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LONDON CRITICS
greeted Luther as Osborne's finest achieve
ment and his most substantial contribution
as a major dramatist Departing from the
manner of his earlier works, which elec
trified audiences with their ruthless, idio
matic observations on contemporary life,
Osborne attains an epic, formal grandeur
in Luther.
Osborne portrays the fierce and grappling
spirit of a defiant priest, in a language that
soars to the heights of dramatic poetry. His
portrait of Luther is so intimate as to be
unnerving to the viewer; so passionate that
it succeeds in echoing the lonely anguish o
every rebel in every age. . .
'*. . . full of argument and invective. Scene
after scene comes alive when ideas are
thrown from hand-to-hand like grenades.' 9
Alan Brien, The London Sunday Telegraph
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LUTHER
A PLAY BY
John Osborne
A SIGNET BOOK PUBLISHED BY
THE NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY
COPYRIGHT 1961 BY JOHN OSBORNE
, All rights reserved. This play in its printed form is
designed for the reading public only. All dramatic, motion pic
ture, radio, television and other rights in it are fully protected
by cowrignt in the United States of America, the British Em
pire, including the Dominion of Canada, and all other countries
of the Copyright Union. No performance, professional or ama
teur, nor any broadcast, nor any public reading or recitation
may be given without written permission in advance,
All professional inquiries in the U.S.A. and Canada should be
addressed to Harold Freedman, 101 Park Avenue, New York
(acting in association with Margery Vosper Ltd.).
This is an authorized reprint of a hardcover edition published by
Criterion Books, Inc
FOURTH PMNTING
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BKHfEKUKD *1AJMMUM: MABOi BBGI8TBADA
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SIGNET BOOKS are published by
The New American library, Inc,,
1301 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10019
Jter BUNTING, OCTOBER, 1963
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The first performance of LUTHER was given at the
Theatre Royal, Nottingham, on June 26th, 1961,
by the English Stage Company. It was directed by
Tony Richardson and the decor was by Jocelyn
Herbert. The part of Luther was played by Albert
Finney.
CAST
KNIGHT
PRIOR
MARTIN
HANS
LUCAS
WEINAND
TETZEL
STAUPITZ
CAJETAN
MILTITZ
LEO
ECK
KATHERINE
HANS, THE YOUNGER
AUGUSTINIANS, DOMINICANS,
HERALD, EMPEROR, PEASANTS, ETC.
ACT ONE
Scene 1. The convent of the Augustinian Order of
Eremites at Erfurt. 1506
Scene 2. The same. A year later
Scene 3, Two hours later
ACT TWO
Scene L The market place. Jiiterbog. 1517
Scene 2. The Eremite Cloister. Wittenberg. 1517
Scene 3. The steps of the Castle Church. Wittenberg.
Eve of All Saints. 1517
Scene 4. The Fugger Palace. Augsburg. October 1518
Scene 5. A hunting lodge. Magliana, Italy. 1519
Scene 6. The Elster Gate. Wittenberg. 1520
ACT THREE
Scene 1. The Diet of Worms. 1521
Scene 2. Wittenberg. 1525
Scene 3. The Eremite Cloister. Wittenberg. 1530.
NOTE
At the opening of each act* the Knight appears. He
grasps a banner and briefly barks the time and place
of the scene following at the audience, and then retires.
ACT ONE
SCENE ONE
The Cloister Chapel of the Eremites of St. Augustine.
Erfurt, Thuringia, 1506. MARTIN is being received into
the Order. He is kneeling in front of the PRIOR in the
presence of the assembled convent.
PRIOR:
Now you must choose one of two ways: either to leave
us now, or give up this world, and consecrate and de
vote yourself entirely to God and our Order. But I must
add this: once you have committed yourself, you are not
free, for whatever reason, to throw off the yoke of obe
dience, for you will have accepted it freely, while you
were still able to discard it.
(The habit and hood of the Order are brought in
and blessed by the PRIOR.)
PRIOR:
He whom it was your will to dress in the garb of the
Order, oh Lord, invest him also with eternal life.
(He undresses MARTIN.)
PRIOR:
The Lord divest you of the former man and of all bis
works. The Lord invest you with the new man.
(The CHOIR sings as MARTIN is robed in the habit
and hood. The long white scapular is thrown over
his head and hung down, before and behind; then
he kneels again before the PRIOR, and, with his hand
on the statutes of the Order, swears the oath.)
MARTIN:
I, brother Martin, do make profession and promise obe
li
12 LUTHER
dience to Almighty God, to Mary the Sacred Virgin, and
to you, my brother Prior of this cloister, in the name of
the Vicar General of the order of Eremites of the holy
Bishop of St. Augustine and his successors, to live with
out property and in chastity according to the Rule of our
Venerable Father Augustine until death.
(The PRIOR wishes a prayer over him, and MARTIN
prostrates himself with arms extended in the form
of across.)
PRIOR:
Lord Jesus Christ, our leader and our strength, by the
fire of humility you have set aside this servant, Martin,
from the rest of Mankind. We humbly pray that this fire
will also cut him off from carnal intercourse and
from the community of those things done on earth by
men, through the sanctity shed from heaven upon him,
and that you will bestow on him grace to remain yours,
and merit eternal life. For it is not he who begins, but
he who endures will be saved. Amen.
(The CHOIR sings Veni Creator Spiritus or per
haps Great Father Augustine'). A newly ^ lighted taper
is put into .MARTIN'S hands, and he is led up the
altar steps to be welcomed by the monks with the
kiss of peace. Then, in their midst, he marches slowly
with them behind the screen and is lost to sight.
The procession disappears, and, as the sound of
voices dies away, two men are left done in the
congregation. One of them, HANS, gets up impatient
ly and moves down-stage. It is MARTIN'S FATHER,
a stocky man wired throughout with a miner's mus
cle, lower-middle class, on his way to become a
small, primitive capitalist; bewildered, full of pride
and resentment. His companion, LUCAS, finishes a
a respectful prayer and joins him. )
HANS:
WeH?
Wriff
ACT ONE 13
HANS:
Don't c welP me, you feeble old ninny, what do you think?
LUCAS:
Think? Of what?
HANS:
Yes, think man, think, what do you think, pen and ink,
think of all that?
LUCAS:
Oh
HANS:
Oh! Of all these monks, of Martin and all the rest of It,
what do you think? You've been sitting in this arse-
aching congregation all this time, you've been watching,
haven't you? What about it?
LUCAS:
Yes, well, I must say it's all very impressive.
HANS:
Oh, yes?
LUCAS:
No getting away from it
HANS:
Impressive?
LUCAS:
Deeply. It was moving and oh
HANS:
What?
LUCAS:
You must have felt it, surely. You couldn't fail to.
14 LUTHER
HANS:
Impressive! I don't know what impresses me any longer.
LUCAS:
Oh, come on
HANS:
Impressive!
LUCAS:
Of course it is, and you know it.
HANS:
Oh> you you can afford to be impressed.
LUCAS:
It's surely too late for any regrets, or bitterness, Hans.
It obviously must be God's will, and there's an end of it.
HANS:
Thaf s exactly what it is an end of it! Very fine for you,
my old friend, very fine indeed. You're just losing a son-
in-law, and you can take your pick of plenty more of
those where he comes from. But what am I losing? I'm
losing a son; mark: a son.
LUCAS:
How can you say that?
HANS:
How can I say it? I do say it, that* s how. Two sons to the
plague, and now another. God's eyes! Did you see that
haircut? Brother Martin!
LUCAS:
There isn't a finer order than these people, not the
Dominicans or Franciscans
HANS:
lite an egg with a beard.
ACT ONE 15
LUCAS:
You said that yourself.
HANS:
Ob, I suppose they're Christians under their damned
cowls.
LUCAS:
There are good, distinguished men in this place, and well
you know it.
HANS:
Yes good, distinguished men
LUCAS:
Pious, learned men, men from the University like Martin.
HANS:
Learned men! Some of them can't read their own names.
LUCAS:
So?
HANS:
So! I I'm a miner. I don't need books. You can't see
to read books under the ground. But Martin's a scholar.
LUCAS:
He most certainly is.
HANS:
A Master of Arts! What' s he master of now? Eh? Tell me.
LUCAS:
Well, there it is. God's gain is your loss.
HANS:
Half these monks do nothing but wash dishes and beg in
the streets.
16 LUTHER
LUCAS:
We should be going, I suppose.
HANS:
He could have been a man of stature.
LUCAS:
And he will, with God's help.
HANS:
Don't tell me. He could have been a lawyer.
LUCAS:
Well, he won't now.
HANS:
No, you're damn right he won't. Of stature. To the Arch
bishop, or the Duke, or
LUCAS:
Yes.
HANS:
Anyone.
LUCAS:
Come on.
HANS:
Anyone you can think of.
LUCAS:
Well, I'm going.
HANS:
Brother Martin!
LUCAS:
ACT ONE 17
HANS:
Do you know why? Lucas: Why? What made him do it?
(He has ceased to play a role by this time and he
asks the question simply as if he expected a short,
direct answer.)
HANS:
What made him do it?
(LUCAS grasps his forearm.)
LUCAS:
Let's go home.
HANS:
Why? That's what I can't understand. Why? Why?
LUCAS:
Home. Let's go home.
(They go off. The convent bell rings. Some monks
are standing at a refectory table. After their pray
ers, they sit down, and, as they eat in silence, one
of the Brothers reads from a lectern. During this
short scene, MARTIN, wearing a rough apron over
his habit, waits on the others.)
READER:
What are the tools of Good Works?
First, to love Lord God with all one's heart, all one's
soul, and all one's strength. Then, one's neighbour as
oneself. Then, not to kill.
Not to commit adultery
Not to steal
Not to covet
Not to bear false witness
To honour all men
To deny yourself, in order to follow Christ
To chastise the body
Not to seek soft living
To love fasting
To clothe the naked
To visit the sick
18 LUTHER
To bury the dead
To help the afflicted
To console the sorrowing
To prefer nothing to the love of Christ
Not to yield to anger
Not to nurse a grudge
Not to hold guile in your heart
Not to make a feigned peace
To fear the Day of Judgment
To dread HeH
To desire eternal life with all your spiritual longing
To keep death daily before your eyes
To keep constant vigilance over the actions of your life
To know for certain that God sees you everywhere
When evil thoughts come into your heart, to dash them
at once on the love of Christ and to manifest them to
your spiritual father
To keep your mouth from evil and depraved talk
Not to love much speaking
Not to speak vain words or such as produce laughter
To listen gladly to holy readings
To apply yourself frequently to prayer
Daily in your prayer, with tears and sighs to confess your
past sins to God
Not to fulfil the desires of the flesh
To hate your own will
Behold, these are the tools of the spiritual craft. If we
employ these unceasingly day and night, and render ac
count of them on the Day of Judgment, then we shall re
ceive from the Lord in return that reward that He Him
self has promised: Eye hath not seen nor ear heard what
God hath prepared for those that love him. Now this is
the workshop in which we shall diligently execute all
these tasks. May God grant that you observe all these
rules cheerfully as lovers of spiritual beauty, spreading
around you by the piety of your deportment the sweet
odour of Christ,
{The convent bell rings. The MONKS rise, bow their
heads in prayer, and then move upstage to the
ACT ONE 19
steps -where they kneel. MARTIN, assisted by another
Brother, stacks the table and clears it. Presently,
they all prostrate themselves, and, beneath flaming
candles, a communal confession begins. MARTIN re
turns and prostrates himself downstage behind the
rest. This scene throughout is urgent, muted, almost
whispered, confidential, secret, like a prayer.)
BROTHER:
I confess to God, to Blessed Mary and our holy Father
Augustine, to all the saints, and to all present that I have
sinned exceedingly in thought, word and deed by my own
fault. Wherefore I pray Holy Mary, all the saints of God
and you all assembled here to pray for me. I confess I
did leave my cell for th^ Night Office without the
Scapular and had to return for it. Which is a deadly in
fringement of the first degree of humility, that of obe
dience without delay. For this failure to Christ I abjectly
seek forgiveness and whatever punishment the Prior and
community is pleased to impose on me.
MARTIN:
I am a worm and no man, a byword and a laughing
stock. Crush out the worminess in me, stamp on me.
BROTHER:
I confess I have three times made mistakes in the Ora
tory, in psalm singing and Antiphon.
MARTIN:
I was fighting a bear in a garden without flowers, leading
into a desert. His claws kept making my arms bleed as I
tried to open a gate which would take me out. But the
gate was no gate at all. It was simply an open frame, and
I could have walked through it, but I was covered in my
own blood, and I saw a naked woman riding on a goat,
and the goat began to drink my blood, and I thought I
should faint with the pain and I awoke in my cell, aH
soaking in the devil's bath.
20 LUTHER
BROTHER:
Let Brother Norbert remember also his breakage while
working in the kitchen,
BROTHER:
I remember it, and confess humbly.
BROTHER:
Let him remember also his greater transgression in not
coming at once to the Prior and community to do pen
ance for it, and so increasing his offence.
MARTIN:
I am alone. I am alone, and against myself.
BROTHER:
I confess it. I confess it, and beg your prayers that I
may undergo the greater punishment for it.
MARTIN:
How can I justify myself?
BROTHER:
Take heart, you shall be punished, and severely.
MARTIN:
How can I be justified?
BROTHER:
I confess I have failed to rise from my bed speedily
enough. I arrived at the Night Office after the Gloria of
the 94th Psalm, and though I seemed to amend the shame
by not standing in my proper place in the choir, and
standing in the place appointed by the Prior for such
careless sinners so that they may be seen by all, my
fault is too great and I seek punishment.
MARTIN:
I was among a group of people, men and women, fully
clothed. We lay on top of each other in neat rows about
seven or eight across. Eventually, the pile was many peo-
ACT ONE 21
pie deep. Suddenly, I panicked although I was on top
of the pile and I cried: what about those underneath?
Those at the very bottom, and those in between? We all
got up in an orderly way, without haste, and when we
looked, those at the bottom were not simply flattened
by the weight, they were just their clothes, they were just
their clothes, neatly pressed and folded on the ground.
They were their clothes, neatly pressed and folded on
the ground.
BROTHER:
I did omit to have a candle ready at the Mass.
BROTHER:
Twice in my sloth, I have omitted to shave, and even ex
cused myself, pretending to believe my skin to be fairer
than that of my Brothers, and my beard lighter and my
burden also. I have been vain and slothful, and I beg
forgiveness and ask penance.
MARTIN:
If my flesh would leak and dissolve, and I could live as
bone, if I were forged bone, plucked bone and brain,
warm hair and a bony heart, if I were all bone, I could
brandish myself without terror, without any terror at all
I could be indestructible.
BROTHER:
I did ask for a bath, pretending to myself that it was
necessary for my health, but as I lowered my body into
the tub, it came to me that it was inordinate desire and
that it was my soul that was soiled.
MARTIN:
My bones fail. My bones fail, my bones are shattered
and fall away, my bones fail and all that* s left of me is a
scraped marrow and a dying jelly.
BROTHER:
Let Brother Paulinus remember our visit to our near
22 LUTHER
sister house, and lifting Ms eyes repeatedly at a woman
in the town who dropped alms into his bag.
BROTHER:
I remember, and I beg forgiveness.
BROTHER:
Then let him remember also that though our dear Father
Augustine does not forbid us to see women, he blames
us if we should desire them or wish to be the object of
their desire. For it is not only by touch and by being
affectionate that a man excites disorderly affection in a
woman. This can be done also even by looks. You can
not maintain that your mind is pure if you have wanton
eyes. For a wanton eye is a wanton heart. When people
with impure hearts manifest their inclination towards
each other through the medium of looks, even though no
word is spoken, and when they take pleasure in their de
sire for each other, the purity of their character has
gone even though they may be undefiled by any unchaste
act. He who fixes his eyes on a woman and takes pleasure
in her glance, must not think that he goes unobserved
by his brothers.
MARTIN:
I confess that I have offended grievously against hu
mility, being sometimes discontented with the meanest
and worst of everything, I have not only failed to declare
myself to myself lower and lower and of less account
than aH other men, but I have failed in my most inmost
heart to believe it. For many weeks, many weeks it
seemed to me, I was put to cleaning the latrines. I did
it, and I did it vigorously, not tepidly, with all my poor
strength, without whispering or objections to anyone. But
although I fulfilled my task, and I did it well, sometimes
there were murmurings in my heart. I prayed that it
would cease, knowing that God, seeing my murmuring
heart, must reject my work, and it was as good as not
(tone. I sought out my master, and he punished me, tell
ing me to fast for two days. I have fasted for three, but,
so, I can't tell if the murmurings are really gone,
ACT ONE 23
and I ask for your prayers, and I ask for your prayers
that I may be able to go on fulfilling the same task.
BROTHER:
Let Brother Martin remember all the degrees of humility;
and let him go on cleaning the latrines.
