Cairo Madhouse

After finding himself being declared the reincarnation of the Prophet by an Arabian nomadic tribe, and narrowly escaping marriage to who he thinks is the girl of his dreams, Peer Gynt is picked up by Dr. Begriffenfeldt, who is enraptured by Peer's expostulations on the nature of selfhood at the foot of the Sphinx. The latter turns out to be the head of the Cairo lunatic asylum, and declares the dumbfounded Peer Gynt Kaiser of the madhouse. Peer tries to leave, but the Doctor stops him.

BEGRIFFENFELDT (Holding him)
Are you crazy?

PEER
                            Not yet ---. Crazy? Heaven forbid!
(A commotion. The minister HUSSEIN forces his way through the crowd.)

HUSSEIN
They tell me a Kaiser has come to-day. (To PEER GYNT)
It is you?

PEER (In desperation)
                Yes, that is a settled thing!

HUSSEIN
Good. --- Then no doubt there are notes to be answered?

PEER (Tearing his hair)
Come on! Right you are, sir; --- the madder the better!

HUSSEIN
Will you do me the honour of taking a dip? (Bowing deeply)
I am a pen.

PEER (Bowing still deeper)
                Why then I am quite clearly
a rubbishy piece of imperial parchment.

HUSSEIN
My story, my lord, is concisely this:
they take me for a sand-box, and I am a pen.

PEER
My story, Sir Pen, is, to put it briefly:
I'm a blank sheet of paper that no one will write on.

HUSSEIN
No man understands in the least what I'm good for;
they all want to use me for scattering sand with!

PEER
I was in a woman's keeping a silver-clasped book; ---
it's one and the same misprint to be either mad or sane!

HUSSEIN
Just fancy, what an exhausting life:
to be a pen and never taste the edge of a knife!

PEER (With a high leap)
Just fancy, for a reindeer to leap from on high ---
to fall and fall --- and never feel the ground beneath your hoofs!

HUSSEIN
A knife! I am blunt; --- quick, mend me and slit me!
The world will go to ruin if they don't mend my point for me!

PEER
A pity for the world which, like other self-made things,
was reckoned by the Lord to be so excellently good.

BEGRIFFENFELDT
Here's a knife!

HUSSEIN (Seizing it)
Ah, how I shall lick up the ink now!
Oh, what rapture to cut oneself! (Cuts his throat)

BEGRIFFENFELDT (Stepping aside)
                                                        Pray do not sputter.

PEER (In increasing terror)
Hold him!

HUSSEIN
                Ay, hold me! That is the word!
Hold! Hold the pen! On the desk with the paper---! (Falls)
I'm outworn. The postscript - remember it, pray:
He lived and he died as a fate-guided pen!

PEER (Dizzily)
What shall I --- ! What am I? Thou mighty ---, hold fast!
I am all that thou wilt, --- I'm a Turk, I'm a sinner ---
a hill-troll ---; but help; ---there was something that burst! (Shrieks)
I cannot just hit on thy name at the moment; ---
oh, come to my aid, thou - all madmen's protector! (Sinks down insensible)

BEGRIFFENFELDT
(With a wreath of straw in his hand, gives a bound and sits astride of him)
Ha! See him in the mire enthronëd; ---
beside himself ---! To crown him now!
(Presses the wreath on PEER GYNT's head, and shouts:)
Long life, long life to Self-hood's Kaiser!

- from Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, IV.xiii