[In the following essay, Gopen suggests that the true gravity and cynicism of the Fables can only be appreciated through the structure of the poetry.]

I. THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE MORAL FABLES

The Moral Fables has long been underrated, even by its foremost proponents. Lord Hailes, in 1770, thought enough of several of the Moralitates to print them, but he left out the corresponding fables.¹ H. Harvey Wood, in his editions of Henryson's complete works (1933, 1958), called the Fables “the greatest, and the most original, of Henryson's works,” but still referred to it as a “translation,” rejoicing that “the moralising, which is admittedly dull, is confined to the postscript.”² Older criticism tended to confine its praise to the work's charming humor, detailed realism, level-headedness, and careful maintenance of the human/bestial irony. In general, Henryson's major work was dismissed as more or less innocuous, but containing occasional flashes of sensitivity.

Since the 1960's there seems to have been a resurgence of interest in all of Henryson's work. Oxford University Press has issued new editions of all the poetry,³ the Moral Fables has spawned more than a dozen Ph.D. theses, the Testament of Cresseid has been called one of the greatest poems in English,⁴ and even the minor poems are beginning to receive individual attention.⁵ Concerning the Moral Fables in particular, there is a growing sense that something more important than typical fabulizing is at work. George Clark, in his fine article, expresses it well:

As Henryson recreated them, his Aesopic stories outgrow the artistic and intellectual limitations of their traditional form; comparing one of Henryson's fables to its probable source, the difference seems essentially stylistic, but the development of the style produces narratives whose implications compel our attention and go beyond the explicit moralizations conventionally attached to Aesopic fables.⁶

Denton Fox states with emphasis that “both the Fables and the Orpheus are, in the end, serious poems about morality.”⁷ Matthew P. McDiarmid, after years of delighting in the merely pleasant aspects of the poem, has now “become aware of a personality much less at peace, a much more demanding and challenging mind, neither quite at home in his own Christian world nor easily accommodated to the taste of our materialistic one.”⁸ Nicolai von Kreisler has found the “Tale of the Lion and the Mouse” to be “invested with greater authority than the fabulist ordinarily enjoyed,”⁹ an opinion of even more significance than he was aware, as I shall try to demonstrate below. Yet even recently we still hear that “a general air of assurance and calm prevails” over the poetry,¹⁰ that the Moral Fables was “apparently left incomplete,”¹¹ and that the fables are “very lively and charming poems which one yet feels like calling only charming and lively.”¹²

To this point, the “something more important than typical fabulizing” has been identified as the delicate yet forceful nature of Henryson's irony¹³ or his alleged use of political allegory.¹⁴ I suggest, however, that Henryson's highly serious and highly cynical message in the Moral Fables comes to us through the subtle yet substantially important structure of the poem, which in turn requires the conclusion that the poem is a unified and complete work and by no means “only charming and lively” (though indeed most charming and most lively). While we can enjoy Henryson's Fables on first reading because of the sheer delight produced by his wit, his humor, his love of language, his sensitive ear, and his keen perception of human nature, a better understanding of the literary aspects of the work, especially its structure, can generate additional appreciation of his fundamental seriousness, his frustration over human weaknesses, his deep sense of pity, and, ultimately, his rather bleak view of human existence (or at least of life in fifteenth-century Scotland). We should allow neither the bright view nor the bleak one to dominate our attention; they are both continually present in the work, and the friction between the two, which produces emotional and intellectual paradoxes at many points, may be the very agent that keeps us captivated, perhaps increasingly captivated, upon many re-readings. The structure will be discussed below; here let us look at the other signs that the work is no mere humorous entertainment.

Henryson gives us three clues at the outset that the Moral Fables will be a work of high seriousness. The first is his choice of stanza form, Rhyme Royal, which Martin Stevens has demonstrated was intended only for elevated poetry dealing with the most solemn of subjects and occasions, perhaps originally limited to public ceremonies at which the monarch was present.

rhyme royal was the first consciously shaped stanza of high style in English Literature. After Chaucer used it with such great flexibility in the Troilus, it set the mode for serious, elevated long poems in the English language until the sixteenth century. There is certainly no doubt that the stanza was the favorite among Chaucer's imitators throughout the fifteenth century.¹⁵

While Henryson's use of the form by no means guarantees the seriousness of his content, it should at least prepare his readers for the possibility of a solemn literary experience, despite his displays of humor and homeliness.

