Burns night is traditionally celebrated on (or the weekend closest to) the 25th January, the date of Scottish poet Robert Burns’ birth. The night gives us a perfect post-Christmas opportunity to get together in the dark, brooding winter month of January to eat, dance and be merry. Burns night celebrates the life and poetry of Robert Burns with those gathered enjoying readings of the the bard’s poetry and songs. 

The staple food of the celebration is haggis, often served with neeps and tatties, whiskey is the drink of choice, particularly for toasting the haggis after it is ceremonially presented, usually carried by the chef or Burns’ night host with the sound of bagpipes marking its arrival, to the awaiting party.

After the haggis has arrived it is custom to recite Burns’ Address to a Haggis, a translated version, kindly provided to us by Mary Fons i Fleming, a member of the Associated Interpreters of Barcelona the translated poem is also available from the AIB blog page.

We hope you will join us in Madrid on 27 January to address and toast the haggis at the BritishSpanish Society’s Burns Night supper. Haggis, whiskey, poetry and friendship will all be available! Tickets still available.

Address to a haggis by Robert Burns, translated by Mary Fons i Fleming

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin’-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o’ a grace
As lang’s my arm.

¡Bien haya tu cara redonda y sincera,
oh, gran caudillo de la raza morcilluna!
A tus pies tus congéneres todos se sientan:
tripas, callos y asaduras.
Bien vales tú una bendición de mesa
de holgada largura.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

La fuente la llenas a reventar,
tus nalgas cual colina distante.
Tu pincho serviría, si fuese menester,
de perno de un molino gigante
y los jugos por tus poros destilan a placer
cual perlas rutilantes.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!

Aguza el cuchillo el rudo labriego
para cortarte con tiento:
abre una zanja en tus vivas entrañas,
cual surco cruento,
y ¡oh! cómo surge el glorioso espectáculo,
humeante y lleno!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
‘Bethankit’ hums.

Entonces, con sendas cucharas, los comensales bregan:
¡al infierno el último! Ninguno ceja
hasta que, cual tambores henchidos,
las barrigas se tensan
y el viejo amo, a punto de estallar,
“A dios gracias” tararea.

Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect scunner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?

¿Habrá quien, visto su ragú francés
o su cachuela que hasta una cerda dudaría en comer
o su fricandó que la haría devolver
con plena repugnancia,
con desprecio y escarnio pueda contemplar
tal gran pitanza?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither’d rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

¡Pobre diablo! Veámosle con su vil basura,
debilucho cual caña resecada y muda,
jirones de cuero sus tristes patitas
y enano el puño
entrar en la batalla o en el campo inundado:
¡qué endeble y menudo!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.

En cambio, el labriego de haggis alimentado
temblar hace la tierra a su paso.
Si cuchilla depositas en su mano,
silbar la hará
y, cuales flores de cardo,
piernas, brazos y cabezas cortará.

Ye Pow’rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis.

¡Oh, potencias que de los humanos os ocupáis
y que los alimentos cotidianos les dais!
Escocia aguachirles jamás deseará
por sus lares.
Si sus plegarias de agradecimiento deseáis,
dadle, pues, haggis.