Brecht Collected Plays: 5: Life of Galileo; Mother Courage and Her Children (World Classics) (21 page)

ANDREA
: Fearing death is human. Human weaknesses don’t matter to science.

GALILEO
: Don’t they? – My dear Sarti, even as I now am I
think I can still give you a tip or two as to what matters to that science you have dedicated yourself to.

A short pause
.

GALILEO
professorially, folding his hands over his stomach:
In my spare time, of which I have plenty, I have gone over my case and considered how it is going to be judged by that world of science of which I no longer count myself a member. Even a wool merchant has not only to buy cheap and sell dear but also to ensure that the wool trade continues unimpeded. The pursuit of science seems to me to demand particular courage in this respect. It deals in knowledge procured through doubt. Creating knowledge for all about all, it aims to turn all of us into doubters. Now the bulk of the population is kept by its princes, landlords and priests in a pearly haze of superstition and old saws which cloak what these people are up to. The poverty of the many is as old as the hills, and from pulpit and lecture platform we hear that it is as hard as the hills to get rid of. Our new art of doubting delighted the mass audience. They tore the telescope out of our hands and trained it on their tormentors, the princes, landlords and priests. These selfish and domineering men, having greedily exploited the fruits of science, found the cold eye of science had been turned on a primaeval but contrived poverty that could clearly be swept away if they were swept away themselves. They showered us with threats and bribes, irresistible to feeble souls. But can we deny ourselves to the crowd and still remain scientists? The movements of the heavenly bodies have become more comprehensible, but the peoples are as far as ever from calculating the moves of their rulers. The battle for a measurable heaven has been won thanks to doubt; but thanks to credulity the Rome housewife’s battle for milk will be lost time and time again. Science, Sarti, is involved in both these battles. A human race which shambles around in a pearly haze of superstition and old saws, too ignorant to develop its own powers, will never be able to develop those powers of nature which you people are revealing to it. To what end are you working? Presumably for the principle that science’s sole aim must be to
lighten the burden of human existence. If the scientists, brought to heel by self-interested rulers, limit themselves to piling up knowledge for knowledge’s sake, then science can be crippled and your new machines will lead to nothing but new impositions. You may in due course discover all that there is to discover, and your progress will nonetheless be nothing but a progress away from mankind. The gap between you and it may one day become so wide that your cry of triumph at some new achievement will be echoed by a universal cry of horror. – As a scientist I had a unique opportunity. In my day astronomy emerged into the marketplace. Given this unique situation, if one man had put up a fight it might have had tremendous repercussions. Had I stood firm the scientists could have developed something like the doctors’ Hippocratic oath, a vow to use their knowledge exclusively for mankind’s benefit. As things are, the best that can be hoped for is a race of inventive dwarfs who can be hired for any purpose. What’s more, Sarti, I have come to the conclusion that I was never in any real danger. For a few years I was as strong as the authorities. And I handed my knowledge to those in power for them to use, fail to use, misuse – whatever best suited their objectives.

Virginia has entered with a dish and come to a standstill
.

GALILEO
: I betrayed my profession. A man who does what I did cannot be tolerated in the ranks of science.

VIRGINIA
: You are accepted in the ranks of the faithful.

She moves on and puts the dish on the table
.

GALILEO
: Correct. – Now I must eat.

Andrea holds out his hand. Galileo sees the hand but does not take it
.

GALILEO
: You’re a teacher yourself now. Can you afford to take a hand like mine?
He goes to the table
. Somebody passing through sent me some geese. I still enjoy eating.

ANDREA
: So you no longer believe a new age has started?

GALILEO
: On the contrary – Look out for yourself when you pass through Germany, with the truth under your coat.

ANDREA
unable to tear himself away
. About your opinion of the author we were talking about. I don’t know how to
answer. But I cannot think your devastating analysis will be the last word.

GALILEO
: Thank you very much, sir.
He begins eating
.