Henryson gives us the second clue in his “Prologue” when he raises the question of how to justify the use of frivolous verse and, simultaneously, warns us that we will have to work hard to extract his deeper meanings. In his opening stanza he defends “feinyeit fabils of ald poetre” (fictitious poetic fables of old) which, although not “al grunded upon truth” (entirely based on truth), still have an important function, “to repreif the haill misleing / Off man by figure of an uther thing” (to criticize man's evil ways through allegory and symbol). He implies that most writing of this sort tends towards the dour and the dull, and therefore he will lighten the task by using his sometimes humorous animals.

And clerkis sayis, it is richt profitabill
Amangis ernist to ming ane merie sport,
To blyth the spreit and gar the tyme be schort.

And scholars say it is most profitable to mix a merry sport in with earnest matters, to lighten the spirit and make the time seem short.

(19-21)¹⁶

He repeats the thought in the next stanza: “With sad materis sum merines to ming, / Accordis weill” (It makes good sense to mix some merriness with matters that are sober). Note, however, his emphasis: lightness must be added to the general solemnity; he writes in earnest and mixes in the merriness. We misunderstand his purpose, then, if we allow his delightful touches to dominate our attention.

We are also warned that these fables are tough nuts to crack (stanza 3) and that we must expect to strain our minds somewhat if we are to make complete sense of the work. This, then, is our second clue: we should not be fooled by the presence of “merriness” into disregarding the essential seriousness of the work. Since fifteenth-century readers considered fables to be literary works of the highest seriousness, we should not hesitate to apply Denton Fox's statement about the tragic poem, The Testament of Cresseid, to the Moral Fables as well: “Henryson took for granted an audience who would see, because they were looking for it, the evidence that this poem was serious, moral, and Christian.”¹⁷ Henryson gives us our third clue by his particular use of the traditional content of the first fable, the “Tale of the Cock and the Jasper.” Because of its direct applicability to the reader and to the experience of reading fables, this tale has often appeared first in Aesopic collections. While looking for food one morning, a Cock finds a rare gem on a dunghill but passes it by in favor of finding something more digestible. In the usual moral application, the Cock represents the foolish man, and the Jasper, wisdom, an allegorical formula that warns the readers against the folly of disregarding wisdom (i.e., the fables that follow) when it lies before them. Henryson follows this tradition, and in his Moralitas he laments the disappearance of moral wisdom in his world (“But now, alas, this Gem is lost and hidden”), urging us to seek it out:

                                        Go seik the iasp, quha will, for thair it lay.
Go, seek the Jasper, you who will, for there it lies.

“Thair” seems indeed to refer to the fables which follow.

Simultaneously, however, Henryson differs from all previous recounters of this fable, as George Clark points out,¹⁸ by expanding the tale with a great many details which make the Cock's rejection of the Jasper look rather praiseworthy. This bird rises early and sets about his major task with diligence, in contrast to the young girls “wonton and insolent” who have so little regard for their work that they sweep out precious jewels with the trash. The Cock recognizes the nobility of the Jasper immediately, knows its true worth and rightful place (78-84), considers the irony of a lowly animal having found it (85-91), considers his own needs and limitations in life (92-105), rhetorically wishes the Jasper better fortune (106-12), and departs. Clark suggests that Henryson hands us a particularly hard nut to crack by complicating the story with these compelling details.

If the Cock does not reject the jewel out of arrogance or exclusive preoccupation with bestial appetite but because a real barnyard cock cannot pocket or possess a gemstone, the simplistic moral proposition that the free agent, man, willfully disregards the wisdom that could secure him all the possible benefits of this and the next world gives place to a powerful impression that man, the prisoner of his inescapable limitations, has no plain and easy choice of wisdom and folly.¹⁹

The third clue, then, is our uneasiness when we discover the Cock was meant to represent the fool who disregards wisdom, instead of the wise man who knows his own limitations and has a sense of relativity.²⁰

I believe the clues would awaken us to the seriousness of the poem if we had enough faith in Henryson as a serious writer to begin with; but perhaps because his name has not been adequately respected readers may have regarded the Rhyme Royal form as indicative only of the poem's antiquity, dismissed the warnings of the “Prologue” as pro forma, and judged the “Tale of the Cock and the Jasper” to be a botched job, a fable whose details inadequately prepare the reader for the Moralitas. These early promises of high seriousness, however, will be fulfilled by the moral nature of the work as a whole, especially when the reader comes to understand Henryson's structural techniques and their import.

