Creon, son of Menoeceus
We always followed you. And there was
Good order in the city and you kept off our throats
Our enemies here under the Theban roof
A rapacious populace that has nothing and is provided for
in war
And those who live on discord, the loud mouths
Lean and hungry, long in the wind, in the marketplace
Speaking because they are paid to or not paid to.
Now they are loud in the mouth again and have
A dubious subject too. Son of Menoeceus, have you
perhaps
Broached an enormity?
CREON:
When I went against Argos
Who was it sent me? Metal in the spears
Went after metal in the mountains
At your bidding. For Argos
Is rich in metals.
ELDERS:
And therefore rich in spears, it seems. We heard
Many a bad thing from there and dismissed it with
The messengers, trusting you, and stopped our ears
Fearful of fear. And shut our eyes when you drew in
The reins tighter. Only one more
Drawing in of the reins and one more battle
You said, does it need, but now
You are beginning to treat with us
As with the enemy. And cruelly
Waging a double war.
CREON:
Yours!
ELDERS:
Yours!
CREON:
Once I’ve got Argos
No doubt it will have been yours again. Enough.
So she, in her revolt
Has muddled you and those who listened to her.
ELDERS:
Certainly the sister had a right to bring home her brother.
CREON:
Certainly the captain had a right to chastise a traitor.
ELDERS:
Asserted to the bone, this right and that flings us into the
abyss.
CREON:
War makes new rights.
ELDERS:
And lives on the old.
War eats itself not given what it needs.
CREON:
Ungrateful, all of you. You eat the meats but
Don’t like the bloody aprons of the cooks. I gave you
Sandalwood for your houses which the din
Of swords never enters, but it grew in Argos.
And no one has sent me back the ore
I fetched from Argos, but bending over it
You blather of butchery there and lament my brutality.
I’m used to greater indignation if the loot is late.
ELDERS:
How long, tell us, will you have Thebes go without her
men?
CREON:
Until her men have won rich Argos for her.
ELDERS:
Unlucky man, before they are lost, recall them.
CREON:
Empty-handed? You answer for it then.
ELDERS:
With empty hands or none, whatever’s still flesh and blood.
CREON:
So I will. Soon Argos will fall. Then I will call them.
And my firstborn, Megareus, will bring them to you.
And be sure that your doors and portals are not too small –
High enough only for such as are low in their ways –
Or the shoulders of men of a larger stature might stave in
Here the gates of a palace and there a treasury door.
And perhaps their joy when they see you again will be such
When they grip you they’ll shake your hands and your
arms
Right out of the sockets. And when the armour presses
Boisterously against your fearful hearts beware of your
ribs.
For on that joyful day you will see more naked iron
Than you did in the days of grief. Many a hesitant victor
Has gone in garlands of chains and danced with collapsing
knees.
ELDERS:
Wretch, are you theatening us with our own? Are you
goading
Our own on us now?
CREON:
I will
Discuss it with my son, with Megareus.
Enter a messenger from the battle.
MESSENGER:
Stiffen your neck, sir. I am sent here
By disaster. Stop the hasty celebrations
Of victory too soon credited. In another battle
Your army is beaten before Argos, and in flight.
Your son Megareus is done with. He lies
In pieces on the hard ground of Argos. When you
Acted to punish Polynices’ flight
And seized and hanged in public the many in the army
This aggrieved and you yourself
Had hurried back to Thebes, thereupon
Your firstborn drove us forward once again.
Our stormtroops, not having slept enough after
The bloodbath in their own ranks, raised only wearily
Their axes wet still with the blood of Thebans
Against the people of Argos. And there were all too many
Faces turned back on Megareus who
To be more terrible to them than the enemy
Goading them on, his voice was perhaps too harsh.
And yet the luck of battle seemed with us at first.
Fighting begets, of course, the love of fighting
Blood smells the same, yours or another’s blood
And makes you drunk. What bravery can’t do
Fear can. But the terrain
And gear and rations count for something.
And, sir, the people of Argos fought a crafty fight.
The women fought, also the children fought.
Long since with nothing to eat in them
From burned-out roof-timbers with boiling water
Cooking pots fell on us. Even the unharmed houses
Were fired behind us as though nobody
Thought to house anywhere again. For the utensils
And rooms of home were weaponry and stuff for barricades.
But on and always on your son drove us and drove
Us deeper into the city which so laid to waste
Became a grave. The rubble heaps
Began to cut us off from one another. Smoke
From all the taken districts, seas of fire
Veiled out our vision. Fleeing fires
And looking for enemies we struck upon our own.
And no one knows whose hand your son fell by.
The flower of Thebes, all vanished
And Thebes herself cannot abide much longer for over her
The people of Argos are coming now with men and
chariots
On all the streets. And I who have seen this
Am glad I am already done for.