(The convent bell rings. After lying prostrate for a
few moments, all the BROTHERS, including MARTIN,
rise and move to the CHOIR. The office begins,
versicle, antiphon and psalm, and MARTIN is lost to
sight in the ranks of his fellow ,MONKS. Presently,
there is a quiet, violent moaning, just distinguish
able amongst the voices. It becomes louder and
wilder, the cries more violent, and there is some
confusion in MARTIN'S section of the CHOIR. The sing-
ing goes on with only a jew heads turned. It seems
as though the disturbance has subsided. MARTIN ap
pears, and staggers between the stalls. Outstretched
hands fail to restrain him, and he is visible to all,
muscles rigid, breath suspended, then jerking un
controllably as for is seized in a raging fit. Two
BROTHERS go to him, but MARTIN writhes with such
ferocity, that they can scarcely hold him down. He
tries to speak, the effort is frantic, and eventually,
he is able to roar out a word at a time.)
MARTIN:
Not! Me! I am notl
(The attack reaches its height, and he recoils as if
he had bitten his tongue and his mouth were -full of
blood and saliva. Two more MONKS come to help,
and he almost breaks away from them, but the ef
fort collapses, and they are able to drag him away,
as he is about to vomit. The Office continues as if
nothing had taken place.)
(End of Act One Scene One)
ACT ONE
SCENE Two
A knife, like a butchers, hanging aloft, the size of a
garden fence. The cutting edge of the blade points up
wards. Across it hangs the torso of a naked man, his head
hanging down. Below it, an enormous round cone, like
the inside of a vast barrel, surrounded by darkness. From
the upstage entrance, seemingly far, far away, a dark
figure appears against the blinding light inside, as it grows
brighter. The figure approaches slowly along the floor of
the vast cone, and stops as it reaches the downstage
opening. It is MARTIN, haggard and streaming with sweat.
MARTIN:
I lost the body of a child, a child's body, the eyes of a
child; and at the first sound of my own childish voice.
I lost the body of a child; and I was afraid, and I went
back to find it. But I'm still afraid. I'm afraid, and there's
an end of it! But / mean . . . (shouts) . . . Continually!
For instance of the noise the Prior's dog makes on a
still evening when he rolls over on his side and licks his
teeth, I'm afraid of the darkness, and the hole in it; and
I see it sometime of every day! And some days more
than once even, and there's no bottom to it, no bottom
to my breath, and I can't reach it. Why? Why do you
think? There's a bare fist clenched to my bowels and
they can't move, and I have to sit sweating in my little
monk's house to open them. The lost body of a child,
hanging on a mother's tit, and close to the warm, big
body of a man, and I can't find it.
(He steps down, out of the blazing light within the
cone, and goes to his cell down L. Kneeling by his
bed, he starts to try and pray but he soon collapses.
From down R appear a procession of MONKS,
24
ACT ONE 25
carrying various priests vestments, candles and ar
ticles for the altar, for MARTIN is about to perform
his very first Mass. Heading them is BROTHER
WEINAND. They pass MARTIN'S cell, and, after a few
words, they go on, leaving BROTHER WEINAND with
.MARTIN, and disappear into what is almost like a
small house on the upstage left of the stage: a bag
pipe of the period, fat, soft, foolish and obscene
looking.)
BRO. WEINAND:
Brother Martin! Brother Martin!
MARTIN:
Yes.
BRO. WEINAND:
Your father's here.
MARTIN:
My father?
BRO. WEINAND:
He asked to see you, but I told him it'd be better to
wait until afterwards.
MARTIN:
Where is he?
BRO. WEINAND:
He's having breakfast with the Prior,
MARTIN:
Is he alone?
BRO. WEINAND:
No, he's got a couple of dozen friends at least, I should
say.
MARTIN:
Is my mother with him?
26 LUTHER
BRO. WEINAND:
No.
MARTIN:
What did he have to come for? I should have told him
not to come.
BRO. WEINAND:
It'd be a strange father who didn't want to be present
when his son celebrated his first Mass.
MARTIN:
I never thought he'd come. Why didn't he tell me?
BRO. WEINAND:
Well, he's here now, anyway. He's also given twenty
guilden to the chapter as a present, so he can't be too
displeased with you.
MARTIN:
Twenty guilden.
BRO. WEINAND:
Well, are you all prepared?
MARTIN:
That's three times what it cost him to send me to the
University for a year.
BRO. WEINAND:
You don't look it. Why, you're running all over with
sweat again. Are you sick? Are you?
MARTIN:
No.
BRO. WEINAND:
Here, let me wipe your face. You haven't much time.
You're sure you're not sick?
ACT ONE
27
MARTIN:
My bowels won't move, that's all. But that's nothing out
of the way.
BRO. WEINAND:
Have you shaved?
MARTIN:
Yes. Before I went to confession. Why, do you think I
should shave again?
BRO. WEINAND:
No. I don't. A few overlooked little bristles couldn't
make much difference, any more than a few imaginary
sins. There, that's better.
MARTIN:
What do you mean?
BRO. WEINAND:
You were sweating like a pig in a butcher's shop. You
know what they say, don't you? Wherever you find a
melancholy person, there you'll find a bath running for
the devil.
MARTIN:
No, no, what did you mean about leaving a few im
aginary sins?
BRO. WEINAND:
I mean there are plenty of priests with dirty ears ad
ministering the sacraments, but this isn't the time to talk
about that. Come on, Martin, you've got nothing to be
afraid of.
MARTIN:
How do you know?
BRO. WEINAND:
You always talk as if lightning were just about to strike
behind you.
28 LUTHER
MARTIN:
Tell me what you meant.
BRO. WEINAND:
I only meant the whole convent knows you're always
making up sins you've never committed. That's right
well, isn't it? No sensible confessor will have anything
to do with you.
MARTIN:
What's the use of all this talk of penitence if I can't feel it.
BRO. WEINAND:
Father Nathin told me he had to punish you only the
day before yesterday because you were in some ridicu
lous state of hysteria, all over some verse in Proverbs or
something.
MARTIN:
"Know thou the state of thy flocks."
BRO. WEINAND:
And all over the interpretation of one word apparently.
When will you ever learn? You must know what you're
doing. Some of the brothers laugh quite openly at you,
you and your over-stimulated conscience. Which is wrong
of them, I know, but you must be able to see why.
MARTIN:
It's the single words that trouble me.
BRO. WEINAND:
The moment you've confessed and turned to the altar,
you're beckoning for a priest again. Why, every time you
break wind they say you rush to a confessor.
MARTIN:
Do they say that?
BRO. WEINAND:
It's their favourite joke.
ACT ONE 29
MARTIN:
They say that, do they?
BRO. WEINAND:
Martin! You're protected from many of the world's evils
in here. You're expected to master them, not be ob
sessed by them. God bids us hope in His everlasting
mercy. Try to remember that.
MARTIN:
And you tell me this! What have I gained from coming
into this sacred Order? Aren't I still the same? I'm still
envious, I'm still impatient, I'm still passionate?
BRO. WEINAND:
How can you ask a question like that?
MARTIN:
I do ask it. I'm asking you! What have I gained?
BRO. WEINAND:
In any of this, all we can ever learn is how to die.
MARTIN:
That's no answer.
BRO. WEINAND:
It's the only one I can think of at this moment. Come on.
MARTIN:
All you teach me in this sacred place is how to doubt
BRO. WEINAND:
Give you a little praise, and you're pleased for a while,
but let a little trial of sin and death come into your day
and you crumble, don't you?
MARTIN:
But that's all you've taught me, that's really all you've
taught me, and all the while I'm living in the Devil's
worm-bag.
3Q LUTHER
BRO. WEINAND:
It hurts me to watch you like this, sucking up cares like
a leech.
MARTIN:
You will be there beside me, won't you?
BRO. WEINAND:
Of course, and, if anything at all goes wrong, or if you
forget anything, we'll see to it. You'll be all right. But
nothing will you won't make any mistakes.
MARTIN:
But what if I do, just one mistake. Just a word, one
word one sin.
BRO. WEINAND:
Martin, kneel down.
MARTIN:
Forgive me, Brother Weinand, but the truth is this
BRO. WEINAND:
Kneel.
(MARTIN kneels.)
MARTIN:
It's this, just this. All I can feel, all I can feel is God's
hatred.
BRO. WEINAND:
Repeat the Apostles' Creed.
MARTIN:
He's like a glutton, the way he gorges me, he's a glutton.
He gorges me, and then spits me out in lumps.
BRO. WEINAND:
After me. "I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker
of Heaven and Earth . . .
ACT ONE 31
MARTIN:
I'm a trough, I tell you, and he's swilling about in me.
All the time.
BRO. WEINAND:
"And in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord . . .
MARTIN:
"And in Jesus Christ, His only Son Our Lord . . .
BRO. WEINAND:
"Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the
Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate . . .
MARTIN (almost unintelligibly') :
"Was crucified, dead and buried; He descended into
Hell; the third day He rose from the dead, He ascended
into Heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the
Father Almighty; from thence He shall come to judge
the quick and the dead." And every sunrise sings a song
for death.
BRO. WEINAND:
"I believe
MARTIN:
"I believe
BRO. WEINAND:
Goon.
MARTIN:
"I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy Catholic Church;
the Communion of Saints; the forgiveness of sins;
BRO. WEINAND:
Again!
MARTIN:
"The forgiveness of sins.
32 LUTHER
BRO. WEINAND:
What was that again?
MARTIN:
"I believe in the forgiveness of sins."
BRO. WEINAND:
Do you? Then remember this: St. Bernard says that
when we say in the Apostles' Creed "I believe in the
forgiveness of sins" each one must believe that his sins
are forgiven. Well?
MARTIN:
I wish my bowels would open. I'm blocked up like an old
crypt
BRO. WEINAND:
Try to remember, Martin?
MARTIN:
Yes, ni try.
BRO. WEINAND:
Good. Now, you must get yourself ready. Come on, we'd
better help you.
{Some BROTHERS appear from out of the bagpipe
-with the vestments, etc. and help MARTIN put them
on.)
MARTIN:
How much did you say my father gave to the chapter?
BRO. WEINAND:
Twenty guilden.
MARTIN:
That's a lot of money to my father. He's a miner, you
know.
BRO, WEINAND:
Yes, he told me.
ACT ONE 33
MARTIN:
As tough as you can think of. Where's he sitting?
BRO. WEINAND:
Near the front, I should think. Are you nearly ready?
(The Convent bell rings. A procession leads out
from the bagpipe.)
MARTIN:
Thank you, Brother Weinand.
BRO. WEINAND:
For what? Today would be an ordeal for any kind of
man. In a short while, you will be handling, for the first
time, the body and blood of Christ. God bless you, my
son.
(He makes the sign of the cross, and the other
BROTHERS leave.)
MARTIN:
Somewhere, in the body of a child, Satan foresaw in me
what I'm suffering now. That's why he prepares open pits
for me, and all kinds of tricks to bring me down, so that
I keep wondering if I'm the only man living who's baked,
and surrounded by dreams, and afraid to move.
BRO. WEINAND (really angry by now) :
You're a fool. You're really a fool. God isn't angry with
you. It's you who are angry with Him.
(He goes out. The BROTHERS wait for MARTIN, who
kneels.)
MARTIN:
Oh, Mary, dear Mary, all I see of Christ is a flame and
raging on a rainbow. Pray to your Son, and ask Him to
still His anger, for I can't raise my eyes to look at Him.
Am I the only one to see all this, and suffer?
(He rises, joins the procession and disappears off
with it.
As the Mass is heard to begin offstage, the stage
is empty. Then the light within the cone grows in-
34 LUTHER
creasingly brilliant, and, presently MARTIN appears
again. He enters through the far entrance of the
cohe, and advances towards the audience. He is
carrying a naked child. Presently, he steps down
-from the cone, comes downstage, and stands still.)
MARTIN:
And so, the praising ended and the blasphemy began.
(He returns, back into the cone, the light fades as
the Mass comes to its end. )
(End of Act One Scene Two)
ACT ONE
SCENE THREE
The Convent refectory. Some monks are sitting at
table with HANS and LUCAS. LUCAS is chatting with the
BROTHERS eagerly, but HANS is brooding. He has drunk a
lot of wine in a short time, and his brain is beginning
to heat.
HANS:
What about some more of this, eh? Don't thfalr you can
get away with it, you know, you old cockchafer. I'm get
ting me twenty guilden's worth before the day's out After
all, it's a proud day for all of us. That's right, isn't it?
LUCAS:
It certainly is.
BRO. WEINAND:
Forgive me, I wasn't looking. Here
(He fills HANS'S glass.)
HANS (trying to be friendly) :
Don't give me that. You monks don't miss much. Got
eyes like gimlets and ears like open drains. Tell me
Come on, then, what's your opinion of Brother Martin?
BRO. WEINAND:
He's a good, devout monk.
HANS:
Yes. Yes, well, I suppose you can't say much about each
other, can you? You're more like a team, in a way. Tell
me, Brother would you say that in this monastery or,
35
36 LUTHER
any monastery you like you were as strong as the weak
est member of the team?
BRO. WEINAND:
No, I don't think that's so.
HANS:
But wouldn't you say then I'm not saying this in any
criticism, mind, but because I'm just interested, naturally,
in the circumstances but wouldn't you say that one bad
monk, say for instance, one really monster sized, roaring
great bitch of a monk, if he really got going, really
going, couldn't he get his order such a reputation that
eventually, it might even have to go into what do they
call it now liquidation. That's it. Liquidation. Now,
you're an educated man, you understand Latin and Greek
and Hebrew
BRO. WEINAND:
Only Latin, I'm afraid, and a very little Greek.
HANS (having planted his cue for a quick, innocent
boast):
Oh, really. Martin knows Latin and Greek, and now he's
half-way through Hebrew too, they tell me.
BRO. WEINAND:
Martin is a brilliant man. We are not all as gifted as he
is.
HANS:
No, well, anyway what would be your opinion about
this?
BRO. WEINAND:
I think my opinion would be that the Church is bigger
than those who are in her.
HANS:
Yes, yes, but don't you think it could be discredited by,
say, just a few men?
ACT ONE 37
BRO. WEINAND:
Plenty of people have tried, but the Church is still there.
Besides, a human voice is small and the world's very
large. But the Church reaches out and is heard every
where.
HANS:
Well, what about this chap Erasmus, for instance?
BRO. WEINAND (politely. He knows HANS knows nothing
about him):
Yes?
HANS:
Erasmus. (Trying to pass the ball). Well, what about
him, for instance? What do you think about him?
BRO. WEINAND:
Erasmus is apparently a great scholar, and respected
throughout Europe.
HANS (resenting being lectured) :
Yes, of course, / know who he is, I don't need you to tell
me that, what I said was: what do you think about him?
BRO. WEINAND:
Think about him?
HANS:
Good God, you won't stand still a minute and let your
self be saddled, will you? Doesn't he criticize the Church
or something?
BRO. WEINAND:
He's a scholar, and, I should say, his criticisms could
only be profitably argued about by other scholars.
LUCAS:
Don't let him get you into an argument. Hell argue about
anything, especially if he doesn't know what he's talking
about.
38 LUTHER
HANS:
I know what Tm talking about, I was merely asking a
question
LUCAS:
Well, you shouldn't be asking questions on a day like
today. Just think of it, for a minute, Hans
HANS:
What do you think I'm doing? You soppy old woman!
LUCAS:
It's a really fi once only' occasion, like a wedding, if you
like.
HANS:
Or a funeral. By the way, what's happened to the corpse?
Eh? Where's Brother Martin?
BRO, WEINAND:
I expect he's still in his cell,
HANS:
Well, what's he doing in there?
BRO. WEINAND:
He's perfectly all right, he's a little disturbed.
HANS (pouncing delightedly) ;
Disturbed! Disturbed! What's he disturbed about?
BRO. WEINAND:
Celebrating one's first Mass can be a great ordeal for a
sensitive spirit
HANS:
Oh, the bread and the wine and all that?
BRO. WEINAND:
Of course; there are a great many things to memorize as
weli
ACT ONE 39
LUCAS:
Heavens, yes. I don't know how they tfanlr of it all.
HANS:
I didn't think he made it up as he went along! But
doesn't he know we're still here? Hasn't anybody told him
we're all waiting for him?
BRO. WEINAND:
He won't be much longer youTl see. Here, have some
more of our wine. He simply wanted to be on his own
for a little while before he saw anyone.
HANS:
I should have thought he had enough of being on his
own by now.
LUCAS:
The boy's probably a bit well, you know, anxious about
seeing you again too.
HANS:
What's he got to be anxious about?
LUCAS:
Well, apart from anything else, it's nearly three years
since he last saw you.
HANS:
I saw him. He didn't see me.
(Enter MARTIN.)
LUCAS:
There you are, my boy. We were wondering what had
happened to you. Come and sit down, there's a good lad.
