7.22 Busch — «Max und Moritz» (complete) — Epoché
What you will be able to do Read Wilhelm Busch's Max und Moritz (1865), complete: the preface and the seven pranks. Read rhyming couplets with four beats, and enjoy the sound words: Ritzeratze! , Rums!! , Kikeriki! Recognise the comic devices of verse: forced rhymes, dropped endings, a moral that is not quite serious. Know the work that every German-speaking child meets, and that is often called the ancestor of the comic strip. Sentences from this text, before the notes. Read the German aloud; all of them come back below. German English Dieses war der erste Streich, That was the first prank, – Menschen necken, Tiere quälen, – teasing people, tormenting animals, Durch den Schornstein mit Vergnügen Through the chimney, with delight Rums!! - da geht die Pfeife los Bang!! – and off goes the pipe Doch die Käfer, kritze kratze! But the beetles, scritch scratch! Denn nun geht es nach der Mühle. – For now they are off to the mill. – Prerequisites : 7.21 — you need the verse reading of 7.20 Reading , the registers of 5.19 Vocabulary , and the vocabulary of the house and the village from the first phase. About this text Wilhelm Busch (1832–1908) was a painter, poet and caricaturist from Lower Saxony. Max und Moritz. Eine Bubengeschichte in sieben Streichen , Max and Moritz: A Story of Two Boys in Seven Pranks , appeared at the end of October 1865 and has never been out of print. Each verse goes with a drawing; the pictures and the text were made to be read together, and many people regard the work as an ancestor of the comic strip. The text here is complete, about 2,250 words, from the transcription in German Wikisource, which follows the critical edition of Busch's works by Friedrich Bohne (Wiesbaden and Berlin: Vollmer, 1960). The pictures are not included; each line of verse stands on its own line. The work is in the public domain. Two boys play seven cruel tricks on the respectable people of their village: the widow Bolte, the tailor Böck , the teacher Lämpel , Uncle Fritz, a baker, and finally the farmer Mecke. The tricks escalate, and so does the punishment. In the last prank the boys are caught, ground up in a mill and eaten by the miller's poultry, and the whole village rejoices. The violence is cartoon violence, the moral is delivered with a wink, and the comedy lies in the rhythm and the rhymes. For a learner, Max und Moritz is an ideal text to read aloud. The four-beat couplets are easy to follow, many lines are almost proverbs, and German speakers quote them constantly: Dieses war der erste Streich, / Doch der zweite folgt sogleich. Grammar in the verse Rhyming couplets. Each pair of lines rhymes: Müh’ / Federvieh , wegen / legen . To make the rhyme, Busch bends the language: hangen for hängen , kühle for kühl , and in the last section a farmer's Low German: „Wat geiht meck dat an?!“ , what's it to me? , and Uncle Fritz's ungrammatical „Das kommt von dumme Witze!“ , chosen to rhyme with Fritze . Sound words. Busch fills his verse with onomatopoeia: Kikeriki! (the cock), Ritzeratze! (sawing), Rums!! (an explosion), kritze kratze (beetles crawling), Rickeracke! (the mill). Read them aloud; they are part of the rhythm. The present tense of storytelling. Most of the pranks are told in the present: Hahn und Hühner schlucken munter / Jedes ein Stück Brot hinunter . The past appears in the frame and at the end of each prank: Dieses war der erste Streich . Spelling. The edition used by Wikisource largely modernises Busch's spelling ( Übeltätigkeit , tun ), but keeps the older ß after short vowels: muß, daß, Tintenfaß . Reading it a second time, prank by prank Preface. The narrator laments the bad children one hears and reads about, and lists what they prefer to church and school: teasing people, tormenting animals, stealing fruit. The first and second pranks. The widow Bolte's three hens and her cock swallow bread tied to threads and hang themselves on a branch; when she roasts them, the boys fish them out through the chimney, and the widow blames her dog. The third and fourth pranks. The boys saw through a footbridge and lure the tailor Böck into the stream; then they fill the teacher Lämpel 's pipe with gunpowder. The fifth and sixth pranks. They put cockchafers into Uncle Fritz's bed; then they fall into a baker's dough, are baked as two loaves, and escape by eating their way out. The last prank and the end. They cut holes in the farmer Mecke's grain sacks, are caught, taken to the mill and ground to pieces, which the miller's poultry eat. Each victim comments, and the village sighs with relief: „Gott sei Dank! Nun ist’s vorbei / Mit der Übeltäterei!!“ Full translation An English translation of the whole text, made for this course and kept close to the original. The numbers are the paragraph numbers of the original text, so you can move between the two. Max and Moritz A Story of Two Boys in Seven Pranks Preface Oh, how often one has to hear or read about wicked children!! As, for example, here about these two, who were called Max and Moritz; who, instead of letting wise teachings turn them towards the good, often even laughed at them and secretly made fun of them. – – Yes, for doing wrong, yes, for that one is ready! – – teasing people, tormenting animals, stealing apples, pears, plums – – that, of course, is more pleasant and much more comfortable too than, in church or school, sitting stuck fast on a chair. – – But woe, woe, woe! when I look to the end!! – – Oh, that was a bad business, the way things went for Max and Moritz. – That is why what they got up to is pictured and written down here. First Prank Many people take great pains over their dear poultry; firstly, for the sake of the eggs which these birds lay, secondly, because now and then one can eat a roast; thirdly, though, one also takes their feathers for use in cushions and in pillows, for no one likes to lie cold. – Look, here is the widow Bolte, who did not like that either. Of hens she had three and a proud cock with them. –