VIRGINIA
escorting Andrea out:
We don’t like visitors from the past. They excite him.

Andrea leaves. Virginia comes back
.

GALILEO
: Got any idea who might have sent the geese?

VIRGINIA
: Not Andrea.

GALILEO
: Perhaps not. What’s the night like?

VIRGINIA
at the window:
Clear.

15

Galileo’s book, the ‘Discorsi’, crosses the Italian frontier

The great book o’er the border went

And, good folk, that was the end.

But we hope you’ll keep in mind

He and I were left behind.

May you now guard science’s light

Kindle it and use it right

Lest it be a flame to fall

Downward to consume us all.

Yes, us all.

Little Italian frontier town in the early morning. Children are playing by the barrier. Andrea, standing beside a coachman, is waiting to have his papers checked by the frontier guards. He is sitting on a small box reading Galileo’s manuscript. On the other side of the barrier stands the coach
.

THE CHILDREN
sing:

Mary, Mary sat her down

Had a little old pink gown

Gown was shabby and bespattered.

But when chilly winter came

Gown went round her just the same.

Bespattered don’t mean tattered.

THE FRONTIER GUARD
: Why are you leaving Italy?

ANDREA
: I’m a scholar.

THE FRONTIER GUARD
to his clerk:
Put under ‘reason for leaving’: scholar.

I must examine your luggage.

He does so
.

THE FIRST BOY
to Andrea:
Better not sit there.
He points to the but outside which Andrea is sitting
. There’s a witch lives inside.

THE SECOND BOY
: Old Marina’s no witch.

THE FIRST BOY
: Want me to twist your wrist?

THE THIRD BOY
: Course she’s one. She flies through the air at night.

THE FIRST BOY
: And why won’t anyone in the town let her have a jug of milk even, if she’s not a witch?

THE SECOND BOY
: Who says she flies through the air? It can’t be done.
To Andrea:
Can it?

THE FIRST BOY
referring to the second:
That’s Giuseppe. He doesn’t know a thing because he doesn’t go to school because his trousers need patching.

THE FRONTIER GUARD
: What’s that book you’ve got?

ANDREA
without looking up:
It’s by Aristotle, the great philosopher.

THE FRONTIER GUARD
suspiciously:
Who’s he when he’s at home?

ANDREA
: He’s been dead for years.

The boys mock Andrea’s reading by walking round as if they were meanwhile reading books
.

THE FRONTIER GUARD
to the clerk:
Have a look if there’s anything about religion in it.

THE CLERK
turning the pages:
I can’t see nothing.

THE FRONTIER GUARD
: All this searching’s a bit of a waste of time anyway. Nobody who wanted to hide something would
put it under our noses like that.
To Andrea:
You’re to sign that we’ve examined it all.

Andrea gets up reluctantly and accompanies the frontier guard into the house, still reading
.

THE THIRD BOY
to the clerk, pointing at the box:
There’s that too, see?

THE CLERK
: Wasn’t it there before?

THE THIRD BOY
: The devil put it there. It’s a box.

THE SECOND BOY
: No, it belongs to that foreigner.

THE THIRD BOY
: I wouldn’t touch it. She put the evil eye on old Passi’s horses. I looked through the hole in the roof made by the blizzard and heard them coughing.

THE CLERK
who was almost at the box, hesitates and turns back:
Devil’s tricks, what? Well, we can’t check everything. We’d never get done.

Andrea comes back with a jug of milk. He sits down on the box once more and goes on reading
.

THE FRONTIER GUARD
following him with papers:
Shut the boxes. Is that everything?

THE CLERK
: Yes.

THE SECOND BOY
to Andrea:
So you’re a scholar. Tell us, can people fly through the air?

ANDREA
: Wait a moment.

THE FRONTIER GUARD
: You can go through.

The coachman has taken the luggage. Andrea picks up the box and is about to go
.

THE FRONTIER GUARD
: Halt! What’s in that box?

ANDREA
taking up his book again:
Books.

