by Tom Kuhn
Dialectical ode
[Dialektische Ode]
BFA 15, 313; 1956; P1993; T.K.
After Ważyk’s ‘Ode dialektyczna.’
First was joy . . .
[Erst liess Freude]
BFA 15, 315; 1956; P1967; T.K.
Probably for Ruth Berlau.
She went into the hills
[Sie stieg hinauf]
BFA 15, 315; 1956; P1993; T.K.
An adaptation of a poem by the Brazilian modernist poet Domingos Carvalho da Silva.
How it was
[Wie es war]
BFA 15, 315; 1956; P1965; T.K.
Probably for Ruth Berlau.
And I always thought . . .
[Und ich dachte immer]
BFA 15, 295; c. 1955; P1965; D.C.
When in my hospital ward . . .
[Als ich in meinem Krankenzimmer der Charité]
BFA 15, 300; 1956; P1964; T.K.
The Charité was (and is) a big Berlin hospital where Brecht was treated for influenza in May 1956. The lines about the fear of death take up a passage in Lucretius’s De rerum natura which Brecht had reflected on before. For years it was thought that the opening line referred to a “white” ward (the BFA has “Als ich in weissem Krankenzimmer . . .”) but this appears to be a misreading of the manuscript.
INDEX OF ENGLISH TITLES AND FIRST LINES
Page numbers listed correspond to the print edition of this book. You can use your device’s search function to locate particular terms in the text.
1. Cover your tracks, 310
First calendar song, 1026
1st Epistle to the Hettenbachers, 403
The 1st psalm, 67
The first sonnet, 573
2. Fifth wheel, 311
The second beat, 615
Second calendar song, 1026
Second poem of the dead brickie, 642
Second poem of the Unknown Soldier under the triumphal arch, 346
The 2nd Psalm, 68. See also Psalm 2
Second song of the Soldier of the Revolution, 588
The second sonnet, 574
3. To Chronos, 312
The 3rd Psalm, 69
The third sonnet, 575
4. I know what I need . . . , 313
4th Epistle to the Hettenbachers, 404
The 4th Psalm, 69
The fourth sonnet, 575
5. I am scum . . . , 314
The fifth sonnet, 576
6. He strolled down the street . . . , 316
6th Psalm, 56
The sixth sonnet, 577
7. Don’t talk of danger . . . , 317
The seventh psalm, 57
The seventh sonnet, 577
8. Let go of your dreams . . . , 318
The eighth sonnet, 581
The ninth sonnet, 578
10. When I speak to you . . . , 319
10th Psalm, 60
The tenth sonnet (The name I most like . . .), 578
The tenth sonnet (The world loves me or not . . .), 362
The eleventh psalm, 61
The eleventh sonnet, 579
12th Psalm, 62
The twelfth sonnet. On Dante’s poems to Beatrice, 580
The thirteenth sonnet, 580
19th Sonnet. Encounter with the ivory guardians, 584
The 21st sonnet, 818
700 intellectuals worship an oil tank, 330
(1940) 1, 789
(1940) 2, 790
(1940) 3, 790
(1940) 4, 790
(1940) 5, 791
(1940) 6, 791
(1940) 7, 792
(1940) 8, 792
1941. The door, see (1940) 8
1954, first half, 1038
A bad morning, 1014
A ballad for Article 218, 376
A bitter love song, 50
A brow of brass, 453
A curtain-lecture, 108
A film by Charlie Chaplin, 902
A glass of water for Comrade Alfred!, 566
A happy encounter, 1006
A happy occurrence, 1007
A lesson in sabotage, 435
A man of sense . . . , 324
A martyr has his say, 35
A modern legend, 12
A new house, 955
A painter, 33
A prediction, 621
A prohibition on theatre criticism, 728
A proletarian mother’s speech to her sons at the outbreak of war, 756
A protest in the sixth year of Ch’ien Fu, 869
A question, 764
A realization, 955
A report, 475
A short epistle alluding to some disagreements, 152
A soldier’s grave, 19
A song for the gentlemen on Ward D, 51
A song of praise (after ‘Commit thou all thy griefs . . . ’), 84
A thinking man soon knows . . . , 284
A whore who’s so inclined, sir . . . , 370
A worker’s speech to a doctor, 700
Above the four cities they circle . . . , 876
Absalom, 89
Absent mind, 616
An account of the tick, 182
The actress in exile, 614
Address, 329
Address of the dying poet to the young, 761
Address to a dead soldier of Marshal Chiang Kai-shek, 869
Address to Comrade Dimitrov, in the fight before the fascist tribunal in Leipzig, 477
Address to the characters of the first two volumes, 624
Advice to Tretyakov to get well, 389
Advice to visual artists concerning the fate of their works in the coming wars, 697
After the death of my collaborator M.S., 823
After the tune of ‘Oh my Baby,’ 384
Again and again . . . (In struggles forever . . .), 395
Again and again . . . (When I look at this man . . .), 326
Again and again there were red evenings . . . , 106
Against seduction, 247
The age of my prosperity, 541
Ah, how shall we account . . . , 1040
Alabama song, 233
Also I saw a city . . . , 963
Always one step at a time . . . , 482
American airmen, 964
An account of the tick, 182