He dies.
ELDERS:
Alas for us.
CREON:
Megareus! My son!
ELDERS:
Waste no
Time on laments. Gather the stormtroops.
CREON:
Gather the nothings. In a sieve.
ELDERS:
Drunk on victory
Thebes is jigging and all upon us
The enemy is advancing with grey iron.
Deceiving us
You gave the sword away. Now
You may wish to remember your other son.
Fetch the younger.
CREON:
Yes, Haemon, the last! Yes, my latest born!
Come and be a help now in the great collapse. Forget
The things I said for when I was master
I was not master of my senses.
ELDERS:
To the stony ground
Hurry and quickly release the grave maker
Rele
ase Antigone.
CREON:
If I dig her out
Will you stand by me then? You, if not always
The movers, were always compliant. That
Implicates you.
ELDERS:
Go now.
CREON:
Axes! Axes!
Exit Creon.
ELDERS:
Stop the dancing.
ELDERS clashing the cymbals:
Spirit of joy, pride of the waters
That Cadmus loved
Come if you long to see her again
Your city, and travel fast and come
Before nightfall for later
She will not be there.
For here, O god of joy
In the mother city, in bacchantic
Thebes you were at home, at the cold beck of Ismenus.
By the smoke of sacrifices sweetly shaped
Over the shoulders of the roofs you have been seen.
Of her many houses you may meet with
Not even the fire nor the smoke of the fire
Nor of the smoke the shadow. Her children
Who for a thousand years to come
Saw themselves seated already by remotest oceans
They will tomorrow, they have today
Scarcely a stone to bed their heads upon.
On the Cocytus in your day
God of joy, you sat with the lovers
And in Castalia’s woods. But also
You visited the smiths and tested
Smilingly with your thumb the sharpness of the swords.
Often according to the undying
Songs of Thebes
You walked in the streets where they were still rejoicing.
Alas, the iron hacked into its own
But exhaustion will eat the arm nevertheless.
Oh violence needs a miracle
And mercy only a little wisdom.
So now the often
Beaten enemy stands
Over our palaces and shows
Full of bloody spears all around
The seven mouths and gates
And from there he will not depart
Till he has filled
His cheeks full of our blood.
But there one of the maids comes
Parting the throng and press of those in flight
Surely with a message from Haemon whom the father
Set at the head of the stormtroops who will save us.
Enter a maid as messenger.
MESSENGER:
Oh so much all used up! Oh last sword broken!
Haemon is dead, bleeding by his own hands.
I am an eyewitness, what happened before
I had it from the servants going with their lord
To the high field where, its flesh being torn by dogs
The poor dead body of Polynices lay.
They washed him, no one speaking, and laid him
What was left, among new leafy sprays
And of the homeland’s earth
Carefully they raised a little hill.
With others hurrying ahead the lord approached
The grave in the stony hollow where we, the maids, were
standing.
But one among us heard a voice and loud
Lament and crying in the chamber
And ran to meet the lord, to tell him.
He hurried then, and as he neared the more
In him he felt that dark and troubled voice
And all around until, up close, he screamed
And pitiably lamenting saw the bolt
Torn from the wall and said with difficulty but as if
He did believe himself: ‘That is not Haemon’s
My child’s voice.’ We searched after
The frightened master’s words. Thereupon
Back furthest in the graves we saw
Her, hanging by the neck, Antigone
A noose of linen around her throat
And him outstretched below her lifted feet
Wailing over the bridebed and the abyss below
And his father’s work. He, seeing this
Went in to him and spoke to him, saying:
‘Come out my child, I beg you on my knees.’
But looking coldly, saying nothing back
The son stared back at him
And drew his sword, two-edged against him first.
And when the father, frightened into flight
Turned, he failed. Then saying nothing further
He stood and into his own side
He thrust the swordpoint, slowly. Fell without a word.
Death lies with death now, shyly they came to
Their wedding’s consummation in the houses of
The world below. The lord comes now himself.
ELDERS:
Our city is finished, used to reins and now
Without any. Leaning on women
Comes the man who is all in vain now and
He is bearing in his hands a large memorial
Of stupid raging …
Enter Creon carrying Haemon’s cloak.
CREON:
See what I have here. It is the cloak. I thought
It might have been a sword I went to fetch. The
Child died on me early. One more battle
And Argos would be in the dust. But all
The bravery and uttermost that was mustered
Was only against me.
So now Thebes falls.
And let it fall, let it with me, let it be finished
And there for the vultures. That is my wish now.
Exit Creon with maids.
ELDERS:
And turned around and in
His hands from all the house
Of Labdacus only a bloodstained cloth
Into the foundering city he went away.