Your father and I have been punishing the convent wine
cellar, I'm afraid. Bit early in the day for me, too.
HANS:
Speak for yourself, you swirly-eyed old gander. We're not
started yet, are we?
40 LUTHER
LUCAS:
My dear boy, are you all right? You're so pale.
HANS:
He's right though. Brother Martin! Brother Lazarus they
ought to call you!
(He laughs and MARTIN smiles at the joke with
him. MARTIN is cautious, HANS too, but manoeu
vring for position.)
MARTIN:
I'm all right, thank you, Lucas.
HANS:
Been sick, have you?
MARTIN:
Fm much better now, thank you, father.
HANS (relentless) :
Upset tummy, is it? That what it is? Too much fasting
I expect. (Concealing concern). You look like death
warmed up, all right.
LUCAS:
Come and have a little wine. You're allowed that, aren't
you? It'll make you feel better.
HANS:
I know that milky look. I've seen it too many times.
Been sick have you?
LUCAS:
Oh, he's looking better already. Drop of winell put the
colour back in there. You're all right, aren't you, lad?
MARTIN:
Yes, what aBout you
LUCAS:
That's right. Of course he is. He's all right.
ACT ONE 41
HANS:
Vomit all over your cell, I expect. (To BROTHER WEI-
NAND). But he'll have to clear that up himself, won't he?
LUCAS (to MARTIN) :
Oh, you weren't were you? Poor old lad, well, never
mind, no wonder you kept us waiting.
HANS:
Can't have his mother coming in and getting down on
her knees to mop it all up.
MARTIN:
I managed to clean it up all right. How are you, father?
HANS (feeling an attack, but determined not to lose the
initiative) :
Me? Oh, I'm all right. I'm all right, aren't I, Lucas?
Nothing ever wrong with me. Your old man's strong
enough. But then that's because we've got to be, people
like Lucas and me. Because if we aren't strong, it won't
take any time at all before we're knocked flat on our
backs, or flat on our knees, or flat on something or
other. Flat on our backs and finished, and we can't af
ford to be finished because if we're finished, that's it,
that's the end, so we just have to stand up to it as best
we can. But that's life, isn't it?
MARTIN:
I'm never sure what people mean when they say that.
LUCAS:
Your father's doing very well indeed, Martin. He's got his
own investment in the mine now, so he's beginning to
work for himself if you see what I mean. That's the way
things are going everywhere now.
MARTIN (to HANS) :
You must be pleased.
42 LUTHER
HANS:
I'm pleased to make money. I'm not pleased to break my
back doing it,
MARTIN:
How's mother?
HANS:
Nothing wrong there either. Too much work and too many
kids for too long, that's all. (Hiding embarrassment).
I'm sorry she couldn't come, but it's a rotten journey as
you know, and all that, so she sent her love to you. Oh,
yes, and there was a pie too. But I was told (at BROTHER
WEINAND) I couldn't give it to you, but I'd have to give
it to the Prior,
MARTIN:
That's the rule about gifts, father. You must have for
gotten?
HANS:
Well, I hope you get a piece of it anyway. She took a
lot of care over it. Oh yes, and then there was Lucas's
girl, she asked to be remembered to you.
MARTIN:
Oh, good. How is she?
HANS:
Didn't she, Lucas? She asked specially to be remembered
to Martin, didn't she?
LUCAS:
Oh she often talks about you, Martin. Even now. She's
married you know.
MARTIN:
No, I didn't know.
LUCAS:
Oh, yes, got two children, one boy and a girl
ACT ONE 43
HANS:
That's it two on show on the stall, and now another
one coming out from under the counter again right,
Lucas?
LUCAS:
Yes, oh, she makes a fine mother.
HANS:
And what's better than that? There's only one way of
going *up you' to Old Nick when he does come for you
and that's when you show him your kids. It's the one
thing that is, if you've been lucky, and the plagues kept
away from you you can spring it out from under the
counter at him. That to you! Then you've done something
for yourself forever forever and ever. Amen. (Pause).
Come along, Brother Martin, don't let your guests go with
out. Poor old Lucas is sitting there with a glass as empty
as a nun's womb, aren't you, you thirsty little goosey?
MARTIN:
Oh, please, I'm sorry.
HANS:
That's right, and don't forget your old dad. (Pause).
Yes, well, as I say, I'm sorry your mother couldn't come,
but I don't suppose she'd have enjoyed it much, al-
thought I dare say she'd like to have watched her son per
form the Holy Office. Isn't a mother supposed to dance
with her son after the ceremony? Like Christ danced
witk his mother? Well, I can't see her doing that. I sup
pose you think I'm going to dance with you instead
MARTIN:
You're not obliged to, father.
HANS:
It's like giving a bride away, isn't it?
44 LUTHER
MARTIN:
Not unlike.
(They have been avoiding any direct contact until
now, but now they look at each other, and both
relax a little.)
HANS (encouraged) :
God's eyes! Come to think of it, you look like a woman,
in all that!
MARTIN (with affection) :
Not any woman you'd want, father.
HANS:
What do you know about it, eh? What do you know
about it? (He laughs but not long). Well, Brother
Martin.
MARTIN:
Well? (Pause). Have you had some fish? Or a roast,
how about that, that's what you'd like, isn't it?
HANS:
Brother Martin, old Brother Martin. Well, Brother Martin,
you had a right old time up there by that altar for a bit,
didn't you? I wouldn't have been in your shoes, I'll tell
you. All those people listening to you, eveiy word you're
saying, watching every little tiny movement, watching for
one little lousy mistake. I couldn't keep my eyes off it.
We all thought you were going to flunk it for one min
ute there, didn't we, Lucas?
LUCAS:
Well, we had a couple of anxious moments
HANS:
Anxious moments! Ill say there were. I thought to my
self, "he's going to flunk it, he can't get through it, he's
going to flunk it." What was that bit, you know, the
worst bit where you stopped and Brother
ACT ONE 45
MARTIN:
Weinand.
HANS:
Weinand, yes, and he very kindly helped you up. He was
actually holding you up at one point, wasn't he?
MARTIN:
Yes.
BRO. WEINAND:
It happens often enough when a young priest celebrates
Mass for the first time.
HANS:
Looked as though he didn't know if it was Christmas or
Wednesday. We thought the whole thing had come to a
standstill for a bit, didn't we? Everyone waiting and noth
ing happening. What was that bit, Martin, what was it?
MARTIN:
I don't remember.
HANS:
Yes, you know, the bit you really flunked.
MARTIN (rattling it off) :
Receive, oh Holy Father, almighty and eternal God, this
spotless host, which I, thine unworthy servant, offer unto
thee for my own innumerable sins of commission and
omission, and for all here present and all faithful Chris
tians, living and dead, so that it may avail for their salva
tion and everlasting life. When I entered the monastery,
I wanted to speak to God directly, you see. Without any
embarrassment, I wanted to speak to him myself, but
when it came to it, I dried up as I always have,
LUCAS:
No, you didn't, Martin, it was only for a few moments,
besides
46 LUTHER
MARTIN:
Thanks to Brother Weinand. Father, why do you hate
me being here?
(HANS is outraged at a direct question.)
HANS:
Eh? What do you mean? I don't hate you being here.
MARTIN:
Try to give me a straight answer if you can, father. I
should like you to tell me.
HANS:
What are you talking about, Brother Martin, you don't
know what you're talking about. You've not had enough
wine, that's your trouble.
MARTIN:
And don't say I could have been a lawyer.
HANS:
Well, so you could have been. You could have been bet
ter than that. You could have been a burgomaster, you
could have been a magistrate, you could have been a
chancellor, you could have been anything! So what! I
don't want to talk about it. What's the matter with you!
Anyway, I certainly don't want to talk about it in front
of complete strangers.
MARTIN:
You make me sick.
HANS:
Oh, do I? Well, thank you for that, Brother Martin!
Thank you for the truth, anyway.
MARTIN:
No, it isn't the truth. It isn't the truth at all. You're
drinking too much wine and I'm . . .
ACT ONE 47
HANS:
Prinking too much wine! I could drink tMs convent piss
from here till Gabriel's horn and from all accounts,
that'll blow about next Thursday so what's the dif
ference? (Pause. HANS drinks.) Is this the wine you use?
Is it? Well? I'm asking a straight question myself now.
Is this the wine you use? (To MARTIN). Here, have
some.
(MARTIN takes it and drinks.)
You know what they say?
MARTIN:
No, what do they say?
HANS:
I'll tell you:
Bread thou art and wine thou art
And always shall remain so.
(Pause)
MARTIN:
My father didn't mean that. He's a very devout man, I
know.
(Some of the BROTHERS have got up to leave.)
MARTIN (to LUCAS) :
Brother Weinand will show you over the convent. If
you've finished, that is.
LUCAS:
Yes, oh yes, I'd like that. Yes, I've had more than enough,
thank you. Right, well, let's go, shall we, Brother Wei
nand? I'll come back for you, shall I. Hans, you'll stay
here?
HANS:
Just as you like.
LUCAS (to MARTIN) :
You're looking a bit better now, lad. Good-bye, my boy,
but I'll see you before I go, won't I?
48 LUTHER
MARTIN:
Yes, of course.
(They all go, leaving MARTIN and HANS alone to
gether. Pause.)
HANS:
Martin, I didn't mean to embarrass you.
MARTIN:
No, it was my fault.
HANS:
Not in front of everyone.
MARTIN:
I shouldn't have asked you a question like that. It was a
shock to see you suddenly, after such a long time.
Most of my day's spent in silence you see, except for
the Offices; and I enjoy the singing, as you know, but
there's not much speaking, except to one's confessor.
I'd almost forgotten what your voice sounded like,
HANS:
Tell me, son what made you get all snarled up like that
in the Mass?
MARTIN:
You're disappointed, aren't you?
HANS:
I want to know, that's all. I'm a simple man, Martin, I'm
no scholar, but I can understand all right. But you're a
learned man, you speak Latin and Greek and Hebrew.
You've been trained to remember ever since you were a
tiny boy. Men like you don't just forget their words!
MARTIN:
I don't understand what happened. I lifted up my head
at the host, and, as I was speaking the words, I heard
them as if it were the first time, and suddenly (pause)
they struck at my life.
ACT ONE 49
HANS:
I don't know, I really don't. Perhaps your father and
mother are wrong, and God's right, after all. Perhaps.
Whatever it is you've got to find, you could only find
out by becoming a monk; maybe that's the answer.
MARTIN:
But you don't believe that. Do you?
HANS:
No; no I don't.
MARTIN:
Then say what you mean.
HANS:
All right, if that's what you want, FU say just what I
mean. I think a man murders himself in these places.
MARTIN (retreating at once) :
I am holy. I kill no one but myself.
HANS:
I don't care. I tell you it gives me the creeps. And that's
why I couldn't bring your mother, if you want to know.
MARTIN:
The Gospels are the only mother I've ever had.
HANS (triumphantly) :
And haven't you ever read in the Gospels, don't you
know what's written in there? "Thou shalt honour thy
father and thy mother."
.MARTIN:
You're not understanding me, because you don't want
to.
HANS:
That's fine talk, oh yes, fine, holy talk, but it won't wash,
Martin. It won't wash because you can't ever, however
50 LUTHER
you try, you can't ever get away from your body because
that's what you live in, and it's all you've got to die in,
and you can't get away from the body of your father
and your mother! We're bodies, Martin, and so are you,
and we're bound together for always. But you're like
every man who was ever born into this world, Martin.
You'd like to pretend that you made yourself, that it was
you who made you and not the body of a woman and
another man.
MARTIN:
Churches, kings, and fathers why do they ask so much,
and why do they all of them get so much more than they
deserve?
HANS:
You think so. Well, I think I deserve a little more than
you've given me
MARTIN:
Fve given you! I don't have to give you! I am that's
all I need to give to you. That's your big reward, and
that's all you're ever going to get, and it's more than any
father's got a right to. You wanted me to learn Latin, to
be a Master of Arts, be a lawyer. All you want is me to
justify youl Well, I can't, and, what's more, I won't. I
can't even justify myself. So just stop asking me what
have I accomplished, and what have I done for you. I've
done all for you I'll ever do, and that's live and wait to
die,
HANS:
Why do you blame me for everything?
MARTIN:
I don't blame you. I'm just not grateful, that's all.
HANS:
Listen, I'm not a specially good man, I know, but I be
lieve in God and in Jesus Christ, His Son, and the
Church will look after me, and I can make some sort of
ACT ONE 51
life for myself that has a little joy in it somewhere. But
where is your joy? You wrote to me once, when you
were at the University, that only Christ could light up
the place you live in, but what's the point? What's the
point if it turns out the place you're living in is just a
hovel? Don't you think it mightn't be better not to see at
aH?
MARTIN:
I'd rather be able to see.
HANS:
You'd rather see!
MARTIN:
You really are disappointed, aren't you? Go on,
HANS:
And why? I see a young man, learned and full of life,
my son, abusing his youth with fear and humiliation.
You thitik you're facing up to it in here, but you're not;
you're running away, you're running away and you
can't help it.
MARTIN:
If it's so easy in here, why do you think the rest of the
world isn't knocking the gates down to get in?
HANS:
Because they haven't given up, that's why.
MARTIN:
Well, there it is: you think I've given up.
HANS:
Yes, there it is. That damned monk's piss has given me a
headache.
MARTIN:
I'm sorry.
52 LUTHER
HANS:
Yes, we're all sorry, and a lot of good it does any of us.
MARTIN:
I suppose fathers and sons always disappoint each other.
HANS:
I worked for you, I went without for you.
.MARTIN:
Well?
HANS:
Well! (Almost anxiously). And if I beat you fairly often,
and pretty hard sometimes I suppose, it wasn't any more
than any other boy, was it?
MARTIN:
No.
HANS:
What do you think it is makes you different? Other men
are all right, aren't they? You were stubborn, you were
always stubborn, you've always had to resist, haven't
you?
MARTIN:
You disappointed me too, and not just a few times, but
at some time of every day I ever remember hearing or
seeing you, but, as you say, maybe that was also no dif
ferent from any other boy. But I loved you the best. It
was always you I wanted. I wanted your love more than
anyone's, and if anyone was to hold me, I wanted it to
be you. Funnily enough, my mother disappointed me
the most, and I loved her less, much less. She made a
gap which no one else could have filled, but all she could
do was make it bigger, bigger and more unbearable.
HANS:
I don't know what any of that means; I really don't. I'd
ACT ONE 53
better be going, Martin. I think it's best; and I dare say
you've got your various duties to perform.
MARTIN:
She beat me once for stealing a nut, your wife. I remem
ber it so well, she beat me until the blood came, I was so
surprised to see it on my finger-tips; yes, stealing a nut,
that's right. But that's not the point. I had corns on my
backside already. Always before, when I was beaten for
something, the pain seemed outside of me in some way,
as if it belonged to the rest of the world, and not only me.
But, on that day, for the first time, the pain belonged to
me and no one else, it went no further than my body,
bent between my knees and my chin.
HANS:
You know what, Martin, I think you've always been
scared ever since you could get up off your knees and
walk. You've been scared for the good reason that that's
what you most like to be. Yes, I'll tell you. I'll tell you
what! Like that day, that day when you were coming home
from Erfurt, and the thunderstorm broke, and you were
so piss-scared, you lay on the ground and cried out to
St. Anne because you saw a bit of lightning and thought
you'd seen a vision.
MARTIN:
I saw it all right.
HANS:
And you went and asked her to save you on condi
tion that you became a monk.
MARTIN:
I saw it.
HANS:
Did you? So it's still St. Anne is it? I thought you were
blaming your mother and me for your damned monkery?
54 LUTHER
MARTIN:
Perhaps I should.
HANS:
And perhaps sometime you should have another little
think about that heavenly vision that wangled you away
into the cloister.
MARTIN:
What's that?
HANS:
I mean: I hope it really was a vision. I hope it wasn't a
delusion and some trick of the devil's. I really hope so,
because I can't bear to think of it otherwise. (Pause)
Good-bye, son. I'm sorry we had to quarrel. It shouldn't
have turned out like this at all today.
(Pause)
MARTIN:
Father why did you give your consent?
HANS:
What, to your monkery, you mean?
MARTIN:
Yes. You could have refused, but why didn't you?
HANS:
Well, when your two brothers died with the plague . . .
MARTIN:
You gave me up for dead, didn't you?
HANS:
Good-bye, son. Here have a glass of holy wine.
(He goes out. .MARTIN stands, with the glass in his
hand and looks into it. Then he drinks from it slowly,
ACT ONE 55
as if for the first time. He sits down at the table
and sets the glass before Mm.)
MARTIN:
but what if it isn't true?
CURTAIN
(End of Act One)
DECOR NOTE
After the intense private interior of Act One,
with its outer darkness and rich, personal ob
jects, the physical effect from now on should be
more intricate, general, less personal; sweeping,
concerned with men in time rather than particular
man in the unconscious; caricature not portrai
ture, like the popular woodcuts of the period,
like DURER. Down by the apron in one corner
there is now a heavily carved pulpit.
