NILLE. Shame, you beast! You scoundrel! You hopeless drunkard! Haven't you drunk enough brandy in your living lifetime? Are you still thirsty, you sot, now that you are dead? I call that being a full-blown hog.

JEPPE. Shut your mouth, you scum of the earth! and run for the brandy. If you don't, devil take me if I don't haunt you in the house every night. You shall soon find out that I am not afraid of Master Eric any more, for now I can't feel a beating.

[Nille runs home after Master Eric, comes out again, and beats him as be hangs.]

JEPPE. Ow, ow, ow! Stop it, Nille, stop! You'll kill me all over again. Ow! ow! ow!

THE JUDGE [coming forward]. Listen, my good woman! You must not beat him any more. Be reassured; for your sake we will pardon your husband's transgression, and furthermore sentence him back to life again.

NILLE. No, no, good sir! Let him hang, for he's not worth letting live.

JUDGE. Fie, you are a wicked woman; away with you, or we shall have you hanged alongside of him.

[Nille runs away.

SCENE 2

(Enter the Judge's servants, who take Jeppe down from the gallows.)

JEPPE. Oh, kind judge, am I surely all alive again, or am I spooking?

JUDGE. You are quite alive, for the law that can take away a man's life can also give it back again. Can you not comprehend that?

JEPPE. No, indeed, I can't get it through my head, but I keep on thinking I'm a ghost, and am spooking.

JUDGE. Foolish fellow! It's perfectly easy to understand. He who takes a thing away from you can give it back again.

JEPPE. Then may I try it and hang the judge just for fun to see if I can sentence him back to life again?

JUDGE. No, that won't work, because you're not a judge.

JEPPE. But am I really alive again?

JUDGE. Yes, you are.

JEPPE. Then I'm not just a spook?

JUDGE. Certainly not.

JEPPE. I'm not a ghost at all?

JUDGE. No.

JEPPE. Am I the same Jeppe of the Hill as I was before?

JUDGE. Yes.

JEPPE. I'm no mere spirit?

JUDGE. No, certainly not.

JEPPE. Will you give me your oath that's true?

JUDGE. Yes, I swear to it; you're alive.

JEPPE. Swear that the devil may split you if it's not so. JUDGE. Come, take our word for it, and thank us for so graciously sentencing you back to life again.

JEPPE. If you hadn't hanged me yourselves, I would gladly thank you for taking me down from the gallows.

JUDGE. Be satisfied, Jeppe! Tell us if your good wife beats you too often, and we shall find a remedy. Here are four rix-dollars with which you can make merry for a while, and don't forget to drink our health.

[Jeppe kisses his hand and thanks him.]

[Exit Judge, followed by his servants.

SCENE 3

JEPPE. Now I've lived half a hundred years, but in all that time I haven't had so much happen to me as in these two days. It is a devil of a story, now that I come to think of it: one hour a drunken peasant, the next a baron, then another hour a peasant again; now dead, now alive on a gallows, which is the most wonderful of all. Perhaps it is that when they hang living people they die, and when they hang dead people they come to life again. It seems to me that, after all, a glass of brandy would taste magnificent. Hey, Jacob Shoemaker! Come out here!

SCENE 4

[Enter Jacob Shoemaker.]

JACOB. Welcome back from town! Did you get the soap for your wife?

JEPPE. You scoundrel! You shall soon find out what sort of people you're talking to. Take off your cap, for you're no more than carrion compared to the likes of me.

JACOB. I wouldn't stand such words from any one else, Jeppe, but as you bring the house a good penny a day, I don't mind it so much.

JEPPE. Take off your cap, I say, you cobbler!

JACOB. What's happened to you on the way to make you so lofty?

JEPPE. I would have you know that I've been hanged since I saw you last.

JACOB. There's nothing so splendid about that. I don't grudge you your luck. But listen, Jeppe: where you drink your liquor, there you pour out the dregs; you have gone and got full somewhere else, and now you come here to do your brawling.

JEPPE. Quick, take off your cap, scoundrel! Don't you hear what jingles in my pocket?

JACOB (his cap under his arm). Heavens, man, where did you get the money?

JEPPE. From my barony, Jacob. I will tell you all that's happened to me; but get me a glass of mead, for I'm much too high and mighty to drink Danish brandy.

JACOB. Your health, Jeppe!

JEPPE. Now I shall tell you all that's happened to me: When I left you, I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was a baron, and got drunk all over again on pork-wine. I woke up on a dungheap and went to sleep again, hoping to sleep myself back to my baron's estate. I found it doesn't always work, for my wife woke me up again with Master Eric and pulled me home by the hair, not showing the least respect for the kind of man I had been. When I got back to my room, I was thrown out again by the neck, and found myself in the midst of a lot of constables, who sentenced me to death and killed me with poison. When I was dead, I was hanged; and when I was hanged, I came to life again; and when I came to life again, I got four rix-dollars. That is my story, but as to how it happened, I leave that to you to think out.

JACOB. Ha, ha, ha! It's all a dream, Jeppe!

JEPPE. If it weren't for my four rix-dollars here, I might think it was a dream, too. Give me another, Jacob! I shan't think about all that rubbish any more, but get myself decently drunk.

JACOB. Your health, my lord baron! Ha, ha, ha!

JEPPE. Perhaps you can't grasp it, Jacob?

JACOB. No, not if I stood on my head.

JEPPE. It can be true for all that, Jacob! For you're a dunce, and there are simpler things than this that you can't understand.

SCENE 5

[Enter Magnus.]

MAGNUS. Ha, ha, ha! I'll tell you the damn'dest tale, about a man called Jeppe of the Hill, who was found lying on the ground dead drunk: they changed his clothes and put him in the best bed up at the baron's castle, made him believe that he was the baron when he woke up, got him full, and laid him in his own dirty clothes back on the dungheap again, and when he came to, he thought he had been in paradise. I nearly laughed myself to death when I heard the story from the bailiff's men. By the Lord, I'd give a rix-dollar to see the fool! Ha, ha, ha!

JEPPE. What do I owe, Jacob?

JACOB. Twelvepence.

[Jeppe strokes his chin and goes out looking very shame-faced.