King monologue (Act 4) — Plays by August Strindberg, Fourth Series

[_Very excited_] Yes, but for how long? Do you know who Dacke is?--A farm labourer who has killed a bailiff; a common thief and incendiary, who is now writing to me with a demand of answer. I am to take pen in hand and open correspondence with a scamp like him! Do you know that he has crossed the Kolmord Forests and stands with one foot in West Gothia and the other in East Gothia?--Who is back of him? The Emperor, the Elector Frederick of the Palatinate, Magnus Haraldsson, the runaway Bishop of Skara, the Duke of Mecklenburg. The Emperor wishes to put the children of Christian the Tyrant back on the throne.[3] But what troubles me more than anything else is to find the Luebeckians and Herman Israel on the same side--my old friend Herman! I ask you how it can be possible. And who has done this to me? Who?--Have you not a word to say?