Comedies by Holberg : Jeppe of the Hill, The Political Tinker, Erasmus Montanus Part 31

JACOB. Yes, Mossur.

MONTa.n.u.s. Walk behind me and carry my cloak.

[Exit Monta.n.u.s followed by Jacob bearing the cloak.]

SCENE 4

JEPPE. Haven't we cause to be pleased with a son like that, Nille?

NILLE. Yes, indeed, not a penny has been wasted on him.

JEPPE. We shall hear to-day what the deacon is good for. But I am afraid that he won't come if he hears that Rasmus Berg is here,--there is no need of our letting him know that. We will write the bailiff, too; he is glad enough to come, for he likes our ale.

NILLE. It is very dangerous, husband, to treat the bailiff; a man like that mustn't find out how our affairs stand.

JEPPE. He is welcome to know. Every man here in the village is aware that we are well-to-do folks. As long as we pay our taxes and land rent, the bailiff can't touch a hair of our head.

NILLE. Oh, dear husband, I wonder if it is too late to let our Jacob get an education. Just think, if he could be a learned lad like his brother, what a joy it would be for his old parents!

JEPPE. No, wife, one is enough; we must have one at home who can give us a hand and do our work.

NILLE. Oh, at such work as that a man cannot do more than live from hand to mouth. Rasmus Berg, who is a scholar, can do our family more good, with his brain, in an hour than the other in a year.

JEPPE. That makes no difference, little mother; our fields must be tilled and our crops looked after. We can't possibly get along without Jacob. Look, here he is now, coming back again!

SCENE 5

Enter Jacob.

JACOB. Ha! ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! My brother may be a very learned man, but he is a great simpleton for all that.

NILLE. You wicked rascal! Do you call your brother a simpleton?

JACOB. I really don't know what I ought to call such a thing, little mother. It rained until it poured, and yet he let me walk along behind him with the cloak on my arm.

JEPPE. Couldn't you have been civil enough to have said, "Mossur, it is raining. Won't you put on your cloak?"

JACOB. It seems to me, little father, it would have been very strange for me to say to the person whose parents had spent so much money upon him to teach him wisdom and cleverness, when so much rain was falling on him that he was wet to his s.h.i.+rt, "It is raining, sir; won't you put on your cloak?" He had no need of my warning; the rain gave him warning enough.

JEPPE. Did you walk the whole way, then, with the cloak on your arm?

JACOB. Marry, I did not; I wrapped myself up comfortably in the cloak; so my clothes are perfectly dry. I understand that sort of thing better than he, though I've not spent so much money learning wisdom. I grasped it at once, although I don't know one Latin letter from another.

JEPPE. Your brother was plunged in thought, as deeply learned folk usually are.

JACOB. Ha, ha! the devil split such learning!

JEPPE. Shut up, you rogue, or shame on your mouth! What does it matter if your brother is absent-minded about such things as that, when in so many other matters he displays his wisdom and the fruit of his studies?

JACOB. Fruit of his studies! I shall tell you what happened next on our trip. When we came to Jeronimus's gate, he went right to the side where the watch-dog stood, and he would have had his learned legs well caulked if I had not dragged him to the other side; for watch-dogs are no respecters of persons: they measure all strangers with the same stick, and bite at random whatever legs they get hold of, whether Greek or Latin. When he entered the court, Mossur Rasmus Berg absent-mindedly went into the stable and shouted, "Hey, is Jeronimus at home?" But the cows all turned their tails to him and none of them would answer a word. I am certain that if any of them could have talked, they would have said, "What a confounded lunk-head that lad must be!"

NILLE. Oh, my dear husband, can you stand hearing him use such language?

JEPPE. Jacob, you will get into trouble if you talk like that any more.

JACOB. Little father ought rather to thank me, for I set him to rights and took him out of the stable toward the house. Just think what might happen to such a lad if he should go on a long journey alone; for I'm sure that if I had not been with him, he would have been standing in the stable yet, gazing at the cows' tails, from sheer learning.

JEPPE. A plague on your impudent mouth!

[Jacob runs off, Jeppe after him.

NILLE. The confounded rogue!--I have sent word to the bailiff and the deacon, so that my son can have some one to dispute with when he comes back.

ACT III

SCENE 1

Same as Act II.

NILLE (alone). My son Monta.n.u.s is gone a long time. I wish he would come home before the bailiff goes, for he wants very much to talk with him, and is eager to ask him about several things which--But there, I see him coming.

SCENE 2

Enter Monta.n.u.s.

NILLE. Welcome home, my dear son. Our kind friend Jeronimus was no doubt very glad to see our honored son in good health after so long an absence.

MONTa.n.u.s. I have spoken neither to Jeronimus nor to his daughter, on account of that fellow with whom I got into a dispute.

NILLE. What kind of a man was he? Perhaps it was the schoolmaster.

MONTa.n.u.s. No, it was a stranger, who is going away to-day. I know him, although I have not a.s.sociated with him in Copenhagen. I am annoyed almost to death by these people who imagine they have absorbed all wisdom, and still are idiots. I'll tell you, mother, how it is: This fellow has been ordinarius opponens once or twice; therein lies his sole achievement. But how did he perform his Partes? Misere et haesitanter absque methodo. Once when Praeses wished to distinguish inter rem et modum rei, he asked, Quid hoc est?--Wretch, you should have known that antequam in arenam descendis. Quid hoc est? Quae bruta! A fellow who ignores the distinctiones cardinales, and then wants to dispute publice!

NILLE. Oh, my respected son, you mustn't take such things as that to heart. I can see from what you say that he must be a fool.