II. THE STRUCTURE OF THE MORAL FABLES

Although Henryson entitled his work The Moral Fables of Aesop the Phrygian, he took only seven of his thirteen fables from Aesopic sources. The other six come from French tales of the Reynardian tradition and from other sources. In the order that they appear in all but one of the major manuscripts and early prints, they form a neat symmetry according to source.²¹

FIGURE 1: THE SYNTHETIC SYMMETRY²²

This symmetry is “synthetic” because it cannot be perceived by the reader during the process of reading. By itself it seems relatively unimportant—order for the sake of order; but considered in conjunction with the other symmetries of the poem, this ordering takes on additional significance. For the moment we should note in particular that it leads us to considering the fables in five groupings according to source and that in this regard tales #6 through #8 form the center of the work.

Medieval poets generally considered themselves craftsmen, builders of literary works, and we should therefore never feel safe in imagining that any of their perceptible structural devices are meaningless. The very word “poet” means “one who makes something” (from the Greek poiein), and the Scots in particular refer to their poets as “makars.” Such a hidden structural device might be created in imitation of God's creation of the world, using a divine plan that is imperceptible to the mortals who are living through the experience. The structure of many Medieval and Renaissance works of art reflects this concept of creative order (cf. Spenser's Epithalamion).

Closer inspection of the Moral Fables reveals yet another kind of symmetry, one complex in detail and pregnant with meaning, which could be called the “climactic” symmetry. It also focuses on tales #6-#8 as the center of the work, but unlike its synthetic counterpart it can be sensed by the reader and must be in order for the reader to experience the moral impact of the work as a whole. This symmetry consists of a linear development which continues throughout the work, crescendoing from the first tale to a climax at the mid-point, tale #7, and then subsiding into a decrescendo until the fictional world disintegrates in the thirteenth and final tale.

The entire development depends upon the special nature of the middle fable, “The Tale of the Lion and the Mouse.” This tale is the work's numerical mid-point not only because it is the seventh in a group of thirteen, but also because it is preceded by precisely 200 stanzas and followed by precisely 200 stanzas.²³ Moreover, the seventh fable stands out from the others in several striking details: only this fable has its own prologue; only this fable is presented in the form of a Medieval dream-vision; only in this fable do characters actually listen to and follow wholesome advice from others; and only this fable ends happily for all of the central characters. We shall see shortly why these facts are significant.

Looking closely at the progression of the fables before and after the seventh fable, we can see the denouements of Henryson's tales increase in harshness as the work proceeds. In the first six tales (those preceding the central fable), none of the “good” characters suffers any permanent damage. The Cock in #1, the City Mouse in #2, and the Mare in #5 suffer no harm whatever; the Country Mouse in #2 and Chanticlere in #3 undergo ordeals but escape intact; and the Sheep in #6 must suffer through a bitter Winter but may survive to grow another coat of wool. Only the Fox in #5, the Wolf in #5 and the Fox in #6 suffer severe physical injury or death, and they, being predators and rogues, have earned only their just rewards. For the most part, everyone receives the fate deserved.

In the six tales that follow “The Lion and the Mouse,” however, the relatively sympathetic characters suffer increasingly harsher consequences: the Swallow (#8) is saddened and deprived of companionship; the Cadger (#9) is robbed; the Farmer (#10) is badly frightened and must pay a ransom; the Wether (#11) is shaken to death due to his pride; the Lamb (#12) is eaten despite his innocence and humility; and the Mouse (#13) is flayed alive. The evil characters, on the other hand, fare increasingly well: the Wolves progress from being beaten (#9) to being cheated (#10) to being scared but victorious (#11) to being well fed (#12); the Foxes (#9 and #10) succeed in cheating everyone; and the Kite (#13) encounters no resistance whatever in his murderous attack. Thus Henryson gives us a substantially and increasingly grimmer view of life in the second half of the work than in the first, demonstrating that in a deceitful and sinful world good often falls prey to evil.

All this fits into a symmetrical design that emphasizes the progression away from a world wherein frail men are forgiven or punished by a just God, and towards a world which is dominated by evil and powerful men and from which God has withdrawn.

Along with this climactic development we can perceive yet a third kind of symmetry, which can be called the “concentric” symmetry. Again, fable #7 is the focal point, but this time we can consider the tales in parallel groups receding from the center like ripples around a stone dropped in the water. Figure 2 demonstrates this organization.

The first and last tales are isolated as introduction and conclusion. In each the central characters misuse their power of self-determination; the former escapes harm, but the latter does not. Tales #2 and #12 both concern innocent non-predators (the comparatively innocent Country Mouse and the spotless Lamb, both referred to by Henryson as sillie), whose sound reasoning is ignored; the former escapes harm, but the latter does not. Moving still towards the center, #3 and #11 both concern proud non-predators who lack the restraint of reason; the former escapes harm, but the latter does not. The obverse situation occurs in #4 and #10, and in #5 and #9. In the earlier tales the Fox, despite his trickery, suffers death; in the later tales the Fox, despite the immorality of his trickery, succeeds.

FIGURE 2: THE CONCENTRIC SYMMETRY

This early group (#2-#5), then, pictures a world ruled by divine justice and/or the intervention of Fate:

To se that selie mous, it wes grit sin;
So desolate and will off ane gude reid;
For verray dreid scho fell in swoun neir deid.
Bot, as God wald, it fell ane happie cace:
The spenser had na laser for to byde,
Nowther to seik nor serche, to char nor chace,
Bot on he went, and left the dure vp wyde.

It was a great shame to see that poor Mouse, so desolate and lacking good counsel; for very fear she fell into a swoon, near dead.

But as God willed, a fortunate thing occurred: The Steward had no time to stop, neither to seek nor search, neither to frighten nor to chase, but on he went and left the door wide open.

(299-305-Tale #2)

Then spak the cok, with sum gude spirit inspyrit,
‘Do my counsall and I sall warrand the.’
.....This tod, thocht he wes fals and friuolus,
And had frawdis, his querrell to defend,
Desauit wes be menis richt meruelous,
For falset fail eis ay at the latter end.

Then said the Cock, inspired by some good spirit, “Do as I advise, and I shall guarantee you success.”

This Fox, though he was false and not to be trusted, and had tricks enough to help him out of a corner, was himself deceived by means most miraculous; for falseness always will fail in the end.

(558-9, 565-8-Tale #3)

The later group (#9-#12) pictures a world untouched by divine presence and ruled by human tyranny:

The foxe beheld that seruice quhair he lay,
And leuch on loft quhen he the volff sa seis,
Baith deif and dosinnit, fall swonand on his kneis.

The fox observed this happen from where he lay, and laughed aloud when thus he saw the Wolf, both deaf and dazed, fall swooning to his knees.

(2186-8-Tale #9)

‘Ha,’ quod the volff, ‘thou wald intruse ressoun
Quhair wrang and reif suld duell in propertie.
That is ane poynt and part of fals tressoun,
For to gar reuth remane with crueltie.
Be Goddis woundis, fals tratour, thow sall de
For thy trespas, and for thy fatheris als’.
With that anone he hint him be the hals.
The seli lamb culd do na thing bot bleit:
Sone wes he hedit; the volff wald do na grace;

“Aha,” (said the Wolf), “you would be inserting reason where villainy and illdoing should rightly rule. That is an example and instance of false treason, to try to make compassion abide with cruelty. By God's wounds, lying traitor, you shall die for your misdeed, and for your father's, too.” With that, at once he grabbed him by the neck.

The innocent Lamb could do nothing but bleat; quickly he was dead. The Wolf would grant him no grace;

(2693-701-Tale #12)

We therefore have three different conscious arrangements—synthetic, climactic, and concentric—all of which point to tales #6-#8 as forming the core of the work and marking its turning point. The central vision of human justice (#7) is surrounded by the tale of the innocent Sheep who can find no justice (#6) and the tale of the proud flock of birds who ignore wisdom and suffer an unhappy end in which justice is no longer a question (#8).

