Fw: The Best Laid Schemes o' Mice an' Men

Zoonie
Sun 21 Apr 2019 07:49

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men

Gang aft agley

(Robbie Burns)

‘Gang aft agley’, go often awry, how true a statement as we well know having spent almost two more unplanned years in New Zealand. Robbie Burns wrote his poem ‘To a Mouse, on turning her up in her nest, with the plough’ in November 1785 shortly after disturbing the mouse while ploughing a field on his farm. Such seemingly trivial incidents led his creative mind to write poems that explored the world he lived in and the frailties and weaknesses of the human state.

They are also reflections of himself, his incurably romantic mind that ignored the bonds of marriage, although Jean Armour whom he married in 1788 was the love of his entire adult life, he had other lovers and through her empathy with him she accepted these. His expansive heart and wayward behaviour must have sorely vexed her though.

In the painting he is looking down at the mouse which you can see running away from him under the plough. So highly thought of at the time and since were his works that skilled artists took up the beautiful stories in other forms of art and literature. The wood carving you can see of Meg carrying her inebriated Tom over the Brig o Doon (bridge over the River Doon at Alloway, his birthplace) is the last of a series of four depicting scenes from his epic poem ‘Tam o Shanter’ and John Steinbeck used the theme from ‘A Mouse’ in his book ‘Of Mice and Men’. If you are into humanistic poetry I recommend Tam o Shanter which can be seen in its original and anglicised form at www.robertburns.org.uk under The Alexandria Burns Club.

The story of the poem is simple and yet carries a message. Tom and his old friend Souter (cobbler) John go to market and after making their sales take themselves and their takings to the pub where they drink for more than a day and night. Tom becomes overly friendly with the landlady and eventually races away home. As he approaches the ruined kirk (the church was a ruin in Robbie’s time and his father is buried there) he hears and sees the witches and warlocks dancing within and is drawn to them. There is among them a comely wench called Nannie who was renowned locally for her strength and beauty and happens to be wearing a paisley underskirt (Cutty Sark) which is too small for her having grown some since her grandmother gave it to her years before.

As you can imagine Tom is soon aroused and after he has had his way with Nannie is back on his other mount. Meg races towards the centre of the Bridge but Nannie is having none of it and she grabs poor Meg’s tail. A tug of war entails (!) and neither wins because Meg rides away without her tail and Nannie is left with nothing but a limp handful of grey hairs.

Moral of the story is if men imbibe and play away they might be found ‘deep drown’d or catch’d wi’ warlocks’. Such reckless pleasures are shortlived ‘like snow fall on the river, a moment white – then melts forever’.

The Burns museum is a state of the art recent creation full with interesting facts and artefacts about the bard. The exquisite marble statue of Robbie with his lover Highland Mary, his finely knitted sock and a tiny miniature of him with his brother to name just a few. I was amazed to learn that he most likely died from the same heart disease that caused my Robbie’s illness in 2017, endocarditis and he suffered from depression, writing some of his finest and darkest works in the winter months, a possible indication of the condition known as SAD, caused by the lack of sunshine in the winter.

After absorbing the delights of the museum it was time for lunch before going on to his birthplace where he spent the first seven years of his life.

Brig o’ Doon House has been built right next to the Doon River and just a few metres from the famous bridge. It is warmly Scottish with attractive tartan carpets and my Cullen Skink Chowder of smoked haddock, leeks and potatoes was delicious. Charly and Tom ordered a cream tea with Cornish clotted cream and chips and discovered that a chubby chip smothered with cream and jam is a delight worth inbibing.

The rain had eased by the time we walked through the old village of Alloway to Robbie’s birth home, a four roomed (two for the animals) cob cottage with a nice big garden for growing food and flowers. It has been carefully restored and cared for but their plea for donations to prevent it from falling in to disrepair did not somehow fit with the vast numbers of visitors who enjoy visiting throughout the year and paying the entrance fee.

It wasn’t hard to imagine Robbie and his siblings wriggling about on the chairs as they learned the basics of reading and writing and sitting together on a Saturday evening in the warm and cosy parlour as their father read from the bible, but what is truly extraordinary is that a mind like Robbie’s should grow and rise above all others and his delightful literary creations should travel to the corners of the earth where they are still enjoyed and revered. That’s what I love about culture, how the human creative mind reinterprets reality into the many forms of art. For his social commentary of the times he lived in he was on a par with Dickens.

The next morning dawned with weather in complete contrast to that of our arrival and we were able to venture down the road that was closed due to flooding before. A long, windy glen road driving towards the rising sun with quintessentially Scottish lowland vistas unfolding along each side of us was pure magic. I just had to stop and take a few photos to show you. We will be back, Scotland and maybe in Zoonie, who knows.

 

 

 
Sent: Saturday, April 20, 2019 10:34 AM
Subject: The Best Laid Schemes o' Mice an' Men
 
 

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