To A Mouse | |
---|---|
by Robert Burns | |
Country | Scotland |
Language | Scots |
Rhyme scheme | AAABAB |
Publication date | November, 1785 |
"To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest With the Plough, November, 1785" [1] [2] is a Scots-language poem written by Robert Burns in 1785. It was included in the Kilmarnock Edition [3] and all of the poet's later editions, such as the Edinburgh Edition. According to legend, Burns was ploughing in the fields at his Mossgiel Farm and accidentally destroyed a mouse's nest, which it needed to survive the winter. Burns's brother, Gilbert, claimed that the poet composed the poem while still holding his plough. [4]
The original Scots | English translation |
---|---|
Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, | Little, sleek, cowering, timorous beast, |
The poem is comprised of eight stanzas in Burns stanza form, so called because he used it frequently. Each stanza is six lines in length and rhymes AAABAB, with iambic tetrameter A lines and iambic dimeter B lines, both with frequent hypercatalexis (an additional final unstressed syllable). Rhymes include masculine rhyme, feminine rhyme, and near rhyme. [6]
John Steinbeck took the title of his 1937 novel Of Mice and Men from a line contained in the penultimate stanza. The 1997 novel The Best Laid Plans by Sidney Sheldon also draws its title from this line, and so do the novel of the same name by Canadian author Terry Fallis and the film series based on it.
The first stanza of the poem is read by Ian Anderson in the beginning of the 2007 remaster of "One Brown Mouse" by Jethro Tull. Anderson adds the line "But a mouse is a mouse, for all that" at the end of the stanza, which is a reference to another of Burns's songs, "Is There for Honest Poverty", commonly known as "A Man's a Man for A' That".
Sharon Olds's poem "Sleekit Cowrin'" also references this poem.
In Douglas Adams's Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, mice are hyperintelligent pan-dimensional beings who are trying to find the Question to the Ultimate Answer of Life, the Universe, and Everything. When their plans fail they lament that "the best laid plans of mice" don't always work out.
The Monty Python sketch 'Word Association' references the first line of the poem, and replaces the simple word "We" with "Wee sleekit cowerin' timorous beastie". [7]
In book 2, chapters 9, 11, and 13 of The Once and Future King by T. H. White, several allusions to the poem are made. The most notable is on p. 291, where a drawbridge man says to the fleeing Sirs Grummore and Palomides, [8] "Wee sleekit, cow'ring timorous Beastie... Oh, what panic's in thy breastie!"
The first line of the poem is frequently used by P. G. Wodehouse in his Jeeves stories and novels. Typically, a woman who has broken off her engagement uses it to describe her former lover, who has been ejected due to his cowardice. An example from The Cat-Nappers, Chapter 16 [9] (Orlo Porter speaking): "Potty little lovers' quarrel my left eyeball. She called me a lily-livered poltroon. And a sleekit timorous cowering beastie."
The poem was alluded to in Ben Rector's song Living My Best Life.
A quatrain is a type of stanza, or a complete poem, consisting of four lines.
The Spenserian stanza is a fixed verse form invented by Edmund Spenser for his epic poem The Faerie Queene (1590–96). Each stanza contains nine lines in total: eight lines in iambic pentameter followed by a single 'alexandrine' line in iambic hexameter. The rhyme scheme of these lines is ABABBCBCC.
Rhyme royal is a rhyming stanza form that was introduced to English poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer. The form enjoyed significant success in the fifteenth century and into the sixteenth century. It has had a more subdued but continuing influence on English verse in more recent centuries.
A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other.
"The Road Not Taken" is a narrative poem by Robert Frost, first published in the August 1915 issue of the Atlantic Monthly, and later published as the first poem in the 1916 poetry collection, Mountain Interval. Its central theme is the divergence of paths, both literally and figuratively, although its interpretation is noted for being complex and potentially divergent.
Tail rhyme is a family of stanzaic verse forms used in poetry in French and especially English during and since the Middle Ages, and probably derived from models in medieval Latin versification.
"Address to the Devil" is a poem by Scottish poet Robert Burns. It was written in Mossgiel in 1785 and published in the Kilmarnock volume in 1786. The poem was written as a humorous portrayal of the Devil and the pulpit oratory of the Presbyterian Church.
Aunts Aren't Gentlemen is a comic novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom in October 1974 by Barrie & Jenkins, London, and in the United States under the title The Cat-nappers on 14 April 1975 by Simon & Schuster, New York. It was the last novel to feature some of Wodehouse's best known characters, Bertie Wooster and his resourceful valet Jeeves, and the last novel fully completed by Wodehouse before his death.
