A Worker Reads History
By: Bertolt Brecht
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.
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.
that nobody celebrated with these triumphants
ReplyDeleteAndrea S
you forgot to put the question and make it a 10-15 word answer btw
DeleteWhat is the authors point in the poem?
ReplyDeletewhat i think he was trying to ask is did the kings make up our history if not than who did? well i think is that he wants to highlight that the workers and the slaves were the ones who did all the work of building things and doing things for other people that the kings were not the ones who built all of the national land marks.So they don't really get any of the credit.
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ReplyDeletesorry ........
Deletejuny
I think that the point of the poem is that kingdoms are not built by kings, but by slaves, and people loyal to their leaders. It takes a king to hold a kingdom together, but what is a kingdom without it's people?
ReplyDeleteThe author's point is that many people helped the great leader to conquer the cities, but in the records they don't mention their names (laziiiii) and that is really unfair because many people worked day and night to satisfy his/her leader and the leader takes all the credit and maybe he didn't even do something during war so that the ''Great Leader'' wouldn't die and take the lead.
ReplyDeleteJLJLJLJLJLJLJLJLJLJLJLJL Juny LIMMMMMMMMMM
피스 아웃
I think the author´s point in this poem is that strong people need weak people. This means that leaders in every type of socities would never have gotten where they got to be, if people wouldn´t support or help the leader. The leaders gotto be leaders because of the people and slaves for their work, and warriors to conquer.
ReplyDeleteNain M.
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DeleteI think that Bertolt is trying to say that the famous conquerors dont do all the work. They wouldnt be where they were at without the people that fought for them, the people that died for them, or the people that worked for them. The famous conquerors werent a one man Arnold SChwarzhenaegafsafal army, they had warriors to fight for them. Except Napolean BonaParty, he fought on the front lines sometimes.
ReplyDeleteThe authors point in this poem is that people always just look at the big man the most visible known guy and don’t think about well the cook that fed the army the and the men that built the people don’t pay attention to the people that made it happen and sometimes thats with God people don’t think that it was God who made this possible and have it happen they just look at whats visible
ReplyDeletetehe little confusing thing in my paragraph its supposed to be "the men that built the city, people don’t"......
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ReplyDeleteI think the authors point in this poem is to teach us in the way of a fun poem very valuable and important points of our past. It also is teaching us about big men that accomplished huge things..........KATIE
ReplyDeleteI think that the author's point is to make us realize that we don't really pay much attention to slaves or poor people, These people are really helpful and without them we would probably be good for nothing.
ReplyDeleteLucia G.
I think that the author's point in this poem is that many great things have been built or made not by only one person. But with many persons that now days are not valuable in our history. We should have also in mind that something wasn't made or built by only one person.
ReplyDeleteMassiel
I think that the authors point is that even though there were a bunch of great rulers, the people were the ones that kept the city, empire, kingdom ect... together. They're the ones that did all the work.
ReplyDeleteNoelia Velasquez
I think the author is saying that we won't know everything about what will happen in the past but we can still learn from their mistakes.
ReplyDeleteCara
I think about many cultures and countries are author's point in this poem.
ReplyDeleteNatalia k.
I think the authors purpose is to make the reader guess what happened with all these things
ReplyDeleteWithout history,how would we learn from our mistakes.
ReplyDeleteUnderstanding the past is the key to understand the present.
ReplyDeletehistory is the window to the past
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