by Tom Kuhn
The infanticide Marie Farrar
[Von der Kindesmörderin Marie Farrar]
BFA 11, 44; 1922; P1927; D.C.
Brecht seems not to have had a particular child-murderer in mind, but many such cases have been treated in European literature: Goethe’s Gretchen (in his Faust) is one, and Mary Hamilton, in the sixteenth-century Scottish ballad ‘The four Marys,’ is another.
The ship
[Das Schiff]
BFA 11, 46; c. 1919; P1923; D.C.
Song of the Red Army soldier
[Gesang des Soldaten der Roten Armee]
BFA 11, 48; 1919; P1925; D.C.
The Communist Party critic Alexander Abusch, reviewing the Domestic Breviary in October 1927, disapproved of this poem. By then Brecht’s own political allegiances had become more definite and he omitted it from all further editions of the collection.
Liturgy of breath
[Liturgie vom Hauch]
BFA 11, 49; 1924; P1927; D.C.
For social and political ends, Brecht here parodies Goethe’s well-known and much-loved poem ‘Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh . . .’ (‘Over the mountains there’s peace’).
Prototype of a bad man
[Prototyp eines Bösen]
BFA 11, 53; c. 1918; P1927; D.C.
Morning address to the tree, Green
[Morgendliche Rede an den Baum Green]
BFA 11, 55; 1924; P1925; D.C.
On François Villon
[Vom François Villon]
BFA 11, 55; 1918; P1927; D.C.
Brecht also wrote a longer version of this poem, ‘Die Ballade von François Villon’ (‘The ballad of François Villon’).
An account of the tick
[Bericht vom Zeck]
BFA 11, 56; 1919; P1927; D.C.
The tick in question is “the man in violet” (line 4), a priest.
Fellow humans
[Vom Mitmensch]
BFA 11, 59; 1920; P1927; D.C.
Orge’s song
[Orges Gesang]
BFA 11, 61; 1919; P1927; D.C.
Orge, a frequent character in Brecht’s poems, is his close friend Georg Pfanzelt.
On the drinking of schnapps
[Über den Schnapsgenuss]
BFA 11, 62; 1920; P1927; D.C.
The final two lines allude facetiously to Act 1, Scene 3, of Wagner’s Lohengrin.
Exemplary conversion of a purveyor of brandy
[Vorbildliche Bekehrung eines Brandweinhändlers]
BFA 11, 63; 1920; P1927; D.C.
Legend of Malchus, the pig in love
[Historie vom verliebten Schwein Malchus]
BFA 11, 65; 1921; P1927; D.C.
A poem against Oskar Camillus Recht, businessman, art dealer, and Brecht’s rival for the love of Marianne Zoff.
The friendliness of the world
[Von der Freundlichkeit der Welt]
BFA 11, 68; 1921; P1926; D.C.
Ballad of those who help themselves
[Ballade von den Selbsthelfern]
BFA 11, 69; 1920; P1924; D.C.
On exertion
[Über die Anstrengung]
BFA 11, 70; 1920; P1923; D.C.
On climbing in trees
[Vom Klettern in Bäumen]
BFA 11, 71; 1919; P1926; D.C.
On swimming in lakes and rivers
[Vom Schwimmen in Seen und Flüssen]
BFA 11, 72; 1919; P1921; D.C.
Orge’s reply on being sent a soaped rope
[Orges Antwort, als ihm ein geseifter Strick gechickt wurde]
BFA 11, 73; 1917; P1927; D.C.
Ballad of any man’s secrets
[Ballade von den Geheimnissen jedweden Mannes]
BFA 11, 74; 1920; P1927; D.C.
Song on Black Saturday in the eleventh hour of the night before Easter
[Lied am schwarzen Samstag in der elften Stunde der Nacht vor Ostern]
BFA 11, 76; c. 1920; P1927; D.C.
Black (or Holy) Saturday is the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. In some traditions this is the day on which Christ harrowed hell to fetch out the righteous (not the damned) who had died since the beginning of the world. (See also ‘Legend of Holy Saturday,’ above.)
The great chorale of thanksgiving
[Grosser Dankchoral]
BFA 11, 77; c. 1920; P1926; D.C.
A parody of the hymn ‘Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren’ composed by Joachim Neander (1650–1680) and known in English as ‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.’
Ballad of the adventurers
[Ballade von den Abenteurern]
BFA 11, 78; 1917; P1927; D.C.
