English text

Overture [from Egmont]

No. No victory here. No glory. No triumph.
It was different when we went out.
I didn’t know where the place was:
I looked for it in my kid’s atlas.
So: that’s where we’re going.
That’s where history will be watching us.

No.1  Song: A drum in the distance [from Egmont]

A drum in the distance,
A fife over here,
You’re already moving
In tune with the war.
The centuries turn in
The grip of your fingers,
Your heart’s beating fast,
Your blood’s running hot:
A flood from the past has
You ready to act.

You know they’re behind you,
An unending line,
Battalions marching
Through aeons of time.
The struggle, the combat
You see in each face,
But where will you find it:
The music of peace?

Peace. A peace-keeping mission.
As usual there was no peace to be kept.

A jug slips from your hand, shatters.
You pick up the fragments, stick them together.
It will fall again, and break along the same lines.

The lines had been drawn long before:
A population split in two—
Plus a third group, despised by both the others.
Us and them, and them.

And us: the whites,
Who had forced this distinction
Between black and black, and black.

No.2  Melodrama: One thing I learned [from König Stephan]

One thing I learned, though:
There’s no us and them, no black and white.
Under the skin we’re all raw.

I was received with some ceremony.
A soldier on this kind of exercise is half diplomat.
That’s something else I learned,
As I began to find my way.

So it went: moments of clarity, more confusion.

I paid my calls: the foreign minister,
The interim prime minister,
The prime minister designate.

Others called on me.

No.3  Melodrama: Informants, spies [from König Stephan]

Informants, spies, double agents:
People with stories to tell,
Warnings.
We could hope
And prepare.

One group was in power.
Extremists had set up armouries
To equip a militia
No-one would be able to control.

A radio station was chanting hate—
Hate the others.

I asked headquarters for permission to intervene.
The answer came:
Do nothing.

No.4  Interlude 1 [Entr’acte 4 from Egmont]

I drove into the country.
I looked out over the blue-green hills.

Then hell opened.
The president had been assassinated.
There were roadblocks everywhere,
The militia was on the streets:
Boys with guns.
And machetes.

A machete is a knife, maybe two feet long,
Normally used for harvesting bananas
Or cutting down vegetation.

No.5  Interlude 2 [Funeral March from Leonore Prohaska]

But no, here death was not noble.

As the radio’s hot voices blew
On embers of division
Work gangs turned into killers.

Some of the poorest people on earth,
Neglected and hopeless,
Slashed at their neighbours.

This country, someone said,
Is of little interest to the world:
Its only resources are human.

They were being diminished,
Thousands by the day,
And now the place was news.

I was there.
I went out into the garden that night to think.

No.6  Interlude 3 / Melodrama: I could do something [Entr’acte 1 from Egmont]

I could do something.

I sent a message to headquarters.
Now they had to listen.

I need more help here.
I need enough people to cover the country,
Equipment to jam the radio,
And I need them now.

I received nothing but a warning.
I was not to get involved —
Except to safeguard foreign nationals.

To inhuman behaviour came the inhuman response:
Protect what’s close to you,
Don’t grieve for the rest.

I walked out into the compound,
Where people had come to us for protection:
A woman hushing a child,
Probably not her own,
A man scratching at the dry earth with a stick.
Someone holding out a hand.
I took it.

No.7  Interlude 4 [Entr’acte 2 from Egmont]

Holding someone’s hand
In a small pool of safety:
What good was that?
When all around . . . .

Years later, back home,
Driving down a small road to the beach,
On a family outing,
I noticed stacks of logs on each side:
Trees cut down,
Chopped and piled up.
I pulled over.
I fell face forward on the wheel.
I felt my wife’s hand on my shoulder,
My eyes streaming.

No.8  Interlude 5 [Clara’s Death from Egmont: No.7]

No.9  Melodrama: I was one human being [from Egmont]

I was one human being.

What use were my thoughts?
Or my feelings?
Care, sympathy,
And what?
Regret.

What use were the illusions I’d had?Peace: this mirage,
The olive branch, the rainbow, the dove.

The ideal, the wish, the vision
Of people in concord,
Of children playing,
Of men and women quietly at home.

Watching over them
An army of guardians,
At ease, but vigilant,
Informed, ready.

