“Norma” – Act 2

ACT TWO

Scene One

In Norma’s house. Night Introduction

NORMA They are both asleep. They will not see the hand which strikes them. No remorse, O my heart; they must not live. Anguish here – in Rome, abuse far worse than anguish slaves of a stepmother. Ah no, never! They must die. I cannot go nearer: a chill seizes me, my hair stands with fright. To kill my children! Tender babies, until now the joy of my life – they, in whose smile I seemed to see Heaven’s pardon, can I kill them? What guilt have they? They are the children of Pollione: that is their crime! For me, they have already died; let them die for him, too. May his anguish be greater than any other. Strike! – Ah no! They are my children, mine! Ho there, Clotilde! Come – quickly! Bring Adalgisa to me.

CLOTILDE She is nearby, walking alone, weeping and praying. NORMA Go! Let my sin be mended – and then, to die. ADALGISA Were you calling me, Norma? How pale and sad your face! NORMA The pallor of death! I must confess my shame to you. I ask one thing, which you will do if my present grief and my grief to come deserves pity. ADALGISA I promise to do anything. NORMA Swear! ADALGISA I swear! NORMA Then hear me. I have resolved to cleanse this earth of my existence. I cannot take these poor children with me: I entrust them to you. ADALGISA Oh Heaven! To me? NORMA Take them to the Roman camp, to him whom I dare not name. ADALGISA What are you asking?

NORMA May he be less cruel a husband to you. I forgive him, and now I shall die. ADALGISA Husband! Ah, never! NORMA For his children’s sake, I beg you. Ah, take them with you, succour them, protect them. I do not ask for glory and honours that will be for your own sons. I ask only that my children be not abandoned to wretchedness and slavery. Remember that it was for you that I was betrayed and cast aside! Adalgisa, oh, let the fierce torment in my heart move you. ADALGISA Norma, ah Norma! for me you will always be a beloved mother. Keep your children. May I never leave this land. NORMA You swore. ADALGISA Yes, I swore but only to do good for you. Now I shall go to the Roman camp and assail him with your laments.

The compassion you have stirred in me will speak out in sublime tones. Do not despair – you will see love and nature reawakened in him. I am sure I know his heart and Norma, there, shall reign again! NORMA I should beg him? Ah no – never. ADALGISA Norma – do not resist. NORMA I no longer hear you – go now, go! ADALGISA No, never! See, O Norma, at your knees, these dear, dear children. Let pity for them move you, if you feel no pity for yourself... NORMA Ah, why do you try to weaken me with such soft feelings? Such illusions, such hopes are not for one about to die. ADALGISA Relent, ah yield! NORMA Ah, leave me. He loves you.

ADALGISA And already he repents. NORMA And you? ADALGISA I loved him – now I feel nothing but friendship. NORMA Child – what will you do? ADALGISA Return to you what is yours, or hide myself, with you, from God and man. NORMA You have won – embrace me. I have found my friend again. NORMA and ADALGISA For the rest of my life I shall always stay with you. The earth is big enough to shelter us both. Together with you, courageously, I shall fight outrageous Destiny, as long as in thy breasts my loving heart shall beat.

Scene Two

Sacred forest of the druids GALLIC WARRIORS – CHORUS I Has he gone? CHORUS II He is still in the camp, to judge from the signs: the warlike chants, the noise, the clang of arms, the banners waving in the breeze. ALL This slight delay must not disturb us nor hold us back. Let us wait, in silence let our hearts prepare fulfilment of our mighty task. OROVESO Warriors! I had hoped to come as bearer of better news. The unselfish ardour, the anger seething in your breasts, I had hoped to second – but God’s will is different. CHORUS What! The hated Proconsul still does not leave our land? He is not returning to Rome? OROVESO A fiercer, more cruel Roman will succeed Pollione in command.

CHORUS Does Norma know this? Does she still speak to us of peace? OROVESO In vain I studied Norma’s thoughts. CHORUS What must we do now? OROVESO Submit to Fate: disband, without revealing to anyone the failure of our plan. CHORUS Always to pretend? OROVESO Cruel law! I feel it too. Ah! I too chafe beneath the Roman yoke and long for battle. But heaven is against us. Pretence is advisable. CHORUS Yes – pretence if pretence serves us, but keep our anger burning in our breasts. OROVESO Let us keep our hatred covered until the Romans think it dead. The day will come when it will blaze forth to burn with a fiercer flame. Yes, we must pretend, pretence is advisable. The day will come, etc. CHORUS Woe to Rome when the holy altar gives the signal to take up arms! Yes, but let us pretend, etc. OROVESO Let us pretend, yes, it is wise to pretend. CHORUS We shall pretend, for the pretence serves us.