56
ACT TWO
SCENE ONE
The market place, Juterbog, 1517. The sound of loud
music, bells as a procession approaches the centre of the
market place, -which is covered in the banners of welcom
ing trade guilds. At the head of the slow-moving pro
cession, with its lighted tapers arid to the accompaniment
of singing, prayers and the smoke of incense, is carried
the Pontiffs bull of grace on a cushion and cloth of gold.
Behind this the arms of the Pope and the Medici. After
this, carrying a large red wooden cross, comes the focus
of the procession, JOHN TETZEL, Dominican, inquisitor
and most famed and successful indulgence vendor of his
day. He is splendidly equipped to be an ecclesiastical
huckster, with alive, silver hair, the powerfully calcu
lating voice, range and technique of a trained orator, the
terrible, riveting charm of a dedicated professional able
to winkle coppers out of the pockets of the poor and
desperate.
The red cross is taken from TETZEL and established
prominently behind him, and, from it are suspended the
arms of the Pope.
TETZEL:
Are you wondering who I am, or what I am? Is there
anyone here among you, any small child, any cripple, or
any sick idiot who hasn't heard of me, and doesn't know
why I am here? No? Well, speak up then if there is?
What, no one? Do you all know me then? Do you all
know who I am? If it's true, it's very good, and just as it
should be. Just as it should be, and no more than that!
However, however just in case just in case, mind,
there is one blind, maimed midget among you today
who can't hear, I will open his ears and wash them out
57
58 LUTHER
with sacred soap for him! And, as for the rest of you. I
know I can rely on you all to listen patiently while I in
struct him. Is that right? Can I go on? I'm asking you, is
that right, can I go on? I say "can I go on"?
(Pause)
Thank you. And what is there to tell this blind, maimed
midget who's down there somewhere among you? No,
don't look round for him, you'll only scare him and then
he'll lose his one great chance, and it's not likely to come
again, or if it does come, maybe it'll be too late. Well,
what's the good news on this bright day? What's the in
formation you want? It's this! Who is this friar with his
red cross? Who sent him, and what's he here for? Don't
try to work it out for yourself because I'm going to tell
you now, this very minute. I am John Tetzel, Dominican,
inquisitor, sub-commissioner to the Archbishop of Mainz,
and what I bring you is indulgences. Indulgences made
possible by the red blood of Jesus Christ, and the red
cross you see standing up here behind me is the standard
of those who carry them. Look at it! Go on, look at it!
What else do you see hanging from the red cross? Well,
what do they look like? Why, it's the arms of his holi
ness, because why? Because it's him who sent me here.
Yes, my friend, the Pope himself has sent me with in
dulgences for you! Fine, you say, but what are indul
gences? And what are they to me? What are indulgences?
They're only the most precious and noble of Gods gifts to
men, that's all they are! Before God, I tell you I wouldn't
swap my privilege at this moment with that of St. Peter
in Heaven because I've already saved more souls with
my indulgences than he could ever have done with all his
sermons. You think that's bragging, do you? Well, listen
a little more carefully, my friend, because this concerns
youl Just look at it this way. For every mortal sin you
commit, the Church says that after confession and con
trition, you've got to do penance either in this life or in
purgatory for seven years. Seven years! Right? Are you
with me? Good. Now then, how many mortal sins are
committed by you by you in a single day? Just think
for one moment: in one single day of your life. Do you
know the answer? Oh, not so much as one a day. Very
ACT TWO 59
well then, how many in a month? How many in six
months? How many in a year? And how many in a whole
lifetime? Yes, you needn't shuffle your feet it doesn't
bear thinking about, does it? You couldn't even add up
all those years without a merchant's clerk to do it for
you! Try and add up all the years of torment piling up!
What about it? And isn't there anything you can do
about this terrible situation you're in? Do you really
want to know? Yes! There is something, and that some
thing I have here with me now up here, letters, letters of
indulgence. Hold up the letters so that everyone can see
them. Is there anyone so small he can't see? Look at
them, all properly sealed, an indulgence in every en
velope, and one of them can be yours today, now, before
it's too late! Come on, come up as close as you like, you
won't squash me so easily. Take a good look. There isn't
any one sin so big that one of these letters can't remit it.
I challenge any one here, any member of this audience,
to present me with a sin, anything, any kind of a sin, I
don't care what it is, that I can't settle for him with
one of these precious little envelopes. Why, if any one
had ever offered violence to the blessed Virgin Mazy,
Mother of God, if he'd only pay up as long as he paid
up all he could he'd find himself forgiven. You think
I'm exaggerating? You do, do you? Well, I'm authorized
to go even further than that. Not only am I empowered
to give you these letters of pardon for the sins you've al
ready committed, I can give you pardon for those sins
-you haven't even committed (pause . . . then slowly)
but, which, however you intend to commit! But, you
ask and it's a fair question but, you ask, why is our
Holy Lord prepared to distribute such a rich grace to
me? The answer, my friends, is all too simple. It's so
that we can restore the ruined church of St. Peter and
St. Paul in Rome! So that it won't have its equal any
where in the world. This great church contains the bodies
not only of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, but of a
hundred thousand martyrs and no less than forty-six
popes! To say nothing of the relics like St Veronica's
handkerchief, the burning bush of Moses and the very
rope with which Judas Iscariot hanged himself! But, alas.
60 LUTHER
this fine old building is threatened with destruction, and
all these things with it, if a sufficient restoration fund
isn't raised, and raised soon. (With passionate irony) . . .
Will anyone dare to say that the cause is not a good
one? (Pause.) . . . Very well, and won't you, for as little
as one quarter of a florin, my friend, buy yourself one of
these letters, so that in the hour of death, the gate
through which sinners enter the world of torment shall
be closed against you, and the gate leading to the joy of
paradise be flung open for you? And, remember this,
these letters aren't just for the living but for the dead
too. There can't be one amongst you who hasn't at least
one dear one who has departed and to who knows
what? Why, these letters are for them too. It isn't even
necessary to repent. So don't hold back, come forward,
think of your dear ones, think of yourselves! For twelve
groats, or whatever it is we think you can afford, you
can rescue your father from agony and yourself from
certain disaster. And if you only have the coat on your
back to call your own, then strip it off, strip it off now so
that you too can obtain grace. For remember: As soon
as your money rattles in the box and the cash bell rings,
the soul flies out of purgatory and sings! So, come on
then. Get your money out! What is it then, have your
wits flown away with your faith? Listen then, soon, I
shall take down the cross, shut the gates of heaven, and
put out the brightness of this sun of grace that shines on
you here today.
(He flings a large coin into the open strong box,
where it rattles furiously.)
The Lord our God reigns no longer. He has resigned all
power to the Pope. In the name of the Father, and of the
Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
(The sound of coins clattering like rain into a great
coffer as the light fades.)
(End of Act Two Scene One)
ACT TWO
SCENE Two
The Eremite Cloister, Wittenberg. 1517. Seated be
neath a single pear tree is JOHANN VON STAUPITZ, Vicar
General of the Augustinian Order. He is a quiet, gentle-
voiced man in late middle age, almost stolidly contempla
tive. He has profound respect for Martin, recognizing in
him the powerful potential of insight, sensitivity, cour
age and, also heroics that is quite outside the range of
his own endeavour. However, he also understands that a
man of his own limitations can offer a great deal to such
a young man at this point in his development, and his
treatment of Martin is a successful astringent mixture
of sympathy and ridicule. Birds sing as he reads in the
shade, and MARTIN approaches, prostrating himself.
STAUPITZ motions him to his feet.
MARTIN (looking up) :
The birds always seem to fly away the moment I come
out here.
STAUPITZ:
Birds, unfortunately, have no faith.
MARTIN:
Perhaps it's simply that they don't like me.
STAUPITZ:
They haven't learned yet that you mean them no harm,
that's all.
MARTIN:
Are you treating me to one of your allegories?
61
62 LUTHER
STAUPITZ:
Well, you recognized it, anyway.
MARTIN:
I ought to* Ever since I came into the cloister, I've be
come a craftsman allegory maker myself. Only last week
I was lecturing on Galatians Three, verse three, and I
allegorized going to the lavatory,
STAUPITZ (quoting the verse) :
"Are ye so foolish, that ye have begun in the spirit, you
would now end in the flesh."
MARTIN:
That's right. But allegories aren't much help in theology
except to decorate a house that's been already built
by argument.
STAUPITZ:
Well, it's a house you've been able to unlock for a great
many of us. I never dreamed when I first came here
that the University's reputation would ever become what
it has, and in such a short time, and it's mostly due to
you.
MARTIN (very deliberately turning the compliment') 1 :
If ever a man could get to heaven through monkery,
that man would be me.
STAUPITZ:
I don't mean that. You know quite well what I mean. I'm
talking about your scholarship, and what you manage to
do with it, not your monkishness as you call it. I've never
had any patience with all your mortifications. The only
wonder is that you haven't killed yourself with your
prayers, and watchings, yes and even your reading too.
All these trials and temptations you go through, they're
meat and drink to you.
MARTIN (patient) :
Will you ever stop lecturing me about this?
ACT TWO 63
STAUPITZ:
Of course not, why do you think you come here to see
me in the garden when you could be inside working?
.MARTIN:
Well, if it'll please you, I've so little time, what with my
lectures and study, I'm scarcely able to carry out even
the basic requirements of the Rule.
STAUPITZ:
I'm delighted to hear it. Why do you rtrinV you've always
been obsessed with the Rule? No, I don't want to hear
all your troubles again, I'll tell you why: you're obsessed
with the Rule because it serves very nicely as a protection
for you.
MARTIN:
What protection?
STAUPITZ:
You know perfectly well what I mean, Brother Martin, so
don't pretend to look innocent Protection against the de
mands of your own instincts, that's what. You see, you
thinlc you admire authority, and so you do, but un
fortunately, you can't submit to it. So, what you do, by
your exaggerated attention to the Rule, you make the
authority ridiculous. And the reason you do that is be
cause you're determined to substitute that authority with
something else yourself. Oh, come along, Martin, I've
been Vicar General too long not to have made that little
discovery. Anyway, you shouldn't be too concerned with
a failing like that. It also provides the strongest kind of
security.
MARTIN:
Security? I don't feel that.
STAUPITZ:
I dare say, but you've got it all the same, which is more
than most of us have.
64 LUTHER
MARTIN:
And how have I managed to come by this strange se
curity?
STAUPITZ:
Quite simply: by demanding an impossible standard of
perfection.
MARTIN:
I don't see what work or merit can come from a heart
like mine.
STAUPITZ:
Oh, my dear, dear friend, Tve sworn a thousand times
to our holy God to live piously, and have I been able
to keep my vows? No, of course I haven't Now I've
given up making solemn promises because I know Fm
not able to keep them. If God won't be merciful to me for
the love of Christ when I leave this world, then I shan't
stand before Him on account of all my vows and good
works, I shall perish, that's all.
MARTIN:
You think I lavish too much attention on my own pain,
don't you?
STAUPITZ:
Well, that* s difficult for me to say, Martin. We're very
different kinds of men, you and I. Yes, you do lavish at
tention on yourself, but then a large man is worth the
pains he takes. Like St. Paul, some men must say "I die
daily".
MARTIN:
Tell me, Father, have you never felt humiliated to find
that you belong to a world that's dying?
STAUPITZ:
No, I don't think I have.
ACT TWO 65
MARTIN:
Surely, this must be the last age of time we're living in.
There can't be any more left but the black bottom of
the bucket
STAUPITZ:
Do you mean the Last Judgment?
MARTIN:
No. I don't mean that The Last Judgment isn't to come.
It's here and now.
STAUPITZ:
Good. That's a little better, anyway.
MARTIN:
Fm like a ripe stool in the world's straining anus, and at
any moment we're about to let each other go.
STAUPITZ:
There's nothing new in the world being damned, dying or
without hope. It's always been like that, and it'll stay like
it What's the matter with you? What are you making
funny faces for?
MARTIN:
It's nothing, Father, just a a slight discomfort
STAUPITZ:
Slight discomfort? What are you holding your stomach
for? Are you in pain?
MARTIN:
It's all right. It's gone now.
STAUPITZ:
I don't understand you. What's gone now? Fve seen
you grabbing at yourself like that before. What is it?
MARTIN:
Fm constipated.
66 LUTHER
STAUPITZ:
Constipated? There's always something the matter with
you, Brother Martin. If it's not the gripes, insomnia, or
faith and works, it's boils or indigestion or some kind of
belly-ache you've got. All these severe fasts
MARTIN:
That's what my father says.
STAUPITZ:
Your father sounds pretty sensible to me.
MARTIN:
He is, and you know, he's a theologian too, I've dis
covered lately.
STAUPITZ:
I thought he was a miner.
MARTIN:
So he is, but he made a discovery years and years ago
that took me sweat and labour to dig out of the earth
for myself.
STAUPITZ:
Well, that's no surprise. There's always some chunk of
truth buried down away somewhere which lesser men will
always reach with less effort.
MARTIN:
Anyway, he always knew that works alone don't save
any man. Mind you, he never said anything about faith
coining first.
STAUPITZ (quoting) :
"Oh, well, that's life, and nothing you can do's going to
change it**
MARTIN:
The same speech.
ACT TWO 67
STAUPITZ:
You can't change human nature.
MARTIN:
Nor can you.
STAUPITZ:
That's right, Martin, and you've demonstrated it only too
well in your commentaries on the Gospels and St. Paul.
But don't overlook the fact that your father's taken a vow
of poverty too, even though it's very different from your
own. And he took it the day he told himself, and told
you, that he was a complete man, or at least, a con
tented man.
MARTIN:
A hog waffling in its own crap is contented.
STAUPITZ:
Exactly.
MARTIN:
My father, faced with an unfamiliar notion is like a cow
staring at a new barn door. Like those who look on the
cross and see nothing. All they hear is the priest's for
giveness.
STAUPITZ:
One thing I promise you, Martin. You'll never be a
spectator. You'll always take part.
MARTIN:
How is it you always manage somehow to comfort me?
STAUPITZ:
I thi'nTc some of us are not much more than pretty modest
sponges, but we're probably best at quenching big thirsts.
How's your tummy?
MARTIN:
Better.
68 LUTHER
STAUPITZ:
One mustn't be truly penitent because one anticipates
God's forgiveness, but because one already possesses it.
You have to sink to the bottom of your black bucket be
cause that's where God judges you, and then look to the
wounds of Jesus Christ. You told me once that when you
entered the cloister, your father said it was like giving
away a bride, and again your father was right You are a
bride and you should hold yourself ready like a woman
at conception. And when grace comes and your soul is
penetrated by the spirit, you shouldn't pray or exert your
self, but remain passive.
MARTIN (smiles) ;
That's a hard role.
STAUPITZ (smiles too) :
Too hard for you, I dare say. Did you know the Duke's
been complaining to me about you?
MARTIN:
Why, what have I done?
STAUPITZ:
Preaching against indulgences again.
MARTIN:
Oh, that I was very mild.
STAUPITZ:
Yes, well I've heard your mildness in the pulpit. When I
think sometimes of the terror it used to be for you, you
used to fall up the steps with fright. Sheer fright! You
were too frightened to become a Doctor of Theology,
and you wouldn't be now if I hadn't forced you. "I'm
too weak, I'm not strong enough. I shan't live long
enough!" Do you remember what I said to you?
MARTIN:
"Never mind, the Lord still has work in heaven, and there
are always vacancies,"
ACT TWO 69
STAUPITZ:
Yes, and the Duke paid all the expenses of your pro
motion for you. He was very cross when he spoke to me,
I may say. He said you even made some reference to
the collection of holy relics in the Castle Church, and
most of those were paid for by the sale of indulgences,
as you know. Did you say anything about them?
MARTIN:
Well, yes, but not about those in the Castle Church. I
did make some point in passing about someone who
claimed to have a feather from the wing of the angel
Gabriel
STAUPITZ:
Oh yes, I heard about him.
MARTIN:
And the Archbishop of Mainz, who is supposed to have a
flame from Moses' burning bush.
STAUPITZ:
Oh dear, you shouldn't have mentioned that.
MARTIN:
And I just finished off by saying how does it happen that
Christ had twelve apostles and eighteen of them are
buried in Germany?
STAUPITZ:
Well, the Duke says he's coming to your next sermon to
hear for himself, so try to keep off the subject, if you
possibly can. It's All Saints' Day soon, remember, and all
those relics will be out on show for everyone to gawp at
The Duke's a good chap, and he's very proud of his col
lection, and it doesn't help to be rude about it
MARTIN:
I've tried to keep off the subject because I haven t been
by any means sure about it. Then I did make a few mild
protests in a couple of sermons, as I say.
70 LUTHER
STAUPITZ:
Yes, yes, but what did you actually say?
