The Canongate Burns (20 page)
Read The Canongate Burns Online
Authors: Robert Burns
Burns is certainly partly laughing at the Devil in the poem's opening sequences (ll. 1â24) by the reductive ridicule of reducing
the devil's energies to being devoted to the poet's petty transgressions. The Devil, however, is not for his own sake being laughed out of court. Burns's poetic wit is in direct proportion to his most potent enemies. The enemy here is not the devil but those who seek demonically to control mankind in his name. For their power structure to remain intact the Devil could not be allowed to become a laughing matter. This is why, even more than the more personally abusive clerical satires, this poem caused such an outcry. As Carol McGuirk finely writes:
A ringing blow in Burns's quarrel with the Auld Licht, this satire caused a major local scandal. Several of the anonymous contributors to
Animadversions
, James Maxwell's compilation of evangelical attacks on Burns (Paisley, 1788), saw this poem as final proof of Burns's evil values. Alexander (âSaunders') Tait of Tarbolton, a mantua-maker and tailor who considered himself Burns's equal as a satirist, also seized upon this as Burns's most shocking poem, publishing his attack in 1790.
Burns intended it to shock, and so structures the poem round what any Auld Licht partisan would see as a heretical statement of Arminianism: the deil's long-ago invasion of Eden only âalmost' âruined all' for Adam and Eve (l. 96): the stain of sin is not ineradicable and even Satan (if he wished) could âtak a thought' and mend=change and receive forgiveness. Burns's âdeil' is neither the sadistic demon of Auld Licht sermons nor the tragic hero Milton's Satan considered himself to be. A rather forlorn and unsuccessful mischief-maker, his smudged (âsmoutie') face ashy from brimstone and his plots against humanity invariably thwarted, the deil is addressed more or less as just another âpoor, damned body'. The poet is dramatising his rejection of predestination. The Arminians had challenged Calvinist âelection' (salvation through grace alone, not human effort) but Burns focuses on its corollaryârepudiation, a doctrine that insisted that the reprobated are eternally cast away from grace, whatever their benighted individual efforts to be (and do) good. Burns, by contrast, announces that he considers himself salvageable (ll. 119â20) âandif âa certain Bardie' can besaved, then there must be hope for a mere devil. The poet is paying a backhanded compliment to his own sinfulness as he mocks the Auld Licht. No one â not even the deil â is all bad and forever incapable of change, the poem argues with a cheerful perversity that enraged the Auld Licht. A more orthodox point is also made: hope of heaven is more likely to convert sinners than fear of damnation. (pp. 233â4)
The Author's Only Pet Yowe: An Unco Mournfu' Tale
First printed in the Kilmarnock edition, 1786.
As MAILIE, an' her lambs thegither,
together
Was ae day nibblin on the tether,
one day, chewing
Upon her cloot she coost a hitch,
hoof, looped
An' owre she warsl'd in the ditch:
over, floundered
5
There, groanin, dying, she did ly,
When
Hughoc
he cam doytan by.
walking/staggering
Â
Wi' glowrin een, an' lifted han's
staring eyes
Poor
Hughoc
like a statue stan's;
He saw her days were near hand ended,
10
But, wae's my heart! he could na mend it!
woe, not
He gaped wide, but naething spak.
nothing spoke
At length poor
Mailie
silence brak: â
broke
âO thou, whase lamentable face
whose
Appears to mourn my woefu' case!
15
My
dying words
attentive hear,
An' bear them to my
Master
dear.
âTell him, if e'er again he keep
As muckle gear as buy a
sheep
,
much money
O, bid him never tie them mair,
more
20
Wi' wicked strings o' hemp or hair!
But ca' them out to park or hill,
call/drive
An' let them wander at their will:
So may his flock increase, an' grow
To
scores
o' lambs, an'
packs
o' woo'!
25
âTell him, he was a Master kin',
kind
An' ay was guid to me an' mine;
good
An' now my
dying
charge I gie him,
give
My helpless
lambs
, I trust them wi' him.
with
âO, bid him save their harmless lives,
30
Frae dogs, an' tods, an' butchers' knives!
from, foxes
But gie them guid cow-milk their fill,
give, good
Till they be fit to fend themsel;
themselves
An' tent them duely, e'en an' morn,
tend
Wi' taets o'
hay
an' ripps o'
corn
.
small amounts, handfuls
35
âAn' may they never learn the gaets,
ways
Of ither vile, wanrestfu'
Pets
â
other, restless
To slink thro' slaps, an' reave an' steal,
gaps in dykes
At stacks o' pease, or stocks o' kail.
plants
So may they, like their great
forbears
,
40
For monie a year come thro' the sheers:
many
So
wives
will gie them bits o' bread,
give
An'
bairns
greet for them when they're dead.
children cry
âMy poor
toop-lamb
, my son an' heir,
tup/male
O, bid him breed him up wi' care!
with
45
An' if he live to be a beast,
To pit some havins in his breast!
conduct
An' warn him, what I winna name,
would not
To stay content wi'
yowes
at hame;
ewes
An' no to rin an' wear his cloots,
run, hooves
50
Like other menseless, graceless brutes.
unmannerly
âAn' niest, my
yowie
, silly thing;
next, ewekin/female baby
Gude keep thee frae a
tether string
!
from
O, may thou ne'er forgather up,
make friends
Wi' onie blastet, moorland
toop
;
any, blasted/damned
55
But ay keep mind to moop an' mell,
always, nibble & mix
Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel!
