Seine Augen macht er zu,
Hüllt sich ein und schläft in Ruh.
Doch die Käfer, kritze, kratze!
Kommen schnell aus der Matratze.
Schon faßt einer, der voran,
Onkel Fritzens Nase an.
“Bau!” schreit er—“Was ist das hier?”
Und erfaßt das Ungetier.
Und den Onkel voller Grausen
Sieht man aus dem Bette sausen.
“Autsch!”—Schon wieder hat er einen
Im Genicke, an den Beinen;
Hin und her und rund herum
Kriecht es, fliegt es mit Gebrumm.
Onkel Fritz, in dieser Not,
Haut und trampelt alles tot.
Guckste wohl! Jetzt ist’s vorbei
Mit der Käferkrabbelei!
Onkel Fritz hat wieder Ruh’
Und macht seine Augen zu.
Dieses war der fünfte Streich,
Doch der sechste folgt sogleich.
In der schönen Osterzeit,
Wenn die frommen Bäckersleut’
Viele süße Zuckersachen
Backen und zurechte machen,
Wünschten Max und Moritz auch
Sich so etwas zum Gebrauch.
Doch der Bäcker, mit Bedacht,
Hat das Backhaus zugemacht.
Also will hier einer stehlen,
Muß er durch den Schlot sich quälen.
Ratsch! Da kommen die zwei Knaben
Durch den Schornstein, schwarz wie Raben.
Puff! Sie fallen in die Kist’,
Wo das Mehl darinnen ist.
Da! Nun sind sie alle beide,
Rund herum so weiß wie Kreide.
Aber schon mit viel Vergnügen
Sehen sie die Brezeln liegen.
Knacks!—Da bricht der Stuhl entzwei;
Schwapp!—Da liegen sie im Brei.
Ganz von Kuchenteig umhüllt,
Steh’n sie da als Jammerbild.—
Gleich erscheint der Meister Bäcker
Und bemerkt die Zuckerlecker.
Eins, zwei, drei!—eh’ man’s gedacht,
Sind zwei Brote d’raus gemacht.
In dem Ofen glüht es noch—
Ruff!—damit ins Ofenloch!
Ruff!—man zieht sie aus der Glut;
Denn nun sind sie braun und gut.—
Jeder denkt, die sind perdü!
Aber nein—noch leben sie.
Knusper, Knasper!—wie zwei Mäuse
Fressen sie durch das Gehäuse;
Und der Meister Bäcker schrie:
“Ach herrjeh! da laufen sie!”
Dieses war der sechste Streich,
Doch der letzte folgt sogleich.
Max und Moritz, wehe euch!
Jetzt kommt euer letzter Streich!
Wozu müssen auch die beiden
Löcher in die Säcke schneiden?
Seht, da trägt der Bauer Mecke
Einen seiner Maltersäcke.
Aber kaum, daß er von hinnen,
Fängt das Korn schon an zu rinnen.
Und verwundert steht und spricht er:
“Zapperment! dat Ding werd lichter!”
Hei! Da sieht er voller Freude
Max und Moritz im Getreide.
Rabs!—in seinen großen Sack
Schaufelt er das Lumpenpack.
Max und Moritz wird es schwüle,
Denn nun geht es nach der Mühle.—
“Meister Müller, he, heran!
Mahl er das, so schnell er kann!”
“Her damit!” Und in den Trichter
Schüttelt er die Bösewichter.—
Rickeracke! Rickeracke!
Geht die Mühle mit Geknacke.
Hier kann man sie noch erblicken
Fein geschroten und in Stücken.
Doch sogleich verzehret sie
Meister Müllers Federvieh.
Als man dies im Dorf erfuhr,
War von Trauer keine Spur.—
Witwe Bolte, mild und weich,
Sprach: “Sieh’ da, ich dacht’ es gleich!”—
“Ja, ja, ja!” rief Meister Böck,
“Bosheit ist kein Lebenszweck!”—
Drauf so sprach Herr Lehrer Lämpel:
“Dies ist wieder ein Exempel!”—
“Freilich!” meint der Zuckerbäcker,
“Warum ist der Mensch so lecker!”—
Selbst der gute Onkel Fritze
Sprach: “Das kommt von dumme Witze!”—
Doch der brave Bauersmann
Dachte: “Wat geiht meck dat an!”—
Kurz im ganzen Ort herum
Ging ein freudiges Gebrumm:
“Gott sei Dank! Nun ist’s vorbei
Mit der Übeltäterei!!”
Translator’s Note
First published in 1865, the same year in which Lewis Carroll produced Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Wilhelm Busch’s Max und Moritz needs little introduction to German-speaking readers. The mock cautionary tale of two young boys who terrorize the bourgeois inhabitants of their village, before coming to a sticky end themselves, brought the 33-year-old illustrator and poet almost instant fame. By the time of Busch’s death in 1908, the tale had gone through fifty-six editions and sold more than 430,000 copies. By 1925, sixty years after its original publication, Max und Moritz had reached its hundredth edition and racked up more than 1.5 million sales. Today, it remains a classic of German children’s literature, with its author frequently hailed in his homeland as one of the forefathers of modern comic books.
