The Twins by Robert Browning
In a fable attributed to Luther, an abbot tells a beggar that the abbey cannot give alms because it no longer receives gifts. The beggar invokes the allegorical twins Date and Dabitur to explain that giving must recover before receiving can flourish again. The abbot hangs his head, and Luther suggests that the beggar might have been an angel.
By Robert Browning · Genre: Allegorical Poetry, Fable, Didactic Poetry · 255 words
First lines
"Give" and "It-shall-be-given-unto-you"
Grand rough old Martin Luther / Bloomed fables -- flowers on furze, / The better the uncouther: / Do roses stick like burrs?
A beggar asked an alms / One day at an abbey-door, / Said Luther; but, seized with qualms, / The Abbot replied, "We 're poor!
"Poor, who had plenty once, / When gifts fell thick as rain: / But they give us naught, for the nonce, / And how should we give again?"
Genres
- Allegorical Poetry — The rhymed stanzas present giving and receiving as twins whose fortunes depend on each other.
- Fable — A beggar's encounter with an abbot becomes a brief moral tale about the relationship between giving and receiving.
- Didactic Poetry — The beggar instructs the abbot to restore generosity and warns him against returning to his former refusal to give.
Tags
charity · almsgiving · reciprocity · abbeys · allegory
What this Textopian page supports
The Twins is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Browning, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Robert Browning
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Allegorical Poetry, Fable, Didactic Poetry
- Length: 255 words
- Structure: 1 section, 8 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Easy (6th Grade)
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