In tale #6 the Sheep laments the lack of divine intervention in his world:

Quaikand for cauld, sair murnand ay amang,
Kest vp his ee vnto the heuinnis hicht,
And said, “O lord, quhy sleipis thow sa lang?
Walk, and discerne my cause groundit on richt;
Se how I am be fraud, maistrie, and slicht
Peillit full bair, and so is mony one
Now in this warld richt wonder wo begone.

Shivering from the cold, lamenting sorely all the while, he cast his eyes up to the heights of heaven and said: “Lord God, why sleep you so long? Awake, and pass judgment on my cause, which is founded on truth; see how I by fraud, corruption, and deception, am stripped full bare;” and so is many a one in this world now, plagued in the extreme.

(1293-9)

The world literally has been God-forsaken. In the central tale, #7, Henryson demonstrates that we could still survive, even without divine intervention, if we only would listen to reason. The Lion, Lord of beasts, literally “awakes and passes judgment” on the Mouse's cause, tempering his personal sense of outrage with reason and open-handed justice:

Quhen this wes said, the lyoun his language
Paissit, and thocht according to ressoun,
And gart mercie his cruell ire asswage,
And to the mous grantit remissioun,
Oppinnit his pow, and scho on kneis fell doun,
And baith hir handis vnto the heuin vpheild,
Cryand, ‘Almichty God mot ȝow forȝeild!’

When this was said, the Lion reconsidered his words and let reason rule his thinking, and let mercy assuage his cruel anger, and he granted the Mouse remission. He opened his paw, and she fell down on her knees, and both her hands she held up to heaven, crying “May almighty God requite you!”

(1503-9)

Henryson follows this fable with “The Preaching of the Swallow,” which demonstrates by contrast what happens in a God-forsaken world when we do not listen to reason, when we abandon righteous teachings.

Allace, it wes grit hart sair for to se
That bludie bowcheour beit thay birdis doun,
And for till heir, quhen thay wist weill to de,
Thair cairfull sang and lamentatioun.
Sum with ane staf he straik to eirth on swoun,
Off sum the heid, off sum he brak the crag,
Sum half on lyfe he stoppit in his bag.

Alas, it made the heart lament to see that bloody Butcher beating down those birds, and to hear their woeful song and lamentation when they knew well they were about to die. Some with a club he struck to the earth unconscious; he beat the head of some, he broke the neck of others, and some he stuffed into his bag half-dead.

(1874-80)

Henryson uses the symbol of the net to represent human disaster. The Lion is able to escape the hunters' net because his previous use of reason had gained him allies who could bite the cords; but the birds of the following fable are caught fast in the fowler's net because of their having ignored reason beforehand.

The solidity of complex structures of the Moral Fables depends to a great extent upon the ability of the central fable to support the weight of its central position and function. In its unique prologue, the narrator walks out into the beautiful fields (representing perhaps the natural goodness of the God-given world), falls asleep, and has a dream-vision. Aesop appears, and after complaining that holy preaching no longer has any effect, consents to tell the following tale. A Mouse, having been captured by a Lion whom he had awakened from a deep sleep, forcefully and intelligently pleads to be released. The Lion is convinced by the Mouse's reasoning and therefore sets him at liberty. Later, when the Lion has been entrapped by villagers' nets, the Mouse summons other mice, frees the Lion, and all happily go on their ways. The narrator then awakens and returns home.

The importance of this tale (and only this tale's) being a dream-vision cannot be underestimated. Nicolai von Kreisler has explained well the general significance of the dream-vision and has suggested its effect on Henryson's fable:

Abundantly reinforced in the Middle Ages in scriptural and secular writing, the tradition that fostered these strategies was, stated simply, that the most valuable of the ways a man knows truth are the dreams, visions, trances, swoons, ravishings, and ecstacies wherein his soul frees itself from the operation of his body and apprehends truth directly and insensibly, as if it had flown to its own inimitable and immaterial realms. … In identifying “The Lion and the Mouse” as a dream-vision, therefore, Henryson sought at once to objectify this lesson and to invest it with greater authority than the fabulist ordinarily enjoyed. Specifically, in signifying that his lesson derived from the divine inspiration of the visionary as well as the fabulist's keen worldly observation, Henryson added force to his allegory, for his unmistakable implication was that if “figures” were sensible embodiments or personifications of the truth one could know from the soul's dream-flight as well as symbols of the universal truths knowable in the material world.²⁴

