Tímarit Þjóðræknisfélags Íslendinga - 01.01.1963, Síða 91

know thyself
73
Worm: You let Ant entice you away
from me and lure you into his
house—
Butterfl-y: In other people’s dreams
We do so many things of which we
are innocent.
'Worm: I wronged myself and Fire-
Ky in rejecting her guidance. It
makes no difference whether we did
Wrong waking or dreaming, since
the result is that this garden is like
an orchard after the Fall.
Butterfly: If I did wrong in your
dream, I did so unintentionally and
unwittingly, and am therefore inno-
oent. When dreaming, you are
innocent of what you have done
Wrong while waking. When you
Wake up, you are innocent of any
Wrongdoing committed while
hreaming. There is reason to be-
believe that you are without guilt
when you awake to the life beyond,
and that there is no sin. Or it may
that sin pertains to the body
alone and will die with it, and that
the soul has always been guiltless
and will so part from the body—
Worm: Unless actions in a dream
are as real as actions in a state of
Wakefulness; unless life after death
Js as real as the present life; and
unless man is not one but two
Persons at once, each in his own
w°rld and eac'h responsible for the
netions of the other.
Firefly enters from the left. Butter-
fly starts. Worm and Firefly look at
each other in silence, beside them-
selves with joy.
Firefly: Now you will never leave
me.
Worm: No, never, never! All at once
this orchard is Paradise.
Firefly: Its merit does not lie in the
nutritiousness of its fruits but rather
in the fact that its fruits are fragrant
and capable of becoming lovely in
the sunshine, and that nightingales
come into the forest. What you see
around us has potentialities for
something higher, and that which is
higher has potentialities for some-
thing higher still, and so on.
The nightingales have begun sing-
ing. It is completely dark. Firefly
lifts the hem of her mantle to both
sides so that it resembles wings. Her
dress starts to glow with a golden
red light. This causes Butterfly’s
dress to scintillate as if studded
with iridescent gems; the oranges on
the trees become flaming fireballs;
and the reflection on the dew glit-
ters like molten gold poured over
mercury. As Firefly lets her hem
down, everything turns dark and
disappears. This she does at regular
intervals—it is alternately light and
dark—while to the song of the night-
ingales she performs a dance re-
sembling flight. After a while the
nightingales grow still. Firefly stops,
holding up the hem of her mantle so
that the radiance remains.
Worm: You dance the dance of light
and darkness.
Firefly: It is the dance of bliss and
pain—of love.
Worm: God be praised that I only
dreamed that I refused your guid-
ance.
Firefly: It was real.
Worm: But why is Butterfly here?
Firefly: You said you were going to