This page needs to be proofread.
THIRD==
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
- to
