The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian is a work of Northern Renaissance literature composed in Middle Scots by the fifteenth century Scottish makar, Robert Henryson. It is a cycle of thirteen connected narrative poems based on fables from the European tradition. The drama of the cycle exploits a set of complex moral dilemmas through the figure of animals representing a full range of human psychology. As the work progresses, the stories and situations become increasingly dark.
The overall structure of the Morall Fabillis is symmetrical, with seven stories modelled on fables from Aesop (from the elegiac Romulus manuscripts, medieval Europe's standard fable text, written in Latin), interspersed by six others in two groups of three drawn from the more profane beast epic tradition. All the expansions are rich, wry and highly developed. The central poem of the cycle takes the form of a dream vision in which the narrator meets Aesop in person. Aesop tells the fable The Lion and the Mouse within the dream, and the structure of the poem is contrived so that this fable occupies the precise central position of the work.
Five of the six poems in the two 'beast epic' sections of the cycle feature the Reynardian trickster figure of the fox. Henryson styles the fox – in Scots the tod – as Lowrence. The two 'beast epic' sections of the poem (one in each half) also explore a developing relationship between Lowrence and the figure of the wolf. The wolf features in a number of different guises, including that of a Friar, and similarly appears in five out of the six stories. The wolf then makes a sixth and final appearance towards the end, stepping out of the 'beast epic' section to intrude most brutally in the penultimate poem of the 'Aesopic' sections.
The subtle and ambiguous way in which Henryson adapted and juxtaposed material from a diversity of sources in the tradition and exploited anthropomorphic conventions to blend human characteristics with animal observation both worked within, and pushed the bounds of, standard practice in the common medieval art of fable re-telling. Henryson fully exploited the fluid aspects of the tradition to produce an unusually sophisticated moral narrative, unique of its kind, making high art of an otherwise conventional genre.A general analysis of the literature in its historical context can be found in Edward Wheatley, Mastering Aesop: Medieval Education, Chaucer, and his Followers, University Press of Florida, 2000. He argues that license to interpret and adapt fable texts was generally accepted practice for medieval writers and readers, and that strict adherence to those sources was not necessarily expected.
Internal evidence might suggest that the work was composed in or around the 1480s.
The poem in context
Fable stories were a common trope in medieval and renaissance literature.See Symbolic Literature of the Renaissance for a short, general introduction. They were told with the didactic intent of drawing moral lessons which could be either secular or spiritual. Many different versions of the stories were created but writers frequently followed understood conventions. One such convention was the inclusion of the didactic moral lesson in a moralitas (plural moralitates) inserted after the fable. Henryson follows and develops this convention.
By today's standards most surviving fable literature is gey dreich, partly because fable writing was a common classroom exercise. Students might be asked to learn fable plots to retell them in contracted or expanded form – modo brevitur and modo latius respectivelyEdward Wheatley "Scholastic Commentary and Robert Henryson's Morall Fabillis: The Aesopic Fables" Studies in Philology 91, University of North Carolina Press, 1994. pp.70–99 – then give moral conclusions that could be judged or debated either on secular grounds (ethics, character, etc.) or by following more "spiritual" scholastic principles to do with homily and allegory. In this light, the Morall Fabillis can be viewed technically as a work of maximal modo latius.
Readers who were familiar with the genre may have found the tone, range and complexity of Henryson's attractive, variegated and interlinked fable elaboration unexpected, but the method was not without precedent. A similar "trick" with the genre is found in Chaucer's Nun's Priest's Tale, which is retold by Henryson as Fabill 3 in his sequence and is one of the poem's most directly identifiable sources. However, Henryson's sustained blending and blurring of the secular and the spiritual strands of the genre goes much further than Chaucer's largely secular example.
Numbers and structure
The strong likelihood that Henryson employed Christian numerology in composing his works has been increasingly discussed in recent years.[MacQueen] Use of number for compositional control was common in medieval poetics and could be intended to have religious symbolism, and features in the accepted text of the Morall Fabilliis indicate that this was elaborately applied in that poem.
The table below outlines the stanza count for each of the thirteen Fabillis in order. All thirteen of the fabillis has a taill (tale) and a moralitas. Four of the fabillis also have a prolog. The number of stanzas in each of these structural sections, as they apply, is shown in the table.
In addition, six of the fabillis in the cycle are tales based on Reynardian beast epic sources. These are denoted by the lighter colour. It can be noted that the distribution of these (in two groups of three embedded within the seven fabillis from Aesop) is symmetrical, and that the distribution of the prologs – some apparently introductory material embedded in the centre of the poem – may begin to make better sense when these larger structures are taken into account.
Stanza counts in Henryson's Morall Fabillis
Prolog Taill Moralitas Totals Fabill 1 9 9 5 23 Fabill 2 – 29 4 33 Fabill 3 2 25 4 31 Fabill 4 – 23 3 26 Fabill 5 – 43 7 50 Fabill 6 – 16 9 25 Fabill 7 12 24 7 43 Fabill 8 13 25 9 47 Fabill 9 – 36 4 40 Fabill 10 – 28 4 32 Fabill 11 – 19 4 23 Fabill 12 – 13 10 23 Fabill 13 – 19 9 28
Many commentators observe the central position of the taill in Fabill 7. The precision of this placing in terms of stanza count overall, however, is particularly notable. The Morall Fabillis consists of 424 stanzas overall, and the distribution of stanzas on either side of the central taill for fabill seven (the only one in the narrative of the cycle to be told directly by Aesop himself) is symmetrical, thus:
First half of the cycle: 200 stanzas Central taill: 24 stanzas Second half of the cycle: 200 stanzas
In the architecture of the poem the precise structural centre of the accepted text is the central taill: 200 + 24 + 200
The seven ballade stanzas
In addition, 4 stanzas near the beginning of the first half (#53-#56) and 3 stanzas towards the end of the second half (#417-#419) are composed in the eight-line ballade form, instead of the seven-line rhyme royal in which the rest of the cycle is written (without further exception). This means, in effect, the poem has an "extra" seven lines (or the equivalent of one more "hidden" rhyme royal stanza) distributed across its two-halves – 4 lines in the first, 3 lines in the second. The line count for the three principal divisions of the structure therefore comes out as: First half: 1404 Central taill: 168 Second half: 1403 Making a total of 2795 lines.
Question of symmetry
Various literary scholars have noted the apparent symmetry in the architecture, citing it as evidence of an organising principle Henryson employed to "lock" the structure of the poem, aesthetically beautiful in its own right and holding important clues for interpreting his larger meaning or purpose.For instance, George D. Gopen, Ed. The Moral Fables of Aesop. University of Notre Dame Press. 1987. He identifies and discusses three different "conscious arrangements" all of which "point to tales #6-#8 as forming the core of the work". Introduction, pp.17–24. Others have preferred to defend individual readings of various fabillis viewed as self-sufficient entities which they argue question the coherence or completeness of that scheme. Finally John MacQueen cites fragmentation in surviving textual witnesses for the poem before 1570 as grounds for caution in asserting with certainty that the overall structure represents Henryson's intention.John MacQueen. Complete and Full with Numbers. Rodopi, Amsterdam. 2006. He discusses textual evidence for the ordering in Appendix B. His book mainly focusses on numerological structures in the individual fabillis. Nevertheless, the above outline describes the structure as received from the 16th century prints and manuscripts which give what the literary scholar Matthew McDiarmid calls the "accepted text".Matthew P McDiarmid: Robert Henryson. Scottish Academic Press, Edinburgh; 1981. p.64.
Place of Aesop in the fable sequence
The figure of Aesop is consistently cited throughout the poem as "my author" (my authority) by the narrator in those stories which are directly based on Aesopian sources. This usually occurs in the opening lines. However, one particularly distinctive feature of the poem is an appearance in person by Aesop himself. This occurs at the heart of the cycle within the prolog to Fabill 7. This presents the master fabulist meeting and conversing with the narrator (Henryson) in a dream vision. Aesop is also portrayed here as (by request of the narrator) directly telling the seventh fabill (The Taill of the Lyoun and the Mous) within this dream vision.
In contrast to more traditional portraits of Aesop as hunchbacked, this dream-vision version presents him as able-bodied. He is first met emerging "sturdily" from out of a schaw and immediately described as one of the "fairest" men the narrator has "ever" seen. A two-stanza portrait gives a detailed description of his appearance:
His gowne wes of ane claith als quhyte as milk, His chymmeris wes of chambelate purpour broun, His hude of scarlet, bordowrit weill with silk, On heikillit wyis until his girdill doun, His bonat round and of the auld fassoun, His beird wes quhyte, his ene wes grit and gray, With lokker hair quhilk over his schulderis lay.
Ane roll of paper in his hand he bair, Ane swannis pen stikand under his eir, Ane inkhorne with ane prettie gilt pennair, Ane bag of silk, all at his belt can beir: Thus wes he gudelie graithit in his geir, Of stature large and with ane feirfull face. Even quhair I lay he come ane sturdie pace,
And said, 'God speid, my sone...
(Robert Henryson, Morall Fabillis, lines 1347–1363)
Other Henrysonian variations from the traditional portrait include identifying Aesop as Roman rather than Greek, and as Christianised rather than pagan. It seems unlikely that these "innovations" were not consciously decided, although critics do not agree on how they are to be best interpreted.
There is no evidence that the portrait stood for Henryson himself, although the suggestion has sometimes been made. Henryson and Aesop remain quite distinct in the dialogue of the prologue. Moreover, Fabill 8 goes on to repeat the prologue device of Fabill 7, only this time to show the narrator himself (Henryson) telling the fable – one which has some less ideal and more "realistic" parallels – awake and in real time.
Question of purpose Henryson's contribution to the fable tradition is such a uniquely developed, subtly crafted and ambiguous example of a commonplace genre that it presents questions as to the poet's ultimate purpose in composition.
The Thirteen Fabillis
The parts in this section give brief descriptions of each poem in the Morall Fabillis. You can also click the heading links to read separate main pages with fuller articles for each individual fabill.
Prolog and Fabill 1