Despite dozens of translations and adaptations, Max und Moritz has not enjoyed anywhere near as much popularity in the English-speaking world. I believe that this is in no small part down to the nature of many of those previous translations, which have tended to follow the precise wording of the German too slavishly—at the expense of the linguistic “flow” found within Busch’s original text. Maintaining the rhyming couplet structure of the tale while translating the words into another language is certainly not a simple task, but in this new translation (published a little more than 150 years after the original) I have attempted a slightly looser style, seeking to convey the fun and energy of the German original without, hopefully, straying too far from the source.
Often this has only been made possible by slight alterations to the ordering of sentence parts, or by placing a greater emphasis on the general gist of what Busch wrote, rather than literally translating every word and phrase. On very few occasions, I have made changes to the text in order to make it more readily understandable to a modern audience, and particularly to younger readers who are unlikely to be familiar with words such as “spats”, “inkpots” or references to elderly relatives sneezing heavily after taking large pinches of snuff!
I have also taken the liberty of changing some of the characters’ names, with Witwe Bolte now turned into Widow Palmer (“A kind and gentle lady farmer”) while Lämpel and Böck both lose the umlauts from their surnames. After some deliberation, I have also “aged” “Onkel Fritz” into “Grandpa Fritz”, reasoning that uncles are no longer seen by today’s children as the elderly, authoritarian figures that they may have been perceived as in Busch’s time—although that may just be wishful thinking, now that I am an uncle myself!
For those who speak both German and English (or are perhaps learning one of the languages), the original German version has been included immediately after the English translation—and I hope that this will provide added value, by allowing readers to spot where I have made tweaks to improve the flow of the English translation.
The only phrase that I have deliberately altered due to its being significantly out of step with modern sensitivities comes in the section after Herr Lampel, the boys’ sanctimonious teacher, has narrowly escaped being blown apart by the gunpowder which they had stuffed into his pipe. “Nase, Hand, Gesicht und Ohren / Sind so schwarz als wie die Mohren” (“Nose, hand, face and ears / Are as black as those of the Moors”) has an obvious li
terary resonance with Othello, but otherwise seems an unnecessarily outdated phrase to keep in. Instead, I have opted for a less jarring “Ear to ear and head to foot / His skin is scorched, as black as soot”.
Given its dark tones, some will perhaps question whether Max and Moritz is even a children’s book. Busch himself appears to have intended the work for an older audience—submitting the tale to the publisher Kaspar Braun in the belief that it would appear in the satirical weekly newspaper Fliegende Blätter. It was Braun who made the decision (subsequently vindicated) to publish the story via his children’s book division. Still, questions about the tale’s suitability for children continued to be raised by Busch’s contemporaries. In 1883, the critic Friedrich Seidel launched a scathing attack, claiming that “these caricatures… in Max and Moritz and other works by W. Busch, which at first glance seem so harmless and humorous, are one of the extremely dangerous poisons that are turning the youth of today… into such frivolous, insubordinate know-it-alls”.
It is true that there are no simple moral lessons to be found in Max and Moritz—in stark contrast to the ploddingly didactic cautionary tales which Busch and other nineteenth-century humorists (such as the Struwwelpeter author Heinrich Hoffmann) were clearly parodying. The individual pranks, meanwhile, are barely distinguishable from wanton acts of violence, theft and destruction, which go far beyond mere naughtiness or mischief.
Further complicating the sense of “right” and “wrong” in the story, none of the “victims” are portrayed in a particularly positive light, especially at the end, when they are all shown to have been, to a varying extent, complicit in the grisly demise of the two boys. One appraisal of the story’s subtext, published a few years ago on the German language website The German Professor, went so far as to suggest that Busch “exposes the coldness and harshness of an authoritarian society and unmasks the moral hypocrisy inherent in the violent removal of those who violate [its] sense of order”.
Serious stuff! But while there is certainly plenty in Max and Moritz for adult readers to sink their teeth into, it can surely also be read and enjoyed by all but the most squeamish of youngsters. The comic-book nature of the boys’ crimes, as depicted by Busch, ensures that they are unlikely to shock modern children (and their parents) who have grown up with the darkly humorous tales of recent children’s literature, perhaps most prominently the hugely successful works of Roald Dahl. While translating Max und Moritz, I did wonder whether the act of stuffing gunpowder into a teacher’s pipe in an attempt to blow him up might be considered a bit excessive for modern readers—only to come across an almost identical scenario carried out by the sympathetic heroine of David Walliams’s 2014 book Awful Auntie.
It is arguably the first prank of all that might cause the most offence today, involving as it does the killing of four defenceless farm birds. Quite why cruelty to animals should appear worse to modern readers than cruelty to people (at least in terms of cartoon violence) is probably too big an issue to address properly here, but parents of young, animal-loving children should almost certainly read through the first prank at the very least, before deciding whether they wish to add Max and Moritz to their stack of bedtime reading!
That (slight) warning aside, whether you are nine or ninety-nine, a total newcomer to the story or someone who is familiar with the German original but yet to find a good English rendition—I hope you enjoy this new translation of the misadventures of two young boys, who are still looking surprisingly sprightly as they celebrate more than 150 years of mischief-making!
MARK LEDSOM
Olney, April 2019
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Copyright
Pushkin Press
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London WC2H 9JQ
English translation © 2019 Mark Ledsom
Max and Moritz was first published as Max und Moritz in Germany, 1865
First published by Pushkin Press in 2019
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN 13: 978–1–78269–254–6
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from Pushkin Press
Illustrations by Wilhelm Busch
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