Now I had to face the truth:
I was the token commander
Of token troops.

No.10  Song: Lost and despairing [from Egmont]

Lost and despairing
And out on your own,
No-one to turn to,
You’re spiralling down,
Sending out signals
And finding no help:
All you can ask
Is the bounty of hope.

No.11  Interlude 6 [Entr’acte 3 from Egmont]

What hope was left?
Most of my forces were being withdrawn.

Survivors were coming in from the country
With stories of massacres — and worse:
How a woman had offered money
If they would only kill her quickly,
And they had taken the notes from her hand,
And laughed.

No.12  Interlude 7 [Solemn March from König Stephan]

No.13  Melodrama: I had nothing to say to these people [from König Stephan]

I had nothing to say to these people.
I had nothing to offer them any more.

It had taken me a while.
Now I was beginning to understand.

We had been a sideshow,
A pretence, no longer needed.

This ‘peace-keeping mission’ was a charade.

We had not been frustrated,
We had not been ignored.
Everything we would need
We had duly received,
Which was next to nothing.
What had been withheld from us
Was our mission’s true nature.

Behind our backs
Moves were being made.
Talks had been proceeding
With the rebels in the north,
Who came from the other people,
Those whose cousins were being slaughtered.

Foreign governments were involved;
Weapons supplies were being readied
To end the killing with more killing.
Our own headquarters had known all along.

We were there to fly
A flag as blue as dreams,
A flag as empty as the sky.

We were caught up in a giant machine.

We were puppets made to act
Or not to act,
To do nothing at all.

We were powerless.

This machine kept us from the truth,
Allowed us to hope.

What then was left to us?

Questions.
Questions.
Questions.

I wanted to know—

No.14  ‘Victory Symphony’ [from Egmont]

(cutting off music) Know/No.!

To know what this organization was for,
If not for us.
To whom it was answerable,
If not to us.
On whom its failings must lie,
If not on us.

No.15  Finale [Opferlied]

The night is total, but be sure
A deeper darkness lies inside,
And when will come the morning?

Yes, where’s the light that will endure
To stop the species’ suicide,
The beacon giving warning?

We are in peril; where’s the cure?
And who will answer, who decide
To end the general mourning?

Can we still recognize the pure,
The uncorrupted hand to guide
More human ages dawning?

The End

N^o 4  Entr’acte 1 [Entr’acte 4 d’Egmont]

J’ai conduit dans la campagne.
J’ai regardé les collines bleu-vert.

Puis l’enfer s’est ouvert.
On avait assassiné le président.
Il y avait des barrages partout,
La milice était dans les rues:
Des gars avec des fusils.
Et des machettes.

Une machette est un couteau, d’un demi-mètre de long,
Normalement employé pour récolter des bananes
Ou faucher la végétation.

N^o 5   Entr’acte 2 [Marche funèbre de Leonore Prohaska]

Mais non, ici la mort n’était pas noble.

Comme les voix chaudes de la radio soufflaient
Sur les braises de division
Des travailleurs se transformaient en tueurs.

Certains des plus pauvres sur la terre,
Négligés et sans espoir,
Massacraient leurs voisins.

Ce pays, quelqu’un a dit,
Est de peu d’intérêt au monde :
Ses seules ressources sont humaines.

On les diminuait,
Des milliers par jour,
Et maintenant l’endroit était dans les nouvelles.

J’étais là.
Je suis sorti dans le jardin cette nuit-là pour penser.

N^o 6  Entr’acte 3 / Mélodrame: Je pourrais faire quelque chose [Entr’acte 1 d’Egmont]

Je pourrais faire quelque chose.

J’ai envoyé un message au quartier général.
Maintenant ils ont dû écouter.

J’ai besoin de plus d’aide ici.
J’ai besoin d’assez de troupes pour couvrir le pays,
D’équipement pour bloquer la radio,
Et il me les faut maintenant.

Je n’ai reçu qu’un avertissement.
Je ne devais pas m’impliquer,
Sauf pour sauvegarder les ressortissants étrangers.

Au comportement inhumain la réponse inhumaine:
Protéger ce qui est près de vous,
Ne pas pleurer ceux qui restent.

Je suis sorti dans l’enclos,
Où des gens venaient chercher chez nous la protection:
Une femme calmait un enfant,
Probablement pas le sien,
Un homme grattait la terre sèche avec un bâton.
Quelqu’un tendait une main.
Je l’ai prise.

N^o 7  Entr’acte 4 [Entr’acte 2 d’Egmont]

Tenir quelqu’un par la main
Sur une petite île de sécurité:
À quoi cela servait?
Quand partout . . . .

Des années plus tard, de retour,
En conduisant sur une petite route vers la plage,
Une sortie de famille,
J’ai remarqué des piles de bûches de chaque côté :
Des arbres abattus,
Coupés et empilés.
Je me suis garé.
Je suis tombé, le visage sur la roue.
J’ai senti la main de mon épouse sur mon épaule,
Mes yeux en larmes.

N^o 8  Entr’acte 5 [La Mort de Clärchen d’Egmont]

N^o 9 Mélodrame: J’étais un être humain solitaire [d’Egmont]

J’étais un être humain solitaire.

À quoi servaient mes pensées
Ou mes sentiments?
Le souci, la sympathie,
Et quoi d’autre?
Les regrets.

À quoi servaient les illusions que j’ai eues?
La paix, ce mirage,
Le rameau d’olivier, l’arc-en-ciel, la colombe.

L’idéal, le vœu, la vision
D’un peuple en harmonie,
Des enfants jouant,
Des hommes et des femmes tranquillement chez eux.

Les surveillant,
une armée de gardiens,
À l’aise, mais vigilants,
Informés, prêts.

Maintenant j’ai dû affronter la vérité:
J’étais le commandant symbolique
De troupes symboliques.

N^o 10  Chanson: Désespéré, tu [d’Egmont]

Désespéré, tu
Te sens seul ici,
Loin des alliés, tout
Perdu, tu descends,
Tu es le témoin,
Le monde t’ignore:
Mais n’oublie pas
Qu’il te reste l’espoir!

N^o 11  Entr’acte 6 [Entr’acte 3 d’Egmont]

Quel espoir me restait-il?
On m’a fait replier mes forces.

Des survivants arrivaient de la campagne
Avec des histoires de massacres—et pire:
Une femme a offert de l’argent
Pour qu’ils la tuent vite,
Et ils avaient pris les billets de sa main,
Et ri.

N^o 12  Entr’acte 7 [Marche solennelle deKönig Stephan]

N^o 13  Mélodrame: Je n’avais rien à dire à ces gens [de König Stephan]

Je n’avais rien à dire à ces gens.
Je n’avais rien de plus à leur offrir.

Il m’avait fallu quelque temps.
Maintenant je commençais à comprendre.

Nous étions une distraction,
Une feinte, plus requise.

Cette ‘mission’ était une comédie.

On ne nous avait pas gêné,
On ne nous avait pas ignoré.
Tout dont nous aurions besoin
Nous l’avions dûment reçu—
C’était presque rien.
Ce qu’on nous avait caché
Était le but véritable de notre mission.

À notre insu
Les choses bougeaient.
On avait eu des entretiens
Avec les rebelles du nord,
Qui venaient de l’autre peuple,
Ceux dont les cousins étaient les victimes.

Des gouvernements étrangers avaient intervenu;
On avait préparé des provisions d’armes
Pour mettre fin aux massacres avec massacres en surcroît.
Notre quartier général était averti depuis le début.

On nous faisait flotter
Un drapeau bleu comme le rêve,
Un drapeau vide comme le ciel.

Nous étions prisonniers d’une machine géante.

Nous étions des marionettes qu’on a fait agir
Ou ne pas agir,
Ne rien faire.

Nous étions impuissants.

Cette machine nous avait privé de la vérité,
Nous avait permis l’espoir.

Ainsi qu’est-ce qu’il nous restait?

Des questions.
Questions.
Questions.

Je voulais savoir—

N^o 14   ‘Symphonie de victoire’ [d’Egmont]

(en coupant la musique) Savoir!

Pour qui cette organisation a été constituée,
Sinon pour nous.
À qui doit-elle rendre des comptes,
Sinon à nous.
Sur qui ses défauts doivent peser,
Sinon sur nous.

N^o 15  Final [Opferlied]