Ballad on many ships
[Ballade auf vielen Schiffen]
BFA 11, 78; 1920; P1927; D.C.
Death in the woods
[Vom Tod im Wald]
BFA 11, 80; 1918; P1918; D.C.
Song of the Fort Donald railroad gang
[Das Lied von der Eisenbahntruppe von Fort Donald]
BFA 11, 82; 1916; P1916; D.C.
The first publication, in a supplement to the Augsburger Neueste Nachrichten of July 13, 1916, had a note (which may be a fiction) saying that Fort Donald was “the starting point for the gang who laid the track right through the American forests.”
Ballad of Cortez’s men
[Ballade von des Cortez Leuten]
BFA 11, 84; 1919; P1922; D.C.
Ballad of the pirates
[Ballade von den Seeräubern]
BFA 11, 85; 1918; P1923; D.C.
The poem owes a good deal to Rimbaud’s ‘Le Bateau ivre.’ Brecht read him in K. L. Ammer’s translation.
Song of the three soldiers
[Das Lied der drei Soldaten]
BFA 11, 89; c. 1924; P1927; D.C.
This poem went into The Threepenny Opera and there, with a refrain and entitled ‘The cannon song,’ it has a more obvious connection with Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Screw-Guns’ in the collection Barack-Room Ballads (1892), translated by Marx Möller in 1911.
The ballad of Hannah Cash
[Ballade von der Hanna Cash]
BFA 11, 90; 1921; P1927; D.C.
Remembering Marie A.
[Erinnerung an die Marie A.]
BFA 11, 92; 1920; P1924; D.C.
First, there was a French song: ‘Tu ne m’aimais pas,’ words by Léon Laroche, music by Charles Malo (1875); next, translated and with a further sentimentalizing of Malo’s music, came Leopold Sprowacker’s 1896 hit ‘Verlor’nes Glück’ (‘Lost happiness’). Brecht got to hear the song parodied by Karl Valentin; and his own poem, which he first called ‘Sentimentales Lied No. 1004’ (one more than Don Giovanni’s 1003 “conquests”), and set, with Franz Bruinier, to a simpler version of Sprowacker’s music, is a further parody, but nonetheless poignant.
Ballad of Mazeppa
[Ballade vom Mazeppa]
BFA 11, 93; 1922; P1923; D.C.
A poem by Byron (1819), a symphonic poem by Liszt (1851), and an opera by Tchaikovsky (1884) are some of the predecessors of Brecht’s ballad. They all go back to the story of the Ukrainian Ivan Mazeppa’s punishment at the hands of a jealous husband: he was bound naked on the back of a wild horse and driven out into the steppe.
Ballad of friendship
[Ballade von der Freundschaft]
BFA 11, 95; 1920; P1925; D.C.
Ballad of the soldier
[Die Ballade von dem Soldaten]
BFA 11, 98; 1921/22; P1927; D.C.
The poem derives from the six lines of verse with which Kipling concludes his short story ‘Love-o’-Women.’ Brecht read the story, translated by Leopold Lindau (1913), and in places—stanza 3 and the last line of every stanza—he keeps close to Lindau. The poem appears in Mother Courage under a new title, ‘Das Lied vom Weib und dem Soldaten’ (‘The song of the woman and the soldier’).
Mahagonny song No. 1
[Mahagonnygesang Nr. 1]
BFA 11, 100; c. 1924–25; P1927; D.C.
The five songs of this ‘Lesson’ plus an Epilogue make the libretto for the 1927 Songspiel, Mahagonny, which then, in 1929, became the opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.
Mahagonny song No. 2
[Mahagonnygesang Nr. 2]
BFA 11, 101; c. 1924–25; P1927; D.C.
Mahagonny song No. 3
[Mahagonnygesang Nr. 3]
BFA 11, 102; c. 1924–25; P1927; D.C.
Alabama song
[Alabama Song]
BFA 11, 104; 1925; P1927; E.H.
This and the following song were “translated” by Elisabeth Hauptmann. It might be more accurate to say that, out of Brecht’s German, she composed them in comical-primitive English.
Benares song
[Benares Song]
BFA 11, 105; 1925; P1927; E.H.
Chorale of the man Baal
[Choral vom Manne Baal]
BFA 11, 107; 1918; P1918; D.C.
