The Five Carlins - Analysis

A political fable disguised as gossip

Burns frames national decision-making as a rowdy kitchen-table argument among five formidable old women. The opening premise is almost comic: five Carlins in the South hatch a scheme to send a lad to London town for tidings hame and errands. But the poem quickly shows that the real “errand” is representation—who will speak for them at London Court, and what kind of person can be trusted with that voice. The humor isn’t decorative; it’s how Burns makes politics legible as temperament, grudges, vanity, and loyalty.

Five places, five temperaments, one shared suspicion

Each Carlin is anchored in a specific landscape—by the banks o’ Nith, Solway-side, Galloway sae wide, Crichton-peel, the mony Lochs—so their debate feels like a regional quarrel, not an abstract one. Their portraits are blunt: Maggy has pride enough; Marjory is auld and teugh; Bess is blinkin; Jean is defined by her gill; Joan carries gipsey kith and kin. Even before any argument begins, Burns suggests a tension: these women are treated as “old” and “low” (carlins, drink, rough origins), yet they’re also the poem’s real power brokers. They may be caricatured, but they’re not weak.

Two candidates: performance versus fidelity

The choice narrows to nae ane ... but tway, and the poem sets up a clean contrast. The Border knight arrives as swagger and status: a belted knight no one can withstand, a man of meikle speech whose payoff is social smoothness—at court, everyone will tell him Gude-day. By contrast, the Sodger-boy enters with modest grace and makes a smaller promise: not courtly gifts or big talk, but an honest heart that will ne’er desert his friend. Burns isn’t subtle about the moral pressure here: one man offers access and spectacle; the other offers loyalty that doesn’t need applause.

The argument exposes what each Carlin wants to be true

The poem’s hinge comes with Now wham to chuse, when the “scheme” becomes a fight about motive: some had Gentle folk to please, / And some wad please themsel. That line is the poem’s quiet accusation—political judgment is rarely pure. Maggy backs the soldier because she didna care a pin for the Auld Gudeman o’ London Court; she wants the lad to greet his eldest son, turning public mission into something like family loyalty or factional allegiance. Bess, meanwhile, prefers the knight with a proverb that admits its own weakness: far-off fowls hae feathers fair. She knows distance glamorizes, and still she chooses the familiar tool—I hae try’d this Border-knight, / I’ll try him yet again.

Joan’s speech is colder and more cynical: fools will prate o’ Right, and Wrang, / While knaves laugh them to scorn. For her, moral language is theater, so she votes based on who has momentum—the Sodger’s friends hae blawn the best. Jean, speaking o’er her drink, reads court politics as treachery: the Auld Gudeman has his back ... at the wa’, and those who kiss’d his caup turn into fremit strangers. Yet she still insists, in the name of personal consistency—it’s ne’er be said wi’ Brandy Jean—that they should send the knight. Principle and stubborn pride start to look alike.

Marjory’s “true” heart, and the poem’s unresolved ending

Last comes Marjory, slow-rising, wrinkled, clothed in russet gray, with an auld Scots heart declared true. Her stance rejects prestige on both sides: There’s some Great Folk set light by me, / I set light by them. She will send whom I lo’e best at hame, a line that turns the whole London mission inside out: representation should answer to home, not to court. Yet Burns refuses to resolve the vote—Nae mortal wight can tell how it ends. That evasiveness feels pointed: the poem understands politics as ongoing pressure, not a neat conclusion.

The final prayer is also a warning

The closing benediction—God grant the king and ilka man, / May look weel to themsel—lands with double force. On the surface it’s practical: everyone should mind their own welfare. But after all the speeches full of oaths, proverbs, loyalties, and calculation, it also sounds like a bleak summary of the whole affair: in public life, self-interest is the steadiest voter. Burns lets the Carlins’ rough wisdom entertain us, then leaves us with the uncomfortable idea that their “scheme” may end exactly where it began: not in shared purpose, but in everyone trying to look weel to themsel.