And I always thought . . . , 1070
And I observed a race . . . , 962
And I saw fields greening . . . , 834
And I saw how they lied . . . , 439
And I set the sentences . . . , 557
And in your country?, 732
And now step out . . . , 953
And so that a moon would light him while he croaked . . . , 399
And that is good, 387
And the appearance of the houses and cities . . . , 558
And the seventeen-year-olds were carried in . . . , 648
And the smile once meant for me . . . , 1044
And there came our comrade Liebknecht . . . , 439
And we after so long a time . . . , 269
And what did the soldier’s wife get?, 851
And when the tree hung full of pears . . . , 967
Ane Smith relates the conquest of America, 155
The angels of Los Angeles . . . , 875
Anna Schreiber’s last letter, 158
Anna speaks ill of Biti, 119
Anna’s vigil by Paule’s corpse, 257
Answer of the practitioner of dialectics when reproached that his prediction of the defeat of Hitler’s armies in the East had not come to pass, 857
The answer, see (1940) 6
Antigone, 942
Apfelböck or the lily of the field, 166
The apocalyptic horsemen, 522
Ardens sed virens, 612
Are the people infallible?, 754
Are you a king?, 338
The army cook’s song, 1001
Around this table here . . . , 972
Article 1, 392
Article 111, 394<
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Article 115, 394
As I dressed for my wedding . . . , 369
As one who comes . . . , 560
As the Fascists grew ever stronger in Germany . . . , 443
Ash Wednesday, 10
Assertion, 277
At Potsdam under the oak trees, 347
At the sight of a severed tree root looking like a fallen man, 833
Augsburg Sonnets, 294
Aurora, 878
Autumn in California, 837
Awaiting the second plan, 481
Baal’s song, 47
A bad morning, 1014
Bad teeth, 248
Bad time for poetry, 750
Bad time for youth, 768
Bad times, 960
Balaam Lai in his thirtieth year . . . , 124
Balaam Lai in July, 130
Ballad (Already he saw them bowing and already . . .), 98
Ballad (And when she lay on her deathbed . . .), 138
A ballad for Article 218, 376
Ballad for the finale, 442
Ballad in the hour of despondency, 93
Ballad of any man’s secrets, 201
Ballad of Cortez’s men, 211
Ballad of friendship, 223
The ballad of Hannah Cash, 218
The ballad of knowledge, 630
Ballad of Mazeppa, 221
Ballad of the adventurers, 205
Ballad of the button, 503
Ballad of the Captain of Köpenik, 127
Ballad of the dance, 18
Ballad of the death of Anna Cloudface, 134
Ballad of the drop in the ocean, 407
Ballad of the Emperor, 1032
Ballad of the faithless women, 272
Ballad of the Jew’s whore Marie Sanders, 661
Ballad of the man on the street, 398
Ballad of the old woman, 141
Ballad of the pirates, 213
The ballad of the Reichstag Fire, 464
Ballad of the soldier, 227
Ballad of the virgins, 370
The ballad of the waterwheel, 504
Ballad of the widows of Osek, 662
Ballad of those who help themselves, 195
Ballad on many ships, 206
The bandit and his knave, 550
The beam, 834
Beds for the night, 433
The beggar, 7
The beginning of war, 590
Behold the ease . . . , 924
Belgian fields, 16
Benares song, 235
Beneath the green pepper trees . . . , 875
Berlin 1948, 946
Bertolt Brecht’s Domestic Breviary, 161
Biddi and the sons of the suburbs, 635
Bidi’s view of the great cities, 259
The big blanket, 866
The bird of death, see (Spring 1938) 3
The birth in the tree . . . , 94
A bitter love song, 50
Bitterly you think of the past . . . , 1032
Bivvy, 613
The black woods go upwards . . . , 105
Blasphemy, 327
Bonnie Mac Sorel courted . . . , 19
The book burnings, 709
The Bosses say: peace and war, 654
The brass, 655
The bread and the little children, 165
The bread of the hungry has been eaten, 652
The bread of the people, 1028
The breaking up of the ship, the Oskawa, by her crew, 687
The broken rope . . . , 776
Brother horse . . . , 1003
Brother, now’s the time . . . , 856. See also The Koloman Wallisch Cantata
A brow of brass, 453
Buckow Elegies, 1011
The Buddha’s parable of the burning house, 682
The bull is strong . . . , 107
Burial of the actor, 780
The burning tree, 9
But I who’ve seen how roses fade . . . , 1047
But in the cold of the night . . . , 88
But now stop hoping . . . , 424
But once we were resolved at last . . . , 1005
But she who remains the same yet ever changes . . . , 480
But the cities packed with meat. . . . , 280
But the lowly grass . . . , 479
But when he walked to the block . . . , 899
Buying oranges, 582
By ship, in cars, on foot, by plane or train . . . , 596
By the sea, the oil derricks. In the canyons . . . , 875
The Caledonian Market, 494
Calendar poem, 139
Call to a sick Communist, 701
