Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 5).djvu/429

] not all signs and omens point, with unerring finger, to you? Must I remind you of your mother's dream?

She dreamed that she brought forth Achilles.

Must I remind you how fortune has borne you, as on mighty pinions, through an agitated and perilous life? Who are you, sire? Are you Alexander born again, not, as before, in immaturity, but perfectly equipped for the fufilment of the task?

Maximus!

There is One who ever reappears, at certain intervals, in the course of human history. He is like a rider taming a wild horse in the arena. Again and yet again it throws him. A moment, and he is in the saddle again, each time more secure and more expert; but off he has had to go, in all his varying incarnations, until this day. Off he had to go as the god-created man in Eden's grove; off he had to go as the founder of the world-empire;—off he must go as the prince of the empire of God. Who knows how often he has wandered among us when none have recognised him?

How know you, Julian, that you were not in him whom you now persecute?

[Looking far away.] Oh unfathomable riddle!