Rabbie Burns Transmogrified
The poems of Burns have recently been' translated' into English for the benefit of the benighted Sassenach. Competitors were asked to comment on this event in a poem of three stanzas, using any characteristic Burns metre. The verses could be in English or Lowland Scots (not too broad) and need not represent what competitors believed would be Burns's. own reaction.
A smallish entry, and, as might have been expected, most of the competitors were obviously Scots. Nevertheless, quite a number of not-quite-benighted Sassenachs, With the aid of the erudite Jamieson, cobbled up Burnsian poems whose synthetic dialect was not too obvious. I do not include Pibwob, who would have some difficulty in explaining his second verse:
I'll understand when you today
Tell me you're my pint-stoup, and say Why chuffie hurcheons dow na mae A bainie head, Wi' right guid willie-waughts wha hae Wi' Wallace bled.
Another Sassenach, from Oxford, rather spoilt- his verses by including very modern slang. `Blinkin' and 'pack it in' do not go well even in a comment on Burns. Kenneth
S. Kitchen claims:
. lean chant without a snicker Auld Rabbie's phoney Doric bicker Just as he planned it
But I'd not give a daimen icker And ye, ye louse, ye crowlin ferlie, The bluid ye suck, ye need sae sairly; Yere air that rins sac thin and sairly Tae water turns.
Forbye a mon maun wauken airly Tac better Burns. • Oor Rab, he "brewed a peck o'maut" An' bade us fill oor cogs an' lassies An' tak' a guid Scots williewacht- Not stir-aboot for English•lassies.
(But woe's me for Rabble's plea, This wark will see the deein' 0'1— 'Tis sowens mixed wi' barley bree, no be at the preein' eel.) "The cardin' o't, the spinn'in o't": In borrowed braws he's unco' queer. Plain hodden gray was aye his coat, He had nae truck wi' fancy gear.
(0 wait's me for Rab, ill-fated, An' mony's the tear I've grime's fort —0 Rabble, gin ye be translated I sal na gie a button for'!.)
(GLOSS: seunners, disgusts; mint, affected; coupin', upsetting; roupin', selling by auction; williewacht, strong draught ; stir•-ahoot, meal and water•; sowens, husks in water; pree'in', testing; grutten, wept.)
(WILLIAM EVANS)
Flow gently, Sweet Afton, no more need thou sage; • Thy puzzlement's cased in a following page. Too long have thy green 'braes' re-echo'd thy shout: "Whatever was Robbie Burns talking about?"
Thou "wee" plough'd-up mouse, and thou, Doon's flowery banks, Join hands with the reader in mystified ranks. Your whistles, my lads, have at long last availed ;, The lover of Burns who for years has made shift With footnote and guess to catch broadly his drift Will find in this book as its pages he turns That not with less heat but more light Robert Burns.
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