cultural resources in henrik ibsen's early environment - Ibsen.net

Yes, but forced, shamelessly forced!
That decree means nothing:
Why bear the yoke with fear,
If you yourself did not choose?
Clara, does my voice not swell,
Clara, my eye not shine
From a right which precedes his?
Ask your own last thought,
Ask the beating of your heart, which beats...
Clara, can you deny it?
CLARA.
The church's high sacrament
Binds me to the Count del Fuente;
Go, Fernando! Do not tempt me,
Death is in the look you give me.
FERNANDO.
Clara, Clara, have you no
Better greeting for your lover,
When, loving and faithful
He returns to your embrace again?
Fernando, if you knew
What it costs me to answer:
I have no better greeting!
CLARA.
FERNANDO.
What it costs you, you say?
Only whims and figments of the imagination,
False duties fastened with screws,
Such virtues are a horror.
You build up a whole funeral chorus
Over the heart's eager yearnings,
You torture yourself to sit prettily
Like a precious object in a cage,
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