The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian

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Main article: Robert Henryson

The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian is a major sequence of connected poems by the Scottish poet Robert Henryson. In the accepted text it consists of thirteen versions of fables taken from the Aesopic and Reynardian traditions of beast epic prevalent in medieval and early renaissance Europe. It is not certain when it was composed but internal evidence suggests this was probably in or around the 1480s.

Contents 1 Overview 2 The thirteen fabillis 2.1 Prolog and Fabill 1 2.2 Fabill 2 2.3 Fabill 3 2.4 Fabill 4 2.5 Fabill 5 2.6 Fabill 6 2.7 Core prolog and Fabill 7 2.8 Fabill 8 2.9 Fabill 9 2.10 Fabill 10 2.11 Fabill 11 2.12 Fabill 12 2.13 Fabill 13 and Conclusion 3 Place of Aesop in the fable 4 Question of purpose 5 External links 6 References 7 See also

[edit] Overview

Fable stories were a common trope in medieval literature and frequently told with the aim of drawing moral lessons, either secular or spiritual. Many different versions of the stories were created but writers generally followed understood conventions. One such was the inclusion of a moral lesson in a didactic moralitas (plural moralitates) inserted after the fable. Henryson follows and develops these conventions.

Fable writing was a common classroom exercise. Students might be asked to learn fable plots in order to retell them in contracted or expanded form (modo brevitur or modo latius)^[1] and provide moral conclusions that would be judged or debated either on secular grounds to do with human character and ethical behaviour or following more "elevated" scholastic principles of homily and allegory. Much surviving fable literature of this kind, by today's standards, is gey dreich.

Readers familiar with the genre may have found the tone, range and complexity of Henryson's attractive and lively "modo latius" unexpected, but his method is not without precedent. The same "trick" is found in Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale which Henryson himself uses and retells. This is found as Fabill 3 of the Morall Fabillis and is one of the poem's most directly identifiable sources. Henryson's sustained blending and blurring of the secular and the spiritual strands may also have been regarded as surprising.

The numerological architecture Henryson employed in the Morall Fabillis has been increasingly understood in recent years^[2][3]. This is a stylistic device commonly found in medieval poetics.

In the accepted text^[4][5], the Morall Fabillis consists of 425 stanzas composed in pentameter, all but seven of which are in the seven-line rhyme royal form, with the seven exceptions being in eight-line ballade form; thus the overall poem has 2795 lines.

[edit] The thirteen fabillis

[edit] Prolog and Fabill 1

Main article: The Cok and the Jasp

The Morall Fabillis opens with a succinct nine-stanza Prolog which argues on conventional scholastic grounds that stories, by very nature feinyeit, may have a serious moral purpose but that this is pointless if the telling is not pleisand or merie. It establishes a first person narrator who directly addresses his audience, identified as maisteris - meaning in effect Henryson's university educated peers. This first happens in the fifth stanza - ie. the Prolog's exact midpoint. Then a few brief comparisons are drawn between animal behaviour and human nature. The ninth stanza makes a swift bridging passage into the first Fabill, The Taill of the Cok and the Jasp.

Despite the argument of the Prolog, Fabill 1 has almost no story to speak of. It simply presents a vignette in which a cockerel seeking his food is surprised to discover a valuable jasp in a midden. The cock argues quite reasonably that the stone is in the wrong place and is of no practical use to him. He hopes that it may find some more suitable setting, such as a royall tour or kingis croun, and exits leaving it where it lies^[6]. The moralitas which quickly follows argues however that the cock has been foolish to make this rejection since the stone actually represents science, in the scholastic sense of wisdom.

Most critics note that Henryson appears to deliberately contrive an effect of dissonance between the fable and the moralitas. Longer aquaintance may modify this view, but the impression remains of an opening that wants to establish layered modes of narration that introduce complexity and contrive to play with readers' expectations.

This is in keeping with some of the methods of the medieval fable genre, but the sophistication is unusual.^[7]

[edit] Fabill 2

The Taill of the Uponlandis Mous and the Burges Mous, often referred to simply as The Twa Myis, is one of Henryson's best known and most anthologised poems. It immediately opens in full narrative mode and thus stands in sharp contrast to the relatively static and scholastically "dry" opening Fabill. It is a poem rich in incident and characterisation. Even in the context of fable literature generally it quite transcends its sources and sets a standard for free narrative improvisation, coupled with close control and subtelty of inference, that will be sustained for the remainder of the larger poem.

The narrator strongly invokes his authour (textual authority) by setting his name as the first word of the first line. The story expands upon common textbook versions of Aesop's Town Mouse and Country Mouse. The moralitas appears to be in harmony with the expectations raised in the tale, but its four stanzas, in ballade form, introduce a brief stylistic variation to the rhyme royal. This will only happen again towards the end of the last poem in the collection overall.

Extract

Furth mony wilsum wayis can scho walk:

Throw mosse and mure, throw bankis, busk and breir,

Fra fur to fur, cryand fra balk to balk:

"Cum furth to me, my awin sister deir,

Cry peip anis!"...

• Listen: Audio (UK) (help·info) [Link under construction.]

[edit] Fabill 3

The Taill of Schir Chanticleir and the Foxe opens a linked sequence of three tales that form a continuous narrative and introduce the characters of the Tod and the Wolf into the poem. MacQueen has proposed calling this first set of three Reynardian beast fable tales The Talking of the Tod^[8]. A similar section of three verse Romulus fabillis can be identified in the second half of the poem occupying a position that mirrors the first set. Henryson's Fabill 3 is an important retelling of Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale.

[edit] Fabill 4

The Taill of how this forsaid Tod maid his Confessioun to Freir Wolf Waitskaith

[edit] Fabill 5

The Taill of the Sone and Air of the foirsaid Foxe, callit Father Weir: Alswa the Parliament of fourfuttit Beistis, haldin be the Lyoun

[edit] Fabill 6

The Taill of the Scheip and the Doig

[edit] Core prolog and Fabill 7

The Taill of the Lyoun and the Mous

[edit] Fabill 8

The Preiching of the Swallow

[edit] Fabill 9

The Taill of the Wolf that gat the Nek-hering throw the wrinkis of the Foxe that begylit the Cadgear

[edit] Fabill 10

The Taill of the Foxe that begylit the Wolf in the schadow of the Mone

[edit] Fabill 11

The Taill of the Wolf and the Wedder

[edit] Fabill 12

The Taill of the Wolf and the Lamb

[edit] Fabill 13 and Conclusion

The Taill of the Paddok and the Mous and Conclusion

[edit] Place of Aesop in the fable

[edit] Question of purpose

[edit] External links

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Robert L. Kindrick edition of the Morall Fabillis in Henryson's original Scots
• List of further reference works on Robert Henryson, including works on the Morall Fabillis

Robert Henryson
The Morall Fabillis
The Cok and the Jasp | The Twa Myis | Schir Chanticleir and the Foxe | The Confessioun of the Tod | The Parliament of the fourfuttit Beistis | The Scheip and the Doig | The Lyoun and the Mous | The Preiching of the Swallow | The Foxe, the Wolf and the Cadgear | The Schadow of the Mone | The Wolf and the Wedder | The Wolf and the Lamb | The Paddok and the Mous
Other works
The Testament of Cresseid | Orpheus and Erudices | Robene and Makyne | The Annuciation | Sum Practysis of Medecyne | The Bludy Serk | The Garment of Gud Ladeis | Against Hasty Credence | The Praise of Age | The Abbay Walk | The Thre Deid-Pollis | Twa Ressonings | Ane Prayer for the Pest