Friedrich Dürrenmatt

Introductory Note

Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990) is commonly seen not only as the most prominent Swiss novelist, playwright, and essayist of the twentieth century but as one of the most influential authors of modern literature. Dürrenmatt's works have been translated into virtually all languages, and his oeuvre is inextricably linked to the modernist canon. Among his best-known works are the plays The Visit (1956) and The Physicists (1962), and the novels The Judge and His Executioner (1952) and The Pledge (1958). In 2001, The Pledge was even adapted for the screen (directed by Sean Penn and starring Jack Nicholson). However, while Dürrenmatt, the author, is well known throughout the world, Dürrenmatt, the poet, is not.

SEAS

I love to leave the house

Walk into a day

approaching dusk

Wade through seas of red leaves

SWISS PSALM I

Here you lie now, a country, ridiculous,

measured by two, three steps across

amid this ill-fated continent,

nailed on its rotten timbers, licked

by the flames of what it did.

The earth that carries you turns into stone,

hill upon hill,

into a lunar landscape,

breaking itself on eternity, whose coast

is you.

O Switzerland! Don Quixote of nations! Why

must I love you!

How often in despair did I shake

my balled-up fist at your

disfigured face!

Like a mole you hoard your treasures.

What you cherish molders, and only

what you put down remains.

I don’t love you the way you want to be

loved.

You don’t give me any awe. I am not

letting you off so easy,

not this wolf biting you.

Trampling your stuffed belly,

I jeer your sickness. Your ancestors

leave me cold; I yawn

when I hear of them.

I don’t love what you are,

don’t love what you were.

I love your possibility, the always bright mercy

that floats above you,

the adventure of belonging to you, today,

the boldness to not fear, now, just now,

the holy madness to affirm you!

For you are my country only

when you’re a miracle,

a man who doesn’t drown

when he walks across water.

So I thirst after your faith, my country.

SWISS PSALM III

I once thirsted after your faith

My country

Now I thirst after your justice

Truly

The asses of your attorneys and judges

Weigh so heavily on her

That I can hardly bear the word “Freedom”

You constantly carry in your mouth

To prove your trustworthiness

In which nobody believes anymore

Only the bank secrets are still credible.

What happened to you, my country?

In the mornings when you collect money

for the negroes in Biafra and elsewhere

You lie, as a sister in prayer and bed,

With their chiefs between the sheets at night,

Sealing your weapon deals

So that those with whom you sleep

Kill those for whom you raised funds,

And when your pimps are caught,

They don’t know about anything.

Supported by tax evaders

Of all countries, you pour

General Westmoreland whiskey

And toast to the rescue of the West.

Woe to those who think differently

You keep your universities clean

From every mote of Marxism

Your patriotism is so sterile and aseptic

That absolutely nothing grows in its soil

Every new idea is a plague

Thus you live in constant fear

Of the cold and measles

Yet in fact you have cancer but don’t

Want to hear about it

And the psychiatrists, embarrassed, scratch their heads

And talk about you, but you don’t listen

To whomever is preaching his morality,

you’ll make your morality felt.

Nothing against your army. This brave club

Once thrashed Austrians, Burgunds and Germans

Thrashed the oppressed of foreign oppressors

But they thrashed themselves, especially,

Until, thank God, Napoleon gave them such a thorough

Thrashing, they since turned peaceful

Protecting our borders with its weapons

How conceited

When in truth we were protected

By our business affairs.

Nothing against this club. One joins

Involuntarily, state the bylaws,

But when it assaults those

Who find them no longer necessary,

I attack it

In the name of freedom

It pretends to defend.

It doesn’t support my country.

The support of my country are those who think

Not those who march along.

Poor Villard

Condemning murder, you are

Condemned by a country

That profits from murder.

Your integrity shall be our example.

Your courage will be ours.

The courage to live in a country

Where it becomes embarrassing

To shake a federal councilor’s hand.

There’re only a few who think, but the majority

Stomps them into the underground

And labels them “Sewage-Swiss.” So

As moles they undermine the ground

That carries you, my country,

Over time changing

What you believe unchangeable,

A soiled Swiss passport in their pockets.

--Arthur Villard (1917-1995) was a teacher, socialist, and member of the National Council from 1971 to 1979. Although not an opponent of the Swiss army, he protested against its prosecution of conscientious objectors and as a result was himself jailed at the beginning of the sixties.