Brecht Collected Plays: 1: Baal; Drums in the Night; In the Jungle of Cities; Life of Edward II of England; & 5 One Act Plays: "Baal", "Drums in the Night", "In the Jungle of Ci (World Classics) (30 page)

Tire the body. My lady, gratify yourself

Elsewhere. Raw meat

In general needs moistening.

ANNE
aside
:

O base Edward, how you shame me

That I dare not strike him in the face

But must stand silent, naked

When he falls on me in his lust.

Aloud
:

You wrong me in my sorrow, Mortimer.

MORTIMER:

Lady Anne, return to court.

Leave these matters to the Peers; before the new moon

This butcher’s son shall ship to Ireland.

ARCHBISHOP:

My lady, for us this Gaveston’s

A thorn in the eye. We’ll pluck him out.

ANNE:

But do not lift your sword against your king.

Edward is so far from us. Ah, my love

Betrays me. How could I take me to the forest, lords

If you should fall upon King Edward?

In distant lanes I’d hear him threatened

And straight return, to be beside him in

His danger.

LANCASTER:

Blood will be shed e’er Gaveston goes hence.

ANNE:

Then let him stay. Rather than my lord

Be threatened I will drag out my life

And let him have his Gaveston.

LANCASTER:

Patience, my lady.

MORTIMER:

My lords, escort we the queen back

To Westminster.

ANNE:

For my sake

Forebear to levy arms against the King.

Exeunt omnes
.

Enter Gaveston
.

GAVESTON:

The mighty Earl of Lancaster, the Archbishop

Of Winchester and with them the Queen

And some few carrion from old London

Are plotting something against

Certain people.

GAVESTON
alone in his house, writes his will
:

Through misunderstanding, on an ordinary Thursday

And from no desire for slaughter

Many a man’s been wiped out, painfully.

And so I write, not knowing

What it was in me, or was not

Made this Edward, who is King now

Never leave my side. For my mother

Found nothing in me that was other than

Most commonplace, not goitre, not white skin –

And so I write, since I know nothing

Save, dull-witted as I am, this:

That nothing helps the life of one whom all wish dead

And so there’s naught can save me in this London

Which I shall never leave again

Except feet first

My will.

I Daniel Gaveston, in my seven and twentieth year

A butcher’s son, dispatch’d by favourable

Circumstance, blotted out by too much luck, leave

My clothes and boots to those are with me

At the end:

To the foolish wives of St James’s street

The Abbey of Coventry, to the good

Ale-drinking folk of England my narrow grave

To good King Edward, my friend

God’s mercy.

For it grieves me much I have not simply

Turned to dust.

9 MAY
1311:
BECAUSE KING EDWARD REFUSES TO SIGN THE BANISHMENT OF HIS FAVOURITE GAVESTON A WAR BREAKS OUT WHICH LASTS FOR THIRTEEN YEARS.

Mortimer, Lancaster, Archbishop, peers sign the document in turn
.

MORTIMER:

This parchment seals his banishment.

Enter the Queen and Gaveston, who sits beside the King’s throne, Kent, then Edward
.

EDWARD:

What, are you moved that Gaveston sits there?

It is our pleasure: we will have it so.

LANCASTER:

Your grace does well to place him at your side

For nowhere else the new earl is so safe.

ARCHBISHOP:

Quam male conveniunt!

LANCASTER:

A kingly lion fawns on crawling ants.

FIRST LORD:

How this fellow sprawls upon his chair!

SECOND LORD:

A sight for London’s citizens to feast their eyes:

King Edward with his two wives.

Parliament is opened to the people
.

KENT:

Speak, Roger Mortimer.

MORTIMER:

After Paris had eaten bread and salt

In Menelaus’ house, Menelaus’ wife – so

Ancient chronicles relate –

Slept with him and he took her

In his hammock sailing home to Troy.

Troy laughed. To Troy it seemed laughable.

And to Greece it seemed but just this willing piece of flesh

Helen by name, should be returned

Since she was a whore, to her Greek husband.

Only Lord Paris, naturally, made trouble, said

It was her time of month. Meanwhile came ships.

Greek. Ships that multiplied

Like flies. One morning Greeks broke into

Paris’ house to haul the Greek whore

Out. From his window

Paris roared this was his house

This his castle and the Trojans, judging

Him not wrong, applauded, sniggering.

The Greeks still lay fishing on their drooping

Sails until, in an ale-house

On the water-front, someone bloodied

Another’s nose, pretending

It was for Helen’s sake.

Before they knew it in the days that followed

Many hands grasped many throats.

From broken ships men speared other men

Like fishes as they drowned. By the moon’s first quarter

Many were missing from their tents and in the houses

Many were found headless. The crabs

Were very fat those years in the river

Scamander, but went uneaten. Spying

The wind’s direction early

Fretting only if the fish that night would nibble

By midnight, of confusion or design, they all

Were dead.

About ten o’clock still to be seen

With the faces of men

About eleven

Forgetting mother tongues, Trojan

Lost sight of Troy and Greek of Greece.

Many felt their men’s mouths changing

Into tiger’s jaws. At midday plunged their teeth

In their neighbour’s tender flesh

Who roared pain.

Yet had there been on the embattled walls

One who knew

To call them by name, by kind

Many had stopped short. It had been better

Had they disappeared still fighting

On their quickly rotting ships

Sinking beneath their feet, before nightfall

Unnamed.

They killed each other with more horror.

