Collected Plays, Volume 4 (Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry & Prose) 8 Read online

  And if I die in it, so what? I will be quietened

  Lying with the quiet ones. Behind me I will have

  Accomplished what is holy. Then a longer time

  I shall be liked by those down there than here

  For there I’ll dwell for ever. But you

  Laugh at disgrace and live.

  ISMENE:

  Antigone, it is bitter

  To suffer a wild disgrace, but also

  There is a limit on the salt of tears, they do not spring

  From the eyes inexhaustibly. The edge of the axe

  Ends sweet life but it opens

  The veins of pain in the ones it leaves behind. They must

  lament

  Without rest but even lamenting they hear

  Above them the twittering of birds and again

  Through the veil of their tears appear

  The ancient elms and the roofs of home.

  ANTIGONE:

  I hate you, shamelessly showing me

  A lap of skirt full of holes and in it your

  Dwindling stock of grief. Meanwhile

  On bare stones flesh of your flesh is lying

  Served up to the birds of the far and wide skies, he is to you

  Already a yesterday thing.

  ISMENE:

  Only

  To raise myself in revolt I am not good enough, and clumsy

  And fear for you.

  ANTIGONE:

  Don’t counsel me. Come out with your own life!

  But let me do the very least and honour what is mine

  Where it has been reviled. I am in all things

  Not so delicate, I hope, that I could not

  Die an unlovely death.

  ISMENE:

  Go then with your dust. But listen: your speech

  Is all awry, but lovely on what we love.

  Exit Antigone with her jug. Ismene goes indoors. Enter the Elders.

  ELDERS:

  But victory big in booty has come

  And favoured the numerous chariots of Thebes

  And after the war

  Now let there be a forgetting.

  Into all the gods’ temples

  With choirs through the night

  Come and let Thebes whose nakedness laurels have clothed

  Be shaken with the stamp and dancing of Bacchus!

  But the bringer of victory

  Creon, Menoeceus’ son, must have hurried here

  From the battlefield to proclaim

  Booty and at last the return of the soldiers

  Since he has called and commanded this gathering of

  the Elders.

  Creon comes out of the palace.

  CREON:

  Sirs, share this with everyone: there is

  No Argos any more. The settling up

  Was total. From eleven townships

  Few got away, oh very few!

  As it is said of Thebes: you bear to Good Luck

  Twins in a trice, and Bad Luck

  Does not flatten you, it

  Itself is flattened. Your spear’s thirst

  Was quenched at the first drinking. And was not denied

  Repeated drinking. Thebes, you laid to rest

  The people of Argos on a hard place. Now without town or

  tomb

  What mocked you lies in the open air.

  And looking where

  Their city was

  What you see are dogs

  With glistening countenances.

  The noblest vultures wing their way to her, they tread

  From corpse to corpse

  And from the rich servings there

  They cannot lift into the air.

  ELDERS:

  Sweet picture, sir, of vast and terrible things.

  And it will please the city when it comes to them

  If shrewdly mixed with something else: chariots

  Climbing the streets here carrying our own.

  CREON:

  Soon, friends, soon. But now to business. Not yet

  Will you see me hang my sword up in the temple.

  There are two reasons why I summoned you

  From among all. For one, because I know

  You don’t keep count how many wheels the war god’s

  Foe-crushing chariots need and don’t begrudge him

  Your sons’ blood in the battle, but when he comes

  With losses home under the well-defended roof

  There is much reckoning up in the market place. Swiftly

  Therefore make clear to Thebes the blood-spillage

  Does not exceed the usual. Then this, because

  All too forgiving Thebes, being saved

  Again, will hurry as always to wipe the gasping homecomers’

  Sweat off their brows and will not especially note

  Whether the sweat is the sweat of the angry fighter or

  Only the sweat of fear and with it mixed

  The dust of flight. Therefore I covered

  And you are to approve it, Eteocles

  Who died for the city, with wreath and grave

  But the poltroon Polynices, to him

  And to me related and a friend to the people of Argos

  Will lie unburied as they lie. Like them

  He was an enemy, to me was and to Thebes.

  My wish therefore is no one mourn him, also

  That he be left unburied and on show

  A meal, a meat torn up by birds and dogs.

  For who rates higher than his native city

  His life, I count him nothing.

  Who means my city well though, dead or alive

  Equally always he has my esteem.

  I hope that you approve that.

  ELDERS:

  We do approve it.

  CREON:

  Be overseers then in the aforesaid.

  ELDERS:

  Fill suchlike posts with young men.

  CREON:

  Not that. The corpse already has a watch out there.

  ELDERS:

  And we’re the watchers on the living, are we?

  CREON:

  Yes. There are certain people it displeases.

