Bertolt Brecht: Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder 5

by Bertolt Brecht

  These changes were, as Brecht said, calculated to bring out Courage’s short-sighted concentration on business and alienate the audience’s sympathies. Thus in scene 1 she now became distracted by the chance of selling a belt buckle; in scene 5 she no longer helped the others to make bandages of her expensive shirts; while in scene 7 she was shown prospering (her lines up to Them as does are the first to go’ were new, while the scene title ‘Mother Courage at the peak of her business career’ and the silver necklace of the stage direction were added after the 1949 edition). Besides these, however, Brecht made earlier alterations to two of the main characters – the cook and the camp prostitute Yvette – and to virtually all the songs, whose independent role in the play became considerably strengthened as a result. Scene 8 seems to have called for repeated amendment, thanks partly to Brecht’s uncertainty about the Yvette-cook relationship, which in turn depended on the choice of song for scene 3, where it is first expressed. Another confusion which has perhaps left its mark on the final text concerns religion: the first typescript gave the chaplain the Catholic title of ‘Kaplan’ throughout, putting Courage initially in the Catholic camp, which the Lutherans then overran in scene 3. Though Brecht corrected this on the script, to conform with the rest of the story, the religious antagonism emerges none too clearly even in the final version.

  Brecht’s first typescript also numbered the scenes rather differently, so as to run from 1 to 11, omitting the present scenes 7 to 10. He altered this to make 9 scenes, a division which he retained in the 1946 script, writing the original scene titles, to correspond with it, very nearly in their present form. ‘The Story’ (pp. 274–276 above) refers to this numbering, as also does a note attached to the typescript:

  The minor parts can easily be divided among a small number of actors. For instance the sergeant in scene 1 can also play the wounded peasant in scene 5 and the young man in scene 7 [8]; the general in scene 2 can be the clerk in scene 4 and the old peasant in scene 9 [11], and so on. Moreover the soldier in scene 3, the young soldier in scene 4 and the ensign in scene 9 [11] can be performed by the same actor without alteration of make-up.

  Settings and costumes

  High road with a Swedish city in the background/Inside the general’s tent/Camp/Outside an officer’s tent/In a bombarded village/In a canteen tent during rain/In the woods outside a city/Outside a parsonage in the winter/Near a thatched peasant dwelling.

  The chief item of scenery consists in Courage’s cart, from which one must be able to deduce her current financial situation. The brief scenes on the high road which are appended to scenes 6 and 8 [now scenes 7 and 10] can be played in front of the curtain.

  So far as the costumes are concerned, care must be taken to avoid the brand-new elegance common in historical plays. They must show the poverty involved in a long war.

  The following scene-by-scene résumé of the changes follows the same numbering, the present scene numbers being given in square brackets.

  1. [1]

  In Brecht’s first typescript the family arrive to the sound of a piano-accordion, not a Jew’s harp, and there are some minor differences in the Mother Courage song.

  2. [2]

  The cook’s original name ‘Feilinger’ is amended to ‘Lamb’ on the first typescript. The general’s reference to the king and Eilif’s reply were added to this; the general’s following ‘You’ve got something in common already’ was an afterthought added on the Deutsches Theater script (according to Manfred Wekwerth it was meant to refer to the enthusiasm with which Eilif drank). Eilif’s ‘dancing a war dance with his sabre’ was penned by Brecht on the 1946 script.

  The song itself is taken over from Brecht’s first collection of poems, Die Hauspostille (1927), and derives originally from the verse at the end of Kipling’s short story Love o’ Women, itself taken from the song of the Girl and the Soldier in the story My Great and Only.

  3. [3]

  The three sub-scenes (divided by the passage of time) are numbered 3, 3 a and 3b, of which only the first has a title. Yvette originally was Jessie Potter, amended on the first typescript to Jeannetté Pottier; she had become Yvette by 1946. The scene started with Mother Courage’s remark to Swiss Cheese ‘Here’s your woollies’, everything to do with the armourer being added to the first typescript (p. 126).

  Instead of the ‘Song of Fraternisation’, Jessie ‘sings the song of Surabaya-Johnny’ (from Happy End), immediately after the words ‘Then I’ll tell you, get it off my chest’, Courage having just said ‘Just don’t start in on your Johnny’. The text of this song is not reproduced in the typescript, but a first version of Johnny’s description is inserted, with Jeannette ‘growing up on Batavia’ and the man being a ‘ship’s cook, blond, a Swede, but skinny’. In pen, Batavia is changed to Flanders, ship’s cook to army cook and Swede to Dutchman. A ‘Song of Pipe-and-Drum Henny’ is added, which is a slightly adapted version of ‘Surabaya-Johnny’ in three verses (the refrain appears only in the 1946 script). In the text of this song, which still fits the Weill music, Burma is amended to Utrecht and the fish market (in ‘You were something to do with the fish market / And nothing to do with the army’) to a tulip market. Besides the beginning (’When I was only sixteen’) the second quatrain of the second verse was absorbed in the ‘Song of Fraternisation’, which is substituted in Brecht’s amended copy of the 1946 script. This also adds that the cook was called ‘Pipe-Henny’ because he never took his pipe out of his mouth when he was on the job.

  Some light on the camp prostitute’s varying age is cast by her ensuing remark about her failure to run him to earth. In the first typescript it happened ‘twenty years ago’, in the 1946 and Deutsches Theater scripts ‘ten years ago’, before being reduced to the present ‘five’ some time between 1949 and 1953.

  The chaplain’s ‘Song of the Hours’ is adapted from a seventeenth-century hymn by Michael Weisse. It occurs for the first time in the Deutsches Theater script, where it consists of seven verses only and is sung before the curtain to introduce sub-scene 3b; it was cut before the première. In Mother Courage’s subsequent speech on corruptibility (p. 143) there is a section which was cut in this script but is of interest for its anticipation of The Caucasian Chalk Circle:

  I used to know a judge in Franconia who was so out for money, even small sums from poor people, that he was universally regarded as a good man right up into Saxony, and that’s some way. People talked about him as if he were a saint, he’d listen to everybody, he was tough about the amount – wouldn’t let anyone say they were penniless if they had anything – widow or profiteer, he treated them all alike, all of them had to give.

  4. [4]

  The young soldier was originally complaining about the delay in getting his basic pay. Brecht’s amendments to his typescript introduced the idea of a special reward, as well as giving Mother Courage more to say. The song was called ‘The Song of Waiting’ in this typescript and was amended at every stage, first and foremost by adding the (spoken) parentheses.

  5. [5]

  See p. 272 above. The cry ‘Pshagreff!’ – Polish Psia Krew (blood of a dog) – near the end was simply ‘Stop!’ until after the 1949 edition.

  6. [6]

  This scene appeared in the Moscow monthly Internationale Literatur (then edited by J. R. Becher), No. 12, 1940. Courage’s speech beginning ‘Let’s see your money!’ was very much longer there, as also in the first two scripts. The drunken soldier and his song were additions to the first typescript; Courage’s suggestion that he may have been responsible for the attack on Kattrin being an addition to the 1946 script. In Internationale Literatur and prior to the Deutsches Theater version Kattrin accepts the red shoes at the end of the scene and ‘sets about her work; she has calmed down’.

  6a. [7]

  See p. 273 above.

  7. [8]

  This scene (Eilif’s death) is the most heavily amended, partly in order to get the confrontation of the cook and Yvette straight. Originally, on the first t
ypescript, she denounces him as ‘That’s Surabaya-Johnny’, which prompts Courage to hum the refrain of the song. Courage previously has a song of her own, following the chaplain’s ‘Off war, in other words. Aha!’ (p. 166), which she introduces by the lines:

  If the Emperor’s on top now, what with King of Sweden being dead, all it’ll mean is that taxes go to the Emperor. Ever seen a water wheel? Mills have them. I’m going to sing you a song about one of them water wheels, a parable featuring the great. (She sings the Song of the Water Wheel)

  – a song to Eisler’s music which is to be found in Brecht’s The Round Heads and the Pointed Heads. It was omitted from the 1946 script.

  8. [9]

  The fourth (St. Martin) verse of the ‘Solomon Song’ (itself of course partly taken over from the Threepenny Opera) made its appearance in the 1946 script. The cook’s tavern was originally in Uppsala, amended when he became a Dutchman.

  8a. [10]

  The scene was originally un-numbered. The title was added between the 1949 and 1953 Versuche editions.

  9. [11]

  The date of the title was at first March 1635 and the threatened town Havelberg. The only change of any substance took place after the peasant’s ‘Suppose we got one of the trunks and poked her off …’, where in all three scripts the soldiers proceeded to fetch one and actually tried to dislodge Kattrin with it. This was deleted on Brecht’s Deutsches Theater script, which incidentally bears marks showing exactly where the drumbeats should fall.

  9a. [12]

  See p. 274. On the first typescript lines 5–7 of the song originally read

  He gets his uniform and rations

  The regiment gives him his pay.

  The rest defeats our comprehension

  Tomorrow is another day.

  before Brecht amended them to read as now.

  APPENDIX

  Galileo

  BY BERTOLT BRECHT

  Translated by Charles Laughton

  It is my opinion that the earth is very noble and admirable by reason of so many and so different alterations and generations which are incessantly made therein.

  - GALILEO GALILEI

  CHARACTERS

  GALILEO GALILEI

  ANDREA SARTI (two actors: boy and man) MRS. SARTI

  LUDOVICO MARSILI

  PRIULI, THE CURATOR

  SAGREDO, Galileo’s friend

  VIRGINIA GALILEI

  TWO SENATORS

  MATTI, an iron founder

  PHILOSOPHER (later. Rector of the University)

  ELDERLY LADY

  YOUNG LADY

  FEDERZONI, assistant to Galileo

  MATHEMATICIAN

  LORD CHAMBERLAIN

  FAT PRELATE

  TWO SCHOLARS

  TWO MONKS

  INFURIATED MONK

  OLD CARDINAL

  ATTENDANT MONK

  CHRISTOPHER CLAVIUS

  LITTLE MONK

  TWO SECRETARIES

  CARDINAL BELLARMIN

  CARDINAL BARBERINI

  CARDINAL INQUISITOR

  YOUNG GIRL

  HER FRIEND

  GIUSEPPE

  STREET SINGER

  HIS WIFE

  REVELLER

  A LOUD VOICE

  INFORMER

  TOWN CRIER

  OFFICIAL

  PEASANT

  CUSTOMS OFFICER

  BOY

  SENATORS, OFFICIALS, PROFESSORS, LADIES, GUESTS, CHILDREN

  There are two wordless roles: the DOGE in Scene Two and PRINCE COSMO DI MEDICI in Scene Tour. The ballad of Scene Nine is filled out by a pantomime: among the individuals in the pantomimic crowd are three extras (including the ‘KING OF HUNGARY’), COBBLER’S BOY, THREE CHILDREN, PEASANT WOMAN, MONK, RICH COUPLE, DWARF, BEGGAR, and GIRL.

  Scene One

  In the year sixteen hundred and nine

  Science’ light began to shine.

  At Padua City, in a modest house

  Galileo Galilei set out to prove

  The sun is still, the earth is on the move.

  Galileo’s scantily furnished study. Morning. Galileo is washing himself. A bare-footed boy, Andrea, son of his housekeeper, Mrs. Sarti, enters with a big astronomical model.

  GALILEO Where did you get that thing?

  ANDREA The coachman brought it.

  GALILEO Who sent it?

  ANDREA It said “From the Court of Naples” on the box.

  GALILEO I don’t want their stupid presents. Illuminated manuscripts, a statue of Hercules the size of an elephant – they never send money.

  ANDREA But isn’t this an astronomical instrument, Mr. Galilei?

  GALILEO That is an antique too. An expensive toy.

  ANDREA What’s it for?

  GALILEO It’s a map of the sky according to the wise men of ancient Greece. Bosh! We’ll try and sell it to the university. They still teach it there.

  ANDREA How does it work, Mr. Galilei?

  GALILEO It’s complicated.

  ANDREA I think I could understand it.

  GALILEO (interested) Maybe. Let’s begin at the beginning. Description!

  ANDREA There are metal rings, a lot of them.

  GALILEO How many?

  ANDREA Eight.

  GALILEO Correct. And?

  ANDREA There are words painted on the bands.

  GALILEO What words?

  ANDREA The names of stars.

  GALILEO Such as?

  ANDREA Here is a band with the sun on it and on the inside band is the moon.

  GALILEO Those metal bands represent crystal globes, eight of them.

  ANDREA Crystal?

  GALILEO Like huge soap bubbles one inside the other and the stars are supposed to be tacked on to them. Spin the band with the sun on it. (Andrea does) You see the fixed ball in the middle?

  ANDREA Yes.

  GALILEO That’s the earth. For two thousand years man has chosen to believe that the sun and all the host of stars revolve about him. Well. The Pope, the Cardinals, the princes, the scholars, captains, merchants, housewives, have pictured themselves squatting in the middle of an affair like that.

  ANDREA Locked up inside?

  GALILEO (triumphant) Ah!

  ANDREA It’s like a cage.

  GALILEO So you sensed that. (Against the model) I like to think the ships began it.

  ANDREA Why?

  GALILEO They used to hug the coasts and then all of a sudden they left the coasts and spread over the oceans. A new age was coming. I was on to it years ago. I was a young man, in Siena. There was a group of masons arguing. They had to raise a block of granite. It was hot. To help matters, one of them wanted to try a new arrangement of ropes. After five minutes’ discussion, out went a method which had been employed for a thousand years. The millenium of faith is ended, said I, this is the millenium of doubt. And we are pulling out of that contraption. The sayings of the wise men won’t wash anymore. Everybody, at last, is getting nosey. I predict that in our time astronomy will become the gossip of the market place and the sons of fishwives will pack the schools.

  ANDREA You’re off again, Mr. Galilei. Give me the towel. (He wipes some soap from Galileo’s back)

  GALILEO By that time, with any luck, they will be learning that the earth rolls round the sun, and that their mothers, the captains, the scholars, the princes and the Pope are rolling with it.

  ANDREA That turning-round-business is no good. I can see with my own eyes that the sun comes up in one place in the morning and goes down in a different place in the evening. It doesn’t stand still, I can see it move.

  GALILEO You see nothing, all you do is gawk. Gawking is not seeing. (He puts the iron washstand in the middle of the room)

  Now: that’s the sun. Sit down. (Andrea sits on a chair. Galileo stands behind him) Where is the sun, on your right or on your left?

  ANDREA Left.

  GALILEO And how will it get to the right?

  ANDREA By your putting it there, of course.<
br />
  GALILEO Of course? (He picks Andrea up, chair and all, and carries him round to the other side of the washstand) Now where is the sun?

  ANDREA On the right.

  GALILEO And did it move?

  ANDREA I did.

  GALILEO Wrong. Stupid! The chair moved.

  ANDREA But I was on it.

  GALILEO Of course. The chair is the earth, and you’re sitting on it. (Mrs. Sarti, who has come in with a glass of milk and a roll, has been watching)

  MRS. SARTI What are you doing with my son, Mr. Galilei?

  ANDREA Now, mother, you don’t understand.

  MRS. SARTI You understand, don’t you? Last night he tried to tell me that the earth goes round the sun. You’ll soon have him saying that two times two is five.

  GALILEO (eating his breakfast) Apparently we are on the threshold of a new era, Mrs. Sarti.

  MRS. SARTI Well, I hope we can pay the milkman in this new era. A young gentleman is here to take private lessons and he is well-dressed and don’t you frighten him away like you did the others. Wasting your time with Andrea! (To Andrea) How many times have I told you not to wheedle free lessons out of Mr. Galilei? (Mrs. Sarti goes)

  GALILEO So you thought enough of the turning-round-business to tell your mother about it.

  ANDREA Just to surprise her.

  GALILEO Andrea, I wouldn’t talk about our ideas outside.

  ANDREA Why not?

  GALILEO Certain of the authorities won’t like it.

  ANDREA Why not, if it’s the truth?

  GALILEO (laughs) Because we are like the worms who are little and have dim eyes and can hardly see the stars at all, and the new astronomy is a framework of guesses or very little more – yet. (Mrs. Sarti shows in Ludovico Marsili, a presentable young man)