For over four decades Nancy Spero has been exploring the social and political hotbed of gender. She addresses issues of power and the violent impulses that underlie social and cultural archetypes. She often portrays victims of war, figures whom history has tended to exclude. The text in this work is from Bertolt Brecht's poem "Ballad of Marie Sanders, the Jew's Whore," a tale of a gentile woman who was punished for having had sexual relations with a Jew.

Ballad of Marie Sanders, the Jew's Whore
1.
In Nuremberg they made a law
At which many a woman wept who'd
Lain in bed with the wrong man.
The price is rising for butcher's meat.
The drumming now is at its height.
God alive, if they are coming down our street
It'll be tonight

2.
Marie Sanders, your lover's
Hair is too black.
Take our advice and don't you be to him
What you were yesterday.
The price is rising for butcher's meat.
The drumming now is at its height.
God alive, if they are coming down our street
It'll be tonight

3.
Mother give me the latchkey
It can't be so bad
The moon's the same as ever.
The price is rising for butcher's meat.
The drumming now is at its height.
God alive, if they are coming down our street
It'll be tonight

4.
One morning, close on nine
She was driven through the town
In her slip, round her neck a sign
Her hair all shaven
The street was yelling. She coldly stared.
The price is rising for butcher's meat.
And Streicher's speaking tonight.
God alive, if we'd an ear to hear his speech
We would start to make sense of our plight.

Bertolt Brecht
1934-36