G.E. Feldman
Robert Burns
very year, January 25th, the anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, is celebrated by English and non-English speaking people all over the world with great excitement. You will find these celebrations going on in small village pubs and in remote cottages with workers and farmers dressed in kilts1 or their ordinary working clothes.
The great majority of those who attend the Burns celebrations are not normally readers of poetry. Yet something about Burns and the tradition associated with his name and his work appeals to them in a very special way. Why is this?
The love for Burns is indeed a unique phenomenon. One has not heard of common Englishmen speaking about Shakespeare with love and enthusiasm, or of Americans honouring Walt Whitman's birth, or of Germans being overexcited about Goethe or Schiller. Most nations adopt political or military men as national heroes. But Scotland, though she honours the memory of her two great national liberators, William Wallace and Robert Bruce, has adopted a poet as her true hero, as the man who speaks both for the nation and for mankind.
* * *
Robert Burns, a peasant of Alloway (a small village two miles south of Ayr, Scotland), was born in a modest clay cottage built with his father's own hands.
When Burns was born, hardships and privation were the common lot of the majority of the people. The standard of living was low, and the social habits of the people were primitive. Food was of the plainest kind and scant among the general mass of the people. "We live sparingly. For several years meat was a stranger in the house, while all the members of the family exerted themselves to the utmost of their strength and beyond it in the labours of the farm. My brother (Robert), at the age of twelve, threshed the corn crop, and at fifteen was the principal labourer on the farm ... There being no school near, and our services being already useful on the farm, my father undertook to teach us in the winter evenings, and in this way my eldest sisters
received all the education they ever received. My father conversed familiarly on all subjects with us, and was at great pains, while we accompanied him on the labours of the farm, to lead the conversation to such subjects as would increase our knowledge and improve our minds." (The story of Burns' early life as it is recorded by his brother Gilbert.)
The poet's father William Burnes (such was the original spelling of the family name which was cut short by Robert in his mature years and since has been spelt Burns) taught his family with extraordinary care and thoroughness, which left a deep impression on Robert's mind.
Burns' mother, Agnes Brown had a dark and glowing eye (inherited by Robert) and red hair, and she was always singing as she went about her heavy work of the day. She had a wonderful voice, and a good stock of songs and ballads, which she passed on to her children.
Burns was strongly influenced by his mother's maid Betty Davidson who had a natural gift for story-telling.
Robert was a heavy silent lad, proud of his ploughing. It was undoubtedly at Alloway that he developed a strong feeling for independence, a love of learning and a sense of justice.
Burns' education was, however, dearly bought. It was acquired after hard days of work on the farm. In youth and young manhood, in his daily toil and his studies, Burns worked far beyond his physical capacities. The result was a strained heart, one of the major causes which hastened his early death. It was suggested that the rheumatic complaint of the poet was due also to the dampness of the cottage floor and water-worn walls.
The poet sought a larger audience almost by accident. The head of the family after his father's death (worn out by overwork), he got deeper and deeper into trouble, until at last, in despair, he thought of emigrating to Jamaica, though he was penniless. But before leaving his native country forever he wished to give it something to remember him by.
So, in 1786, he persuaded a printer in the Ayrshire town of Kilmarnock to publish a volume of poems "Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect". To his surprise the whole impression of 600 copies was an immediate success. The volume was greeted enthusiastically. Burns was invited to his country's capital. He conquered the Edinburgh society by his wit and personality as much as by his verses. when he arrived in Edinburgh (1786) at the age of twenty-seven he was a well-educated man.
Now nothing more was heard of his plan to emigrate. Yet his troubles were far from over. In Edinburgh he was often advised to write in standard English on noble themes; there were attempts to patronise him. But he refused. A man of weaker character would have given to this pressure and turned into a weakly imitative sentimental English poet. That is what the Edinburgh critics and professors wanted him to be. But Burns wanted to write his own kind of poetry.