âAnd now,
my bairns
, wi' my last breath,
I lea'e my blessin wi' you baith:
leave, with, both
An' when you think upo' your Mither,
mother
60
Mind to be kind to ane anither.
one another
âNow, honest
Hughoc
, dinna fail,
do not
To tell my Master a' my tale;
An' bid him burn this cursed
tether
,
An' for thy pains thou'se get my blather.'
thou will, bladder
65
This said, poor
Mailie
turn'd her head,
An' clos'd her een amang the dead!
eyes, among
Â
This poem fuses an actual experience at Lochlea, subsequently recorded by Gilbert Burns, with Burns's awareness of the tradition of comic animal monologue as integral to the eighteenth-century Scottish vernacular revival. As Burns noted, Hughoc was an actual neighbouring herdsman though, in reality, the sheep was freed from
the strangling tether and survived. Its âpoetic' death is necessary to the comic pathos of the poem. The literary tradition of burlesquing animal poetry commenced with William Hamilton of Gilbertfield (c. 1665â1751) whose rhetorical greyhound's death-speech parodies Blind Harry's
Wallace
. Burns would also be aware of the so-influential Robert Fergusson's very funny parody of Henry Mackenzie's
The Man of Feeling
(1771) with his Milton-burlesquing
The Sow of Feeling
(1773). As we saw in the Introduction, Mackenzie never forgave Fergusson's lachrymose porcine parody. The tone of Burns's poem is more subtle since the mother's dying warnings to her children, particularly against keeping the wrong sexual company, are a mixture of his satirising snobbery and prudery with genuine sympathy towards a mother's natural, protective love. Burns, indeed (see
Address to a Young Friend
), often displayed a genuine paternal care, which revealed a desire to preserve his varied dependants from the dangers inherent in his own licentious excesses.
First printed in the Kilmarnock edition, 1786.
Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,
Wi' saut tears tricklin down your nose;
salt
Our
Bardie's
fate is at a close,
       Past a' remead!
remedy
5
The last, sad cape-stane of his woes;
coping stone (final weight)
      Â
Poor Mailie's
dead!Â
It's no the loss of warl's gear,
worldly goods
That could sae bitter draw the tear,
so
Or mak our
Bardie
, dowie, wear
drooping/gloomy
10
       The mourning weed:
He's lost a friend an' neebor dear
neighbour
       In
Mailie
dead.
Thro' a' the toun she trotted by him;
town
A lang half-mile she could descry him;
long
15
Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
       She ran wi' speed:
A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him,
more, came near
       Than
Mailie
dead.
I wat she was a
sheep
o' sense,
wot
20
An' could behave hersel wi' mense:
tact/grace
I'll say't, she never brak a fence,
broke
       Thro' thievish greed.
Our Bardie, lanely, keeps the spence
parlour
       Sin'
Mailie's
dead.
25
Or, if he wanders up the howe,
glen
Her livin image in
her yowe
ewe
Comes bleatin till him, owre the knowe,
over the hill edge
       For bits o' bread;
An' down the briny pearls rowe
roll
30
       For
Mailie
dead.
She was nae get o' moorlan tips,
not born from
Wi' tawted ket, an' hairy hips;
matted fleece
For her forbears were brought in ships,
       Frae 'yont the TWEED:
from beyond
35
A bonier
fleesh
ne'er cross'd the clips
fleece, sheep shears
       Than
Mailie
dead.
Wae worth the man wha first did shape
woe befall
That vile, wanchancie thing â a
raep
!
dangerous, rope
It maks guid fellows girn an' gape,
makes good, facial contortion
40
       Wi' chokin dread;
An'
Robin's
bonnet wave wi' crape
mourning
       For
Mailie
dead.
O a' ye
Bards
on bonie DOON!
An' wha on AIRE your chanters tune!
who, Ayr, bagpipes
45
Come, join the melancholious croon
       O'
Robin's
reed!
His heart will never get aboon!
above/over
       His
Mailie's
dead!Â
This was probably written in 1785â6 as a companion piece for publication with the preceding Mailie monologue. Again the tone of the poem is mixed. Burns employs the six-line Standard Habbie used in vernacular eighteenth-century elegy while partly parodying the content of these poems. His most specified source is probably Fergusson's
Elegy on the Death of Mr David Gregory
with its repetitive end-line âSin Gregory's dead'. He is also partly sending up his own emotions. This is emphasised by the recent discovery
from a London saleroom catalogue for May 1962 of an hitherto unknown last stanza:
She was nae get o' runted rams,
Wi' woo' like goat's an' legs like trams;
She was the flower o' Fairlee lambs,
       A famous breed:
Now Robin, greetin', chows the hams
       O' Mailie dead.
This peasant practicality would have been too much for his genteel audience. On the other hand, there is real affection for its pedigree beauty. This was the man who was still surrounding himself with pet sheep at Ellisland. Further, as in his mouse poem, the lives of men and beasts are both brutally intruded upon not only by lethal elemental forces but by human-inspired, cruel economic and political forces. The accidentally throttled beast has its more sinister legally garrotted human counterpart:
Wae worth the man wha first did shape
That vile chancie thing â a rape!
It maks guid fellows girn an' gape,
       Wi' chokin dread â¦
