Eric monologue (Act 2) — Plays by August Strindberg, Fourth Series

One large madhouse, it seems to me! Think of my sane and shrewd and sensible father--doesn't he act like a madman? He rids the country of foreigners and takes the heads of those that helped him. He rids the country of foreigners only to drag in a lot of others, like Peutinger and Norman,[5] whom he puts above the lords of the realm and all other authorities. He is mad, of course!--He rids the Church of human inventions only to demand the acceptance of new inventions at the penalty of death. This liberator is the greatest tyrant that ever lived, and yet this tyrant is the greatest liberator that ever lived! This evening, you know, he wanted to prohibit me from coming here; and when I insisted on going all the same, he threw his Hungarian war-hammer after me, as if he had been the god Thor chasing the trolls. He came within an inch of killing me, just as it is said--which you may not have heard--that he killed my mother.