Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/426

390 And the legions were so eager to follow. No thought of taking the upward path, no longing for the free air up here, where the bosom expands with each deep draught of breath. There they march, and march, and march, and see not that the heaven is straitened above them,—and know not there are heights where it is wider.—Seems it not, Maximus, as though men lived but to die? The spirit of the Galilean is in this. If it be true, as they say, that his father made the world, then the son contemns his father's work. And it is just for this presumptuous frenzy that he is so highly revered!

How great was Socrates compared with him! Did not Socrates love pleasure, and happiness, and beauty? And yet he renounced them.—Is there not a bottomless abyss between not desiring, on the one hand, and, on the other, desiring, yet renouncing?

Oh, this treasure of lost wisdom I would fain have restored to men. Like Dionysus of old, I went forth to meet them, young and joyous, a garland on my brow, and the fulness of the vine in my arms. But they reject my gifts, and I am scorned, and hated, and derided, by friends and foes alike.

Why? I will tell you why.

Hard by a certain town where once I lived, there was a vineyard, renowned far and wide for its grapes; and when the citizens wished to have the finest fruits on their tables, they sent their servants out to bring clusters from this vineyard.

Many years after I came again to that city; but no one now knew aught of the grapes that were once so renowned. Then I sought the owner of