THE FIRST BOY
: It’s the witch’s.

THE FRONTIER GUARD
: Nonsense. How could she bewitch a box?

THE THIRD BOY
: She could if the devil helped.

THE FRONTIER GUARD
laughs:
That wouldn’t work here.

To the clerk:
Open it.

The box is opened
.

THE FRONTIER GUARD
unenthusiastically:
How many are there?

ANDREA
: Thirty-four.

THE FRONTIER GUARD
to the clerk:
How long will they take to go through?

THE CLERK
who has begun superficially rummaging through the box:
Nothing but printed stuff. It’ll mean you miss your breakfast, and when am I going to get over to Passi’s stables to collect the road tax due on the sale of his house if I’m to go through this lot?

THE FRONTIER GUARD
: Right, we need that money.
He kicks at the books:
After all, what can there be in those?

To the coachman:
Off with you!

Andrea crosses the frontier with the coachman carrying the box. Once across, he puts Galileo’s manuscript in his travelling bag
.

THE THIRD BOY
points at the jug which Andrea has left behind:
Look!

THE FIRST BOY
: The box has gone too! Didn’t I tell you it was the devil?

ANDREA
turning round:
No, it was me. You should learn to use your eyes. The milk’s paid for, the jug too. The old woman can keep it. Oh, and I didn’t answer your question, Giuseppe. People can’t fly through the air on a stick. It’d have to have a machine on it, to say the least. But there’s no machine like that so far. Maybe there never will be, as a human being’s too heavy. But of course one never knows. There are a lot of things we don’t know yet, Giuseppe. We’re really just at the beginning.

Translator:
JOHN WILLETT

Characters

MOTHER COURAGE

KATTRIN
,
her dumb daughter

EILIF
,
the elder son

SWISS CHEESE
,
the younger son

THE RECRUITER

THE SERGEANT

THE COOK

THE GENERAL

THE CHAPLAIN

THE ARMOURER

YVETTE POTTIER

THE MAN WITH THE PATCH

ANOTHER SERGEANT

THE ANCIENT COLONEL

A CLERK

A YOUNG SOLDIER

AN OLDER SOLDIER

A PEASANT

THE PEASANT’S WIFE

THE YOUNG MAN

THE OLD WOMAN

ANOTHER PEASANT

HIS WIFE

THE YOUNG PEASANT

THE ENSIGN

Soldiers

A Voice

1

Spring 1624. The Swedish Commander-in-Chief Count Oxenstierna is raising troops in Dalecarlia for the Polish campaign. The canteen woman Anna Fierling, known under the name of Mother Courage, loses one son

Country road near a town
.

A sergeant and a recruiter stand shivering
.

RECRUITER
: How can you muster a unit in a place like this? I’ve been thinking about suicide, sergeant. Here am I, got to find our commander four companies before the twelfth of the month, and people round here are so nasty I can’t sleep nights. S’pose I get hold of some bloke and shut my eye to his pigeon chest and varicose veins, I get him proper drunk, he signs on the line, I’m just settling up, he goes for a piss, I follow him to the door because I smell a rat; bob’s your uncle, he’s off like a flea with the itch. No notion of word of honour, loyalty, faith, sense of duty. This place has shattered my confidence in the human race, sergeant.

SERGEANT
: It’s too long since they had a war here; stands to reason. Where’s their sense of morality to come from? Peace – that’s just a mess; takes a war to restore order. Peacetime, the human race runs wild. People and cattle get buggered about, who cares? Everyone eats just as he feels inclined, a hunk of cheese on top of his nice white bread, and a slice of fat on top of the cheese. How many young blokes and good horses in that town there, nobody knows; they never thought of counting. I been in places ain’t seen a war for nigh seventy years: folks hadn’t got names to them, couldn’t tell one another apart. Takes a war to get proper nominal rolls
and inventories – shoes in bundles and corn in bags, and man and beast properly numbered and carted off, cause it stands to reason: no order, no war.