Ah, how I shall lick up the ink now! Oh, what rapture to cut oneself! [_Cuts his throat._ BEGRIFFENFELDT. [_Stepping aside._] Pray do not sputter. PEER. [_In increasing terror._] Hold him! HUSSEIN. Ay, hold me! That is the word! Hold! Hold the pen! On the desk with the paper——! [_Falls._ I’m outworn. The postscript—remember it, pray: He lived and he died as a fate-guided pen.[108] PEER. [_Dizzily._] What shall I——! What am I? Thou mighty——hold fast! I am all that thou wilt,—I’m a Turk, I’m a sinner—— A hill-troll——; but help;—there was something that burst——! [_Shrieks._ I cannot just hit on thy name at the moment;— Oh, come to my aid, thou—all madmen’s protector! [_Sinks down insensible._ BEGRIFFENFELDT. [_With a wreath of straw in his hand, gives a bound and sits astride of him._] Ha! See him in the mire enthronëd;— Beside himself——To crown him now! [_Presses the wreath on PEER GYNT’S head, and shouts_: Long life, long life to Self-hood’s Kaiser! SCHAFMANN. [_In the cage._] Es lebe hoch der grosse Peer! ----- Footnotes: ----- Footnote 65: In the original, “Master Cotton.” Footnote 66: A Swede. The name means “trumpet-blast.” Footnote 67: In the original (early editions), “Werry well.” Footnote 68: So in original. Footnote 69: This may not be a very lucid or even very precise rendering of Verdensborgerdomsforpagtning; but this line, and indeed the whole speech, is pure burlesque; and the exact sense of nonsense is naturally elusive. Footnote 70: So in original. Footnote 71: Literally, “pack-camel.” Footnote 72: So in original. Footnote 73: So in original. Footnote 74: So in original. Footnote 75: So in original. Footnote 76: In the original “kejser.” We have elsewhere used the word “Kaiser,” but in this scene, and in Scenes 7 and 8 of this act, the ordinary English form seemed preferable. Footnote 77: So in original. Footnote 78: An allusion to the spurs with which Charles XII. is said to have torn the caftan of the Turkish Vizier who announced to him that the Sultan had concluded a truce with Russia. The boots and spurs, it would appear, have been preserved, but with the buckles missing. Footnote 79: So in original.