Is there for honest poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by –
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an a' that,
Our toils obscure, an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.
What tho' on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hodden grey, an' a' that?
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine –
A man's a man for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their tinsel show, an' a that,
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.
Ye see yon birkie ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, and stares, an' a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
His ribband, star, an' a' that,
The man o' independent mind,
He looks an' laughs at a' that.
A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that,
But an honest man's aboon his might –
Gude faith, he mauna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities, an a' that,
The pith o' sense an' pride o' worth
Are higher rank than a' that.
Then let us pray that come it may –
As come it will, for a' that –
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that;
For a' that, an' a that,
It's comin yet for a' that,
That man to man the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.
Robert Burns
Given the recent debate and referendum over Scottish independence, I thought we'd have a poem from radical, raffish Robert Burns. Some of his poems are in standard English, but the ones he is best known for are in Scottish dialect. During the late eighteenth century, when Burns was alive, there was a growing reaction to the more universal and classical standards of the earlier part of the century – a growing interest in the gnarled, the Gothic, the ancient. and the lost, in regional dialects and medieval or pre-Christian poetry and folklore. Perhaps the growing industrialization of Europe, with its concomitant disruption of the natural environment as well as the traditional social structure, was part of this reaction; perhaps another part was the rise of nationalism and an interest in rediscovering, re-claiming, and, to some extent, inventing a glorious tribal past; perhaps also it was simply the newest thing, the latest and shiniest cultural interest.
These forces helped create interest in regional and national culture, but at the same time they also oddly helped foster a sense of universal political possibility and idealism; this was the time of the American and French Revolutions, which proclaimed the Universal Rights of Man, which radical thinkers like Mary Wollstonecraft extended to explicitly include women. I think in this particular poem Burns uses man to mean men, not humanity in general; he's relying on that emphatic use of man that connotes free-standing independence and self-reliance – I referred to this usage also in last week's excerpt from Aurora Leigh. So, uniting the two strands of a local culture and a universal politics, in this poem we see Burns using language that would have been inexplicable in London without a glossary (which no doubt added to its appealing sense that here was an authentic voice from "the people"), and he uses this language to reject class and economic distinctions and to proclaim the universal Brotherhood of Man.
In addition to writing poems in the Scottish dialect, Burns collected and revised traditional Scottish songs, and in this poem you can see their influence on his work, particularly in the refrain-like use of "an' a' that" (the apostrophe indicates omitted letters; a' means all – I like the changing significance of the phrase throughout this poem). Most of the language here is pretty clear, as is the basic thought, but:
In the first stanza, in lines 7 - 8, the guinea is a gold coin minted by Britain and gowd means gold, so the sense is that social rank is due to wealth, while true value is in a man's character (Burns says the rank is stamped, like the coin itself, clearly identifying money, rather than virtue or "nobility" and so forth, as the origin of social rank).
In the second stanza, hamely means homely (in the sense of humble, home-style), hodden grey refers to a coarse homespun cloth, and gie is give.
In the third stanza, we have birkie: The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse annotates this as twit, but the glossary in the back of the Oxford World's Classics Selected Songs and Poems of Robert Burns defines it as a clever fellow. I'm assuming that the Penguin annotation is giving its sense in this particular poem, while the OWC glossary is giving its more general sense, and its use here is ironic, as in see that strutting fellow who thinks he's so very clever. As for coof, both editions agree that it means fool or blockhead. The ribband (ribbon) and star referred to, as well as the belt of the belted knight in the first line of the next stanza, are insignia of various noble orders (such as the Order of the Garter).
Also in the fourth stanza, "But an honest man's aboon his might – Gude faith, he mauna fa' that!" means "Creating an honest man is beyond his [the prince's] ability – good faith, he must not try to do that!"
In the fifth stanza, gree means degree (as in social rank).
There are two versions of this poem; the main difference is that one omits the first stanza. Both versions have some authority; poems were frequently passed around in manuscript and the manuscript versions and some early print editions include the first stanza, while some earlier publications omit it. The Penguin Book of Scottish Verse, edited by Robert Crawford and Mick Imlah, gives the five-stanza version which I give here. I have also referred to the Oxford World's Classics Selected Songs and Poems, edited by Robert P. Irvine, which gives the four-stanza version, with the omitted first stanza included in an endnote.
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