  ELDERS:

  There’s no such fool here he will gladly die.

  CREON:

  None openly. But many a one there is

  Goes on shaking his head till it falls off.

  And that brings me to this: more still needs doing, alas.

  The city must be cleansed …

  Enter a guard.

  GUARD:

  Sir!

  My führer, breathlessly

  I hurry to hand in the swiftest news, don’t ask why not

  Even swifter, my feet

  Ahead of my head or else

  It tugging them after, for

  Wherever I am going and how long

  Still in the sun and out of breath

  Going I am at least nevertheless.

  CREON:

  Why so out of breath or

  So hesitant?

  GUARD:

  I hush nothing up. Why, say I

  Not say straight out what wasn’t done by me?

  And don’t know either for I do not even know

  Who did this thing to you. Harsh sentence

  On one so ignorant would be

  Discouraging.

  CREON:

  Taking no chances are you? The eager messenger

  Of your own misdeed you want the prize

  For good legwork.

  GUARD:

  Sir

  You laid a vast thing on your watchers. But

  Vast things do also give a lot of trouble.

  CREON:

  Speak, will you, finally, then go again.

  GUARD:

  I’ll speak then. Somebody who got away

  Just now has buried the dead man, sprinkling

  His skin with dust so the vultures would not spy him.

  CREON:

  What’s that you say?
Who was it dared do this?

  GUARD:

  I do not know. A spade had not dug there

  Nor any shovel flung. And smooth the ground

  Not ridden over by wheels. No sign

  Who did it. Not a burial mound

  Only a gentle dust as though someone had shied

  Before the ban and had not brought much dust.

  And nowhere prints of any beasts

  Nor dogs that had come and torn.

  When first light showed us this it had

  To all of us an eerie feel. And I

  Was chosen by lot to tell you, führer

  And no one loves the bearer of dire words.

  ELDERS:

  Oh Creon, son of Menoeceus, might not

  The gods be in this happening?

  CREON:

  Enough of that. Don’t make me angrier still

  And say the spirits are gentle on the coward

  Who coldly would have let be violated

  The groups of columns of their temples and the offerings.

  No

  Some in the city take some things amiss

  And mutter and in the harness will not bow

  Their necks for me. I know for sure

  These got this up, with bribes.

  For among all things ever stamped for use

  None is so bad as silver. Whole towns

  It leads astray and goads men from their houses

  To know the knack of every godless work.

  Hear this though, if you do not bring me in

  Earthly and alive, whoever did it

  Yoked and guilty, you’ll be hanged and go

  With a rope around your neck to the underworld.

  Then see where you can draw your profit from

  Share out the spoils with one another and learn

  Not everything is there to buy and sell.

  GUARD:

  Sir, our kind have a lot to be afraid of.

  The place, the down-below place, you allude to

  For us has far too many entrances. I’m less

  Not to say not at all, afraid this minute that

  I was given any silver – but if you think so

  I’d better turn my pockets out twice more

  In case there’s something in there after all–

  Than that I’ll make you cross by contradicting.

  But what I fear more is when I start looking

  It’s rope I might be given, in high hands

  There being more of rope for such as us

  Than silver. If you take my meaning.

  CREON:

  You, so transparent, are you setting me conundrums?

  GUARD:

  The high-up dead man had his high-up friends.

  CREON:

  Catch them around the shins if you can’t reach higher

  Up them. There are, I know, one place or another

  Malcontents. Some hear of my victory

  Quaking with joy and put the laurel on

  With fearful haste. I’ll find them out.

  Exit into the palace.

  GUARD:

  Unhealthy place this where the high

  Are scrapping with the mighty. I’m

  So it seems, still here. To my surprise.

  Exit.

  ELDERS:

  Monstrous, a lot. But nothing

  More monstrous than man.

  For he, across the night

  Of the sea, when into the winter the

  Southerlies blow, he puts out

  In winged and whirring houses.

  And the noble earth of the gods in heaven

  The unspoilable tireless earth

  He rubs out with the striving plough

  From year to year driving

  The race of horses to and fro.

  And the breed of the lightly made birds

  He ensnares and hunts

  And the tribe of wild beasts

  And Pontus’ nature that thrives in salt

  With ropes slyly slung

  This knowing man.

  And catches the game with his arts

  That sleeps and roams on the mountains.

  And over the rough-maned horse he flings

  The yoke on its neck, and over the mountain-

  Wandering and untamed bull.

  And speech and the airy flight

  Of thought and statutes to order a state

  He has learned and to flee the damp airs

  Of ill-blowing hills and

  The bolts of rain. All-travelled

  Untravelled. He comes to nothing.

  Always he knows what to do

  Nothing nonplusses him.

  In all this he is boundless but

  A measure is set.