MARTIN:
That you can't strike bargains with God. There's a Jew
ish, Turkish, Pelagian heresy if you like.
STAUPITZ:
Yes, more mildness. Go on.
MARTIN:
I said, oh it was an evil sanction because only you
could live your life, and only you can die your death.
It can't be taken over for you. Am I right?
STAUPITZ (doubtfully) :
Yes, what's difficult to understand is why your sermons
are so popular.
MARTIN:
Well, there are plenty who sit out there stiff with hatred,
I can tell you. I can see their faces, and there's no mis-
taking them. But I wanted to tell you something
STAUPITZ:
Yes?
MARTIN:
About all this. The other day a man was brought to me,
a shoemaker. His wife had just died, and I said to him,
"What've you done for her?" so he said, "I've buried her
and commended her soul to God." "But haven't you had
a Mass said for the repose of her soul?" "No," he said,
''what's the point? She entered heaven the moment she
died." So I asked him, "How do you know that?" And
he said, "Well, I've got proof, that's why." And out of
his pocket he took a letter of indulgence.
STAUPITZ:
Ah.
ACT TWO 71
MARTIN:
He threw it at me, and said, "And if you still maintain
that a Mass is necessary, then my wife's been swindled
by our most holy father the Pope. Or, if not by him, then
by the priest who sold it to me."
STAUPITZ:
Tetzel.
MARTIN:
Who else?
STAUPITZ:
That old tout!
MARTIN:
There's another story going around about him which is
obviously true because I've checked it at several sources.
It seems that a certain Saxon nobleman had heard Tetzel
in Jiiterbog. After Tetzel had finished his usual perform
ance, he asked him if he'd repeat what he'd said at one
stage, that he Tetzel I mean had the power of par
doning sins that men intended to commit. Tetzel was
very high and mighty, you know what he's like, and said,
"WTiat's the matter, weren't you listening? Of course I
can give pardon not only for sins already committed but
for sins that men intend to commit." "Well, then, that's
fine," says this nobleman, "because I'd like to take re
venge on one of my enemies. You know, nothing much,
I don't want to kill him or anything like that. Just a little
slight revenge. Now, if I give you ten guilden, will you
give me a letter of indulgence that will justify me
justify me freely and completely?" Well, it seems Tetzel
made a few stock objections, but eventually agreed on
thirty guilden, and they made a deal. The man went away
with his letter of indulgence, and Tetzel set out for die
next job, which was Leipzig. Well, half-way between
Leipzig and Treblen, in the middle of a wood, he was
set on by a band of thugs, and beaten up. While he's
lying there on the grass in a pool of his own blood, he
looks up and sees that one of them is the Saxon noble-
72 LUTHER
man and that they're making off with his great trunk full
of money. So, the moment he's recovered enough, he
rushes back to Jiiterbog, and takes the nobleman to
court. And what does the nobleman do? Takes out the
letter of indulgence and shows it to Duke George him
self case dismissed!
STAUPITZ (laughing) :
Well, I leave you to handle it. But try and be careful.
Remember, / agree with all you say, but the moment
someone disagrees or objects to what you're saying, that
will be the moment when you'll suddenly recognize the
strength of your belief!
MARTIN:
Father, I'm never sure of the words till I hear them out
loud.
STAUPITZ:
Well, that's probably the meaning of the Word. The Word
is me, and I am the Word. Anyway, try and be a little
prudent. Look at Erasmus: he never really gets into any
serious trouble, but he still manages to make his point.
MARTIN:
People like Erasmus get upset because I talk of pigs
and Christ in the same breath. I must go. (Clutches
himself unobtrusively.)
STAUPITZ:
Well, you might be right. Erasmus is a fine scholar, but
there are too many scholars who think they're better
simply because they insinuate in Latin what you'll say in
plain German. What's the matter, are you having that
trouble again? Good heavens! Martin just before you
go: a^man with a strong sword will draw it at some time,
even if it's only to turn it on himself. But whatever hap
pens, he can't just let it dangle from his belt. And, an
other thing, don't forget you began this aifair in the
name of Our Lord Jesus Christ. You must do as God
commands you, of course, but remember, St. Jerome
ACT TWO 73
once wrote about a philosopher who destroyed his own
eyes so that it would give him more freedom to study.
Take care of your eyes, my son, and do something about
those damned bowels!
MARTIN:
I will. Who blows? If I break wind in Wittenberg, they
might smell it in Rome.
(Exit. Church bells.)
(End of Act Two Scene Two)
ACT TWO
SCENE THREE
The steps of the Castle Church, Wittenberg, October
3 1st, 1517. From inside the Church comes the sound of
Matins being sung. Sitting on the steps is a child, dirty,
half-naked and playing intently by himself. MARTIN enters
with a long roll of paper. It is his ninety-five theses for
disputation against indulgences. As he goes up the steps,
he stops and watches the child, absorbed in his private
fantasy. He is absorbed by the child, who doesn't notice
him at first, but, presently, as soon as the boy becomes
aware of cm intruder, he immediately stops playing and
looks away distractedly in an attempt to exclude out
side attention. MARTIN hesitates briefly, then puts out
his hand to the child, who looks at it gravely and de
liberately, then slowly, not rudely, but naturally, gets up
and skips away sadly out of sight. MARTIN watches him,
then walks swiftly back down the steps to the pulpit
and ascends it.
MARTIN:
My text is from the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the
Romans, chapter one, verse seventeen: "For therein is
the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith."
(Pause)
We are living in a dangerous time. You may not fhinV
so, but it could be that this is the most dangerous time
since the light first broke upon the earth. It may not be
true, but it's very probably true but, what's most im
portant is that it's an assumption we are obliged to make.
We Christians seem to be wise outwardly and mad in
wardly, and in this Jerusalem we have built there are
blasphemies flourishing that make the Jews no worse
than giggling children. A man is not a good Christian
74
ACT TWO 75
because he understands Greek and Hebrew. Jerome knew
five languages, but he's inferior to Ajigustine, who knew
only one. Of course, Erasmus wouldn't agree with me, bat
perhaps one day the Lord will open his eyes for him. But
listen! A man without Christ becomes his own shell. We
are content with shells. Some shells are whole men and
some are small trinkets. And, what are the trinkets? To
day is the eve of All Saints, and the holy relics will be
on show to you all; to the hungry ones whose lives are
made satisfied by trinkets, by an imposing procession and
the dressings up of all kinds of dismal things. You'll
mumble for magic with lighted candles to St. Anthony
for your erysipelas; to St. Valentine for your epilepsy; to
St. Sebastian for the pestilence; to St. Laurentis to protect
you from fire, to St. Apollonia if you've got the tooth
ache, and to St. Louis to stop your beer from going
sour. And tomorrow you'll queue for hours outside the
Castle Church so that you can get a cheap-rate glimpse of
St. Jerome's tooth, or four pieces each of St. Chrysostom
and St Augustine, and six of St. Bernard. The deacons
will have to link hands to hold you back while you strug
gle to gawp at four hairs from Our Lady's head, at the
pieces of her girdle and her veil stained with her Son's
blood. You'll sleep outside with the garbage in the streets
all night so that you can stuff your eyes like roasting
birds on a scrap of swaddling clothes, eleven pieces from
the original crib, one wisp of straw from the manger
and a gold piece specially minted by three wise men for
the occasion. Your emptiness will be frothing over at
the sigjit of a strand of Jesus' beard, at one of the nails
driven into His hands, and at the remains of the loaf at the
Last Supper. Shells for shells, empty things for empty
men. There are some who complain of these things, but
they write in Latin for scholars. Who'll speak out in rough
German? Someone's got to bell the cat! For you must be
made to know that there's no security, there's no security
at all, either in indulgences, holy busywork or anywhere
in this world. It came to me while I was in my towet,
what they call the monk's sweathouse, the jakes, the John
or whatever you're pleased to call it. I was struggling
with the text I've given you: "For therein is the righteous-
76 LUTHER
ness of God revealed, from faith to faith; as it is written,
the just shall live by faith." And seated there, my head
down, on that privy just as when I was a little boy, I
couldn't reach down to my breath for the sickness in my
bowels, as I seemed to sense beneath me a large rat, a
heavy, wet, plague rat, slashing at my privates with its
death's teeth. (He kneads his knuckles into his abdomen,
as if he were suppressing pain. His face runs with sweat. )
I thought of the righteousness of God, and wished his
gospel had never been put to paper for men to read;
who demanded my love and made it impossible to re
turn it. And I sat in my heap of pain until the words
emerged and opened out. "The just shall live by faith."
My pain vanished, my bowels flushed and I could get up.
I could see the life I'd lost. No man is just because he
does just works. The works are just if the man is just. If a
man doesn't believe in Christ, not only are his sins mortal,
but his good works. This I know; reason is the devil's
whore, born of one stinking goat called Aristotle, which
believes that good works make a good man, But the
truth is that the just shall live by faith alone. I need
no more than my sweet redeemer and meditator, Jesus
Christ^ and I shaft praise Him as long as I have voice to
sing; and if anyone doesn't care to sing with me, then he
can howl on Ms own. If we are going to be deserted, let's
follow the deserted Christ.
(He murmurs a prayer, descends from the pulpit,
then walks up the steps to the Church door, and
nails his theses to it. The singing from within grows
louder as he walks away.)
(End of Act Two Scene Three)
ACT TWO
SCENE FOUR
The Fugger Palace, Augsburg. October 1518. As a
backcloth a satirical contemporary woodcut, showing, for
example, the Pope portrayed as an ass playing the bag
pipes, or a cardinal dressed up as a court fool Or per
haps Holbein's cartoon of Luther with the Pope sus
pended from his nose. However, there is a large area for
the director and designer to choose from.
Seated at a table is THOMAS DE vio, known as Cajetan,
Cardinal of San Sisto, General of the Dominican Order, as
well as its most distinguished theologian, papal legate,
Rome's highest representative in Germany. He is about
fifty, but youthful, with a shrewd, broad, outlook, quite
the opposite of the vulgar bigotry of TETZEL, who enters,
TETZEL:
He's here.
CAJETAN:
So I see.
TETZEL:
What do you meaa?
CAJETAN:
You look so cross. Is Staupitz with him?
TETZEL:
Yes. At least he's polite.
CAJETAN: ,
I know Staupitz. He's a straightforward, four-square land
of a man, and probably very unhappy at this moment
77
78 LUTHER
From all accounts, he has a deep regard for this monk
which is all to the good from our point of view.
TETZEL:
He's worried all right, you can see that. These Augus-
tinians, they don't have much fibre.
CAJETAN:
What about Dr. Luther? What's he got to say for him
self?
TETZEL:
Too much. I said to him if our Lord the Pope were to
offer you a good Bishopric and a plenary indulgence for
repairing your church, you'd soon start singing a different
song.
CAJETAN:
Dear, oh, dear, and what did he say to that?
TETZEL:
He asked me
CAJETAN:
Well?
TETZEL:
He asked me how was my mother's syphilis.
CAJETAN:
It's a fair question in the circumstances. You Germans,
you're a crude lot.
TETZEL:
He's a pig.
CAJETAN:
Fve no doubt After all, it's what your country's most
famous for.
ACT TWO 79
TETZEL:
That's what I said to him you're not on your own
ground here, you know. These Italians, they're different
They're not just learned, they're subtle, experienced an
tagonists. You'll get slung in the fire after five minutes.
CAJETAN:
And?
TETZEL:
He said, "I've only been to Italy once, and they didn't look
very subtle to me. They were lifting their legs on street
corners like dogs."
CAJETAN:
I hope he didn't see any cardinals at it. Knowing some
of them as I do, it's not impossible. Well, let's have a
look at this foul-mouthed monk of yours.
TETZEL:
What about Staupitz?
CAJETAN:
Let him wait in the corridor. It'll help him to worry.
TETZEL:
Very well, your eminence. I hope he behaves properly.
I've spoken to him.
(TETZEL goes out and returns presently with
MARTIN, who advances, prostrates himself, Ms face
to the ground before CAJETAN. CAJETAN makes a
motion and MARTIN rises to a kneeling position,
where CAJETAN studies him.)
CAJETAN (courteous) :
Please stand up, Dr. Luther. So you're the one they can
the excessive doctor. You don't look excessive to me,
Do you feel very excessive?
80 LUTHER
MARTIN (conscious of being patronized) :
It's one of those words which can be used like a harness
on a man.
CAJETAN:
How do you mean?
MARTIN:
I mean it has very little meaning beyond traducing him.
CAJETAN:
Quite. There's never been any doubt in my mind that
you've been misinterpreted all round, and, as you say,
traduced. Well, what a surprise you are! Here was I ex
pecting to see some doddering old theologian with dust
in his ears who could be bullied into a heart attack by
Tetzel here in half an hour. And here you are, as gay and
sprightly as a young bull How old are you, my son?
MARTIN:
Thirty-four, most worthy father.
CAJETAN:
Tetzel, he's a boy you didn't tell me! And how long
have you been wearing your doctor's ring?
MARTIN:
Five years
CAJETAN:
So you were only twenty-nine! Well, obviously, every
thing I've heard about you is true you must be a very
remarkable young man. I wouldn't have believed there
was one doctor in the whole of Germany under fifty.
Would you, Brother John?
TETZEL:
Not as far as I know,
CAJETAN:
I'm certain there isn't What is surprising, frankly, is
ACT TWO 81
that they allowed such an honour to be conferred on
anyone so young and inexperienced as a man must in
evitably be at twenty-nine.
(He smiles to let his point get home.)
Your father must be a proud man.
MARTIN (irritated) :
Not at all, I should say he was disappointed and con
stantly apprehensive.
CAJETAN:
Really? Well, that's surely one of the legacies of parent
hood to offset the incidental pleasures. Now then, to
business. I was saying to Tetzel, I don't think this matter
need take up very much of our time. But, before we do
start, there's just one thing I would like to say, and that
is I was sorry you should have decided to ask the Em
peror for safe conduct. That was hardly necessary, my
son, and it's a little well, distressing to feel you have
such an opinion of us, such a lack of trust in your
Mother Church, and in those who have, I can assure you,
your dearest interests at heart.
MARTIN (oitt-manceuvred) :
I
CAJETAN (kindly) :
But never mind all that now, that's behind us, and, in
the long run, it's unimportant, after all, isn't it? Your
Vicar General has come with you, hasn't he?
MARTIN:
He's outside.
CAJETAN:
I've known Staupitz for years. You have a wonderful
friend there.
MARTIN:
I know. I have great love for him.
82 LUTHER
CAJETAN:
And he certainly has for you, I know. Oh my dear, dear
son, this is such a ridiculous, unnecessary business for us
all to be mixed up in. It's such a tedious, upsetting affair,
and what purpose is there in it? Your entire order in
Germany has been brought into disgrace. Staupitz is an
old man, and he can't honestly be expected to cope. Not
now. I have my job to do, and, make no mistake, it isn't
all honey for an Italian legate in your country. You know
how it is, people are inclined to resent you. Nationalist
feeling and all that which I respect but it does com
plicate one's task to the point where this kind of issue
thrown in for good measure simply makes the whole op
eration impossible. You know what I mean? I mean,
there's your Duke Frederick, an absolutely fair, honest
man, if ever there was one, and one his holiness values
and esteems particularly. Well, he instructed me to pre
sent him with the Golden Rose of Virtue, so you can
see ... As well as even more indulgences for his Castle
Church. But what happens now? Because of all this un
pleasantness and the uproar it's caused throughout Ger
many, the Duke's put in an extremely difficult position
about accepting it. Naturally, he wants to do the right
thing by everyone. But he's not going to betray you or
anything like that, however much he's set his heart on
that Golden Rose, even after all these years. And, of
course he's perfectly right. I know he has the greatest re
gard for you and for some of your ideas even though,
as he's told me he doesn't agree with a lot of them.
No, I can only respect him for all that. So, you see, my
dear son, what a mess we are in. Now, what are we going
to do? Um? The Duke is unhappy. I am unhappy, his
holiness is unhappy, and, you, my son, you are unhappy.
MARTIN (formal, as if it were a prepared speech) :
Most worthy father, in obedience to the summons of his
papal holiness, and in obedience to the orders of my
gracious lord, the Elector of Saxony, I have come before
you as a submissive and dutiful son of the holy Christian
church, and acknowledge that I have published the propo
sition and theses ascribed to me. I am ready now to listen
ACT TWO 83
most obediently to my indictment, and if I have been
wrong, to submit to your instruction in the truth.
CAJETAN (impatient) :
My son, you have upset all Germany with your dispute
about indulgences. I know you're a very learned doctor
of the Holy Scriptures, and that you've already aroused
some supporters. However, if you wish to remain a mem
ber of the Church, and to find a gracious father in the
Pope, you'd better listen. I have here, in front of me,
three propositions which, by the command of our holy
father, Pope Leo the Tenth, I shall put to you now. First,
you must admit your faults, and retract all your errors
and sermons. Secondly, you must promise to abstain from
propagating your opinions at any time in the future. And,
thirdly, you must behave generally with greater modera
tion, and avoid anything which might cause offence or
grieve and disturb the Church.