But we
Even now all follow him still and the way
Is down. Our biddable hand
Never to strike again
Will be hacked off. But she who saw everything
Could help nobody but the enemy who now
Is coming and quickly will wipe us out. For time is short
And disaster all around and never enough of time
To live on thoughtlessly and easily
From compliance to crime and
Become wise in old age.
The Days of the Commune
Collaborator: RUTH BERLAU
Translator: DAVID CONSTANTINE
Characters:
Mme Cabet, seamstress · Jean Cabet, her son · Babette Cherron, his girlfriend · François Faure, seminarist, National Guard · Philippe Faure, his brother, Government Forces · Geneviéve Guéricault, a young teacher · Papa, a National Guardsman · Coco, his friend · Portly gentleman · Waiter · Two children · Wounded German cuirassier · Pierre Langevin, a worker · Mme Pullard, the baker · Three women · Thiers · Jules Favre · Manservant · Bismarck · Beslay, Varlin, Rigault, Delescluze, Ranvier, delegates of the Commune · Four mayors · Delegates of the eleventh arrondissement · Tax-collector · His wife · Newspaper seller · Functionary · De Plœuc, Governor of the Bank of France · An aristocratic woman · Her niece · Servants · Street trader · Sergeant · Porter · Fat churchman · Old beggar · Officer in the National Guard · Wounded woman · Stretcher-bearers · Guy Suitry, Geneviéve’s fiancé · A nun · Ladies and gentlemen · National Guardsmen · Commune delegates · Government Forces
1
Around 19 January 1871. A little café in Montmartre in which a National Guard recruiting station has been set up. Outside the café a portly gentleman in a thick coat is sitting at a table in conversation with the waiter. Two children carrying a cardboard box are conferring together. Noise of artillery.
WAITER: Monsieur Bracque was here three times asking for you.
PORTLY GENTLEMAN: What, Bracque here, in Paris?
WAITER: Not for very long. Here’s a message, monsieur.
&nbs
p; PORTLY GENTLEMAN reading: There’s no peace and quiet in Paris these days. Prices, percentages, commission! Well, that’s war, everyone contributes in his own way. Do you know anybody who would be willing to run certain errands for me? Somebody with nerve, but reliable. They rarely go together, eh?
WAITER: We’ll find someone. The portly gentleman gives him a tip. And monsieur really prefers to wait out here in the cold?
PORTLY GENTLEMAN: The air in your place has got very bad lately.
WAITER glancing at the notice, ‘Citizens, your country is in danger, join the National Guard’: I understand.
PORTLY GENTLEMAN: Do you? If I pay 80 francs for my breakfast I don’t want the sweat of the slums up my nose while I’m eating it. And kindly remain where you are and keep that vermin – he points at the children – away from me.
Enter a poorly dressed woman and a young worker, carrying a basket between them. The children approach the woman.
MME CABET: No, I don’t want anything. Yes, I do. Later perhaps. Rabbit, you say? Jean, what about a Sunday dinner?
JEAN: That isn’t rabbit.
MME CABET: But he wants 14 francs 50 for it.
CHILD: The meat is fresh, madame.
MME CABET: First of all I have to see what they’ll pay us today. Wait here, children. I might take the meat. She makes to move on and a few cockades fall out of the basket. Be a bit more careful, Jean. I’m sure we’ve lost some already along the way. Then I’ll have to talk ninety to the dozen so they won’t notice when they count.
PORTLY GENTLEMAN: Business all around! Business, business, while the Prussians make war.
WAITER: Small scale and large, monsieur.
Noise and the tread of marching men in the background.
PORTLY GENTLEMAN: What’s that? You, run and see what’s happening now. I’ll give you five francs.
One of the children runs off
MME CABET: We’ve brought the cockades, Emile.
WAITER: The gentleman has a little errand for your Jean, Madame Cabet.
MME CABET: Oh how kind of you! Jean has been out of work for two months. He’s a stoker and of course the trains aren’t running any more. What do you say, Jean?
JEAN: I’m not one for errands, mother. You know that.
MME CABET: I’m very sorry. Jean is the kindest person in the world. But he has opinions. He’s a bit like his late father. They carry the basket into the café.
PORTLY GENTLEMAN: This war won’t last much longer. Aristide Jouve says so. All the business that could be done with this war has been done. There’s nothing left in it. Three National Guardsmen come limping down the street from the fighting at the forts. The first, Papa, is a building worker in his middle years; the second, Coco, a watchmaker; the third, Francois Faure, a young seminarist with his arm in a sling. They are escorting a captured German cuirassier with a dirty bandage around his chin.
Collected Plays, Volume 4 (Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry & Prose) 8 Page 8
