in Orpheus’s complaint), and perhaps even his allegori-
cal audacity (as in his not unprecedented identifi cation
of the rapist with virtue). Very different from the ME
romance Sir Orfeo, Henryson’s poem is a learned, rhe-
torically sophis ticated allegory that is also a defense of
poetry. Like Boethius Henryson allows no explicitly
Christian reference in this deeply Christian work.
The Testament of Cresseid, 79 rime royal stanzas
plus Cresseid’s complaint in seven nine-line stanzas,
is Henryson’s acknowledged masterpiece. On a cold
night in Lent the poet reads Chaucer’s account of Cres-
seid before turning to another book about her wretched
end. Having become a prostitute after her rejection by
Diomede, Cresseid is then punished with leprosy by the
planetary gods for her blasphemy in blaming her mis-
fortune on Venus and Cupid. As she is begging one day
with other lepers, Cresseid encounters Troilus. Though
neither recognizes the other, Troilus gives her alms in
memory of his lost love. After learning the identity of
her benefactor Cresseid praises Troilus, blames only
herself for what hap pened, makes her fi nal testament,
and dies.
Although the Testament is strikingly original, it
obviously draws on Troilus and Criseyde, as well as
on other Chaucerian poems. The formal descriptions
of the planetary gods are based on traditional informa-
tion, though the specifi c infl uence of Chaucer, Lydgate,
Boccaccio, and the mythography of Pseudo-Albricus has
been claimed. The relationship of the Testament to the
somewhat similar story in the Spektakle of Luf (1492)
is unclear. The poem reveals a detailed knowledge of
medicine (in the account of Cresseid’s leprosy), law, and
me teorology. Henryson brilliantly adapts a number of
literary topoi to his own purposes, including a seasonal
opening, cita tion of a famous source, trial scene, com-
plaint, and testament.
In part because its tone and structure are so deliber-
ately different the Testament is the worthiest successor
to Troilus and Criseyde. Henryson not only understands
but is also able to reproduce such diverse Chaucerian
achievements as consistent but developing character-
ization, a believable pagan setting, deliberately obtuse
narration, and rime royal (in contrast to the metrical
ineptness of the English Chaucerians). Henryson is also
virtually alone with Chaucer in his sympathy for Cres-
seid. Although some modern critics judge the Testament
to be pessimistic or unforgiving, Henryson’s Cresseid,
for all her physical suffering, grows throughout the
poem until, though still a pagan, she fully accepts re-
sponsibility for her own actions. Because the Testament
was printed as the conclusion to Troilus beginning with
Thynne’s 1532 edition of Chaucer, most English Renais-
sance portraits of Cresseid (including Shakespeare’s)
depend as much on Henryson as on Chaucer.
Henryson’s most complex work is the Fables, which
con sists of a prologue and thirteen beast fables, each
with a narra tive followed by a moralitas, for a total of
2,975 lines, mostly in rime royal stanzas. Beast fables
in the Middle Ages were not only elementary school
texts but also an important literary genre. The source
for Henryson’s prologue and seven of the fables is the
popular 12th-century Latin Romulus collection now at-
tributed to Walter the Englishman. Henryson also drew
on Chaucer’s Nun’s Priest’s Tale for “The Cock and the
Fox” and, directly or indirectly, on Petrus Alfonsi for
“The Fox, the Wolf, and the Husbandman.” For some
of the other tales he may have used other Latin fable
collections, some version of the Roman de Renart,
Lydgate’s fables, Caxton’s Reynard and Aesop, and the
French Isopets, though specifi c borrowings are much
debated.
Older critics saw the Fables as examples of social
realism or rustic humor, but, without denying the po-
litical seriousness of these works or their insight into
Scottish life, critics have increasingly appreciated their
strictly literary achievement in recent years. The order
of the fables seems carefully designed, and the wit of
“The Cock and the Fox” at moments surpasses even
its Chaucerian model. The prologue is a sophisticated
discussion of the complex relationship between story
and lesson, which is then demonstrated in the fables
themselves. Henryson’s moralities are not dull or duti-
ful but have an intricate, often ironic, connection with
the preceding narratives and constantly challenge the
reader. The pessimism with which the natural world is
portrayed in the fables is less a questioning of divine
justice than a passionate statement of our need for God’s
mercy. Henryson the man remains a mysteri ous fi gure,
but his poetry, which is still too often treated as primarily
regional, is the most substantial work in English verse
between Chaucer and Spenser.
See also Boccaccio, Giovanni; Chaucer, Geoffrey;
Douglas, Gavin; Dunbar, William; Lydgate, JohnFurther ReadingPrimary Sources
Bawcutt, P., and Felicity Riddy, eds. Selected Poems of Henryson
and Dunbar. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1992.
Fox, Denton, ed. The Poems of Robert Henryson. Oxford: Clar-
endon, 1981.
Secondary Sources
New CBEL 1:658–60.
Manual 4:965–88, 1137–80.
Gray, Douglas. Robert Henryson. Leiden: Brill, 1979.
Gros Louis, Kenneth R.R. “Robert Henryson’s Orpheus and
Eurydice and the Orpheus Traditions of the Middle Ages.”
Speculum 41 (1966): 643–55.
Jamieson, I.W.A. “The Minor Poems of Robert Henryson.” Stud-
ies in Scottish Literature 9 (1971): 125–47.
Kindrick, Robert. Robert Henryson. Boston: Twayne, 1979.HENRYSON, ROBERT