This became the prelude to Brecht’s first full-length play Baal. See also the note to ‘Song of the saved.’
The seduced girls
[Von den verführten Mädchen]
BFA 11, 108; 1920; P1927; D.C.
This poem, like the next, owes much to Rimbaud’s ‘Ophélie,’ which itself, of course, along with many other poems and paintings, goes back to Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
The drowned girl
[Vom ertrunkenen Mädchen]
BFA 11, 109; c. 1919; P1922; D.C.
Ophelia again. But in its beginnings, having the title ‘Vom erschlagenen Mädchen’ (‘The murdered girl’), the poem’s subject was Rosa Luxemburg, murdered by the Freikorps and thrown into the Landwehr Canal in Berlin on January 15, 1919.
The Liebestod ballad
[Die Ballade vom Liebestod]
BFA 11, 110; 1921; P1927; D.C.
Brecht’s slant on the Liebestod celebrated in Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde (after Gottfried von Strassburg’s Tristan).
Legend of the dead soldier
[Legende vom toten Soldaten]
BFA 11, 112; 1918; P1922; D.C.
The poem was first published in Brecht’s radically unheroic and unpatriotic play Drums in the Night. A cartoon by George Grosz, entitled ‘Die Gesundbeter’ (‘The faith healers’) and published in Die Pleite in 1919, perfectly illustrates stanza 5, but it seems clear that the two men conceived the satirical figure of the disinterred soldier independently of one another. It was on account of this poem, above all, that the Nazis so hated Brecht.
Against seduction
[Gegen Verführung]
BFA 11, 116; 1918; P1927; D.C.
Brecht deployed this poem, originally entitled ‘Luzifers Abendlied’ (‘Lucifer’s song at evening’), in Scene 11 of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.
Bad teeth
[Vom schlechten Gebiss]
BFA 11, 117; 1921; P1927; D.C.
The sinners in hell
[Von den Sündern in der Hölle]
BFA 11, 118; 1919; P1927; D.C.
In this poem in the style of Villon’s Testament, Brecht consigns himself and a few of his Augsburg friends to hell. Marie is Marie Rose Amann, subject of the poem ‘Remembering Marie A.’ All of them outlived him.
Poor B.B.
[Vom armen B.B.]
BFA 11, 119; 1922; P1927; D.C.
Written April 26, 1922. Brecht noted: “nachts ½10 im Dezug” (9:30 at night on the train). The title and the tone again allude to Villon who in the “ballade” concluding his Testament refers to himself as “le povre Villon.”
Part II
The Berlin Years: 1925–1933
UNCOLLECTED POEMS 1925–1926
Anna’s vigil by Paule’s corpse
[Anna hält bei Paule Leichenwache]
BFA 13, 301; 1925; P1925; D.C.
Sonnet
[Sonett]
BFA 13, 302; 1925; P1961; D.C.
The opium smoker
[Die Opiumraucherin]
BFA 13, 302; 1925; P1961; D.C.
Bidi’s view of the great cities
[Bidis Ansicht über die grossen Städte]
BFA 13, 306; 1925; P1961; D.C.
The theatre communist
[Der Theaterkommunist]
BFA 13, 307; 1925; P1961; T.K.
On the death of a criminal
[Auf den Tod eines Verbrechers]
BFA 13, 308; c. 1925; P1961; D.C.
The girl with the wooden leg
[Das Mädchen mit dem Holzbein]
BFA 13, 309; c. 1925; P1982; D.C.
The dead colonial soldier
[Der tote Kolonialsoldat]
BFA 13, 310; c. 1925; P1982; T.K.
Brecht has a note suggesting he intended to reuse the refrain of ‘The cannon song’ from The Threepenny Opera here: “The troops live under / The cannon’s thunder . . .”
I hear . . .
[Ich höre]
BFA 13, 313; c. 1925; P1961; D.C.
Yes, friends, now the grass is all eaten up . . .
[Ja meine Lieben]
BFA 13, 315; c. 1925; P1967; D.C.
Love poem
[Liebesgedicht]
BFA 13, 317; c. 1925; P1961; D.C.
Come with me to Georgia
[Komm mit mir nach Georgia]
BFA 13, 315; c. 1925; P1967; T.K.
An unpolished song that belongs with the ‘Mahagonny Songs’ from the Domestic Breviary.
Song of a family from the Prairies
[Lied einer Familie aus der Savannah]
BFA 13, 317; c. 1925; P1961; D.C.
The poem belongs in Brecht’s unfinished play Jae Fleischhacker.
Old Mother Beimlen
[Mutter Beimlen]
BFA 13, 318; c. 1925; P1967; D.C.
In exile Brecht later put this together with other children’s songs.
The crushing impact of the cities
[Von der zermalmenden Wucht der Städte]
BFA 13, 323; c. 1925; P1961; D.C.
And we after so long a time . . .
[Und nach so viel Zeit]
BFA 13, 324; c. 1925/26; P1993; D.C.
Remembering a certain M.N.
[Erinnerung an eine M.N.]
BFA 13, 325; c. 1925–26; P1961; D.C.
Very likely the poem is addressed to Caspar Neher’s sister, Marietta. Brecht got to know her in 1919. He wrote a further stanza for the poem, but did not indicate where it should be placed. It reads:
Why is the water not colder than cold?
And the moon not greener than green?
Only this earth is older than old—
They sell us promises sight unseen.
Eight thousand poor people come before the city
[Achttausend arme Leute kommen vor die Stadt]
BFA 13, 328; 1926; P1960; D.C.
Ironically, the little Hungarian town of Salgótarján was in the news again just after Brecht’s death, when armed militia shot unarmed protesters during the anti-Soviet demonstrations of December 1956.
Oh, we had a ball back in Uganda . . .
[Ach, wie war es lustig in Uganda]
BFA 13, 329; 1926; P1927; T.K.
Papa Krüger is presumably Paul Kruger (Oom Paul), president of the South African Republic (or Transvaal) from 1883 to 1900 and a notable Boer opponent of the British.
Ballad of the faithless women
[Ballade von den untreuen Weibern]
BFA 13, 330; 1926; P1982; T.K.
Money
[Vom Geld]
BFA 13, 332; 1926; P1927; D.C.
The epigraph is from a poem called ‘Der Taler’ (‘The Dollar’) by Frank Wedekind.
That is his lot, the man you loved . . .
[Das ist sein Los]
BFA 13, 333; 1926; P1982; D.C.
Matinee in Dresden
[Matinee in Dresden]
BFA 13, 334; 1926; P1926; D.C.
The three gods are Brecht, Arnolt Bronnen, and Alfred Döblin, who were invited to Dresden (“Alibi . . . on the ri
ver Alibe”) to read from their works on March 21, 1926. They were, in their view, shabbily treated. At a premiere of Verdi’s The Force of Destiny (March 20) they were given unsatisfactory seats, for example. This poem, which Brecht recited before his reading, was the gods’ riposte and, as intended, it gave offense. Franz Werfel, who had done the new translation of Verdi’s opera, is alluded to in the name Alea, Latin for “dice,” in German Würfel. Werfel was the author of a collection of poems entitled Der Weltfreund (here, in stanza 4, “the world’s friend”). Sibillus is a Dr. Leo Francke who did his best to conciliate. He worked for the Dresden publishing house Sibyllen-Verlag. Another trio of gods appears, more significantly, in Brecht’s The Good Person of Szechwan.
Assertion
[Behauptung]
BFA 13, 335; 1926; P1926; D.C.
Great men
[Von den grossen Männern]
BFA 13, 336; 1926; P1961; D.C.
The cities, the black-pox cities . . .
[Die Städte mit den schwarzen Blattern]
BFA 13, 338; 1926; P1982; D.C.
Brecht used a slightly altered version of the first stanza to conclude the poem ‘A thinking man soon knows . . .’
When our Lord Jesus . . .
[Als der Krist zur Welt geboren wurd]
BFA 13, 340; 1926; P1993; D.C.
There are two earlier versions of this poem, both called ‘Die Gute Nacht’ (BFA 13, 338–39). See also ‘Maria.’
True, out of the cranny . . .
[Da freilich kam aus der entfernten Ecke]
BFA 13, 342; 1926; P1993; D.C.
But the cities packed with meat . . .
[Aber die Städte, bepackt mit Fleisch]
BFA 13, 343; 1926; P1993; D.C.
The lines (which break off) belong in the context of Brecht’s fragmentary play Sintflut (Flood).
Three hundred murdered coolies report to the Comintern
[Dreihundert ermorderte Kulis berichten an eine Internationale]
BFA 13, 343; 1926; P1927; D.C.
