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) (37 page)

Lightborn, come in.

Enter Lightborn
.

If, when morning greys, the prisoner’s

Learned nothing, he’s not for saving.

Sewer in the Tower
.

The two Gurneys
.

ELDER GURNEY:

He speaks incessantly, tonight.

YOUNGER GURNEY:

It is

A wonder this king will not yield.

Worn out purposely, for when he would sleep

Our drum rolls, he stands

In a vault knee-deep in

Sewage, in which all the channels

Of the Tower run, yet he says not yea.

ELDER GURNEY:

That is most strange, brother. Just now I

Opened up the hatch to throw

Him meat and I was almost stifled

With the stench.

YOUNGER GURNEY:

He has a body more able to endure than we.

He sings. When you raise the hatch you hear

Him sing.

ELDER GURNEY:

I think he makes psalms

Against Spring’s coming. Open up, we’ll

Ask him again.

ELDER GURNEY:

Wilt thou say yes, Ned?

YOUNGER GURNEY:

No answer.

Lightborn has entered
.

ELDER GURNEY:

Still he will not yield.

Lightborn gives a letter
.

YOUNGER GURNEY:

What’s this? I do not understand.

‘Kill not the king, ’tis good to fear the worst.’

ELDER GURNEY:

‘Fear not to kill the king’ is there.

YOUNGER GURNEY:

Give the token.

Lightborn gives it
.

ELDER GURNEY:

There is the key and there the vault.

Carry out the order. Need you anything besides?

LIGHTBORN:

A table and a feather bed.

YOUNGER GURNEY:

Here is a light for the cage.

Exeunt the two Gurneys
.

Lightborn opens the door
.

EDWARD:

This hole in which they hold me is the sink-hole

And upon me here, these seven hours, falls

London’s filth. Yet its sewage hardens

My limbs. Now they are like cedar

Wood. The stench of rubbish makes my

Stature boundless. Great rolls on the drums

Keep him awake, though weak, so his death

Find him not in a swoon but rather

Waking.

Who’s there? What light is that? Wherefore com’st thou?

LIGHTBORN:

To comfort you.

EDWARD:

Thou would’st me kill.

LIGHTBORN:

What means your Highness to mistrust me thus?

Come out, brother.

EDWARD:

Thy look can harbour naught but death.

LIGHTBORN:

I am not without sin, yet not without

Heart. Come and lie down.

EDWARD:

Howell had pity, Berkeley was poorer

Yet he stained not his hand. The elder

Gurney’s heart’s a block

From Caucasus. The younger’s harder. And

Mortimer, from whom thou comest, ice.

LIGHTBORN:

You are haggard, sire. Lie you

Upon this bed and rest awhile.

EDWARD:

Good was rain; hunger satisfied. But

The best was darkness. All

Were wavering, many hanging back but

The best were those betrayed me. Therefore

Whoever’s dark let him dark remain, who’s

Unclean, remain unclean. Praise

Want, praise cruelty, praise

The darkness.

LIGHTBORN:

Sleep, sire.

EDWARD:

Something buzzes in my ear and tells me

If I sleep now I never wake.

‘Tis waiting makes me tremble thus.

Yet I cannot ope my eyes, they stick.

Therefore tell me wherefore thou art come.

LIGHTBORN:

For this.

Smothers him
.

MORTIMER
alone
:

Rise up eleventh of February

The others are shrubs beside me

They tremble at my name and dare not

Impeach me for his death.

Let come who will.

Enter the Queen
.

ANNE:

Ah, Mortimer, my son hath news

His father’s dead and now, new-hailed

As king, comes hither in the knowledge

We have murdered him.

MORTIMER:

What matter that he know since he’s

A child so weak a drop of rain would

Kill him?

ANNE:

In to the Council Chamber he is gone

To crave the aid and succour of the peers, who

Like the people, wait since morning for this

Edward whom you promised. He tears

His hair and wrings his hands and vows

To be revenged upon us both.

MORTIMER:

Seem

I like one soon to be under earth?

Enter Young Edward, Lord Abbot, Rice ap Howell, peers
.

YOUNG EDWARD:

Murderers!

MORTIMER:

What sayest thou, boy?

YOUNG EDWARD:

Think not that I’m frighted with thy words.

ANNE:

Edward!

YOUNG EDWARD:

Stand off, mother! Had you loved him

As I did you’d not endure his death.

ABBOT:

Why speak you not, my lord, unto the king?

RICE AP HOWELL:

At this hour should Edward speak

Unto the Parliament.

A LORD:

At this hour

Is Edward’s mouth dumb.

MORTIMER:

Who is the man who will

Impeach me for this death?

YOUNG EDWARD:

I am he.

MORTIMER:

Your witness?

YOUNG EDWARD:

My father’s voice in me.

MORTIMER:

Have you no other witness, my lord?

YOUNG EDWARD:

Those not here are my witnesses.

ABBOT:

The Earl of Kent.

RICE AP HOWELL:

Berkeley.

A LORD:

The brothers Gurney.

ABBOT:

A man, Lightborn by name, seen

In the Tower.

ANNE:

No more!

ABBOT:

Who had a paper with him

In your writing.

The peers examine the paper
.

RICE AP HOWELL:

Equivocal truly. The comma lacks.

ABBOT:

Purposely.

RICE AP HOWELL:

May be. Yet it stands not therein

That someone kill the king.

