'O Douglas, Douglas!
Tender and true !'
The Buke of the Howlat, often referred to simply as The
Howlat, is a humorous 15th century Scots poem by Richard Holland. The
Howlat was composed in the late 1440s for Elizabeth Douglas, wife of
Archibald Douglas, earl of Moray.
It is one of the great monuments of fifteenth-century Scots verse,
perhaps the finest example of Older Scots alliterative poetry
The poem is a comic allegory in which all the characters are birds with
human attributes, with a howlat, or owl, the protagonist. The symbolism
is debatable but two of its purposes are clear; it serves as a moral
fable warning against vanity and excessive pride, and it is also a piece
of propaganda praising the Douglas dynasty of Scots nobles.
The Buke of the Howlat is a 1,003 line poem written in early Scots in
the fifteenth century by Richard Holland. Holland, who was priest and
canon of Kirkwell in 1457, can be found in catalogues of the great dead
poets of Scotland.
The oldest extant alliterative poem in Scots, The Buke of the Howlat is
written in thirteen-line stanzas that are a distinctive feature of Scots
tradition, known as ‘rouncefallis’ by King James VI. The poem is
evocative of Chaucer’s Parlement of Foules in presenting a hierarchy of
birds within a governmental metaphor. Within the poem, which is a comic
allegory, an owl who feels deformed with ugliness appeals to the Pope (a
peacock) to help improve his appearance. The Pope calls a council made
up of bishops and ecclesiastical dignitaries, the Emperor (an eagle) and
other representatives. After a banquet is held with a series of
entertainers, including a musical mavis and merle; a juggling jay; a
rook reciting a rhapsody on the genealogy of Irish Kings in mock Gaelic;
and two mocking fools (a tuchet and a golk), the owl’s request is
finally granted. The owl’s new plumage is made up of feathers from each
of the present birds, but when the owl becomes arrogant, the birds pray
that he is changed back by Nature. Consequently, the owl reflects
sorrowfully on his pride and vanity. Despite this central focus on the
owl, one should note that this bird is not the ‘unique target
of the poem’s satire; the other birds are ‘just as
silly’ as the owl in their intention to amend Nature’s creation (p. 32).
The moral ‘is not concerned with social climbing and its
ill effects’ but instead that ‘human pride rests on precisely colores,
engagement with the merely decorative’. Human beings are just like the
owl, in pursuing impermanent objects rather than eternal truths, and
‘thus are not spiritually proper’.
The poem also includes an interlude, which tells of the career of
Sir
James Douglas. Holland plays upon the Douglases’ connection to
generative nature, thus linking this eminent
family to the theme of nature which appears throughout the text
(embodied by the allegorical character Nature). This is the ‘heart’ of the entire poem, since it concerns James’ service,
carrying the heart of Robert Bruce to Palestine, an action through which
‘he expresses his own heart, faithful to the death’. |
