The Twa Dogs by Robert Burns (1786)

Name: The Twa Dogs
Author: Robert Burns

On a bonie June afternoon in the part of Scotland’s isle named for auld King Coil, two dogs meet: Caesar, a high-bred foreign dog kept for His Honor’s pleasure, and Luath, a ploughman’s faithful, lively collie. Though Caesar wears a fine brass collar marking his rank, he is free of pride and friendly with every dog. Luath is handsome, well liked, and devoted to his master. After sniffing together, digging for mice and moudieworts, roaming, and playing, they rest upon a knowe and begin to discuss the lives of “the lords o’ the creation.” Caesar describes the comfort and excess of his laird’s household. The laird gathers rents, coals, kane, and other dues; commands servants, coach, and horse; and possesses a purse full of money. From morning to evening, the household labours over rich food, while even the lowly whipper-in eats better than any tenant-man on the land. Caesar cannot comprehend what cottar folk can live on. Luath explains that a cottar works hard at ditching, dyke-building, quarrying, and similar tasks, sustaining a wife and many poorly clad children with little but his own labour. Sickness or lack of masters may bring such people near starvation, yet they are usually remarkably content, and worthy men and women are raised among them. Caesar protests that poor people are slighted and abused: tenants short of cash must endure a factor’s threats, curses, and demands that their goods be seized. Seeing the rich at ease and the poor humiliated, Caesar assumes poverty must make people wretched. Luath replies that those accustomed to poortith are less frightened by it than others imagine. Chance and fortune usually provide them with something, rest is sweet after close employment, and their greatest comforts are faithful wives and cheerful children. A little nappy can make them happy enough to lay aside their private troubles and debate Kirk and State affairs, patronage, priests, coming taxation, and distant news. At Hallowmass, people of every rural station share jovial recreation, with love, wit, and mirth making care seem forgotten. Luath recalls drink, pipes, snuff, old folk talking, and young people reveling. Yet Luath agrees that many decent families are destroyed by the proud greed of men seeking favour with a gentle master, perhaps one busy in parliament and claiming to labour for Britain’s good. Caesar mocks this claim. Such men, he says, follow Premiers’ directions, attend operas and plays, mortgage and gamble away property, masquerade, and travel in search of fashionable display, drink, sexual adventure, and diversion. Their conduct brings Britain destruction through dissipation, feud, and faction. Luath is shocked that estates may be wasted this way and wishes great people would stay away from courts and enjoy country sports, for the benefit of laird, tenant, and cotter alike. He believes country gentlemen are generally not ill-hearted toward poor people, apart from their faults and amusements, and asks whether great folk at least live in pleasure, safe from hunger and cold. Caesar answers that Luath would not envy them if he knew them. They need not starve, sweat, or endure hard work, but, lacking real troubles, they invent enough vexations for themselves. The less they have to suffer, the more small discomforts distress them. A country worker is content when an acre is tilled, and a country girl when her task is done; gentlemen, and ladies especially, are cursed by idleness. Their days are dull, their nights restless, and even balls, races, and public display are so artificial that joy scarcely reaches the heart. Men make party-matches before plunging into drink and whoring. Ladies act like affectionate sisters in company but malign one another in private, trade in scandal, pore over wicked picture-books, gamble away a farmer’s stackyard, and cheat shamelessly. Caesar allows that there are exceptions, but calls this the common life of the gentry. As night comes on, the dogs hear the bum-clock’s drone and the kye rowting in the loan. They rise, rejoice that they are dogs rather than men, and take separate ways, resolved to meet again.

By Robert Burns · First published 1786 · Genre: Satirical Poetry, Narrative Poetry, Social Commentary · 2,851 words

First lines

Luath was Burns' own dog.

A Tale

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Genres

Satirical Poetry — The poem uses witty, critical satire to expose the inequities of class society, landlordism, political corruption, fashionable vice, and aristocratic idleness.
Narrative Poetry — It is structured as a verse tale: two dogs meet in rural Scotland and carry the action through an extended conversation before departing at nightfall.
Social Commentary — Through Caesar and Luath's contrasting observations, Burns examines poverty, labor, tenant insecurity, wealth, leisure, family life, and the relationship between social classes.
Pastoral Poetry — Its setting and imagery center on the Scottish countryside, including ploughmen, cottages, farms, harvest festivities, animals, rural labor, and communal recreation.

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The Twa Dogs is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Burns, dated 1786 CE.

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Work type: Poem
Author: Robert Burns
Date: 1786 CE
Language: English
Genres: Satirical Poetry, Narrative Poetry, Social Commentary, Pastoral Poetry, Animal Allegory
Length: 2,851 words
Structure: 1 section, 46 paragraphs
Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)

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