Call to arms, 701
Call to the doctors and nurses, 703
Cantata for the anniversary of Lenin’s death, 705
Cantata for the first of May, 546
Carefully I test . . . , 438
The cares of the Chancellor, 723
The carpet weavers of Kujan-Bulak honour Lenin, 683
Caspar Neher, the set designer, presents the elements of his Antigone-Model to the actors of the town of Chur, 943
Caspar’s song with the lone refrain, 25
The cattle march, 497
The chalk cross, 509
The Chancellor’s economics, 631
The Chancellor’s gravel drive, 873
Change, but for the worse, 1052
Changing the wheel, 1014
The cherry thief, 789
The child that wouldn’t wash, 665
Children’s Crusade 1939, 824
Children’s song, 354
Chinese Poems, 865
Chorale of the man Baal, 237
Chorus, 378
Chorus of the Poor from The Rich Man and the Poor Man, 285
Christmas legend, 148
Chronicle, 1065
The cities, 288
The cities are built for you . . . , 332
The cities, the black-pox cities . . . , 279
Citizenship exam, 862
City landscape, 890
The city, 953
Coals for Mike, 686
Come with me to Georgia, 265
Comfort from the Chancellor, 725
Coming from the crowded tenements . . . , 410
Communism is the middle way, 432
Concerning man’s dependency on nature, 367
Concerning the cities 2, 288
Concerning the Uncle, 320
The condemnation of classical ideals, 884
The conquest of Austria, 638
The consequences of playing safe, 759
Contrary song, 1050
1. Cover your tracks, 310
Critique of Michelangelo’s Creation, 644
The crooked bow . . . , 772
Crooked cross and Double-cross, 903
Crossing the frontier of the Soviet Union . . . , 443
The crushing impact of the cities, 268
The cultivation of millet, see Tschaganak Bersijew, or The cultivation of millet
A curtain-lecture, 108
The dam, 519
Dance song, 996
Dances, 989
Dannebrog, 542
The days of all your bitternesses . . . , 74
The dead colonial soldier, 262
Death in the woods, 208
Deliberation 1, 615
The Department of Literature, 1027
Description of H.W.’s acting, 615
Dialectical ode, 1069
Did I not sniff danger . . . , 864
Difficult times, 1048
The difficulty of governing, 711
Directive for the authorities, 328
The discontents who acted . . . , 888
Discovery about a young woman, 303
The dispatched, 620
The dispute Anno Domini 1938, 801
Ditty, 42
Do not throw into the battle . . . , 1041
Do not too readily fall for the plan . . . , 391
Do not trust your hearing
. . . , 456
Do you fear death? Look on it here!, 472
The doctor, 510
The dog, 1023
Dolly Little, the layer-out, 33
Don’t say too often . . . , 1031
7. Don’t talk of danger . . . , 317
Don’t waste a thought on . . . , 447
Doomed to die, 510
The door, see (1940) 8
The doubter, 627
Down in the willow grove . . . , 86
Downfall of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, 518
The dragon of the muddy black pond, 867
The draughtsmen hunker . . . , see (1940) 3
Dream of a great bellyache, 709
Driven out with good reason, 733
Driving along in a comfortable car . . . , 622
The drowned girl, 239
The duration of the Third Reich, 727
E.P. The selection of his gravestone, 1043
Economical performance by the Master Players, 934
Egyptian peasant song, 640
Eight thousand poor people come before the city, 271
Eight years ago, 1017
The eighth sonnet, 581
The eleventh psalm, 61
The eleventh sonnet, 579
Embarrassing incident, 883
The emigrant’s lament, 757
The emigration of the poets, 523
Empedocles’ shoe, 676
The Emperor Napoleon and my friend the carpenter, 514
Encounter with the ivory guardians, 584
Encounter with the poet Auden, 990
Envoi, 910
Epistle, 123
Epistle on suicide, 114
Epistle to the Augsburgers (1945), 910
Epistles to the Chicago people, 145
Epitaph, 929
Epitaph 1919, 364
Epitaph for Gorky, 708
Epitaph for Mayakovsky, 930
Essay no. 1 on The Mother, 990
Eulenspiegel survives the War, 941
Even as a child they said it was disgraceful . . . , 365
Even in the mouths of infants, 1053
Even the bravest man . . . , 927
Evening in the menagerie, 143
Every morning, to earn my bread . . . , 876
Every year in September . . . , 624
Everyone knows that the solitary mistrustful man . . . , 336
Everything changes . . . , 905
Everything new is better than everything old, 382
Everywhere so much to see, 802
Except this star, there is nothing . . . , 958
Exclusively because of the increasing disorder . . . , 634
Exemplary conversion of a purveyor of brandy, 188
Exercise for actors, 784
Fairground song, 32
The farmer looks after his fields, 474
The farmer ploughs the field, 591
The farmer’s address to his ox, 699
Fatzer chorus 1, 360
Fatzer chorus 7, 360
The FDJ’s Song of rebuilding, 947