  For when he wants for an enemy

  He rises up as his own. Like the bull’s

  He bows the neck of his fellowmen but these fellowmen

  Rip out his guts. When he steps forth

  He treads on his own kind, hard. By himself alone

  His belly will never be filled but he builds a wall

  Around what he owns and the wall

  Must be torn down. The roof

  Opened to the rain. Humanity

  Weighs with him not a jot. Monstrous thereby

  He becomes to himself.

  But it stands before me now like God’s temptation

  That I should know and yet shall say

  This is not the child. Antigone

  O unhappy girl of the unhappy

  Father Oedipus, what is this bearing

  Over you and where is it leading you

  For disobeying the statutes of the state?

  Enter the guard, leading Antigone.

  GUARD:

  She did it. She did. We seized her

  Making the grave. But where is Creon?

  ELDERS:

  Here, even as you ask, back from the house.

  Creon comes out of the palace.

  CREON:

  How is it you fetch her here? Where did you seize her?

  GUARD:

  She made the grave. Now you know everything.

  CREON:

  Your word is clear but was it you who saw her?

  GUARD:

  As she mounded the grave, which you forbade.

  A man in luck is clear at once as well.

  CREON:

  Give your account.

  GUARD:

  The affair was so. When I had gone away

  From you, from your colossal threats

  And we had wiped the dust off the dead man

  Lying already rotting, we sat up in the air

  On a high hill because a stink

  Came off the dead man strongly. We agreed

  In case of sleep to jab each other in the ribs

  With the elbow. Suddenly then we opened

  Our eyes wide, and why? Because a warm wind

  Suddenly lifted up the mist from the ground

  Covering the valley in a twisting storm

  Tearing the hair out from the valley’s trees and all

  The vast ether was full of it so we were blinded

  And rubbed our eyes, just so, and after that

  Then she was seen and stood and wept out loud

  With a sharp voice the way a bird will grieve

  Seeing the empty nest and no young in it.

  So she lamented, seeing the dead man bare

  And gathered dust on him again from the iron jug

  Three times with waterings so burying over

  The dead man. Quickly we ran and seized her

  Who seemed unabashed and charged her with

  The present and with the already happened.

  But she denied nothing and was at once

  A sweet and an unhappy thing before me.

  CREON:

  Do you say or deny it that you did it?

  ANTIGONE:

  I say I did it and do not deny it.

  CREON:

  Then tell me
now, not lengthily but briefly

  Do you know what was given out in public

  Concerning that particular dead man?

  ANTIGONE:

  I knew. How shouldn’t I? Was it not clear?

  CREON:

  You dared to break my statute in this way?

  ANTIGONE:

  Because it was yours, because a mortal made it.

  A mortal then may break it and I am

  Hardly less mortal than you are. But if I die

  Before the time I think I will, that is

  I say, even a gain. Who lives like me

  With many ills surely receives

  Some small advantage, dying? Further, had I left

  Lying without a grave my mother’s other dead

  That would have saddened me. But this

  Saddens me not at all. But if you think it foolish

  That I should fear the heavenly gods who from above

  Have no wish to observe uncovered that piecemeal man

  And so do not fear you, now let a fool

  Pass judgement on me.

  ELDERS:

  The wild father’s ilk shows wildly in the child:

  Under a bad fate she has never learned compliance.

  CREON:

  But even the strongest iron

  Cooked in the furnace still its obstinacy

  Will break and fail. You see this every day.

  But she discovers a delight in muddying

  The laws prescribed. And having done it

  Her second impudence is to boast and laugh

  That she did it. I hate a person caught in the wrong

  And making out the thing is something beautiful.

  But you, insulting me although my blood-relation

  Because my blood-relation I will not condemn at once

  But ask you: since you did this thing in secret

  That now is in the open, will you say

  And so avoid a heavy punishment, you are sorry?

  Antigone remains silent.

  ELDERS:

  Say then why you are obstinate.

  ANTIGONE:

  For an example.

  CREON:

  Do you not care that I have you in my hands?

  ANTIGONE:

  What more can you do than kill me now you have me?

  CREON:

  Nothing. But having that I have it all.

  ANTIGONE:

  Why wait? Of all your words

  None pleases me, none will please me

  And so myself I am not agreeable to you

  Although I am to others for what I did.

  CREON:

  So you think others see it as you see it?

  ANTIGONE:

  These see it too, these too are smitten by it.

  CREON:

  Aren’t you ashamed to interpret them unasked?

  ANTIGONE:

  Surely we honour humans of one flesh?

  CREON:

  He’s also of one blood who died for the country.

  ANTIGONE:

  One blood. Child of the selfsame man and wife.

  CREON:

  And the one who spared himself you rate him with the other?

  ANTIGONE: