{"id":105,"date":"2007-01-29T12:33:28","date_gmt":"2007-01-29T11:33:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/resource.bmj.com\/bmj\/2007\/01\/29\/scots-poet-of-the-week-robert-henryson\/"},"modified":"2007-01-29T12:33:28","modified_gmt":"2007-01-29T11:33:28","slug":"scots-poet-of-the-week-robert-henryson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2007\/01\/29\/scots-poet-of-the-week-robert-henryson\/","title":{"rendered":"Scots Poet of the Week: Robert Henryson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Whatever the merits of Burns\u2019 verse, I think that its main purpose nowadays is to help Scots annoy the English. On these occasions of national display I try to exempt myself on the grounds that though I was born in England my parents were Polish and a lot of their friends were Scottish. But if you want to read Scots poetry for pleasure, go to Robert Henryson. <!--more-->There are no such things as Henrysoun Nichts, because we don\u2019t even know the year he was born, or when he died (most likely c.1420-1505). We can\u2019t even be sure he didn\u2019t call himself Henderson.<br \/>\nHe was one of the great makars (makers, i.e. poets) of the age after Chaucer. The surviving relics of Scots poetry from the fifteenth and early sixteenth century far outshine most contemporaneous productions from England. Their usual language is an easily intelligible variety of late Middle English and they only lapse into gross dialect by choice \u2013 for example when taking the mickey out of doctors:<br \/>\nThe ferd feisick is fine, and of ane felloun pryce,<br \/>\nGud for haising, and hosting, or heit at the hairt;<br \/>\nRx Recipe, thre sponfull of the blak spyce,<br \/>\nWith ane grit gowpene of the gowk fart;<br \/>\n&amp;c<br \/>\n(from <em>Sum Practysis of Medecyne  <\/em>R. Henryson,  Bannatyne MS)<br \/>\nWell, you may understand the last word, if not the rest*. But although Henryson is said to have died (at a great age) making similar jokes, most of his poetry shows a subtler wit, especially his delicious versions of the Fables of Aesop. He also had a strain of unaffected piety and wrote perhaps the finest poem inspired by an epidemic, <em>Ane Prayer for the Pest.  <\/em><br \/>\n(*Translation: The fourth medicine is fancy, and criminally expensive \u2013 good for hoarseness, and coughing, or heat around the heart. Rx three spoons full of black pepper with a great double-handful of cuckoo fart -&amp;c)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Whatever the merits of Burns\u2019 verse, I think that its main purpose nowadays is to help Scots annoy the English. On these occasions of national display I try to exempt [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2007\/01\/29\/scots-poet-of-the-week-robert-henryson\/\">More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38363,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-richard-lehmans-weekly-review-of-medical-journals"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Scots Poet of the Week: Robert Henryson - The BMJ<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.bmj.com\/bmj\/2007\/01\/29\/scots-poet-of-the-week-robert-henryson\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Scots Poet of the Week: Robert Henryson - The BMJ\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Whatever the merits of Burns\u2019 verse, I think that its main purpose nowadays is to help Scots annoy the English. 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