Brecht Collected Plays: 5: Life of Galileo; Mother Courage and Her Children (World Classics) (54 page)

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 typescript, 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.

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.

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
)