This short poem, composed in Middle Scots (the Anglic language used in the Scottish Lowlands between 1400 and 1700, as distinct from the Gaelic language of the Scottish Highlands), presents the narrator’s dialogue with a personified figure of death. The poem appears in two places in the famous Bannatyne Manuscript; in one of these, the poem is scribally attributed to Robert Henryson (c. 1430–1500), one of the most wellknown poets writing in Middle Scots. The language of this work and its attribution to a Scottish poet highlights the spread of death poetry in the British Isles. The Bannatyne Manuscript (Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates MS 1.1.6) is a massive, nearly 400-folio sixteenth-century anthology of works by, among others, Henryson and Dunbar and some Chauceriana, copied by George Bannatyne (1545–1606). The manuscript is divided into two parts: the Draft, itself comprised of several individual manuscripts dated 1565–67, and the much longer Main, internally dated 1568, in which the works from the Draft are recopied and greatly augmented with new ones (see MacDonald, “The Bannatyne Manuscript”). In the Main, the poem is ascribed to “Hendersone,” which is understood to be “Henryson” due to the other Henryson poems copied around it; given the uniqueness of the copy, however, the attribution is considered weak. Although it appears twice in one manuscript copied by a single scribe, the two versions in Bannatyne seem to be copied from different exemplars (see Textual Notes).

In terms of its contents, the work intersects in several ways with other late medieval death poetry. In keeping with the danse macabre tradition, the work is organized as a dialogue between Death and an Everyman figure. It similarly offers a diverse catalogue of representatives of social strata, who will all become equal in their death, from the pope and the emperor onwards (lines 4–5). Like other poems on similar themes, this poem also characterizes Death as violent force, here inflicting damage with a dart (line 6), Furthermore, like the “Three Messengers of Death” (DIMEV 5387), it relies on architectural imagery to emphasize Death’s all-consuming power (lines 7–8), which speaks to the presence of death imagery on numerous architectural structures in the late medieval period. Like Signs of Death poetry, it also briefly reminds the reader of the body’s imminent decomposition and consumption by vermin (line 38).

Manuscripts:

• Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates MS 1.1.6 (Bannatyne MS Draft), pp. 43–44

• Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates MS 1.1.6 (Bannatyne MS Main), fols. 56r–57r (basis for this edition)

• Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, Advocates’ 18.5.14, fol. ii (fragment)

Editions:

• Dalrymple, Sir David, ed. “The Ressoning betwixt Deth and Man.” Ancient Scottish Poems. Published from the MS. of George Bannatyne. Edinburgh: A. Murray and J. Cochran for John Blafour, 1770. Pp. 134–35.

• Laing, David, ed. “The Ressoning betwixt Deth and Man.” In The Poems and Fables of Robert Henryson: Now First Collected with Notes, and a Memoir of his Life. Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1865. Pp. 27–29.

• Murdoch, James Barclay, ed. “The Ressoning betuix Deth and Man.” In The Bannatyne Manuscript. 4 vols. in 11 parts, paged continuously. Glasgow: Anderson, 1873–96: 2.153–55.

• Smith, G. Gregory, ed. “The Ressoning betwixt Deth and Man.” In The Poems of Robert Henryson. 3 vols. STS 1st series 55, 58, 64. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1906–14. Rpt. New York, 1968: 3.134–38.

• Ritchie, W. Tod, ed. “The Ressoning betuix Deth and Man.” In The Bannatyne Manuscript Written in Tyme of Pest, 1568, by George Bannatyne. 4 vols. STS 3rd series 5; 2nd series 22, 23, 26. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1928–34. 1:71–73; 2:139–41.

• Wood, Henry Harvey, ed. “The Ressoning betuix Deth and Man.” In The Poems and Fables of Robert Henryson. 2nd Edition. Edinburgh, London: Oliver and Boyd, 1933; Rpt., 1958: 211–12.

• Fox, Denton, and William A. Ringler, eds. “The Ressoning betuix Deth and Man.” The Bannatyne Manuscript: National Library of Scotland Advocates’ MS. 1.1.6. London: Scolar Press, in Association with The National Library of Scotland, 1980. Pp. 43–44. Fols. 56r–57r.

• Parkinson, David J., ed. “The Ressoning betwix Deth and Man.” In Robert Henryson, The Complete Works. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2010. Pp. 155–56.