While in Edinburgh, Burns met James Johnson, an enthusiast for Scottish songs who was engaged in bringing out a series of volumes of Scottish songs with music entitled The Scots Musical Museum (1787). He asked for Burns' aid, which the poet gave with such open-hearted enthusiasm that he took over the editorship of the volumes and in doing so re-created the Scottish folk song. Burns discovered long lost songs, patched and mended others, wrote new verses for old choruses, reworked old fragments into new songs to existing tunes.
Another publisher of Scottish songs, George Thomson, also enlisted Burns' help and provided further stimulus to the poet's great work in this field. Burns strongly believed that folk songs are the true classics of the people as their appeal is direct and lasting.
He regarded his work as a patriotic duty and refused to accept money for it, though he was constantly in great need.
Soon Burns went back to farming, and his own kind of poetry. Eventually, after repeated efforts, he obtained a position of an excise officer2 and moved to Dumfries in 1791. He died there on July 21st, 1796, as a result of rheumatic heart disease which had repeatedly attacked him.
All his life the poet worked hard to earn his modest income. He was oppressed by the insecurity of his position. He had neither that peace of mind nor freedom from economic worry that would have enabled him to concentrate on his literary work.
That he achieved so much under conditions of extreme physical and nervous strain is the real miracle of Burns.
Every year many people come from all over the world to pay homage to Burns at his clay cottage in Alloway. The house where the poet was born is now restored. The poet's body rests in a Mausoleum, in Dumfries, the town where he died.
Burns' poetry has won international acknowledgement. The poet actually became the symbol of friendship. His verses and songs especially Auld Lang Syne are widely read and sung the world over.
burns' poetry
It has been claimed that Burns created the Scottish song, but it would be more true to say that the Scottish song helped Burns to become a poet of the people.
Burns' songs are memorable through extraordinary truthfulness and passion. The poet's song Oh, My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose is one of the most loved lyrical songs.
oh! my love is like a red, red rose
Oh! my love is like a red, red rose That's newly sprung in June; Oh! my love is like the melodie, That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in love am I; And I will love thee still, my dear, Till all the seas gang dry.
Till all the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt with the sun; And I will love thee still, my dear, While the sands of life shall run.
But fare-thee-well, my only love! And fare-thee-well, a while! And I will come again, my love, Though it were ten thousand mile!
любовь
Любовь, как роза, роза красная, Цветет в моем саду. Любовь моя - как песенка, С которой в путь иду.
Сильнее красоты твоей Моя любовь одна. Она с тобой, пока моря Не высохнут до дна.
Не высохнут моря, мой друг, Не рушится гранит, Не остановится песок. А он, как жизнь, бежит ...
Будь счастлива, моя любовь, Прощай и не грусти. Вернусь к тебе, хоть целый свет Пришлось бы мне пройти!
The recognized song of brotherhood the world over is Auld Lang Syne known among the English-speaking nations as a parting song (1788). In one of his later letters Burns characterized it as "an old song of the olden times and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript, until I took it down from an old man's singing."
auld lang syne
Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne?
Chorus:
For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne,
старая дружба
Забыть ли старую любовь И не грустить о ней? Забыть ли старую любовь И дружбу прежних дней?
За дружбу старую -До дна!
За счастье прежних дней!
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, For auld lang syne.
С тобой мы выпьем, старина, За счастье прежних дней.
We twa have paddled in the burn, From morning sun till dine; But seas between us broad have roared Since auld lang syne.
And there's a hand, my trusty friend! And gie's a hand of thine! We'll take a right good willy waught, For auld lang syne.
Переплывали мы не раз С тобой через ручей. Но море разделило нас, Товарищ юных дней.
И вот с тобой сошлись мы вновь. Твоя рука - в моей. Я пью за старую любовь, За дружбу прежних дней.
Throughout Scotland and the English speaking world at large, Burns' Grace at Dinner (a short verbal expression of thanks delivered before or after a meal) is very popular and is most remarkably translated into the Russian language by Samuel Marshak. These lines could be produced only by a poet who is deeply concerned with the life of the poor.
grace, at dinner
Some have meat, and cannot eat, And some have none but want it. But we have meat, so let us eat, And let us all be thankful.
заздравный тост
У которых есть, что есть, -
те
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