Unfortunately, von Kreisler goes on to conclude that all this special emphasis “almost certainly finds explanation in the political implications of his narrative,” turning the Moral Fables into an allegory of the misrule of James III, and little more. We can see, however, from the effect that the structure of the work has on its meaning, that the significance of the dream-vision reached much further. It gives us Henryson's Utopian vision, presentable only as a dream: a world wherein men listen to each other, allow themselves to be swayed by reason, justice, and mercy, and remember their debts to each other with gratitude. It is a glorious world, in which the Lion can lie down with the Mouse; but unfortunately, it is only a dream, and at its end we must awake and return to the real world.

To underscore this, Henryson repeats the process with significant alterations in the following tale, “The Preaching of the Swallow.” There the narrator also walks out into the beautiful fields, but this time he remains awake. Again he sees characters reasoning with each other, but in this non-dream world the Swallow's logic is ridiculed and ignored. As a result, the other birds must suffer a bloody death, described in the harshest detail of the work to that point (see 1874-80, quoted above).

The introductory stanzas to “The Preaching of the Swallow” turn the reader's attention, at great length, to the presence of a universal order, filled with the beneficence of nature and great promises of personal fulfillment and fruitfulness. Throughout it, as Denton Fox has pointed out, there is “a sturdy progression towards the natural world of the birds in the fable: the movement is from God to nature, from eternal stability to seasonal mutability, from abstract to general philosophy to concrete specific experience,”²⁵ leading, I would add, from the world of the dream-vision back towards a world of a most bitter wakefulness. At the beginning of the tale the narrator's visual experience still sounds like the dream-vision of the tale that has just ended; “mouing thusgait, grit myrth I take in mynd, / Off lauboraris to se the besines. … In hart gritlie reiosit off that sicht” (“As I wandered thus, I was overjoyed to see the industry of the laborers. … My heart greatly rejoicing in that sight”) (1720-1, 1728); but by end, sight has become painful: “Allace, it was grit hart sair for to se / that bludie bowcheour beit thay birdis down” (“Alas, it made my heart lament to see that bloody Butcher beating down those birds” (1874-5).

Henryson also makes the transition from the dream world back to the real one in terms of the natural progression of the four seasons, describing two complete cycles²⁶: in introducing the tale of the Swallow he begins with Summer (1678) and ends with Spring (1706), but the action of the tale begins in Spring (1713) and ends in Winter (1832). The Summer to Spring cycle suggests a spirit of renewal of a continuing, vigorous, hopeful life; such is the atmosphere of the beginning of this fable, as if the aura of the previous tale had not yet worn off. The Spring to Winter cycle suggests quite the opposite, a dispirited sense of woeful inevitability, a linear progression ending in death, instead of the circular progression ending in renewal of life; such is the “reality” of the world of the Swallow.

Aesop's complaint seems to have been justified: the Swallow's holy preaching had no effect. Henryson never allows the shock of this return from Utopia to die away, and he constantly increases the harshness of the tales' outcomes, saving the most hideous for last. Blindness, appetite, and the ignoring of reason have so completely taken over by then that Henryson dares put the good advice into the mouth of the very character who ignores it. The Mouse recognizes that the frightening physiognomy of the Paddock bodes ill for any alliance between them (2819-32), and even listens to the Paddock decry silken tongues that disguise deceit (2848-50); yet still she allows her appetite to overwhelm her good sense, which results in a most grisly death for her. When the Kite comes to destroy them both, we view an image in little of this world's day of destruction: the Kite (who represents death, we are told in the Moralitas) pulls the skin of his victims (who represent the body and the soul) over their heads in one deft motion (bellieflaucht full fettilie in Middle Scots), suggesting the ultimate in thoroughness and cold-bloodedness.

