No, stop! It’s easy to slip in here, But outward the Dovrë-King’s gate opens not. PEER. You wouldn’t detain me by force, I hope? THE OLD MAN. Come now, just listen to reason, Prince Peer! You have gifts for trolldom. He acts—does he not?— Even now in a passably troll-like fashion? And you’d fain be a troll? PEER. Yes, I would, sure enough. For a bride, and a well-managed kingdom to boot, I can put up with losing a good many things. But there is a limit to all things on earth. The tail I’ve accepted, it’s perfectly true; But no doubt I can loose what the Chamberlain tied. My breeches I’ve dropped; they were old and patched; But no doubt I can button them on again. And lightly enough I can slip my cable From these your Dovrëfied ways of life. I am willing to swear that a cow is a maid; An oath one can always eat up again;— But to know that one never can free oneself, That one can’t even die like a decent soul; To live as a hill-troll for all one’s days— To feel that one never can beat a retreat,— As the book has it, that’s what your heart is set on; But that is a thing I can never agree to. THE OLD MAN. Now, sure as I live, I shall soon lose my temper; And then I am not to be trifled with. You pasty-faced loon! Do you know who I am? First with my daughter you make too free—— PEER. There you lie in your throat! THE OLD MAN. You must marry her. PEER. Do you dare to accuse me——? THE OLD MAN. What? Can you deny That you lusted for her in heart and eye? PEER. [_With a snort of contempt._] No more? Who the deuce cares a straw for that? THE OLD MAN. It’s ever the same with this humankind. The spirit you’re ready to own with your lips, But in fact nothing counts that your fists cannot handle. So you really think, then, that lust matters nought? Wait; you shall soon have ocular proof of it—— PEER. You don’t catch me with a bait of lies! THE GREEN-CLAD ONE. My Peer, ere the year’s out, your child will be born. PEER. Open doors! let me go! THE OLD MAN. In a he-goat’s skin. You shall have the brat after you. PEER. [_Mopping the sweat off his brow._] Would I could waken!