Scene Three

The temple of Irminsul NORMA He will return. Yes, I have faith in Adalgisa. He will return, repentant, suppliant, my lover again. This thought cleaves the black cloud which weighed upon me, and the sun breaks through, bright as on the first day of love. Clotilde! CLOTILDE O Norma! Be brave! NORMA What are you saying?

CLOTILDE Alas! NORMA Speak! CLOTILDE In vain Adalgisa spoke to him and wept. NORMA Why did I trust her? She left me and, made lovelier by her grief, she went to him. She betrayed me! CLOTILDE She is coming to the temple. Sad and anguished, she begs to offer up her vows. NORMA And he? CLOTILDE And he has sworn to carry her off, even from the altar of God. NORMA The traitor would go too far. But my vengeance will strike first – and blood – Roman blood – shall flow like water! CHORUS The sacred gong has sounded!

OROVESO and CHORUS Norma, what has happened? The shield of Irminsul has sounded. What meaning does it have? NORMA War, plunder and death! OROVESO and CHORUS But only a few hours ago your lips bound us to peace. NORMA And now to anger to rage, to battle, to their death! O brave men, raise up the hymn of battle! ALL To battle! to battle! In the forest of Gaul brave warriors outnumber the trees. As hungry wolves fall upon the flock, we shall strike at the soldiers of Rome. Blood! Blood! The Gallic axes are bathed in the blood of the Romans. Over the impure waters of the Liguri it gushes with deathly sound. Slaughter, extermination and vengeance already begin and will soon be fulfilled. Like grain mowed down by the sickle, the Roman legions shall fall. With proud wings clipped, with talons drawn,

behold the mighty eagle on the ground! And God will come on the rays of the sun to behold the triumph of his men. And God will come on the rays of the sun to behold the triumph of his men. OROVESO Will you not fulfil the rite now, O Norma? Will you not tell us who the victim is to be? NORMA The victim will be here. The awful altar has never lacked for victims. But what is that disturbance? CLOTILDE Our temple has been desecrated by a Roman: he has been captured in the sacred cloister of the virgins. ALL A Roman? NORMA (Who can it be? If it were he?) ALL They are bringing him here. NORMA (It is he!) OROVESO and CHORUS It is Pollione!

NORMA (Now I am avenged.) OROVESO Blasphemous enemy – who led you to violate the fearful threshold, to challenge the wrath of Irminsul? POLLIONE Kill me! But do not question me. NORMA It is I who must strike. Make way. POLLIONE What do I see? Norma! NORMA Yes, Norma. ALL Strike with the holy dagger. Avenge our God! NORMA Yes, I shall strike. ALL You tremble! NORMA (Ah, I cannot!) OROVESO What is it? Why do you hesitate?

NORMA (Can I feel pity now?) CHORUS Strike him! NORMA I must question him – to know what accomplice, what insidious priestess, spurred this infidel to the worst of crimes. Leave me for a moment. OROVESO and CHORUS (What is her plan?) POLLIONE (I am trembling.) NORMA At last you are in my hands. No one else can break your bonds. I can. POLLIONE But you must not. NORMA I shall. POLLIONE How can you?

NORMA Listen to me: for the sake of your god, your children, you must swear that forever you will avoid Adalgisa you will not take her from the altar then I shall grant you life and I shall never see you again. Swear it! POLLIONE No: I am not such a coward! NORMA Swear it, swear it! POLLIONE First I would rather die! NORMA Do you not know my fury is greater than yours? POLLIONE I am waiting for it to strike. NORMA Do you not know that I, with this dagger, your children POLLIONE Oh God! What are you saying?

NORMA Yes: I raised it over them. See, see what I have become! I did not strike – but soon – now I shall commit the fearful excess. In an instant I could forget I am a mother. POLLIONE Cruel woman, it is into the father’s breast that you must plunge the dagger. Give it rather to me. NORMA To you! POLLIONE Then I alone shall die. NORMA You alone? All the Romans, by the hundreds, shall be mown down, destroyed and Adalgisa POLLIONE Alas! NORMA ...having violated her vows... POLLIONE Yes, cruel woman?

NORMA Adalgisa shall be punished; she will die in the fire. POLLIONE Oh! Kill me, kill me, but on her have pity. NORMA At last you are pleading? Too late I’ll strike your heart through hers. Already, in your eyes, I feed upon your anguish for her death; at last I can make you as unhappy as I am! POLLIONE Be satisfied with my terror: I am weeping at your feet. Vent your fury on me, but spare an innocent girl. Let it suffice, for your vengeance, that I kill myself now before you. NORMA I’ll strike your heart through hers. POLLIONE Be satisfied with my terror. NORMA No, through her heart...

