good morning. have you had breakfast? i can't eat grass, worse luck. can't you teach me how? we're a little hard up. people aren't very interested in juggling in this part of the country.
mia, wake up. wake up! mia, i've just seen something. i've got to tell you about it!
listen, i've had a vision. no, it wasn't a vision. it was real, absolutely real.
but i did see her!
the virgin mary.
she was so close to me that i could have touched her. she had a golden crown on her head and wore a blue gown with flowers of gold. she was barefoot and had small brown hands with which she was holding the child and teaching him to walk. and then she saw me watching her and she smiled at me. my eyes filled with tears and when i wiped them away, she had disappeared. and everything became so still in the sky and on the earth. can you understand .
you don't believe me! but it was real, i tell you, not the kind of reality you see every day, but a different kind.
why must you keep bringing that up?
well, perhaps that time i made it up. i did it just so that you would believe in my other visions. the real ones. the ones that i didn't make up.
i didn't ask to have visions. i can't help it if voices speak to me, if the holy virgin appears before me and angels and devils like my company.
we'll get by.
mikael will grow up to be a great acrobat -- or a juggler who can do the one impossible trick.
to make one of the balls stand absolutely still in the air.
impossible for us -- but not for him.
i've composed a song. i made it up during the night when i couldn't sleep. do you want to hear it?
i have to sit up first.
on a lily branch a dove is perched against the summer sky, she sings a wondrous song of christ and there's great joy on high.
mia! are you asleep?
i haven't finished yet.
all you do is sleep.
are you going to play death?
when are we supposed to do this play?
wouldn't it be better to play something bawdy? people like it better, and, besides, it's more fun.
and what part am i to play?
that's a bad part, of course.
what is it?
what do you mean?
i'm as silent as a grave.
night and moonlight now prevail here sleeps my wife so frail .
may i point out that this is a tragedy, and in tragedies one doesn't snore.
night and moonlight now prevail. there snores -- i mean sleeps -- my wife so frail. jealous i am, as never before, i hide myself behind this door. faithful is she to her lover -- not me. he soon comes a-stealing to awaken her lusty feeling. i shall now kill him dead for cuckolding me in my bed. there he comes in the moonlight, his white legs shining bright. quiet as a mouse, here i'll lie, tell him not that he's about to die.
i can't afford it.
it's nice. but it's surely too expensive for me.
has she disappeared?
has she deserted you?
an actor! if she's got such bad taste, then i think you should let her go.
oh. but to murder her, that's a terrible thing to do.
the actor?
what has he done to deserve that?
the actor! now i understand. there are too many of them, so even if he hasn't done anything in particular you ought to kill him merely because he's an actor.
and that turned out to be her misfortune.
i! a liar!
an actor! me! i wouldn't quite call myself that!
you're really funny.
you're funny. don't you think he's funny? oh, you don't.
do you want to hurt me? why? have i provoked someone, or got in the way? i'll leave right now and never come back.
i don't want to. i can't.
i can't play a bear.
i haven't done any harm. i haven't got the strength to play a bear any more.
ouch, it hurts.
ouch! i didn't drink anything.
i swear to you that i didn't say a word about angels.
look what i bought for you.
but i got it anyhow.
oh, how they beat me.
i only become frightened and angry. i never get a chance to hit back. i can get angry, you know that. i roared like a lion.
no, they just laughed.
and he is so compact to hold. you're a sturdy one. a real acrobat's body.
good evening.
yes, he's fine.
have we nothing to offer the knight, mia?
 that we were allowed to milk. so, if you would like to partake of this humble fare, it would be a great honor.
up to the saints' feast at elsinore.
why not, if i may ask?
really! well, sometimes life is a little hard.
i wish you good appetite.
your suggestion is good, but i must think it over.
yes, i'd say that it's not a bad idea, but i have to think about it. now that skat has left, i am responsible for the troupe. after all, i have become director of the whole company.
this man saved my life. sit down, my friend, and let us be together.
i have written a poem about the spring. perhaps you'd like to hear it. i'll run and get my lyre.
jns! watch out. that one wants to fight all the time. he's not quite sane.
thank you, thank you, perhaps later. but now we're really in a hurry.
the trees stand so still.
it's completely quiet.
or an owl.
he's dead, totally, enormously dead. in fact, i've never seen such a dead actor.
mia!
i see something terrible. something i almost can't talk about.
the knight is sitting over there playing chess.
but do you see who he's playing with?
no, no, he isn't alone.
death. he is sitting there playing chess with death himself.
we must try to escape.
we must try. they are so occupied with their game that if we move very quietly, they won't notice us.
i have harnessed the horse. the wagon is standing near the big tree. you go first and i'll follow you with the packs. see that mikael doesn't wake up.
i guess it's the thunderstorm which comes with dawn.
it's probably rain.
not yet, mia. in any case, not yet.
get into the wagon, mia. crawl in quickly. we'll lie down, mia, with mikael between us.
it is the angel of death that's passing over us, mia. it's the angel of death. the angel of death, and he's very big.
i see them, mia! i see them! over there against the dark, stormy sky. they are all there. the smith and lisa and the knight and raval and jns and skat. and death, the severe master, invites them to dance. he tells them to hold each other's hands and then they must tread the dance in a long row. and first goes the master with his scythe and hourglass, but skat dangles at the end with his lyre. they dance away from the dawn and it's a solemn dance towards the dark lands, while the rain washes their faces and cleans the salt of the tears from their cheeks.