A Worker Reads History
Who built the seven gates of Thebes?
The books are filled with names of kings.
Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?
And Babylon, so many times destroyed.
Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima's houses,
That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?
In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished
Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome
Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom
Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song.
Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the legend
The night the seas rushed in,
The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.
Young Alexander conquered India.
He alone?
Caesar beat the Gauls.
Was there not even a cook in his army?
Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet
was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?
Frederick the Greek triumphed in the Seven Years War.
Who triumphed with him?
Each page a victory
At whose expense the victory ball?
Every ten years a great man,
Who paid the piper?
So many particulars.
So many questions.
Commentary
1947
This is another of Brecht’s didactic works. I am afraid Joyce might consider its art flawed by the heavy-handedness of its message. However it has always stuck with me. Like Shelley’s “Ozymandias” [Poem #22], which examines the fate of glory, this one examines its origins. Humanity loves leaders, and records their names as a shorthand for the movements they stood atop.
Poetically, the repetition of statement and question established a pattern that leads the reader to question all the historical “facts” we hold dear.
History is our mythology, and as Zeus the Thunder God is behind all
storms, so Washington defeated the British and Lenin overthrew the Tsar. The mass of humanity that follows and enables our leaders toils in their shadows, and vicariously shares in their glory.
Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg: “But in a larger sense we can not dedicate – we can not consecrate – we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here.”
We remember what was said there, by the Great Man, but who remembers the
brave unknowns who fought and died, in just one of so many, many battles?
— Jack
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From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Avni Rambhia · 17 December 2003
I liked the following in Jack’s write up almost as much as I liked the poem = “History is our mythology, and as Zeus the Thunder God is behind all storms, so Washington defeated the British and Lenin overthrew the Tsar.”
The poem doesn’t make a subtle point at all – which is nicely in keeping with the obvious labor of the worker… you can almost hear the insistent whacking of a stone breaker’s mallet in the rhythm of the poem.
On a totally tangential note, I’ve always wondered if the “Gods” were real heroic figures from a long forgotten age…..
SHough7428 · 20 December 2003
To quickly address Jack’s point about Lincoln: one of the things that gives that speech its particular emotional impact is that Lincoln does not take credit for the acheivements of the people; he salutes them. Even in a democracy it is necessary to have individuals capable of drawing the attention of the citizenry to their own acheivements. An interesting historical note to the Gettysburg Address: it was actually a short introduction to the keynote speech, given by someone else. Lincoln’s eloquence eclipsed what was going to be the major event of the day.
I would call the Address a good foil for this Brecht poem. What Brecht does so heavy handedly and (imo) uninterestingly, Lincoln does with consummate skill and loveliness. “That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
carlynn