Comedies by Holberg : Jeppe of the Hill, The Political Tinker, Erasmus Montanus Part 38

(Enter Jacob.)

MONTa.n.u.s. I will not abandon my opinions, even if they all go mad at once.

JACOB. I have a letter for Mossur.

[Gives him the letter, and exit.]

SCENE 6

MONTa.n.u.s (reading). My dearest friend! I could never have imagined that you would so easily abandon her who for so many years has loved you with such faith and constancy. I can tell you for a certainty that my father is so set against the notion that the earth is round, and considers it such an important article of faith, that he will never give me to you unless you a.s.sent to the belief that be and the other good folk here in the village hold. What difference can it make to you whether the earth is oblong, round, eight-cornered, or square? I beg of you, by all the love I have borne you, that you conform to the faith in which we here on the hill have been happy for so long. If you do not humor me in this, you may be sure that I shall die of grief, and the whole world will abhor you for causing the death of one who has loved you as her own soul.

Elisabeth, daughter of Jeronimus, by her own hand.

Oh, heavens! This letter moves me and throws me into great irresolution--

Utque securi Saucia trabs ingens, ubi plaga novissima restat, Quo cadat in dubio est, omnique a parte timetur, Sic animus--

On the one hand is Philosophy, bidding me stand firm; on the other, my sweetheart reproaching me with coldness and faithlessness. But should Erasmus Monta.n.u.s for any reason renounce his conviction, hitherto his one virtue? No, indeed, by no means. Yet here is necessity, which knows no law. If I do not submit in this, I shall make both myself and my sweetheart miserable. She will die of grief, and all the world will hate me and reproach me with my faithlessness. Ought I abandon her, when she has loved me constantly for so many years? Ought I be the cause of her death? No, that must not be. Still, consider what you are doing, Erasmus Montane, Musarum et Apollonis pulle! Here you have the chance to show that you are a true philosophus. The greater the danger, the larger the laurel wreath you win inter philosophos. Think what your commilitiones will say when they hear something like this: "He is no longer the Erasmus Monta.n.u.s who hitherto has defended his opinions to the last drop of his blood." If common and ignorant people reproach me with unfaithfulness to my sweetheart, philosophi, for their part, will exalt me to the skies. The very thing which disgraces me in the eyes of the one party crowns me with honor among the other. I must therefore resist the temptation. I am resisting it. I conquer it. I have already conquered it. The earth is round. Jacta est alea. Dixi.

(Calls.) Jacob!

SCENE 7

(Enter Jacob.)

MONTa.n.u.s. Jacob, the letter which you delivered to me from my sweetheart has had no influence upon me. I adhere to what I have said. The earth is round, and it shall never become flat as long as my head remains on my shoulders.

JACOB. I believe, too, that the earth is round, but if any one gave me a seed-cake to say it was oblong, I should say that it was oblong, for it would make no difference to me.

MONTa.n.u.s. That might be proper for you, but not for a philosophus whose princ.i.p.al virtue is to justify to the uttermost what he once has said. I will dispute publicly on the subject here in the village and challenge all who have studied.

JACOB. But might I ask Mossur one thing: If you win the disputation, what will be the result?

MONTa.n.u.s. The result will be that I shall have the honor of winning and shall be recognized as a learned man.

JACOB. Mossur means a talkative man. I have noticed, from people here in the village, that wisdom and talking are not the same thing.

Rasmus Hansen, who is always talking, and whom no one can stand against in the matter of words, is granted by every one to have just plain goose sense. On the other hand, the parish constable, Niels Christensen, who says little and always gives in, is admitted to have an understanding of the duties of chief bailiff.

MONTa.n.u.s. Will you listen to the rascal? Faith, he's trying to argue with me.

JACOB. Mossur mustn't take offence. I talk only according to my simple understanding, and ask only in order to learn. I should like to know whether, when Mossur wins the dispute, Peer the deacon will thereupon be turned a c.o.c.k?

MONTa.n.u.s. Nonsense! He will stay the same as he before.

JACOB. Well, then Mossur would lose!

MONTa.n.u.s. I shall not allow myself to be drawn into dispute with a rogue of a peasant like you. If you understood Latin, I should readily oblige you. I am not accustomed to disputation in Danish.

JACOB. That is to say, Mossur has become so learned that he cannot make clear his meaning in his mother-tongue.

MONTa.n.u.s. Be silent, audacissime juvenis! Why should I exert myself to explain my opinions to coa.r.s.e and common folk, who don't know what universalia entia rationis formae substantiales are? It certainly is absurdissimum to try to prate of colors to the blind.

Vulgus indoctum est monstrum horrendum informe, cui lumen ademptum.

Not long ago a man ten times as learned as you wished to dispute with me, but when I found that he did not know what quidditas was, I promptly refused him.

JACOB. What does that word quidditas mean? Wasn't that it?

MONTa.n.u.s. I know well enough what it means.

JACOB. Perhaps Mossur knows it himself, but can't explain it to others. What little I know, I know in such a way that all men can grasp it when I say it to them.

MONTa.n.u.s. Yes, you are a learned fellow, Jacob. What do you know?

JACOB. What if I could prove that I am more learned than Mossur?

MONTa.n.u.s. I should like to hear you.

JACOB. He who studies the most important things, I think, has the most thorough learning.

MONTa.n.u.s. Yes, that is true enough.

JACOB. I study farming and the cultivation of the soil. For that reason I am more learned than Mossur.

MONTa.n.u.s. Do you believe that rough peasants' work is the most important?

JACOB. I don't know about that. But I do know that if we farmers should take a pen or a piece of chalk in our hands to calculate how far it is to the moon, you learned men would soon suffer in the stomach. You scholars spend the time disputing whether the earth is round, square, or eight-cornered, and we study how to keep the earth in repair. Does Mossur see now that our studies are more useful and important than his, and, therefore, Niels Christensen is the most learned man here in the village, because he has improved his farm so that an acre of it is rated at thirty rix-dollars more than in the time of his predecessor, who sat all day with a pipe in his mouth, smudging and rumpling Doctor Arent Hvitfeld's Chronicle or a book of sermons?

MONTa.n.u.s. You will be the death of me; it is the devil incarnate who is talking. I never in all my life thought such words could come from a peasant-boy's mouth. For although all you have said is false and unG.o.dly, still it is an unusual speech for one in your walk of life. Tell me this minute from whom you have learned such nonsense.

JACOB. I have not studied, Mossur, but people say I have a good head. The district judge never comes town but he sends for me at once. He has told my parents a hundred times that I ought to devote myself to books, and that something great might be made of me. When I have nothing to do, I go speculating. The other day I made a verse on Morten Nielsen, who drank himself to death.

MONTa.n.u.s. Let us hear the verse.

JACOB. You must know, first, that the father and the grandfather of this same Morten were both fishermen, and were drowned at sea. This was how the verse went:

Here lies the body of Morten Nielsen; To follow the footsteps of his forbears, Who died in the water as fishermen, He drowned himself in brandy.

I had to read the verse before the district judge the other day, and he had it written down and gave me two marks for it.

MONTa.n.u.s. The poem, though formaliter very bad, is none the less materialiter excellent. The prosody, which is the most important thing, is lacking.

JACOB. What does that mean?

MONTa.n.u.s. Certain lines have not pedes, or feet, enough to walk on.