Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 4).djvu/224

 ten? PEER [bowing].
 * Oh, by all means!

HUHU
 * Lend your ear then.-
 * Eastward far, like brow-borne garlands,
 * lie the Malabarish seaboards.
 * Hollanders and Portugueses
 * compass all the land with culture.
 * There, moreover, swarms are dwelling
 * of the pure-bred Malabaris.
 * These have muddled up the language,
 * they now lord it in the country.-
 * But in long-departed ages
 * there the orang-outang was ruler.
 * He, the forest's lord and master,
 * freely fought and snarled in freedom.
 * As the hand of nature shaped him,
 * just so grinned he, just so gaped he.
 * He could shriek unreprehended;
 * he was ruler in his kingdom.-
 * Ah, but then the foreign yoke came,
 * marred the forest-tongue primeval.
 * Twice two hundred years of darkness
 * brooded o'er the race of monkeys;
 * and, you know, nights so protracted
 * bring a people to a standstill.-
 * Mute are now the wood-notes primal;
 * grunts and growls are heard no longer;-
 * if we'd utter our ideas,
 * it must be by means of language.
 * What constraint on all and sundry!
 * Hollanders and Portugueses,
 * h