And so this war went on ten years

And was called the Trojan and was

Ended by a horse.

Were understanding for the most part not

Unhuman, human ears not stopped –

What matter if this Helen was a whore

Or the grandmother of a sturdy line –

Troy would stand now, four times greater

Than our London, Hector had not

Died with bloody genitals, weak Priam’s

Ancient head had not been spewed upon

By dogs, all this nation had not

Perished in the high noon of its manhood.

Quod erat demonstrandum. To be sure

We would not then have had the Iliad.

He sits. Pause
.

Edward weeps
.

ANNE:

What’s the matter? Do you want water, husband?

KENT:

The king’s unwell. End the sitting.

Parliament is closed
.

EDWARD:

What do you see? Look not on me. God grant

Mortimer, thy lips have not lied.

Trouble not yourselves for me. If it appears

That I am out of sorts, then look away. ’Tis but

My cheek gone pale, blood frozen in my brain –

Not more.

Lay hands on that traitor Mortimer.

LANCASTER:

Take this Gaveston from out our sight, my lord.

MORTIMER:

Read here

What we in Parliament have written

For your intent.

ANNE
to Edward
:

My lord, come to your senses.

’Tis Thursday. ’Tis London.

MORTIMER:

Subscribe:

‘The banishment of Daniel Gaveston, son

Of a meat peddler in the City of London

Banished a year or more ago by the English

Parliament, unlawfully returned and today

Banished for a second time by the English

Parliament.’ My lord! Subscribe!

LANCASTER:

Will’t please you to subscribe, my lord?

ARCHBISHOP:

My lord, will’t please you to subscribe?

GAVESTON:

You did not think, my lord, matters would go so fast.

KENT:

Brother Edward, throw off Gaveston.

MORTIMER:

‘Tis Thursday. ’Tis London. Subscribe.

Lancaster, Archbishop, Lords place a table before the King
.

EDWARD:

Never, never, never.

Ere Gaveston be taken from me

I’ll leave this isle.

He tears up the paper
.

ARCHBISHOP:

Now is England rent …

LANCASTER:

Much blood shall flow in England now

King Edward.

MORTIMER
sings
:

Maids of England in your widow’s weeds mourn

For your lovers lost at Bannocksbourn

Cry aheave and aho.

The King of England bids the drums to roll

That no one may hear your mournful dole

With a rom rom below.

EDWARD:

Will you not sing on? Do you look

Upon your king as on some kine to slaughter?

Can a people live so?

Come, Gaveston. I am still here

And have a foot to crush these vipers’ heads.

Exit with Gaveston
.

MORTIMER:

This is war.

LANCASTER:

Not all the devils in the deep nor angels overhead

Shall halt the English army till this butcher’s son is dead.

THE BATTLE OF KILLING WORTH
(15
AND
16
AUGUST
1320).
BATTLEFIELD AT KILLING WORTH

About seven o’clock in the evening
.

LANCASTER:

See! The tattered ensign of Saint George

Which swept from the Irish to the Dead Sea.

To arms!

Enter Kent
.

KENT:

My lords, of love to this our native land

I come to join with you and leave the King.

My brother since, by his sinful passion

For this Gaveston, he destroys the realm.

ARCHBISHOP:

Thy hand, Kent!

LANCASTER:

March!

Drums
.

None be so hardy as to touch the King.

ARCHBISHOP:

A hundred shillings for the head of Gaveston.

They march out
.

About eight in the evening
.

Marching troops, Edward, Gaveston
.

FIRST SOLDIER:

Sire, come, the battle.

EDWARD:

Say on, Gaveston.

GAVESTON:

Many men on London say this war

Will never end.

EDWARD:

Our eye is greatly moved to see thee, Gaveston

At this hour, trusting in us, weaponless

Without defensive steel or leather, bare skinned

Standing before us in accustomed

Irish weeds.

SECOND SOLDIER:

Let’s march, my lord! The battle.

EDWARD:

As this triangle flight of storks in the sky

Though moving yet seems still, still stays

In us thy image untouched by time.

GAVESTON:

My lord, this simple sum a fisherman performs

Before his rest, numbering nets and fish

Counting up the shillings

By his reckoning, will stay

With me for ever while I walk beneath the sun:

That many are more than one and that

This one lives many days but not all days.

Therefore do not stake your heart all on one.

That your heart should not be lost.

THIRD SOLDIER:

Sire, to battle.

EDWARD:

Thy beauteous hair.

Eight in the evening
.

GAVESTON:

With these beating drums, bog gulping

Catapults and horses, my mother’s-son’s head

Whirls. Don’t pant! Are all

Now drowned and done for and is there but noise

Hanging now between earth and heaven? Nor will I

Run any more. For there are only minutes left and

I’ll not move a finger but just

Lay me down on the ground here, that I

Endure not until the end of time.

And when tomorrow morning King Edward

Rides by, calling, to torment me: ‘Daniel

Where art thou?’ I’ll not be here. And now

Untie your shoes, Gav, and sit waiting

Here.

Enter Lancaster, Mortimer, Archbishop, lords, soldiers
.

LANCASTER:

Upon him, soldiers.

The lords laugh
.

Welcome, Lord Chamberlain!

FIRST LORD:

Welcome is the good Earl of Cornwall!

ARCHBISHOP:

Welcome, Lord Abbot!

LANCASTER:

Run you about to cool your villain’s blood

Lord Abbot?

ARCHBISHOP: