a dream play

"Why were you born in pain?
Why do you torment your mother,
Child of man, when you should give her
The joy of motherhood, the greatest of all joys?
Why do you awake to life?
Why do you greet the light
With a cry of hostility and pain?
Why do you smile at life,
Child of man, since the gift of life
Is meant to be joy itself?
Why are we born like the beasts,
We children of gods and men?
Our spirit craved another dress
Than this of blood and dirt.
Will God's image change its form?"
Hush! A creation should not censure its maker.
No one has yet solved the riddle of life.
"And so begins our pilgramage
Over thistles, thorns and stones.
Wherever the track is beaten, it is forbidden.
If you pluck a flower, it belongs to someone else.
If the road is blocked by a field and you must go on,
You tread on others' crops.
Then others tread on yours to even matters.
Every joy that you have brings grief to others,
But your grief brings joy to none.
So grief follows grief,
So goes the journey until your death,
Which other men will harvest."
Son of dust, is it thus you would approach the Highest?

August Strindberg
translated by Michael Meyer

youtheatre: 21-23 March 2013