Taken individually, these fables most impress the reader with their charm and humor, with their isolated moments of insight into character, and with their technical grace; but when they are viewed in the context of the complex structure of the work as a whole, they have a strikingly different impact. The whole in this case is indeed greater than the sum of its parts. The three symmetries—the synthetic, the climactic, and the concentric—function simultaneously, each with a different effect on the reader, and each making a different contribution to meaning.

THE SYNTHETIC SYMMETRY

The alternations of Aesopic and Reynardian fables can neither be sensed nor “used” by the reader. They represent mere order, order as a given of the universe, describable neither as static nor dynamic because it is imperceptible. Such an expression of order is symbolic of God's divine plan, to which Henryson pays tribute: “Till understand it is aneuch, I wis, / That God in all his werkis wittie is” (It is enough to understand, I know, that God has a purpose for each of His works) (1662-3).

THE CLIMACTIC SYMMETRY

The crescendo climaxing in the central fable and disintegrating thereafter may be both sensed and used by the reader. It symbolizes order as a moral force, describable as dynamic because it is available only through the dynamic reading process. It warns directly of worldly dangers and leads through its ups and downs to an ending of worldly despair.

THE CONCENTRIC SYMMETRY

The “ripples” of concentricity can hardly be sensed by the reader, but can be used. They symbolize order as a moral force, describable as static because of the distance, perspective, and careful investigation necessary to perceive it, available only in the static experience of viewing the whole in retrospect. It suggests the possibility of discovering patterns in life, but hints that this knowledge may come too late.

The tension between despair over the future and amusement in the details of the present gives Henryson's work its intriguing quality of restlessness. With the exception of the central dream vision, the world of the Moral Fables is not a happy one, despite the elegance of the art and the persistence of the humor. As the work progresses, the world of deadly sins, with sadness overcoming joy and depravity overcoming innocence, increasingly dominates. It is filled with persecution, suffering, irresponsible trickery, studied injustice, and sheer gratuitous malevolence. Some moral indictment is levelled at all the characters except the Sheep, the Swallow, and the Lamb, who instead are subjected to some of the harshest fates in the Moral Fables. In each tale but the central one, an animal either is called to obey reason but ignores it, or tries to follow reason but is prevented. The work as a whole charts a progression of increasing frustration that finally reposes in despair. We move from the admonition to seek out wisdom (in “The Cock and the Jasper”) through the discovery of Utopia (in “The Lion and the Mouse”) to the finality of universal destruction (in “The Paddock and the Mouse”) and we find that Henryson has suggested through his structure the common Medieval resolution to the human predicament, the same resolution that he makes explicit in the complaint of the Sheep in tale #6.

‘Seis thow not, lord, this warld ouerturnit is,
As quha wald change gude gold in leid or tyn?
The pure is peillit, the lord may do na mis,
And simonie is haldin for na syn.
Now is he blyith with okker maist may wyn;
Gentrice is slane, and pietie is ago.
Allace, gude lord, quhy tholis thow it so?
‘Thow tholis this euin for our grit offence;
Thow sendis vs troubill and plaigis soir,
As hunger, derth, grit weir, or pestilence;
Bot few amendis now thair lyfe thairfoir.
We pure pepill as now may do no moir
Bot pray to the: se that we ar opprest
In to this eirth, grant vs in heuin gude rest.’

“Lord, do you not see this world is thrown into chaos, just as some would change pure gold into lead or tin; the poor man is stripped bare, but the great man can do no wrong; and Simony is considered no sin. Now he considers himself the happiest who can win the greatest profit by extortion; kindness is slain, and pity is a thing of the past; alas, good Lord, why do You suffer it to be so?

You suffer this even for our great offense; You send us troubles and sore plagues, as hunger, dearth, great war, and pestilence; and yet this causes few to mend their way of living. We poor people, as of now, may do no more than pray to Thee; since on this earth we are so oppressed, in heaven may God grant us rest.”

(1307-20)

Notes

1. Sir David Dalrymple Hailes, Ancient Scottish Poems, Published from the Manuscript of George Bannatyne, 1568 (Edinburgh, 1770, rpt. London, 1815), p. 280.

2. H. Harvey Wood, The Poems and Fables of Robert Henryson, p. xv. Although Henryson himself states that he is making “ane maner of Translatioun” (32), we should by no means take him literally on this point. All source studies have demonstrated, knowingly or otherwise, how strikingly Henryson differs from whatever previous works he used.

