The five
acts of this third section of the trilogy cover the last two
years of Sigurd Slembe's life, years during which he seeks to
gain his end, first by conciliation, and afterwards, maddened
by the base treachery of the king and his followers, by
assassination and violence. He has become a hard man, but,
however wild his schemes of revenge, and however desperate
his measures, he retains our sympathy to the end because we
feel that circumstances have made him the ravager of his country,
and that his underlying motive all along has not been a merely
personal ambition, but an immense longing to serve his people,
and to rule them with justice and wisdom. The final scene
of all has a strange and solemn beauty. It is on the eve of
the battle in which Sigurd is to be captured and put to death
by his enemies. The actual manner of his death was too horrible
even for the purposes of tragedy; and the poet has chosen the
better part in ending the play with a foreshadowing of the outcome.
Sigurd has made his last stand, his Danish allies have deserted
him, and he well knows what will be the next day's issue.
And here we have one of the noblest illustrations in all
literature of that _Versohnung_ which is the last word of
tragic art.
Pages:
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33