YOUNG EDWARD:

Ah Mortimer, thou knowest it was done

And so shall it be done to thee. Thou diest!

A witness to this world that thy

All too subtle wiles, by which

A kingly body in a grave now lies, too subtle were

For God.

MORTIMER:

If I see right you charge me with the murder

Of Edward the Second. Sometimes

The truth untruthful seems nor can we ever

Know which side the buffalo of state

Will roll. Good and moral

The side it rolls not on.

The buffalo has rolled and fallen on me.

Had I proof, how would proof serve me?

The man the state has called a murderer

Does well to play the murderer

Were his hand as white as Scotland’s snow.

Therefore I am silent.

ABBOT:

Heed not the windings of the Eel.

MORTIMER:

Take away my seal! Squadron on squadron

France spits towards the isle. In Normandy

The armies rot. Banish me

To Normandy as your Governor

Or as a captain. As a recruiting officer

What you will, with naked arm to whip

The army for you ’gainst the foe. Send me as a

Soldier to be whipped on.

Yet do not thus

‘Twixt meat and napkin, take my life

Because a young whelp yaps

For blood to see his father dead.

Ask yourself if now’s the time

To clear the case of Edward’s death,

Or whether this whole island, purged of one

Murder, should swim in blood.

You need me.

Your silence is heard as far as Ireland.

Have you a new tongue in your head

Since yesterday? If your hands are still

Unsullied, why, they are not sullied
yet
.

To be dispatched thus coldly smacks of morality.

ANNE:

For my sake, sweet son, pity Mortimer!

Young Edward is silent
.

Be silent then, I never taught you speech.

MORTIMER:

Madam, stand off! I will rather die

Than sue for life unto a paltry boy.

YOUNG EDWARD:

Hang him!

MORTIMER:

See, boy, the strumpet fortune turns

A wheel. It bears thee upwards.

Upwards and upwards. Thou holdest fast. Upwards.

There comes a point, the highest. From whence thou see’st

It is no ladder, but now bears thee downwards

For it’s round indeed. Who’s seen that, boy

Does he fall or let himself go? The question

Is amusing. Savour it!

YOUNG EDWARD:

Take him away!

Mortimer is led out
.

ANNE:

Bring not the blood of Roger Mortimer on you!

YOUNG EDWARD:

These words argue, mother, thou, perchance

Hast brought my father’s blood on thee.

For thou, tied fast to Mortimer, I fear

Art suspect of his death and

We send you to the Tower for trial.

ANNE:

Not from thy mother’s milk suckest thou

Such caustic wit, Edward the Third.

Dragged here and there, more than others

And not from love of change, I’ve ever seen

Evil nurturing its man and paying

Every triumph over conscience with success.

Now evil itself betrays me.

You say in these last hours died a man

Whose face yours dimly calls to mind

Who did me many wrongs, whom I forget

(Out of pity, you might say)

Even his face and voice I blotted out.

So much the better for him.

Now his son sends me to the Tower.

That is as good a place as anywhere.

You who have the excuse, that you

A child, have seen about you such hard

Lifeless things, what know you of the world

Where nothing’s so inhuman as

Judgement and cold righteousness?

Exit Anne
.

YOUNG EDWARD:

It yet remains for us to lay his body

Worthily to rest.

ABBOT:

And so it is of those who saw his crowning

In Westminster Abbey, not one shall see

His exequies. Of Edward the Second who

Not knowing, as it seems, which among his enemies

Remembered him, knowing not what

Breed lived in light above his head, knowing

Not the colour of the leaves, the season

Nor the pattern of the stars, oblivious

Of himself, in misery

Died.

YOUNG EDWARD
kneeling
:

God grant us mercy at this hour

That our house pay not these sins.

And God grant us too

Our house be not tainted

From its mother’s womb.

Translator
:
JEAN BENEDETTI

The bride’s father
‧
The bridegroom’s mother
‧
The bride
‧
Her sister
‧
The bridegroom
‧
His friend
‧
The wife
‧
Her husband
‧
The young man

A whitewashed room with a large rectangular table in the middle. A red paper lantern over it. Nine plain, wide wooden armchairs. Against the back wall, right, a sofa. Left, a cupboard. A curtained door between them. Upstage left, a low coffee table and two chairs. Left, a door; right, a window. Tables, chairs, and cupboard are in unpolished natural wood. It is evening. The red lamp is alight. The wedding guests are at the table, eating
.

MOTHER
serving
: Here comes the cod.

Murmurs of approval
.

FATHER
: That reminds me of a story.

BRIDE
: Eat up, Dad. You always come off worst.

FATHER
: Just you wait for it. Your poor old uncle – the one who was at my confirmation; but never mind, that’s another story – anyway, there we all were, eating fish, when he suddenly choked – you have to look out for those damned bones, you know – anyway, he choked and started floundering about and flapping his feet and hands all over the place.

MOTHER
: Take the tail, Jacob.

FATHER
: Floundering about and going blue in the face like a carp; and then he knocked over a wineglass and scared the wits out of us; so we thumped him on the back and pummelled him this way and that way, and he spat the whole lot out all over the table. Nobody could eat any more after that – which was fine for us; we ate it up outside later; it was
my
confirmation after all – anyway, he spat the whole lot out over the table, and when we’d got him straightened up again he said in his splendid deep voice – he had a good bass voice, belonged to a choral society – anyway, he said …