On Mother Courage and Her Children
by Bertolt Brecht

Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children
takes placein Europe in the 1600s during the 30 Years War.
Mother Courage tries to be a businesswoman during a war that takes
all of her children. One child becomes a soldier,
another a money-counter, and the third, Kattrin, is marred & shot.
Unable to marry or have children, Kattrin's only recourse
before she dies is to save other people's children.
The degeneration of her
looks can be tied to the growth of her compassion for others.
Courage is the only one who survives in the end.

Brecht wrote the play in 1939 after he and his family
were forced to move to Stockholm, Sweden, due to the growing Nazi
pressure on neighboring Denmark.

"In wartime the big profits are NOT made
by little people... The economy of war
makes enterprise futile for all
but the powerful and well-connected."

"No sacrifice is too great
for the struggle against war."

[Mother Courage is one of the great anti-war plays
of the modern theater]

"They call me Courage because when I saw
the ruin staring me in the face, I drove out of Riga
through cannon fire with fifty loaves of bread in my wagon."

[Overheard last night: "They are going to find a cure for cancer
in our lifetimes, but not AIDS, because there's no money it."

"Put some money in it then!"]

"Peddling shoes is woman's work."--an obnoxious soldier to Courage

"We're all mixed up together from the cradle
to the grave."

"You'll die too, unless you're very honest the whole time.
That's the only way you can save yourself."

Mother Courage to Kattrina:
"You're [doomed] because you've got a good heart.
Don't be too good-natured, Kattrina, there's a cross on your path too.
Always keep very quiet. Be careful."

"If the general's a slob and lets everything go to pot,
the soldiers have got to be sly as serpents or they're done for."

"Ah, deep will they lie who wise counsel defy
Learn wisdom from those that are elder."

"With a little dirt you'll be safe. When a soldier, especially a Catholic,
sees a clean face, she's a whore before she knows it.
The girls that attract them get the worst of it. They drag them around
till there's nothing left of them. If you don't appeal to them, they won't harm you.
It's like trees. The straight tall ones get chopped down for ridgepoles,
the crooked ones enjoy life."

"I blame the people who start wars, they're the ones
that dredge up man's lowest instincts."

"It's daring that led him to that pass--
Unselfishness brought him to that pass--
Honesty brought him to that pass--
Wisdom brought him to that pass--
The fear of God brought him to that pass--
How happy is the man with none!"

"Virtues are dangerous things,
enjoy life, eat a good breakfast, a
bowl of hot soup for instance."

"A garden is a blessed thing
It bore such lovely flowers.
A sheltering roof's a blessed thing
When winter comes a-stalking."

Kattrin is shot by soldiers
while drumming to alert the next town
& her cousins that the soldiers are coming.

Mother Courage sings:
"With all the killing and recruiting
The war will worry on a while
In ninety years they'll still be shooting
It's hardest on the rank and file
Our food is swill, our pants all patches
The higher-ups steal half our pay
And still we dream of God-sent riches
Tomorrow is another day!
The spring is come!
Christian revive!
The snowdrifts melt, the dead lie dead!
And if by chance you're still alive
It's time to rise and shake a leg."