MARTIN:
May I be allowed to see the Pope's instruction?
CAJETAN:
No, my dear son, you may not. All you are required to
do is confess your errors, keep a strict watch on your
words, and not go back like a dog to big vomit. Then,
once you have done that, I have been authorized by our
most holy father to put everything to rights again.
MARTIN:
I understand all that. But I'm asking you to tell me
where I have erred.
CAJETAN: If you insist. (Rattling off, very fast.) Just to
begin with, here are two propositions you have advanced,
and which you will have to retract before anything else.
First, the treasure of indulgences does not consist of the
sufferings and torments of our Lord Jesus Christ. Second,
the man who received the holy sacrament must have
faith in the grace that is presented to him. Enough?
84 LUTHER
MARTIN:
I rest my case entirely on Holy Scriptures.
CAJETAN:
The Pope alone has power and authority over all those
things.
MARTIN:
Except Scripture.
CAJETAN:
Including Scripture. What do you mean?
TETZEL:
Only the Pope has the right of deciding in matters of
Christian faith. He alone and no one else has the power
to interpret the meaning of Scripture, and to approve or
condemn the views of other men, whoever they are
scholars, councils or the ancient fathers. The Pope's
judgement cannot err, whether it concerns the Christian
faith or anything that has to do with the salvation of
the human race.
MARTIN:
That sounds like your theses.
TETZEL:
Burned in the market place by your students in Witten
berg thank you very much
MARTIN:
I assure you, I had nothing to do with that.
CAJETAN:
Of course. Brother John wasn't suggesting you had.
MARTIN:
I can't stop the mouth of the whole world.
ACT TWO 85
TETZEL:
Why, your heresy isn't even original. It's no different
from Wyclif or Hus.
CAJETAN:
True enough, but we mustn't try to deprive the learned
doctor of his originality. An original heresy may have
been thought of by someone else before you. In fact,
I shouldn't think such a thing as an original heresy exists.
But it is original so long as it originated in you, the
virgin heretic.
TETZEL:
The time'U come when you'll have to defend yourself
before the world, and then every man can judge for
himself who's the heretic and schismatic. It'll be clear to
everyone, even those drowsy snoring Christians who've
never smelled a Bible. They'll find out for themselves that
those who scribble books and waste so much paper just
for their own pleasure, and are contemptuous and shame
less, end up by condemning themselves. People like you
always go too far, thank heaven. You play into our hands.
I give you a month. Brother Martin, to roast yourself.
MARTIN:
You've had your thirty pieces of silver. For the sake of
Christ, why don't you betray someone?
CAJETAN (to TETZEL):
Perhaps you should join Staupitz.
TETZEL:
Very well, your eminence.
(He bows and goes out.)
CAJETAN:
In point of fact, he gets eighty guilder! a month plus ex
penses.
MARTIN:
What about his vow of poverty?
86 LUTHER
CAJETAN:
Like most brilliant men, my son, you have an innocent
spirit I've also just discovered that he has managed to
father two children. So there goes another vow. Bang!
But it'll do him no good, I promise you. You've made a
hole in that drum for him. I may say there's a lot of bad
feelings among the Dominicans about you. I should know
because I'm their General. It's only natural, they're ac
customed to having everything their own way. The Fran
ciscans are a grubby, sentimental lot, on the whole, and
mercifully ignorant as well. But your people seem to be
running alive with scholars and would-be politicians.
MARTIN:
I'd no idea that my theses would ever get such pub
licity.
CAJETAN:
Really now!
MARTIN:
But It seems they've been printed over and over again,
and circulated well, to an extent I'd never dreamed of.
CAJETAN:
Oh yes, they've been circulated and talked about wher
ever men kneel to Christ.
MARTIN:
Most holy father, I honour the Holy Roman Church, and
I shall go on doing so. I have sought after the truth, and
everything^ have said I still believe to be right and true
and Christian. But I am a man, and I may be deceived,
so I am willing to receive instruction where I have been
mistaken
CAJETAN (angrily) :
Save your arrogance, my son, there'll be a better place
to use it I can have you sent to Rome and let any of your
German princes try to stop me! He'll find himself stand
ing outside the gates of heaven like a leper.
ACT TWO 87
MARTIN (stung) :
I repeat, I am here to reply to all the charges you may
bring against me
CAJETAN:
No, you're not
MARTIN:
I am ready to submit my theses to the universities of
Basle, Freibourg, Louvain or Paris
CAJETAN:
I'm afraid you've not grasped the position. I'm not here
to enter into a disputation with you, now or at any other
time. The Roman Church is the apex of the world,
secular and temporal, and it may constrain with its
secular arm any who have once received the faith and
gone astray. Surely I don't have to remind you that it is
not bound to use reason to fight and destroy rebels. (He
sighs.) My son, it's getting late. You must retract. Be
lieve me, I simply want to see this business ended as
quickly as possible.
MARTIN:
Some interests are furthered by finding truth, others by
destroying it. I don't care what pleases or displeases the
Pope. He is a man.
CAJETAN (wearily) :
Is that all?
MARTIN:
He seems a good man, as Popes go. But it's not much
for a world that sings out for reformation. I'd say that's
a hymn for everyone.
CAJETAN:
My dear friend, think, think carefully, and see if you
can't see some way out of all this. I am more than pre
pared to reconcile you with the Church, and the sovereign
88 LUTHER
bishop. Retract, my son, the holy father prays for
it ' "*
MARTIN:
But won't you discuss
CAJETAN:
Discuss! I've not discussed with you, and I don't intend
to. If you want a disputation, I dare say Eck will take
care of you
MARTIN:
John Eck? The Chancellor of Ingolstadt?
CAJETAN:
I suppose you don't think much of him?
MARTIN:
He knows theology.
CAJETAN:
He has a universal reputation in debate.
MARTIN:
If s understandable. He has a pedestrian style and a ju
dicial restraint and that'll always pass off as wisdom to
most men.
CAJETAN:
You mean he's not original, like you
MARTIN:
I'm not an original man, why I'm not even a teacher, and
I'm scarcely even a priest. I know Jesus Christ doesn't
need my labour or my services.
CAJETAN:
All right, Martin, I will argue with you if you want me to,
or, at least, I'll put something to you, because there is
something more than your safety or your life involved,
something bigger than you and I talking together in this
ACT TWO 89
room at this time. Oh, it's fine for someone like you to
criticize and start tearing down Christendom, but tell me
this, just tell me this: what will you build in its place?
MARTIN:
A withered arm is best amputated, an infected place is
best scoured out, and so you pray for healthy tissue and
something sturdy and clean that was crumbling and full
of filth.
CAJETAN:
Can't you see? My son, you'll destroy the perfect unity of
the world.
MARTIN:
Someone always prefers what's withered and infected.
But it should be cauterized as honestly as one knows how.
CAJETAN:
And how honest is that? There's something I'd like to
know: suppose you did destroy the Pope. What do you
would become of you?
MARTIN:
I don't know.
CAJETAN:
Exactly, you wouldn't know what to do because you need
him, Martin, you need to hunt him more than he needs his
silly wild boar. Well? There have always been Popes, and
there always will be, even if they're called something
else. They'll have them for people like you. You're not a
.good old revolutionary, my son, you're just a common
rebel, a very different animal. You don't fight the Pope
because he's too big, but because for your needs he's not
big enough.
MARTIN:
My General's been gossiping -
90 LUTHER
CAJETAN (contemptuous):
I don't need Staupitz to explain you to me. Why, some
deluded creature might even come to you as a leader of
their revolution, but you don't want to break rules, you
want to make them. You'd be a master breaker and
maker and no one would be able to stand up to you,
you'd hope, or ever sufficiently repair the damage you
did. I've read some of your sermons on faith. Do you
know all they say to me?
MARTIN:
No.
CAJETAN:
They say: I am a man struggling for certainty, struggling
insanely like a man in a fit, an animal trapped to the
bone with doubt.
(MARTIN seems about to have a physical struggle
with himself.)
CAJETAN:
Don't you see what could happen out of all this? Men
could be cast out and left to themselves for ever, helpless
and frightened!
MARTIN:
Your eminence, forgive me. I'm tired after my journey
I think I might faint soon
CAJETAN:
That's what would become of them without their Mother
Church with all its imperfections, Peter's rock, with
out it they'd be helpless and unprotected. Allow them
their sins, their petty indulgences, my son, they're unim
portant to the comfort we receive
MARTIN (somewhat hysterical) :
Comfort! It doesn't concern me!
CAJETAN:
We live in thick darkness, and it grows thicker. How will
ACT TWO 91
men find God if they are left to themselves each man
abandoned and only known, to himself?
MARTIN:
They'll have to try.
CAJETAN:
I beg of you, my son, I beg of you. Retract.
(Pause)
MARTIN:
Most holy father, I cannot
(Pauso)
CAJETAN:
You look 511. You had better go and rest. (Pause) Nat
urally, you will be released from your order,
MARTIN:
CAJETAN:
Yes?
MARTIN:
As you say, your eminence. Will you refer this matter to
the Pope for his decision?
CAJETAN:
Assuredly. Send in Tetzel.
(MARTIN prostrates himself, and then kneels.
CAJETAN is distressed but in control,)
You know, a time will come when a man will no longer
be able to say, "I speak Latin and am a Christian" and go
his way in peace. TTiere will come frontiers, frontiers of afl
kinds between men and there'll be no end to them,
(MARTIN rises and goes out. TETZEL returns.)
TETZEL:
Yes?
92 LUTHER
CAJETAN:
No, of course he didn't that man hates himself. And if
he goes to the stake, Tetzel, you can have the pleasure of
inscribing it: he could only love others.
(End of Act Two Scene Four)
ACT TWO
SCENE FIVE
A hunting lodge at Magliana in Northern Italy, 1519.
Suspended the arms, the brass balls, of the Medici.
KARL VON MILTITZ, a young Chamberlain of the Pope's
household is waiting. There are cries oQ, and sounds of
excitement. POPE LEO THE TENTH enters with a HUNTS
MAN, dogs and DOMINICANS. He is richly dressed in
hunting clothes and long boots. He is indolent, cultured,
intelligent, extremely restless, and well able to assimilate
the essence of anything before anyone else. While he is
listening, he is able to play with a live bird with ap
parent distraction. Or shoot at a board with a cross
bow. Or generally fidget. MILTITZ kneels to kiss his toe.
LEO:
I should forget it I've got my boots on. Well? Get on with
it. We're missing the good weather.
(He sits and becomes immediately absorbed in his
own play, as it seems. MILTITZ has a letter, which
he reads.)
MILTITZ:
"To the most blessed father Leo the Tenth, sovereign
bishop, Martin Luther, Augustine friar, wishes eternal sal
vation. I am told that there are vicious reports circulating
about me, and that my name is in bad odour with your
holiness. I am called a heretic, apostate, traitor and many
other insulting names. I cannot understand all this hos
tility, and I am alarmed by it. But the only basis of my
tranquillity remains, as always, a pure and peaceful
conscience. Deign to listen to me, most holy father, to me
who is like a child.
93
94 LUTHER
(LEO snorts abstractedly.)
"There have always been, as long as I can remember,
complaints and grumbling in the taverns about the
avarice of the priests and attacks on the power of the
keys. And this has been happening throughout Germany.
When I listened to these things my zeal was aroused for
the glory of Christ, so I warned not one, but several
princes of the Church. But, either they laughed in my
face or ignored me. The terror of your name was too much
for everyone. It was then I published my disputation,
nailing it on the door of the Castle Church here in Witten
berg. And now, most holy father, the whole world has
gone up in flames. Tell me what I should do? I cannot re
tract; but this thing has drawn down hatred on me from
all sides, and I don't know where to turn to but to you. I
am far too insignificant to appear before the world in a
matter as great as this.
(LEO snaps Ms fingers to glance at this passage in
the letter. He does so and returns it to MILTTTZ who
continues reading.)
"But in order to quieten my enemies and satisfy my
Mends I am now addressing myself to you most holy
father and speak my mind in the greater safety of the
shadow of your wings. All this respect I show to the
power of the keys. If I had not behaved properly it would
have been impossible for the most serene Lord Frederick,
Duke and Elector of Saxony, who shines in your apostolic
favour, to have endured me in his University of Witten
berg. Not if I am as dangerous as is made out by my
enemies. For this reason, most holy father, I fall at the
feet of your holiness, and submit myself to you, with all
I have and all that I am. Declare me right or wrong. Take
my life, or give it back to me, as you please. I shall ac
knowledge your voice as the voice of Jesus Christ. If I
deserve death, I shall not refuse to die. The earth is God's
and all within it. May He be praised through all eternity,
and may He uphold you for ever. Amen. Written the
day of the Holy Trinity in the year 1518, Martin Luther,
Augustine Friar."
(They wait /or LEO to finish his playing and give
ACT TWO 95
them his full attention. Presently, he gets up and
takes the letter from MILTITZ. He thinks.)
LEO:
Double faced German bastard! Why can't he say what
he means? What else?
MILTITZ:
He's said he's willing to be judged by any of the univer
sities of Germany, with the exception of Leipzig, Erfurt
and Frankfurt, which he says are not impartial. He
says it's impossible for him to appear in Rome in person.
LEO:
I'm sure.
MILTITZ:
Because his health wouldn't stand up to the rigours of
the journey.
LEO:
Cunning! Cunning German bastard! What does Staupitz
say for him?
MILTITZ (reading hastily from another letter):
'The reverend father, Martin Luther, is the noblest and
most distinguished member of our university. For many
years, we have watched his talents '*
LEO:
Yes, well we know all about that Write to Cajetan.
Take this down. We charge you to summon before you
Martin Luther. Invoke for this purpose, the aid of our
very dear son in Christ, Maximilian, and all the other
princes in Germany, together with all communities, uni
versities, potentates ecclesiastic and secular. And, once
you get possession of him, keep him in safe custody, so
that he can be brought before us. H, however, he should
return to his duty of his own accord and begs forgive
ness, we give you the power to receive him into the pei>
fect unity of our Holy Mother the Church. But, should he
96 LUTHER
persist in Ms obstinacy and you cannot secure him., we
authorize you to outlaw him in every part of Germany. To
banish and excommunicate him. As well as all prelates,
religious orders, universities, counts, and dukes who do
not assist in apprehending him. As for the laymen, if
they do not immediately obey your orders, declare them
infamous, deprived of Christian burial and stripped of
anything they may hold either from the apostolic see or
from any lord whatsoever. There's a wild pig in our vine
yard, and it must be hunted down and shot. Given under
the seal of the Fisherman's Ring, etcetera. That's all.
HE turns quickly and goes out.)
(End of Act Two Scene Five)
ACT TWO
SCENE Six
The Elster Gate, Wittenberg. 1520. Evening. A single
bell. As a backcloth the bull issued against Luther. Above
it a fish-head and bones. The bull is slashed with the re
flection of the flames rising round the Elster Gate where
the books of canon law, the papal decretals, are burning
furiously. MONKS come to and fro with more books and
documents, and hurl them on the fire. MARTIN enters and
ascends the pulpit.
MARTIN:
I have been served with a piece of paper. Let me tell you
about it. It has come to me from a latrine called
Rome, the capital of the devil's own sweet empire. It is
called the papal bull and it claims to excommunicate me,
Dr. Martin Luther. These lies they rise up from paper like
fumes from the bog of Europe; because papal decretals
are the devil's excretals. I'll hold it up for you to see
properly. You see the signature? Signed beneath the seal
of the Fisherman's Ring by one certain midden cock
called Leo, an over-indulged jakes* attendant to Satan him
self, a glittering worm in excrement, known to you as his
holiness the Pope. You may know him as the head of the
Church. Which he may still be: like a fish is the head of a
cat's dinner; eyes without sight clutched to a stick of
sucked bones. God has told me: there can be no dealings
between this cat's dinner and me. And, as for this bull, it's
going to roast, if s going to roast and so are the balls
of the Medici!
(He descends and casts the bull into the flames.
He begins to shake, as if he were unable to breathe;
as if he were about to have another fit. Shaking, he
kneels.)
97
98 LUTHER
Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, thou my God, my God, help
me against the reason and wisdom of the world. You
mus t there's only you to do it. Breathe into me.
Breathe into me, like a lion into the mouth of a stillborn
cub. This cause is not mine but yours. For myself, I've
no business to be dealing with the great lords of this
world. I want to be still, in peace, and alone. Breathe into
me, Jesus. I rely on no man, only on you. My God, my
God do you hear me? Are you dead? Are you dead? No,
you can't die, you can only hide yourself, can't you? Lord,
I'm afraid. I am a child, the lost body of a child. I am
stillborn. Breathe into me, in the name of Thy Son, Jesus
Christ, who shall be my protector and defender, yes, my
mighty fortress, breathe into me. Give me life, oh Lord.
