Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 4

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Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 4 Page 31

by Bertolt Brecht


  Each man goes alone.

  THE HERALD:

  The soldiers tilt the bier, the General

  Stands up now, a little uncertain.

  His philosopher makes as if to accompany him

  A wise saw on his lips. But …

  THE HOLLOW VOICE:

  Stand back, Philosopher. Behind this wall

  No one heeds your sophistry.

  THE HERALD:

  Says the voice that gives orders here

  And thereupon the advocate steps forward

  To raise an objection.

  THE HOLLOW VOICE:

  Overruled.

  THE HERALD:

  Says the voice that gives orders here. And it says to the

  General:

  THE HOLLOW VOICE:

  Now step through the gateway.

  THE HERALD:

  And the General goes to the little gateway

  Stands there a moment, looking about him

  And stares with grave eyes at the soldiers

  Stares at the slaves who haul the sculpture

  Stares at the boxtree, the last green thing. He lingers.

  As the portico stands open, a breath of wind

  Blows in from the street.

  A gust of wind.

  THE HOLLOW VOICE:

  Take your helmet off. Our gateway is low.

  THE HERALD:

  And the General takes off his splendid helmet

  And steps in with bowed head. With a sigh of relief

  The soldiers crowd out of the burial place, chattering gaily.

  5

  DEPARTURE OF THE LIVING

  CHORUS OF THE SOLDIERS:

  So long, Lakalles.

  Now we’re quits, old goat.

  Out of the boneyard

  Up with the glass!

  Fame isn’t everything

  You’ve got to live too.

  Who’ll come along?

  Down by the dock

  There’s wine and song. You weren’t in step.

  I’ll come along.

  Be sure of that.

  Who’ll pay the bill?

  They’ll chalk it up.

  Look at his grin!

  I’m off to the cattle market.

  To the little brunette? Hey, we’ll come along.

  No, three’s a crowd.

  You’ll put her off.

  Then

  We’re for the dog races.

  Man

  That costs money. Not if they know you.

  I’ll come along.

  Attention! Break ranks!

  March.

  6

  THE RECEPTION

  The Hollow Voice is the voice of the gatekeeper of the Realm of Shadows. It continues the narration.

  THE HOLLOW VOICE:

  Ever since the newcomer has entered

  He has stood near the door, motionless, his helmet under

  his arm

  Like his own statue.

  The other dead who are newly arrived

  Crouch on the bench and wait as they have often waited

  For good fortune and for death

  Waited in the tavern until they got their wine

  Waited at the well until the lover came

  Waited in the wood, in battle, for the word of command.

  But the newcomer

  Does not seem to have learned how to wait.

  LUCULLUS suddenly:

  By Jupiter

  What does this mean? I stand and wait here.

  The greatest city on the globe still rings

  With lamentations for me, and here

  There is no one to receive me. Outside my war tent

  Seven kings once waited for me.

  Is there no order here? (3)

  Pause.

  I demand to be conducted from this place.

  Pause.

  Must I stand here among these people?

  Pause.

  I object. Two hundred armoured ships, five legions

  Used to advance at the crook of my little finger.

  I object.

  Pause.

  THE HOLLOW VOICE:

  No answer but from the bench of those who wait

  An old woman says:

  THE VOICE OF AN OLD WOMAN WAITING:

  Sit down, newcomer.

  All that metal you haul, the heavy helmet

  And the breastplate must be tiring.

  So sit down.

  Lucullus is silent.

  Don’t be arrogant. You can’t stand the whole time

  You must wait here. My turn comes before yours.

  No one can say how long the hearing inside will last.

  There’s no doubt that each one will be strictly examined

  To determine whether he shall be sentenced to go

  Down into dark Hades

  Or into the Elysian Fields. Sometimes

  The trial is quite short. One glance is enough for the judges.

  This one here, they say

  Has led a blameless life and he was able

  To be of use to his fellow men.

  With them a person’s usefulness counts the most.

  They say to him, go take your rest.

  Of course with others

  The hearing may last for whole days, especially

  With those who have sent someone down here to the Realm

  of the Shadows

  Before the appointed span of his life was over.

  It won’t take long with the one who went in just now.

  He’s a harmless little baker. As for my affair

  I’m a little anxious, but put my faith in this –

  Among the jury within, they tell me

  There are little people who know well enough

  How hard life is for those of us in times of war.

  My advice to you, newcomer …

  THE THREEFOLD VOICE interrupting:

  Tertullia! (4)

  THE HOLLOW VOICE:

  The newcomer stands stubbornly on the sill

  But the burden of his decorations

  His own roaring

  And the friendly words of the old woman have changed

  him.

  He looks around to see if he is really alone.

  Now he goes to the bench after all, but before he can sit

  down

  He’ll be called. A glance at the old woman

  Was enough for the judge.

