Mother Courage and her Children

'Hawd yer wheesht there stoap yer drum it's mother courage this way come...'

In this new translation by the distinguished Scottish poet Tom Leonard of Brecht's great 1939 anti-war play Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder, Mother Courage is a working-class woman from the West of Scotland speaking the racy working-class nonstandard language of Glasgow. The rest of the cast speak varieties of English language subtly shaded for irony, accent and all the social hierarchies carried by diction and regional language in a land where diction is an index of class.

Best known for his early poems in Glasgow dialect such as 'The Six o'clock News', Tom Leonard invests his translation with the arguments about language and politics that have run as a thread through all his work for almost fifty years. It is a play about the language of politics and the politics of language. As Leonard says, 'the hero of this Mother Courage is the language itself, and it is an anti-hero. Only Kattrin is allowed in her final action to be a proper hero - and she is dumb.'

Five songs from the play can be heard on Leonard's Selected Poems, a cd recorded live at the STUC in 2011, as part of Glasgow's May Day celebrations.

Sample Poems

Mother Courage's Song

hawd yer wheesht there stoap yer drum
it's mother courage this way come
oh have yer squaddies halt and buy
new boots and claes an aw forbye!
flearidden sojers who love their loot
still want the guns they need tae shoot
but how does yer squaddie march tae fight
in scabby boots that's faur too tight?

    It's springtime noo! move on your way
    the snaw's aw gone. the deid lie deid
    but you that huvny died as yet
    the powers that be, they still do need.

wi no one sausage for to eat
yer squaddie'll fight till he faws deid
gie him some forage on his feet
a drap a beer, wi a hunk a breid!
'spite clapped oot guns 'spite empty stomachs
yer top brass still say aw is well
oh get your squaddies fit and well here!
march them fit tae the jaws o hell!
 
    It's springtime noo! move on your way
    the snaw's aw gone. the deid lie deid
    but you that huvny died as yet
    the powers that be, they still do need.

The Ballad of the Wifie and the Sojer

'The guns they may roar and the bayonets may clash
but that river will freeze you if in it you dash
stay away from that ice, take heed my advice'
said the wifie to the sojer.

But the sojer just counted his bullets and laughed
the wardrum was music, thoughts of death were just daft.
'I will march to the north and the south wi ma gun
and ma bayonet in hand through the enemy run'
said the sojer to the wifie.

'Ach, you'll regret you did not to yir elders give ear
if you spurn the advice that I'm givin you here
stay here on dry land, there's great danger at hand,'
said the wifie to the sojer.

But the sojer with bayonet and bullets on board
threw her words in her face and stepped deep in that ford
sayin water though cold is but harmless;
'When white the moon shines those tiled roofs over there
I'll be back at your side, keep that thought in your prayer'
said the sojer to the wifie.

Disappeart in a puff! An gone cauld right enough!
nay warmth tay be got frae such doin's!
'Disappeart like the breeze, God help us aw please…'
said the wifie in mind a that sojer.

An the sojer wi bayonet and bullets on board
waded oot in such water as swallowed him up
he sank doon, bayonet up, swept away in yon ford;
and the moon on the tiled roofs it shone cawld an white
but the sojer wi ice was whirled fawr oot a sight
nay words noo frae yon sojer tae wifie...

Disappeart in a puff! Gawn cauld right enough!
An she'll never get warmth fray his doin's.
'Ach, you'll regret you did not to your elders give ear'
Says the wifie in mind of the soldier.

The Song of Fraternisation

When I was a lass aged seventeen
an enemy soldier he seemed quite keen
he down to the ground let his sabre land
and with such loving looks did take my hand

    and after the mayday bright
    when there came the mayday night
    the regiment presented arms
    the drums banged out the old alarms
    that soldier took me behind a bush
    and we fraternised.

an affair like this you think you'd puke
that soldier mine, he was a cook
I shunned the sight of him by day
but then at night as one we had our way.

    For after the mayday bright
    there comes the mayday night
    the regiment presents its arms
    the drums bang out the old alarms
    that soldier he takes me behind a bush
    and we come to fraternise.

Such love comes down from heaven above
this ardent passion, this power of love
my friends they can't believe their eyes
how much I love him, him I don't despise

    but then came an awful morn
    bereft it left me, forlorn
    the regiment presented arms
    the drums banged out the old alarms
    that soldier who'd been my lover sweet
    he marched away to the drummers beat.

For All the Talk of War and Glory

For all the talk of war and glory
great vict'ries won, don't kid yoursells
war's nothin but a bit of business
though no in cheese it's guns an shells.

Some folk'll look for quiet quarters
a place tae settle doon they crave
they want tae dig some hoose foundations
instead they dig an early grave.

Some rush aboot like bees oot jamjars
a peaceful spot they're searchin oot
but wance they're deid I aye jist wunnir
what aw their rush was aw aboot.

Wi aw its dangers an stray bullets

Wi aw its dangers an stray bullets
this war drags on from day to day
the war could last a hundred years yet
yer common sojer willny win.
pure crap his food, his gear his rucksack
the regiment docks hauf his pay
an though it might strike you a wonder
this war will never go away!

It's springtime noo! move on your way
the snaw's aw gone. the deid lie deid
but you that huvny died as yet
the powers that be, they still do need.

Reviews

'Leonard's writing has been immensely influential as a harbinger of critical change in how we think about poetry and about how literature is taught and used in schools and universities throughout the country... his work speaks for human compassion and for the necessity "not to be complicit" in a world that is saturated with sound bites, social inequality and corporate flannel'.

Roderick Watson

'effectively re-conceives one of the landmarks of high European literary modernism by engaging with it on its own terms.'

Translation and Literature

'Leonard approaches Brecht as a radical poet approaches a political soulmate... This new version of Mother Courage will last for the same reasons as the original - it speaks to us, all of us, in the here and now.'

Edinburgh Review

'a fine effort from Tom Leonard... a clever idea and Leonard carries it off with the aplomb you would expect.'

Mistress Quickly’s Bed

Buy this book

ISBN: 978-0-9575747-6-2

Release date: 01 Mar, 2014

Buy direct from Smokestack

Mother Courage and her Children

Bertolt Brecht

Price: £8.95

Add to basket

Bertolt Brecht

Author

Bertolt Brecht (born 1898) was arguably the greatest German poet and playweright of the twentieth-century. His plays included Bael, Drums in the Night, Man Equals Man, The Threepenny Opera and The Measures Taken. After leaving Germany in 1933, Brecht lived in Denmark, Sweden, the Soviet Union and the USA. While living in exile he wrote many plays, including Life of Galileo, Mother Courage and Her Children, The Good Man of Szechuan, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui and the Caucausian Chalk Circle. In 1947 he moved to East Germany, where he established the Berliner Ensemble. He died in 1956.

Tom Leonard

Translator

Tom Leonard's many books include a biography of James Thomson and a pioneering anthology of neglected nineteenth century Scottish poetry, Radical Renfrew. His Intimate Voices: Selected Works 1965-83 was banned from Central Region school libraries in the same year that it shared the Scottish Book of the Year Award. In 2010 his Outside the Narrative: Poems 1965-2009 was the Scottish Poetry Book of the Year. A collection of his literary and political criticism was recently published as Definite Articles: Selected Prose 1973-2012.