Death and Doctor Hornbook by Robert Burns
In “Death and Doctor Hornbook,” a narrator, made cheerful by clachan yill but still wary of ditches and ghosts, travels by moonlight near Willie's mill and encounters a gaunt figure carrying a scythe and a three-taed leister. The figure identifies himself as Death. After the narrator briefly threatens him with a gully, the two make peace, sit down, and exchange news. Death complains that, though he has long earned his bread by cutting lives short, Doctor Hornbook has become a more destructive force than Death’s own weapons. Hornbook, familiar with Buchan and other medical authorities, is so confident and conspicuous that children laugh and point at Death. Death says that his scythe and dart have become useless beside Hornbook’s art: a blow that should have killed a man merely struck bone, because Hornbook had fortified the injured part, and Death’s furious attack on the apothecary himself was as ineffective as striking hard whin rock. Hornbook is said to diagnose both disease and cure merely by smelling a kail-blade sent by people he has never seen. He owns an imposing collection of doctors’ tools, boxes, mugs, bottles, and substances with grand Latin names, including absurd and uncommon ingredients. The narrator worries that Johnie Ged’s Hole, a graveyard, will be ploughed up for lack of burials. Death answers with an eerie laugh that kirkyards will soon be full enough, since Hornbook’s drops and pills kill far more people than Death does. To prove it, Death recounts several victims. A wabster’s wife receives a small remedy for a sore head, goes quietly to bed, and never speaks again. A country laird suffering from batts or a disturbance in his guts sends for Hornbook; after paying well, the laird dies and his son becomes laird in exchange for two gimmer-pets. A bonie lass whose wame has been swollen by ill-brewn drink entrusts herself to Hornbook, who sends her to her “lang hame” to conceal the shame. Death denounces Hornbook as a paid poisoner who deprives him of his lawful prey, then promises a secret plot to kill the self-conceited doctor. Before he can reveal it, the old kirk-hammer strikes the bell shortly after twelve. The narrator and Death rise and each goes his own way.
By Robert Burns · First published 1786 · Genre: Satirical Narrative Poetry, Mock-Heroic Poetry, Scottish Dialect Poetry · 2,065 words
First lines
A True Story
Some books are lies frae end to end, / And some great lies were never penn'd: / Ev'n ministers they hae been kenn'd, / In holy rapture, / A rousing whid at times to vend, / And nail't wi' Scripture.
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Genres
- Satirical Narrative Poetry — The poem uses a comic first-person encounter with Death to ridicule the incompetent village practitioner Doctor Hornbook and expose the lethal absurdity of his supposed medical expertise.
- Mock-Heroic Poetry — Burns treats a local medical quack and ordinary rural illnesses with grand language, supernatural machinery, and exaggerated conflict, creating humorous disproportion between subject and style.
- Scottish Dialect Poetry — Written predominantly in Scots vernacular, the poem draws its humor, voice, setting, and social observation from eighteenth-century rural Scottish speech and culture.
- Comic Poetry — Its drunken narrator, conversational exchanges, grotesque exaggerations, bizarre remedies, and Death's frustrated complaints create a consistently comic tone.
Tags
Scottish vernacular poetry · narrative poem · satirical verse · eighteenth-century Scotland · rural Ayrshire · nighttime encounter · personification of Death · Death with a scythe · moonlit countryside · village alehouse · graveyards and burial · medical satire
What this Textopian page supports
Death and Doctor Hornbook is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Burns, dated 1786 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Robert Burns
- Date: 1786 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Satirical Narrative Poetry, Mock-Heroic Poetry, Scottish Dialect Poetry, Comic Poetry, Social Satire
- Length: 2,065 words
- Structure: 1 section, 37 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)
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