Give me life.
(MARTIN prays as the deep red light jof the flames
flood the darkness around him.)
(End of Act Two)
ACT THREE
SCENE ONE
The Diet of Worms, April 18th, 1521. A gold front-
cloth, and on it, in the brightest sunshine of colour, a
bold, joyful representation of this unique gathering of
princes, electors, dukes, ambassadors, bishops, counts,
barons, etc. Perhaps Luther's two-wheeled wagon which
brought him to Worms. The mediaeval world dressed up
for the Renaissance.
Devoid of depth, such scenes are stamped on a bril
liant ground of gold. Movement is frozen, recession in
space ignored and perspective served by the arrange
ment of figures, or scenes, one above the other. In Ms
way, landscape is dramatically substituted by objects in
layers. The alternative is to do the opposite, in the man
ner of, say, Altdorfer. Well in front of the cloth is a
small rostrum with brass rails sufficient to support one
man. If possible, it would be preferable to have this part
of the apron projected a little into the audience. Anyway,
the aim is to achieve the maximum in physical enlarge
ment of the action, in the sense of physical participation
in the theatre, as if everyone watching had their chins
resting on the sides of a boxing-ring. Also on the apron,
well to the front are several chairs. On one side is a table
with about twenty books on it. The table and books may
also be represented on the gold cloth. The rostrum
has a small crescent of chairs round it. From all corners
of the auditorium comes a fanfare of massed trumpets^
and, approaching preferably from the auditorium up steps
to the apron, come a few members of the Diet audience
(who may also be represented on the gold cloth).
Preceded by a HERALD, and seating themselves on the
chairs, they should include THE EMPEROR CHARLES THE
FIFTH (in front of the rostrum), ALEANDER, THE PAPAL
99
100 LUTHER
NUNCIO; ULRICH VON HUTTEN, KNIGHT; THE ARCHBISHOP
OF TRIER and HIS SECRETARY, JOHAN VON ECK, who Sit
at the table with the books. The trumpets cease, and
they wait. MARTIN appears from the stage, and ascends
the rostrum centre.
ECK (rising) :
Martin Luther, you have been brought here by His Im
perial Majesty so that you may answer two questions.
Do you publicly acknowledge being the author of the
books you see here? When I asked you this question
yesterday, you agreed immediately that the books were
indeed your own. Is that right?
(MARTIN nods in agreement.)
When I asked you the second question, you asked if you
might be allowed time in which to consider it. Although
such time should have been quite unnecessary for an ex
perienced debater and distinguished doctor of theology
like yourself, His Imperial Majesty was graciously pleased
to grant your request Well, you have had your time
now, a whole day and a night, and so I will repeat the
question to you. You have admitted being the author of
these books. Do you mean to defend all these books, or
will you retract any of them?
(ECK sits. MARTIN speaks quietly, conversationally,
hardly raising his voice throughout, and with sim
plicity.)
MARTIN:
Your serene highness, most illustrious princes and gra
cious lords, I appear before you by God's mercy, and I
beg that you will listen patiently. If, through my ig
norance, I have not given anyone his proper title or of
fended in any way against the etiquette of such a place as
this, I ask your pardon in advance for a man who finds
it hard to know his way outside the few steps from wall
to wall of a monk's cell. We have agreed these books are
all mine, and they have all been published rightly in my
name. I will reply to your second question. I ask your
serene majesty and your gracious lordships to take note
that not all my books are of the same kind. For instance,
ACT THREE 101
in the first group, I have dealt quite simply with the
values of faith and morality, and even my enemies have
agreed that all this is quite harmless, and can be read
without damaging the most fragile Christian. Even the bull
against me, harsh and cruel as it is, admits that some of
my books are offensive to no one. Perhaps it's the strange
nature of such a questionable compliment, that the bull
goes on to condemn these with the rest, which it con
siders offensive. If Fm to began withdrawing these books,
what should I be doing? I should be condemning those
very things my friends and enemies are agreed on. There
is a second group of books I have written, and these all
attack the power of the keys, which has ravaged Christen
dom. No one can deny this, the evidence is everywhere
and everyone complains of it. And no one has suffered
more from this tyranny than the Germans. They have
been plundered without mercy. If I were to retract those
books now, I should be issuing a licence for more tyranny,
and it is too much to ask of me.
I have also written a third kind of book against cer
tain, private, distinguished, and, apparently highly es
tablished individuals. They are all defenders of Rome
and enemies of my religion. In these books, it's possible
that I have been more violent than may seem necessary, or,
shall I say, tasteful in one who is, after all, a monk.
But then, I have never set out to be a saint and I've
not been defending my own life, but the teaching of
Christ. So you see, again I'm not free to retract, for if I
did, the present situation would certainly go on just as
before. However, because I am a man and not God, the
only way for me to defend what I have written is to em
ploy the same method used by my Saviour. When He was
being questioned by Annas, the high priest, about His
teaching, and He had been struck in the face by one of
the servants, He replied: "If I have spoken lies teE me
what the lie is." If the Lord Jesus Himself, who could not
err, was willing to listen to the arguments of a servant,
how can I refuse to do the same? Therefore, what I ask,
by the Mercy of God, is let someone expose my errors in
the light of the Gospels, The moment you have done this,
102 LUTHER
I shall ask you to let me be the first to pick up my books
and hurl them in the fire.
I tfrfofc this is a clear answer to your question. I thinV
I understand the danger of my position well enough. You
have made it very clear to me. But I can still think of
nothing better than the Word of God being the cause
of all the dissension among us. For Christ said, "I have
not come to bring peace, but a sword. I have come to
set a man against his father." We also have to be sure
that the reign of this noble, young Prince Charles, so full
of promise, should not end in the misery of Europe. We
must fear God alone. I commend myself to your most
serene majesty and to your lordships, and humbly pray
that you will not condemn me as your enemy. That is all.
ECK (rising) :
Martin, you have not answered the question put to you.
Even if it were true that some of your books are innocuous
a point which, incidentally, we don't concede we still
ask that you cut out these passages which are blas
phemous; that you cut out the heresies or whatever
could be construed as heresy, and, in fact, that you de
lete any passage which might be considered hurtful to the
Catholic faith. His sacred and imperial majesty is more
than prepared to be lenient, and, if you will do these
things, he will use his influence with the supreme pontiff
to see that the good things in your work are not thrown
out with the bad. If, however, you persist in your atti
tude, there can be no question that all memory of you
will be blotted out, and everything you have written,
right or wrong, will be forgotten.
You see, Martin, you return to the same place as all
other heretics to Holy Scripture. You demand to be
contradicted from Scripture. We can only believe that
you must be ill or mad. Do reasons have to be given to
anyone who cares to ask a question? Any question? Why,
if anyone who questioned the common understanding
of the Church on any matter he liked to raise, and had
to be answered irrefutably from the Scriptures, there
would be nothing certain or decided in Christendom.
What would the Jews and Turks and Saracens say if
ACT THREE 103
they heard us debating whether what we have always be
lieved is true or not? I beg you, Martin, not to believe that
you, and you alone, understand the meaning of the
Gospels. Don't rate your own opinion so highly, so far
beyond that of many other sincere and eminent men. I
ask you: don't throw doubt on the most holy, orthodox
faith, the faith founded by the most perfect legislator
known to us, and spread by His apostles throughout the
world, with their blood and miracles. This faith has been
defined by sacred councils, and confirmed by the Church.
It is your heritage, and we are forbidden to dispute it
by the laws of the emperor and the pontiff. Since no
amount of argument can lead to a final conclusion, they
can only condemn those who refuse to submit to them.
The penalties are provided and will be executed. I must,
therefore, ask again, I must demand that you answer
sincerely, frankly and unambiguously, yes or no: will you
or will you not retract your books and the errors con
tained in them.
MARTIN:
Since your serene majesty and your lordships demand a
simple answer, you shall have it, without horns and with
out teeth. Unless I am shown by the testimony of the
Scriptures for I don't believe in popes or councils
unless I am refuted by Scripture and my conscience is
captured by God's own word, I cannot and will not re
cant, since to act against one's conscience is neither safe
nor honest. Here I stand; God help me; I can do no
more. Amen.
(End of Act Three Scene One)
ACT THREE
SCENE Two
Wittenberg. 1525. A marching hymn, the sound of can
non and shouts of mutilated men. Smoke, a shattered
banner bearing the cross and wooden shoe of the
Bundschuh, emblem of the Peasants' Movement. A small
chapel altar at one side of the stage opposite the pulpit.
Centre is a small handcart, and beside it lies the bloody
bulk of a peasants corpse. Downstage stands THE KNIGHT,
fatigued, despondent, stained and dirty.
KNIGHT:
There was excitement that day. In Worms that day
I mean. Oh, I don't mean now, not now. A lot's hap
pened since then. There's no excitement like that any
more. Not unless murder's your idea of excitement I
tell you, you can't have ever known the kind of thrill
that monk set off amongst that collection of all kinds of
men gathered together there those few years ago. We
all felt it, every one of us, just without any exception,
you couldn't help it, even if you didn't want to, and, be
lieve me, most of those people didn't want to. His scalp
looked blotchy and itchy, and you felt sure, just looking
at him, his body must be permanently sour and white all
over, even whiter than his face and like a millstone to
touch. He'd sweated so much by the time he'd finished,
I could smell every inch of him even from where I was.
But he fizzed like a hot spark in a trail of gunpowder
going off in us, that dowdy monk, he went off in us, and
nothing could stop it, and it blew up and there was noth
ing we could do, any of us, that was it. I just felt quite
sure, quite certain in my own mind nothing could ever
be the same again, just simply that. Something had taken
place, something had changed and become something
104
ACT THREE 105
else, an event had occurred in the flesh, in the flesh and
the breath like, even like when the weight of that body
slumped on its wooden crotchpiece and the earth grew
dark. That's the kind of thing I mean by happen, and this
also happened in very likely the same manner to all those
of us who stood there, friends and enemies alike. I don't
think, no I don't think even if I could speak and write
like him, I could begin to give you an idea of what we
thought, or what some of us thought, of what we might
come to. Obviously, we couldn't have all felt quite the
same way, but I wanted to burst my ears with shouting
and draw my sword, no, not draw it, I wanted to pluck
it as if it were a flower in my blood and plunge it into
whatever he would have told me to.
(THE KNIGHT is lost in his own thoughts, then his
eyes catch the body of the peasant. He takes a swipe
at the cart.)
If one could only understand him. He baffles me, I just
can't make him out. Anyway, it never worked out. (To
corpse) Did it, my friend? Not the way we expected any
way, certainly not the way you expected, but who'd have
ever thought we might end up on different sides, him on
one and us on the other. That when the war came be
tween you and them, he'd be there beating the drum for
them outside the slaughter house, and beating it louder
and better than anyone, hollering for your blood, cutting
you up in your thousands, and hanging you up to drip
away into the fire for good. Oh well, I suppose all those
various groups were out for their different things, or the
same thing really, all out for what we could get, and more
than any of us had the right to expect They were all
the same, all those big princes and archbishops, the cut
rate nobility and rich layabouts, honourable this and
thats scrabbling like boars round a swill bucket for every
penny those poor peasants never had. All those great
abbots with their dewlaps dropped and hanging onjheir
necks like goose's eggs, and then those left-over knights,
like me for instance, I suppose, left-over men, impover
ished, who'd seen better days and were scared and'd
stick at nothing to try and make sure they couldn't get
any worse. Yes. . . . Not one of them could read the
106 LUTHER
words WAY OUT when it was written up for them, marked
out clearly and unmistakably in the pain of too many
men. Yes. They say, you know, that the profit motive
and I'm sure you know all about that one they say that
the profit motive was born with the invention of double
entry book-keeping in the monasteries. Book-keeping! In
the monasteries, and ages before any of us had ever got
round to burning them down. But, you know, for men
with such a motive, there is only really one entry. The
profit is theirs, the loss is someone else's, and usually
they don't even bother to write it up.
(He nudges the corpse with his toe.)
Well, it was your old loss wasn't it, dead loss, in fact,
my friend, you could say his life was more or less a
write-off right from the day he was born. Wasn't it?
Um? And all the others like him, everywhere, now and
after friny
(THE KNIGHT starts rather weakly to load the body
on to the cart. MARTIN enters, a book in his hands.
They look at each other then MARTIN at the PEAS
ANT. THE KNIGHT takes his book and glances at it,
but he doesn't miss MARTIN shrink slightly from the
peasant.)
Another of yours?
(He hands it back.)
Do you think it'll sell as well as the others? (Pause)
I dare say it will. Someone's always going to listen to
you. No?
(MARTIN moves to go, but THE KNIGHT stops him.)
Martin. Just a mmute.
(He turns and places his hand carefully, ritually,
on the body in the cart. He smears the blood from it
over MARTIN*)
There we are. That's better.
(MARTIN makes to move again, but again THE
KNIGHT stops him.)
You're all ready now. You even look like a butcher
MARTIN:
God is the butcher
ACT THREE 107
KNIGHT:
Don't you?
MARTIN:
Why don't you address your abuse to Him?
KNIGHT:
Never mind you're wearing His apron.
(MARTIN moves to the stairs of the pulpit.)
It suits you. (Pause) Doesn't it? (Pause) That day in
Worms (pause) you were like a pig under glass weren't
you? Do you remember it? I could smell every inch of
you even where I was standing. All you've ever managed
to do is convert everything into stench and dying and
peril, but you could have done it, Martin, and you were
the only one who could have ever done it. You could
even have brought freedom and order in at one and the
same time.
MARTIN:
There's no such thing as an orderly revolution. Anyway,
Christians are called to suffer, not fight
KNIGHT:
But weren't we all of us, all of us, without any excep
tions to please any old interested parties, weren't we all
redeemed by Christ's blood? (Pointing to the peasant)
Wasn't he included when the Scriptures were being dic
tated? Or was it just you who was made free, you and
the princes you've taken up with, and the rich burghers
and
MARTIN:
p ree ? (Ascends the pulpit steps.) The princes blame
me, you blame me and the peasants blame me
KNIGHT (following up the steps) :
You put the water in the wine didn't you?
108 LUTHER
MARTIN:
When I see chaos, then I see the devil's organ and then
I'm afraid. Now, that's enough
KNIGHT:
You're breaking out again
MARTIN:
Go away
KNIGHT:
Aren't you?
(MARTIN makes a sudden effort to push him back
down the steps, but THE KNIGHT hangs on firmly.)
MARTIN:
Get back!
KNIGHT:
Aren't you, you're breaking out again, you canting pig,
I can smell you from here!
MARTIN:
He heard the children of Israel, didn't He?
KNIGHT:
Up to the ears in revelation, aren't you?
MARTIN:
And didn't He deliver them out of the Land of Pharaoh?
KNIGHT:
You canting pig, aren't you?
MARTIN:
Well? Didn't He?
KNIGHT:
Cock's wounds! Don't hold your Bible to my head, piggy,
there's enough revelation of my own in there for me, in
ACT THREE 109
what I see for myself from here! (Taps his forehead.)
Hold your gospel against that!
(THE KNIGHT grabs MARTIN'S hand and clamps it to
his head.)
KNIGHT:
You're killing the spirit, and you're killing it with the
letter. You've been swilling about in the wrong place,
Martin, in your own stink and ordure. Go on! You've got
your hand on it, that's all the holy spirit there is, and it's
all you'll ever get so feel it!
(They struggle, but THE KNIGHT is very weak by
now, and MARTIN is able to wrench himself away
and up into the pulpit.)
MARTIN:
The world was conquered by the Word, the Church is
maintained by the Word
KNIGHT:
Word? What Word? Word? That word, whatever that
means, is probably just another old relic or indulgence,
and you know what you did to those! Why, none of it
might be any more than poetry, have you thought of
that, Martin. Poetry! Martin, you're a poet, there's no
doubt about that in anybody's mind, you're a poet, but do
you know what most men believe in, in their hearts
because they don't see in images like you do they believe
in their hearts that Christ was a man as we are, and that
He was a prophet and a teacher, and they also believe in
their hearts that His supper is a plain meal like their
own if they're lucky enough to get it a plain meal of
bread and wine! A plain meal with no garnish and no
word. And you helped them to begin to believe it!
MARTIN (pause) :
Leave me.
KNIGHT:
Yes. What's there to stay for? I've been close enough to
you for too long, I even smell like you.
110 LUTHER
MARTIN (roaring with pain) :
I smell because of my own argument, I smell because I
never stop disputing with Him, and because I expect Him
to keep His Word. Now then! If your peasant rebelled
against that Word, that was worse than murder because
it laid the whole country waste, and who knows now what
God will make of us Germans!
KNIGHT:
Don't blame God for the Germans, Martin! (Laughs)
Don't do that! You thrashed about more than anyone on
the night they were conceived!
