mowing down humanity
in the Devil’s name.
A Death’s Head blazons his crime!
(The apparition vanishes.)
Twelve hundred horses emerge from the sea, come ashore, and set off at a trot. Water streams from their eyes.
THE TWELVE HUNDRED HORSES
Here we are, here we are, here we are, here we are—
here we are, we’re the twelve hundred horses!
Dohna’s horses are here — Dohna, now do you hear—
for we’ve risen right up to the surface!
Oh, we’ll come, Dohna, now we will haunt your worst dream,
those regions below heard our sighs.
Without light, we were blind, though the water would stream,
too much water, from hundreds of eyes.
Count Dohna, surrounded by 12 members of the press. Suddenly they are replaced by 12 horses. They attack him and kill him.
(The apparition vanishes.)
An inventor’s antiquated workshop.
LEONARDO DA VINCI —how and why I do not describe my method for remaining under water as long as is possible; and this I do not publish or explain on account of the evil nature of man, for they would use it to commit murder on the sea bed by breaking up ships’ hulls and sinking the same, together with all on board—
(The apparition vanishes.)
A sweet sound. Dead calm after the sinking of the Lusitania. On a piece of floating wood, two children’s corpses.
THE LUSITANIA CHILDREN
We pitch and toss upon the brine,
who knows where now we dwell—
and yet how bright this life doth shine
and children’s cares dispel—!
(The apparition vanishes.)
Two dogs of war, harnessed to a machine gun.
THE DOGS OF WAR
Our burden is evil, and yet we bear it,
faithful to death, though the price be paid.
How lovely God’s sun, inviting to share it!
But the Devil called, and we obeyed.
(The apparition vanishes.)
A dying forest. Everything has been shot to pieces, cut down, and sawn up. Earth stripped bare, with only a few sickly trees protruding. The felled trunks still lie around in the hundreds, their branches cut off and their bark already decaying on the ground. A dilapidated narrow-gauge railway runs through it.
THE DYING FOREST
Once I was green, now I am grey.
This is your crime, your mad power play.
Behold me now, after your feud.
I was a wood! I was a wood!
My treetop canopy’s the soul’s true home.
Hark, you believers in eternal Rome!
Wrapped in my silence was the eternal Word.
You’ve put the whole creation to the sword.
A curse on those who violated me,
defiling heaven’s communion with the tree!
No more green glory in full plenitude—
I was a wood! I was a wood!
(The apparition vanishes.)
A colonel has a Dalmatian woman with her 12-year-old blond-haired boy arrested. As the woman is dragged off, he gives the order to shoot the boy in the head. He stands smoking while soldiers kneel on the boy’s hands and the execution is carried out.
THE MOTHER
Through all the days that you defile
may this sight haunt you all the while!
And when your hellish journey’s done,
may it remain, the final one.
Let splinters from this noble brow
pierce through your heart and brain somehow!
May you live long and each night dream,
your ears filled with a mother’s scream!
(The apparition vanishes.)
Viennese wine-tavern music, feverishly distorted. The execution of Battisti. Laughing soldiers surround the corpse. The curious stretch their necks. The jolly executioner with his hands above the dead man’s head.
THE AUSTRIAN FACE
Death becomes a dancer
and hatred turns to fun.
Hard times? — a joke’s the answer.
It’s funny, that — how come?
We know we’re the greatest,
although our life seems mean.
To enjoy the latest
we must join the scene.
A Christian good and true
tells his children how to pray,
and if he’s a hangman, too—
just for laughs, he’ll say.
(The apparition vanishes.)
During the following phantasmagoria the sounds escalate to become horrifying music. On Monte Gabriele on the Isonzo. Unburied, half-decayed corpses piled high in a heap. A flock of ravens circle their pickings.
THE RAVENS
Those whom honour killed in war
feed us in the fields of anguish.
Generals, scenes your hearts adore
mean that ravens never languish!
It was not us had to apply
for nourishment to fill our maws.
It is not you nor us who die,
but soldiers slaughtered for our cause.
Our victories we celebrate
with piles of victims growing higher.
Those fools at home failed to abate
the orgies in which we conspire.
The generals as birds of prey
will screech their slogans through the land.
Out there unburied soldiers lay,
while ravens seized the high command!
What matter if the battle’s lost,
for you like us need have no fears.
We do not have to count the cost,
for war makes us both profiteers!
We’re species that survived the war,
the general as the raven’s friend.
There is one duty we adore:
to hold out to the bitter end.
When officers enjoy their feast,
we ravens won’t be going short.
We’ve never hungered in the least
while on the trail where armies fought.
For hunger never was our taste.
The very thought — we’d die of shame!
You’ve made the hinterland a waste,
but here we’ll stay and share your game.
The starving children’s fate is sealed
and old men find their final rest,
while out here on the battlefield
the soldiers die at our behest!
Your slaughterhouse you’ll always fill
with raw recruits lined up for war.
When shall we cease to claim our kill?
Croaked the ravens: nevermore!
(The apparition vanishes.)
The music, completely muffled, accompanies the pageant now commencing, before gradually falling silent. An interminable procession of ashen-faced women marches past, flanked by soldiers with fixed bayonets.
THE FEMALE AUXILIARIES
The army put us on parade
as whores to give the men a thrill,
but now our whole haggard brigade
must leave, for we have had our fill.
Sacrificed to heroes’ urges,
infected by your courage, too,
upon our cheeks a rose-bloom surges—
syphilis, if you but knew.
Blood and tears and wine and sperm
fuelled your hectic bacchanal.
Now that through you we’re all infirm,
our homeland is the hospital.
And so, today, by all despised,
in shapeless smock, barely discreet,
our spoils of war but ill-disguised,
our scourge we’ll bear in some retreat.
Yet we shall grow through future ages!
A human storm will shake the land,
a thousand years and more it rages,
a constant challenge to mankind!
(The apparition vanishes.)
A phosphorescent glow fills the banqueting hall.
THE UNBORN SON
Lest we witness this transgression,
we ask you to abort our birth.
For shame! Expect no intercession,
for such heroes have no worth.
Sons to fathers such as thee—
unborn may we ever be!
And so it goes, pain follows pleasure,
my father’s lust bequeathed to me
his syphilis, his earthly treasure,
I shun the villain’s company!
For this base world I will not share
with living dead to breathe foul air.
(The glow dies out.)
Total darkness. Then on the horizon a wall of flame rises towards the heavens. Distant cries of the dying.