  THE THREEFOLD VOICE:

  Lakalles!

  LUCULLUS:

  My name is Lucullus! Isn’t my name known here?

  I come from a distinguished family

  Of statesmen and generals. Only in the slums

  In the docks and soldiers’ taverns, in the unwashed

  Jaws of the vulgar, the scum

  Is my name Lakalles.

  THE THREEFOLD VOICE:

  Lakalles!

  THE HOLLOW VOICE:

  And so yet again called

  In the despised language of the slums

  Lucullus, the general

  Who conquered the East

  Who overthrew seven kings

  And filled the city of Rome with riches.

  At nightfall, when Rome sits down to the funeral feast

  Lucullus presents himself before the highest tribunal of the

  Realm of the Shadows.

  7

  CHOICE OF SPONSOR

  THE COURT CRIER:

  Before the highest tribunal of the Realm of the Shadows

  appears

  General Lakalles, who calls himself Lucullus.

  Presided over by the Judge of the Dead

  Five jurors pursue the examination:

  One, formerly a farmer

  One, formerly a slave who was a teacher

  One, formerly a fishwife

  One, formerly a baker

  And one, formerly a courtesan.

  They sit upon a high bench

  Without hands to take and without mouths to eat


  Insensible to magnificence, these long-extinguished eyes

  Incorruptible, these ancestors of the world-to-come.

  The Judge of the Dead begins the hearing.

  THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:

  Shadow, you shall be heard.

  You must account for your life among men.

  Whether you have served them or harmed them

  Whether we wish to see your face

  In the Elysian Fields.

  You need a sponsor.

  Have you a sponsor in the Elysian Fields?

  LUCULLUS:

  I propose the great Alexander of Macedon be called.

  Let him speak to you as an expert

  On deeds like mine.

  THE THREEFOLD VOICE calls out in the Elysian Fields:

  Alexander of Macedon!

  Silence.

  THE COURT CRIER:

  The person called does not answer.

  THE THREEFOLD VOICE:

  In the Elysian Fields

  There is no Alexander of Macedon.

  THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:

  Shadow, your expert is unknown

  In the Fields of the Blessed.

  LUCULLUS:

  What? He who conquered from Asia to India

  The never-to-be-forgotten one

  Who so indelibly pressed his footprint in the globe of the

  earth

  The mighty Alexander …

  THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:

  Is unknown here. (5)

  LUCULLUS:

  Then I propose

  That the frieze from my memorial

  On which my triumphal procession is set forth, be fetched.

  But how can it be fetched? Slaves haul it. Surely

  Entrance is forbidden here

  To the living.

  THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:

  Not to slaves. So little divides them

  From the dead that one can say

  They scarcely live. The step from the world above

  Down to the Realm of the Shadows

  Is to them a short one.

  The frieze shall be brought.

  8

  THE FRIEZE IS PRODUCED

  THE HOLLOW VOICE:

  His slaves still huddle

  By the wall, uncertain

  Where the frieze should go. Until a voice

  Suddenly speaks through the wall.

  THE COURT CRIER:

  Come.

  THE HOLLOW VOICE:

  And changed to shadows

  By this single word

  They drag their burden

  Through the wall with the box hedge.

  CHORUS OF SLAVES:

  Out of life into death

  Without protest, we haul the burden.

  Long ago our time ceased to be ours

  And the goal of our journey unknown.

  And so we follow the new voice

  Like the old. Why question it?

  We leave nothing behind; we expect nothing. (6)

  THE COURT CRIER:

  And so they go through the wall

  For nothing holds them back, neither can this wall keep

  them back.

  And they set their burden down

  Before the highest tribunal of the Realm of the Shadows –

  This frieze with the triumphal procession.

  The jurymen of the dead, look upon it:

  A captured king, sad of countenance

  A strange-eyed queen with provocative thighs

  A man with a cherry tree, eating a cherry

  A golden god, borne by two slaves, very fat

  Two girls with a tablet, upon it the names of fifty-three

  cities

  A dying legionary, greeting his general

  A cook with a fish.

  THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:

  Are these your witnesses, Lakalles?

  LUCULLUS:

  They are. But how shall they speak?

  They are stone, they are dumb.

  THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:

  Not to us. They shall speak.

  Are you ready, you stony shadows

  You shapes, to give testimony here?

  CHORUS OF FIGURES IN THE FRIEZE:

  We figures, stony shadows of vain sacrifice

  Once destined to remain above in the daylight

  Either to speak or to keep silent We figures once destined by the conqueror’s order to

  portray

  Those conquered, robbed of breath

  Silenced, forgotten

  Are willing to keep silent and willing to speak.

  THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:

  Shadow, the witnesses of your greatness

  Are ready to testify.

  9

  THE HEARING

  THE COURT CRIER:

  And the General steps forward and

  Points to the king.