3. Robert Henryson: Poems, ed. Charles Elliott, 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1974); The Poems of Robert Henryson, ed. Denton Fox (Oxford, 1981).

4. See Jane Adamson's lengthy and spirited article, “Henryson's Testament of Cresseid: ‘Fyre’ and ‘Cauld,’” CR, XVIII (1976), 39-60, and Denton Fox's compelling study in his edition of the poem (London, 1968).

5. Kenneth R. R. Gros Louis, “Robert Henryson's ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’ and the Orpheus Tradition of the Middle Ages,” Speculum XLI (1966), 643-55; John Stephens, “Devotion and Wit in Henryson's ‘The Annunciation,’” ES, LI (1970), 323-31; Dorena A. Wright, “Henryson's ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’ and the Tradition of the Muses,” MAE, XL (1971), 41-7; Denton Fox, “Henryson's ‘Sum Practysis of Medecyne,’” SP, LX (1972), 453-60; Charles A. Hallet, “Theme and Structure in Henryson's ‘The Annunciation,’” SSL, X (1973), 165-74; George S. Peek, “Robert Henryson's View of Original Sin in ‘The Bludy Serk,’” SSL, X (1973), 199-206; John MacQueen, “Neoplatonism and Orpheus in Fifteenth-Century Scotland: The Evidence of Henryson's ‘New Orpheus,’” ScS, XX (1976), 68-89.

6. George Clark, “Henryson and Aesop: The Fable Transfigured,” ELH, XLIII (1976), 1.

7. Denton Fox, The Testament of Cresseid, p. 22.

8. Matthew P. McDiarmid, “Robert Henryson in His Poems,” Bards and Makars: Scottish Language and Literature, Medieval and Renaissance, ed. A. J. Aitken, M. P. McDiarmid, and D. S. Thomson (Glasgow, 1977), p. 28.

9. Nicolai von Kreisler, “Henryson's Visionary Fable: Tradition and Craftsmanship in ‘The Lion and the Mouse,’” TSLL, XV (1973), 395.

10. Maurice Lindsay, History of Scottish Literature (London, 1977), p. 38.

11. J. A. Burrow, “Henryson's The Preaching of the Swallow,” EIC, XXV (1975), 25.

12. Ian Robinson, Chaucer and the English Tradition (Cambridge, 1972), p. 244.

13. See especially David M. Murtaugh's fine article, “Henryson's Animals,” TSLL, XIV (1972), 405-21.

14. See note 7, above.

15. Martin Stevens, “The Royal Stanza in Early English Literature,” PMLA, XCIV (1979), 74.

16. The text of Henryson throughout this essay is taken from Denton Fox's edition, The Poems of Robert Henryson (Oxford, 1981). All translations are by the present author.

17. Denton Fox, The Testament of Cresseid, Introduction.

18. George Clark, “Henryson and Aesop: The Fable Transfigured,” ELH, XLIII (1976), 1-18.

19. Ibid., p. 10.

20. Several times I have assigned Freshman writing classes the task of deducing a moral from Henryson's “The Tale of the Cock and the Jasper.” Not a single student has yet suggested that the Cock might represent a fool, and only a handful have sensed any negative qualities whatever in the portrait.

21. See Howard Henry Roerecke, The Integrity and Symmetry of Robert Henryson's Moral Fables, Diss. Pennsylvania State University, 1969. The order differs radically only in the Bannatyne Manuscript. John MacQueen, in his Robert Henryson: A Study of the Major Narrative Poems (Oxford, 1967), has made a carefully reasoned argument in favor of the Bannatyne ordering, but the structural relationships I discuss here convince me of the more commonly accepted order.

22. The only work I have seen that treats the Moral Fables as a structurally integral whole is Howard Henry Roerecke's unpublished dissertation (see note 37 above). I came to many of Professor Roerecke's conclusions independently, and I support nearly all of his findings and conclusions.

23. Roerecke, p. 126.

24. Nicolai von Kreisler, pp. 393, 395.

25. Denton Fox, “Henryson's Fables,” ELH, XXIX (1962), 350.

26. George Clark, 13.