Robert Henryson
Robert Henryson - A Famous Scottish Poet
Robert Henryson (c. 1430 - c. 1506) Of the facts of Robert Henryson's life, the only thing of which we can be fairly certain is that he was a schoolmaster in Dumfererline in Fifeshire. Not even the dates of his birth are known, except that he was dead by 1508.
Henryson was one of the so-called 'Scottish Chaucerians' who were writing fine poetry while in England poets were hopelessly at sea. He was moreover, the most Chaucerian of these, especially in his masterpiece The Moral Fabillis of Esope ('Fables of Aesop'). Both in the speed and vigour of the narratives and in the subtle and sympathetic humour shown throughout, it can be said without exaggeration that these were worthy of Chaucer. Bur in addition they were unmistakably Scots in feeling, as well as in language. In The Testament of Cresseid Henryson set out to 'complete' Chaucer's Troylus and Criseyde by showing the degredation of Cresseid and her miserable death as a leper. The moral was made too obvious , and it ran clean contrary to Chaucer's intentions, who constantly sought to excuse his heroine. Nevertheless, Henryson's poem had many noble passages and moments of poignancy. Other fine poems by him were the ballads The Bludy Serk and Robene and Makyne.
The language of Henryson, the courtly and literary language known as Middle Scots, is not so difficult as to put a willing reader off. The meeting of the two sisters in his fable of the Country Mouse and the Town Mouse will give an idea of it:
'Cum furth to me, by awin Sister deir,
Cry peip anis!' With that the Mous culd heir,
And knew hir voce as kinnisman will do,
Be verray kynd; and furth scho come hir to.
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