  LUCULLUS:

  Here you see one whom I vanquished.

  In these few days

  His empire crumbled like a hut struck by lightning.

  He began to fly when I appeared on his frontier

  And the first few days of the war

  Were scarcely enough for us both

  To reach the other frontier of his realm.

  So short was the campaign that a ham

  My cook had hung up to smoke

  Was not yet thoroughly cured when I returned.

  And of seven I struck down he was but one.

  THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:

  Is that true, O King?

  THE KING:

  It is true.

  THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:

  Your questions, jurors.

  THE COURT CRIER:

  And the shadowy slave who was once a teacher

  Bends darkly forward and asks:

  THE TEACHER:

  How did it happen?

  THE KING:

  As he says. We were attacked

  As the farmer loading hay

  Stood with raised fork

  His half-filled waggon was taken from him

  And strange hands seized the baker’s breadloaf

  Before it was fully baked. All that he says

  Concerning the lightning that strikes a hut is true.

  The hut is destroyed. Here

  Is the lightning.

  THE TEACHER:

  And of seven you were …

  THE KING:

  But one.

  THE COURT CRIER:

  The jurymen of the dead

  Consider the testimony of the king.

  Silence.

  And the shadow who was once a courtesan

  Puts a question.

  THE COURTESAN:

  You there, O Queen

  How did you get here?

  THE QUEEN:

  One day by the Taurion I

  Went to bathe there early

  From among the olive trees

  Down came fifty strangers.

  Those men were my conquerors.

  Had no weapon but a sponge

  In the limpid water.

  And their armour shielded me

  Only for a moment.

  Quickly I was conquered. (7)

  THE COURTESAN:

  And why do you walk here in the procession?

  THE QUEEN:

  Oh, as a proof of the victory.

  THE COURTESAN:

  What victory, the one over you?

  THE QUEEN:

  And the lovely Taurion.

  THE COURTESAN:

  And what does he call a triumph?

  THE QUEEN:

  That the king, my husband

  Could not with his whole army

  Protect his property

  From prodigious Rome.

  THE COURTESAN:

  Sister, then our fates are the same.

  For I too

  Found prodigious Rome

  No shield against prodigious Rome.

  THE COURT CRIER:

  And there was silence. The
jurymen

  Of the dead consider the testimony of the queen.

  Silence.

  And the Judge of the Dead

  Turns to the General.

  THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:

  Shadow, do you wish to proceed?

  LUCULLUS:

  Yes, I mark well how the conquered

  Have a sweet voice. However

  Once it was rougher. This king here

  Who captures your sympathy, when he was in power

  Was especially ruthless. (8)

  In taxes and tribute

  He took no less than I. The cities

  I snatched from him

  Lost nothing in him, but Rome won

  Fifty-three cities, thanks to me.

  TWO YOUNG GIRLS WITH A TABLET:

  With streets and people and houses

  Temples and waterworks

  We sprang out of the landscape.

  Today only our names remain on this tablet.

  THE COURT CRIER:

  And the shadowy juror who was once a baker

  Bends darkly forward and asks:

  THE BAKER:

  Why so?

  GIRL WITH A TABLET:

  One day at noon an uproar broke loose.

  Into the streets swept a flood

  Whose waves were men, and carried

  Our goods away. In the evening

  Only a foul smoke marked the spot

  That was once a city.

  THE BAKER:

  And what then

  Did he carry away, he who sent the flood and says

  He gave fifty-three cities to Rome?

  THE COURT CRIER:

  And the slaves who haul the golden god

  Began to tremble and cry:

  THE SLAVES:

  Us.

  Once happy, now cheaper than oxen

  To haul away booty, ourselves booty.

  GIRL WITH A TABLET:

  Formerly the builders of fifty-three cities, of which

  Only name and smoke remain.

  LUCULLUS:

  Yes, I carried them off.

  There were two hundred and fifty thousand

  Formerly foes but now no longer foes.

  THE SLAVES:

  Formerly men, but now no longer men.

  LUCULLUS:

  And with them I carried away their god

  So that the whole earth might see our gods

  Were greater than all other gods.

  THE SLAVES:

  And the god was very welcome

  Because he was of gold and weighed two hundredweight

  And we too are each worth a piece of gold

  The size of a fingerbone.

  THE COURT CRIER:

  And the shadowy juryman

  Who was once a baker

  In Marsilia, the city by the sea

  Bends forward and says quietly:

  THE BAKER:

  Then we write to your credit, shadow

  Simply this: Brought gold to Rome.

  THE COURT CRIER:

  And there is silence.

  The jurymen of the dead

  Consider the testimony of the cities.

  THE JUDGE OF THE DEAD:

  The accused seems tired.

  I allow a recess.

  10

  ROME

 

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