Five-minute digest

The Cotter’s Saturday Night

Robert Burns

Summary

The Cotter's Saturday Night, inscribed to Burns's friend and patron Robert Aiken of Ayr, is a portrait of a poor Scottish farm labourer's family at the end of the working week. It opens with an epigraph from Thomas Gray's Elegy asking the great not to mock the short and simple annals of the poor. In twenty-one Spenserian stanzas Burns follows the cotter as he walks home over the moor on a cold November evening, is met by his toddling children and his thrifty wife, and is joined by the elder children who work as servants on neighbouring farms. The eldest daughter, Jenny, brings home her wages; a neighbour lad comes courting, and the mother is relieved to find he is no worthless rake. The speaker pauses to praise modest love and to curse any seducer who would betray such a girl. After a supper of porridge and cheese, the family gathers round the fire for worship. The father lays aside his bonnet, opens the family Bible, and says Let us worship God. They sing psalm tunes named Dundee, Martyrs and Elgin; he reads from the patriarchs, Moses, David, Job and Isaiah, or from the Gospels and Revelation; and then he kneels to pray that they will all meet in heaven. Burns contrasts this heartfelt worship with the pomp of religious display. The poem ends in patriotic praise: from scenes like these old Scotland's grandeur springs, the cottage leaves the palace behind on virtue's road, and the poet prays that God will keep Scotland's rustic people from luxury. Modelled partly on Robert Fergusson's The Farmer's Ingle, the poem was for the nineteenth century the classic picture of Scottish piety and family life, and it remains the best introduction to the Presbyterian household that formed Burns.

Top Lessons

Family worship
The centre of the poem is the father leading his household in Scripture, singing and prayer. Burns presents it as the source of a people's strength and as worship God accepts because it comes from the heart.
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The poem refuses to despise poor people. Their homes, work and faith are worthy of poetry and honour.
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Verified Quotes

Frequently cited

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— Robert Burns, The Cotter’s Saturday Night, Stanza 12 (Gutenberg #1279: Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (chronological arrangement)).Quote card

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— Robert Burns, The Cotter’s Saturday Night, Stanza 17 (Gutenberg #1279: Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (chronological arrangement)).Quote card

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Frequently cited

“From scenes like these, old Scotia’s grandeur springs, That makes her lov’d at home, rever’d abroad”

— Robert Burns, The Cotter’s Saturday Night, Stanza 19 (Gutenberg #1279: Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (chronological arrangement)).Quote card

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“An honest man’s the noblest work of God”

— Robert Burns, The Cotter’s Saturday Night, Stanza 19 (Gutenberg #1279: Poems and Songs of Robert Burns (chronological arrangement)).Quote card

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A Man’s a Man for A’ That, Source
A Man s a Man for A That A Man s A Man For A That Tune For a that Is there for honest Poverty That hings his head an a that The coward slave we pass him by We dare be poor for a that For a that an a that Our toils obscure an a that The rank is but the guinea s stamp The Man s the gowd for a that What though on hamely fare we dine Wear hoddin grey an a that Gie fools their silks and knaves their wine A Man s a Man for a that For a that and a that Their tinsel show an a that The honest man tho e er sae poor Is kin...

The Cotter’s Saturday Night

Summary

Top Lessons

Family worship

Dignity of labour and the poor

Chaste love

Verified Quotes