MARTIN:
Christ! Hear me! My words pour from Your Body! They
deserved their death, these swarming peasants! They
kicked against authority, they plundered and bargained
and all in Your name! Christ, believe me! (To THE
KNIGHT) I demanded it, I prayed for it, and I got it! Take
that lump away! Now, drag it away with you!
(THE KNIGHT prepares to trundle off the cart and
corpse.)
KNIGHT:
All right, my friend. Stay with your nun then. Marry and
stew with your nun. Most of the others have. Stew with
her, like a shuddering infant in her bed. You think you'll
manage?
MARTIN (lightly) :
At least my father'll praise me for that.
KNIGHT:
Your father?
(THE KNIGHT shrugs, pushes the cart wearily, and
goes off. MARTIN'S head hangs over the edge of the
pulpit.)
MARTIN:
I (whispering) trust you. ... I trust you. . . . You've
ACT THREE 111
overcome the world. ... I trust you. . . You're all I
wish to have . . . ever. . . .
(Slumped over the pulpit, he seems to be uncon
scious. Then he makes an effort to recover, as if
he had collapsed in the middle of a sermon.)
I expect you must . . , I'm sure you must remember
Abraham. Abraham was he was an old man ... a ...
very old man indeed, in fact, he was a hundred years
old, when what was surely, what must have been a
miracle happened, to a man of his years a son was
born to him. A son. Isaac he called him. And he loved
Isaac. Well, he loved him with such intensity, one can
only diminish it by description. But to Abraham Ms little
son was a miraculous thing, a small, incessant . . . animal
. . . astonishment. And in the child he sought the father.
But, one day, God said to Abraham: Take your little son
whom you love so much, kill him, and make a sacrifice
of him. And in that moment everything inside Abraham
seemed to shrivel once and for all. Because it had seemed
to him that God had promised him life through his son,
So then he took the boy and prepared to kill him., strap
ping him down to the wood of the burnt offering just as
he had been told to do. And he spoke softly to the boy,
and raised the knife over his little naked body, the boy
struggling not to flinch or blink his eyes. Never, save
in Christ, was there such obedience as in that moment,
and, if God had blinked, the boy would have died then,
but the Angel intervened, and the boy was released, and
Abraham took him up in his arms again. In the teeth of
life we seem to die, but God says no in the teeth of
death we live. If He butchers us, He makes us live.
(Enter THE KNIGHT, who stands watching Urn, the
Bundschuh banner in his hands.)
Heart of my Jesus save me; Heart of my Saviour deliver
me; Heart of my Shepherd guard me; Heart of my Master
teach me; Heart of my King govern me; Heart of my
Friend stay with me.
(Enter KATHERINE VON BORA, his bride, accom
panied by two MONKS. MARTIN rises from the pulpit
and goes towards her. A simple tune is played on a
simple instrument. She takes his hand, and they kneel
112 LUTHER
together centre. THE KNIGHT watches. Then he
smashes the banner he has been holding, and tosses
the remains onto the altar.)
(End of Act Three Scene Two)
ACT THREE
SCENE THREE
A hymn. The Eremite Cloister. Wittenberg. Jf530. The
refectory table, and on it two places set, and the remains
of two meals. MARTIN is seated alone. The vigour of a
man in his late thirties, and at the height of his powers,
has settled into the tired pain of a middle age struggling
to rediscover strength.
KATHERINE enters with a jug of wine. She is a big,
pleasant-looking girl f almost thirty.
MARTIN:
How is he?
KATHERINE:
He's all right. He's just coming. Wouldn't let me help
him. I tfrfolc he's been sick.
MARTIN:
Poor old chap. After living all your life in a monastery,
one's stomach doesn't take too easily to your kind of
cooking.
KATHERINE:
Wasn't it all right?
MARTIN:
Oh, it was fine, just too much for an old monk's shrivelled
digestion to chew on, that's alL
KATHERINE:
Oh, I see. You're all right, aren't you?
113
114 LUTHER
MARTIN:
Yes, I'm all right, thank you, my dear. (Smile) I expect
I'll suffer later though.
KATHERINE:
You like your food, so don't make out you don't.
MARTIN:
Well, I prefer it to fasting. Did you never hear the story
of the soldier who was fighting in the Holy Crusades? No?
Well, he was told by his officer that if he died in battle,
he would dine in Paradise with Christ; and the soldier
ran away* When he came back after the battle, they
asked him why he'd run away. "Didn't you want to dine
with Christ?" they said. And he replied, "No, I'm fasting
today."
KATHERINE:
I've brought you some more wine.
MARTIN:
Thank you.
KATHERINE:
Should help you to sleep.
(STAUPITZ enters, supporting himself with a stick.)
MARTIN:
There you are! I thought you'd fallen down the jakes
right into the devil's loving arms.
STAUPITZ:
I'm so sorry. I was I was wandering about a bit.
MARTIN:
Well, come and sit down. Katie's brought us some more
wine.
STAUPITZ:
I can't get over being here again. It's so odd. This place
ACT THREE 115
was full of men. And now, now there's only you, you
and Katie. It's very, very strange.
KATHERINE:
I shouldn't stay up too long, Martin. You didn't sleep well
again last night. I could hear you hardly breathing all
night.
MARTIN (amused) :
You could hear me hardly breathing?
KATHERINE:
You know what I mean. When you don't sleep, it keeps
me awake too. Good night, Dr. Staupitz.
STAUPITZ:
Good night, my dear. Thank you for the dinner. It was ex
cellent. I'm so sorry I wasn't able to do justice to it
KATHERINE:
That's all right. Martin's always having the same kind of
trouble.
STAUPITZ:
Yes? Well, he's not changed much then.
MARTIN:
Not a bit. Even Katie hasn't managed to shift my bowels
for me, have you?
KATHERINE:
And if it's not that, he can't sleep.
MARTIN:
Yes, Katie, you've said that already. I've also got gout,
piles and bells in my ears. Dr. Staupitz has had to put up
with all my complaints for longer than you have, isn't
that right?
116 LUTHER
KATHERINE:
WeE try not to forget what I said. (She kisses MARTIN'S
cheeks.)
MARTIN:
Good night, Katie.
(She goes out.)
STAUPITZ:
Well, you've never been so well looked after.
MARTIN:
It's a shame everyone can't marry a nun. They're fine
cooks, thrifty housekeepers, and splendid mothers. Seems
to me there are three ways out of despair. One is faith in
Christ, the second is to become enraged by the world and
make its nose bleed for it, and the third is the love of a
woman. Mind you, they don't all necessarily work at
feast, only part of the time. Sometimes, I'm lying awake
in the devil's own sweat, and I turn to Katie and touch
her. And I say: get me out, Katie, please, Katie, please
try and get me out And sometimes, sometimes she actually
drags me out Poor old Katie, fishing about there in bed
with her great, hefty arms, trying to haul me out.
STAUPITZ:
Site's good.
MARTIN:
Wins?
Mot much. I must go to bed myself.
MARTIN:
Be%> you sleep. You're looking tired.
Oar oM pear tree's in blossom- I see. You've
ACT THREE 1 17
MARTIN:
I like to get in a bit in the garden, if I can. I like to think
it heals my bones somehow. Anyway, I always feel a bit
more pleased with myself afterwards,
STAUPITZ:
We'd a few talks under that tree.
MARTIN:
Yes.
STAUPITZ:
Martin, it's so still. I don't think I'd ever realized how
eloquent a monk's silence really was. It was a voice.
(Pause) It's gone. (He shakes his head, pause.) How's
your father these days?
MARTIN:
Getting old too, but he's well enough.
STAUPITZ:
Is he is he pleased with you?
MARTIN:
He was never pleased about anything I ever did. Not when
I took my master's degree or when I got to be Dr.
Luther. Only when Katie and I were married and she
got pregnant. Then he was pleased.
STAUPITZ:
Do you remember Brother Weinand?
MARTIN:
I ought to. He used to hold my head between my knees
when I felt faint in the choir.
STAUPITZ:
I wonder what happened to him. (Pause) He had the
most beautiful singing voice.
118 LUTHER
MARTIN:
My old friend, you're unhappy. I'm sorry. (Pause) We
monks were really no good to anyone, least of all to our
selves, every one of us rolled up like a louse in the Al
mighty's overcoat.
STAUPITZ:
Yes, Well, you always have a way of putting it. I was
always having to give you little lectures about the fanatic
way you'd observe the Rule all the time.
MARTIN:
Yes, and you talked me out of it, remember? (Pause)
Father, are you pleased with me?
STAUPITZ:
Pleased with you? My dear son, I'm not anyone or any
thing to be pleased with you any more. When we used to
talk together underneath that tree you were like a child.
MARTIN:
A child.
STAUPITZ:
Manhood was something you had to be flung into, my son.
You dangled your toe in it longer than most of us could
ever bear. But you're not a frightened little monk any
more who's come to his prior for praise or blame. Every
time you belch now, the world stops what it's doing and
listens. Do you know, when I first came to take over this
convent, there weren't thirty books published every year.
And now, last year it was more like six or seven hun
dred, and most of those published in Wittenberg too.
MARTIN:
The best turn God ever did Himself was giving us a
printing press. Sometimes I wonder what He'd have done
without it
STAUPITZ:
I heard the other day they're saying the world's going to
end in 1532.
ACT THREE 119
MARTIN:
It sounds as good a date as any other. Yes 1532. That
could easily be the end of the world. You could write a
book about it, and just call it that 1532.
STAUPITZ:
I'm sorry, Martin. I didn't mean to come and see you
after all this time and start criticizing. Forgive me, I'm
getting old and a bit silly and frightened, that meal was
just too much for me. It wasn't that I didn't
MARTIN:
Please I'm sorry too. Don't upset yourself. I'm used to
critics, John. They just help you to keep your muscles
from getting slack. All those hollow cavillers, that subtle
clown Erasmus, for instance. He ought to know better,
but all he wants to do is to be able to walk on eggs with
out breaking any. As for that mandrill-arsed English ba
boon Henry, that leprous son of a bitch never had an
idea of his own to jangle on a tombstone, let alone call
himself Defender of the Faith.
(Pause. STAUPITZ hasn't responded to his attempt at
lightness.)
Still, one thing for Erasmus, he didn't fool about with all
the usual cant and rubbish about indulgences and the
Pope and Purgatory. No, he went right to the core of it.
He's still up to his ears with stuff about morality, and
men being able to save themselves. No one does good,
not anyone. God is true and one. But, and this is what he
can't grasp, He's utterly incomprehensible and beyond
the reach of minds. A man's wiH is like a horse standing
between two riders. If God jumps on its back, it'll go
where God wants it to. But if Satan gets up there, it'll go
where he leads it And not only that, the horse can't
choose its rider. That's left up to them, to those two.
(Pause) Why are you accusing me? What have I done?
STAUPITZ:
I'm not accusing you, Martin. You know that A just
man is his own accuser. Because a just man judges as he
is.
120 LUTHER
MARTIN:
What's that mean? I'm not just?
STAUPITZ:
You try. What else can you do?
MARTIN:
You mean those damned peasants, don't you? You think
I should have encouraged them!
STAUPITZ:
I don't say that.
MARTIN:
Well, what do you say?
STAUPITZ:
You needn't have encouraged the princes. They were
butchered and you got them to do it. And they had just
cause, Martin. They did, didn't they?
MAJOTN:
I didn't say they hadn't
STAUPITZ:
Well, then?
MARTIN:
Do you remember saying to me, "Remember, brother, you
started this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ"?
STAUPITZ:
WeH?
MARTIN:
Father, the world can't be ruled with a rosary. They were
a mob, a mob, and if they hadn't been held down and
slaughtered, there'd have been a thousand more tyrants
instead of half a dozen. It was a mob, and because it
was a mob it was against Christ. No man can die for an
other, or believe for another or answer for another. The
ACT THREE 121
moment they try they become a mob. If we're lucky we
can be persuaded in our own mind, and the most we
can hope for is to die each one for himself. Do I have
to tell you what Paul says? You read! "Let every soul be
subject unto the highest powers. For there is no power
but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Who
soever therefore resisteth that power, resisteth the ordi
nance of God": that's Paul, Father, and that's Scripture!
"And they that resist shall receive to themselves damna
tion."
STAUPITZ:
Yes, you're probably right.
MARTIN:
"Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is
the fulfilling of the law."
STAUPITZ:
Yes, well it seems to be all worked out. I must be tired
MARTIN:
It was worked out for me.
STAUPITZ:
I'd better get off to bed.
MARTIN:
They're trying to turn me into a fixed star, Father, but
I'm a shifting planet. You're leaving me.
STAUPITZ:
I'm not leaving you, Martin. I love you. I love you as
much as any man has ever loved most women. But we're
not two protected monks chattering under a pear tree
in a garden any longer. The world's changed. For one
thing, you've made a thing called Germany; you've un
laced a language and taught it to the Germans, and the
rest of the world will just have to get used to the sound
of it. As we once made the body of Christ from
bread, you've made the body of Europe, and whatever
122 LUTHER
our pains turn out to be, they'll attack the rest of the
world too. You've taken Christ away from the low mum
blings and soft voices and jewelled gowns and the tiaras
and put Him back where He belongs. In each man's souL
We owe so much to you. All I beg of you is not to be
too violent In spite of everything, of everything you've
said and shown us, there were men, some men who did
live holy lives here once. Don't don't believe you, only
you are right
(STAUPITZ is dose to tears, and MARTIN doesn't
know what to do.)
MARTIN;
What else can I do? What can I do?
(He clutches at his abdomen.)
STAUPITZ:
What is it?
MARTIN:
Oh, the old trouble, that's all. That's all.
STAUPITZ:
Something that's puzzled me, and I've always meant to
ask you.
MARTIN:
Well?
STAUPITZ:
When you were before tie Diet in Worms, and they
asked you those two questions why did you ask for that
extra day to think over your reply?
MARTIN:
Why?
STAUPITZ:
You'd known what your answer was going to be for
months. Heaven knows, you told me enough times. Why
did you wait?
(Pause)
ACT THREE 123
MARTIN:
I wasn't certain,
STAUPITZ:
And were you? Afterwards?
MARTIN:
I listened for God's voice, but all I could hear was my
own.
STAUPITZ:
Were you sure?
(Pause)
MARTIN:
No.
(STAUPITZ kisses him.)
STAUPITZ:
Thank you, my son. May God bless you. I hope you sleep
better. Goodnight.
MARTIN:
Goodnight, Father.
(STAUPITZ goes out, and MARTIN is left alone. He
drinks his wine.)
MARTIN:
Oh, Lord, I believe. I believe. I do believe. Only help my
unbelief.
(He sits slumped in his chair. KATHERINE enters. She
is wearing a nightdress, and carries in her arms
HANS, their young son.)
KATHERINE:
He was crying out in his sleep. Must have been dreaming
again. Aren't you coming to bed?
MARTIN:
Shan't be long, Katie. Shan't be long.
124 LUTHER
KATHERINE:
All right, but try not to be too long. You look well,
you don't look as well as you should.
(She turns to go.)
MARTIN:
Give Mm to me.
KATHERINE:
What?
MARTIN:
Give him to me*
KATHERINE:
What do you mean, what for? He'll get cold down here.
MARTIN:
No, he won't. Please, Katie. Let me have him.
KATHERINE:
You're a funny man. All right, but only for five min
utes. Don't just sit there all night. He's gone back to sleep
now. He'll be having another dream if you keep him
down here.
MA&TIN:
Thank you, Katie.
KATHERINE:
There! Keep him warm now! He's your son.
MARTIN:
I will Don't worry.
KATOERINE:
Well, make sure you do. (Pausing on way out) Don't be
long now, Martin.
MARTIN:
Goodni^it, Kate.
ACT THREE 125
{She goes out, leaving MARTIN with the sleeping
child in his arms.)
MARTIN (softly) :
What was the matter? Was it the devil bothering you?
Urn? Was he? Old nick? Up you, old nick. Well, don't
worry. One day you might even be glad of him. So long
as you can show him your little backside. That's right,
show htm your backside and let him have it. So try not to
be afraid. The dark isn't quite as thick as all that. You
know, my father had a son^ and he'd to learn a hard les
son, which is a human being is a helpless little animal^
but he's not created by his father, but by God. It's hard
to accept you're anyone's son, and you're not the father
of yourself. So, don't have dreams so soon, my son.
They'll be having you soon enough.
(He gets up.)
You should have seen me at Worms. I was almost like
you that day, as if I'd learned to play again, to play, to
play out in the world, like a naked child. "I have come to
set a man against his father," I said, and they listened
to me. Just like a child. Sh! We must go to bed, mustn't
we? A little while, and you shall see me. Christ said
that, my son. I hope that'E be the way of it again. I hope
so. Let's just hope so, eh? Eh? Let's just hope so.
(MARTIN holds the child in his arms, and then walks
off slowly).
The End.
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