I heard twa corbies makin a mane;
The tane unto the ither say,
"Whar sall we gang and dine the-day?"
"In ahint yon auld fail dyke,
I wot there lies a new slain knight;
And nane do ken that he lies there,
But his hawk, his hound an his lady fair."
"His hound is tae the huntin gane,
His hawk tae fetch the wild-fowl hame,
His lady's tain anither mate,
So we may mak oor dinner swate."
"Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane,
And I'll pike oot his bonny blue een;
Wi ae lock o his gowden hair
We'll theek oor nest whan it grows bare."
"Mony a one for him makes mane,
But nane sall ken whar he is gane;
Oer his white banes, whan they are bare,
The wind sall blaw for evermair."
The poem “Twa Corbies,” is very interesting, but actually quite morbid. The title itself hints at this right from the start, translated to mean two ravens. Ravens tend to represent death and this gives the poem a more negative connotation and sets the tone to be ominous or evil. The poems title in my opinion is simple, but has a much deeper meaning behind it and is explored more in the poem through the theme.
The poem is about a discussion between two ravens who stumble upon a “new slain knight.” This section of the poem is important because it shows how this knight whoever he is has just recently been killed. He has not been in this place for a long time when the ravens stumble upon him. Then they talk about how no one even knows he there except for his hawk, his hound, and his lady fair. Then a shift occurs in the next stanza because the reader learns that the only ones who know he is there have abandoned him. His hound and hawk have both gone off to hunt and his lady has already found another man to replace him. To the ravens this means that they can eat his dead body and take what they please.
They sit on his bones and pick out his blue eyes and then take his golden hair to create a nest. This occurs in the fourth stanza and is a very small part of the poem, but then in the final stanza they talk about how many mourn for him, but no one will know when he is gone. The most important line in the poem in my opinion is, “Oer his white banes, whan they are bare, / The wind sall blaw for evermair.” This means that when his bones are completely bare the wind shall forever blow over them. This is greatly related to theme because it is basically saying that no one will ever find him or know he is gone and the wind will forever blow over his remains.
The theme of this poem is very morbid, but in many ways true. The theme is that in the circle of life the only one who will care about you when you’re dead is the birds who will eat your body. This idea is one that can be very challenging to grasp and isn’t true in all cases, but once all your loved ones are gone and all those who know you are gone who else is going to care that you died? I think this is a very deep message and can be hard to miss because of the challenging dialect in the poem. It is written with a Scottish dialect making it difficult to understand certain pieces, but when it is translated into an English dialect the meaning is much easier to grasp.