸어야 하는 것이다. 마당 밖에는 두 진영이 무장한 채 서로를 노려보고 있다. 한쪽은 젊은 호콘을, 다른 한쪽은 노회한 실권자 스쿨레 백작을 왕으로 세우려 한다. 시련이 끝나고 잉가의 손이 온전하다는 판정이 내려지지만, 그것으로 문제가 끝나지 않으리라는 것은 모두가 안다. 그리고 이 모든 광경을 한쪽에서 지켜보는 니콜라스 주교가 있다. 자신은 결코 왕이 될 수 없음을 아는 이 병약한 노인은, 그렇다면 누구도 편히 왕좌에 앉지 못하게 만들겠다고 마음먹은 인물이다. 왕권과 정당성, 자기 확신과 의심이라는 이 작품의 주제는 첫 장면에서 이미 모습을 드러낸다.
Classics Read in English _ THE PRETENDERS by Henrik Ibsen
The second volume of Ibsen's collected works brings together the plays of his Norse period, among them The Pretenders — the last and greatest of his historical dramas, and the one in which he stopped writing about the sagas and started writing about himself.
It opens in the churchyard at Bergen, in the year 1240 or thereabouts, with an ordeal by fire. Inga of Varteig must carry a bar of glowing iron in her bare hands to prove that her son Håkon is the old king's child. Outside the churchyard wall two armed parties wait: one for Håkon, one for Earl Skule, who has governed the country in fact if not in name and who believes the crown is owed him. Inga's hands come through unburnt. The court declares Håkon king. Nothing whatever is settled.
What Ibsen is really staging is a distinction he could not stop worrying at. Håkon has what the play calls the kingly thought — an idea of a single unified Norway that arrived in him whole, unargued, and never wavers. Skule is the abler man, the better soldier, the shrewder politician, and he has no such thought; he can only borrow Håkon's and find that it will not live in him. Between them moves Bishop Nicholas, dying, malignant, magnificent, a man who long ago understood that he would never be king and resolved instead that no one else should sit easy on the throne. He spends his last scene burning the one letter that could settle the succession, and his ghost comes back in the fourth act to make sure the ruin continues without him.
Ibsen was thirty-five, poor, drinking, and privately certain that he had not yet written anything that mattered. He gave Skule every doubt he had about himself and gave Håkon the certainty he wanted. Two years later he left Norway and wrote Brand.
Summary
Earl Skule.
[Softly and impatiently, to Gregorius Jonsson.] Why tarry they so long in there?
Gregorius Jonsson.
Hush! The psalm is beginning.
[From inside the closed church doors, to the accompaniment of trumpets, is heard a Choir of Monks and Nuns singing Domine cœli, etc. etc. While the singing is going on, the church door is opened from inside; in the porch Bishop Nicholas is seen, surrounded by Priests and Monks.
Bishop Nicholas.
[Steps forward to the doorway and proclaims with uplifted crozier.] Inga of Varteig is even now bearing the iron on behalf of Håkon the Pretender.
[The church door is closed again; the singing inside continues.
Gregorius Jonsson.
[In a low voice, to the Earl.] Call upon Holy King Olaf to protect the right.
Earl Skule.
[Hurriedly, with a deprecating gesture.] Not now. Best not remind him of me.