POLLIONE No, cruel one! NORMA ...I’ll strike at yours. POLLIONE Vent your fury on me, but spare an innocent girl. NORMA Already in your eyes, etc. POLLIONE You are cruel! NORMA At last I can make you, at last I can make you as unhappy as I am, etc. POLLIONE Let my grief be enough for you, that I die here before you, let it suffice for your vengeance, etc. POLLIONE Give me the dagger! NORMA How dare you? Stand back. POLLIONE The dagger, the dagger!

NORMA Ho, there: ministers, priests, come here now! To appease your wrath, I announce a new victim. A perjured priestess has broken her holy vows, has betrayed her nation and our fathers’ gods. ALL A crime! Oh, what wrath! Tell us all. NORMA Yes – but prepare meanwhile the pyre. POLLIONE Again I beseech you, Norma – have pity! ALL Who is she? NORMA Hear me! (Shall I, so guilty, accuse her of my own sin?) ALL Speak: who is she? POLLIONE Do not tell them. NORMA It is I!

OROVESO and CHORUS You, Norma! NORMA Yes, I. Build the pyre. ALL (I am frozen with horror!) POLLIONE (My heart fails me.) ALL You – a traitress! POLLIONE Do not believe her. NORMA Norma does not lie. OROVESO and CHORUS Oh, what shame! NORMA The heart you betrayed, the heart you lost, see in this hour what a heart it was. In vain you sought to flee from me; cruel Roman, at last you are with me. A God, a fate stronger than you,

wills us together in life and death. On the same pyre which consumes me, and in the earth, I shall be with you. POLLIONE Too late, too late I have realised what a sublime woman you are! I have lost you. NORMA The heart you betrayed, the heart you lost, see in this terrible hour what a heart it was. POLLIONE With my remorse, love is reborn, a more raging, more desperate love. Let us die together, yes, let us die: my last word will be that I love you. But you, in dying, must not hate me. Before you die, forgive me.

NORMA See in this terrible hour, etc. POLLIONE Do not hate me, etc. OROVESO, CHORUS Oh, be your true self again, reassure us: see, an aged father beseeches you. Say you were speaking false, it is not true, that the words you spoke were wild. The austere God who hears you now is silent and holds back his thunder. This is a sign, the clearest sign, that he will not punish, ah no, that God will not punish you! CHORUS Norma, ah Norma, vindicate yourself! You are silent? You scarcely heed us! NORMA Heavens! And my children? POLLIONE Poor children! What anguish! NORMA Our children? POLLIONE What anguish! CHORUS Norma – are you guilty? Speak!

NORMA Yes – beyond any mortal power to say. OROVESO and CHORUS Sinner! NORMA Do you hear me? OROVESO Away! NORMA Ah, hear me! OROVESO What sorrow is mine! NORMA I am a mother. OROVESO Mother! NORMA Be calm – Clotilde has my children. Take them – save them together with her – from the barbarians. OROVESO No, now go – leave me. NORMA Ah, father! One last request –

OROVESO and CHORUS Oh, what horror! NORMA Oh, do not let them be victims of my cruel mistake oh, do not cut them down in the innocence of childhood. Remember that I am your blood, have pity on my children. Oh father, have pity, have pity on my children. CHORUS She weeps! She prays – but what hope has she? Her prayers will be rejected. Tear from her brow the sacred wreath, place upon her the veil of death! NORMA Father, you weep... OROVESO My heart is oppressed! NORMA You weep, you forgive. OROVESO Love conquered! POLLIONE Oh, heaven!

OROVESO Yes; ah, what grief! NORMA Ah, you forgive me, your tears have told me. NORMA, POLLIONE I ask no more – I am happy, and gladly I shall ascend the pyre! CHORUS Yes, she weeps, etc. POLLIONE I ask no more, Heaven! NORMA Father, ah father! OROVESO No more, wretched girl! NORMA You promise me? OROVESO I promise you, yes. NORMA Ah, you forgive me! Your tears tell me, etc.

CHORUS Go now to the pyre, and may your sacrifice cleanse the altar and the temple, O you who shall be cursed in death! OROVESO Go, wretched child! NORMA Father – goodbye! POLLIONE Your pyre, O Norma, is mine. There beyond, holier, begins eternal love! OROVESO Break forth, at last, O tears! You are a father’s right. END