"To a Mountain Daisy", On Turning one Down, With The Plough, in April 1786 is a Scots poem written by Robert Burns in 1786. It was included in the Kilmarnock volume of Burns's poems, published in that year.
This is a glossary of poetry terms.
"A Prayer for My Daughter" is a poem by William Butler Yeats written in 1919 and published in 1921 as part of Yeats' collection Michael Robartes and the Dancer. It is written to Anne, his daughter with Georgie Hyde-Lees, whom Yeats married after his last marriage proposal to Maud Gonne was rejected in 1916. Yeats composed the poem while staying in a tower at Thoor Ballylee during the Anglo-Irish War, two days after Anne's birth on 26 February 1919. The poem reflects Yeats's complicated views on Irish Nationalism, sexuality, and is considered an important work of Modernist poetry.
The Burns stanza is a verse form named after the Scottish poet Robert Burns, who used it in some fifty poems. It was not, however, invented by Burns, and prior to his use of it was known as the standard Habbie, after the piper Habbie Simpson (1550–1620). It is also sometimes known as the Scottish stanza or six-line stave. It is found in Middle English in the Romance of Octovian (Octavian). It was also found in mediaeval Provençal poems and miracle plays from the Middle Ages.
Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, commonly known as the Kilmarnock Edition, is a collection of poetry by the Scottish poet Robert Burns, first printed and issued by John Wilson of Kilmarnock on 31 July 1786. It was the first published edition of Burns' work. In mid-April 1786, Burns sent out printed Proposals for what was then titled Scotch Poems asking for people to sign up as subscribers, printing began on June 13, and the first copies were ready for distribution by July 31. 612 copies were printed. The book cost three shillings, in a temporary paper binding that most purchasers soon had replaced. There is no formal dedication at the start of the book, but Burns includes a dedication poem to Gavin Hamilton at pp. 185-191, and "The Cotter's Saturday Night" is "inscribed to R.A. Esq.," i.e. Robert Aitken.
"The Taill of the Uponlandis Mous and the Burges Mous", also known as "The Twa Mice," is a Middle Scots adaptation of Aesop's Fable The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse by the Scottish poet Robert Henryson. Written around the 1480s, it is the second poem in Henryson's collection called The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian.
A sestain is a six-line poem or repetitive unit of a poem of this format (musaddas), comparable to quatrain which is a four-line poem or a unit of a poem. There are many types of sestain with different rhyme schemes, for example AABBCC, ABABCC, AABCCB or AAABAB. The sestain is probably next in popularity to the quatrain in European literature. Usually there are three rhymes in the six-line strophe, but sometimes there are only two.
On the Morning of Christ's Nativity is a nativity ode written by John Milton in 1629 and published in his Poems of Mr. John Milton (1645). The poem describes Christ's Incarnation and his overthrow of earthly and pagan powers. The poem also connects the Incarnation with Christ's Crucifixion.
Douglas Laing & Co is an independent bottler of Scotch whisky. Based in Glasgow, Scotland and established in 1948, the company has a number of brands including its "Remarkable Regional Malts" range, encompassing The Epicurean, Timorous Beastie, Scallywag, Rock Island and Big Peat, as well as Old Particular, Provenance and Xtra Old Particular, which they collectively call their "Exceptional Single Casks". The firm also creates and sells King of Scots Blended Scotch Whisky, Clan Denny Single Casks and Premier Barrel.
Handsome Nell was the first song written by Robert Burns, often treated as a poem, that was first published in the last volume of James Johnson's Scots Musical Museum in 1803 (No.551) with an untitled tune. Burns recorded in holograph on page three of his first Commonplace Book that he wrote the song or Rhyme at the age of only fifteen whilst living at Mount Oliphant Farm, it is regarded as his earliest production, inspired by a farm servant aged fourteen, named either Nelly Kilpatrick or Nelly Blair. Some confusion exists as he also gave his age as 16 in his autobiographical letter to Dr. Moore; the autumn of 1774 is generally accepted.
Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was the second "pirated" issue of Robert Burns's work, being published in Ireland at Belfast without permission from or payment to the author or publisher. It is a so-called Stinking Edition, carrying the error Stinking for the Scots word Skinking (watery) in the poem "To a Haggis" because the type setters copied from a 1787 Stinking Edition of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. It has been shown to be from the same print setting as the Belfast Edition but with a different title page.
Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect was a 'pirated' edition of Robert Burns's work, being published in Ireland without permission from or payment to the author or publisher. It is a so-called 'Stinking Edition', carrying the error 'Stinking' for the Scots word 'Skinking' (watery) in the poem "To a Haggis" because the type setters copied from a 1787 'Stinking Edition' of Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect .