Douglas's Æneid

3

DOUGLAS'S ^NEID

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Sloniion: FETTER LANE, E.C.4

C. F. CLAY, Manager

iitro Sork : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

^cmbsc. <!tHLctttta ani JHabras : MACMILLAN AND CO^ Ltd.

■aoronto : J. M, DENT & SONS, Ltd,

lollBO : MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA

DOUGLAS'S ^NEID

BY

LAUGHLAN MACLEAN WATT

M.A., B.D., F.R.S.E., F.S.A.SCOT.

AUTHOR OP

"SCOTTISH LIFE AND POETRY"

ETC. ETC.

CAMBRIDGE

AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS

1920

^

^'^

X

Printed in Great Britain
hy Tumiuli A" Shears, Edinburgh

If I do borrow anything . . . you shall still find
me to acknowledge it, and to thank not him only
that hath digged out treasure for me, but that hath
lighted me a candle to the place.

John Donne: The Progress of the Sou/,
Introductory Epistle. 1601.

TO

SIR GEORGE DOUGLAS, BART.,

A POET AND CRITIC

OF TRUE GENTLENESS

AND PROBITY

1

PREFACE

This is an attempt to elucidate Gawain Douglas's work, and to
place it in its proper setting, as a literary document, in the hope
that, until something better is achieved, this may fill a blank
in Scottish Literature. My excuse is that it has not before been
done.

For reasons which I show in Chapter IV, I have taken the
version of the Cambridge Manuscript, presented for practical
purposes in the Bannatyne Club edition, as being the most
authentic. This explains the difierences, of spelling and some-
times of phrase in the quotations, from Small's text in his well-
known edition. Small does not observe the pecuharities of the
Elphynstoun Manuscript, which he professed to follow, especially
in the remarkable terminations of Books V, VI, and VII,
while he also interpolated certain verses, which are not in his
exemplar, but taken from the Black Letter edition of 1553. I
therefore make my references by the number of the Book of
the Mneid, the chapter of Douglas's version, and the hne of that
chapter, e.g. II, 3, 35. This seems the best way to facihtate
reference to the three great manuscripts of the poem, which
would not have been the case had I referred to the volume of
Small, with the page, and Une of the page. At the same time,
for the convenience of the reader, who has Small's edition at hand,
I have given, where necessary, a reference also to his text.

I have to thank the Marquess of Bath, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Sir Arthur Hirtzel, and Professor Clark of Oxford,
for courtesies and opportunities of information ; the Rev. W. L.
Sime, of Smailholm, for help in reading proofs ; and the Syndics
of the Cambridge University Press, for their kindness.

L. M'L. W.

1 November 1919

MANUSCRIPTS REFERRED TO :

1. Cambridge (not later than 1522).

2. Elphynstoun {circa 1525).

3. RuTHVEN {circa 1535).

4. Lambeth, dated February 1645 (1546).

5. Bath, dated 1547.

EDITIONS REFERRED TO:

1. " Black Letter," 1553.

2. Ruddiman'3, 1710.

3. Bannatyne Cltjb's, 1839.

4. Small's, 1874.

Vide Chapter IV.

CONTENTS

PAGS

Preface . . ix

CHAP.

I. The Man and his Fame 1

11. The Man and his Work 25

III. The Translation : Its Method and Result . 69

IV. Manuscripts and Readings ..... 124
V. Language and Influences ..... 149

Appendix A 179

„ B 227

„ C 237

Index 247

DOUGLAS'S ^NEID

THE MAN AND HIS FAME

His misfortunes

It is not necessary here to g« into details of the life of
Gawain Douglas. The piteousness of his story arises from the
fact that he was drawn into the fatal vortex of ambition and
faction which followed upon Flodden, with the consequent
unsettlement of affairs in Scotland. The widowed queen's
infatuation, which first tempted and then compelled the poet's
nephew, the Earl of Angus, to marry her, lay at the root of
Douglas's disaster. The opportunity of preferment drew him
into the political and ecclesiastical arena, and his record became
stained with place-seeking. In this, it may be, he was no
worse than his neighbours, but it is not pleasant to read the
poet's letter to Adam " Wyllyamson," from Perth, of date
21st January 1515, in regard to the bishopric of Dunkeld, —
" Forzet not to solyst and to convoy weyll my promotion . . .
for I haf gevyn the money quhar ze bad me." He was advanced
to the see by Pope Leo X, " referente reverendissimo Cardinale
de Medicis," the queen supporting his claims with her brother
King Henry VIII. And on 29th June 1515, he paid at Rome
by hands of his proctor 450 gold florins. It must be admitted
also, that he was not mitouched by actual disloyalty to his
country. His correspondence — in which he pleads that the
EngUsh king should enter Scotland — and his method of pulling
the wires at Rome through Wolsey's influence, laid him painfully
open to more than suspicion, and exposed him to imprisonment
and finally to exile. The duplicity of the queen, and the de-
sertion by Angus of his own cause, were the final instruments of
the shipwreck of the poet's hopes, into which, only for a little,

A 1

2 The Man and his Fame

entered the soft light of a tender friendship in London with the
Scholar Polydore Vergil, ere the darkness sank above the
banished man, dying of the plague, far from home. His own
letter to Wolsey ^ gives a touching ghmpse of his condition.
He says, " I am and haif bene so dolorus and full of vehement
ennoye that I dar nocht auentor cum in your presence . . .
haif compacience of me, desolatt and wofull wycht." And he
anticipates " penuritie and distress." It was the last he wrote,
and one seems to hear, in this, the pang of a proud heart
breaking.

His dust sleeps in the Church of the Savoy ; and Scotland
should not forget the resting-place of the great poet who was
the first to write her name large upon the vestibule of the new
age of light and learning.

His circumstances

Though, unfortunately, we know little of his early days,
when poesy was the intimate companion of his soul, before
ambition drew him into strife and sorrow, everybody is aware
that he was, by circumstance of birth and education, of the
most prominent note. He was not only a member of the
leading noble family of the Scottish realm, son of Archibald
" Bell the Cat," but he was also uncle of the nobleman who had
become the husband of the widow of King James the Fourth.
And he was also a bishop who just missed being the primate of
Scotland. A busy man, plunged in the rolling welter of his
unsettled times, he drifted into overmastering sorrows and
disappointments when he left the quiet shades of poesy to
mix in the bitter ambitions of his peers, and to die, in 1522,
as his tombstone in the Hospital Church of the Savoy puts it —
" patria sua exul."

The poet is often forgotten and hidden behind the bishop,
crowded and crushed out of sight by the multitudinous business
involved in the hunt for preferment and the flotsam of pohtical
scramble. And those who might have fully recorded contem-
porary opinion regarding his poetic work, passed it for the
most part over, as though in it he had not made an abiding
1 State Papers, Scotland, MSS., vol. i. No. 85.

The Man and his Fame 3

mark more deeply lasting than any he was destined to make
in the memory of the Church by his episcopate, except for the
quarrels stirred by his quest for place and profit, in the crowd
which, unfortunately, were seeking for the same things at the
same time as himself.

Henry VIII

The letter of Henry VIII to Pope Leo X, of 28th January
1514,1 written to further Douglas's claims in regard to the
primacy of Scotland, summed up his public character when it
spoke of him as possessing " praeclaram non generis solum sed
etiam animi nobilitatem," and " eminentem videlicet doctrinam,
prudentiae, modestiae, atque egregiae probitati conjunctam :
et quantopere sit communis boni studiosus," though we must
remember that it is the language of a testimonial which is here
used. Douglas's own letters to Wolsey and Adam Williamson are,
of course, the letters of a keen candidate for a very desirable post,
and few men can stand the white light of criticism mider such
circumstances. He doubtless maimed and stained his hands,
when, instead of plucking at the chords of Apollo, he pulled
the unclean wires of ecclesiastical and poMtical influence. A very
sane modern historian is thus impelled to characterize Douglas
as a " man reputable as a poet, but disreputable as a politician." ^

George Buchanan

But it is fine to read the summary of George Buchanan's ^
residuary impression, when, writing of the poet's decease in
London, he said : " Peste corruptus obiit, magno suae virtutis
apud bonos desiderio relicto. Prseter enim nataUum splendorem
et corporis dignitatem erant in eo multag, ut ilhs temporibus
literae, summa temperantia et singularis animi moderatio,
atque in rebus turbulentis inter adversas factiones perpetua
ttdes et auctoritas." * There spoke the humanist, who, thou<»h
a patriot, saw beyond the limit of provincial prejudice and the
detriment of personal spite. He was himself to taste th©

^ Monumenta Britannica ex autographis Romanorum Pontificum Deprompfew
7oL xxxvii., Brit. Mus.

* MacEwan: History of the Church in Scotland, vol. i. 403. * 1506-1582

* Eerum scoticarum Historia, lib. xiv. c. 13, a.d. 1582.

4 The Man and his Fame

bitterness of all these, and to be able to describe his own case
also, as " exul, vagus et inops."

Douglas's personal friends knew of his scholarship ; but,
in their view, that and his place as a Churchman were the
greatest things about him, to judge at least from what they say.

Abbot Myln

Alexander Myln,^ Abbot of Cambuskenneth, and afterwards
first President of the Court of Session, seemed to think as much
of Douglas's position as a bishop, and his rank as a son of the
Earl of Angus, as of anything besides. True, in the dedication
of his Lives of the Bishops of Dunkeld,^ Myln included the
Reverend Father in Christ, the Lord Gawain, " divinas efc
humanas literas docto." But, in the biography, the main
things that make him still remembered as a " prseclarus homo '*
are practically overlooked.

John Major

John Major,^ the learned Doctor of the Sorbonne, who, during

his regency of Glasgow University and professorship of theology

there, had John Knox — and afterwards at St Andrews, Patrick

Hamilton, Alexander Alesius, and George Buchanan— under

his direction, dedicated to Douglas and Cockburn the Fourth

Book of his commentaries on the Sententice of Peter Lombard.*

And yet he does not speak of Douglas's eminence as a poet,

though he knew him so intimately. Perhaps that aspect of the

ecclesiastic did not appeal to the scholastic mind of Major.

And, perhaps, to one who, of course, lectured in Latin, and sawj

to it that within the University walls the students spoke together |

in that language, the rendering of its greatest poetry into thai

vulgar tongue may have seemed worthiest of silence. Hej

dedicated the First Book of the Sententice ^ to George Hepburn,

Abbot of Arbroath ; and following upon the epistle dedicatoryi

is a pseudo dialogue " inter duos famatos %dros, magistrumj

Gauuinum douglaiseum virum non minus eruditum quai

nobilem, ecclesise beati Egidii edinburgensis prefectum,

' 1474 ?-1549. 2 Vide Edition Bannatyne Club, pp. 72-5.

I ^ 1470-1550. * Paris, 1519, '" impressore lodoco Badio."]

Fans, 1510, " impressum ... per Henriciim Stephanum.

{|

The Man and his Fame 5

magistrum Davidem crenstonem in sacra theosophia baccha-
larium formatum optime meritum," In this dialogue Major
makes Douglas appear as being an opponent of the scholastic
mode of thought, objecting to the darkening of knowledge by
the multiplicity of positions and subtleties, and also as quoting
iEneas Sylvius, who had been so venturesome as to declare that
time would wither the works of Aristotle. Douglas is also made
to say that it was absurd to ascribe to Aristotle an authority
equivalent to that of the Doctors of the Church ; and he is
represented as admonishing Major to return to Scotland and
scatter among the souls of the faithful, by the exercise of
preaching, the best seeds of evangelical truth. This reflects
the fact that there must have been some good-humoured ex-
pression of differences between Douglas and Major, the latter
of whom was well-known as a reactionary, despite his learning
— evidently a laudator tevrtforis acti, and a staunch upholder of
the old paths,! while Douglas is thought by his friend to be a
somewhat dangerously advanced modernist. It is Douglas
the Churchman whom Major admires. He either ignores the
poet, or considers his poetic work not quite worthy of the notice
of a grave scholastic mind.

Polydore Vergil

A third contemporary, of considerable note, and a friend of
Douglas's closing days, was Polydore Vergil,^ the ItaUan whom
Rome had sent to England to collect " Peter's Pence " ; and
who, after holding several ecclesiastical positions, was naturalized
in 1510, becoming later on a prebendary of St Paul's. He
says in his Anglicce Historiw ^ — and in this he is the only person
except Douglas himself whose hand draws the curtain, gi^^ng
us a glimpse of Douglas in his exile from his native land —
" Nuper enim Gauinus Dunglas Duncheldensis episcopus, homo
scotus, virque summa nobilitate et uirtute, nescio ob quam
causam in Angliam profectus ubi audiuit dedisse me iampridem
ad historian! scribendam, nos conuenit : amicitiam fecimus :
. . . verum non licuit diu uti, frui amico, qui eo ipso anno,

* Considered by Rabelais (bk. ii. c. 7) worthy of laughter ; in List of
library of St Victory as having wiitten de wodo faciendi puddinos !

* 1470-1555. 3 Lib ijj pp, 5o_2 1534^ Basel

6 The Man and his Fame

qui fuit salutis humanae IVLDXXI Londini pestilentia absumptus
est." Douglas died between 10th September 1522, the date
of his will, and the 19th of the same month, when probate of his
will was taken. The Black Booh of Tayrmuth is therefore wrong
in giving the date as 9th September. He had been declared
rebel by Albany on 12th December 1521, and his denunciation
as a traitor was confirmed under the Great Seal of Scotland on
21st February 1522.^ It was as the scholarly Scot, " vir sane
honestus," under the shadow of some mystery, eager to provide
him with proofs of the antiquity of the story of his fatherland
for insertion in the ItaKan's history, in answer to what he con-
sidered to be the heresies of Major, who had denied the fabled
legends of the northern people, that Polydore knew him, and
not as the poet.

These three — two of them, without question, familiar with
the man of whom they wrote — do not seem to have recognized
the full intent of that which was to link him on to the interest
of later ages. The fact, that to Douglas were attributed
" comoedise aliquot," - albeit they were " sacrse," may have
helped the reticence of grave ecclesiastics, as, from their point
of view, being somewhat of a lapse from dignity.

Spottiswoode

Bishop Spottiswoode,^ however, though a Churchman,
specially notes Douglas's poetic work with approval, while, at
the same time, speaking highly also of the man. He says of
him — " A man learned, wise, and given to all vertue and good-
nesse : some monuments of his engenie he left in Scottish meeter,
which are greatly esteemed, especially his translation of Virgil
his books of iEneids." *

As the number of poetic \An.iters increased in Scotland, it
became the habit for each of them to record the names of his
predecessors and contemporaries in catalogic eulogy. Dunbar
gives his well-known hst. And The Complaynt of Scotlande
enumerates its guess-provoking poems by name.

1 Stillingfleet erroneously dates his death 1520. Antiquities of the Brilish
Churches, p. Iv. Vide Art. Calendar, Encyc. Brit.

* Cf. Dempster : Hist. Eccles. Gentis Scot., p. 382. ^ 1505-1639.

* History, Church of Scotland, ii. p. 61. 1655.

The Man and his Fame 7

Lyndsay

David Lyndsay, in his Testament of the Papyngo,^ has the
acumen to observe that Douglas's really greater work was his
rendering of the Latin Poet, the riving asunder of the close-set
thorn-hedge of Scottish phrase, that it might permit entry of the
full flower of the Roman golden age into Scottish fields. He

says:

Allace ! for one quhilk larape wes of this land

Of Eloquence the flowand balmy strand,
And m our Inglis lethorick the rose.
As of rubeis the charbuncle bene chose !

And as Phebus dois Cynthia preceU,

So Gawane Douglas Byschope of Dunkell

Had quhen he wes in to this land on lyve
Abufe vulgare Poeitis prerogative

Both in pratick and speculatioun.

I saye no more, gude Redaris may descryre

His worthy workis, in nowmer mo than fy ve ;

And speciallye the trew Translatioun

Of Virgin, quhilk bene consolatioun.
To cunning men, to know his gret ingyne
Als Weill in natural science as devyne.

Charteris

Douglas is also especially considered as the poet, in the Ad-
hortation of all Estaitis to the raiding of thir present warkis, by
Charteris, in his edition of Lyndsay,- wherein he declares that
Douglas

in ornate metir surmount did euerilk man.

Yet Lyndsay is set in a place of honour before him, of course
for his matter and his religio-political purport.

Rolland

John Rolland ^ of Dalkeith, in his stodgy allegory, The Court
of FewMS,* while acknowledging the difficulty, even then, of
Douglas's work, refers to Douglas as

ane honest oratour,
Profound Poet and perfite Philosophour,
Into his dayis above all buir the bell.

1 1530. Prologue, 1. 22. * 1568. Stanza 3.

» ft. 1560. * Bk. iii. 1. 113.

8 The Man and his Fame

Barnabie Googe

Of knowledge of Douglas's Virgil in England we find evidence
in the Eglogs Efytafhes and Sonettes of Barnabie Googe,i where,
in an Epytaphe of Maister Thomas Phayre the Virgilian translator,
he writes :

The Noble H. Hawarde once,

That raught eternall fame,
With mighty Style did bring a pace

Of Virgilis worke in frame,
And Grimaold gave the lyke attempt,

And Douglas wan the Ball,
Whose famous wyt in Scottysh ryme

Had made an ende of all.

Thomas SpegU and Thomas Thorp

It is interesting to find Speght in his second edition of
Chaucer ,2 speaking of " the excellent and learned Scottish poet
Gawyne Douglass, Bishop of Dunkeld," and drawing attention
to Douglas's reference to Chaucer, in the Preface to the trans-
lation of the Mneid. Yet, with regard to knowledge of Douglas
across the Border, the fact that, in the Cornv-copia, Pasquils
Nightcap or Antidot for the Headache,'^ printed for the famous
Thomas Thorp, there is a reference to Lyndsay's Testament
of the Papyngo, need not be pressed. The poet is writing
praises of the cuckoo. He has evidently taken note of poetic
ornithological references, but he has not necessarily read
Lyndsay's poem, and so need not be taken as a corroborative
witness to Douglas's fame mentioned therein.

Question of the Books

Among the notices of the sixteenth century unexpected
glimpses are caught of what must either have been slips of
memory or ignorance of facts.

Confusion appears even regarding such a simple matter as
the number of Books stated to have been translated by Douglas,
as though the writers either did not know, or forgot about the
Book of Mapheus Vegius included in the work.

1 London, 1563. Cf. Phaer. « 1602.

» London, 1612. Attributed to William L. Edited by Grosart, 1877.

The Man and his Fame 9

Kinaston

For example, Sir Francis Kinaston, in a note about Henryson,^
speaks of Douglas as " one of the most famous of the Scottish
poets," and as author of the " learned and excellent translation
of Virgil's jEneids, who was Bishop of Dunkeld, and made
excellent prefaces to every one of the twelve books." The
looseness of statement in the rest of the paragraph shews that
he had no real idea of the chronology of the poets whom he
mentions ; and the fact that he refers only to " the twelve
books " shews that this may be taken as the note, currente calamo,
of a man who knew about literary names and works, but had
not, by personal corroboration or first-hand enquiry, made
direct acquaintance with the contents of that to which he re-
ferred, and did not remember the thirteenth book of Mapheas.
It was just what any well-educated person was bomid to know
in regard to Virgil himself.

Black Letter Title

It is somewhat strange also to see on the title-page of the
first printed edition " quite as curious a statement of what it
purports to be. There we read :

The Xin Bukes of Eneados of the F^mose Poete Virgill Translated out
of Latyne verses into Scottish Metir bi the Reuerend Father in God, Mayster
<3awin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkel, and unkil to the Erie of Angus,
Every Buke having hys perticular Prologe.

This looks a« though it were the product of a hand other than
the author's. It was, indeed, probably by the printer himself,
William Copland, who seems to have been chief editor of the
work, and who may have simply counted the number of books
without thinking how many were contained in the ^neid, and
not remembering at all, when he wrote, about Mapheus Vegius's
supplement. The text is often inaccurate, and differs very
frequently from all the manuscripts.^

In this respect it is interesting to find also what the body of
^ recorders, the catalogue compilers, apart from the actual

' » Written about 1640. Printed by F. Waldron, 1796. Kinaston MS. BodL
1»MS. Add. c. 287.

* Black Letter. 1553, London. ^ Vide p. 140.

10 The Man and his Fame

historians and critical writers, have to say regarding Douglas
when they mention him ; and it is amazing how they seem
to have " followed the lead," like sheep, jumping at the same
errors.

Bale

Foremost in importance amongst these stands John Bale.*
He had been compelled, as a consequence of his conversion tO"
extreme Protestantism, to live for seven years an exile in
Germany, till on the accession of Edward VI he returned and
was made Bishop of Ossory, though on Edward's death he had
again to flee, coming home again, however, in Elizabeth's reign.
He was a voluminous writer, being author of as many as twenty-
two religious dramas, of which only five have survived. His
influence, as a source, was long and wide. He shews however^
in reality, as he himself acknowledges, no direct knowledge of
Douglas otherwise than what he could pluck from the page of
other writers.^ Nevertheless, in his Index he records the number
of books of the translation accurately as thirteen, though without
mentioning the name of Mapheus. Later he alters this to
twelve,'^ probably recalling how many Virgil himself had written,
though again without touching on Mapheus's share. He was
aware of his limitations in regard to Scottish poetry, as he was
not a Scotsman : and, as himself shews, his handicap was
heavy. He says : " Paucos quidem esse scriptores a me citatos
fateor . . . non quod non fuerint plures, sed quod mihi extera
homini non perinde sint noti. Nee enim unquam in Scotia
fui, nee eorum uidi bibliothecas ; sed ab extemis accepi quicquid
hie adductum est." In his Summarmm, he similarly mentions
Douglas's name and office as Bishop of Dunkeld and his " Com-
mentariolum de rebus Scoticis Li. I." with the date and cause
of his death. In his later work Douglas's Palice of Honour^
and the Mneid are noted, with acknowledgments to Nicholas
Brigham. He explicitly mentions Polydore Vergil as his
authority on Douglas.

1495-1563.
Epistola De
ters.
Scriptorum lllmtrium. Posterior Pars, 1559.

" Epistola Dedimioria to Alesius and Knox : Catalogue dealing with Scots
writers. °

The Man and his Fame 11

Holinshed

Holinshed ^ mentions Douglas's translation of Virgil's JEneid
*' lib. 12 " — without reference to the supplementary thirteenth.
When speaking of him as " a cunning Clerk and a very good
Poet " he records the " rare wit and learning," with his nobility
of birth, his episcopate, his strife, his flight, and death. There
is, of course, no trace of actual knowledge of the work itself,
but simply of the fact of Douglas having achieved it.

Gilbert Gray

Gilbert Gray, Principal of Marischal College,^ Aberdeen,
followed Bale's reference. He says : " Anno proximo, scilicet
1521, Fatis concessit vir multigenae Eruditionis ac magnum
Ecclesise Lumen Galvinus Douglas, Episcopus Dunkeldensis,
reUcto post se uberi Ingenii f oetu scilicet . . . et venusto Carmine
Patrio Sermone fideliter redditis Duodecim Libris iEneidon
Virgilii." He evidently wrote from memory, in general terms,
as the custom was, and not from immediate knowledge, omitting
reference to the supplement, but knowing of course the number
of books in Virgil's original. It is very remarkable that, being
an Aberdonian, he omits mention of Barbour in his oration.

Leslie

Leslie,^ Bishop of Ross, wrote regarding Douglas : " Hie
Vir, si se his tumultibus non immiscuisset, dignus profecta
fuisset, propter ingenii acumen acerrimmn ac memoria con-
secraretur nostram linguam multis eruditionis suse monumentis
illustrauit ; in quibus illud fuerat ingenii sui signum longe
prseclarissimum, quod Virgilii ^neidos nostro idiomate donauit,
ea dexteritate, vt singuUs latinis versibus singuli scotici re-
spondeant." Here, in a matter which he ought to have known,
Leslie slips — a matter which, indeed, if he had really read the
work he could scarcely have forgotten. He either knew his
Douglas but did not know Virgil, or knew his Virgil — which is

^ History of Scottand, p. 307.

* Oratio de Illustribus Scotice Scriptoribvs, 1611. See Nicolson's Scottish
Historical Library, p. 70, ed. 17'3L6. Also Mackenzie's Lives and Characters of the
Scottish Nation, vol. i. p. xxx, 1708.

* De Rebus Gestis Scotorum, lib. ix. p. 396. 1578.

12 The Man and his Fame

much more likely to be certain — and followed the conventional
idea about Douglas's work, namely, that the translation was
a line for line rendering, though Douglas especially disclaimed
that idea in his Introductions and Epilogues. Leshe knows
scarcely a limit to his praise : "in Virgilio vertendo versuum
suauitatem, sententiarum pondera, verborum significationes,
ac singulorum pene apicum vim, nostra lingua plene enu-
cleateque ; expresserit."

Demfster

Thomas Dempster,^ repeats the old convention as to the
conspicuous mark of Douglas's translation, an instance of the
perpetuation of errors, copied and handed on as a common
heritage by successive compilers — " Virgilii Opera Scoticis
Rythmis translata . . . mira ingenii felicitate, ut uersibus
versus responderent, quod haud scio an exemplum habeat in
antiquitate." Dempster was prone to writing without ex-
actness or even without truth, and his Historia is rich in mistakes.
He had a remarkable career, seeming to pick and choose pro-
fessorial chairs, from Paris to Pisa, till he died at Bologna as
Professor of Humanities in 1625 ; and he rivalled Sir Thomas
Urquhart in the exaggerations and forgeries which he per-
petrated in order to magnify, in his case, not his own position,
but the literary glories of his native land. He apparently
invented authors who never wrote, and books that never were
written, so far at any rate as human knowledge goes. He
quotes the authority of Polydore Vergil, Leshe, and George
Buchanan, mistaking a reference of the latter as applying to
Douglas, when it really applies to Gavin Dunbar.

David Buchanan

David Buchanan,^ is an untrustworthy person, following
all the errors of his predecessors, and adding nothing to the
sum of knowledge regarding Douglas. He makes " Robert "
Langland the author of Visio Petri Aratoris, and speaks of him
as a Scotsman educated in Aberdeen, which is, perhaps, his

' Historia Ecdesiastica Gentis Scotorum, 1627, p. 221.
* 1590-1652. De Scriptoribus Scoiis, ed. 1837, pp. 92-3.

The Man and his Fame 13

greatest originality ; and he repeats tlie myth of verbal literal-
ness which had become a kind of formula when mentioning
Douglas.

Hume of Godscroft

Hume of Godscroft ^ knew both Leslie and Buchanan pro-
bably better than he knew Douglas, for he paraphrases both of
them. He says : " His chiefest work is the translation of Virgil
yet extant in verse, in which he ties himself so strictly as is
possible, and yet it is so well expressed that whosoever shall
assay to do the like will find it a hard piece of work to go through
with. In his prologues before every Book,, where he hath his
Uberties, he showeth a naturall and ample vein of poesie, so
pure, pleasant, and judicious, that I believe there is none that
hath written before or since but cometh short of him. And in
my opinion there is not such a piece to be found as is his Pro-
logue to the 8 Book, beginning (of Dreams and Dri veilings, etc.)
at least in our language." It is remarkable that he singles out,
for special note, not one of those Prologues where Nature frowns
or smiles in beautifully free painting, as though a man had sat
down at his window to write them, or in the meadows face to
face with her ; but the Prologue to the Eighth Book, which
is of the most antique mould and deliberately archaic form.

Colder wood and Anderson

David Calderwood ^ quotes Douglas's translation with ap-
proval, even though it had been done by a Bishop, and asserts
him to have been " a good Poet in the Scots meeter." And
his contemporary, Patrick Anderson,^ went the full length which
a man can go, and a little fui-ther than many would venture,
when he says that Douglas was " the best poet in our vulgar
tongue that ever was born in our nation, of any before him."
Both of these must have been interested in somewhat similar
degree in the Bishop, for each of them had suffered exile and
persecution, and had known the hunger for native land and
the voice of home.

* c. 1560-1630. History of the Houses of Douglas and Angus, ed. 1644.

* History, Kirk of Scotland, 1575-1650.
' 1575-1623, nephew of Bishop Leslie.

14 The Man and his Fame

In the seventeenth century Douglas was spoken of, borrowed
from, and read by, an audience " fit though few." If Charteris
bad spoken of his style, it was his matter that now was his appeal
to his readers.

Drummond

Thus, Drummond of Hawthomden,^ when Charles the First
came to Edinburgh in 1633, set up in the midst of the street
" a mountaine dressed for Parnassus," where Apollo and the
Muses appeared, and ancient Worthies of Scotland noted for
learning were represented : such as " Sedullius, Joannes Duns,
Bishop Elphinstoun of Aberdeen, Hector Boes, Joannes Major,
Bishop Gawen Douglasse, Sir Da\dd Lyndsay, Georgius
Buchananus." The motto over them was " Fama super sethera
noti." This shews where Drummond considered Douglas's
place to be ; and he was there as a poet, above everything. To
him, elsewhere ^ Douglas was " a man noble, valient, and
learned, and an excellent Poet as his works yet extant testifie."
Here it is, of course, plain that he is regarding him mainly
from a personal point of view. He takes his poetic quality for
granted, but he looks at the man first. In fact, the majority
of later writers, as opposed to the earlier ones, refer to the poet
rather than to the ecclesiastical politician, and probably to
the poet who looked out with tender gaze on the landscape and
the customs of his native land, and who died in exile ; which
is almost the sum of modern knowledge regarding him.

Visle

The seventeenth century saw a suddenly revived impulse
towards the historic study of Anglo-Saxon ; and William L'isle ^
whose interest was in the main along the line of Church History,
published in 1623 a Treatise on ^Elfric's New Testament work.
He tells how he wished to unearth what treasures lay hid in
Old English ; and, in consequence of the dearth of grammars
and dictionaries, he had approached the study through " Dutch,

1 1585-1649. Entertainment of the High and Mighty Monarch, etc.

2 History of the Five Jameaes. 1655.

•' 1579-1637. Title of second edition: Divers Ancient Monuments in the
Saxon Tongue, 1638.

The Man and his Fame 15

both high and low " ; and then he had read whatever he could
find in Old English, of poetry and prose. " But the Saxon
(as a bird flying in the aire farther and farther seems lesse and
lesse) the older it was, became harder to bee understood.
At length I lighted on Virgil, Scottished by the Reverand Gawin
Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld ... the best translation of that
Poet that ever I read : and though I found that dialect more
hard than any of the former (as nearer the Saxon, because
farther from the Norman), yet with help of the Latine I made
shift to understand it, and read the book more than once from
the beginning to the end. Wherby I must confesse I got more
knowledge that I sought than by any of the other. For, as
at the Saxon invasion, many of the Britons, so, at the Norman,
many of the Saxons fled into Scotland, preserving in that Realme
miconquered, as the line Royall, so- also the language, better
than the Inhabitants here, under conqueror's law and custom,
were able." i

A kindred purpose induced Franciscus Junius 2 to use
Douglas's work in his study of Chaucer. "To the end of
illustrating and so illuminating difiicult and misunderstood
passages, in Chaucer," he says, in a letter to Dugdale, February
1667-8—" I hold the Bishop of Dunkeld his VirgiUan trans-
lation to be very much conducing . . . there is very good use
to be made of him." ^ Junius left some marginal notes on a
printed copy of the Mneid in the Bodleian Library, and a
manuscript, in the same place, Index Alphabeticus verhorum
obsoletorum quce occurrunt in versions Virgilii Mneadum 'per
Gawenum Douglas cum relatione ad Paginas* Ruddiman did
not attach value to these. In this connection there may be
mentioned an anonymous one leaf manuscript in the British
Museum, bound along with Spelman's Glossarium archaiologicum
(1644) entitled " A glossary to Gawin Douglas the famous Scottish
poet, who wrote about the year 1490."

^ To the Reader, sec. 9. a 1589-1677. Brother-in-law of Vossius.

8 Letter to Dugdale, Feb. 3, 1667-8.

* Nicolson's Scottish Historical Library, 1776, p. 28.

16 The Man and his Fame

Gibson

In 1691, when Edmmid Gibson,^ afterwards Bishop of Lincoln,
published his famous edition of the Pokmo Middinia and Christ's
Kirk on the Green, he did so as an exercise and aid towards!
Anglo-Saxon study. He treated Douglas as a classic, in a
manner that conferred for the first time such a distinction upon
a Scottish poet. He used these poems very largely as an excuse
for hanging upon them his studies and illustrations from Gothic,
Cimbrian, Icelandic, and Old English.

Hickes

Dr George Hickes, in his monumental Thesaurus of scholarly
research along this line,"^ is emphatic when with pregnant brevity
he says, of Douglas's work, " in versione Mneidos nunquam
satis laudanda."

Nicolson

Nicolson,^ Bishop of Carlisle, in his gatherings * for his
Historia Literaria Gentis Scotorum of 1702, refers to the Mneid
as supporting the qualifications of Douglas to be the author
of De Rebus Scoticis — a remarkable plea. He tells how he
turned the Mneid in eighteen months' time " into most elegant
Scotch verse, thereby wonderfully improving the language of
his country and age. One that was a good judge of the work
assures us that it is done in such a masculine strain of true
poetry that it may justly vie with the original ; every line
whereof is singly rendered and every word most appositely
and fully." ^ . . . Here he is quoting Bishop Leslie, and
repeating the famiUar error.

Sir Robert Sibbald

Sir Robert Sibbald ^ acknowledges that he was waiting for
the publication of Nicolson's work before he completed his own
account of the sixteenth century, in which he acknowledges his

1 1669-1748.

* Linguarum Vett. Septentrionalium Thesauri Gramma tico-Critici et Archaeo-
logici Pars Prima : seu Institutiones GrammaticaB Anglo -Saxonicse & Moeeo-
Gothicae. . . . Oxon. 1703, p. 128.

» 1655-1727. * Scot. Hist. Library, ed. 1776, p. 28.

* MS. Historia Literaria Oentis Scotorum. Advoc. Lib., Edinburgh.

The Man and his Fame 17

indebtedness to Dempster, and to David Buchanan, whose
style of Latin he calls " excellent." Unfortunately he leaned
on an uncertain authority. In a letter to Wodrow he refers
to an " Account of the writers of Divinity . . , done in our
language for me by the Reverend Mr Lawrence Charteris to
the year 1700." This may be included in a publication by
James Maidment, published in 1833, from a Manuscript in
Wodrow's writing, wherein is, among others, a brief notice of
Douglas.

George Mackenzie

Doctor George Mackenzie,^ lifted wherever he saw fair spoil,
and included in his work a notice of Douglas, which owes an
unacknowledged debt to Bishop Sage.^

Eighteenth-Century Nationalism

In the eighteenth century Douglas was still one of the
Scottish classics, and was read by such select souls as were
sufficiently interested in things and men of the past ages, to
take such trouble.

Devotion to the Scots dialect had been a mark of patriotism
at the time of the Reformation, as a protest against the " knap-
ping of Southron," then in fashion, curiously enough, under
Knox's influence, as we learn from a scornful reference by
Ninian Winzet. In fact, the influence of the Reformation
was really Anglic, copies of the Bible coming in from England,
until the printing of the Bassandyne Edition in 1576-9, and
even it is practically the Genevan scripture. In this connection
John Hamilton, author of Ane Catholik and Facile Traictise
(1581), had declared that it was actual treason even to print
Scottish bodks in London, " in contempt of our native language."
This became again prominent as a symbol of the same thing,
after the Union of 1707 ; and with the Jacobite element of
the nation was frequently, in fact, a political pose.

By a curious irony, Douglas, who had fallen on the mortal
edge of his desire for the English alliance, was actually looked

^ Lives and Character a of the most Eminent Writers of the Scots Nation, vol. ii. ,
1711, pp. 295-308. ■•' Vide p. 19 infra.

18 The Man and his Fame

upon at this time as a true representative of the Scottish spirit,
by those who either forgot the story of the cause of his life's
disaster, or conveniently closed an eye to its record. It was
to the Jacobite section of the nation that the revival of dialect
poetry and the interest in the older Scottish poets were due,
and principally to Allan Ramsay, Hamilton of Gilbertfield,
and Thomas Ruddiman. It is of no importance, except to
show the spirit of the period, that, in the " Easy Club " in
Edinburgh, the members called themselves by the names of
old Scottish poets, Ramsay's title being " Gawain Douglas."
Ramsay, in 1716, printed Christ's Kirk on the Green, with
a quotation from Gawain Douglas, in Greek characters,^ at
the head of it ! The mistakes in printing this were regularly
repeated in subsequent editions.

Ruddiman

Thomas Ruddiman's edition of Douglas's JEneid, in 1710,
belonged also to this movement. It was the first since the
Edition of 1553, on which it was based. Ruddiman, unfor-
tunately, did not see the Ruthven Manuscript, ^ the only one
he knew, until forty-five pages of his folio had been printed,
having only then learned that any manuscripts of the poem
existed. He claimed the liberty of choosing between the
printed version and the manuscript, with the result that, not-
withstanding the assertion in the title page that " innumerable
and gross errors of the former edition have been corrected "
by comparison with the Latin original and the Ruthven Manu-
script, and " narrowly observing " the language of Douglas
and his contemporaries, and that defects were suppUed " from
an excellent manuscript," he himself fell into many inaccuracies
and made some readings of his own without authority. He
corrected, as far as the metre allowed, the classical names which
Douglas had frequently transformed. Robert Freebairn, the
bookseller, took the full merit for the edition, and thanked for

* KovffiSep LT vapiXt piS a<pTvrip day e7ts.
OwX 07 ec pXivK (rXt iroerpi yor rev is

r. Aw7\as.
The quotation is from ProL i. 107.
2 Vide p. 138 infra.

The Man and his Fame 19

their help, Bishop Nicolson, Sir Robert Sibbald, Dr Drummond,
and Urry of Christ Church, Oxford. He also mentioned his
indebtedness to Thomas Ruddiman, who really was the man
that had supervised the whole work. Ruddiman kept a note,
which is preserved, of his charge for correcting the book, writing
the glossary, etc., which amounted to forty-eight pounds Scots,
or £8, 6s. 8d., a somewhat strange fee for the amount of know-
ledge and special attainments which he had placed at the
publisher's disposal. Well might the publisher recommend
him to the notice of " the patrons of virtue and letters " as
meriting " all respect and encouragement," a somewhat cheap
way of passing on to others some of the burden of his own
obhgations. Small ^ states that Urry had in some measure
collated the Bath Manuscript for this edition. It is to be taken
as following the printed version of 1553, in the main. Ruddiman
added General Rules for understanding the Language of Bishop
Douglas''s translation of VirgiVs Mneids. He also appended a
Glossary, which is of note, as it was the foundation of Dr
Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary of 1808.^ For this vocabulary
he employed the aid of Hickes's Linguarum Veterutn S&pten-
trionalium Thesaurus ; Ray's Collection of Local English Words ;
Menage's Dictionaire Etymologique de la Langue Francoise \
Junius's Glossarium Goihicum ; Vossius's de Vitiis Sermonis ;
Du Fresne and Spelman's Glossarium Gothicum ; and " above
all " Skinner's Etymologicon Linguce Anglicance, on the whole
a formidable body of learning and research. The Biography
of the poet in this edition is by Bishop Sage, though printed
anonymously. Sage's life is in regard to Douglas an Apologia
pro vita, declaring him to have been " a wise Statesman, a
faithful Counsellor, an excellent Patriot, a constant Friend, the
Honour of his Country, the ornament of his Church, a Judge
and Master of Polite Learning, and may be justly reckoned the
best of Bishops and learnedest Man of his Age," a crescendo of
praise difficult indeed to echpse. It was based on all that was
worthy before its time, except Bale's Catalogue of 1559 ; but

1 Edition 1874.

* The copy of Ruddiman, with Jamieson's notes for his Dictionary, is in the
hands of Mr Alexander Gardner, Publisher, Paisley.

20 The Man and his Fame

Ruddiman quoted Bale's Sumtnarium of 1548, along with the
testimonies of Abbot Myln, Polydore Vergil, Bishop Leslie, and
George Buchanan, and also used letters which were still in
manuscript.

Sage's Biography

Sage, in enumerating Douglas's works, suggests that the
AurecB Nanationes mentioned by Dempster and Vossius as by
the Bishop is the same as the Comment referred to by Douglas
himself, and he conjectures this to have been a treatise on
" Poetical fictions of the Ancients, with an Explication of their
Mythology." We, of course, know that here Sage spoke in
ignorance of what this Comment really was, as he had not either
heard of or seen it. This biography was the first step towards
a real, full, and modern life of the translator.

Athenian Mercury

It would be interesting if we knew who wrote, in the Athenian-
Mercury,^ quoted by Ruddiman, the recommendation that, in
regard to secular poetry, people should read " old merry Chaucer,.
Gawin Douglas's kneads (if j'-ou can get it) the best version
that ever was, or, as we believe, ever will be, of that incomparable
Poem."

Fawkes

Across the Border the occasional interest in Douglas as a poet

was at this time manifested when Francis Fawkes, Vicar of

Orpington, in Kent, published a paraphrase of Douglas's twelfth

Prologue, A Description of May - ; and also of the seventh

Prologue, A Description of Winter. In regard to the former,

he speaks of

this flowery lay
Where Splendid Douglas paints its blooming May.

He gives also some account of the Scottish author ; and he

printed the text and his own paraphrases on opposite pages, with

a glossary. These appeared together in his Original Poems and

Translations,^ in the company of Anacreon, Sappho, and others.

» Vol. 12, No. i., 24th October 1693. Conducted by Dunton, brother-in-la>w
of Samuel Wesley. Influenced The. TaUer.

* London, 1752; London, 1754. » 1761.

The Man and his Fame 21

Jerome Stone

In our own coimtry, a somewhat forgotten personality inter-
esting in connection with the Ossianic tradition, Jerome Stone,
Schoohnaster at Dmikeld, did a similar work for Douglas in his
Description of a May Morning, which appeared in The Scots
Magazine} where he designated the Twelfth Prologue as " the
most pompous description of that enlivening season I ever met
with." Stone stated that he had endeavoured to accommodate
the delicacy of the performance to modern ears. He renders
the first lines thus :

Avirora, joyful harbinger of clay,
Now from the skies had chased the stars away ;
The moon was sunk beneath the western streams,
And Venus' orb was shorn of half its beams,

wiiich may be compared with Douglas's —

Dyonea, nycht bird, and wach of day,
The starnys chasyt of the hevjai awaj-.
Dame Cjaithia dovn rollyng in the see,
And Venus lost the bewt« of hir E.

Here one sees all the difference between the eighteenth century
poetic conventions and those of the nearer fringe of the Middle
Ages, where, in the compass of four lines, Venus is twice referred
to, first by the Ovidian epithet, and then by her own name.
Douglas makes her planet the shepherd of the stars, who,
watching on the verge of night, drives them into the fold when
day takes up the vigil over the awaking world, closing her own
eyes then in slumber,^ — a far richer and more intensely beautiful
bit of poesy than the modern grasped in his paraphrase.

Thomas Warton

Thomas Warton, in his History of English Poetry,^ included
certain of the Scottish poets, and printed a large part of Douglas's
Prologues VII and XII, using for this the Edinburgh edition of
1710 by Ruddiman, and turning them inaccurately into English
prose. He suggests that " a well-executed history of the
Scotch poetry from the thirteenth century would be a valuable
accession to the general literary history of Britain." He truly

» Vol. xvii., 1766. 2 Vol ii., 1778, pp. 289-93.

22 The Man and his Fame

says, further, " The subject is pregnant with much curious and
instructive information, is highly deserving of a minute and
regular search, has never yet been uniformly examined in its.
full extent, and the materials are both accessible and ample-
Even the bare lives of the vernacular poets of Scotland have
never yet been written with tolerable care : and at present
are only known from the meagre outlines of Dempster and
Mackenzie."

Perth Prologues

The Prologues ^ were again offered to the public m 1786,
with a reprint of the Palice of Honour, by Morison of Perth.

Thomas Gray

But a far finer mind, and a truly great poet, was attracted to
Douglas, in Thomas Gray,^ who, in his Sketch of a 'projected
History of English poetry which he communicated to Warton,
included the names of Douglas, Lyndsay, Bellenden, and Dunbar.
Speaking of Spenser's Eclogue, August, he says, discussing
English metre, " Bishop Douglas, in his prologue to the Eighth
Mn£,id, written about eighty years before Spenser's Calendar^
has something of the same kind." This can only mean that
Spenser had written a poem in dialogue with a pastoral threnody
in it, imder the influence of very strong alliteration, for other-
wise there is not the slightest resemblance. Gray spoke from
memory. Nevertheless, if the Rev. Norton NichoUs, his
intimate friend, in his Reminiscences, records him truly. Gray
also followed the usual erroneous impression, which showed
that he really had read about the poet but had not read him
in the full translation of Virgil. For Nicholls says of Gray,
" He was much pleased with Gawen Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld,
the old Scotch Translator of the Mneid, particularly with his
poetical prefaces to each book, in which he had given liberty to
his muse, but has fettered himself in the translation by the
obligation he has imposed on himself of translating the whole

^ iv., vii., viii., xii., and xiii.

2 1716-1771. Vide Mitford's Edition, vol. v., 1843, pp. 242-53. Also
Tovey's Letters of Thomas Gray, voL ii. p. 280, 1904.

The Man and his Fame 23

poem in the same nmnber of verses contained in the original," ^
— a purpose which, of course, never had any existence.

James Sibbald

James Sibbald,^ gives abridged examples of Prologues IV,
VIII, XII, and XIII, and certain specimens of the Mneid, with
a note on the language of Douglas.

Pinkerton

John Pinkerton,^ the savage critic of all men's work but his
own, declared that Prologues Seven, Twelve, and Thirteen,
" yield to no descriptive poems in any language." Yet he had
a painful fear of the vulgar tongue. He protested that his work
amongst the relics of ancient Scottish poetry was not intended
to prolong the life of the dialect, — " None can more sincerely
wish the total extinction of the Scottish colloquial dialect than
I do." He speaks of Scotticisms as barbaric, and mocks at the
Edinburgh idioms. He wishes Scots to be maintained as an
old poetical language ; and so he preserves the old spelhngs
studiously, to take it " out of the hands of the vulgar." He
selected from the Maitland Manuscript, in his work. He pro-
posed to issue the seven poets of Scotland whom he considered
to be truly classical, namely, Dunbar, Drummond, Douglas,
James I, Barbour, Lyndsay, and Blind Harry ; and he in-
tended in this project to omit all of Douglas's Mneid work
except the Prologues.

Ritson

Joseph Ritson,* his rival, agreed with him in regard to the
place of Douglas, but went further than Pinkerton, for he speaks
of " the admirable translations of Douglas."

To all the writers of modern times, it is as the poet that
Douglas stands out clearly in the light, and in association ^th
Dunkeld ; as when George Dyer writes —

But thou, as once the muses' favourite haunt,
Shalt live in Douglas' pure Virgilian strain.

1 Mitford's Edition, vol. v. p. 36, 1843.

» 1746-1803. Vide Chronicle, vol. i., 1802 ; also vol. iv. pp. xlv-vi.

'1758-1826. Yide Ancient Scottish Poems, nSQ. * 1752-1803.

24 The Man and his Fame

In the anonymous poem prefixed to Alexander Ross's Helenore
(2nd Edition, 1778), and attributed to Beattie, Douglas is spoken
of as " that pawky priest."

The picture of Scott is, however, usually accepted as the
portrait of the poet-bishop —

More pleased that in a barbarous age
He gave rude Scotland Virgil's page,
Than that beneath his rule he held
The bishopric of fair Dunkeld.^

The ecclesiastic, tossed in the swelter of squabble for preferment,
and the politician, wading in plots with the English Court,
have dropped aside. And so a gentler thought has clothed the
memory of Gawain, the Virgilian student, who in rude times
brought the Roman into touch with the poetry of our Northern
land.

NOTE

After Ruddiman's edition the next in point of time is that of the text
only, printed from the Cambridge Manuscript in two volumes, in 1839,
and published by the Bannatyne Club.

In 1874 appeared the edition of the complete works, by John Small,
LL.D., Librarian of the University of Edinburgh, in four volumes, the
jE7ieid covering ii., iii. and iv. This edition is annotated, and has intro-
ductions, with fascimiles in hthograph, and certain letters printed for
the first time. The Editor states that his edition is printed from the
Elphynstoun Manuscript, but this is a statement of intention and not of
execution.

An edition by the Scottish Text Society is being prepared.

Douglas is dealt with m David Irving's History of Scottish Poetry (1861),
chapter xii. : in Dr John M. Ross's Scottish History and Literature (1884),
chapter vii. : T. F. Henderson's Scottish Vernacular Literature (1910),
chapter vii. : Gregory Smith, M.A., in The Cambridge History of English
Literature, vol. ii., chapter x. The article in the Enclyclopcedia Britannica,
tenth edition, is by Dr Small, that in the latest edition is by Gregory
Smith ; and there are brief notices in the Imperial Dictionary of Biography,
Clmmhers' s Dictioimry, and others. Under this general heading fall the
Litroduction by Andrew Lang, in Ward's Poets : W. A. Neilson in Origins
and Sources : also an introduction in Eyre Todd's Abbotsford Poets : and
Geddie's excellently useful Bibliography of Middle Scots (Scottish Text
Society).

^ Marmion, Canto vi. st. 11.

f

II

THE MAN AND HIS WORK

To set a poet like Gawain Douglas in his place demands a
■careful glance before and after.

A man and his work are inevitably beset by the environment
and circumstance of his time. A period of quick activities
may snatch away his life and thought from the levels of their
beginnings, and swing them forward and upward, as into a
new world with farther horizons and wider vistas than he has
known hitherto, if he be not an originator of those very in-
fluences. Or it may shp its hold upon him. Or himself may
falter, looking over his shoulder, and he may return to the
€ities of the Plain. " And his works do follow him." Or he
may abide like a fossil in the centre of great growth, recording
an arrest in a life's development. Erasmus the Humanist, —
who raised his foot and let the tide of the Reformation run
away from under, miuplifting, — and all such souls, who seem
«ither to resist the jog and tug of a new period of fresh-thought
impulse, or who seem too deeply rooted in the past to be lifted
into the future that calls the awaking world to move onward,
always give pause for judgment, to the estimating mind of the
recorder of men and matters. Gawain Douglas had the rising
waters of the new birth-time of the world all about him ; and
we cannot help but wonder how much of their far cry found
response in his heart, and tmied the message and meaning of
his thought. How does he stand in relation to it, \vith his life
and work ?

The Renaissance

The Renaissance itself is not easily defined. There had been,
in different lands, episodes with its mark upon them, — ^grey
hints of the dawn, with crimson touches on the clouds, that

25

26 The Man and his Work

faded into grey again. A partial Revival of Letters manifested
itself in the twelfth century, when the works of Aristotle were
discovered ; and the labours of Grosteste and Roger Bacon,
with the foundation of the Universities, were signs of awakening.
But these fell into the hands of the Churchmen and Scholastics,
whose conservatism numbed the enthusiasms and delayed the
dawn.

The Renaissance is generally understood to be the outbreak
of the human spirit into freedom of thought and utterance ;
the love of everything beautiful and true, for its own sake ;
the enrichment of life by the advent of the natural and spon-
taneous ; the dissatisfaction of the mind with the cold and
trite ; and the protest against convention which, like a desert
wind, withered thought upon its stalk. The joy of existence
broke into the wilderness of stereotype with a fresh interpreta-
tion of human experience. It turned the soul toward the
fountains of reality, wherein lay the deep sources of truth and
poesy.

The Renaissance meant, first of all, a recognition of the life
of humanity, pagan in its revulsion from mediaeval mysticism,
and its rebellion against the bondage of the other world, the
conventions of Allegory and Theological symbolism. It de-
manded that knowledge of the best hterary monuments of
" the golden past of classical antiquity," which gave birth to
the Revival of Letters, when the faith and the literature of days
long dead were born again into the later day. This was what
Cyriac of Ancona meant when he said, "I go to awaken the
dead." It was a quest after the wisdom of the past to enrich
and enlighten the present. And it passed on to an elevation
of the vernacular as a literary medium. We see in Douglas's
work the touch of the last set of these influences, though scarcely
the mark of the first.

The Renaissance was not the clock striking a definite hour
in the fifteenth century. It was a movement, — not a moment ;
a process rather than an explosive event. Men could not set
their watches by it, but they could float their spiritual emprise
upon it. It did not come Uke one wave. The breathing of a^
great, far-drawn, on-pressing tide made itself felt through long

The Man and his Work 27

preparation. The atmosphere and hfe of the period were
gradually saturated by a new spiritual influence. An all-per-
vading general uplift was felt, and it spoke through poets as
widely apart as Dante and Langland.

The Revival of Learning, consequent upon the Fall of Con-
stantinople in 1453, which scattered the Greek scholars over
Europe, with their classical treasures and erudition, is generally
thought of as the Renaissance, but this was only one of the
results of the vast movement.

" The Candles of the Renaissance "

The key to the Renaissance is naturally found in Italy. In
fact it was only in Italy or Greece that a rebirth was possible.
The Commedia of Dante Alighieri, the Sonnets of Petrarch,
and the Decamerone of Boccaccio are the monuments of the
literary awakening. Petrarch was, in an especial sense, the
awakener of mediaeval Europe from its sleep. Into his life came
the influence of Boccaccio, whom he met in Naples when on an
embassy from the Papal court in 1343 ; and one of his best
pieces of work was a Latin version of Boccaccio's Griselda.
Yet, though Boccaccio helped him, he also helped Boccaccio,
by turning him towards ancient sources of culture.^ His was
pre-eminently the spirit of true scholarship, under the touch
of which the age quickened, and found a new, fresh, sunny,
and onward-moving activity. From Italy the movement spread,
like a sunrise, through Germany, France, and England ; and
the best works of Italy were thus passed on to Scotland, with
the classics.

Petrarch the Awakener

Born in 1304, Petrarch became, by deUberate choice, a man
of letters and a scholar, refusing his father's solicitations to
follow his own profession of law, and resisting temptations of
ecclesiastical and scholastic positions which must have led to
the very highest preferments in his age. Unlike Douglas, he
kept himself disentangled from what might hinder his poetic
and literary pursuits, avoiding thus the risks of distracting
^ See his Epistles generally.

28 The Man and his Work

ambitions and tlie jealousies of smaller minds. In 1337 he
sought the touch of Nature in solitary study and reflection.
This was the quickening thing which gave its most telling
impulse to the new Thought.

Nature Vision

The text of his oration, when he was laureated at the Capitol
in April 1341 :

Sed me Parnasi deserta j^er ardua dulcis raptat amor,-'

was the keynote of the new age, whose characteristic was a
" passion for Parnassus," uplifting hearts, as with the spirit of
Spring, out of the hard-beaten tracts of old-time conventions.
This love of the wild, combined with the expression of the
sympathetic fallacy in verse, finds a kind of maxim utterance
in Lorenzo de' Medici's lines :

Non di verdi giardin, omati, e colti ...
Ma in aspre selve, e valli ombrose colti.

8ospir d'amore . . .
L'aure son sute, e pianti d'Amor I'acque.

It was this impulse which moved Bernardo Pulci to translate,
in 1470, the Eclogues of Virgil, the first attempt to render the
classics into the Italian language. The same spirit impelled
Pietro Aretino to declare, " Nature, of whose simplicity I am
the secretary, dictates what I set down before me " ; and stirred
Politian to feel it was Nature and Youth that turned him to
translate Homer's epic of the struggles of men near the world's
dawn.

In Douglas's Mneid, also, when his own voice speaks, and
especially in his Prologues, we find the open-air vision char-
acteristic of the new time ; though in him are found, also,
some of the older framework of mediaeval conventions. These
things were amongst the stock materials of poetry, then ; and
a poet would have seemed odd amongst his fellows, not to have
adopted them. He had, of course, the dialect and imagery of
his predecessors and contemporaries pressing around him.
And though to later generations these mediaeval furnishings
and materials had become trite, and worn to the bone, they
^ Georgics iii. 291.

The Man and his Work 29-

were in his day fresh enough to those who used them. The
time came when a protest had to be made against them, as in
King James VI's Reulis and Cautelis of Scottis Poesie} which^
though a juvenile work, had much good sense in it. The royal
critic warns the poets : " Descryve not the morning, and rysing
of the Sunne, in the preface of your verse ; for thir thingis are
sa oft and dyverseUe written upon be Poets already that gif
ye do the lyke it will appeare ye bot imitate, and that it cummis
not of your awin invention." This was just and sound criticism
in the seventeenth century, but would have been a literary
heresy in the early sixteenth.

The search for the Norm

The influence of Petrarch as a humanist was, in reality,
greater than as a poet, and it touched the later day of the singers
of the remoter North. For he brought the scholars of his own
time into direct contact with the scholarship of classical times,
and gave a guiding impact to literary enquiry. He was the
pioneer in the collection of libraries, in the study and com-
parison of manuscripts, and in the recognition of authorities,
himself receiving manuscripts of Homer and Plato from
Nicolaus Syocerus of Constantinople. His influence was seen
in the indefatigable restlessness of the scholars, searching
everywhere for the hidden treasures of the classics, — men like
Poggio,- who unearthed in the Monastery of St Gall the com-
plete copy of Quintihan, and the first three and pai-t of the
fourth books of the Argonautica, " not in the library but in a
dark and filthy dungeon at the bottom of a tower," succeeding
also in securing for Rome, by the hands of Nicholas of Treves,
the first complete copy of Plautus, and dragging out of their
hiding-places Lucretius, Silius Italicus, Columella, and ap-
parently also the poems of Statins, as commemorated in the
elegy by Landinus, declaring how these notables had been
brought as guests out of gloom into undying light, —

Poggius at sosjwa nigra e caligine tantas
Ducit ubi aeternum lux sit aperta viros.

And Guarino Veronese,^ returning with his recovered wonders,

1 1584. Vide Arbor's Reprint. * 1380-1459. » 1370-1460.

so The Man and his Work

liimself losing all, and the world losing so much, by shipwreck,
reveals but a part of the adventure of scholarship seeking after I
truth in this time of dawn.

The Classical Revival

The sensuously beautiful, revealed in the dawning hght of
the new age, was like a fresh creation. It demanded a new
expression. The divine seemed to be splendidly humanized,
and loved for its own sake. It required a wide channel for its
exercise. Homo sum, humani ?iihil a me alienum jmto ^ was
the Humanist's maxim and aspiration, and it led him by the
only door of escape from the anarchy of his times, torn between
feudalism and ecclesiasticism, and the failure of each of these
to foster the highest in the soul of man and of society. The
result was an almost fevered revival of classical learning. Bach
land and each generation took its own way through the magic
forest. The wine of the fountain of Bacbuc tasted different
in the mouth of every man that drank it,^ but it gave each a
sense of beauty ; a realization of his own power, individuaUty,
and dignity ; the acknowledgment of Nature ; and the re-
establishment of joy in life.

The Individual Liberty

In the first burst of freedom that broke like a new creation
out of the shadow-land of Thought, some men leapt into licence ;
and of this Poggio's Facetiarum Liber, with BeccadeUi's Herma-
phroditus were notorious examples. In such a movement it is
the new man as much, almost, as the new Letters, that becomes
manifest, with the glow of anticipation on his face and the
voice of the morning in his utterance. He will not be found
haunting graves, but, like Adam, outside of old fenced gardens,
turning over the soil of a new earth, creatingly, though it may
be, reveahng much that is not lovely, in the labour of it.
Villon and Dmibar are perhaps as interesting in this respect
as Petrarch, set up against the level of Medisevalism. In ihevsL.
you find the directness of outlook, the individuality of ij-nter-

^ Terence : Heaut. i. 1-25. j

* Rabelais : Gargantua and Pantagrud, bk. v. c. 42.

The Man and his Work 31

pretation, the free step marching to fresh music, no longer
hobbling to trite tags of conventional measures, no more a
thing of ghosts, but of the living soul, — men whose every word
proves how the old conventions have palled, that poesy is no
longer a thing of draping lay figures in a fresh robe, or the re-
petition of the shibboleths of his predecessors. Though Villon
was mediaeval in form and knowledge he was renascent in
reaUsm and self -revelation. These went with their own basket
to the table of the gods, carried their own pitcher to the well
of Parnassus, and, traversing fresh ground of Nature and
humanity as personal explorers, speak in the voice of the
Rebirth, the Renaissance of Thought and Art, seeking for the
reahty of things. Such influences are seen in the light of very
clear contrast in the second part of Le Roman de la Rose. The
first partji by de Lorris, 4000 lines, under the influences of
Ovid and Chretien de Troyes, was intended to be a kind of
Art of Love, clothed in the characteristics of its time, formal,
learned, and allegorical. But when Jean de Meung,^ forty
years later, added his 18,000 lines, he poured into this mass not
only the scholastic learning of the IVIiddle Ages, but also that
encyclopaedic and heterogeneous knowledge and voluminous
thought characteristic of the new age, and far ahead of his
own, in its intellectual tendency; while underlying it all was
his doctrine of the Worship of Nature, setting him in the hght
as a forerunner of the Renaissance. This mental activity fell
to nought amid the stormy confusions in France of the Hundred
Years' War, followed by the disasters of civil war, which left
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries probably the most barren
of her hterary periods. This gave the classics a new signi-
ficance for the hearts of men. And Douglas was one of those
whose heart was turned towards that quest, as towards a land
of sealed temples, and places where Truth lay waiting for the
awaking touch.

The Renaissance at first led to disdain of the vernacular,

believing that cultured thought could find fit clothing only

in the tongue of the ancient masters, the cosmopoHtan

medium of literary feehng. We find Douglas's fear of the

1 c. 1237. » 1250-1305.

32 The Man and his Work

uncopiousness of the Scots mother-tongue in the author of
The Com'playnt of Scotlande, and elsewhere, a fear also which
shrank as from lowering the work of the classical writers into
the vulgar medium. Petrarch and Boccaccio valued their
own vernacular works at a cheaper rate than those in the
classical tongue, and their influence helped the contempt of
the vulgar phrase. In the beginning of the sixteenth century,
however, Lorenzo de' Medici and Politian, having absorbed
the beauty and excellence of classical literature, handed it
forward in the chaste and natural sweetness and power of the
vernacular.

The Awakening of the Vernacular

The hunger of the classics opened the door which a dead
language barred, and its influence enriched the style, the literary
form, and the vernacular. It is true that at first there was a
crushing and distortion of expression into Latin mould, futile
for final utility, as regards literary purpose, but yet helping
towards elasticity of phrase and quickening of mentality, and
prompting to analysis of the records of human passion and
achievement.

The influence of the Rhetoriqudres was felt in this, in their
effort to enrich and improve the mother-tongue for literary
purposes by Latinisms, and they affected strongly the writing
of the early sixteenth century, though they also carried forward
the mediaeval allegory and metrical intricate forms.

It stirred a new and deepening desire to use the vernfcular
as a medium of literary expression. This arose from the
yearning to lead the heart of the world to the truth which
heretofore had been reached only by the learned. Truti, and
the joy of humanity, were to be within the right of all, ind no
longer the privilege of the few. More than once Douglas ex-
presses this as his ideal in his work. Nevertheless ii needed
courage, and a defence.

In this respect Lorenzo de' Medici, speaking of the astonishing
power of the vernacular, shows, as if it were a discovery, in
Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, the three " candhs of the
Renaissance," how these have fully proved with what facility

The Man and his Work 33

the Italian tongue may be adapted to the expression of every
sentiment. In Dante, he says, " we shall find in perfection
those excellencies which are dispersed among the ancient Greek
and Roman writers." ^ He compares Petrarch's treatment of
love with that by Ovid, Catullus, Tibullus, Propertius, or any
other of the Latin poets ; while he holds Boccaccio to be mi-
rivalled " not only on accormt of the invention he displays,
but also for the copiousness and elegance of his style. ... So
considering, we may conclude that no language is better for
the purpose of expression than our own." Leo Battista Alberti ^
also defended and developed his mother- tongue, from the point
of view that a dead language cannot suffice for adequate ex-
pression of the living thought of a living people : and forsaking
Latin as a medium he used the vernacular. In this way, and
by such men, the work of Dante, Petrarch and Boccaccio was
continued and lifted into recognition by all as employing an
instrument of dignified Uterary utterance. We find also cor-
roboration in a true note struck by Joachim du Bellay, in the
middle of the sixteenth century, in his tractate,^ so full of the
spirit of modernity, wherein he endeavours to shew that the
French tongue may not only become a hterary medium, but
as a living thing may receive enrichment as well. If anywhere,
we find in this a sense of what was the critical and creative
impulse of the Renaissance, in the attempt to bring native
culture into touch with that of the classical age reborn into
his own time. He protests against the idea that the Greek
and Latin languages were the last repositories of full utterance
and of perfect taste. And he objects to culture being kept,
like a curio in a casket, imprisoned in Greek and Latin books,
instead of being restored as from the dead, and sent forth into
the region of living utterance on words that should wino- their
daily course along the Ups of men. He deprecates the neglect
by Frenchmen of anything written in their own language, and
laments the common idea that the vulgar tongue is contemptible.
He pleads that in one's mother tongue are found ahke the

* Commento di Lorenzo. Ed. Aide, 1554. « 1405-1472.

' La Deffense et Illustration de la Langue Franfcyae. Cf. Speroni'a defence
of the Italian tongue. Vide Villey's Edition of du Bellay. 1908.

O

34 The Man and his Work

greatest freedom for the utterance of passion and the finest
music for such expression. What he says here is of universal
appHcation. It had been imphed in Douglas's labour, and
was said, in effect, by Lyndsay, and acted upon by him.

The author of the Prologue to The Testament of Love ^ summed
up the same cause when he wrote : " Let then clerkes enditen
in Latin, for they have the propertie of science and the knowing
in that facultie ; and lette Frenchmen in their French also
enditen their queint terms, for it is kindely in their mouths ;
and let us shew our fantasies in such wordes as we lerneden of
our dames tongue." We find this feeling even in the letter of
the Earl of March in 1400 ^ who, writing to King Henry IV
of England, had excused his use of English, as being " mare
cleir to myne understandyng than Latyne or Fraunche."

Douglas had the same hope as those others for his native
language, though he tried to enrich it too speedily by the in-
troduction of terms and phrases which remained aliens in their
Scottish environment. In his page we find a fresh and in-
dividual attempt to create a new vehicle of utterance, though
he does not shake himself away from the ancient influence,
because like many in other lands in his day, he cannot quite
liberate his tongue from the thought that common speech is
not fit worthily to express the idea of the sublime, and the
majesty of divinely passionate experience.

Douglas's Work

The translation of the Mneid was begun, according to
Douglas's own statement, in 1512, and it was finished, as he
says in his epilogue,

Apoa the fest of Mary Magdelan, M

Era Crystis byrth — the dait quha list to heir, W\

A thousand fyve hundreth and thretteyn zeir,'

that is to say, on 22nd July 1513, two months before Flodden's
sorrow. Douglas attributes the credit of the initiation of the
work to his cousin Henry, Lord Sinclair, under whose protection

^ Long attributed to Chaucer : now decided to be by Thomas Usk, executed
in 1386.

« National MSS. of Scotland, 1870, vol. ii.
' Tyme, etc., 2.

The Man and his Work 35

he places himself against carping critic and unkind backbiter.
Alas ! his noble patron was amongst the brave who fell at
Flodden, so his book had to stand upon its own merits.

Henryson had made the same excuse in his Dedication of
the Fables :

Nocht of my self for vane presumptioun,
Bot be requeist and Precept of ane Lord . . .

whether a genuine plea or a poetic shelter cannot be decided,
although it was the tradition of poets, in accordance with which
even Virgil himself began the Mneid to please a patron.

Douglas pleads that his translation, though begun on the
request of his relative and patron, was in reality but the ful-
filment of a promise made to Venus, in the Police of Honour,
when he undertook to translate a book in her name ; and, in
rendering the story of iEneas her son into the Scottish tongue,
he had now kept his word. The poets were, of course, uniquely
the devotees of Venus, love being so largely the staple of their
verse, — and the singers of France, in an especial degree, were
in this category. Gower, in his Confessio Amantis, makes the
goddess herself say :

And grete wel Chaucer when ye mete.
As my disciple and my Poete, ^

And the convention had a hardy life. Douglas's reference,

shorn of its poeticism, seems simply to indicate that he had

kept in contemplation, at any rate, the work which now he

issues to the world. In his Dedication, or Dyrectioun, he says

he now fulfills his

aid promyt
Quhilk I hit maid weil twelf zheris tofor :
As wytnessith my Palyce of Honour.'

He had promised it :

Sum tim efter, quhen I hav mair lasier.^
As with John Milton, the shadow of a great purpose had
floated before his imagination through the progress of his
earher labours.
He was " midway on the journey of his Hfe " when he finished

1 MS. HarL 3490. * Dyrectioun, 120.

* Police of Honour, Small, vol. i., p. 66, L 20.

I

36 The Man and his Work

his translation in 1513/ and lie bade farewell to poesy when
he laid down his pen. He stakes his all upon it.

Thus vp my pen and instrumentis full zore
On Virgillis post I fix for evirmore
Nevir from thens syk materis to discryve.
My muse sal now be cleyn contemplatyve,
And solitar, as doith the byrd in cage,
Sen fer byworn is aU my childis age,
And of my days neir passyt the half dait
That natur suld me grantyn, weO I wait.*

He may in this have recalled the tradition that Virgil himself
had also intended on the completion of his masterpiece to leave
the pursuit of poetry and devote himself to philosophy.

Douglases Apologia

He gives his pleas for having laboured as he had done. His

work will give innocent pleasure to many. It will enable

them to

pas the tyme and eschew idylnes.'

But it will also, he justly claims, be of use as an educational
medium, at a period when the Latin tongue was, in fact, the
main vehicle of instruction. It will be of advantage to those

who

wald Virgin to chUdryn expone.*

And, from the Church Councils of the age in which he wrote,
it may be gathered, as by an intelligent eavesdropper, that the
inferior clergy had httle enough grasp of the classical tongue,
many of them being scarcely conversant with their liturgy,
much less with the great Latin literature which was the staple
of mediaeval culture.^ He feels that he may, by right, expect
gratitude from them at least.

Thank me, tharfor, masteris of grammar sculys,
Quhar ze syt techand on zour benkis and stulys.
Thus haue I nocht my tyme swa occupy
That all suld hald my laubour onthryfty.*

* Conclusioune, 19. ' 76. 13.
3 Dyrectioun, 40. « lb. 43.

* See Statutes of the Scottish Church, 1225-1559, Scottish History Society
ed. Dr Patrick, 1907, p. 84. The preamble of the Statutes of the Provincia
CJouncil held in Blackfriar's Church, Edinburgh, 27th November 1549, acknow
ledges " crass ignorance of Uterature and of the liberal arts " as one of the
causes of dissensions and occasions of heresies. Vide Hay Fleming's Reforma-
tion in Scotland, 1910, c. iii. • Dyrectioun, 47.

I

The Man and his Work 37

It was not undertaken as a refuge from idleness, but as the
task of a loving heart in scanty leisure. Douglas tells us how it

for othir gret occupatioun lay
Onsteryt clos besyd me mony day.^

Whatever that " othir gret occupatioun " was, while he was
engaged upon this work he must have used special diligence,
for he tells us, also,

as God lyst len me grace

It was compylit in auchteyn moneth space.*

It may be concluded from internal evidence that he began
the Seventh Prologue in June 1512 : wrote the twelfth Book
in May, and the Mapheus Book in June, 1513. And, gathering
from his own words that he was hindered for two months,^ it
would seem that he took ten months to the first Six Books,
and eight to the concluding Seven of the translation. He
apologizes for its unre vised and unpolished condition, feeling

that

gret scant of tyme and bissy cuyr
Has maid my wark mair subtell and obscur
And nocht sa plesand as it aucht to be.*

The work itself does bear proofs, in many ways, of haste and
lack of revision, but apologies on such grounds were the common
pleas of all the poets of the time. Notwithstanding this, he
has the author's pride in his own offspring, which resents, while
it fears, meddlesome editing : for he appeals to writers and
readers to give the book a fair chance —

nother maggil nor mysmetir my rjine,
Nor altir not my wordis I zow pray.''

He makes an appeal, above all, to those who are expert in
poesy, — -those who are entitled to claim skill in the critical art, —
to authorities rather than to authority, a poet's rather than a
churchman's cry —

Surs capitall in vejTi poeticall.'

He leaves the work to their judgment, after they have read it
through. The sense of their sympathy then assured, he is

' Tyme, etc., 5. ' lb. 12. » lb. 13. * lb. 17.

* Tyme, 24. Cf. Chaucer. — Preye I to God that non myswrite the, Ne the
mys-metere. Troylus and Creseide, V. 1809. ® Dyrectioun, 57.

38 The Man and his Work

blinded to all shame in his task, and he offers himself willingly
to the " weiriours," or doubters and cavillers,

Quhilk in myne E fast staris a mote to spy.^
He heeds not

Quha sa lawchis heirat, or hedis noddis,^
nor does he intend to trouble himself

quhidder fulys bald me devill or sanct.'

He has in this the spirit so fearlessly reflected in Sir John
Trevisa's Epistle : "as God granteth me grace, for blame of
backbiters will I not blinne ; for envy of enemies, for evil spiting,
and speech of evil speakers, will I not leave to do this deed."
It is fine to encounter a man who has faith in himself and his
work. A man dedicated to his purpose touches the world to
consecration and sacrifice. There is a great inspiration in
every " Ego Athanasius contra mundum."

His Critics

He had apparently plenty of harsh contemners, who cen-
sured him for wasting good time in the work ; and he feels that
he has suffered somewhat in consequence, —

Quhairthrow I haue wrocht myself syk dispyte.*

It was doubtless considered, by many, a vain and futile labour
to be dallying with

fenzeit fabillj'S of idolatry.*

What dealt with gods and children of the gods fell under this
category, " for all the gods are idols dumb." By this work,
considered by so many to be but misdirected industry he had
been, in the eyes of some, degrading his oJ05ce, and making of
himself, as he puts it, a butt to shoot at.

This fear of blame for spending serious time in bringing
before his period what so many seemed to think lying and
obsolete superstitions and myths about persons that had never
existed, had quite obviously been haunting him pretty closely,

» Dyrectioun, 66. » lb. 67. * lb. 71. * lb. 20. « lb. 26.

The Man and his Work 39

and may have had some effect in causing him to follow certain
modifications of a religious kind, quite in the spirit of the
scholars of other countries.

Further, for friendship's sake, and loyalty to his patron, not
for reward or praise, he had laboured, for he is no " cayk fydler,"
no soming minstrel strumming for a meal. He is a friend
writing for a friend, and trying to liberate a poet, locked up
in a scholar's language, away from the general mass of the
people. He thinks these should be the better for a share in
the poetic delight and the moral guidance to be derived from
the loosening of his thought into the vernacular. In fact, he
is making Virgil free to all who list to read him, if they be athirst
for his rich spirit. And it is no inferior poet whom he has
translated, bringing forward out of obscurity

Na meyn endyte, nor empty wordis vayn.
Common engyn, nor stile barbarian. ^

He has led the majestic flood of noblest eloquence, in

profund and copyus plenitude,*

over the levels of his native plains enrichingly. And here he
seems to have touched Dante's

Or se' tu quel Virgilio e quella fonte

Che spande di parlar si largo fiume ? . . .

Yet, while he is confident of the merits of his labour, he is
prepared for the accuracy of his rendering being questioned.
He knows how

detractouris intil euery place
Or evir thai reid the wark byddis bym the buke,^

cruelly spying out deficiencies, and crowing over their discoveries

of faults,

sayand in euery manis face,
Lo, heir he failzeis, sa thair he leys, luyk.*

These, however, he challenges to go and do better for themselves.
At any rate, he declares, if in a phrase here and there he may
have erred, the sense of the poet he has truly grasped.

> Dyrectioun, 53. " lb. 56. ^ Exdamatioun, 11. * lb. 17.

40 The Man and his Work

The Apologies of Poets

In all this, although what he says and hints may have been
quite true, he more or less followed a fashion, examples of which
can be plentifully found in the current literature of his time>
Thus, — ^in the Prologue of the Persones Tale, — Chaucer says :

this meditacioun
I put it ay under correccioun
Of clerkes, for I am not textuel ;
I take but the sentens, trusteth wel,
Therfor I make protestacioun
That I wol stonde to correccioun.

The same kind of conventional humility is to be found in
Henryson's Prologue to his Fables, where, having duly apologized
for his " rudenesse," he pleads,

And if I faUe, bi cause of ignorance,

That I erre m my translacioun.

Lowly of hert and feythful obeisaunce

I me submyt to theyr correcioun

To theym that have more cliere inspecioun,

In matiers that touchen poyetry

And to reforme, that they me not deny.

Wyntoun, in his Orygipialle Chronykil, has the same throb.

My wit I ken sa skant thartUl

That I drede sair thame till offend

That can me and my work amend ... ^

For as I said, rude is my wit. . . .

Even the modem translator had the same mind, and makes
the same claim as Douglas, when he writes, " I acknowledge
that I have not succeeded in this attempt, according to my
desire ; yet shall I not be wholly without praise if in some
sort I may be allowed to have copied the clearness, purity,
easiness, and the magnificence of his style," - — at once an apology
and an assurance of the deepest and the highest, combined ;
perhaps a little turned towards the " pride that apes humiUty,"
probably pardonable in poets.

A poet is, perhaps, not always to be taken exactly at his
word when he speaks either of his humility or incapacity. And
Douglas's protestations may very well mean, " I know what I

^ And earlier ! See the prologue of the grandson of Jesus the Son of Sirach,
regarding his translation of Ecchsiasticus from Hebrew into Greek, 130 B.C.
Cf. also Abacuc Bysett's Eolment of Gourks, * Dryden's Preface.

The Man and his Work 41

have achieved. Hands off from meddling." A poet, then as
now, may say, " It is a poor thing, but mine own," and so be
ready to defend his offspring to the last extreme.

Genius is, of course, both modest and self-assertive. It
touches the former things and is touched by them, while it
must make the venture of faith into the new. And so, while
it feels its wings, it must at the same time be conscious that
its footing is unsteady. Even Virgil had not the self-assurance
of Horace or of Douglas in regard to the abidingness of the
fruit of his labour. In fact, in a letter written to Augustus,
which Macrobius quotes, he spoke of his having undertaken
a work so immense as the Mneid, in a moment of folly, —

psene vitio mentis.

In effect, however, it is what Rossetti's plea amounts to, when
that poet speaks of his own translations as " not carelessly
imdertaken, though produced in the spare time of other pursuits
more closely followed " ; while he assures the reader that " on
the score of care at least he has no need to mistrust it." ^

The old proud spirit which, at a later period, made a great
mce " write on the walls of their dwelling-places, —

" Thai say. Quhat say thai ? Lat thaim sai,"

supported Douglas as he declared,

quhen all thar rerd is rong,
That wycht mon speke that can nocht hald hys tong.'

Though he has spoken somewhat doubtfully of the criticism

that awaits him, and the carping time through which he has

persevered, he yet has the true poet's confidence in his

achievement :

now ankyrrit is our bark,
We dowt na storm, our cabillys ar sa stark.*

Douglas felt the labour of translation a heavy task indeed.
He speaks thankfully of the finish of

the lang desparit wark.

And he was not alone in thus deploring the drudgery of it.

* Introduction, Early Italian Poets. ' The Keiths, Earh MarischaL

' Exdamatioun, 35. * lb. 4.

42 The Man and his Work

Elphynstoun, the transcriber of the manuscript called after
him, in Edinburgh University, after writing

Explicit Liber Decimus tertius Eneados,

expressed his deepest feelings on finishing his transcription,
in the pregnant phrase —

Quod Bocardo et Baroco.

These are the mediseval names of the two hardest forms in
Logic, from which whoso was entrapped into them found utmost
difficulty in escaping ; and this seems to cover the emotions of
the wearily thankful scribe.

Churchmen and Virgil

Alongside of Douglas's apologies we must of course remember
that the only fit critics of such works as his, were Churchmen ;
and that, in their eyes, the Latin tongue was too sacred to be
lightly touched ; while there was also that ecclesiastical pre-
judice against the vernacular, which made a translator be
looked upon as one who was casting pearls before swine.

Besides, in the Middle Ages, Virgil, — as with so many whose
excelling natural abilities were explained as being due to trans-
actions with the shady side of the other world, — ^had, through
many strange mutations, become, in the common view a
mythical philosopher and magician. An entirely false scheme
of biography had rooted itself, in regard to him, in the popular
imagination. 1 Tales of magic, of the most fatuous kind,
obscured the charact3r of the poet; and this distorted fame
spread over Europe. Petrarch was amongst the earliest of
his defenders against these ridiculous calumnies; while, in
1630, Gabriel Naude defended many of the famous men whose
names had been associated with legends of the Black Art, —

^ Vide Letter from Chancellor Conrad, 11 94, reproduced in Arnold of Lubeck's
continuation of Helmold's Chronicon Slavicum : John of Salisbury : Gervase
of Tilbury's Ofia Imperialia, bk. iii. (circa 1211): Alexander Neckham, 1217 :
H61inand, 1227 : Gesta Bomanorum : Gower's Gonfessio Amantis : Lydgate's
Bochas : separate romances collected circa 1499 in Chap-book, Les Faitz
Merveilleux de Virgille : Thorns, Early English Prose Romances, 1853 : Com-
paretti, Virgilio nel Medio Evo, 1872 : Rodocanachi, Etudes et Fantaiaies
Historiques, Paris, 1919. Cf. legends of Horace at Palestrina, Thomas the
Rhymer, Michael Scot, Faust, etc.

i

*

The Man and his Work 43

Virgil amongst them, with Aristotle and Julius Cassar. It
should not have been difficult to clear the fame of the poet
from such ridiculous stories as that, a lady in Rome having
slighted him, he cast a glamour over the city so that not a fire
could be lighted anywhere till she had apologized : that he
built a palace in Rome, in which he could hear everything
which was even whispered in the city : and that he married the
daughter of the Soldan of Babylon, their mutual visits being
made by means of a bridge of air ! The tales of his wonder,
and especially of his mischief, were almost without number.
A somewhat similar Puck-ish transformation was made of
George Buchanan, the great poet and humanist, who, to
popular imagination, was, and in some places still is, considered
to have been the king's jester, the creator of many ridiculous
situations, and author of innumerable vulgar jokes. ^

The Church, following TertuUian rather than Origen, was
opposed to the works of the heathen authors finding a popular
vogue. Gregory the Great said, " The praises of Christ cannot
be fitly uttered in the same tongue as those of Jove," ^ and so
clinched the argument for the language of the Latin Church.
St Jerome's dream, which made him lay aside his favourite
classic when the voice said, " Ciceronianus es, non Christianus ;
ubi enim thesaurus tuus, ibi est cor tuum," ^ fully expressed
the ecclesiastical attitude. Thus, also, Grwculus was taken as
equivalent to hcereticus : while Latin was under frequent sus-
picion as being the instrument of immoral teaching. And
Alcuin forbade the reading of Virgil in the monastery over
which he presided, as tending to sully the pious imagination,
and rebuked a secret lover of the poet by the title VirgiUan,
instead of Christian.^ Douglas, therefore, probably foresaw
objection to his work, in the survival of such an attitude, as
well as in the envy of those who did not love him. He also
argued for the contact of Virgil with Christian teaching, as
we shall see.

^ Vide Chap-book. The Witty and Entertaining Exploits of George Buchanan,
the King's Jester. This placed Buchanan at the English Conrt of James,
twenty-one years after his death !

* Mullinger : Schools of Charles the Cheat, p. 77.

' Epistola ad Eusiochium. * Mullinger, p. 110.

44 The Man and his Work

VirgiVs Position

Among classical poets, Virgil, of course, occupied in the
Middle Ages the sublimest position. Dante was steeped in
Virgil, who was to him the very personification of Philosophy
and Science, and therefore most suitably the guide of his
pilgrimage through the world of shadow. To Petrarch, also,
Virgil meant as much, as we find from the note in his copy of
the Roman poet, in the Ambrosian Library at Milan, where
he records the time of his first meeting with Laura, and the
date of her death. " I write in this book," he says, " rather
than anywhere else, because it comes more frequently under
my eye." That Virgil's name was held in the very highest
estimate is further proved by the admiration and reverence
shewn to him, while others were neglected ; and when printing
came to the help of authors he was an immediate beneficiary,
for ninety editions, at least, were issued from the press before
the beginning of the sixteenth century. The respect awarded
to him by Dante confirmed his position.

It is a little strange, in this connection, that Douglas does
not mention Dante's name. He probably would be more
inclined to recall the poet-exile of Florence in his own dark
days of exile, when the sweet labour of his muse had, alas !
become but as a dream of light, remembered from the years
that were dead. Such silences are not uncommon. Even
Dryden does not mention Douglas, his own great predecessor
in the work of translation. Nevertheless, one should have
expected otherwise of Douglas, if only under the influence of
Chaucer, who spoke of the great Florentine, and shewed the
remembrance of his touch, in Troylus, and in The Parlement of
Foules ; as well as from his own pioneer position.

Virgil in Scotlmid

By the period of Gawain Douglas the Roman was the
favourite of all who anywhere loved lofty literature, Homer
being known in Scotland only through Latin, as Greek did not
penetrate to that country as an educational medium until 1534,
when Erskine of Dun brought with him from his travels a
teacher of the language, whom he settled at Montrose. The

The Man and his Work 45

story of Troy was more familiar in the now forgotten pseud-
epigraphs ^ of Dictys of Crete, and Dares the Phrygian, which
were supposed to be free from Homer's anti-Trojan prejudice.

His Appeal to Douglas

Douglas was drawn to Virgil both as a Churchman and a
scholar. The works of the Roman poet had, in the Middle
Ages, a pseudo-philosophical character attributed to them ;
and the method of Sortes Virgiliance ^ lifted them into a position
almost equal to that which the Bible held in this respect amongst
our forefathers. Men left serious decisions, in crises of grave
moment, to the phrases which first caught their eye on a chance
opening of the page. He was, in common repute, an associate
of Aristotle, Euclid, Solomon, Samson, King Arthur, and many
others of similar standing. Allegory moved through the alleys
of the Roman's thought, with dim candle ; and had long
believed that it saw a kind of shadowy Christianity veiled in
the noble utterance and stately phrase. It seemed as though
Virgil carried a lantern which left his own path obscure but
lit the path of those who followed him. This convention notably
influenced Douglas in one side of his work.

Though Douglas tells us that his cousin Lord Sinclair had

given him the great alternative —

With grete instance diuers tymys seir
Prayit me translait VirgUl or Homeir,

he could not have attempted the Greek poet at first hand.
But he naturally knew his Latin classics, and speaks as with
immediate acquaintance, of

the mixt and subtiQ Martial,

^ (a) Pretended discovery in fourth century of a MS. of the Trojan War, said
to have been uncovered in the tomb of Dictys of Crete, by an earthquake ;
written in the time of Nero, in Phenician characters, in the Greek language,
by Dictys, companion of Idomeneus, mentioned in the Iliad, and translated
into Latin by Quintus Septimus, (b) Trojan contemporary history by Dares
the Phrygian — discovered at Athens by Cornehus Nepos, who had turned it
into Latin. These pseudo-historical wi'itings had great vogue. Vide House
of Fame, iii. 377, and Troylus and Greseide, i. 146, where these are set
alongside of Homer. Vide M. Joly, Roman de Troie.

' Cf. in this respect the portent so obtained by Alexander Severus, in ^n.
vi. 852 ; and Charles the First in jEn. iv. 615-620. Vide Rabelais, bk. iii. c. 10.
Cf. the mother of Goethe, in the same spirit, pricking the Bible with a pin to
discover the chances of her son's recovery '. Vide Tennyson's Enoch Arden.

46 The Man and his Work

and of Horace as

the morall wise poete.

He refers again to Homer in a prose note to the Sixth Book,
which appears in some copies of the Black Letter Edition, of
1553, wherein he suggests that in the preceding Books Virgil
had followed the Odyssey, for the perils through which ^Eneas
had passed ; and in the other six Books had followed the Iliad,
in describing battles.

Humanism and Christianity

The attempt of the scholars of the fifteenth century to re-
concile Christianity and the ancient religion of Greece was
probably, at root, the result of the instinct to give humanity
as much as possible to feed upon, — ^practicall}'" the shifting of
the flock of Thought to fresh grounds and virgin pastures.
The ecclesiastical and feudal systems had failed, and the soul
sought earlier sources for truth and life. The gods of Greece
ceased to be looked upon with abhorrence ; their story became
a new treasure-house of untrammelled art and poetic speculation.
It is true that Gemisthus Pletho ^ had declared his aim to
supersede the Christian Church and religion by a neo-Platonic
mysticism ; but Ficino,^ when, according to tradition, he kept
a candle burning before a bust of Plato and another before the
Virgin, is perhaps more representative of the comprehensiveness
of the new Spirit, for one large section of its scholars at any
rate. Douglas leaves no reader in dubiety as to his position.
He admires the genius of the pagan, but he lays his work on
the shrine of divine truth.^

The Appeal of Universal Truth

The Renaissance spirit awoke in man the feeling that he
was a citizen of all the world of truth and beauty. Art became
an integral part of religion, and no longer a mere acolyte at
sacred shrines, or even a proselyte of the gate. The heathen
Olympus was scaled by Christian poets ; and Hippocrene
became the refreshing well in the desert for the pilgrim of

1 1355-1450. " 1433-99. * Cf. ProL vL

The Man and his Work 47

Christian thought to rest beside. All souls met on the common
ground of humane thought. There entered into this new
atmosphere a fresh appeal of the gods who once had deigned
to tabernacle in the tents of men and talk with rustic shepherds
by their desert fires. And even Churchmen were turned thus,
with a freshly sympathetic interest, to the pages of the ancient
authors.

The Science of Comparative Religion appeals to-day with
something of the same power, to the human mind, kaleidoscopic
in its intuitions, which are the touchstones of the veracity of
every age. But the fifteenth century had no Theory of Evolu-
tion, or of mental progression from less to more, a process of
the soul from darkness, through the dawn, to noonday. Nor
had it, as the product of experience, that grasp of historic com-
parisons which marks modernity. Allegory was the key to
the divine mystery, and a world of analogues was evolved, in
the misty border land between the old light and the new. The
divinities of Olympus, and their speakers. Homer and Plato,
addressed the children of the Middle Ages with the same power
as the patriarchs and prophets.^ Pomponazzo ^ went so far as
to declare that Moses, Mahomet, and Christ, were all of equal
authority. The resultant process in literature was somewhat
like a modern restoration of the shattered glass in an ancient
ruined window, or the rekindling of extinguished fires. In-
congruity, and a world of flickering and uncertain shadows,
was the natural result. The Astrologers, the Cabbala, Plato,
Homer, Holy Scripture, Boccaccio, and whatsoever the soul
encountered in its awaking, were used as quarries for pseudo-
philosophy and poesy, which sought to find, under fables of
the gods of old, the substratum of universal truth. The issue
was a semi-amalgam of the sacred and profane. The Revival
of Learning cleared the field of its confusions, which had
made Boethius equal to Plato, and even Homer inferior to
Ovid.

1 Of. On loft is gone the glorius Apollo.

Dunbar : 0/ the Resurrection of Christ, 1. 22.

It has been unnecessarily argued from this that the Catholic Church did not
adopt the Miltonic idea that the heathen gods were evil spirits.

2 1452-1525.

48 The Man and his Work

The Discovery of the Age

Humanism found that a great secret of vitality bad been
dug out of the forgotten dust into which convention had trodden
it. Whatever had touched the li^^ng interest of man had
touched it vitally, and did not lose its force. No word that
had spoken awakingly to a living heart had died utterly ; no
vision that had ever unfolded the wonder of its beauty was
futile entirely. The soul of a truth went eternally marching
on, through all victorious spiritual progressions. It was in
this that the unchristened wisdom and beauty of Virgil made
their direct appeal to Douglas. And so he clothed them in the
fairest vesture he knew, and tuned their music as fitly as he
could to divine melody, for the benefit and enlightenment of
the heart of man.

Petrarch regarded the thinker and poet, thus, as also teachers
of truth, without trammel of the dead hand. Progress towards
perfect vision and utterance through the sense of individual
personality using all the wisdom that lay in the words of Church
father, and classical author, and, above all, in the page of Holy
Scripture, was the true ideal of a living man, in his eyes. And
Douglas, in his Virgilian labours, is filled and guided by the
same spirit.

Petrarch and Virgil

Petrarch's deep devotion to ancient culture did not paganize
him. He did not stumble into the custom and usage of later
Italian humanists, whereby pagan and Christian ideals were
awarded equality of reverence. Yet he says to Virgil : '' Did
wandering ^Eneas welcome thee, and hast thou gone through
the ivory gate ? . . . Dost thou inhabit that still expanse of
heaven which receives the blessed, where the stars shine softly
on the peaceful shades of the renowned ? Wast thou received
thither after the conquest of the Stygian abodes, on the arrival
of the Highest King who, victor in the mighty conflict, crossed
the unhallowed threshold with feet that were pierced, and with
might indomitable beat down the bars of Hell with his wounded
hands ? " He plainly accepted, as an aid to the intellectual
mastery of human questions, the classical writers, in their

The Man and his Work 49

degree, in co-operation rather than in co-ordination with the
revelation of Jesus Christ. His grasp of the meaning of the
true hght kept him from materiahstic impiety. All his work
was anticipatory of the splendour, and with formative influence
upon the age that succeeded him in Art and Letters.

The Result

While the awaking of the soul to expression of individual

revolt from Medisevalism as a sealed and ultimate scheme of

thought, prompted the flight of the spirit in reality into a world

where all facts were relevant, there was at the same time an

attempt to prove or discard theories by reference to their norm,

— a long stride away from Allegory and ecclesiastical dogma

into critical direct study of poets, historians, scriptural and

patristic literatures, in their original forms. This involved, for

some, escape from Aristotle to Plato, while many were turned

back to the New Testament and the Fathers. For the first, it

gave philosophy a chance. They fomid, as others had, how

povera e nuda va filosofia.^

And Lorenzo de' Medici spoke w^hat many felt when he made

his appeal to Reason, to break her bonds, leaving false hopes, and

seeking freedom, her birthright.

Leva dal collo tuo quella catena
Ch' avolto vi tenea falsa bellezza :
E la vana speranza, che ti mena,
Leva dal cuor, e f a il governo pigli
Di te, la parte piu beUa e serena.

For the second, it seemed as though early Christianity were
bom again, — that the divine Spirit of the universe touched
directly the divine which had been sleeping in the clay, or
muttering in its slumber. For all, it meant enrichment of
fancy, extension of knowledge, and a draught of poesy fresh
from wells that had been sealed against the lips of all except
the learned. And the hand of Douglas rolled away the stone
for his own people. As Jebb points out, not only in Philosophy,
nor in Literature nor in Art alone, but in every form of in-
tellectual activity the Renaissance threw open " a new era for
mankind."

^ Petiarcb : Sonnet, La gola e7 sonno, etc.

50 The Man and his Work

Virgil and Christianity— Douglas'' s use of him — Douglases View
— Lymhus
This movement was not, however, permitted to pass without
protest, Padre Pompeo Venturi ^ leading against Dante for
his having mingled paganism with Christianity. In fact,
throughout mediaeval times Christian thought was in an almost
constant grapple with the traditions of pagan antiquity and
the deep reverence for the great Roman poet ; but many frag-
ments of ancient beliefs actually passed at this time, without
baptism, into Christianity. Even Erasmus expressed the fear
that with the revival of pagan literature would come the revival
of actual paganism, and he and his fellows busied themselves
with the revival of simple Christianity^ — ^" primitive apostolic
sincerity." It was known that St Augustine had commended
Virgil as the first and best of poets, though St Jerome condemned
him. Lesser lights followed the big candles, pro and con, so
that, while some monasteries treasured manuscripts of Virgil's
works, others held him to be opposed to the Psalms, and protege
of the powers of evil. Douglas, however, had a far other view
of his poet, and is prepared to quote the pagan as a defender
of the Christian faith, or, at any rate, as a Christian evidence,
though born out of due time. He was, of course, not a pioneer
in this ; for, in the early liturgical play, Prophetce,^ of about
the eleventh century, we find standing among the thirteen
witnesses invoked for testimony to the divine mission of Jesus
Christ, — and named as having predicted His advent, — ^Virgil,
along with John the Baptist, Nebuchadnezzar, and the Sibyl,
— ^with direct reference, of course, in Virgil's case, to that poet's
fourth Eclogue. The play itself was evolved from the pseud-
epigraphic Sermo contra JudcBos, which, attributed to St
Augustine, was honoured in certain churches by having a place
awarded to it in the ofiices for Christmas. In its earliest form
it followed the Sermo closely, but the dialogue was expanded
at a later time, and Balaam also inserted among the prophets.
In this connection it is worth noting with what hardihood such
a mode of thought survived, when we find that even in 1670

^ Notable Commentator on Dante, b. 1693, d. 1752.
* Vide Sepet, Les Prophetes du Christ, Paris, 1878.

The Man and his Work 51

John Eachard, in his Grounds and Occasions of ike Contempt

of the Clergy, could write ironically, " It is usually said by those

that are intimately acquainted with him, that Homer's Iliad

and Odyssey contain mystically all the Moral Law for certain,

if not a great part of the Gospel." The same remark might

have been made in regard to Virgil, whom Douglas very seriously

quotes along these lines, insisting, in fact, in his Prologue, that

the Sixth Book of the ^neid is an inspired allegory of the

future life.^

Schawls he nocht heir the synnys capital ?

Schawls he nocht wikklt folk in endles pane ?

And purgatory for synnys venyaU,

And vertuus pepU into the plesand plane ?

At al sik sawis fantasy, and invane ?

He schawls the way ever patent down to hell.

And rycht dlflficU the gait to hevin agane,

With ma gude wordls than thou or I kan tell ^ , . .

And, thocht our faith neid nane authorising
Of gentiles bukls, nor by sik helthin sparkis
Zit Virgil writis mony just claus condlng,
Strengthing our beleve, to confound payan warkis.
Qhow oft rehersis Austyne, chelf of clarkls,
lia his gret volume of the cite of God,
Hundreth versis of Virgil quhilk he markis
Agane Romanys til vertu thame to brod.^

He gathers together what he considers to be the Christian
teaching of Virgil's Sixth Book as to the other world :

principally the sted of fell tormentis , . .
Ane other place quhilk purgator representis,
And dar I say the Lymbe of faderis aid,
With Lymbus puerorum.*

In support of this last-named doctrine he takes those Hues of
the Mneid as authoritative :

Continuo auditae voces, vagitus et ingens,
Infantumque animse flentes, ia limine primo
Quos dulcls vitse exsortis et ab ubere raptos
Abstuht atra dies et funere mersit acerbo . . .^

As qhow thir helthin chUdir thar weirdis wary,
Wepand and waland at the first port of hell . . .*

Virgil seems to teach in the JEneid that a full term of life, ended

^ Cf. Fenelon's Letter to Chevalier destouches : "You love Virgil . . .
Well, I refer you to Horace . . I undertake to inculcate to you almost all
the Christian counsels which you need ... or to dispone them under lines of
Horace." Vide Sainte-Beuve, Causerie, 1st April 1850.

» ProL vi. 41 3 /ft, 57, 4 jj^ §9. » 425, e proj ^j, 55

52 The Man and his Work

, by natural or lionourable death, is necessary in order to win
admission to the fields of rest in the under-world of shades.
He therefore places suicides, those who have been wrongly
condemned, and those who have died of love's sorrow, cut off
before their time, in Limbus, next to infants. Tertullian
apparently agrees with this, but has an additional idea, as to
the period of termination of this state : " Aiunt et immatura
morte prseventas eo usque vagare istic, donee reliquatio com-
pleatur setatum quas pervenissent si non intempestive obiisent."
Douglas followed in regard to this ^ those who had gone
before him along the same way. The first use of the word
Limbus in its theological sense is in the Summa of Aquinas,
and its extension was much helped by Dante's Inferno, Canto IV,
where, in the uppermost of the nine circles into which the place
of expiation and doom is divided, Virgil shews the souh, of
whom himself is one, along with Homer, Horace, Ovid an(i
Lucian, and all the figures of the great, from Scripture and
from pagan writings — ^who, without ofience, were yet of the
world's period before Christ, and so being unbaptizod, fell
short of the full peace of the blessed. In the day after Douglas's
day Archbishop Hamilton, in the Scottish Catechism,'^ expiscates
the belief, shewing that it refers to the home of babes mibaptized ;
but, being free from actual transgression, their only penalty
is deprivation of glory, in consequence of their ordinary human
heritage of original sin.

The influence of Douglas in this matter of theology in literature
is felt later on when Dr Farmer, in the famous Essay on the
Learning of Shakespeare, refers to him in connection with the
doctrine of Purgatory thus : " Gawain Douglas really changes
the Platonic hell into the punytion of soulis in purgatory." ^
And he draws attention to the similarity of the phrase used by
the ghost in Hamlet, to that used by Douglas. The ghost
informed Hamlet of his unrestful doom,

1 The first decree of the Church on the subject is found in the Council of
Florence, 1439. Cf. Newman's Dream of Gerontius.

^ 1552. Reprinted in facsimile 1882, with historical introduction by Professor
Mitchell of St Andrews : also in 1884, with introduction by Dr T. G. Law. A
copy is in the Library of Edinburgh University. It is very rare. Laing's copy
in 1879 brought £148 at Sotheby's, and in 1905, £141.

» Second Edition, 1767, p. 43.

The Man and his Work 53

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature
Are burnt and purged away.^

Douglas's explanation is,

Quhen that the lif disseueris fra the body,
Than netheles not zit ar fullely
All harme ne cryme fra wrachit saulis separat.
Nor aid infectioun come of the body layt :
And thus aluterly it is neidfuU thing
The mony vycis lang tyme induryng
Contrackit in the corps be done away
And purgit.^

It is true that all voices won their listeners at that period
almost with equal weight, and were not looked upon, as now
we take them, in their degree, in the natural growth of mind
interpreting phenomena. But Douglas strikes out from the
accepted standpoint, when he declares, as he appeals to the
Virgin Mother :

AU other Jove and Phebus I refus
Lat Virgill hald hys mawmentis to him self
I wirschip nowder ydoU, stok nor elf
Thocht furth I write so as myne autour dois.'

Douglas's Muse

In the light of his period, Douglas, the Churchman and
Christian poet, naturally feels in his poem that he must invoke
the " Prince of Poetis," who is the very King of kings, to be his

gydar and laid stern.*
He turns also from Calliope to Mary Mother :

Thou virgyn moder and madyn be my muse . . .
Albeit my sang to thy hie maieste
Accordis nocht.^

And again he cries :

Thou art our Sibill, Cristis moder deir.*

In similar thought he calls her Son,

that hevynly Orpheus
Grond of all gude, our Saluyour Ihesus.^

1 Act i. 5, 12. 2 vi. 12, 31.

■' Pi'ol. X. 152. Mahomets, i.e. idols, as with early WTiters, used also of
Satan. Cf. Burns, " Auld Mahoun,"

* Prol. i. 453 (Small, 459). ^ /^ 432 (Small, 468).

« Prol. vi. 145. 7 pi.oi_ i_ 4^8 (Small, 474).

54 The Man and his Work

^

His Interpretations

Again, in his Comment, he explains, in this spirit, the meeting
of ^neas with Venus his mother " in hknes of a vergyn or a
mayd : by the quhilk ye sail understand that Venus was in
the ascendent, and had domynation in the hevyn the tym of
his natyvitie ; and for that the planet Venus was the signifiar
of his byrth and had domination and speciall influens towart
hym. . . . And weyn nocht for this thocht poetis fenzeis Venus
the planet, for the Caus foirsaid, to be Eneas mother, at thai
beleve nocht he was motherles . . . and that Venus metis
Eneas in form and lyknes of a maid is to be onderstood that
Venus the planate that tym was in the syng of the Virgyn."
All this is consonant with that borderland period of thought
in which a man, one foot in the Middle Ages and the other in
the dawning age of neo-classic literature, could look upon
Christ as a diviner Plato, or Plato as a Christ in posse.

In the same spirit of semi-philosophical interpretation he
follows Boccaccio's interpretation of the gods, as in the De
Genealogia Deorum of that poet, — Juno being " the erth and
the water," Jupiter " the ayr and the fyre," etc. For all kindred
information he refers to " John Bocas," with the reverence of
a devout follower. He also quotes Landinus,* " that writis
morally apon Virgill," as shewing how " Eneas purposis to
Italy, his land of promyssion ; that is to say, a just perfyte
man entendis to mast soueran bonte and gudnes, quhilk, as
witnessyth Plato, is contemplation of godly thingis or dyvyn
warkis. His onmeysabill ennymy Juno, that is fenyeit queen
of realmys, entendis to dryve him from Italy to Cartage : that
is Avesion or concupissence to ryng or haf wardly honouris,
and draw him fra contemplation to the active lyve ; quhilk
quhen scho falls by hir self, tretis scho with eolus, the neddyi'
part of raison, quhelk sendis the storm of mony wardly consalis
in the just manis mynd." And so forth.

With all his love for the heathen poet Douglas never
forgets himself as " the reverend father in God . . . Bishop
of Dunkeld." And herein his needle just trembles from its
Renaissance polestar. But he had his Renaissance moments.

' b. 1424; <1. .vbout 1508.

The Man and his Work 55

In fact, his translation of Virgil was itself a Renaissance act.
Oleams of the new day flash along his line. His invocation
in the opening of his work :

Lawd, honour, praysyngis, thankis infynyte
To the and thy dulce ornate fresch endyte,
Maist reuerend Virgill, of Latyn poetis prynce,

shews liis estimate of his original, as lofty as Ovid's regarding
the jEneid :

quo nullum Latio clarius exstat opus.^

The author of Lancelot of the Laik has the same phrase in
regard to the poet's " fresch enditing of his laiting toung " ; ^ and
Douglas's invocation might well be an echo of Dante's verse :

O degli altri poeti onore e lume,
Vaghami il lungo studio e il grande amore,
Che m'ha fatto cercar lo tuo volume,

for, over and over again, he displays a similar spirit of close
devotion to his poet.

His Originality

In his work Douglas claims originality, in that he has not
tried to imitate any other scholar, but that he follows

eftu" my fantasy.*

And he claims no inspiration, nor the possession of aught beyond
what a scholar should possess, doing his best,

Not as I suld, I wrait, bot as I couth.*
And when he says he passes on the spirit of the ancient poet,

new fra the berry run,'
not in artificial phrase, but in

haymly playn termys famyliar,'

he is making that personal stroke which is characteristic of
the neo-classicism in its search back to sources, and its claim
for the rights of the vernacular.

1 IL Eleg. xxxiv. 66 ; de Art. Amor. iii. 337. * Prol. 327.

» Dyrectioun, 98. * lb. 110. ' lb. 90. * Jh. 94.

56 The Man and his Work

Douglas and Caxton

Douglas objects to Caxton's work, which Caxton described
as founded on, and as being practically a translation of, " a
lytyl booke in Frenche, which late was translated oute of Latyn
by some noble clerk of Fraunce,^ which booke is name Eneydos,
made in Latyn by that noble poete and grete clerke Vyrgyle."
His condemnation of Caxton's book is quite modern both in
its reason and in its scathingly searching scorn. The original
was, in reality, not at all a translation from Virgil, but from a
loose French version of an Italian paraphrase of certain portions
of the Mneid,—a, kind of eclectic romance based on that poem
and The Fall of Princes by Boccaccio. It never reached, in
Caxton's rendering, a second issue, though the Printer seems to
have executed a large edition, to judge by the frequency of
the copies extant. Caxton himself was painfully conscious of
difficulties before him in his task, owing to the diversity of
English dialects, and the fact that he was not acquainted at
first hand with Virgil, as he explicitly declares. For he mentions
how he had submitted his work to John Skelton, skilled in
English, having " late translated the epystles of Tulle, and
the boke of Dyodorus Syculus, and diverse other werkes oute
of Latyn in to Englyshe, not in rude and olde langage, but in
polyshed anrl ornate termes craftely, as he had redde Vyrgyle^
Ouyde, Tuiiye, and all the other noble poetes and oratours to
me unknowen."

Douglas justly complains that it is not Virgil ; that in time,

place, style, spirit and character, it is wrong, and imfair to the

author in whose name it is put forward. And here he is in

touch with the Renaissance, and with its reverence for the

norm. He mentions point after point where Caxton's book

goes astray, and where it is deficient. He deplores that any one

So schamefully that story dyd pervert ;
I red hys wark with harmys at my hart,
That syk a buke, but sentence or engyne,
Sud be intitillit eftir the poet dyvyae.^

He mourns that his poet should be misrepresented

With sycli a wycht, quhilk trewly, be myne enteut,
Knew neuer thre wordis of all quhat VirgUl ment.

^ Guillaume de Roy. ^ Piol. i. 144.

The Man and his Work 57

He returns to the attack in the Prolong of the Fyft Buik, again
condemning the audacity of Caxton :

Now harkLs sportis, myrthis and myrry plays,
Full gudly pastans on mony syndry waj's,
Endj-te by Virgil, and heir by me translate,
Quhilk William Caxton knew never al hys days :
For as I sayd befor, that man forvays,
Hys febil proys bejai mank and mutulate.^

It seems a very persistent and hard attack, but Caxton's phrase,
written, of course, in ignorance — " made in Latyn by that noble
poet and grete clerke Vyrgyle " — provoked it. And probably
also Caxton's appeal, " Aiid if any man . . . findeth such
terms that he cannot understand, let him go and learne Virgil
or the pistles of Ovid," only deepened the provocation. The
" Good Bishop " was not, therefore, " furiously angry with
Caxton for not doing what he never pretended to do with
Virgil," 2 but was genuinely irritated over what he felt to be a
misrepresentation of the poet to whom he was honestly devoted.

Douglas and Mapheus

Yet, notwithstanding his fierce attack on Caxton as having
represented as Virgil's what Virgil never wrote, he himself
included in his own book, on the level of companionship with
the immortal Roman, the work of Mapheus Vegius, who had
written a supplement to the poem, as a thirteenth book of the
Mneid. Mapheus was Almoner to Pope Martin the Fifth, and
died in 1458, so that his fame was quite fresh, and some of his
Italian comitrymen esteemed him as the best of all poets who
had appeared for a thousand years, not excludmg even Petrarch.
His works were much read, and his supplement set without
scruple alongside of Virgil's in the Edition of 1480 by Rubeus,
the Venetian of 1482, and hosts of others later.

Douglas whimsically explains his action in the matter by
narrating, in mediseval fashion, how, in a dream, during his
walk abroad in the fields, having fallen asleep in a pleasant
evening in Jmie, he encomitered this poet as an aged man who
is much displeased by Douglas's neglect of his poem. He asks,

1 Prol. V. 46. "^ Saintsbury : English Prosody, vol. i. 275.

58 The Man and Ms Work

Gyf thou has afore tyme gayn onrycht

Followand sa lang Virgill a gentile clerk,

Quhy schrynkis thou with my schort cristyn wark ?

For, thocht it be bot poetry we say.

My buke and VirgiUis moraU beyn, baith tway.^

Here he looks over his shoulder from the New Light, and feels
that the Christianity of Mapheus recommends his work to eqaal
treatment with that of the pagan poet, though the Renaissance
writers were inclined to reverse that plea. His Renaissance
gird at Caxton is not only weakened here in regard to its in-
fluence on his position, but he steps still further back into the
dark when he adds to his impeachment the complaint that
Oaxton does not do justice to what is veiled under " the cluddes
of dirk poetry," — the Christianizing allegory, and the shadowy
spirituality of the Roman's teaching. Douglas further answers
the poet's complaint by urging that the addition was unneces-
sary, indeed, unjustifiable, much as the fifth wheel added to a
cart would only be an incumbrance. And, besides, he had
probably given enough time, which might well have been more
profitably employed, in the labours he had already spent :

Thus sair me dredis I sal thoill a heit

For the grave study I haue so long forleit.^

But the old poet suddenly assailed him with his staff, and so
he was glad to escape by promising to take up the supplementary
translation. It is quite apparent that Douglas was too good
a scholar and too true a poet to do this without proffering an
excuse. He probably bowed to some external advice ; or,
against his own opinion, surrendered to popular custom of his
time. But he may also have been influenced by the contem-
porary editions of the poet, which included the supplementary
Book.

Thomas Twyne, in 1584, followed Douglas in this same matter,
in his completion of Phaer's translation,^ but he smilingly says,
*' I have not done it upon occasion of any dreame, as Gawin
Douglas did it into Scottish, but mooved with the worthines of
the worke, and the neirnes of the argument, verse, and stile,
unto Virgil, wherein I judge the writer hath declared himself
an happie imitatour."

1 Prol. xiii. 138. » lb. 129. » London, 1584.

The Man and his Work 59

His Early Method

Douglas, in his Police of Honour, following the poetic
tradition, had set a mob in the salon of Minerva, all on equal
terms, — ^the sibyl, Circe, Deborah, Judith, Jael, Solomon,
Aristotle, Sallust, Livy, Socrates, Averroes, Enoch, Job, Ulysses,
Cicero, and Melchizedek, while the goddess Diana is attended
by the daughter of Jephthah, Polixena, Penthesilia, Iphigenia,
and Virginia, and " uthir flouris of feminitie," whom the poet
does not particularize. The Court of Venus had Arcite,
Palamon, J^milia, Dido, and ^Eneas, Troilus and Cressida,
Pyramus and Thisbe, Paris and Helen, Antony and Cleopatra ;
and others —

" As ane multitude thaj- war innumerabil."

The poem has its own crowd of poets, and, of course, one might
guess who were there, though Douglas apologizes for some
omissions. Homer is the only Greek mentioned. Ovid, " digest
and eloquent," " the greit Virgilus," Terence, Juvenal,

like ane mowar him allone
Stude scornand everie man as they gaed by ! —

Martial, Poggius,

with mony girne and grone.

On Laurence Valla spittand and cryand fy :

Petrarch, Boccaccio, and other luminaries of the new learning,
with Chaucer, Gower, Lydgate ; and the Scots, — Kennedy,
Dunbar, and Quintin Shaw.^

Douglas is standing there on the old platform looking at the
horizon of the new day. In his later poem he is the poet
and priest in equal proportions ; and a similar division holds
a hazy balance in his page between the Old Light and the New.
His Mneid verse is redolent of the spirit of the New, while in
his earlier poem there is the pride of a scholar in his mention
of the names of his poets, and something of the catholicity of
the humanist in massing them together as he does.

• Cf. Henryson. In hell Orpheus finds Julius Csesar, with popes, cardin&b
and others together.

60 The Man and his Work

His later Affinities — Hoiv he stands with Mneas — His Protest

against Chaucer

In his Virgil, his afl&nities with the conventions of the Middle
Ages, his mental and moral bent towards theologizing, and his
feudal outlook, which makes him speak of Virgil as a baron,^ —
natural enough in one whose title-page later on bears the proud
statement that the Author is " Unkil to the Erie of Angus,"
himself being the son of a house noble even to princehness in
Scottish annals, — load Douglas, as with a bias, away from the
New Birth. His work is, in fact, the work of an old aristocrat,
in birth, blood, and learning. Noblesse oblige is the ideal he
had before him as a maxim in it. He therefore had to defend
the aristocrat Mneas, asserting that he is still a " mirror for
princes, verteous, sincer, gentill and liberall . . . quhais vertavis
gif the Pryncis of our dayis wyll follow they schal not onely

be favored of God, but also well beloved of all gud men '*

He is compelled, of course, in this spirit to object to Chaucer's
reference to his hero in the Legend of Dido, —

Glory and honour, Virgill Mantuan,
Be to thy name ! and I shal, as I can,
Folow thy lantern, as thou gost beforn,
How Eneas to Dido was forsworn. ^

Douglas will have none of this, which he looks upon as a slander.
For he clothes ^Eneas with the character of a mediaeval knight,
faithful to his plighted word ; and, though he excuses Chaucer
as being

evir, God wait, aU womanis frend,

he yet protects his hero from that poet's very painfully candid
allegation, holding Mneas up as a mirror of virtue and grace,
truly serving God — a method which, of course, brought the
picture before his own time with a clearer outhne and a more
convincing power. The following lines, six in number, most
fully contain a summary for the defendant, —

He hated vice, abhorring craftineis,
He was a myi'our of verteu and of grais.

^ Cf. Chaucer, making Theseus a duke and Aristotle a clerk, etc. Cf. also
Henryson: Sir Troj'lus and Sir Orpheus, and their knightly piety.
* Legende of Good Womeii, 925.

The Man and his Work 61

Just in his promys ever, and stout in mynd.
To God faithfull, and to his freyndys kynd.
Verteous, vyse, gentil and liberall,
In feates of war excelling vderis all.^

There is neither note nor hint given by Small as to where he
got these verses, which he printed in his edition. They appear
in the Black Letter Edition of 1553 : and of course in
Ruddiman. They are not in any of the known manuscripts
except the Bath ; and Small quotes no authority for the inter-
polation in the body of his text. Douglas was strong enough
in his protest without them. He says :

My mastir Chauser gretly Virgill offendit,

All thoch I be to bald hym to repreif ,

He was fer baldar, certis, by hys leif ,

Sayand he foUowit VirgiUis lantern toforn,

Quhou Eneas to Dydo was forsworn.

Was he forsworn ? Than Eneas was fals :

That he admittis, and caUys hym traytour als.

Thus wenyng allane Ene to haue reprevit

He has gretly the prynce of poetis grevit,

For as said is, Virgill dyd diligens,

But spot of cryme, reproch or ony offens,

Eneas for to loif and magnyfy,

And, gif he grantis hym maynswom fowlely,

Than all hys cuyr and crafty engyne gais quyte,

His twelf zheris laubouris war nocht worth a myte.*

Reid the ferd buke quhar queyn Dido is wraith,
Thair sal zhe iynd Ene maid nevir aith,
Promyt nor band with hir fortill abyde ;
Thus him to be maynswom may nevir betyde.'

And so, further, in a full defence of the moral integrity of his
hero.

Commentators, along with translators, have felt the same
difficulty in this matter. Dryden had to write against his
critics a defence of his poet " and what they have to urge against
the manners of his hero "... He shews how Virgil, creating
iEneas as a prototype of Augustus, was compelled to make
him a perfect character. As such he was accepted ; and
Sidney, in his Ayologie for Poesie, simply followed the tradi-
tional estimate, whe'n he spoke of "so excellent a man as
Virgil's iEneas," and called him "a virtuous man in all

1 Piol. i. 330 (Small). 2 lb. i. 409 (Small, 415).

3 Prol. i. 436 (Small, 442).

62 The Man and his Work

fortunes." Dryden's idea was that a hero ought not to be
a character of perfect virtue, for then he could not without
injustice be made unhappy ; nor yet altogether wicked, because
he could not then be pitied, i Had Douglas dedicated his poem
to James IV while writing it, he might have set up the King
as an Augustus, or very suitably, though perilously, worked j
out a parallel with ^neas ; but he was mindful in this, at any
rate, that he was engaged on a translation, not in creating a
characterization.

The hero of the Latin poem inevitably appealed to a Church-
man, along a special line. For the wanderings of iEneas were
not only to found a city but to inaugurate a new worship in
Italy,— ^

" inferretque deos Latio."

He is spoken of as

" insignem pietate virum."
And he constantly displays his great faith, his trust in the
guidance of the gods, with accompanying prayer, sacrifice and
thanksgiving, while visions, omens, and prophecies are frequent
concomitants of his experiences. Virgil set piety before valour,
in his poem, and justly so, since a man may be brave enough
and yet be impious and vile. So, under the circumstances,
Douglas had to expatiate. But yet it is difficult to explain
away Dido. " Upon the whole matter," says Dryden,2 " and,
humanly speaking, I doubt there was a fault somewhere : and
Jupiter is better able to bear the blame than either Virgil or
iEneas. ... If the poet argued not right, we must pardon
him for a poor bhnd heathen, who knew no better morals."
A very characteristic method of " Glorious John " getting out
of a difficult corner !

Casuistry

Douglas honestly tries to defend his hero. The blame had
to be laid on the gods ; for ^neas still loved Dido when he
left Carthage, but he set the will of heaven above his own
inclinations and desires.

' Preface to All for Love. 2 Dedication to ^neis.

The Man and his Work 68

Certis, Virgill schawys Ene dyd na thing,
Frome Dydo of Carthage at hys departyng,
Bot quhilk the goddis commandit hym befom,
And gif that thar command maid hjrm maynsworn
That war repreif to that diuinyte.
And na reproch onto the said Ene.^

There is some casuistry of the Bishop here, as well as a poet's
devotion to his original, even although Andrew Lang allocates
his prose to the Bishop and his verse to the Humanist.

Douglas might, in this matter, have had a gird at Occleve
also, who, in The Letter of Cwpid, was quite frank in his statement

regarding

the traitour jEneas,
The faithless wretch, how he himself forswor
To Dido.

And in The House of Fame, we read :

For he to her a traytour was . . .
How he betrayed her, alias !
And left her ful mikyndely.

Honest Chaucer, in fact, never minced matters with regard
to human f aihngs and the duty of highest honour. And whoever
wrote The Court of Love ^ shewed himself too modem to care
for the heroic convention, when he finely said,

Dydo, that brent her bewtie for the love
Of fals Eneas.

The rubric in the Black Letter Edition candidly shifts the
blame to the divine shoulders, and leaves it there : " God's
wyl and commandement shuld ever be prefered, and have
the first place in all men's actions and doynges." ^ It is quite
evident, however, that even Douglas himself was, in his Fourth
Prologue, sUghtly shaky over Dido's distress, though he blames
Love, and not the gallant. And in the marginal Comment
of the Cambridge Manuscript, either from the promptings of
conscience or in answer to adverse criticism, he writes later :
" This argument excusis nocht the tratory of Eneas na his

1 ProL i. 424 (Small, 430).

* Formerly attributed to Chaucer. Printed by Stow in 1561 : one late
manuscript speaks of author as "Philogenet, of Cambridge, Clerk," unidentified.

• Cf. Sainte-Beuve : ^neas is to be looked upon as possessing a vutue which
must be "une haute et froide impersonalite qui fasse de lui non un homme
mais un instrument les dieux." Vide Etude sur Virgile.

64 The Man and his Work

maynswering, considering quhat is said heirafoir, in tlie ij. c. of
this prolog, that is,

Juno nor Venus goddes neuer war,

Mercur Neptune Mars nor Jupiter.

Of forton eik na hir necessitie,

Sic thingis nocht attentik ar, wait we . . .

" It follows than, that Eneas vroucht not be command of ony
goddis, bot of his awyn fre wyl, be the permission of God, quhiik
sufEeris al thing, and stoppis nocht, na puttis nocht necessite
to fre wyll. He falit than gretly to the sueit Dydo, quliilk
fait reprefit nocht the goddessis diuinitie, for thai had na
diuinitie, as said is befoir." And, finally, he puts the burden
on Virgil himself, as being bound by the unity of character
which he is portraying, " and Eneas no all his wark secludis
from all vylle offyce."

Of course, it must not be overlooked that such a character
as that of ^Eneas was in reality no novelty in Epic or Ballad
times. To love and ride away seemed to be recognized as one
of the commonest privileges of the feudal knight. And yet
it was remarkable on Virgil's part to present in a hero what
was actual treachery,— only paralleled in classic writing by
the meanness of Jason, — moving in us compassion for Dido
rather than sympathy with ^neas ; and in modern times by
the unknightly forgery of Marmion. The same thing applies
to Tumus, who is much more heroic than Mnesbs. And it is
impossible to believe that this was the intention of the poet.

Douglas felt confident of having made the poem a successful
defence, for he writes :

Be glaid Ene, thy bell is hiely rong,
Thy fame is blaw, thy prowes and renown
Dywlgat ar, and sung fra town to town
So hardy from thens that other man or boy
The ony mair reput traytour of Troy
Bot as a worthy conquerour and kyng
The honour and extoll as thou art dyng.^

His independence

Though Douglas, of course, displays the conventional
reverence for great names in his earlier labours, he, in the

^ Dyrectioun, 128.

The Man and his Work 65

Virgilian translation, and in the Prologues, frequently shews
also, as we have seen, an independent outview and power of
depicting Nature, reproducing it from the sensitive records
of his memory and sight,— the direct vision of a poet's mind,
not the echo of books. This does not deny the influence of
poets and scholars with whose classical works he proves his
acquaintance by tacit imitation, or deliberate naming of them.i
But in his Virgil he breaks with the old fashion which now
palled upon him, and, very widely, with the Chaucerian tradition
of which James I and Henryson were devoted followers, to
whom he was the absolute " exemplar in the craft of verse,"
whose page they avowedly studied with patient care, and whose
methods they absorbed in absolute entirety.

It must be admitted, however, that, in his work as a whole,
he naturally did not shake himself entirely free from the char-
acteristics of his own age, and was not fully awakened to the
spirit of the New Age, notwithstanding the evidence of John
Major to his impatience with the methods of medieevalism.
His scholarship enabled him to fill his verse with more abundant
matter than his contemporaries, but he could not create an
entire worid of his own. He had to set his properties upon
the Stage of the older craftsmen. In his poetry, anterior to
his Virgil, he painted entirely from the gallery of the old,
rather than from the direct vision of the new. He had not yet
m these attained the independence which made him, in his
later work, the spontaneous lover and interpreter of Nature
and of hfe.

Even although you will find in his Virgil work phases of
I movement, interpretation and life— birds and streams singing,
1 stillness of stars, and moonUght falling over quiet places,'
! humanity involved in the storm and hush of the natural world,'
and love entering as with the tenderness of morning dew into
ithe Ups and head; of living folk, the Past and the Future finding
hints of something for To-day, yet the hght upon it is most
I frequently the Ught of sunset rather than of breaking dawn
I In fact, Professor Saintsbury's conclusion is the only final
j judgment possible of Douglas, in this consideration, generally,
^ Cf. Henryson's influence on Seventh Prologue.

66 The Man and his Work

as shewing " side by side with Renaissance tendency . . .
the strongest symptoms of persistent medisevalism," though
perhaps in regard to the Mneid the former clause is too weak,
and the latter too strong.

WilUam Blake said, " The ages are all equal, but genius is
always above its age." And Douglas, though, in his Virgil,
mediaeval in the aggregate, stands very frequently above his own
average. His view of Virgil was the view of the old Learning,
as the philosopher, the semi-veiled exponent of truth; while
his Christianizing of the Muse, his appeals to the holy Virgin,
his lifting the Roman's teachings into evidential values and
prophetic weight, have the touch that gave pathetic incon-
gruity to the seekers on the border-land of the neo-classical
world.

His Police of Honour and King Hart have not the graciously
divine gift. He is still, in them, standing deep in the earlier
age, and cannot free his feet from the old convention and
allegory, and from the habit of using certain epithets, Uke a
wedding garment kept in stock to be laid on the shoulders
of every guest of thought whom the poet is expected to
commend.

Douglas and Dunbar

Douglas the Churchman was naturally more of a bookman
than Dunbar the Cleric, who was the skilled craftsman, with
the humour of a poet, rendered somewhat sardonic by the
disappointments that run breathlessly at the heels of kings,
and the sordid seeking that haunts courts. His theory of Ufa,
so far as it can be gathered, was on the whole the ecclesiastical
and monastic, not the humane and free. It is here that he
differs most from Henryson, whose sorrows and joys in verse
are as modern in their moving impulses as those that still
move human hearts ; while Dunbar pours out of his heart all
that he feels of human experience, without shame or restraint.
Dunbar also, was, of course, a master-moulder of vibrant and
flexible verse, — a very modern man, — a cleric with a human
tongue and a very mortal heart, not a Churchman writing about
passion, but a Cleric who had felt it, and could translate it into

I

The Man and his Work 67

laughter or tears. In the Prologues and Efilogues Douglas
approaches that quite closely, when the poet drops his cowl
and speaks as a man to men. He could not, however, like
Dunbar, be " occasional " in poetry. His spirit was epic.

Though his later hfe shewed that his real call seemed to be
towards ecclesiastical ambition and political intrigue rather than
to the free literary Hfe, yet, when he left his first love, and shut
the windows which looked towards Parnassus, the rest was only the
dust and heat of controversy, disappointment, exile, and death.
Professor Hume Brown,^ speaking of Dunbar and Douglas,
together, very appositely points out how, by their " larger view
of Hfe " and " more direct knowledge of the classical tradition,
they show that they have been influenced by the Revival of
Letters,^ while, in the moments when they remember the pro-
fessions to which they both belonged, they fall back on that
cloistral attitude towards men and things which is the note of
mediaeval Christianity." It is therefore said with much
truth : " Such poetry as that of Henryson, Dunbar, and Gavin
Douglas gives proof of contact with the advancing thought
of Europe, even when its tone is mainly mediseval." ^ This is
in general most closely true of Douglas. For his proHxities
and digressions shew where he stands. The Humanist is too
frequently lost in the Medisevalist. He did not grasp the
disparity between the classical period and his own. He was
content to clothe classical characters with attributes that
seemed analogous. He did not quite break with the early
i alHterative artifice, while he followed the Renaissance habit
i in the creation of " aureate terms," and in a deliberate moulding
I and hammering of literary phrase. He breaks away, sometimes,
I it is true, in his Virgil, into the expression of individual and
national purpose, but he is not ever, by any means, fully in
rebellion against the former days. Even his Prologues em-
1 phasize the allegory of Virgil. His modernity finds voice, it
is true, for a while, in his quarrel with Caxton's work. But
I his own work has more of evensong than of dawn about it.

I * History of Scotland, vol. i. p. 278.

I • Sir Walter Scott said that the genius of Dunbar and Douglas alone is
^ Bufiicient to illuminate whole ceniuries of ignorance.
• MacEwen'3 Church History of Scotland.

68 The Man and his Work

And yet his claim for the vernacular, and for the directness
of his translation,

Unforlatit, not jawyn fra tun to tun,^

was a purely Renaissance claim. These words could be written
on the lintel of the new period. No fitter motto could be there.
But it must be evident that it cannot be pressed beyond a
certain limit in Douglas's case.

The fact of Douglas's culture kept him in tracks which his
predecessors had trodden out, till at last the flame of his native
inspiration heated even words and phrases of dead time and
past circumstance into a white glow which they still retain.
It is natural that his work should seem frequently harsh and
wild in its effect upon us of to-day, accustomed as we are to
the refined and poUshed product of the labours of Poesy through
past generations, — striking us as the huge cathedrals of the
Middle Ages struck those who applied the term Gothic to them
aa being expressive of vast ruggedness rather than of splendid
art. But it was a work reared in a rough age, and it was the
result of pioneer exploration, achieved with old-fashioned
implements and imperfect charts, yet nobly achieved.

He is not, of course, as great as his master. Nor have we,
because we have no right to expect, the clear silvery tinkle, as of
a bell, in such lines as Chaucer's regarding Petrarch,

whos rethoryke sweete
Enlumlned al Itaille of poetrye,"

or in these verses, — of which that poet has many such, —

That as an harpe obeieth to the hond,
That maketh soune after his f3Tigerynge,
Ryglit so mowe ye oute of myn herte bringe
Swich vois, rycht as youe lyst, to laughe or pleyne,*

wherein the stillness that is the sudden revelation of genius
fails right across the soul.

1 Prol. V. 63.

' Prol. to The Clerkes Tale, 1. 32.

* ProL to the Legende of Goode Women, 1. 90.

Ill

THE TRANSLATION : ITS METHOD AND RESULT

Sainte-Beuve said truly that Virgil " gave a new direction
to taste, to the passions, and to sensibiUty." * And one must
ask whether Douglas in his translation did this for his own
people and time. The answer naturally involves negative and
positive elements.

Question of Translation

It must be admitted frankly that his does not, any more than
other translations, fully represent the sweetness of vocahc
music, the aptness of articulated phrase, the frequently plangent
tenderness, of his subUme original. As has been said, " No
translator will satisfy himself, still less can he expect to satisfy
others." ^ And this because the tone must be sufficiently modem
to make the poems tolerable, say, as English poems, and yet
sufficiently classical to be characteristic, and sue as the scholar
will recognize as true. Douglas does not wish that the reader
should take his book to be the touchstone of the excellence of
the style of the JEneid, but rather as a representation of the
fttory, and a just interpretation of the sentiments of Virgil,
and his characters, divine and human. His original is naturally,
he feels, so highly transcending his best ability both to com-
prehend and to utter in fulness of excellence, that it is often
easier for him to err than to succeed in his rendering, which
he undertook

Non ita certandi cupidus, quam propter amorem.'

Yet, in its vigour, in its vision, in its characterization, it is
almost an original epic that he creates. And its scholarship,
and the intelligence of its purpose, stand the test. If it be

' Vide £tude iur VirgUe.

* Sir Theodore Martin, Horace, vol. i. p. clxxxiv. 1881. ^ Lucrot., iii. 5.

70 The Translation : its Method and Result

not, as Lang asserted, a " complete success," it is a success
as complete as has been accomplislied, or as Douglas could
achieve in his day. It may be that some may challenge the
statements of Courthope and of Henderson, that " no poet
ever drank more deeply of the spirit of Virgil," ^ and that
"he is thoroughly interpenetrated with the Virgilian atmo-
sphere, and succeeds in communicating this to the reader." ^
Nevertheless, it is true that he is imbued with the purpose of
his author, and transfers thought and picture, of Nature and
Humanity, to his own page as from the life, in a way that make
them truly understood by his audience, and frequently, indeed,
with the touch of genius. If the transference has sometimes
more of Douglas than of Virgil about it, it probably is because
his enthusiasm for his original speaks with the voice of the
dawn. It is because he is not dealing with words only but
with effects. And it promises a day beyond the makeshifts
of Boethius, Dares, Dictys, and French hashes of the Trojan
story. It promises, in fact, a day of direct knowledge of the
heart and mind of a classic. And in this Douglas was a path-
finder and a road-maker. He had to grope his own way, and
widen it as he went forward. He could not claim the scholarly
position of Erasmus or Buchanan, nor the metrical mastery
which made Chaucer's Legend of Dido the best version of a
Virgilian episode, before his time. But as in his own day
Virgil embodied in himself the highest excellences of one of
the world's rich ages of noble culture, so Gawain Douglas
represented certainly the best culture of the period he lived in.*
It may be acknowledged that he had not what Carlyle calls
Virgil's " tenderness and meek beauty," or " matchless elo-
quence," but he had a majesty and verve of his own. His
original had, of course, what Conington describes as " marvel-
lous grace and deUcacy, the evidences of a culture most elaborate
and most refined." But Douglas concentrated more upon
the matter than the style, the grasp and presentation of what

1 Hist, of English Poetry, i. 378.

'Scottish Vernacular Literature, 199, 3rd ed.

' The boast of the Douglas clan was, " Ye find us in the stream, not in the
source — in the tree, not in the twig." This pride and prestige of race, uplifted
and refined by scholarship, was unique in his day.

The Translation : its Method and Result 71

the poet meant. And who has ever yet succeeded in conveying
by translation the lambent phrase and fragrant atmosphere
of the great Augustan's poesy ?

We must remember that the jEneid itself lacked the revising
touch of the master's hand. And Douglas's work suffered
from the same cause. Lang says truly : " We must not ask
the impossible from Douglas. We must not expect exquisite
philological accuracy : but he had the ' root of the matter/
an intense delight in Virgil's music and in Virgil's narrative,
a perfect sympathy with ' sweet Dido,' and that keen sense of
the human life of Greek, Trojan, and Latin, which enabled
him in turn to make them live in Scottish rhyme." ^

Influence of his Work

The influence of his Mneid as an actively originating force
in Scotland fell into immediate abeyance, for his native country
was torn by internal strife, and its homes of learning were
devastated by the EngUsh invaders. The conditions of the
times following Douglas's work filled the hands of the clergy
with other things than studiousness ; for political energy and
interests were encouraged by James the Fifth and his nobles.
Churchmen were not slow to wear their hauberk as well as their
cassock ; and the classics had rest while sword and spear were
in activity. The struggle between the Hamilton and Douglas
factions, the ambitions of himself and his house, the return of
Albany from France, which upset all the Douglas schemes of
aggrandizement, finally sent Gawain into England to persuade
Henry VIII to intervene, even with plans of conquest. These
matters, along with the devastation of the Border lands by a
Southern army, made widely impossible that settlement of
mind necessary for literary pursuits, and deprived the learned
of opportunities for studious leisure. Wolsey wrote ^ of one
of those irruptions into Scotland, that there was " left neither
house, fortress, village, tree, cattle, com, or other succour for
man " in Teviotdale and the Merse.

* Ward's English Poets.

• 30th August 1523. Brewer, i. 643. Vide Hume Brown's History of Scot-

i > 4. Cf. Scott's Introduction, Minstrelsy of the Scottish Borders.

72 The Translation : its Method and Result

The influence of the French, with the weight of Archbishop
Beaton on their side, unbalanced the EngUsh influence under
Wolsey, and told in every way against Douglas ; till, in 1528,
came the overwhelming disaster of the House of Angus, followed
by their forfeiture, exile, ruin, with vast unrest for Scotland,
and a stigma on one of her greatest names. It is easy to under-
stand how infinitely deeply all this must have weighed not
only against the position of Douglas himself but also against
the prestige of his work, however great in itself.

Later on, though Scottish poetry found its popular voice in
Lyndsay, this was in reality because his verse, which consisted
more in plainness of speech than in the spirit of poesy, was the
mouthpiece of the people's dissatisfaction with the avarice of
the clergy and the oppression by the Church. Lyndsay's day
was on the active fringe of anti-Romanist, and that meant for
a while anti-classical, propaganda ; and the work of Douglas
the Churchman suffered accordingly. Of course every age
does not find deepest interest in its own greatest intellectual
work. And so, while men's hands were at each other's throats
in Scotland, it was the time for a topical writer like Lyndsa}^
rather than for the exile of the Douglas house, to hold the
attention of his people. Further, Lyndsay was a favourite of
the king, a courtier who had liberty of speech, and at the same
time a country gentleman who knew the people. The king,
too, could not forget and did not forgive his experiences at
the hands of the Douglas family. All these considerations
entered into the chances of Gawain's poetical success or failure.

Lyndsay w^as, like Douglas, an eager advocate for the use of
the vernacular ; and especially as being the means of conveying
truth directly to the national consciousness. He pnxslaimed
himself a deliberately vernacular poet.

Quhowbeit tliat divers devote cunning clerkis
In Latyne toung hes writtin syndrie bukis

Our unlemit knawis lytUl of thare werkis
More than they do the raving of the rukis.
Quhairfore to colyearis, cairtars and to cukis

To Jok and Thome my rhyme sail be directit.^

* Ane Dialog betuix Experience and ane Courtier : Ane Exclamatioun fco the
Bedar twycheing the Wrytting of Vulgare and maternal] I^mgnage, V. H cJ aeq.

The Translation : its Method and Result 78

He feels the time is past for believing that only in the ancient
languages is found the vehicle of utterance of any actual truth ;
and he points out that, after all, the classical writers only wrote
in their own vernacular, for, says he,

Had Sanct Jerome bene borne in tyll Argyle

In to Yrische toung his bukis had done compyle. ^

Douglas's influence on later days, in his native land, was,
it is true, only in reality a memory, of interest to learned men
and dilettanti. And yet that memory did not. fade entirely.
Henryson and Dunbar may have been actually submerged in
oblivion for a period, but there never was a time when the
name at least of Bishop Gawain was forgotten, or the fact that
he had translated Virgil into Scottish verse. Sometimes the
man and sometimes the work emerges into the light, but one
or other occupies the stage of Scottish remembrance, with a
kind of alternating continuity.

Of course, the poetry produced in Scotland from the end of
the sixteenth right into the eighteenth century was, in the
main, only the poetry of the Scottish-bom man writing in
Enghsh verse. This was the natural result of religious and
pohtical circumstances, namely, the Reformation, the Union of
the Crowns, and the transplantation of the Court to London.
The development of later times necessarily and naturally
followed, and Scottish poetry became a kind of moonhght
reflection of English. Its golden age was past.

Douglas and Lyndsay

In the seventeenth century Danbar and Henryson were
forgotten, while Lyndsay was the popular favourite, and was
known in almost every household, not so much, indeed, for his
poetic power or for anything like the glamour of poesy, but
because he dealt with topics of immediate moment, and spoke
with the voice of the Scottish folk, in a tongue understood at
the firesides. He survived practically up to the time of Bums,
and was looked upon as the pure well of Scottish undefiled.
If a word was not " in Dauvit Lyndsay " it was considered to

'■ Ane Dialog betuix Experience, and ane Cottrtier, 90-91.

74 The Translation : its Method and Result

be hybrid or exotic. ^ Douglas, however, is not quoted as an
authoritative fount of Scottish. Yet Douglas was far above
Lyndsay for both poesy and style. But his matter was not
popular. The Dreames and Visions of the Middle Ages no
longer appealed to men who had been in contact with the sweet
and bitter realities of life, and who had come through the
struggles and testimonies for the measure of political and re-
ligious liberties which had been secured. And while Douglas's
Virgil appealed of course primarily to scholars, for its matter,
even its language and style kept the common people at a distance,
although no nation was fonder of a story of heroic adventure.
For though it has words of field and fell in its pages, it is very
frequently a mosaic that never was the real language of the
multitude, being in many places a literary creation, for a special
purpose ; and itself, as we can see from every page, highly
conscious of its origin and circumstances. Besides, the common
folk had probably in their minds the idea of his having been
a Bishop, and of the old faith ; as well as having been infected
with suspicion of dealings with the enemy ; and did not think
of his writings as being in any way for them, preferring the
blimt, straight, and frequently indehcate though truly Scottish
way of Ljmdsay's dealing with the facts of life. He was spoken
of with reverence, and that admiration which unwittingly
betokens a remote respect, as for one who had achieved some
great task, by many who could not or did not trouble to read
him. But he was not a poet of the people. He never had
been. And he never could be. Like Henryson, also, he has
been condemned by later times as using a dialect " distressingly
quaint and crabbed," ^ although to dismiss him summarily on
such a ground is only an acknowledgment of blindness and
indolence. And this was not the whole reason of his missing
the clutch on his own age.

Influence on Latinity

Naturally, in his own land, Douglas's influence upon Latinity

^ Yet Lyndsay was not free from Latinizing — cf. Prepotent prince, etc.>
Complaint of the Papingo, et al.

^ Henley. Cf. Courthorpe, ii. 132, " unreadable tliough it is on account of the
dialect in which it is written," . . . "the barbarous archaism of the diction."

The Translation : its Method and Result 75

was also, for the time, dead.* He probably did not turn a
single mind in Scotland toward the original poem, for that was
well enough known to the scholars, and even to those who
could not claim that title, but whose education, as was ordinarily
the case in Scotland, was based upon Latinity. No com-
parison lies between his influence on Latinity and Buchanan's —
the latter gave a great world impetus to Latin studies even in
his lifetime, and it remained till modern times. ^ The educa-
tionists of the period had reasons for fighting shy of one whose
unseemly and misavoury squabbles after preferment, with the
stain of actual treason against his ancient name, had cast a
veil over his achievement. Yet it is clear that there was sufficient
interest in his work to justify the laborious multiphcation of
copies which survive to our own day. Recognition was, in
reality, to wait in Scotland imtil a later age, although even
his contemporaries realized that he had completed a labour
of great weight and worth, at which they wondered.

Beyond the border of his own land, however, his influence
told, and almost immediately. Dunbar and Henryson did
more than he for the rhythmic liberty of verse ; but not nearly
so much as he for the widening of that view which is bom of
knowledge of the literature of another land and age. His
weight was felt with telling power in the impulse which it gave
in awakening across the Border a regard for Virgilian trans-
lation ; a natural issue, since the schoolmaster of England had
been more French than Latin for a long time, so that the interest
would be more spontaneously fresh than in the North.

The Pioneer

Douglas's Mneid is, in fact, an open door through which the
spirit of Northern poetry walked into the wide fields of the
South. The Kingis Quair was a window ajar, letting in the
melody of the world's music, northward blown. This poem
of Douglas is, however, not a passive thing but an actively

^ Later on there were two complete translations of Virgil in Scottish litera-
ture— (o) By John Ogilby, 1650. (6) By the Fourth Earl of Lauderdale : sent
in MS. to Dryden. Vide his dedication — "' no man understood Virgil better
than that learned nobleman."

* Vide Montaigne's references.

76 The Translation : its Method and Result

originating force. For the first time, Scottish poetry crosses
the Borders, and stirs the sleepers. This is the earUest trans-
lation of a classic, in the true sense, into any Anglic tongue,
and the Earl of Surrey's version of the second and fourth
Books — ^the first in England — was undoubtedly inspired by and
indebted to the Scotsman's verse. Surrey adopted "' almost
every turn of expression and combination of words that was
worth preserving," says Nott, in his edition of Surrey and WyaU}
The Earl's version, indeed, occasionally contains almost verbatim
transference of fines from Douglas, as may be seen from the
following examples.

J.

The Grekis chiftanys irkit of the weir
Bypast or than sa mony langsum zeir,
And oft rebutyt by fatale destany. ...

Douglas.'
The Greeks' chieftans all irked with the war
Wherein they wasted had so many years
And oft repulsed by fatal destiny . . .

Sxirrey.

II.

With bludy crestis owtwith the waUis hie
The remanent swam al ways vnder see
With grysly bodeis lynkit mony fald.

Douglas.^
With bloody crestes aloft the waves were seen
The hinder parte swamme hidden in the flood
Their grisley backs were linked manifold.

Surrey.

III.

Of Priamus thus was the finale fait.

Dmiglas.*
Of Priamus this was the fatal fine.

Surrey.

One must remember ,however, that parallelism is frequently
a trap for the tail of the unwary ; and that in rendering from
one language to another there must be similarities among trans-
lators ; but the influence of Douglas is broad and plain over
Surrey's page.^

' 1815. vol. i. pp. clxiii n. ; cciii-ccix.

2 ii. 1, 1. ^ lb. 4, 13. " lb. 9, 79.

* Vide Nott's Surrey and Wyati, vol. i. pp. 225-8. 1815.

The Translation : its Method and Result T7

Possibility of Translation

It is very questionable, of course, whether any transla-
tion whatever can perfectly represent its original. For there
is an atmosphere that cannot be transferred from one language
to another ; and the merely literal rendering of words and
phrases egregiously fails, especially in the case of poetry.
Something is always lost or missed in the achievement. Dante,
in the Convito, says truly, " Every one should be aware that
nothing harmonized by musical enchainment can be transmuted
from one tongue into another without disturbing its sweetness
and harmony." Even a consummate metricist and melodist
like Shelley, himself a most successful translator, declares,
" It is impossible to represent in another language the melody
of the versification : the volatile strength and delicacy of the
ideas escape in the crucible of translation." And again, in his
Defence of Poetry, 1821, he speaks of "the vanity of translation:
it were as wise to cast a violet into a crucible that you might
discover the formal principle of its colour and odour, as seek to
transfuse from one language into another the creations of a
poet. . . . this is the burthen of the curse of Babel." Of that
there can be no question. This I know to be so, for I was
brought up in a bilingual household. And this fact is what
makes the definition of the essentials of a real translation
as elusive a pursuit as that after the definition of poetry
itself.

What is Translation ?

Is it to make a poem as closely as possible imbued with the
spirit of the original, while yet in itself so fresh as to strike the
reader with the force of an original ? Or is it to preserve every
peculiarity of that original, impressing on readers that it is an
imitation they are reading ? Du Bellay, who himself translated
two books of the Mneid into French, held that it was impossible
to carry over the beauties of one language into another with the
" same grace as their author used in the original." For, he
asserted, " each tongue has a distinct character of its own ; and
if you try to reproduce this without going beyond the author's

78 The Translation : its Method and Result

own limits your words will seem stiff, frigid, and graceless."
Roger Bacon had no love at all for translations, as he found them
in his day ; and he declared that it might have been better had 1
Aristotle never been translated at all, so sorely had knowledge
Buffered at the hands of those who had neither that accurate
scholarship nor that gift of exact expression so necessary for
success.^

O'pinions

Translator and critic agree that the first duty of a translator
is to be faithful. Charles Stuart Calverley very truly expresses
this 2 when he affirms that the translator has a duty both to his
original and to his reader, that is to say, fidehty on the one hand,
and intelligibility on the other — a wholly faithful sense rendering,
to some extent a word rendering, and even if possible a form
Tendering.^ But neither translator nor critic seem to be quite
clear as to what exactly faithfulness is. Matthew Arnold * tries
to get near the matter when he says, "It is our translator's
business to reproduce the effect of Homer." Du Bellay had said
practically the same thing in an earlier day : " Read to me
Demosthenes and Homer in Latin, Cicero and Virgil in French,
and see whether they produce in you the feelings that move you
when you read these authors in their original." Arnold, however,
goes on to assert that the only judges competent to decide how
far success has been achieved must be the great scholars of the
day, who alone can say whether the translation affects them
as Homer himself does. But to be a great scholar does not
necessarily mean to be a great appreciator of poetry, or indeed
to have any poetical feeling at all. And a scholar may, therefore,
be touched only by one side of a translation, to the loss of the
other entirely. Even if he listened to Homer himself to-morrow
the performance might be to him more of a grammatical and
linguistic than a poetical test. Homer did not sing only for the
learned of his time. Sailors and fishermen, soldiers in camps, and
people in market-places, who knew no grammar, and never had

^ See Morley's English Writers, iii. 322.

* The ^neid of Virgil. Works, p. 504, 1913 ed.
» Works, 1913. Tlie jEneid of Virgil, p. 504.

* On Translating Homer,

The Translation : its Method and Result 79

learned a verb by heart, thrilled to his verse. He always had
an audience fit though far from few. And though Arnold further
declares that no one can tell the translator how Homer afiected
the Greeks themselves, it is narrowing down the test to preciosity
to assert that only if a translation gives men hke " the Provost of
Eton, or Professor Thompson at Cambridge, or Professor Jowett
here in Oxford, at all the same feeling which to read the original
gives them " is it a success. Such masters of ancient learning
may not be able to get away, in regard to the classics, from their
analytical point of view, and their educational habit. They have
been accustomed to dissect the phrases, and anatomize the
thought, of the poet — to set his every verse against a back-
ground of discussion and paradigm, and to establish canons of
prosody in regard to the author. The original was not meant
only, nor even mainly, nor at all, for schoolmen and grammarians,
however eminent. And the test of a translation must not ex-
clude its efiect upon a crowd of common men, or a common
individual, with imagination, and a heart responsive to poetry
of noble deed and worthy thought.

While it is true that, when Bentley said of Pope's translation,
" It is a pretty poem, but you must not call it Homer," ^ the work,
in spite of all its power and attractiveness was judged, it was only
what, after all, might be said to some extent of almost every
translation. It judges all. The consummate scholar is touched
in one way by noble utterance ; the peasant in another. But
there are, even amongst commonest folk, many whom great verse
moves greatly, though of course they may be stirred also in
the same way by far inferior compositions, which touch some
universal truths and primitive emotions in their stumbling
lines. Yet a translator must not fail to convey the matter of his
poet.

It is, at the same time, an obvious truth that a translator,
though he must give the matter, must also convey the manner of
his original. Cowper in regard to his translation asserts, " My
chief boast is that I have adhered closely to my original. . . .
The matter found in me, whether the reader like it or not, is
found also in Homer." But this is not sufficient. For, as every
* Johnson's Life of Pope, ed. Murphy, 1824, vol. viii. p. 176 n.

80 The Translation : its Method and Result

man must see, if the reader is open to Homer's true influence he
ought to Uke what Cowper, or any other, presents to him as
Homer's, in the same or in a similar degree as he should like
Homer. And this assertion is made apart altogether from the
question whether the translation shoidd be in rhyme, blank verse,
or prose.

" A translator," said Dryden, " is to be like his author : it is
not his business to excel him." But yet he himself frequently
in his translations neither resembles nor excels his original.
Thus, Horace's Ode, xxix.. Book iii.,

si celeres quatit
Permas, resigno quae dedit.

is certainly not

But, if she dances in the wind.

And shake her wings, and will not stay, ,^

/ puff the prostitnte away.

The figure belonged to Dryden's age, but assuredly neither to
the time nor the verse of his poet. Horace is speaking soberly
and gravely of a deity, and Dryden conveys a different ideaf
entirely, and on a very different plane.

Or again, when Juvenal is speaking of the effeminate priests
of Cybele, Dryden renders these as clumsy clergymen, and so
conveys a totally different idea, just as Douglas in certain matters
did in the Mneid. It is true that the characteristics of the
original must not be lost, yet there must be conveyed the spirit
that stirs and elevates the audience of the translator's day, and
thus he can scarcely avoid the influence of his own environment
and the necessities of his times. Nevertheless, if he be a genius,
he will transcend these, according to the measure of his in-
dividuality.

Anachronisms

Sometimes with Douglas, in pursuit of his purpose, it meant in
this way that oflSces and functions of a contemporary kind are
transferred to the creations of the Latin poet, and strangest
liberties taken with the text. For example, Douglas, in sym-
pathy with the eclectic spirit of his age, on the verge of the

The Translation : its Method and Result 81

conquest of Scotland by the Renaissance, imparts to some of the
personalities of the poem a novel character. The Bacchantes
are with him "the nuns of Bacchus," an epithet adopted
by Surrey along with his general appropriation of so much of
Douglas's VirgiUan properties. The Sibyl herself becomes a
nun also, and ^Eneas is actually told by her to tell his beads.
In this he had the authority of Henryson's hues, in the use of
the word :

that sayeth your beedes beth to longe somdele,
altered by Charteris to :

And sayis your prayers bene to lang sum deill.

The Black Letter Editor of Douglas makes a similar interpre-
tative alteration to " thi deuotioune." Burton, in his Anatomy
of Melancholy, also speaks, later, of

praying in gibberish and mumbling of beads.

Such anachronisms as Douglas's are found everywhere in litera-
ture. Gillies, in his History of Ancient Greece,^ speaks, for
example, of a " Bill " being proposed in the Athenian Assembly,
and of the " Ught dragoons " of Alexander the Great ;
Laurence Echard, in his translation of Plautus, speaks of the
" Lord Chief Justice of Athens," of bombs, and the gospel, and
makes the poet of 180 B.C. refer to the French ship
Le Soleil, beaten by Russell in a.d. 1692 ; while Middleton
in his Life of Cicero ^ makes, among other similar statements,
the assertion that Balbus was general of Caesar's " artillery."
Shakespeare's anachronisms and slips also are well known,
and are the joy of critics, when, for instance. Hector
quotes Aristotle, Pandarus speaks of a man born in April, and
Bohemia has a seacoast bestowed upon it.^ These were, of
course, writing so as to be understood by the mass for whom they
wrote, giving, as Lang says, " a modem face to ancient manners,'*
though, to later times, the results are incongruities. It was the
clothing of the poet's creation in the garment of the translator's
own time, in diction and phrase, so far as possible. In this

* 1786 '1741. ' Vide Douce^a Illuatratione of Shakespeare, a. 291 .

F

82 The Translation : its Method and Result

connection Dry den himself says, regarding his own translation,
" I have endeavoured to make Virgil speak such English as he
would himself have spoken, if he had been born in England, and
in the present age." ^ And this is, so far, in line with Douglas's
declared principle, which, however, goes further, and tries to
make the Scottish reader feel and understand what Virgil said,
and how he said it, to Romans, yet with the addition of the feeling
of a Roman story told not in Italy but in a Scottish landscape — ■
an attempt after the matter and the spirit rather than the manner
of his original. Examples of such liberties may be further
instanced by his rendering of the constellation of Arctuxus,
prompted by the similarity of name, and his own nationalness,
as " Arthur's Huyfe," setting the ancient British King, in conse-
quence of his Scottish connections in native m)rth, among the
heavenly spheres. And under the familiar influence of Chaucer,
he styles the Milky Way, " Watling Street," after the great
Roman road that ran through Britain. This was, indeed, the
usage of other countries.^ For the Spaniard spoke of it as
" Santiago Road " ; and in The Complaynt of Scotlande we read,
" It aperis oft in the quhyt circle callit circulus lacteus, the
quhilk the marynalis callis Vatland Street." ^ The EngUsh
spoke of it as " Walsingham Way." Douglas also names the
Belt of Orion " the Elwand," or " yard measure," the name by
which, in Northern Scotland, it is still familiarly laiown, and
by which he hoped his readers would recognize the constellation
referred to. All this only proves that translation and ex-
piscation are not " the same in substance, equal in power and
glory."

The Danger of Gifts

Douglas and Dryden had in excelsis the necessary stock-in-
trade of a translator, for they were both thoroughly competent
Latinists, and they also knew their own language with a mastery
beyond limit or mark. It was, however, just this latter weapon
and their unparalleled proficiency in it, that led them frequently

* Dedication of the ^neis, Estreryman's Library, Reprint, p. 259.

* House of Fame, ii. 939 ; vide Skeat, Chaucer, iii. 263 ; Langland, ii. 8.
3 C. of Scot., E.E.T.S., p. 58, U. 14-16.

The Translation : its Method and Result 88

astray. For they did not wait to weigh and value every word,
but, carrying with a glance the general significance of Une or
canto, they were too easily content to convey that impression
in their own phrase. It follows that, while a translator must
not be deficient in the language from which he renders, and
copious in that which he uses for his rendering, or vice versa,
indolence on the translator's part, and the endeavour to give
over much ease also to the ignorant reader, are fruitful sources
of error in his work. Thus Douglas, Pope, and Dryden can never
satisfy the exact scholars to whom the Latin and Greek originals
are familiar. To them the great classics, as sometimes clothed
by those, must often justifiably seem a grotesque hybrid. Yet
Douglas is not guilty of the constant metaphor of Pope, with
whom no character can weep, but " from his eyes pour'd down
the tender dew."

Of course, the reader for whom the classics are dead, or '' as
a clasped book and a sealed fountain," and for whom, indeed, they
never lived, cares nothing for preservation of archaic manners.
What he wishes is a conception of the " vital spirit and energy
which is the soul of poetry in all languages, countries, and ages
whatsoever." Of Douglas's Mneid it may be truly said, as of
Dryden's translation, that he who sits down with the original
text spread before him will be at no loss to point out passages
that are faulty, indifierently understood, or imperfectly trans-
lated, and some in which dignity is lost, or mere rhetoric sub-
stituted for it. But yet the unabated vigour and spirit of the
rendering more than atone for these and all its other deficiencies,
and make it preferable to some versions" even of consummate
scholars, which have as little of the real life of the original about
them as the subject in the dissecting room has, even though it
may have been searched through to its minutest material detail
by anatomists unsurpassed.

Incongruities

It must, however, be remembered that the JEneid by its
regularity and sober dignity gives no opening to Ucence, and no
excuse for neghgence. The composure and dignity of its style
are as much disturbed by line upon line of Douglas as by many

84 The Translation : its Method and Result

a line of Dryden's dashing slang. Frequently the clean»
chiselled description of a Virgilian battle becomes with Douglas,
by his method, something like a Scottish street squabble, where
" harnpans " get smashed. Thus Virgil's

saxo ferit ora Thoantis
ossaque dispersit cerebro permixta cruento

becomes,

And Thoas syne sa smayt apon the bed
With a gret stane quhil mixt of blud all red
The hamys poplit furth on the brayn pan.*

The picture, also, of the wine-confused camp becomes a re-
production of a drink-sodden corner near a Scottish changehouse,
where for

passim somno vmoque per herbam,*

the scene is deepened into squalor by being rendered

Apon the gyrs, ourset with sleip and wyne,
Fordo verit, fallyn down als drunk as swyne.*

Such expansions are, of course, as far from Virgil as can be con-
ceived, and shew Douglas at his very worst.

This method may not be without interest, but certainly it is
not by any means the interest of the original, to say the least.
Similarly, a recent writer, quoting Homer's ;^t;VTo x«M«' x^''^"^^?'
ventured on a rendering

His guts giished to the ground,*

a hideously horrible picture — ^brutalizing the original — which,
though it illustrated his theory, blotched his page.

One sympathizes, in the circumstances, with Politian, when he
wrote of similar work,—" I have marked through a few lines, not
because I disliked them, but because, since they were only of the
equestrian order, they had no right to remain in the senatorial
and patrician poetry amongst which I found them."

In fact, where the original is dignified the translation must
never be grotesque, meanness must never take the place of
majesty, nor bombast of eloquence. And here as translators.

1 X. 413. » X. 7, 129. 3 ix. 316. * ix. 6, 19.

* Tirms Literary Supplement, 12th Sept. 1918.

The Translation : its Method and Result 85

Douglas, Chapman, Dryden and Pope not infrequently err, and
«rr quite naturally ; for the thought of the first was permeated
by the facts of his pioneer position, and that of the others by
the forms of their own times, which were stronger and more
masterful than they. While Dryden is in this without excuse,
Douglas has much. For he had only the candle of his own day
to guide him in a track previously untrodden, while Dryden had
the uphft of a great poetic tide behind him. Douglas, by the
novelty of his enterprise on the classic seas, proved himself
a master mariner. Even though his lantern was frequently
dim, it had truth in it burning, and though his candle guttered
occasionally, it ht a way for others. He clothed what he
presented with an art above his age.

It is true that he more than once is guilty of error in trans-
lation, as seen in the famous slip when he renders viscum as " gvm
or glew " instead of " mistletoe," thinking, apparently, with that
quick mental glance already referred to, of the yellow berries
from which bird-lime was made and not of the gleaming twigs
among the green. And again, when telling of the fall of Her
minius, how the " stalwart schaft of tre " that hero

Transfixit so, and persand euery part

It dowblis and renewys the mannis smart,*

where Virgil reads

latos huic hasta per armos
acta tremit duplicatque virum transfixa dolore,'

which gives the picture of the warrior himself doubled up with
agony.

In fact, out of his own mouth Dryden is judged when he
•declares : " Virgil is everywhere elegant, sweet, and flowing.
... His words are not only chosen, but the places in which
he ranks them, for the sound. He who removes them from the
station wherein their master set them spoils the harmony. . . .
They must be read as they he." And how the modern seems to
echo the ancient, when he goes on : " From the beginning of the
First Georgic to the end of the last Mneid, I found the difficulty
of translation growing on me, in every succeeding Book. . . .

1 Cf. Oeorgics, i. 139. * xi. 12, 107. » xi. 644.

86 The Translation : its Method and Result

Virgil called upon me, in every line, for some new word, and I
paid so long that I was almost bankrupt." Herein lies the secret
alike of his method of rendering, and his frequent shps in taste.
And it covers also the case of Douglas.

Method of Douglas's Renderitig — Douglas's Purpose — Paraphrase
or Literalness — The Bondage of the Translator

No greater mistake could be made than that which is
repeated by writer after writer,^ that what is to be expected in
Douglas's Mneid is a line by hne rendering. He himself does
not make the claim, but asserts that he seeks the conveyance
and embodiment of the " sentence " or meaning in plain and
popular terms, direct from the original, and independently of
any other man's work ; never before " in our tong endite," and
not emptied from pitcher to pitcher, with much of the poet's
meaning spilt in each exchange. Although in his Dyrectioun ^ he
ventures on

almaste word by word,

it is, after all his protestations and acknowledgments, a very
wide " almaste." His work was rather almost thought by
thought, picture by picture.

Sir Walter Scott in his Life of Dryden bestows on that poet a
credit in this respect which does not truly belong to him, when
he says : " Before his distinguished success shewed that the
object of the translator should be to transfuse the spirit, not to
copy servilely the very words of his original, it had been required
that Hne should be rendered by line, and almost word for word.
... a poem was barely rendered not Latin instead of being
made English . . . and the interpreter was sometimes the
harder to be understood of the two." The fact is, as we have
seen, that Dryden when he applies his own method to the task,
is only too clearly understood, and his distance from his original
too vividly discerned, to the detriment of both.

Douglas did not find his poet easy to render into another
medium.

^ Ct. pp. 11, etc. * Dyrectioun, 4(5.

The Translation : its Method and Result 87

The hie wysdome and maist profound engyne
Of myne author Virgile, poet dyvyne,
To comprehend, makis me aknaist forvay.
So crafty wrocht hys wark is, lyne by lyne.
Tharon aucht na man irk, compleyn, nor quhryne ;
For quhy ? he altyris hys style sa mony way,
Now dreid, now stryfe, now lufe, now wo, now play,
Langeir in mumyng, now in melody.
To satysfy ilk wightis fantasy.*

In such pioneer work lie was faced with many difficulties in
conveying thought subhme in one medium over into another,
much of which he had to create.

So profund was this wark at I haue said.
Me semyt oft throw the deip sey to waid ;
And sa mysty vmquhyle this poetry
My spreit was reft half deill in extasy
To pyke the sentens as I couth als playn
And bryng it to my purpos,*

which was, truly to represent his poet. He intends to render,
not line by line, but in accord with the sense and intention of his
author,

na thing alterit in substans.*

He has, in this, the supposed sanction of Aristotle, dear to
mediaeval translators, namely, that accuracy, in the bare sense of
the word, was not to be expected. We see an example of that
in Chaucer's version of Boethius's De Consolatione, which is not
a translation at all, according to the modern idea. They con-
sidered that they were justified in exercising their own bent, in
interpolation of discussions, episodes, and unlimited side-tracking.
And Douglas quotes, in support of this :

sanct Gregor eik forbyddis ws to translait
Word eftir word, bot sentens follow al gait.*

He marshals into Une with the saint, Horace the Roman, who
in hia Ars Poetica, says.

Nee verbum verbo curetis reddere fidus interprea.^

Dryden in his Preface to the Translations from Ovid's Epistles^

» ProL V. 28. 2 Dyreciioun, 103. * lb. 95.

* ProL i. 395 (Small, 401). ^ 1. 133. * 1680.

88 The Translation : its Method and Result

quotes those very words as his authority for the translator to
assume " the liberty not only to vary from the words and sense,
but to forsake them both as he sees occasion ; and taking only
some general hints from the original, to run division on the
groundwork, as he pleases." Douglas gives plenty illustrations
of the same scheme. In this matter he falls out again with
his master Chaucer, although he tempers his censure with the
conventional adulatory phrases.

Thoght venerabill Chauser, principal poet but peir,

Hevynly trumpat, orlege and reguler,

In eloquens balmy, cundyt and dyall,

Mylky fontane, cleir strand and roys ryaU,

Of fresch end5rte, throu Albion island braid,

In his legend of notabill Ladeis, said,

That he couth foUow word by word Virgill,

Wisar than I may faill in lakar stile ;

Sum tyme the text mon haue ane expositioun.

Sum tyme the cullour wiU cans a htiU additioun.

And sum tj'me of a word I mon mak thre.'

Chapman, in the verse prefixed to his Iliad, condemns " word for
word traduction." One may compare here what Dryden felt
in the same matter. He says : "I have long since considered
that the way to please the best judges is not to translate a poet
literally, and Virgil least of any other. . . . The way I have
taken is not so straight as metaphrase, nor so loose as paraphrase :
some things, too, I have omitted, and sometimes have added of
my own." The influence of Dryden made paraphrase the
method of his time, and for a long period thereafter. When a
translator chooses rhyme as his medium this applies closely on
almost every line. It is a thing unavoidable. No matter how
skilful an artist and consummate a scholar, the translator must,
at times, expand or condense a thought or sentiment, under stress
of the form which he has chosen as the mould for his work. Of
course his consummate triumph comes when this is actually
achieved without detriment to the meaning, or loss to the
sentiment and atmosphere of his poet.

In this connection Dante Gabriel Rossetti appositely writes : ^
" The life-blood of rhymed translations is this — ^that a good

» Prol. i. 339 (Small, 345). « Early IlaUov Poets, Intioduction.

The Translation : its Method and Result 89

poem shall not be turned into a bad one. The only true motive
for putting poetry into a fresh language must be to endow a
fresh nation as far as possible with one more possession of beauty.
Poetry not being an exact science, literahty of rendering is
altogether secondary to this chief law. I say literality, not
fidelity, which is by no means the same thing. When literahty
can be combined with what is thus the primary condition of
success the translator is fortunate . . . when such an object
can only be attained by paraphrase, that is his only path."
Nevertheless, the paraphrase must neither present less than the
original held, nor what it never conveyed. It must not make
the original babble where he spoke plainly, nor crawl where he
soared, croak where he sang, nor smirk in garments obviously
never cut to his shape or size, or undreamed of in the age to
which he was born.

Sir John Denham, in the Preface to his rendering of the Second
Book of the JEneid, declares that the f.dus interpres is all right
in matters of faith or fact, but that in matters of poetry his
function is not to "translate language into language, but poesie
into poesie," and that, as "in pouring out of one language into
another," there is much of the spirit of the original that must
evaporate, so "if a new spirit is not added to the transfusion
there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum.^'' Roscommon
made it essential that the translators should become possessed
by the sense and meaning of their author, and then imitate his
manner and style. Denham declares that otherwise " they but
preserve the ashes." ^

Lord Derby felt this in his own endeavour ^ " throughout to
produce . . . not indeed such a translation as would satisfy with
regard to each word the rigid requirements of accurate scholar-
ship, but such as would fairly and honestly give the sense and
spirit of every passage and of every Hne, omitting nothing, and
expanding nothing, and adhering as closely as our language
will allow even to every epithet which is capable of being trans-
lated, and which ha,s in the particular passage anything of a
special and distinctive character." It is a fact which has lain
before every great translator who has had originality of his

» Essay on Translation. Cf. p. 131. * The Iliad of Homer. 1864.

90 The Translation : its Method and Result

own, sometimes urging him to sin in an original way in his labour.
As PhiUp Stanhope Worsley ^ wrote in his preface, " The great
doctrine which I endeavour to observe in a poetic translation,
at as little cost as I can, but to which, if necessary, I am ready to
sacrifice everytihing else, is that true poetry in a foreign language
must be represented by true poetry in our own. If this cardinal
condition is to remain ujifulfilled the meaning of verse is gone,
and the work can be much better executed in prose." The truth
of this cannot be controverted. There are innumerable in-
stances where fidelity to the letter has meant absolute death of
the spirit, and great poetry has been compelled to hobble in
pitifully prosaic guise. As clear and painful an example of
this is seen in the work of the Abbe des Fontaines, when Virgil's

Apparent rari uantes ia gurgite vasto

is rendered : "A peine un petit nombre de ceux qui
montoient le vaisseau purent se sauver a la nage." Re-
garding such, Voltaire truly exclaimed with disgust, "C'est
traduire Virgile en style de gazette." The as magna
sonolurum is lost and forgotten. Words that were rich in
poetic association have been emptied of their idealism : and
phrases that rang like golden bells have been made to sound
like broken pots. The attempt has often resulted in a hybrid
production that is neither Latin nor Enghsh, a dialect neither
of men nor angels. The over-conscientious translator, bound
to a quest for words rather than ideas, is apt to lose the melody
even of his own speech, and ruin the music of that which he
labours to set to the tmie of his endeavour. And so he not only
fails to make his own work of intrinsic interest and harmony
but also fails to prove that his original stood by native right
within the category of masterpieces. Butcher and Lang,^
however, say wisely and truly in the introduction to their own
masterly prose translation of a superlative poem : " Without
this music of verse only a . . . half truth . . . can be told,
but it is the truth without embroidery. A prose translation . . .
only tells the story without the song." It is a great general, in

* Homei''s Odynsey. 1865. * Homer's Odyssey (Macniillan),

The Translation : its Method and Result 91

an arm-chair instead of on his charger, and in mufti, without his

decorations ! Nevertheless, verse has exigencies which compel

the use of periphrastic expansion on every page, with constant

risk, even in the hands of a master metrist and supreme

scholar.

Cotterill ^ puts the ideal extremely well, in regard to the

purpose of his own work, when he tells how he longed to produce

a translation which " might enable readers ignorant of Greek to

follow the story with ease, and to experience something of the

same pleasure as those might feel who can read the original . . .

to avoid everything affected, quaint, archaic, literary, poetical^ —

to clear my mind of cant — to ignore the jargon and the maxims

of the so-called hterary person, and to endeavour to use a diction

natural, simple, vigorous, direct, such as Homer himself uses . . .

to be hteral as nearly as possible, just what Homer said, and to

give it as far as possible, just as he said it, to act up to Browning's

maxim.

In translation if you please
Exact ! no pretty Ij^g that improves
To suit the modern taste."

This is a fine clear chart, but hard to sail by !

It would have been easier far for Douglas to have written a
poem of his own ; for, while he must express things in his own
phrase, he feels himself still bound to what the master wrote.
Afl he pawkily and pithily expresses it,

Quha is attachit ontill a stalk we se

May go no ferthir bot wreil about that tre.*

He is honestly up against his original for measurement, and
for judgment if he go wrong, or if he choose to follow his own
devices, wantonly :

to Virgillis text ybund
I may nocht fle, les than my fait be fund,
For, thocht I wald transcend and go besyde,
His wark remanys, my schame I may nocht hyde.*

But yet he holds himself at liberty to make digression, for the

* Homer's Odyssey, latroduction. London, 1911.
2 Prol. i. 296. ^ lb. 298.

"92 The Translation : its Method and Result

sake of clarifpng some " subtell wourd," or following the
necessity or impulse of his rhyme — a universal servitude, as we
have seen, of all translators into the verse of their own language,
which holds them in a double bondage.

I am constrenyt als neir I may
To hald hys vers and go nane other way,
Les sum history, subtell word, or the ryme,
Causith me mak digressioim sum tyme.^

Sir John Trevisa, in his Epistle on translating the Polychroni-
con, makes practically the same plea : "In some place I shall
set word for word. . . . But in some place I must change the
order of words. , . , And in some place I must set a reason for
a word and tell what it meaneth. But for all such changing the
meaning shall stand, and not be changed." This is in agreement
with what Politian wrote in the preface to his translation of the
History of Herodian addressed to Pope Innocent the Seventh,
wherein he tells how he had endeavoured to follow his ideal of
what a translator's effort should be, namely, " to render with
fidelity the full meaning of the author ... to retain in the
translation the same perspicuity, and grace, as well as the
meaning which he possessed, along vnth his characteristic
features, without outraging the genius of the language into which
I have rendered his work." That is what Douglas set before
him. And Rossetti, with almost an echo of Douglas, somewhat
poignantly declares, " He who invents is master of his thoughts
and words. He can turn and vary them as he pleases . . . but
the wretched translator has no such privilege, for, being tied
to the thoughts, he must make what music he can in the ex-
pression." And again, " The task of the translator ... is one
of some self-denial. Often would he avail himself of any special
grace of his own idiom and epoch if only his will belonged to him
. . . often the beautiful turn of a stanza must be weakened
to adopt some rhyme which will tally ; and he sees the poet
revelling in abmidance of language where himself is scantily
supphed. Now he would slight the matter for the music, and
now the music for the matter ; but no — ^he must deal to each
alike. Sometimes, too, a flaw in the work galls him, and he

1 ProL i. 303.

The Translation : its Method and Result 93^

would fain remove it, doing for the poet that which his age denied
j him, but no — it is not in the bond." ^ Herein we are reminded
of the apt protest of King James, with his Reulis and CauteliSy
! advising Scots poets to " put in na wordis ather metri causd or
I yit for filhng furth the nomber of the fete, bot that they be all
sa necessare as ye sould be constrained to use them."
1 There must, of course, be in an ancient poet much that is
out of place in the light of modern days and duties ; and the
I translator is tempted and sometimes compelled to touch the chord
'of paraphrase for these. The version that would move the
Frenchman or the German, the Scot or the Englishman, must
have an atmosphere here and there in it very difierent from that
which in the early dawn of Time touched the Greek. But, just
because of that morning influence of ancient life and thought,
simplicity is one of the first requisites — a vocabulary and phrase
easily understandable by contemporary minds. Hence the plea
of Politian, censured for hberties of word and metre, in his trans-
lation of Homer, — " Ego vero tametsi rudis in primis, non adeo
tamen obtusi sum pectoris in versibus maxime faciundis ut
spatia ista morasque non sentiam, vero cum mihi de Graeco psene
ad verbum forent antiquissima interpretanda carmina, fateor
afiectavi equidem ut in verbis obsoletam vetustatem, sic in
mensura ipsa et numero quandam ut speravi novitatem."

The Translator and his Age

Every age does demand some reflection of its own mood, or
it loses that general interest which turns it to the poem. That
is the fault of the age, and the misfortune of the poet. The
EUzabethan demanded " flowers of rhetorique " ; Queen Anne's
age, dignity and poUsh ; Scott's, the ballad gallop. Douglas's
did not know what it wished, or what it needed, for this was a
new thing that he gave it. And Douglas himself only knew that
he wanted to present Virgil's story as it seemed to him, and as he
understood it, in his own rugged utterance, refined, as he thought,
by enrichment of words classical or French in form, with such
modifications and interpolations as made the poem and its age
understandable to his own times.

^ Early Italian Poets, Preface.

94 The Translation : its Method and ResuU

Exam'ples

Douglas's mode of translating by presentation of the facts

rather than the mere words of his poet leads him frequently of

course, as we have gathered by this time, into paraphrase.

For example, Virgil compares the onset of the Greeks with

Pyrrhus, forcing their way in violent irruption into Priam'e

Palace, to a river in flood :

Non sic aggeribus ruptis cum spumeus amnis
Exiit, oppositasque evicit gurgite moles,
Fertur in arva furens cumulo camposque per omnis
Cum stabulis armenta trahit.^

The Scottish heart of Douglas saw what this meant. He had
seen the real thing too frequently in Scottish fields ever to
forget. And he gives the picture thus :

Not sa fersly the fomy ryver or flude
Brekkis our the bankis, on spait quhen it is wode,
And with hys brusch and fard of watir brown
The dykis and the schoris bettis doun,
Ourspredand croftis and flattis with his spait,
Our al the feildis that thai may row a bayt,
QuhU howsys and the flokkis flyttis away,
The come grangis and standand stakkis of hay.^

This is translation on the verge of more than paraphrase, but
it is successfully in hne with his declared purpose of giving, not
verhum pro verho, but the idea of his original. The rendering of
the eame portion by Surrey may be compared :

Not so fiercely doth overflow the fields
The foaming flood, that breaks out of its banks.
Whose rage of waters bears away what heaps
Stand in his way, the cotes and eke the herds.

Douglas's verse may seem to the modern eye rugged, unkempt
and uncouth, but it is stronger in conception and visuaUty than
Smrey's, though that poet's blank verse is a great advance on
Douglas for such a purpose as the translation of an epic, and it
runs on easier bearings than the Scot's. He was, however, heir
and beneficiary of the Northman, both in form and language.

Douglas''s Descriptive Power

Douglas's poem is permeated by the glow of strong character,
of imagination, warm tenderness, and intense appreciation of
1 ii. 496. 2 ii. 8, 101.

The Translation : its Method and Result 95

natural moods. It bears also the impress of a heart and brain
well-stocked with classical poetry, history and mythology ; love
of folk-lore and folk-poesy ; native pith of expression ; and rich
sense of phrase. His learning, it is true, sometimes makes him
move with heavy foot, and tempts him to the use of foreign formB,
and curious word-creations. But he can, at the same time, give
a clear glance inside his own heart, and reflect, in the spirit of
the new school of thought, his own psychic and emotional states.
He is very winsome in his portraiture and characterization,
giving an original touch even to his translation : and in his
renderings of Nature he shews a wide-open eye, looking very
directly into the beauty and reality of things, and understanding
what his original suggests. Thus of Camilla he writes :

so spedely couth scho fle
Our the comys, ourtred thar croppis hie.
That wyth hir curs na reid ne tendir stra
Was harmyt ocht, na hurt by ony wa :
And throu the boldnand fludis amyd the see
Born soverly furth hald hir way mycht sche.
The swyft sohs of hir tendir feyt
Nocht twichand onys the watir hir to weit.*

This is the expression of a strong combination of gifts, both of
rendering and of personal poetic sight.

The same power is found in the picture of the result of Juno's
prayer to Aeolus :

Furth at the Uke port wyndis brade in a rout.
And with a quhirl, blew all the erth about,
Thai ombeset the seys bustuusly
QuhU fra the deip, tU euery cost fast by.
The huge walUs welteris apon hie . . .
Sone efter this, of men the clamour rays,
The taldllis graslis, cabillis can fret and frays.
Swith the clowdis, hevyn, son and days lycht
Hyd, and byrest furth of the Troianys sycht.
Dyrknes as nycht beset the seys about.
The firmament gan rummyUng rair and rout.
The skyis oft lychtnit with fyry levin.
And schortly bath ayr, sey, and hevin.
And euery thing mannasit the men to de
Schawand the ded present tofor thar E . . .*

Heich as a hill the jaw of watir brak.

And in ane hepe cam on thame with a swak,

Sum hesit hoverand on the waUia hycht,

1 vii. 13, 65. - i. 2, 51.

96 The Translation : its Method and Result

And sum the swowchand sey so law gart lycht,
Thame semyt the erd oppynnyt amyd the flude,
The stour up bullyrit sand as it war wode.^

He could, even when translating closely, because of his directly
observant eye and brooding sympathy with Nature, bring into
an interpretative phrase or two, very strikingly, the broad effect
of calm after storm, as for example :

« The swelland seys has swagit, and fra the sky
Gaderit the clowdis and chasit sone away
Brocht hame the son agane and the brycht day.^

His verbal imitations of sound are frequent, such as the follow-
ing :

Tyl Eolus cuntre that wyndy regioune

A brudy land of furyus stormy sowne . . .

In gowsty cavys, the wyndis, lowde quhissiUing.'

The strength of vocahc movement here is extremely difficult to
echpse in poetry before or since ; the influence of spacious
loneliness, wind-searched, being uniquely conveyed in the last
masterly Hne. Here Dryden's version may be compared to shew
how personality tells in such work :

The restless regions of the storms she sought.

Douglas shews his grasp of pregnant phrase, as when Virgil's
resonant saxa gets its full power of reiteration in his rendering,

the craggis rowt and zell.*

His picture of the Arcadian Menoetes is a piece of clean and
clearly touched art, such as one sees standing out in Chaucer's
Prologue : and especially pathetic in our own time of war's
sorrow :

That all his days evir hatit the melle,

Bot all for nocht, for he most neid thus de.

A puyr cote hous he held.

1 i. 3, 21.

* i. 3, 82.

Citius tumida sequora placat,
coilectasque fugat nubes, solemque reducit. — i. 142, 3.
» i. 2, 3.

in patriam loca feta furentibus Austria
^oliam venit. Hie vasto rex iEolua antro
Luctantis ventos tempestatesque sonores. — i. 51.

* iii. 6, 146.

The Translation : its Method and Result 97

Hys fader ejnrit and sew ane peys of feld
That he in hyregang held to be his beild.*

And there is a modern touch in his Unes about the fair young

Pallas, dead before his time :

As is the fresch flowris schynand bewte
Newly puUyt vp from hys stalkis small
With tendyr fyngeris of the damysaiU,
Or the soft violet that doys freschly schyne.*

His description of a little bit of scenery, in a comer remote,

has surely a native original for model, even though he gives a

wonderfully close transcription the while :

Thar lay a valle in a crukyt glen
Ganand for slycht tyll enbusch armyt men
Quham wonder narrow apon athir syde
The bewys thik hampirris and doith hyde
With skowgis darn and full obscur perfay
Quharthrow thar strekit a rod or a strait way
Ane narrow peth baith outgang and entre
Full scharp and schrowit passage wonder sle.'

Or again,

Thar growys a gret schaw neir the chil ryver. . . .

and with deip clewchis wyde

Thys schaw is closyt apon euery syde
Ane thyk ayk wod of skowgy fyrris stowt
Belappys all the said cuthill abowt.*

And more than once he lingers to recall the owls that he has heard

>at home :

That sum tyme into gravis or stokkis of tre
Or on the waist thak or hows rufis hie.

^ Et juvenem exoaum nequiquam bella Menoeten,
Arcada,

... pauperque domus . . .
I ... conductaque pater tellure serebat.

I ^n. xii. 517.

Douglas, xii. 9, 43.
I * qualem virgineo demessum poUice florem

' Seu mollis violae.

^n. xi. 68.
Douglas, xi. 2, 26.
' Est curvo anfractu valles, accommoda fraudi
Armoruraque dolis, quam densis frondibus atrum
Urget utrimque latus, tenuis quo semita ducit.

Mn. xi, 522.
Douglas, xi. 10, 83.

* Est ingens gelidum lucus prope Cseritis amnem . . .
Inclusere cavi et nigra nemus abiete cingunt.

^n. viii. 597.
Douglas, viii. 10, I.
E. Ms. — "and skowgy."

98 The Translation : its Method and Result

Sittand by nycht Byngis a sorowfuU toyn

In the dyrk skowgis with scrykis inoportojna. ^

It may be true enough that of these passages some might say,

Gyf ocht be weill, thank Virgill and nocht me.

Yet though he is translating, it is as a true poet and a master, who
has fine sympathy not only with his original but with the Nature
which he describes. The Pallas picture is more than a mere
translation, it is a fresh thing of beauty in itself. To see this,
one need only compare Dryden's version :

And looks a lovely flower
New cropt by virgin hands to dress the bower,
Unfaded yet.

And other renderings of his miss the strong personal touch of
phrase and vision.

Douglas's " expositioun " methods sometimes make slight
incongruities in reading, as when he puts his own " aside " into
the mouth of King Evandrus, when that monarch is shewing
^neas the woods and forest :

Thir woddis and thir schawis aU, quod he,
Sum tyme inhabjrt war and occupyit
Wyth Nymphis and Fawnys apon euery syde,
Quhilk fairfolkis or than elvys, cleping we.*

This same desire to be understood fully and clearly breaks out

especially in such portions of his work as are descriptive of natural

scenes and human episodes.

So, also, it is a picture of a Scottish cornfield after rain which

Douglas gives when he renders faithfully

purpureus veluti cum flos, succisus aratro
languescit moriens, lassove papavera coUo
demisere caput pluvia cum forte gravantur. . . .*

Lyke as the purpour flour in fur or sewch

Hys stalk in two smji; newly wyth the pleuch

Dwynys away as it doith faid or de ;

Or as the chesbo hedis oft we se

Bow down thair knoppis sowpit on thar grane

Quhan thai be chargyt with the hevy rane.*

^ quae quondam in bustis aut culminibus desertis
nocte sedens serum canit importuna per umbras.

Mn. xii. 863.
Douglas, xii. 13, 169.
2 viii. 6, 4. =* ix. 435. * ix. 7, 147.

The Translation : its Method and Result 99

The following further examples of Nature, animate and in-
animate, shew him at his best in this way ; and here we see again
his clear vision and the reminiscent strength of his observation,
reproducing not alone the poet's Unes but his own experience.
The first is the description of a horse suddenly set free ; and both
the Roman and the Scot must have loved that animal, to be able
to present so forcible a scene — ^in fact, it is perhaps the best in
all poetry deaUng with the subject. Says Virgil :

qualis ubi abruptis fugit praesepia vinclis

tandem liber equus, campoque potitus aperto

aut ille in pastus armentaque tendit equarum,

aut, adsuetus aquae perfundi flumiae noto,

emicat, arrectisque fremit cervicibus alte

luxurians ; luduntque iubae per colla, per armos. . . . ^

And Douglas gives us his picture of a steed broken loose, thus —

As sum tyme dois the curser start and ryn
That brokkyn hes his band furth of his stall,
Now gois at large out our the feldis all
And haldis towart the studis in a rage
Quhar merys rakis in thar pasturage :
Or than onto the deip rynnand lyver
Quhar he was wont to (ir3aik the watir cleir :
He sprentis furth and full provd walxis he
Heich strekand vp his hed with mony a ne :
Outour his spaldis and nek lang by and by
Hys lokkjTTit mayn schakand wantonly.*

With this may be compared also the description of a stag hunt,
in the Twelfth Book, where Virgil's nine Unes become twenty
in Douglas's vigorous expansion.^

The second is a river scene once more, —

ceu saxa morantur
Cum rapidos amnis, fit clausa gurgite murmur
Vicinaeque fremunt ripae crepitantibus undis. . . .*

Lyk as the swyft watir stremys cleir
Sum tyme rowtand men on far may heir
Quhar it is stoppit with thir stanys round
That of the ryveris brute and brokkyn sound
Brystand on skeUeis our thir demmjrt lynnys
The bankis endlang all the fludis dynnys.*

Other examples will sufl&ce to shew how, in spite of Umitations
laid down by the poet, he sweeps into a large freedom whenever

1 xi. 492. 2 xi. 10, 16. s xii. 12, 133.

* xi. 18, 297. 5 xi. 7, 5.

100 The Translation : its Method and Result

an episode emerges which appeals to him. Virgil, in one very-
comprehensive Une, describes a confused fight, and the whole
episode Uvea in five words :

immiscentque manu3 manibus pugnamque lacessunt.^

This one line, however, appealed apparently to Douglas's
fighting blood, and he expands it into the following :

Now hand to hand, the dynt lychtis with a swak ;
Now bendis he vp hys burdon with a mynt,
On syde he bradis fortil eschew the dynt ;
He etlys zondir hys avantage to tak,
He metis hym thar, and charris hym with a chak :
He watis to spy, and smytis in al hys mycht,
The tother keppys hym on hys burdon wycht :
Thai foyn at othir, and eggis to bargane.*

These shew Douglas at his best, when moving along the way of
the liberty which he claimed. His modes may be further seen
in the following.

Virgil, in his address to the Muses, uses the one word " dese," *
and this becomes with Douglas a very full invocation :

2Jhe Musys now, sweit Goddessis ychone,*

being exactly double, in extent, of the three words extra to
which he asserts his right, in his introduction. And, again, the
simple phrase.

Audentis Fortuna iuvat,'
becomes a wide maxim in

Hap helpis hardy men, be myne avys,
That weil dar tak on hand stowt interprys. •

Sometimes, feeUng the pregnant power of Virgil's words,
and by his poetic sympathy beholding the very picture rise before
him, Douglas irresistibly expands a phrase. Thus :

Msestum lUades crinem de more solutae,'
becomes

dolorua Phrigyane wemen on thar gys

With hair down echaik and petuus spraichis and cryis. '

He has probably before him here, as an interpretative fact, a

1 V. 429. » V. 8, 10. » X. 163. * x. 4, L

• X. 284. « X. 5, 175. ' xi. 35. « xi 1, 81.

The Translation : its Method and Result 101

Scottish funeral, with the wailing of the women for their dead.
We see this again in his

woful moderis . . .
cryand, ichane, allace ! *

almost a reminiscence of the matrons lamenting in the streets of
Scottish towns, after some dire battle tidings.
So also, for the reticent yet plangent phrase

miserande puer ! 2
Douglas gives

O douchty child maist worthy to be menyt,'
and feels called upon to explain

pudendis vtdneribiis,*
by the words

schamefull wondis that he caucht in the bak.^

In this respect, however, he frequently compares quite favour-
ably with Dryden. For example, in the Mneid, Book II. line
332, we read :

Obsedere alii telis angusta viarum
Oppositis : stat ferri acies mucrone corusco
Stricta parata neci.

Dryden renders this characteristically :

To several parts their parties they divide,

Some block the narrow streets, some scour the wide.

The bold they kill, th' unwary they siu-prise :

Who fights finds death, and death finds him who flies.

This is almost wholly Dryden. Douglas, on the other hand,
writes more closely :

Sum cumpanyis, with speris, lance and targe,
Walkis wachand ia rewis and narow stretis :
Arrayit batalis, with drawyn swerdis at gletis,
Standis reddy forto styk, gor and sla. . . . •

With the woods of native land before him, Virgil's pines
become to Douglas the dark firs

rekand to the stemys on hie. '

1 xi. 5, 71. » xi. 42. ^ ^i. 1, 96. * xi. 55-6.

^ xi. 1, 128. • ii. 6, 68. ' xi. 3, 83.

102 The Translation : its Method and Result

And, as he reads of the busy waggons that creak through the
forest under their heavy loads of tree trunks, these

plaustris gementibus^

become

jargand wanya,*

a phrase which almost seems to visuaUze the very sounds of the
burdened carts.
And again :

nou vitae gaudia qusero
Nee fas, sed nato manis perferre sub imoa,*

becomes

Onlesum war syk plesour I set by :
Bot for a thraw desyre I to lest heir
Turnus slauchter and deth with me to beir
As glaid tithandis onto my child and barn
Amang the gostis law hi skowgis dern.*

He was very fond of this word " dern " as an epithetic addition.
It recurs again and again. Thus :

silvis insedit iniquis *

is rendered

Lyggis at weyt vnder the dam wod schaw.®

Somehow there is something in the individuahty of the words
that makes us see a Scottish forest here. All shadowy places
have this apphed to them by him as a descriptive tag.

It is evident from these examples that he sees the thing plainly,
and paints his own picture, dipping his pencil however in the
edge of Virgil's material.

He was wise in his choice of a dignified verse, which he got
from Chaucer, the riding rhyme, that decasyllabic rhythm which,
through the influence of Deschamps and de Machault, ousted
the octosyllabic, and became the standard of English heroic
poetry.'

Douglas was as wise as he could be expected to be in other
things also, considering that he stood on the first edge of enter-

^ xi. 138. 2 xi. 3, 87. ^ xi. 180. * xi. 4, 98.

» xi. 531. « xi. 10, 104.

' Used first in English in Prol. to Legende of Ooode Women.

The Translation : its Method and Result 103

jrise in his great labour. Yet he sang, not as others ; and he had
few if any to give him either the keynote or the tune.

John Nott speaks of him as being " homely, diffuse, and
Eamihar : he brings down Virgil to the common vernacular
language of his own country, instead of seeking to give him an
elevation of style corresponding to the heroic style of the
original." ^ Nott had, however, missed what Douglas set forth as
his very purpose in his translation. His single aim was to clothe
the story and the thought of Virgil in the vernacular of Lowland
Scotland. Nobody was ever more conscious of the hardships
of that task ; and his very effort not to lower but to Uft his
medium into a dignity worthy of or proportionate to his original
made him lift much of his work into realms of vocabulary whither
the vernacular sometimes has to follow with difficulty, and often,
as it were out of breath entirely.

THE PROLOGUES

Their place

What makes Douglas's Virgil of interest wider than merely
to scholars, and to students of the Roman poet, is the fact
that he interposes between each book a piece of original verse,
of varying length, interest and worth. Some of these contain
valuable word pictures, done " with the eye on the object," as
never before in Scottish verse, and with a uniquely vigorous touch.

The early EngUsh romantic poets were accustomed to give
descriptions of landscape as introductory matter to their epic
poetry. Henryson very finely uses this method in the opening
of his Testament of Cresseid. He thinks

Ane doolie sessonn to ane carefull dyte
Suld correspond, and be equivalent
Richt sa it wes quhen I began to wryte
This tragedie.

The froist freisit, the blastis bitterly

Fra Pole Artick come quhisUng loud and schill.

I mend the fyre and beikit me about
Then tuik ane drink my spreitis to comfort,

^ Works of Surrey and Wyatt, voL i. 1815.

104 The Translation : lis Method and Result

And armit me weill fra the cauld thairout,
To cut the winter nicht and mak it schort,
I tuik ane Quarr and left all uther sport.

Douglas, in more places than one, has taken a suggestion
from this very quaintly conceived picture. The painters of the
Renaissance had the same habit — as one may see in the beautiful
backgrounds of Leonardo da Vinci.

But Douglas went in this to greater length, and gave full and
perfect reflections of his own mood and environment, before he
sat down to proceed with his great work. And, where he did
not do this, he wrote, as introductory preparation of his readers
for what was to follow, discussion and representation of the
passions and circumstances of humanity, in their bearing, more
or less, upon the Book of Virgil which he was next to give. The
value of these Prologues, of course, varies much, but none of
them can be ignored as samples of the poet's view of humanity
and the world, in relation to the work he had chosen ; while in
more than one he shows fine skill in verse- weaving, especially in
the Ninth Prologue, where an artifice, used in Celtic poetry, and
forming a kind of chain verse, though not what is usually so called,
is employed with very rich effect, differing also from other
examples of internal rhyme.

The Prologues are usually discussed only in general terms,
while, with the exception of the Seventh and Twelfth, their
characteristics are frequently ignored. They are worthy, how-
ever, of some separate notice.

The First Prologue, in the same heroic couplets as the trans-
lation itself, has ^already been sufficiently dealt with in the
consideration of Douglas's purposes and aims, as stated by
himself therein.

The Second is a lament for the fall of Troy, written in rhyme
royal, the stanza of The King's Quair, somewhat in the spirit of
the trouveres :

Harkis Ladeis, zour bewte was the caws,
Harkis knychtis, the wod fury of Mart :
Wys men, attendis mony sorofull claws.
And ze dyssavouris, reid heir zour proper art.
And fynaly, to specify euery part,
Heir verifeit is that proverbe teching so.
All erdly glaidnes fynysith with wo.

The Translation : its Method and Result 105

The Third Prologue is a general introduction, of five stanzas,
consisting of nine lines each, beginning with an address to
Cynthia:

Homyt Lady, pail Cynthia, not brycht,
QuhUk from thi broder borrowis al thi licht,
Rewlare of passage and ways mony one
Maistres of stremys and glaider of the nycht ;
Schipmen and pUgrymys hallowis thi mycht,
Lemman to Pan, douchtir of Hyperion,
That slepand kyssit the hyrd Endymyon,
Thy strange wentis to write God gif me slycht,
Twiching the thryd buke of Eneadon.

He again murmurs against murmurers, wondering whether it
be against him or Virgil that they gird. The printer-editor
has a rubric both of assault and comfort : " Inuyus personnys
can do nothynge against good men but bark and chyd, and with
that schaw ther awine fulyshnes. Good men with wysdom
tempereth theyr tonges."

This Prologue's scheme of rhyme in the introductory stanzas,
is the same as that of the first and second part of The Police of
Honour, namely, aab aab bab ; of Dunbar's Goldin Targe ;
Chaucer's Compleynt of Anelyda ; and Henryson's beautiful
lament for Eurydice. Curiously, in the third part of The Police
of Honour Douglas changes his rhyme scheme to aab aab bcc,
which is the same as that of Chaucer's Complaint of Mars. He
has another remarkable irregularity in the Police ; in the first
part, stanzas 6 and 7 are of ten Unes each, with the rhyme scheme
aab aab be be, while, in the second part, stanzas 29 and 30
have ten lines also, with a rhyme scheme, aab aab ba ba.
Froissart has a nine hne Ballade de La Marguerite, but it follows
the strict scheme of its form. Douglas has no Ballades with
refrain, such as Dunbar has in his Merle and the Nychtingaill,
though Dunbar breaks the usual ballade laws of length, and
uniformity of vowel rhyme, throughout. He sometimes also
uses the same metre as Douglas's Police of Honour with a refrain,
which Douglas does not do. The remarks of Bemhard Ten
Brink ^ in regard to rhyme-scheme apply only to parts 1 and 2
of Douglas's Poem.

The Fourth Prologue, in thirty-eight well-turned rhyme royal
* English Literature, vol. iii. (transl.).

106 The Translation : its Method and Result

stanzas, is well summarized in the editor's rubric — " This Proloug
treatis the strength of love, the incommodytys and remead of the
same." Occleve, in his Letter of Cwpid, uses the same verse form,
and also takes David, Solomon, and Samson as examples of men
imdone by passion, referring also to Ovid's de Remedio Ainoris,
which Douglas is said to have translated as an antidote to an
early passion. Douglas speaks of Venus and Cupid as

Fosteraris of bymyng, carnail, halt delyte . . .
Begynyng with a fenzeit faynt plesance,
Continewit in lust, and endyt wth pennance.

And Solomon, Samson, David, Alexander, Jacob, Hercules,

Hero and Leander, and others are taken as examples of its evil

mastery. And yet he shows the shadow and the glory of love

in the hne —

Thow plenyst paradyce, and thou heryt hell.

He passes on to Dido's tragedy, which he reminds us made

Augustine himself weep, following here Ascencius, who says,

in the first few lines of his Commentary on the Fourth Book of

the JEneid — in the edition published " anno a Virginis Partu Md

VIII " — " Augustinus sese ad lachrymas compulsum Didonis

querela confiteatur. Nihil enim prsBtermissum est quod ad

amantis misere officium pertineat." And so the poet warns all

to vigilance over the citadel of their heart. It is conventional,

and remarkably lacking in the slightest touch or token of the

lyrical cry, so beautifully found in Henryson's

" quhair art thow gone, my luve euridices ? "

It is, in fact, a Churchman's treatment of a passionate theme, and,

though touched with some tenderness, is cold.

The Fifth Prologue has again the nine-hne stanza, with the

rhyme scheme of the third part of The Police of Honour, as above

noted. It has eight stanzas, opening with reflections on the

aims and purposes which keep the heart going forward, a kind

of excuse for games and sports, especially as the Fifth Book

deals with these. And he has another gird at Caxton ! He

puts aside the temptation to invoke Bacchus, Proserpine, or

Victory, or any other

But he quhilk may wa glaid perpetualy.
To bryng ws tyl hys blya, on hym I cry.

The Translation : its Method and Result 107

Tfie Sixth Prologue is in octave verse, rhyming ababbcbc.
It has been already used herein in consideration of his attitude
towards the moral teaching of Virgil, regarding hell and the
punishment of sin. In this he quotes Ascencius, in the Ught
of the latter's remarks on the Fourth Eclogue —

As twiching hym writis Ascentyus ;

Fell of his wordia bene like the appostilis sawis.

He is ane hie theolog sentencyus.

And maste profund philosophour he him schawis.

. . . He was na cristin man, per De,

And zit he puttia a God Fader most hie.

This eclogue, of course, had great influence in lifting Virgil in
the estimation of Christian thinkers in the Middle Ages. But
Hesiod and Ovid seem also to have traces of the influence of the
Hebrew Scriptures. Theocritus, at the Court of Ptolemy, even
borrowed Bible phrases. * Virgil, according to his own statement,
owed the staple of this eclogue to the verses attributed to the
Cumsean Sibyl, wherever these had borrowed their colour.

The Seventh Prologue follows, in one hundred and sixty-eight
Chaucerian couplets, naturally upon the Sixth Book, of the
Descent of iEneas into the lower world ; and is intended by
Douglas to " smell new come forth of hell." It gives a de-
scription of a Scottish winter. There may be a reminiscence here,
of the old northern idea of hell, as a place of chill and wretched-
ness, not a place of flame, still surviving in the Gaehc ifrinn
juar, i.e. " cold hell." ^ It seems, however, to have been suggested
by the ghostlike aspect of objects in winter. I have seen this
very thing in Flanders, with the dead lying, snow-shrouded ;
and nothing can be Uker the land of the shades. It depicts the
fierce, snell, and gloomy features of the season, with the dis-
comforts of the poet's time. His high window looks out over
Edinburgh, and the wild geese fly screaming across the city
before the wind.

This was a favourite picture for the poetic mind. And here
as elsewhere it recalls Lorenzo de' Medici's Ambra, which opens

1 Cf. Idyll xviJi. 30, and Canticles i. 9.

* Cf. Cosmuilius ifrinn dano and cetamus-i-gaimred 7 snechtae, sin 7 nacht,
aes 7 chrine, etc. Old Irish Homily, vide K. Meyer, Zeitschrift fiir Celtiache
Philol. Cf. also Michael O'Clery'a MS. of 1628, i.e. Stowe MS., B. iv. 2, £o.
146 ^■^■, for collocation of geimreadh . . . iffern . . . bron, etc.

108 The Translation : its Method and Result

with the description of an Italian winter, and has a flight of birds
finely drawn :

Stridendo in ciel, i gru veggonsi a lunge
L'aere stampar di varie e belle forme :
E I'ultima col collo steso aggiunge
Ov' e queUa dinanzi alle vane orme.

The Italian also, in another place,i appeals to Nature in his

Oda la terra, e nubliosi e foschi
Turbini, e piove, che fan l'aere oscura.
Silenzj ombrosi, e solitari boschi :

which awakes in us, as we read, a thought of Douglas also.

He reflects on human struggle and distresses. He apparently
recalls scenes familiar to him ; and the wild storms of his native
fields rise up before his reflective eye.^

The frosty regioun ryngis of the zer
The tyme and sesson bittir cald and paill,
Tha schort days that clerkis clepe brumaill ;
Quhen brym blastis of the northyn art
Ourquhelmyt had Neptunus in his cart,
And all to schaik the levis of the treis.
The rageand storm, ourwaltrand wally seys ;
Ryveris ran reid on spait with watir brovne.
And burnys hurlys all thar bankis dovne,
And landbrist rumland rudely with sik beir.
So lowd ne rumyst wild lyoun or ber.

Thik drumly skuggis dyrknyt so the hevyn . . .

Flaggis of fire and mony feUoun flaw,

Scharpe soppys of sleit and of the snypand snaw.

The doUy dichis war all donk and wait

The law valle flodderit all with spait . . .

Laggerit leyis wallowit farnys schew,

Brovne muris kythit thar wysnyt mossy hew . .

The wjTid maid waif the red wed on the dyke . . .

Puyr lauboraris and bissy husband men

Went wait and wery, draght in the fen.

The atmosphere, action, colour, and humanity, of this, make it
uniquely powerful in its realism and pathetically modem in its
touch. And so, as outside Nature was impossible for a poet to
wander in, he seeks the fireside with his book again, admonishing
his industry, as he was but half through with his labours —
Na thing is done, quhiU ocht remanis ado.^

^ Orazione. * Cf. Henryson The Swallow and other Birds.

^ Cf. Nil actum credens, cum quid superesset agendum. Lucan, Pharsalia,
iL 657.

The Translation : its Method and Result 109

The Eighth Prologue is the most remarkable, in some ways,
truly an odd thing in its place in a volume of Virgilian trans-
lations. The verse is a kind of dancing rhythm, flexible and
quick in action, and resilient in its bob- wheel tag. It consists
of fourteen stanzas of thirteen lines each, with rhyme and
alliteration together. But though he uses the semblance of
antiquity he does not adhere to the ancient method, having
frequently five alUterated accented words instead of three, to a
line. The ancient model is shown in Piers Plowman's famihar

In a somer seson when soft was the sonne
I shope me in shroudes as I a shepe were.

But Douglas assumes the liberty of Dunbar, in the Tua mariit
Wemen and the Wedo, where that poet breaks away from con-
ventional rule in Unes Uke

Besyd ane gudlie grein garth full of gay flouris.

Douglas's Prologue is as un- Virgilian and unclassical as any that
could ever be — a most alien interpolation, which must have
struck any but a Scottish reader as utterly uncouth, if not indeed
as gibberish, in such hues as

Sum latyt latton, but lay, lepys in lawyd lyt.

Sum penys furth a pan boddum to prent fals plakkis,

Sum gowkis quhill the glas pyg grow full of gold zit.

A notable test of " plainness," even to Scotsmen of to-day, and
many a day before now ! It begins with the dream, of course.

Of dreflyng and dremys quhat dow it to endite ?
For, as I lenyt in a ley in Lent this last nycht,
I slaid on a swevynnyng, slummyrand a lite :
And sone a selcouth seg I saw to my sycht,
Swownand as he swelt wald, sowpyt in syte.
Was nevir wrocht in this warld mair wofull a wycht,
Ramand : Resson and rycht is rent by fals rjrte,
Frendschip flemyt is in Frans, and faith hes the flycht.
Leys, lurdaniy and lust ar our laid stam ;

Peax is put owt of play,

Welth and weilfar away,

Lufe and lawte baith tuay

Lurkis ful dam.

The scheme of rhyme here is the same as in Henryson's Sum
Practysis of Medecyne, Holland's Book of the Howlat, Golagros
and Gawane, the Awntyrs of Arthure at the Terne Wathelyne, and.

110 The Translation : its Method and Result

with some similarity, in Eauf Coilzear. The Howlat ^ goes back
to 1475 at least, and Holland tells us of course that it was com-
posed in " the mirthfull month of May." The influence of its
matter is seen in Douglas's other prologues. Thus Holland says —

This riche Revir dovn ran but resting or ruf
Throwe ane forest on fold that farly was fair.
All the brayis of the brym bair branchis abuf,
And birdis blythest of ble on blossomes bair.
The land lowne was and le, with lyking and luf ,
And for to lende by that laike thocht me levar
Becauss that thir hartes in heirdis couth huf
Pransand and prunzeand be pair and be pair
Thus sat I in solace sekerly and sure
Content of the fair firth
Mekle mair of the mirth
Ala blyth of the birth
That the ground bure

Very curiously there is a Douglas connection in this poem, as
it was written for Elizabeth Dunbar, Countess of Moray, who was
married first, to a Douglas, whose eldest brother was that earl
whom King James II himself slew in 1452. A detailed de-
scription of the Douglas arms is introduced in its verses. It also
contains what may be taken as the Douglas authorized version
of the pilgrimage of Sir James with Bruce's heart, accepted
apparently as ofi&cial by Boece, and differing from Barbour's
version, in that it represents Sir James as having fallen in Spain
on his way back from the Holy Land, instead of having been slain
in Spain before he had succeeded to carry the purpose of his
journey further. The author seems to have shared the exile of
the Douglasses in England, and was, with the banished earl,
excluded from mercy and restoration in the amnesty of 1482.
Bishop Gawain could not but know it, therefore, and both its
rhythm and its imagery would be famiUar to him.

In regard to Douglas's own peculiar verses here the
printer's rubric says : "In this Prolug he schaws the stait
of thys fals warld, quhou all thyng is turnit fra verteu tyl
vyce." The vision tells how all men are wilful, seeking their

1 Asloan MS. (a.d. 1515), Bannatyne MS. (1568). One leaf of Black Letter
of about 1520 extant. fide Appendix Pinkerton's Scotish Poems, reprinted
from rare editions. Vol. iii., 1792 ; Laing, David, for Bannatyne Club ;
Amours, F. J., in Scottish Alliterative Poems, S.T.S., 1891-2.

\

The Translation : its Method and Result

111

own pleasures, but Douglas resents the interference of this aged
mourner, as he desires to get on with his own work. The ancient
shews him the book of God, written over the stars and in the
laws of Nature ; and takes him to a corner of the field to dig for
a hid treasure, but he awakes and misses it. He turns, however,
to seek the treasure of hf e by the way of industry, in the duty that
is at hand. Examples of this favourite method of vision and
interview could be culled at large from the Italian poetry of the
Renaissance, as well as evidenced in Henryson's interview with
iEsop.^ It gave the poet an opportunity of passing on his
opinions and philosophies, with the interest of a third person
giving additional weight to their teaching.

The Ninth Prologue begins with three stanzas of six lines,
and either was already lying by him, or he grew weary of it,
for he plmiges into rhyming heroic couplets for other eighty lines.
The opening stanzas enunciate the general rules of honour and
charity : —

Scurilyte is bot for doggig at barkis,
Quha tharto harkis fallys in fragilyte.

Do tyll ilk wight as thou done to waldbe,
Be nevir sle and doubill, nor zit our lycht :
Oys not thy mycht abufe thjTie awin degre,
Cljrm nevir our hie, nor zit to law thow lycht ;
Wirk no malgre thocht thou be nevir sa wycht
Hald with the rycht, and pres the nevir to le.

In these verses he has not only tail rhyme but a curious artifice,
hke the swing of a pendulum, a kind of weaving rhyme, where
the chimes move out and in as if threading the maze of a country
dance, thus :

a- — — '

b

^^'- —

b^--^'

""^

a

a,-— — "^

^^--^^

b

^ -

__- -'

a

b

b^^--

-— — ^

__a

^ Vide Fables. Proloug to The Lyoun and the Mous.

112 The Translation : its Method and Result

He elsewhere uses internal rhyme, in the Hymn in 'praise of
Honour, with which his Police poem concludes, but on a different
scheme — a straightforward chime which rings like a dance with
castanets, that chink at a foot-beat on the ground :

O hie honour sweet hevinlie flour degest . . .
Bot quhome in richt na worthie wicht may lest.

The second verse gets one extra chime :

Of grace thy face in every place sa schynis,
That sweit all spreit baith heid and feit inclynLs,
Thy gloir afoir for till imploir remeid. . . .

And the third rings all the way :

Haill, rois maist chois till clois thy fois greit micht,

Haill, stone quhilk schone vpone the throne of licht. . . .

It is an actual bit of dehberately created bell-and-cymbal praise,
and if it be measured by the poet's intent, it is a successful piece
of verbal music.

This species of internal rhyme construction was not un-
common in Kenaissance verse. Henryson uses it once, in the
concluding stanzas of his Prayer for the Pest :

Supeme lucerne gubeme this pestilens.

Preserve and serve that we nocht sterf tharin.
Declyne that tharin pyne be thy devyne prudens.

And Dunbar in his Ballat of our Lady, beginning.

Hale, steme supeme ! Hail, in eteme.

In Goddis sicht to schyne !
Lucerne in derne, for to discerne

Be glory and grace devjiie.
Hodiem, modern, sempitern,

AngelicaU regyne.
Our tern infeme for to dispem,

Helpe rialest rosyne . . .^

Neither of these has the natural swing of Douglas's verse in this
Prologue nor in the Hymn.

They are not to be confused with the Leonine verse, found as
early as the eighth century, the real origin of which is not known,
in which the syllable immediately preceding the caesura ot a line

' Cf. St Caaimire's Hymn — Omni die die Marise, etc., from Hermann Adal-
bert Daniel's Thesaurus Hymnologicus II., p. 373, App. Ixiv. Vide Dunbar,
in., p. 357, S.T.S.

The Translation : its Method and Result 113

rhymes with the final syllable. The familiar lines are the best
example :

Daemon \a,nguehat monachus tunc esse volebat,
' Ast ubi convaltttf mansit ut ante iuit.

The following line by Ovid is also well known in this connection :

Quot coelum steUas tot habet tua Roma pueiio*.

Douglas goes on to shew how he tries to suit his quest by
clothing his work in fit phrase. And with all his apologies and
acceptances of censure he smirks to acknowledge his satisfaction
with his product :

mea culpa I cry,
Zit by myself I fynd this proverb perfyte.
The blak craw thinkis hir awin bjTdis quhite.

HJB humour suggests.

So faris with me, bew Schirris, wil ze hark.
Can nocht persaue a fait in all my wark
Affectioun sa far my raysson blyndis,
Quhar I mysknaw myne errom*, quha it fyndis,
For cheryte amendis it, gentil wycht,
Syne pardon me, sat sa far in my lycht,
And I sal help to smore zour fait, leif broder.
Thus, vail que vail, oik gude deid helpis other.

The Tenth Prologue is in Dunbar's five line stave — aabba,
which came into Scots verse under the influence of France. In
its other form aahab it is found in the envoy of Villon's Ballade^
beginning,

En regal en arsenic rocher,

and also in the Ballade contre les mesdisans. Dunbar uses it

frequently, with a refrain, as in the Danger of Wryting. It

speaks, in Douglas's thirty-five verses here, of the wonders of

the works of God, in an invocation, throughout, of the " Maist

Hie Plasmatour."

Addresses to the highest Divinity were not unusual, at this

period, under the influence of Saint Augustine's writings ; and

one cannot help comparing Douglas's with Lorenzo de' Medici's

Orazione :

Spirto Dio, U verbo tuo la mente regge,,
Opifice, che spirto a ciascun dai,
Tu sol se' Dio, onde ogni cosa ha legge.

114 The Translation : its Method and Result

L'uomo tuo questo chiama sempre mai ;

Per fuoco, aria, acqua, e terra t'ha pregato,

Per lo spirto, e per quel che creato hai.
Dall' etemo ho benedizion trovato,

E spero, come io son desideroso,

Trovar nel tuo disio tranquillo state :
Fuor di te Dio, non e vero riposo.

Henryson's voice also speaks thus in the Prologue to the Lyoun
and the Mous. The suggesting source of these is evident.
Douglas passes on to full statements of theological dogma, and
of the Trinity, shewing how in ourselves we have understanding,
reason, memory, with examples from " flame, lycht, and heyt " ;
concluding with an address to God on the super- excelhng glory of
divine love. There is no mention, in this, of purgatory. But
of course he has already, in the Sixth, discussed that. Otherwise
it might be taken as a very complete exhibition of the theology
of his time.

The Eleventh Prologue is again an octave of twenty-five verses
without refrain. The rhyme scheme is ababbccb. It speaks of
the examples of nobihty in prowess :

Weill auchtin eldris exemplis ws to ateir.
Tyll hie curage, aU honour tUl ensew.
Quhen we consider quhat wirschip tharof grew
AU vyce detest and vertu lat ws leyr.

He proceeds to argue that, though war quickens chivalry :

Our myndis suld haue just ententioun,
The grond of batale fundyt apon rycht.

And he is quite modem in his contention :

Wrangis to reddres suld wer be vndertane
For na conquest, reif, skat, nor pensioun.

Now he discusses fortitude and cowardice. He then turns tb
qualities of ordinary chivalry into the sphere of Christianit ,
and of course Aristotle and Boethius are used as authoritie,
while the example of ^Eneas is appealed to, as an incentive 1)
faithful response to the call of his destiny. St Augustine :•
finally quoted, against ease and fear, in the warfare of tb
Christian Hfe. It is not poetry, but well-managed verse, sfi-
tentious and heavy, and, Uke its predecessor, proHx.

TJie Twelfth Prologue is famous for its description of My,

The Translation : its Method and Result 116

vibrant with the freshness of the hving air, the eager hfe of the
world and the stir of Nature quickened ; and sweet with the sheen
of sunlight on the water and the land. It describes a day Uved
through in every detail. Dazzling Phoebus emerges from his
loyal palace.

Before hys regale hie magnificens

Mysty vapour vpsprjoigand sweit as sens . . .

The large fludis lemand all of lycht

Bot with a blenk of hys eupernale sycht,

Forto behald it was a glor to se

The stablit wyndis and the cawmyt see.

The soft sessoun, the firmament sereyn,

The lowne illumynat ayr, and fyrth ameyn . . .

The fish dart to and fro in the " cleir stremis " ; the harts and
hinds stir in enclosure, park and wood :

In lyssouris and on leys litill lammys

Full tayt and tryg socht bletand to thar dammys.

All the life of meadow and loan move and browse before him,
with the love of swain and quean in sunny May-time, and echoes
of folk-song, full of music. If we drop his nymphs and go on,
we find truth at once :

wenchis and damysellis
In gresy gravys wandrand by spryng wellis,
Of blomyt branchis and flowris quhite and red
Plettand thar lusty chaplettis for thar hed ;
Sum sang ryng sangis, dansys ledys and rovndis,
With vocis schill, quhill all the daill resovndis . . .
Ane sang, The schyp salys our the salt faym.
Will bryng thir merchandis and my lemman haym.,

evidently a reference to some folksong. In the objective paint-
ing of Nature here and in the Seventh Prologue, he is the pioneer
of Montgomerie, Thomson, and Scott.

He is awakened by the simshine at four of the May morning.

For Progne had, or than, sung hir complaynt.
And eik her dreidfull systir Philomeyn,
Hyr lays endyt and in woddis greyn,
Hyd hir selvyn, eschamyt of hyr chance.

All the birds everywhere startle the sluggards.

our awyn natyve byrd, gentill dow
Syngand in hyr kynd, / come hydder to wow.

So he leaps to his labour.

lie The Translation : its Method and Result

He thought highly of his work in this poem, for he exclaims :

Explicit scitus prologus
Quharof the autour says thus :

The lusty crafty preambiU, perle of May
I the entitil, crownyt quhil domysday,
And al wth gold in syng of stait ryaU
Most beyn illumnyt thy letteris capital,

which is as far as a poet can well go, even in regard to his own
production !

This direct outlook upon Natural scenes is vibrant with the
spirit of the Renaissance. One finds a good example of that in
the Ambra of Lorenzo de' Medici himself thus :

Al dolce tempo il bon pastore informa

Lasciar le mandre, ove nel verno giacque :
E'l heto gregge, che ballando in torma,

Toma aU' alte montagne, aUe fresche acque.
L'agnel trottando pur la matema orma

Segue : ed alcun, che pur or ora nacque.
L'amorevol pastore in braccio porta :

II fido cane a tutti fa la scorta.

At the same time it must be said that this Prologue, with all
ite direct observation and insight, fails in some degree because
of its very completeness of detail. It is too catalogic. The poet
presents a palette or a crammed sketch-book rather than a
picture, and the hst is apt to pall on the impatient reader of to-
day.*

The Thirteenth Prologue has already been discussed, in its place,
in connection with Mapheus Vegius. But it has other claims to
consideration, by right of its poetry also. In it he describes very
finely a June evening in which he falls asleep, and dreams tiB
daybreak awakes the world.

Furth quynchyng gan the starris one be one,
That now is left bot Lucifer aUone.
And forthirmore to blason the new day
Quha mycht discry ve the bjTdis blissful bay ?
Belyve on weyng the bissy lark vpsprang
To salus the blyth morrow with hir sang
Sone our the fieldis shynys the lycht cleir
Welcum to pilgrym baith and lauborer.

^ Cf. Minto's Characieneiics oj English Foeis; tn ioc. where the ciitic is too
mpetuously scorniul.

The Translation : its Method and Result I IT

In this Prologue the influence of Dunbar may be felt in at
least one glimpse, where, when Douglas tells how

Ontill a garth vndir a greyn lawrer
I walk onon . . .

we hear a distinct echo of Dunbar's episode beginning

Within ane garth undir a tre
I hard ane voice.

But yet reminiscence is a natural thing, and poetry is full of
it, while the artifice was also a common one.

The " grieve " calls his workers, the herd his loon ; the heu-
wife wakes up " Katheryn and Gill."

The dewy greyn pulderit wyth daseis gay
Schew on the swerd a cullour dapill gray
The myety vapouris spryngand vp full sweit
Maist confortabill to glaid all manis spreit,
Tharto thir byrdis sjTigis in the schawys
As menstralis playing, the joly day now dawys.

This was a favourite melody, and is found in a collection aoiade
about 1500. Dunbar speaks of it, in his sarcastic address to
the Merchantis of Edinburgh} as a favourite worn trite :

Your common menstrales hes no tune
But Now the day daws, and Into June.

It is quoted in the Gude and Godlie Ballads ^ in 1567, and is met
with in Montgomerie's Poems in 1579, while it is spoken of as
being played by Habbie Simpson, the piper of Kilbarchan, in
1625.^ It is supposed to be the song commencing;

Hey now the day dawia
The jolly cock era wis,

and was sung to the melody Hey tutti taitie, the same to which
Bums wrote Scots wha hae. Its identification, by Chambers,*
with that in the Fairfax manuscript, and the conclusion which
he draws therefrom that " at the commencement of the 16th
century there were songs common to the literate classes of both
nations " is erroneous, being based on the similarity of the
opening words. The music for three voices in the Fairfax
collection is not the same as that of the Scottish bagpipe air with

* Stanza v. * Edition, Irving, p. 219.
' Watson's Collection of Scots Poems, 1706.

* Scottish Songs, vol. i.. Int., pp. xvi et seq.

118 The Translation : its Method and Result

the same name. It was, in fact, the awakening tmie of the town
pipers in most places in Scotland which had such an oJB&cial.

It cannot be denied by all who know and love poetry, that, in
these productions, unique from their connections and place, we
have a bulk of visually imaginative work, which gives their poet
a niche of his own.

Douglas not only sees, but he feels and imderstands, and
humanity speaks in response to the world's appeal. A winter
day, or the song of the birds in the woodlands, or the flocks
spread along the meadows and hillsides, impress him with a
heart-significance, and stir a deeper than merely recording note,
just as in regard to human character in his greater work.

Here, and throughout the general translation, where character-
istics of flood and fell are touched by him, Douglas is on his own
ground as a truly descriptive poet — the forerunner of the later
Nature poetry of the open world. He is leagues away from any
of the descriptive work that is in his earlier poetry, where he
was simply weaving conventional tapestries of mediaeval design.
He is here truly modem, directly personal in spirit and in pur-
pose, a poet of the New Birth. In face of such descriptive poetry,
and even remembering his faults, it is difficult to agree with
Thomas Campbell, in his Specimens of English Poets, when,
evidently feeUng that he should praise and condemn at the
same moment, he says of Douglas, " He was certainly a fond
painter of Nature, but his imagery is redundant and tediously
profuse." This is, we feel, only a general remark of a modem
in passing.

Douglas's Nature pictures are true pictures of Nature, done
with an open eye, a true heart, and a full brush. There is httle,
if any, writing about Nature in extent, hke it, till the publication
of The Seasons.^

* Prologue I., printed in Gregory Smith's Specimens of Middle Scot*
(1902).

Prologue VII. has been reprinted in Sibbald's Chronicle of Scottish Poetry
(1802), i. pp. 428-457; Eyre Todd's Abbotsford Poets, i. pp. 249-269, Hand
Browne's Selections from the Early Scottish Poets, Ba.timore, 1896, pp. 154-165
(both of these were reprinted from Small's edition) ; Gregory Smith's Sfecimens
of Middle Scots.

Prologue VIII. appears in Sibbald.

Prologue XIII. , partly in Sibbald, and in Eyre Todd.

Cf. further, pages 20, 21, 22 supra.

The Translation : its Method and Result 119

Estimate

Douglas was frankly a Scottish poet in his intent, with
little thought of a wider audience than the readers and
teachers of his own land and race. Yet at times there
are gleams of a larger hope, that by his work he had
loosened a music bound hitherto in the chains of ancient
phrase, and given an example and incentive to others. The
Scottish Poet hoped by his method to make what was a world
classic, a classic of the Scottish folk, and a guide to Scottish
thought and action, in familiar phrase, vocabulary, and idea.
Professor Henry Morley says of Chapman's translation of
Homer, that in it " the Iliad is best read as an EngUsh book."
And in this sense Douglas's is a great Scottish poem, while at the
same time a translation of a very great Latin work. If, as
Montaigne said, Amyot in France made Plutarch speak French,
truly Douglas made the refined Augustan speak Scots, though
as a dignified schoolman, with a Scottish tongue still in his mouth,
might speak it, standing between the scholar of his day and
the peasant, touching now the one and now the other, but never
quite both together at once. Douglas himself hoped to be a
popular poet, for he says,

Throwout the ile yclept Albioune
Red sail I be and sung with mony one.^

But this, as we have shewn, could never be, both from his subject
and the mode of his achievement. It has been his fate to be
remembered and spoken of, rather than read. Says David
Masson,^ speaking of " Gavin Douglas, the most difficult of the
old Scottish poets perhaps to a modern reader, but of higher
quahty in some respects than any of his Scottish contemporaries.
What is Gavin Douglas now, for most of his own countrymen
even, but a pretendedly afiectionate name for an uncouth ecclesi-
astic that lived in Scotland at some time or other, and is said
to have written verse ? " Andrew Lang ^ makes too wide an
assertion when he says that Douglas's verse is still plain enough

1 Cf. Occleve : Letter of Cupid, 1. 16—

The little isle
That cleped is Albion.
* Preface, Three Centuries of English Poetry, xii., 1876. » Ward's PoeU, i.

120 The Translation : its Method and Result

to a Scotch reader. It is only so if he take a very considerable
amount of trouble to master it, although there are passages that
with less application may be easier — ^but still, only for the
student. Even an educated contemporary might have had
difficulty in understanding fully the archaisms and neo-isms of
Douglas, who deemed it necessary to paint the vernacular, and
deck his phrase in strange garb. It was a manifestation of a
gilding age, rather than a golden. In fact, Skeat, speaking of
Douglas's Twelfth Prologue as compared with the selections he
makes from The Kingis Quair, Harry the Minstrel, Dunbar, and
Lyndsay, says, " Partly from his profuse employment of Northern
EngUsh words, and partly from the freedom with which he
introduces Latin and French terms, the worthy Bishop has
succeeded in producing many lines which puzzle even the ex-
perienced . . . such hues as

moist hailsum stovya ourheldand the slak . . .

We can hardly find lines so unfamiliar in appearance as this
without going back at least to the fourteenth century." ^ There
are hundreds, indeed, that even a Scottish reader could make
little or nothing of. How many even of the most Doric of Scots
folk to-day could tell the meaning of apirsmert, as applied to
Juno : or what a fiemyt tvauengeowr is ? - And yet a word like
sewchquhand is quite familiar still in Scottish vernacular, though
its old speUing clothes it with repellent difficulty of recognition.
There are multitudes of words in his pages " which are never to
be revived," as Dryden says, " any more than the crowds of men
who daily die, or are slain for sixpence in a battle." In fact
they never really hved, and were not repeated in the world of
language.

Apart from other considerations, the real test of a translation,
after all, is not analytical detail but general efiect. As Glad-
stone said, " It is not a matter of mere Uterary criticism, but a
full study of hfe." And the best translation of any poem must
depend on what the best poet of his period, writing at his beat,
can achieve. It must have hanging above it, like a fine atmo-

^ Specimens of Early English.

* Cf. Cedicua al totrynschit Alcathous, x. 12, 143.

The Translation : its Method and Result 121

sphere, the grace of style, which, as Baldassare Castiglione ^
said nobly, is " a manner of speech which remains after a man
has spoken — the life of the words," practically what Sir Philip
Sidney set down as the test of poetry — allurement, and hauiiting-
ness, as well as edification. It is this haimting charm which
essentially differentiates poetry from philosophy, intensifying
the allurement of the tale which " holdeth the children from
play, and old men from the chimney comer." ^ This must be
in every great translation of every great poem, clothed in words
that carry with them " the splendid emotion of the mom.''
Herein lies secretly hidden, for the translator's downfall, the
temptation to over-enrichment, creation of phrase-embroideries
where purest simplicities are in the original, though that be-
longed more naturally, of course, to the period we look at here,
prompting even Machiavelli to don pompous garments as he
sought the companionship, comfort, and inspiration of the sageb
in his library.^ Douglas in a similar way tried to clothe his great
original in golden words, enriched by every artifice within his
reach. And so he sometimes overloaded and incommoded hie
guest with his hospitable intentions. But in tliis he erred in the
general company of his age.

The question then arises, did Douglas achieve nobly in his
rendering of a noble poem ? It is clear that he did, though only
as far as it was possible in his time and according to his Ughts.
The true measure of the achievement of a pioneer is perhaps not
so much what he achieved as what he left behind him in hi&
forward step. And it was a very original advance which Douglas
made when he lifted Virgil's work out of the dark of a dead
tongue, and at least set it clearly in the light, on the threshold
of English Literature. He did what no man had done before him ;
and few men since have done it better, even though they have
had what he had not, namely, examples both of failure and
success, as warning and as examples of incentive power. That
fact must not be forgotten to him for righteousness at the bar
of judgment. It had the merit both of courage and achievement.

* 1478-1529: Stood very high among neo-Latin poets ; Hie Alcon influeaoed
Drummond's Exequies and Milton's Lycidas.

* Sidney: Apologiefor Poesie, p. 57. Morloy's Edition.
^ Cf. Lovers Labour^ s Lost, Act I. sc. i. 72.

122 The Translation : its Method and Result

Virgil differed from Homer in that Lis poem was, by its nature,
rather for the few than the many. Its subject was imbued with
a divine philosophy, and its style was greater than its matter.
Its appeal, from the beginning, was to a level far above the
masses. It was a Court poem, while Homer's was a poem for
the people. Where Virgil was to touch the nation all through
was rather through the nation's leaders, in their conduct and
outlook, moulded and coloured by his great teaching, clothed in
a style and diction as great as what he taught. And though to
the ear of to-day, attuned to a very different measure of modu-
lated speech as in verse expressed, Douglas's phrase seems
rugged, and his words often more than merely quaint, yet his
work swung out from his world of conventional Dream and Vision,
with a clang of reality that made it practically a creation. And
where it was indebted poetically to those who were before it
recognized as masters, its very debts were ennobled by widening
vision of natural beauty, by the power of storm and the spell
of calm, and by the cleaving grace of a rich humanity, which
shot a shaft of light through the vagueness and shadow of MediaB-
valism. It was touched by the first brealdng of the full wave
out of the great deep along the shore of our Northern Literature.
It was the rendering of a great work, greatly done, with a majesty
of its own. And it remained in men's remembrance as a real
achievement ; while its influence undoubtedly turned others
to the same task in a later day, and kept before a land frequently
involved in unpoetic conflicts the fact, at least, that Virgil's
verse had in it what made it worthily memorable and profitable
as an incentive to elevated thought and nobihty of life.

What Douglas claimed to have attempted he may be taken
to have achieved, as fully as could be done by anybody at the
time ; and in accord with what he considered to be the principles
of translation. His work remains as, on its own merits, one of
the great translations of the Roman poet. Lang truly asserted
that " by his Mneid Douglas lives, and deserves to Uve."

Douglas stands, it may be, far short of the peak of Parnassus.
Yet it is not by right of his Police of Honour, nor of his King Hart,
that he is there at all, but as translator of Virgil ; in which he
displayed his keen observation of Nature, his shrewd under-

The Translation : its Method and Result 128

standing of humanity in itself and in relation to the external
world, and by which he holds, in Scottish Literature, a position
not to be taken from him, and a place of unique interest in the
general Literature of the EngUsh-speaking folk.

George Buchanan's tribute can be taken as that of a man who
knows — ^no one better — ^both the original, and what the shadow
work should be. He does not go into detail, but gives an almost
epigrammatic epitome of the man and his work, when he says,
" ReUquit et ingenii et doctrinae non vulgaria monumenta,
sermone patrio conscripta." ^ This is what Douglas aimed at,
and in this he did not fail — ^to leave in the vulgar tongue a monu-
ment that was not vulgar.

In regard to this hope his own prophecy is true, in the last line
here quoted, under the direct influence of Ovid, the first love of
his muse :

Quhen . . .

endis the dait of myn oncertan eild
The bettir part of me sal be upheild
Abufe the stamys perpetualy to ryng
And heir my naym remane, but enparyng.'

^ Hist. Lib. xiv. c. 13.
* Conclusio, 5. Cf.

Cum volet ilia dies quae nil nisi corporis humus
Jus habet, inerti spatium mihi finiat sevi.
Parte tamen mehore mei super alta perennis.
Astra ferar, uomenque erit indelibile nostrum.

Ovid, Meia, xv. 873.
Cf. also Sidney Lee's Life of Shakespeare, where this claim of immortality
through verse, is traced. See Pindar's Olympic Odes, xi. : Horace, Odes, iii.
30 : Virgil's Georgics, iii. 9 : Sidney, Apologiefor Poetrie : Nash, Pierce Penni'
lease, and throughout EUzabethan poetry.

IV

MANUSCRIPTS AND READINGS

Risks of Error — Sources of Error

Any work circulated in manuscript is open to the risk of be-
coming a problem to a later age in consequence of the variety
of text certain to be evolved by the falhbility of copyists. And
a poem which, besides being preserved on the written page, lives
also on the lips of men, is exposed to the fickleness of the memory
of its reciters as well as to the slips to which scribes are prone.
It is to the former that the poet is especially in peril of change,
for while, of course, the sense, purpose, or drift of his work may
be kept intact he is constantly at the mercy of inaccurate re-
membrance, the reciter retaining the meaning, while forgetting,
it may be, chaste phrase or golden word. With the copyist on
the other hand, the inaccurate or wearied eye or the uncertain
ear of the transcriber, and it may be the unclear utterance of one
dictating to him, may, by their slip, make havoc of both sense
and phrase, to the grave detriment of the poet's repute, and the
€onfusion and despair of his later readers.^ The boldness
of the careless also misleads him by his hasty guess. And the
ignorantly rash redactor who thinks he knows what the poet
meant better than the poet wrote his meaning, is perhaps the
man most apt to tangle meaning and form alike, inextricably.
Then, also, later hands of those who, ignorant of the exquisite
laws of verse, or of the delicate secrets of poesy, attempt to alter

* That Chaucer in his lifetime suffered from this very cause in evident from
hifl Verses unto his oum Scrivener : —

Adam Scrivener, if ever it thee befalle
Boece or Troilus, for to write newe.
Under thy longe lockes maist thou have tiie scalle.
But after my making thou write more trewe !
So oft a day I mote thy werke renewe,
It to correct and eke to rubbe and scrape :
And all is thorow thy necligence and rape.
134

Manuscripts and Readings 125

what to them seems wrong, only multiply the faults, if any. And
thus the most beautiful flowers of the muses' garden are crushed
and broken, and sympathetic chords are snapped, or at the least
untuned, by touch of the unsophisticated. For a word which
the transcriber did not understand, he has supplied another
which he supposed would make the meaning clearer, though
oftenest without referring, say in the matter of a translation, to
the original which the poet had before him when he wrote. Or
a word is inserted, impletive or expiscatory, most often to the
harm of the rhythmic hne. Or a usage of syntax, or a verbal
form mifamiliar, perhaps, to the days before the poet or to his
day, are altered into accordance with the laws of old convention
still governing the redactor. And it may be that, in the archetype
itself, a reading may be held, so to speak, in suspense, in the
margin ; which, as has frequently happened, gets incorporated
by the scribe in the body of the page or line, making havoc
with rhythm, and often with significance, or creating curious
pleonasms, to the wonder of readers of a later age. The difl&-
culties of dealing with these matters are much increased and
intensified when the author's holograph, as with Virgil and
Shakespeare, has disappeared, and there is no real norm left to
be the certain arbiter in consequent inevitable discussion regard-
ing variations that arise. In these two great poets we find ample
illustration of what we have said, and the source and nature of
error in their texts are exactly similar to those of Douglas's
poem.

Examples in Virgil

Certain of the Hues of Virgil's original in his unrevised master-
piece bear marks of the meddhng of redactors — whether at the
hands of his hterary executors, Tucca and Varius, or of later
editors, cannot be decided. In fact, one has only to turn to the
text of the Roman poet to see how confusion and darkness arise.
Take for example the passage from the Georgics Book III., line
181 to Une 214, which bristles with specimens of how manuscripts
are made to differ, and how errors of reading multiply. Thus,
where the accepted version has

126 Manuscripts and Readings

L 182

equi.

the Augustean fragment gives

etqui.

» 183

hellantum.

„ Vatican „ „

bellatantum

„ 184

audire.

,, Medicean Codex „

audere.

» 212

in sola.,

„ Palatine „ „

insula.

» 213

lata,

„ Medicean „ „

nata.

It does not require long lapse of time for such dangers to emerge.
Even by the beginning of the first century questions of criticism
were raised in regard to the text of Virgil, and manuscripts
appealed to for true readings ; while by the fourth and fifth
centuries scribes who were ignorant of classical Latin had
strewn the poet's page with confusion.

The difficulty attending the search after authentic sources of
the text is also well illustrated by the history of the text of the
Roman. The clear-eyed inspection of modem critics has dis-
placed some manuscripts which have held positions of authority
above others. Thus the Medicean manuscript, so long received
with reverence, is found now to have the majority of the other
uncials against it, and the texts before Heinsius, which were
supposed to represent the Palatine Manuscript, and received an
appropriate respect on that account, have been found to hold
no such position as was awarded to them by tradition. At the
same time, the readings of the Medicean Codex have been seen
to arise apparently from the scribe's over-familiar remembrance
of parallel passages in Virgil's poem ; showing that cleverness,
ahke with stupidity, and knowledge as well as ignorance, may
be a source of dangerous confusion, a conclusion confirmed by
some of the readings in Douglas's page.

Examples in Shakespeare

From a similar cause — the loss of a holograph, or the want of
a printed norm, with sanction of the author's revision — ^the plays
of Shakespeare present a soil in which mistakes of actors and
editors have flourished richly. Thus, in the Midsummer Night's
Dream, we find

I know your patience well,^

that is, your endurance — which has been altered by Hanmer to
" your parentage " ; by Farmer, to " your passions " ; and by

» III. i. 177.

Manuscripts and Readings 127

Mason, to " I know you passing well," — the words being all the
while, in the original, used in their natural sense. Again, in the
«ame play, the words

I have found Demetrius like a jewel. ^

have been changed by Warburton to " Hke a gemmel," which
he interprets to signify " hke a twin," because Demetrius had
acted two different parts in one night, an alteration which
appealed to the classicism of Dr Johnson, but which was quite
unnecessary.

In the same way in Shakespeare one finds, as everybody knows,
remarkable differences of reading between the quarto and foUo
editions ; as, for example, actual contradictions, in the former,
for no cause, becoming in the latter, forced cause ^ ; and alterations
to conformity with editorial ideas, as, in the quarto, the phrase
that should learn us, altered in the foho to teach us.^ Then, also,
we find the hnes.

And, like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood,*

where the first foHo alters pelican to politician. The fohos also
read Soris for Forres, in Macbeth,^ readings whose source and
spirit can be easily paralleled from the Black Letter Edition of
Douglas.

The Case of Douglas

Thus, aUke in Virgil and in Shakespeare, we see clearly illus-
trated not only the sources of errors and confusions in any
unauthorised text, but especially in such a text as Douglas's
Mneid.

Notwithstanding Dr Johnson's statement in his Proposals for
Printing the Dramatick Works of William Shakespeare, that " most
writers by pubUshing their own works prevent all various readings
and preclude all conjectural criticism," it is remarkable that even
the mystery of printing has not prevented the text of Shakespeare
from being even more uncertain than that of Sophocles.* And
in Johnson's statement we see a sidelight on our own problem.

* IV. i. 190. * Hamlet, V. ii. 367. » Hamlet, V. ii. ».

* Hamlet, IV. v. 125. » Macbeth, I. iii. 39. « Times L.S., 896.

128 Manuscripts and Readings

Shakespeare sold his plays to be played, not to be printed.
Copied by or for the actors, " and multiplied by transcript
after transcript, vitiated by the blunders of the penman, and
changed by the affectation of the player . . . and printed at last
without the concurrence of the author, Mdthout the consent of
the proprietor, from compilations made by chance and by stealth,
out of the separate parts written for the theatre : and thus thrust
into the world surreptitiously and hastily, they suffered another
depravation from the ignorance and negligence of the printers,
as every man who knows the state of the press in that age will
readily conceive." In that day no proofs were sent to the
author : if errors were corrected, fresh errors were made even
while the sheets were at press. Hence, no two copies of the First
FoUo agree. Even in later days the editors of Gray and Keats
must consult the manuscripts, and editors of Wordsworth and
Shelley compare the editions in the search for an authentic text.
In the first five editions of Spenser's Shepheard's Calender, each
repeats the errors of its predecessor, and makes fresh ones of its
own. Even the printing press therefore does not exclude the
possibilities of misreading which transmission by manuscript
multiphes.

"With Donne's poems, though the printed edition of 1633 is the
foimdation of his text yet there are earlier manuscripts not of the
poet's holograph, and the later editions include two poems which
are not reprints, and so the present various readings of this poet
are not dependent alone on negligence or conjecture. The 1633
edition itself is frequently questionable or entirely corrupt, and,
no more than the manuscripts of an ancient author, can this
printed copy be taken as an authority. Hence, just as with our
present author, the questions of these readings in this modern
poet must be decided on the grounds of ingenuity, however
perverse, on mere negligence, and on the matters of editorial
or printer's alterations or misreadings. And it may be that no
final decision can be reached.

Even in modern proof reading error is a constant pitfall for
the author himself, for the unspecialized eye sees what it expects
to see, and thinks it reads the right word when the wrong is
staring at it.

Manuscripts and Readings 129

Copies of the same edition may have different texts, and
contemporary manuscripts present countless difficulties and
varieties, owing to the copyist taking the easiest path
of transcription. Douglas's Mneid presents every risk and
every variety accordingly. That work suffers from them
all, because it was exposed to the certainty of every one of
them. In it we find readings which have origin in actual
misinterpretation of the Latin original, in interpretation of
untextual portions of the translation, in mal-transcriptions
from ignorance of the meaning of archaic words, and in
deUberate corrections by the scribe, the dictator, or the editor,
some transcriptions having clearly been of the nature of
subsequent redactions.

No holograph of Douglas's jEneid is extant, so far as is known ;
yet, unless his picture of himself, working in early mornings
and late evenings, be a poetic fiction, he wrote his translation
at first with his own hand. He permits us to see him rising, not
unreluctantly, while the city sleeps, and turning over the volume
of his author, page by page, as he transmutes the message of the
Latin poet into the rugged vernacular of grey old Scotland. If
only those sheets had remained to our day, all would have been
easy.

For, if a poet leaves a manuscript which may be accepted as
an undoubted original, being written by his own hand, that must
of course be taken as the norm, and every copy of a later day
must be carried to the bar of its judgment, which judgment
must be accepted as final, so far as regards the poet's utterance,
even though he himself may have erred. But such a happy
condition is not commonly found, as we have seen ; and it is
therefore necessary to decide which among few or many copies
is most probably nearest to the original in date, and how intimate
were the relationships of the scribe to that original or to its
author. By all laws of natural frailty and imperfection it is
found that as each copy falls further back from the date of the
first, so does it run the risk of falling away from accuracy, for
the very reasons stated. So, also, it must follow that if a manu-
script can be fixed as having been made by one who was closely
in touch with the mind and hfe of the author, and if it can be

130 Manuscripts and Readings

shewn that the author had handled it, leaving marks of his
approval upon it, its authenticity is assured, and its authority
above the others must be accepted.

MSS. of Douglas

There are certain copies of Douglas's work extant, sufficiently
near the author in point of origin as to date, to justify respectful
attention.

1. The Cambridge

The first, preserved in Trinity College, Cambridge, is of prime
importance, as it seems to be closest, in relationship of time and
contact, to the original transcript, for it has in its colophon the
expUcit statement, of intense interest, that it is " the first
correck coppy nixt efter the Translatioim, wryttin be Master
Matho Geddes, Scribe or Writar to the Translator." Nothing
could be clearer than that claim, nor more intimate than that
contact.

Its Character

It is a fine manuscript, executed with evident care and good
penmanship, displaying almost loving interest on the part of
the scribe, and it may be taken as the actual document, direct
from Geddes's hand. Geddes was chaplain and secretary to
Douglas, and esteemed by him with such intimacy of friendship
as to be nominated by the Bishop in his last will and testament,
as one of his executors.^ In that document he is described^ —
" magistrum Matheum Geddis vicarum de Tibbirmure." In
fact, it was he who proved the will, when the poet's sorrows and
trials were ended, in London. The manuscript is referred
to by Bishop Nicolson as being in the possession of Bishop
Gale while he wrote ; and Gale's name is still attached to it
in its catalogue description.^

What became of the precious original, after Geddes was
done with it, no man can tell. Those were hard days for
Scotland, when perishable things were exposed to serious risks ;

1 See Small'a Douglas, Vol I. cxii. » Gale's MSS. O. 3, 12.

Manuscripts and Readings 131

and the papers of an exiled Churchman, of a disgraced clan, were
apt to be treated lightly. The question as to whether those
laboured sheets, so priceless in our thought to-day, were passed
from hand to hand, and copied, in haste and leisure, by those who
were interested sufficiently in them and qualified to do so, can
never be settled : but such a thing was sure to happen. That
they would not always fall into the hands of the capable and wise
may be taken as a certainty, and that they suffered also in their
pilgrimage, even in the houses of friends, we may be sure. It
was the usual fate, to be expected in such a case, before printing,
under the guidance of an author himself, had fixed what could be
reasonably received as his final intentions.

Perhaps, however, Geddes, with his careful mind, would
prevent the original drafts from getting into circulation ; and
his claim as to the authenticity of his copy may mean this very
thing ; though it may suggest that already copies were abroad
which were being looked upon as authentically representing the
great work of the poet, but which were not to be taken as such,
alongside of his own. Anyhow, from his position, Geddes must
be accepted as having the right to make his claim, not only as
having had before him the holograph of his master, but also as
probably being entitled, best of any, to assert knowledge of his
master's intention throughout, even allowing that like Tucca
and Varius, he had the task of dealing with what his master had
to leave without final personal revision.

The Comment

And, indeed, Geddes's claim finds corroboration from the fact
that his copy was quite evidently approved by the author him-
self, who began to write upon its margins what he apparently
intended to become a complete commentary on the poem, for
be says :

I have alsso a schort comment compyld

To expone strange historeis and termis wild.*

Whether this meant that he had a full commentary ready for

transcription, but was only able to set on the margin what is

found there, the original of the remainder being afterwards lost,

* Dyrectioun, 141.

132 Manuscripts and Readings

or that he really overtook only what he has there written ere
the great Interruption intervened, can never be known. He
was at any rate only able to cover in this marginal writing the
first Book in its entirety, but the notes display how fully endowed
the translator was with the scholarship of his times. He deals
with the meanings of Latin words ; sometimes also pretty fully
with the interpretations of Landinus and Boccaccio, and with
such matters as the character of ^Eneas and the relation of his
actions to the will of the gods. There seems to be little question
as to this marginal Comment being in Douglas's holograph,
though in regard to hne 36 of the First Prologue we find, " Heir
he argeuis better than befoir," — where one is for a Httle in doubt
as to whether the reference is to Virgil or the translator. If we
accept this Comment, as being holograph, the manuscript was
therefore undoubtedly written in the lifetime of the poet, and
certainly not as Small says, " about the year 1525," a statement
which he curiously forgets when, on the next page, he asserts
that " it seems to have been in the hands of Douglas himself,
as it has several marginal glosses or notes in the Bishop's hand-
writing,"— here overlooking the very important fact that the
Bishop had died three years before the date he fixes.

In the Bibliography, volume ii, of the Cambridge History
of English Literature, p. 477, appended to chapter x, by Mr
Gregory Smith, this date " c. 1525 " is repeated, although Mr
Smith, in his edition of Henryson (vol. i. page xx.), says of
Douglas, " The latter in a holograph note on the Cambridge MS.
of his Mneid, which must have been made not later than 1522,
refers to Henryson's Orpheus and Eurydice." These two notes
demand a remarkable spiritualistic feat on the part of Douglas.

It would be extremely curious to find when Douglas was able
to do this holograph work. It imphes a certain leisure, a time
of close re-perusal of the fine copy of his poem. It would also
be interesting to discover where Geddes was at the time of this
fresh study of the subject. He most probably, of course, shared
the exile of his master. And it would not be at variance with
other instances in history, if the poet, in his last dark days,
turned back to the great work of his brighter times for relief
from the anguish of his circumstances, ere death shook the pen

Manuscripts and Readings 133

from his grasp.^ Clarendon writing his History of the Rebellion
John Milton fulfilling the dreams of his youth, and Douglas
handhng again the precious fruit of his long labours of former
days, when the world of each of them had crumbled about their
ears, touch us with the power of literature as a sedative and
minister of balm to troubled souls. It seems, however, more likely
that the work may have been snapped off finally by the succes-
sion of disasters accumulating in turn upon him, before his exile.

Scheme of Spelling

It is, further, of interest to observe that this manuscript

differs on the sm"f ace from those others in its scheme of spelling,

which makes it look odd beside them, though it follows in this

respect the scheme observable in Douglas's letters. For example,

Adam Williamson is as often " Wyllyamson," and he writes to

Wolsey, " The Castell of Dunbar is bayth with mwny mentis and

wytallis prowidit as evyr wes ony in the yle of Bartane." . . .

" I am cummyn in this realm . . . apon certan neydfull dyrec-

tiounes, and specially concernyng the weylfar and surte of

his derest nevo the Kyiig my Soueran . . . besekyng elyke wys

the samin to pardon this my hamly wrytyn. . . ." And again,

" Placyt your grace, ye had yist3Tday syk byssynes that I mycht

not schew your grace quhat I thocht twych}Tig the cummyng

of this Scottis prest . . . has brocht wyt hym wrytyngis and

dyrectyones fra thaini bayth." It is true, of course, that "y " was

interchangeable with " i " but in this manuscript it may be said

practically to take its place. This is so characteristic of the

Cambridge manuscript that in comparison with the others, it

might be called the " Y " text throughout, and this not in obedience

to linguistic rules, nor archaic fancy, nor in imitation of Chaucer,

but simply as following the idiosyncracy of the Aviiter. For

instance, we find in it, as compared with the Elphynstoun copy,

mysmetyr for mismetir ; sculys for sculis ; idylnes for idilnes ;

seys for seis ; hevyn for hevin ; onys for anis ; luyk for luik ',

ivycht for wicht ; hys for his ; cabillys for cabellis ; venyall for

veniall ; prynce for prince ; aUyrris for alteris. This is very

^ He seems to have been prevented from further activity, for he offers to
write anything more which his patron might desire besides the Comment. Vide
Dyrectioun, 143.

134 Manuscripts and Readings

noticeable in the Orygnale Cronykil where Wyntoun speaks of
Barbour as having in his Brus

Mare wysely tretyde in to wryt
Than I can thynk with all my wyt.

Barbour himself had the same habit, e.g.

He levys at ess that frely levys,
Na ellys nocht . . .
And

cowplyt to foule thyrldome.

Blind Harry, or rather his scribe Ramsay, who also was the scribe
of Barbour's manuscript, had the same method ; and Huchoun
in the Morte Arthure, says

He clekys outte Ciollbrande full clenlyche bumeschte,
Graythys hym to Golapas that greuyde moste.

This may not, of course, by some be considered of essential
importance, but it suffices to give a very distinctive characteristic
colour to the Cambridge manuscript alongside of the others.
It is, at any rate, not by any means the mark of Henryson or
Dunbar in the form in which we have them.

Along with this most prominent peculiarity one finds not for
nocht, and shght variations in the syllables -ene, -eyn, etc.

Its Differences

More striking is the fact, as we shall see, that, when this manu-
script differs in its readings from the rest, and especially from
the Ruthven copy, and when these readings are compared with
the Latin original, in nine cases out of ten it is found that it has
the correct translation, often the very word ; and that it has
observed the case, and even, sometimes, the nuance of an almost
insignificant particle. In other matters of difEerence, where, say,
in paraphrase or impletive passage, the Latin text is not the
actual test except for interpretation, it secures the verdict of
common sense. It seldom or never strays into unintelUgibiUty.
And it has most frequently the support of the Elphynstoun copy,
the nearest in date to itself.

The Cambridge Manuscript, when it differs from the others,
differs with a' finer rhythmic effect. Thus, where the Elphyn-
stoun reads :

And deip regioun of hell the behuvis se,

Manuscripts and Readings 135

the Cambridge reads the better

And deip regioun of hell behuifs the se.
Again, where others read :

Na the owle resemblis the papmgay,
we have in the Cambridge,

Than the nicht owl resemblis the papjnagay.
And 8uch a Une as

Be thou my muse my leidar and leidsteme,
is not 80 good as the Cambridge

Thow be my muse, my gydar and leidsterne,

which avoids the obvious weakness of the repeated syllable.

Sometimes, however, Geddes slips, and the others overtake
him to their advantage, as in such lines as

I follow the text als neir as I mai,
where he has

I follow the text als neir I may,

probably the result of simple omission. But he is more careful
in matters of rhyme, where it would seem that a strange word
trips the others, as when he has the good old Saxon nummyn
which gives both rhyme and reason, while the rest have wunnyn
to the detriment of the former. And in simple touches of
style he stands higher. Thus where Elphynstoun reads frecklit
spraiklis, Cambridge gives frecklit s'prutlis. These may not be
to our ears to-day euphonious, but it is evident that the reading
of Cambridge avoids the hard repetition of word forms here
in a synonymous rendering. So also with dyrk as nycht, where
Elphynstoun reads hlak as nycht, making thus a repetition of the
word blak in immediate contiguity. He is also truer to fact,
frequently, as with strange Enee, where the Elphynstoun has
Strang Enee, though the latter may well have been a slip of the
scribe in consequence of the collocation of the same letters, a
common enough experience with ourselves, writing hastily.

2. The Elphynstoun

The Elphynstoun copy stands second in point of date and
value, being almost, indeed, in touch with the Cambridge copy

136 Manuscripts and Readings

in regard to the former. It is in the University of Edinburgh,
and is named after its transcriber, " M. Joannes Elphynstoun,"
who wrote his name on the last page of it. Three worthies of
the name Elphynstoun appear in the Church story of the period.
The first, Bishop Elphynstoun of Aberdeen, the founder of that
city's University, was translated to the See of St Andrews
vacant by the death of Alexander Stuart, but Elpyhnstoun
having died a few months later, Douglas secured the presentation
by the Queen, and so began the squabbles which finally led to
his ruin. The second was John Elphynstoun, rector of Inner-
nochty, whose son WiUiam, legitimated in 1554, was the
third.^ I wonder whether the manuscript was copied in Strath-
don by one who was doubly interested through the Angus
connection of its author, and the very probable Northern strain
of its first authentic scribe, and whether through that Northern
touch it passed along to Turriff parsonage, and by way of Aber-
deen to its present resting-place. In this connection it must not
be forgotten that Douglas himself had in early life the teinds, at
least, of Monymusk in Aberdeenshire ; and the North does not
forget. Small used it as the text of his edition of the Mneid^
though he did not faithfully adhere to it throughout. It has
neither a special title nor colophon, and it contains only the first
twelve hues of the quaint rhymed Contents of Every Buik follotv-
ing. It is an extremely neatly executed copy, caref idly and very
legibly written. Its date is early, for " 1527 " is written on it,
along with the name of its owner in that year, " Mr Wm. Hay,
Person of Turrefi," in Aberdeenshire. He gifted this manuscript
to " David Andersone, burgeis of Aberdene " in 1563. It was
passed on to the University of Edinburgh in 1692 by Aikman of
Caimie, who in his note of gift latinizes Dunkeld into " Castri
Caledonii," according to the commonly accepted etymology,
though at variance with usual custom. Its readings are in
general agreement with those of the Cambridge Manuscript. Its
system of spelling differs however in a marked degree, as we

1 The Elpliinstone connection with Aberdeenshire became of note when the
founder of the titled branch received the lands of Kildrummy from King
James IV on his marriage. Another branch became " of Balmerino," and later
" Lords Balmerino," till the catastrophe of 1745. The iStrathdon connection
is clearly established.

1

Manuscripts and Readings 137

have shewn, from that copy, which makes it seem easier to read
for the modern eye famihar with vernacular phrase.

Comparison

By a comparison of these two manuscripts we get what is
nearest to Douglas's original. Where they essentially differ it
seems to be for the most part on the ground of editorship, or
occasionally in the way of eye error or clerical slip. For example,
Elphynstoun had apparently commenced to transcribe Book
I., but suddenly remembered and inserted the Contents of the
Book after he had written the first Une of the translation, which
he repeats when he gets to the translation itself. He seems to
have endeavoured to make his copy as full as possible. For
instance, in the body of his manuscript ^ he included the ex-
planatory lines :

Attrides beyn in Latyn clepit thus,

Thir nevois reput of King Attryus.

That in our langage ar the broder tway,

King Agamemnon and Duke Menalay.

These do not so occur in the others : but they appear as a
note on the margin of tlie Lambeth copy. Of course this might
indicate that between Geddes's copy and the date of Elphyn-
stoun's a copy may have existed with this already done. If so,
the spelhng system may have been altered before the text got
into Elphynstoun's hands. But this is unlikely. At the same
time the copy before Elphystomi may have had the note on the
margin already. If so, his transcript was not made directly
from Geddes's original. They are on the face of them expisca-
tory and untextual, being found in the Comment which Douglas
wrote on the margins of the Cambridge copy, where they are
obviously intended to be a mere note, and not in any way to be
taken as a part of the text, for he simply placed them where they
a,re, as any other note there, without introduction. When he
quotes from his text, in this Comment, he says so, as in that note
on the relation of ^Eneas to the will of the gods, where he ex-
plicitly states " considering quhat is said heirafoir in the ij cap
of this prologue, that is,

" Juno nor Venus goddes never wer," etc.

1 After I. 7, 70.

138 Manuscripts and Readings

3. The Ruthven

The third important copy is known as the Ruthven Manuscript,
from the fact that it bears the signature of " W. Dns. Ruthven,"
who went to the block in 1584 as Earl of Gowrie. It also is in
the University of Edinburgh, having been presented in 1643 " a
magisterio candidatis." It is written in a large, full, and free
hand, but seems to be not so carefully executed as the others
mentioned, for it has several omissions, and its readings, when
they differ from the Elphynstoun, differ also most frequently,
and sometimes very markedly, from the Cambridge Manuscript,
though on a rare occasion they agree with that copy, and more
rarely still are nearer the Latin original. Ruddiman used this
for the greater portion of his edition of 1710, and supported on
its authority most of his amendments upon the readings of the
old printed edition of the poet, though he has made some altera-
tions of his own, with no authority. It has many readings which
differ simultaneously from both the Cambridge and Elphyn-
stoim standards, and some omissions, which are for the most part
evidences of carelessness and haste, either on the part of its
scribe or of the copy before him. Thus, the fine hne

Schipmen and pilgrymmis hallowis thi mycht.^

This is an eye slip, as " the nycht " concludes the preceding
Une. It has several similar errors, obviously both of eye and
ear, from their nature leading one to conclude that it or its original
was partly copied direct, and partly dictated. For example,
where the Elphynstoun and Cambridge have braid syide, which
is translation, the Ruthven has braid saill, which is not correct,
but which finds explanation from the fact that the word saill
occurs a few lines up the page. Again, where they have to the
iverh on hie, he has volt, which is the repetition of a word on the
same hne. He has also rutis for rokkis, the word ruite occurring
only three hnes lower down : and hillis for holtis, the word
occurring in the line above. The same reason makes his reading
de'pe for dark. Such readings as 'plesand haris for the correct
blaisand haris ; kynrik for kynrent ; send slepand for sound

1 ProL iii. 6.

Manuscripts and Readings 139

sh'pand ; wyde for woyd ; happy for Harpy ; hatit for hutit ; fare
for fey ; war inchasit for warrin chasit ; Aeit? for ^ei^ ; grisly
for ^resy ; awne sylly cuntre for onsylly cuntre ; i^ey /w^e for
they ff age ; fostaris for foresteres ; awe /ia6*r Jo^we for a hahirgeoun ;
fellony for villany ; which have not originated in processes
of translation, seem to be in reality errors from dictation.

He also has reositure for reiosit of the ground ; inhabitacioun for
inhibitioun ; beseik for chastise, and similar readings which are
meaningless and not easily explained, except as arising from
simple carelessness.

Other readings seem to have arisen from an attempt to put
words more easy of miderstanding or interpretative from the
scribes point of view, sometimes in the place of others more
difficult, or not local, as, lowis for lochis ; holtis for hills ; bentis
for feildis ; ribbis for ruvis ; the samyn fa perchance for the samyn
mischance ; mycMy for wechty ; growar for gevar ; grisly for
bltidy ; snekkis for chekis ; slepery for sleipryfe ; craft of weiffing
for craft of Mynerve ; lyghtnes for blythnes, etc. Many of these
upset the rhythmic scheme, making Alexandrine lines ; and most
of them are not in accord with the translation. Few of them
shew any sign of reference having been made to Virgil's text,
or to have had any real justification to plead for their
existence.

A glance over the Appendixes A B and C will plentifully
illustrate this.

4. The Lambeth

Two other well-known manuscripts are those designated the
Lambeth and the Bath Manuscripts respectively, from the fact
that the former is in the Library of the Archbishop of Canter-
bury at Lambeth Palace, and the latter is in the Library of the
Marquess of Bath.

The Lambeth copy was written by " Joannes Mudy, with
Maister Thomas Bellenden of Achinoull, Justice Clerk, and endit
the 2nd February anno m V^XLV." ^ It evidently belonged
to one " Edmund Ashefeyld " whose signature, with the date
1596, is written on it. Its title runs, " Heir begynnys prolong

^ t.e. 1646 new style.

140 Manuscripts and Readings

of Virgile Prince of Latin poetry, in Ms tuelf buke of Eneados
compilit and translatit furth of Latin in our Scottis language,"
etc., and the colophon says, " Heir endis the Buik of Virgill,"
etc., without in either case mentioning the fact of a thirteenth
by another hand, as though begun without first examining the
volume. It contains on its margin the Atrides lines, with the
first two of the Comment in their places of reference. How this
Atrides note came here is not known. It either was not in the
original from which Mudy copied, and if so it was added to his
own copy from another containing it, being considered an
omission, or it was in his original and omitted by accident, being
restored to the margin by design. But it is most likely that the
scribe lifted it from the Comment and set it as a rubric where it is.
In any case Mudy or whoever wrote it there deemed it to belong
to the poem as by right, though the other manuscripts which had
the marks of undoubted authenticity upon them had apparently
no knowledge of it as such.

5. The Bath

The Bath Manuscript, written by " Henry Aytoun, No tare
publick " also gives the date on which it was " endit the twenty
twa day of November the zeir of God M V fourty sevin zeiris."
This copy, according to Small, had Urry's hand upon it when he
collated it with the Black Letter Edition for Ruddiman. It
contains the six lines regarding the character of iEneas already
referred to on page 70, which appear in the Black Letter Edition
and which Small incorporated in his edition, but which are
lacking in the other manuscripts. As we have seen, Small does
not make any explanation as to his having inserted them in what
was ostensibly a reprint of the Elphynstoun Manuscript, and he
does not mention them as being in this transcript.

Black Letter Edition

The Black Letter Edition of 1553 is sufficiently close to these
in date to be of interest, and it is also interesting in itself. It is
the earliest printed edition of the poem. The copy in the
Library of Edinburgh University bears the inscription, " given
to the College of Edinburgh by Mr William Drummond, 1628."

Manuscripts and Readings 141

The title-page has the same border as The Police of Honour,
except that at the foot, where was " God save Quene Marye ", is
only " Imprinted at London 1553." It has readings of its own,
of a most miscellaneous kind, though many of them are of easily
apparent origin. It was printed by Copland, and in respect of
some of its variations it reflects his known characteristics of mind
and belief, for his Press was very strongly anti-Popish in its bias.
The second work which issued from it in 1548 was a translation
of a book by Ulrich Zwingli, exposing " the blasphemies and
errours " of the Mass. So we are not astonished to discover,
first of all, that Douglas's appeals to the Virgin are modified and
often rewritten by the printer-editor. This peculiarity has fitly
given it the title of " The Protestant Edition." Thus, in the
Prologues, you find the text altered as follows :

Protestant Readings

I
Throu prayer of thi moder, queyn of blys,

Dotiglas^

Throu Christ thy sone, bring us to hewynly blys.

Copland.

n

On the I call, and Mary Vkgyn myld.

Douglas.^

On thee I cal, with humyl hart and milde.

Copland.

Ill

In Crista is all my traste, and hevynnys Queyn,
Thou Virgyne modir and madyne be my muse.

Donglas.^

In Christ I trest, borne of the virgine quene,
Thou salvuiour of mankind, be mye muse.

Copland.

IV

For the sweit liqour of thi pappis quhite
Fosterit that prynce, that hevynly Orpheus,
Grond of all gude, our Saluyour Jhesus.

Douglas.'^

1 Prol. I. 456 (Small, 461). * lb. 458 (Small, 464).

"" lb. 461 (SmaU, 467). * lb. 467 (Small, 473).

142 Manuscripts and Readings

For thy excelland mercy and love perfite,
Thou holy gost, confort and sanctifye
My spreit to ende this wark to thy glory.

Copland.

V
Helpe me, Mary, for certis vail que vaUze
War at Pluto, I sal hym hunt of sty.

Douglas.^

Help me, Christ, sone of the Vyrgyne Mary,
To end this wark to thy lad and glorye.

Copland.

VI

ay the moder of grace in mynd enprent.

Douglas.^

aye unto his wourd thy mind be bent.

Copland.

He also apparently thought that Douglas's language sometimes
required toning down ; and, with reference to English and
French people's feelings also, some modification to avoid
ofience : thus :

I

(a) Thocht Wilzame Caxtoun of Inglis natioun,
In proys hes prent ane buke of Inglis gros.

Douglas.'

(b) Thocht William Caxtoun, had no compatioun
Of Virgin in that buk, he preyt in prois.

Black Letter.

II

(a) Durst nevir tuiche

A twenty deviU way fall hys wark atanys,
Quhilk is na mair lyke Virgill, dar I lay,
Na the nycht owle resemblis the papyngay.

Douglas.*

(b) Durst nevir twiche this vark for laike of knalage
Becaus he onderstude not Virgils langage.

His buk is na mare liker VirgU, dar I say.

Black Letter.

Ill

(a) Quhilk vndir cullour of sum strange Franch wjcht.

DojJiglas.^
Sum strange wycht.

Black Letter.

1 Prol. vi. 167. * ProL xi. 112. ' ProL i. 138.

* Prol. i. 259. • lb. 269.

Manuscripts and Readings 143

IV.

(a) For me lyst uith nane Inglis bukis flyte.

Douglas.^

(b) For me list with no mau nor buikis flyte.

Black Letter.

He also omits passages, such as lines 65 to 130, in cap. 4, Book IV. ;
and lines 49 to 54, in cap. 6, Book V.

Readings

He gives readings like handand for hydand ; soiierane nou for
souerane nun, which, considering his tendency, may be on pur-
pose, for appetit of meit he gives appetit of men — ^in this case
quite as true a rendering as the other, so far as the original is
concerned. EQs quhen stane for queme stane is a shot at inter-
pretation or correction, and is, though an error, yet understand-
able, when we think that " whin-stane " is still well-known,
while queme, less famihar always, describes the stone from the
fact that it means close-fitting. He multiplies such misprints as
of sen for of fen ; honorit for hornyt, which may be a deUberate
alteration ; eik for reik ; na time for na thing ; than thryis for
than twise ; figurate for su^gurat, which may well be no printer's
mistake but interpretative, as meaning metaphorical or ornate.
And he changes Beaw Schirris to gud readers. There is no question
also of the origin of such readings as we ken for ye ken ; quhilk
for quhill ; moist for mot ; bene for kene ; mene for wene ; windis
for wyngis ; Dame Phebus for Daii Phebus and a host of others.
And yet sometimes he curiously touches a better translation than
the manuscripts.

An examination of the appendixes will drive us to the con-
clusion that the work of this edition passed through several hands
in the printing of it. In some of the readings method is clearly
shown. They are not all the product of religious bias, or of
haphazard, at the mercy of an ignorant typesetter. Some arise
undoubtedly from a direct knowledge of the Latin text, as
strekit in stretis for stickit in stretis ; and first for and fast ; hedis
thre for bodeis thre. Some arise from interpretations of a Scottish
word, as few saland for quhoyn salaris = rari nantes ; grant schir

» Prol. I. 272.

144 Manuscripts and Readings

for gudschir ; utheris for wychtis, and the like. Some arise
also from an attempt to correct the thought or style, as culhur
for f,gur ; fosterit for 'pasturit. Many, however, spring from
pure ignorance, as when Mont Helicone becomes mouth of Elicone
because the poet invokes the gods to open it ; while Numycus
becomes Munitus ; 0 Tibyr becomes Of Tyher ; and Sirtis
becomes Certes ; arising in many cases from an attempt to make
a guess at the manuscript reading. It would seem, indeed, as
though the copy before the printer must have been poor and
imperfect.

This edition contains, as already shewn, the six lines re-
garding iEneas which are not in any of the manuscripts, except
the Bath, but inserted there most probably from a marginal
note, and it incorporates the verses from the Comment previously
referred to. The inner history of this edition would be a most
interesting study. The editor supplied rubrics, often of a most
quaint character, which are preserved in Ruddiman's and
Small's editions. These are still worth reading, like the chapter
headings which the early translators of Scripture prefixed to
the sections of their work.

Unique Feature of C. E. and R. MSS.

The most remarkable thing, however, in connection with the
copies, is that the three earliest manuscripts mentioned take the
first sixteen Unes of Book VI. as the closing lines of Book V. ;
chapter I. of Book VII. as the concluding chapter of Book VI. :
and the first forty lines of Book VIII. as the closing fines of
Book VII. The Lambeth Manuscript agrees in this only in
regard to Book VII. ; while the Bath Manuscript, the Black
Letter Edition, and Ruddiman's edition follow the divisions of
the traditional Latin text. Small deals somewhat remarkably
with these variations. He does not print them in his edition,
but he draws attention to two of them, namely, the conclusion of
Books V. and VI. But the note is misleading, as though it were
only in the Cambridge Manuscript that these peculiarities occur,
whereas they are also in the Elphynstoun Manuscript, of which
he says his edition is a reprint, but to which he does not adhere.
Everybody knows, of course, on the authority of Servius, that

Manuscripts and Readings 145

Virgil had concluded Book V. with the two hnes with which the
existing Latin text of Book VI. begins ; and that Tucca and
Varius removed these to their present position. But no Latin
text, manuscript or printed, so far as known, is in agreement with
this arrangement of Douglas's translation. I have searched and
enquired everywhere, and cannot find one ; and Sir Frederick
Arthur Hirtzel, editor of the Oxford Virgil, and Professor Clark
of Oxford, inform me that they have no knowledge of any, with
these arrangements. One is inchned to wonder whether we are
not here in the presence of a bit of textual criticism on the part
of Douglas, who may have considered that the unity of the Books
was helped by such an act. This might be said of the beginning
of Book VII., which, in its first four lines at any rate, is sufficiently
closely connected with the two Unes that conclude Book VI. to
prompt an alteration, in hands sufficiently bold. So also of
Chapter I. of Book VIII. in relation to Book VII. It looks hke
an intentional Uberty ; and it is a poet's alteration. That it is
dehberate seems proved by the fact of the Prologues having been
put in between the Books. The only other explanation would
be that the scribe had copied all the translation before he in-
serted the Prologues, or that Douglas himself had done so, and
that confusion had arisen among the sheets. But this does not
appeal, as the headings of the chapters are dehberate, and both
Douglas and Geddes may of course be taken as having known
the original, a supposition confirmed by the quahties of the manu-
script itself. Conrad's theory ^ that Virgil did not write the
Mneid in the order of Books in which he finally left them, a
theory with which Ribbeck and Nettleship agree, does not help
us, as it is based on internal discrepancies, such as those between
the accounts of the death of PaUnurus in the Fifth and Sixth
Books, and not on such difEerences of arrangement as those
referred to in Douglas. It would be of great value in fixing the
Latin text used by Douglas if an edition or Codex with these
pecuharities could be discovered ; and it would be the only clue,
as the readings of the manuscripts do not in reahty point to the
employment of any but the generally received text of the Latin
poet.

* QuestioTiea Virgiliance, Treves, 1863.
K

146 Manuscripts and Readings

From what has gone before, it would seem that Elphynstoun
either

(a) had in his hand Geddes's work containing the terminal
readings of Books V., VI., and VII. ; and he incorporated in the
body of it the note in verse regarding the Airides, from the
Comment in the margin of the Cambridge Manuscript, or

(b) he made his copy from one which, like the Lambeth Manu-
script, had the note on the margin, at its place of reference,
whence he transferred it to the text, misunderstanding its in-
tention, or never having seen Geddes's original with the Comment
upon it.

The fact that this Comment is not in the Elphjmstoun version,
while the note is, may, of course, shew that the writer transcribed
from an already modified original, and not directly from Geddes's.
His readings might be taken as corroborating this, being so
generally in agreement with Geddes that they point to an early
transcription, very near to Geddes's. This last seems the most
probable event, and, if so, it was a version in which the scribe
had adapted Geddes's spelling to that of his own dialect, or that
of the district in which he lived, unless Elphynstoun carried this
out himself as he went along.

The scribe of the Lambeth Manuscript, or some other who
handled it, had seen the Atrides note also,^ not in the Elphyn-
stoun transcription, which was not his original, but in the
Comment, in the Geddes book, or a copy of it, and he put it in
the margin, as explanatory of the reference which it was intended
to clarify. There is proof that such a copy was in the hands of
the Lambeth scribe, for, as we have seen, he had begun to write
out the Comment from it, and got so far as the first two notes in
it, which he set in their proper place, on the margin of his own.
He corrected the terminations of Books V. and VI,, but whether
on his own initiative or from an already modified copy, it is
difficult to decide, as the manuscript has its own share of verbal
differences, like on ye sey sand, for on the sand, and costis syde
for schoris syde. The Bath Manuscript, on the other hand, has
either been copied from an original which had the terminational
peculiarities corrected, or its scribe did this for himself. Con-

1 Cf. p. 137.

Manuscripts and Readings 147

sidering its later date the former alternatives seems the more
probable. Its scribe had also seen the six lines regarding
Mne&s in the First Prologue, but where cannot now be told.
He however incorporated it in his copy.

I have examined something like eight himdred readings in
this connection, and I think the following conclusions are in-
evitable :

(a) The Cambridge Manuscript's readings almost invariably,
with rare exceptions, are in agreement with the Virgilian text,
and with common sense. It bears the stamp of authenticity
upon it, in verity and style. If the words " correck copy "
might imply that it is a revise, it is a revise from an original
which had been written with an eye strictly on the Virgihan
text, so far as general verbal accuracy is concerned, and it has
the first-hand mark of Douglas's approval upon it.

(6) The Elphynstomi Manuscript, though differing from the
Cambridge in simple matters of spelUng, agrees most closely in
reading. Where the differences are irreconcilable they seem to
arise mainly from slips of the scribe, or attempts at correction.
If it is a revise, it followed a source which had accepted Geddes's
manuscript as a norm so far as the text stands.

(c) The Ruthven verbal differences are, on the whole, of httle
textual account, although in regard to form it follows its
neighbour.

(d) The Lambeth and Bath readings seem to have the personal
marks of correction or improvement modifications natural to
later copies, being of no special value as guides to sources.

(e) Next to them are the Black Letter readings, of less value,
and Ruddiman's follows this edition, for the most part.

(/) None of the various readings seem to arise from the use
of different Latin texts, though occasionally Douglas would seem
to touch a Latin reading which varies from the traditional form,
but closer examination shews the difference to arise from his
method of paraphrase or exphcation.

There is no doubt, therefore, that several copies of the poem
were in simultaneous circulation, rimning the usual risks of
manuscripts in such circumstances, some of which had the
jEneas fines, and some probably the Atrides note, but none with

148 Manuscripts and Readings

both of these together ; and that fact explains the source
of the greater number of verbal variations, as well as the gradual
correction of the form of the three Books already referred to .

In the appendixes I have shewn the bases of these propositions
fully, dividing the readings of the three great manuscripts and
the Black Letter into

(a) Those which can be settled from the Latin original.
(6) Those which can only be settled by considerations of
common sense, having arisen from errors of the scribes,
in circumstances which afford no VirgiUan verbal original,
except on the ground of interpretation,
(c) Those which can be settled by considerations of rhythm,
ordinary grammar, and intelligence.

Where the Cambridge and Elphynstoun Manuscripts are quoted
in combination in these, it signifies that the readings are actually
the same except with regard to spelUng. In this respect on these
occasions the Cambridge spelling is followed.

V
LANGUAGE AND INFLUENCES

§1

The language of Douglas's Mneid is basically, of course, that of
his period, known as Middle Scots.

The early affinity between the AngUc speech of the North of
the Tweed and that which stretched to the Humber is well
known. Even later, allowing for inevitable accretions, mutations,
and verbal invasions, such as develop provincial dialectic
pecuharities, the anatomy of that speech remained unchanged.
Barbour's Brus, written out first in the fourteenth century, has
no quarrel in the matter of language with the work of Richard
Rolle of Hampole, near Doncaster. One has only to look at
this example to be assured —

Than es our birthe here bygynnyng
Of the dede that es our endyng :
For ay the mare that we wax aide
The mare our lif may be ded talde.
Tharfor whylles we er here lyffand
Ilk day er we thos dyhand.^

In this connection one must, of course, remember that the only
manuscripts extant, of date 1487 and 1489 respectively, may
not have been exact copies of Barbour's original; but it happens
that Andrew of Wyntoun, about fifty years earher, quoted some
two hundred and eighty lines of the poem, and these support
the authenticity of the existing copies. Sir J. A, H. Murray
and Professor Skeat drew attention to the uniformity of the
Anghc dialect which stretched along the eastern coast from the
Humber to the Dee ; but this is perhaps rather a wide statement
if appHed to other than the literary dialect. The Aberdonian
and Forfarshire speech in its purity, probably fell always as
alien upon Lothian ears as it does to-day. Trevisa wrote in 1387,

' Hampole. P. of C, p. 58.

150 Language and Influences

in regard to Northumbrian, " We Southerners can scarcely
understand that spesch." That, of course, may have been true,
then, of all Southerners, and would be true enough to-day also ;
but, at the same time, we must remember that Trevisa was a
Cornishman, though a scholar of Oxford, and his native district
spoke, in his time, a language not English but Celtic. And such
English as it did speak it spoke with a Celtic tongue. He should
not, therefore, be taken in regard to Anglic dialects as a witness
on the same level as one from a purely English territory.

'' ScoUisr'

When Scotland emerged from its continuous struggle with
England, and her writers in the Lowlands had taken the name
Scottish as describing the language in which they wrote, certain
Anglo-French elements were absorbed into the mass of the
Teutonic Scots language, or dialect, of the Lothians ; and the
literary resultant was intimately cognate with the literary English
of the fifteenth century. But, from the latter half of that century
onwards, a clearly discernible change took place on the Scottish
literary medium. Its WTiters, adopting certain forms, largely
from Chaucer and his school, created a web of language, purely
of the pen. It was a book diction, drawn from various scources,
searched out and grouped according to a clearly marked scheme.
Old words were recovered, refurbished, and re-set in the written
page : while new elements were amply called into active use
from the store-houses of Latin and French literatures.

The Kingis Quair and Lancelot of the Laik, which are the earliest
witnesses of the Anglo-French element in Scots poetry, illustrate
the changes involved, in matters of grammar as well as of vocabu-
lary, overflowing into the diction of Douglas. The popular idea
of the direct weight and mass of French in Middle Scots is,
however, greatly exaggerated ; the influence of Chaucer and legal
and Court usages accounting for much.

Douglas's Statement ^

Douglas makes a clear statement of his necessity for drawing
upon other sources than that to which, at the beginning of his
labour, he had intended to adhere.

Language and Influences 151

kepaud na sudron bot my awyn langage
... as I lemyt quhen I was page . . .
Nor zit sa cleyn all sudron I refus
Bot sum word I pronunce as nychtbouris doys
Lyke as in Latyn beyn Grew termys sum,
So me behufyt quhilum, or than be dum.
Sum bastard Latyn, Franch, or Inglys oys
Quhan scant was Scottis, I had nana other choys.^

The same reason is found elsewhere — for example in The Com-
'playnt of Scotlande,^ — namely, the uncopiousness of the Scottish
tongue in rich literary phrase, at least in the opinion of the
writing scholar of the period. The idea was, in fact, quite common
in other lands, in regard to the use of the vernacular, and led them
into experiment to produce what is called on Henryson's title-
page " eloquent and ornate Scottis meeter."

Difficulties of Literary Lmujuage — Chaucer^s Influence

The same question of the hterary language which was troubUng
Douglas in the sixteenth century had given trouble to the EngUsh
writers of the fourteenth century and the beginning of the
fifteenth. It was a time of much recasting of literary material,
lemodeHing of old work, and imitation of ancient forms. It
meant a struggle between the drag of archaisms and the modifi-
cation of existing diction, a contest between Old and New French
and the growth of EngUsh forms ; and it was Chaucer's achieve-
ment in this matter that won for his works that poetic acknow-
ledgment of their position as " the well of English undefiled,"
from which his successors drew copiously. His influence on the
poets of the Scottish Golden Age was manifold and manifest.
To Douglas he is " the fount of rhetoric." This was, of course,
the fashion of epithet as regards Chaucer, and poets were apt
to echo the chime of their predecessors' praises, Douglas in this
falUng into step with those who were before him. James the
First, in The Kingis Quair, with Henryson and Dunbar, had
openly acknowledged their discipleship of the great English poet.
They studied his work as the handbook of the secrets of their art.
And one can easily discern how they absorbed his methods, and
benefited by their assiduous analysis of his craft. They warmed
themselves at his fire. They lit their candles at his flame. They
> Prol. I. 101. « 1548. Prologue to the Redar, foL 14 b.

152 Language and Influences

fed from his table. To them all, he was the source of very much
of the glamour that shone within and above their work. And
they never failed to record their gratitude and admiration.

Verstegen's Challenge — Skinner's Protest — Ward — Trevisa

This unmitigated praise was not, however, permitted to go on
\mchallenged. Richard Verstegen * was probably the first who
disagreed on this topic, telhng how Chaucer, " writing his poesies
in English, is of some called the first illuminator of the Enghsh
tongue. Of their opinion I am not, though I reverence Chaucer
as an excellent Poet for his time. He was, indeed, a great
mingler of English with French, into which language (by like
for that he was descended of French, or rather Walloon race)
he carried a great afiection." Skinner ^ also says : " Chaucerus
pessimo exemplo, integris vocum plaustris ex eadem GaUia in
nostram hnguam invectis, earn, nimis antea a Normannorum
victoria adulteratam, omni fere nativa gratia et nitore spolia\dt."
Here the schoolmaster speaks. But the poets retained their
opinion. And, in fact, the charge was just only in parts. For,
as Ward shows, Chaucer grew up among the last generation in
England that used French as an official tongue. It was in 1363,
when Chaucer was just entering manhood, that the Session of the
House of Commons was first opened with an EngHsh speech.
Enghsh lads in his time learned their Latin through French, for
English of the people was not yet in the schools of England. It
is easy, therefore, to discern how the influence of this Anglo-French
remained in the hterary dialect of the country. The change
was coming, however. Trevisa tells us how " John Cornwaile, a
maistre of grammar, chaungide the lore in grammar scole and
construction of Frensch into Enghsch, and Richard Pencriche
lemed that maner teching of him, and other men of Pencriche.
So that now, the yere of oure Lord a thousand three hundred
foure score and fyve, of the secunde king Rychard after the
conquest nyne, in alle the gramer scoles of Englond children leveth
Frensch and construeth and lerneth in Enghsch."

1 Died circa 1635. Restitution of Decayed Intelligence in Aniiquitiea, obsp. vii.
Antwerp, 1605. London, 1653, 1674.
* Prcef. Etymologicon Linguce Anglicance.

Language and Influences 153

Dryden — Cheke — Puttenham

The discussion of linguistic importations had a long life. Thus
Dryden,^ under similar charges, says, in defence of the method
adopted by himself, " If sounding words are not of our growth
and manufacture, who shall hinder me to import them from a
foreign nation ? . . . I trade both with the living and the dead
for the enrichment of our native language." But he sees clearly
the necessary hmitations within which this method moves :
^' Upon the whole matter a poet must first be certain that the
word he would introduce is beautiful in the Latin, and is to con-
sider, in the next place, whether it will agree with the EngUsh
idiom . . . for, if too many foreign words are poured in upon us,
it looks as if they were designed not to assist the natives, but to
conquer them." And he sums up the defence against the
allegation that he had latinized too much, by saying, " What I
want at home, I must seek abroad." Nevertheless in this respect
Cheke ^ had already given a warning opinion in plain terms, " Our
own tung should be written clean and pure, unmixt and un-
mangeled with borrowing of other tunges, wherein if we take not
heed, by tym ever borrowing and never payeng she shall be fain
to keep her house as bankrupt." And again : " borrowing if
need be, should be done with bashfulness." Yet frequently, of
course, these critics failed in vision, and were deficient in know-
ledge of the secrets of linguistic enrichment, Puttenham, for
instance, objecting even to words Hke audacious, fecundity, and
compatible,^ which the assent of Time has set in honoured place.

VirgiVs Grcecisms — Douglas's Coinage

The same charge in regard to language was in some degree
made against Virgil himself, who introduced into Latin all that
it could carry of the subtlety and flexibiUty of the Greek. And
undoubtedly this modification of words and alteration of the
structure of sentences, while it, of course, appealed very strongly
to the literary classes of his time as an enrichment, tended to
<X)rrupt the pure current of native speech. The very titles of

1 Dedication to JSneis. 1697. ^ 1514-1.557.

» Tht Arte of English Poesie (1589). Aiber's ed., p. 259.

154 Language and Influences

his books, BucoUca, Georgica, Mneis, were importations, while
he brought in such words as dius, dcedala, trieterica ; foreign and
barbaric names ; and new creations like mulciber, turicremus,
silvicola, nubigena. For this he was attacked by Bavius and
Maevius, Cornificius, and others, whom he answered, according
to Servius and Suetonius. Posterity, however, has of course
given the final reply. On the other hand, most of Douglas's
new words never touched the stream of Scottish diction. His
coinage never passed into active circulation. It was kept in his
own page, as in an enclosed cabinet of curios — souvenir of his
own learning, but not enriching the life or utterance of others.
Rossetti 1 says very truly, " A translation does not suffer from
such offences of dialect as may exist in its original." Neverthe-
less, it may suffer severely from its own.

Latin in Scotland

It must be remembered that the scholastic language of Scot-
land was Latin, and it was spoken by the boys in the grammar
schools and their precincts.

The Scottish Education Act of 1496 provided that barons and
freeholders were to send their eldest sons to school from eight
to nine years old, and they were to remain there till they had
acquired " perfyte Latyn." - The influence of this is seen in
Ninian Winzet's remark, " Gif ze throw curiositie of novationis
hes forget our auld plane Scottis quhilk zour mothir lerit zou,
in times cuming I sail wryte to zou my mynd in Latin : for I am
nocht acquynt with zour Southeron." ^ In the eighteenth
century, as in Iceland till quite recently, travellers in the High-
lands of Scotland found the influence of the classical tradition
helpful in communicating with those they met who did not suffi-
ciently know English to converse in it.* Professors lectured
in Latin, till Hutchison of Glasgow in 1727 broke away from
the convention. Indeed, when Dr Cullen of Edinburgh began

^ Note on Jacopo da Lentino : Early Italian Poets.

* Acts of Parliament, ii. 238. Yet Major writes : Liberos suos principes viri
in Uteris et moribus non educant, in reipublic£e non parvam jierniciem. — De Oest.
Scot, f. XV. b.

' Buke of four-scoir-thre Questions, etc. Antwerp, 1563.

* Stew^art's Sketches of the Highlanders ; Bos well's Toiir in the Hebrides ;
Dufferin's Letters from High Latitudes.

Language and Influences 155

) to lecture on medicine, in English, though he retained Latin for
his Botany class, it was asserted that he was not sufficiently
erudite in the classical medium. A survival of old custom till
our own day was seen in the fact that the theological students
of the Church of Scotland had, amongst their prescribed exercises,
to compose a Latin exegesis on a given subject or text. In the
sixteenth century Latin was not only esteemed as the language
of scholarship but most scholars were convinced that if one
wished to have an assured vitality for his work it must be written
in that tongue.^ This conviction was nowhere stronger than in
the mind of George Buchanan. Sturm and Buchanan believed
that Latin was destined finally to supersede all the vernacular
languages of Europe. Bishop Gardiner recommended Latin or
Greek as the writer's medium, because their forms were fixed,
while for two centuries English had been in a state of flux. As
early as 1534, however, Elyot, in England, wrote, " If physicians
be angry that I have written physicke in English let them re-
member that the Grekes wrote in Greke, the Romains in Latin." ^
Yet in 1561 Hoby, who himself had done work in the vernacular
out of the classical tongues, stood on one foot of opinion, remark-
ing that the consensus of the most learned seemed to be that " to
have the sciences in the mother tongue hurteth memorie and
hindereth learning." Ascham, however, held that " good writing
involved the speech of the common people." Nevertheless, as we
have seen, the older habit continued.

It is not at all wonderful, therefore, that the Scot, who, at
school and college was as familiar with Latin as with his own
tongue — a famiUarity deepened by the use of Latin as the
universal medium of commmiion among the learned of his time
— should quite naturally and even with preference, turn to that
language for supplement of his literary expression. It would
have been wonderful otherwise, for a man's mind and tongue
may even acquire ahenation from his native phrase, as many of
us know. Irenaeus, in his work on heresies, apologizes for his
" rustiness " in Greek, with the plea that he has so long been
using the Celtic tongue, in the Churches of Lyons and Vienne,

J Hume Brown, Buchanan, p. 296, 1890. Vide Dditice Poetarum Scoiorum.
Amsterdam, 1637.

» Elyot, Castie of Health. 1534. Cf. Don Quixote, Pt. II. cap. 17.

156 Language and Influences

under liis care. Jolin of Ireland pleaded, as an excuse for his
style, the fact of his having been educated at Paris, and having
lost fluency in his own language, so that he had to look, for help
for his writing, to that with which he had grown more f amiUar,
" that is Latin." ^ " Thretty zeris nurist in fraunce, and in the
noble study of Paris in Latin toung, and knew nocht the gret
eloquens of chauceir na colouris that men usis in this Inglis
meter." So also John Craig the Reformer, on his return to
Scotland, had for a while to resort to Latin in the Magdalene
Chapel, Edinburgh, for his addresses and sermons, until be
recovered his ease in his native dialect.^ This is within the
experience of every biUnguist. And a Churchman, who had
steeped his ears in Latin could not easily shake off the habit of
classical form in his speech and writing.

Douglas's Source

It is not difficult, then, to know where Douglas got his Latin
forms in his translation. He had, first of all, the influence of
the very book he was translating, the whole phrase of it ringing
through his mind and heart. And he had, besides, the influence
of the Scottish educational system, already referred to, by
means of which, sometimes, the Latin language was as ready to
his tongue and pen as his own, so that the Latin forms became
naturahzed to his expression. Douglas, in such uses as preferris
for excels, pretendis for arrives at, shews that Latin v/as his most
direct influence. In this he was not alone, for the Scot, in writing,
often makes confession that Latin is " the toung he knawis best."
In fact, he must frequently have had to evade a Latin term, and
consciously seek for a native one in his work. But Uke all our
greatest poets, he gleaned from the wealth of every field he knew,
so that he might supplement his vernacular and enrich it for the
worthier clothing of the noble thought of his original. He was
dehberately rhetorical and " aureate," seeking for dignity, orna-
ment, and sententious weight, and just as antiquarian as Spenser
in his eclecticism.

Though the Scottish Court poets were, of course, in directest

I 1490. MS., 18. 2, 8. Advoc. Ldb. Edin., fol. 357 b.
' Wilson's Memorials of Edinburgh, ii. 265.

Language and Influences 157

contact with France, yet Douglas's slighting reference to the
French in his first Prologue and his noted Enghsh leanings shew
how his inchnations ran. The French that would affect him
most would be the French of the Romances, and the Chaucerian
example. The period of his residence in France would have less
influence than at first sight would seem, for there his association
would be with scholars rather than courtiers, and Latin was the
lingua franca of the educated men of his day.i

Greek had practically no influence on Douglas's Ufe or work,
even although he says that his patron has suggested that he
should turn his attention to the supreme poet of that language.
In fact, Greek was a rare grace for his time. Even Petrarch, the
prime influence of the Renaissance, though he had been taught
some Greek by Barlaam, who visited Avignon in 1339 regarding
the contemplated union of the Greek and Latin churches, and
though he possessed a manuscript of Homer, and of some
portions of Plato, yet had to depend upon a Latin gloss by
Boccaccio, of 1361 ; and himself declared that Homer was dumb
to him, and he deaf to Homer. In England, although occasional
scholars had alome acquaintance with it, Greek was not really
known and seriously studied until after the Fall of Constantinople
and the dispersal of the scholars, when Greek chairs were founded
in various centres of learning in Europe. We find references to
Greek scholars such as Adam Eston, a Benedictine, of Norwich,
who died at Rome in 1397 ; John Bate, a CarmeUte, of York, in
1429 ; FlemmjTig, of Lincoln, in 1450 ; and John Tilly or de
Sellynge, of All Souls, Oxford, who studied the language in Italy^
bringing back with him MSS. for the library of his monastery of
Christ Church, Canterbury.^

In England, even by 1520, as we see from a manuscript Ust
of the books sold by John Dome, bookseller in Oxford,^ Uttle
Greek was read. That year he sold 2383 books. Of nine of
Aristophanes, amongst these, only one was in Greek ; and of the

* Vide Ruddiman's EpistolcB Regum Scotorum for examples of Scots Latinity.
It was in September 1513 that Louis XII issued Letters of Naturalization to
every Scotsman in France. Memoirs of Alliance between France and Scotland,
p. 53.

'^ Vide Leland, De Rebiis Britannicis, ii 406, Or. 1715. Tanner, Bibliotheea
Britannico-Hibernica, 1748.

' Library Corp. Christi, Oxon.

^^^ Language and Influences

same number of Lucian, only one also. In Latin there were
breviaries, missals, grammars and lexicons, with certain works
of Cicero, Aristotle, Virgil, Ovid, etc. Cicero and Terence head
the list with thirty-seven ; but Aristotle is next with thirty.

It was only from about 1560, through the influence of John
Row at Perth, that the knowledge of the Greek tongue spread
m Scotland. Hence the arrest of Douglas on the threshold of
Homer.

Douglas felt that he was doing a patriotic work,— something
for Scotland's sake. And yet the fact remains that he is the first
Scottish poet who was not finally Scottish, and whose work
became extra-national in its influence and significance. He was
the first Scot to be spoken of across the Border as a classic writer
in an Anglic dialect.

He is also the first non-Gaehc writer in Scotland who regularly
calls the language of the nation the " Scottish tongue." i Yet
Don Pedro de Ayala, Spanish emissary to the Court of James IV,
in a letter to Ferdinand and Isabella, of date 25th July 1498, wrote
of the King : " His own Scottish language is as different from
English as Aragonese is from Castilian. The King speaks besides
the language of the savages who dwell in some parts of Scotland
and in the isles." Until the fifteenth century the tongue of the
native people of the ancient kingdom was styled, in Latin, Lingua
Scohca, meaning the Gaelic language. Reginald of Durham
speaks of the people of Kirkcudbright as using the sermo
Pictomm.^ Yet at the Battle of the Standard the Gallowaymen's
war-cry was Alhan.^ Fordoun in his Scotichronicon mentions
that m Scotland there are two tongues, namely, "Scoticavidehcet
et Teutomca : cuivs linguae gens maritimas possidet et planas
regiones: hnguae vero gens Scoticae montanas inhabitat, et
msulas ulteriores." ^ Wyntoun also dehberately makes a state-
ment as to the language he thinks he is writing :
Aliswa set I myne intent
My wyt, my wyU, and myne talent.

lby-l/i>. Ct. Mill Uuiton s erroneous statement • Hist i '^06
2 Twelfth century Reg. Dun. Libellus, c. Ixxxiv. "' ' "" *
^ Vide Henry of Huntingdon: Hist. Angl., p 253
Scotichronicon, bk. i. 1. 9. Cf. Ray's Rebellion, 1754 p 361

Language and Influences 159

Fra that I sene had stories sere.
In cronnyklys quhare thai wryttyne were
Thare matere in tyl fowrme to drawe
Off Latyne in tyl Ynglis sawe.*

It is interesting in this connection to observe liow Wyntoun
identifies Gaelic and Basque as belonging to the Celtic stock, and
explains that, the latter having been left behind in Spain, ^

Scottis thai spek hallely.

The Gaelic of Scotland was not spoken of as " Irish " or

" Erse " until the fifteenth century. Barbour, Dunbar, Bhnd

Harry, and Fordoun shew abundantly that they take the true

Scottish vernacular to be the Gaelic tongue. Thus, Barbour

writes :

This was the spek he maid, perfay,
And is in Inglis toung to say , . .^

Bhnd Harry, speaking of Longueville, the Frenchman, re-
marks :

Lykely he was, manUk of countenance,
Lyke to the Scottis be mekill governance,
Saiff of his toung, for Ingliss had he nane.*

Dunbar, referring to Chaucer, styles him

Of our IngUsch all the lycht.*

Even in the famous, or infamous, Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy,
where he tries to whip up the ire of the Western poet, — which
he succeeds in doing, more than fairly well, — by casting his
Irishry in his teeth, he falls back, almost imwittingly into the
truth again. Kennedy had retorted :

Thow luvis nane Erische, elf, I understand,
Bot it sowld be aU trew Scottismennis leid.'

And Dunbar, with characteristic coarseness, answers how

ane pair of Lowthiane hippis
SaU fairer LigUs mak and mair parfyte
Than thow can blabbar with thy Carrik lippis.''

Even at the close of the fifteenth century, Scots was spoken
of by writers of Lothian birtb as the language of " broken men,"
savage and uncultured. Yet those writers were, in their own

' Qronykyl. ^ Cf. Henry of Huntingdon, 15. ^ Bk. iv. 252.

* Henry's Wallace, ix. 295. ^ Goldin Targe, 259.

« Flyting, 105. ' 1^- 246.

l60 Language and Influences

eyes, Scotsmen, though proud of their " Ynglis " tongue. The^
Flyting of Kennedy and Dunbar shews most forcibly the geo-j
logical fissure between the East and West. I

As late as 1682, Christopher Irvine in his Historiw Scoticm
Nomeficlatura says, " Indeed the Scoti Albini are oft-times
stiled Hibemi," and " Scoti Hihernenses et Scoti lerni are really
to be interpreted of our Highlanders and Red-shanks, and not
of the Irish, except in mistake."

Dr Farmer, in a footnote in his famous Essay quoting Douglas,
says, " It is very remarkable that the Bishop is called by his
countryman Sir David Lindsey, in his Complaint of our Souerane
Lordis Papingo, — ' In our Inglische rethorick the rose.' And
Dunbar hath a similar expression in his beautiful poem The
Goldin Terge."' Of course this only shews that, with all his
wealth of reading, there were some things Dr Farmer did not
know ; and this was one of them, — ^that, while the name of the
people was the Scots, their Lowland writers were aware that they
spoke and wrote a dialect of English. Farmer refers, in another
place in the same Essay, to Douglas, among others — ^the only
Scottish name among the known EngUsh translators.

In the Highlands even to-day the Gael speaks of a song by
Bums, in the Doric, as an " English " song, and the Lowland
Scots is Beurla, i.e. " Enghsh."

The deepened spirit of nationalism which came into the land
after the Wars of Independence, and especially the deepening
dislike of the " auld enemie," ^ made the people of the
Lowlands desire to claim the word Scottish for their language
as well as for their folk-name. By the sixteenth century
this was established. The word English was discarded : and
Irish, with a suggestion of depreciation in it, was appUed
to the tongue of the older indigenous race. This usage
appeared in the Edicts of the General Assembly of the Scottish
Church till 1816 when Gaelic became the proper term
(Acts of Assembly, Edinburgh, 1831). I do not agree with
Gregory Smith that the Celtic influence on E. and M.Sc. would
more naturally be from Strathclyde and Galloway rather than the

1 James III was considered suspect for his leanings towards Englishmen.
Vide the great fear of English influence in the Scots Acts of ParUament.

Language and Influences 161

North. He forgets that the Court and Court writers knew
Perthshire and northern districts better than probably any other
through the position of Scone, Perth, Stirhng and Dunfermline,
the early Scottish capitals. Barbour distinguishes the Erischry
of Ireland from the Erischry of Scotland.^ Yet Lyndsay, as
we have seen, later than Douglas, used the earUer term for his
[ own Uterary medium, which became the model and fountain of
Scots until the time of Bums.

It would be interesting to find what might have been looked

for within access of such a man as Douglas to influence his

work. We have of course the poem of Alcuin, with its List of

the Library at York.^ Fortunately, the invention of printing

was coincident with the awakened hunger for classical learning

which stirred the fifteenth century. In Italy, portions of

Virgil were printed in 1470 ; but it was not till 1483 that in

England appeared at Oxford the first printed classic — Cicero's Pro

Milone, probably for school use. An edition of Terence followed.

King James the Fourth had, under the influence of Bishop

Elphynstoim, brought printing into Scotland in 1507, when the

press of Chepman and Myllar had bestowed upon it the monopoly

of the new art. Until 1540 the only classics, in addition to Virgil,

which passed through the English press were Sallust, Cicero's

' De Officiis, and two books in Greek. French translations, of a

I loose kind for the most part, satisfied those who wished to hsten

I to what the ancients had to say ; and they were listened to

j imperfectly, or with dissatisfaction, as we see from Douglas's

I animadversions on Caxton, in his Virgilian translation. But

Douglas left little trace except the trail of Macrobius, Boccaccio,

Petrarch, Poggio, Badius Ascencius, and Landinus, with Lorenzo

Valla — " Laurence of the Vail " — who, in the fifteenth century,

: translated the Iliad of Homer, Thucydides, and Herodotus into

' Latin ; but the crowd we meet in Alcuin's List of the Library

lat York ^ must have had meaning elsewhere. Gower would, in

j ^ xiv. 9.

I ' Poema de Pontificibus et Sanctis Ecclesiae Eboracenis, Migne, ci. 843-4.
^ Illic invenies veterum vestigia Patrum :
Quidquid habet pro se Latio Romanus in orbe :
Grsecia vel quidquid tiansmisit clara Latinis :
Hebraicus vel quod populus bibit imbre superno
Africa lucifluo vel quidquid lumine sparsit.
Quod Pater Hieronymus, quod sensit Hilarius atque

162 Language and Influences

some form, be known to every poetic student tlien ; The Roman
de Troie of Benoit de Sainte More, French Trouvere of the late
twelfth century, worked up, a century later, in the Historia de
Bello Trojano by Guido delle Colonne ; Boeihius, of course, the
popular classic, translated by Chaucer, and by everybody who
could translate anything, from Alfred to Elizabeth ; Lydgate's
Fall of Princes — from Boccaccio— and The Tale of Troy, were
sure to be lying about.

The commentary of Christopher Landinus, which, with others,
appeared in the Venetian editions of 1495, 1499 and 1501, and
likewise in Sebastian Brandt's edition of Virgil, in 1502, at
Strassburg, was before Douglas in his labour. From Douglas
himself we know that he sought for guidance in Landinus and
Ascencius, and in Boccaccio's Genealogia Deorum. That
Scotland was not cut off from the influence of new books was
shewn by David Laing, who proved that the Gesta Romanorum,
published in 1474 at Utrecht, was in a year or two in circulation
in Scotland, and presented to the Fratres Predicantes of Dundee.

It has been pointed out that Octavien de St. Gelais, an early
contemporary of Douglas, and a bishop, was also a translator of
Virgil. He is, however, probably a coincidence rather than an
influence.

The Pastons had The Siege of Troy, The Book of the Seven Sages,
and the Meditations of Chylde Yfotis, under which title Epictetus
could not have recognized himself ; while Caxton's book was
only too well read by Douglas, and duly castigated.

In London in 1480 had appeared a Latin Commentary on
Aristotle's Metaphysics ; while, in 1495, at Oxford, had come
forth an edition of Terence, and, in 1520, one of Virgil. Books
from abroad were always readily imported, if they had the
sanction of the Church. And in the catalogue of the Peterhouse
Library in 1418, is found, above all, the Efistles of Petrarch,

Ambrosius, praesul, simul Augustinus, et ipse
Sanctus Athanasius, quod Orosius edit avitus, etc. :
mentioning — Basil, Fulgentius, Cassiodorus, Chrysostom, Aldhelm, Beda,
Boethius, Pompeius, Pliny, Aristotle, Tullius, Sedullius, Juvencus, Alcimua, |
Clement, Lactantiua, Maro Virgilius, Statins, Lucan; and the grammarians
Servius, Donatus, Priscian. ...

Plurima qui claro scripsere volumina eensu,
Nomina sed quorum praesenti in carmine scribi
Longius est visum quam plectri postulet ubus.

Language and Influences 163

amongst a host of dry-as-dusts, like a candle in the dark. Of
course, Douglas would know Dares Phrygius and Dictys of Crete ;
the Pinax of Cebes, printed at Bologiia in Latin in the fifteenth
century ; the Trionfi, d'Amore of Petrarch ; and, intimately,
Chaucer's House of Fame.

Douglas's quick eye and heart, responsive to human action
and the sights and sounds of nature, were, however, the best
interpreters and tutors that he had. And it is to these we are
indebted for all that really lives in Douglas's work.

§2

There are certain features of IVIiddle Scots ^ which, while of
course well-known to those who already know well the works of
the Makars, are not familiar to others. And the following
examples from Douglas's Mneid may be considered with profit.
The last word, by a native writer familiar with dialect survivals,
on the living tongue, and not from hearsay, has not been said
about them yet. And although they are found also in his other
works, they are in place here.

Generally speaking, the ordinary Southern o is equivalent in
power to the Scottish a ; while the long Southern o is represented
by the Scottish ae, or a as in the syllable -ame.

The vowels e and short u in combination with -rk terminal^
become open, with the sound of the broad Latin a ; e.g. merk is
mark ; clerk is dark ; and work becomes ivark, though written
werk. Similarly we find expart for expert in Douglas. Morris
speaks of this as having become a habit in Scotland in the
eighteenth century, but there are districts in Southern Scotland
where e in a closed syllable has always the broad sound. One
finds an a development in such words as star, and far, from e, in
Middle Enghsh sterre, and ferre.

I is frequent for e, as in rathir, invy, etc., a spoken usage still.

Syllables are lengthened ordinarily

(o) by insertion of i ; e.g.

The soil ysowpit in to waitter wak. — Prol. vii. 35. (E. Ms.)
Moist forcy steid, my lovyt foill. — Bk. x. 14, 89.

^ Vide Gregory Smith's Specimens.

164 Language and Influences

Boiih is, however, hybrid, the o being Southern, and the
i Northern.

(6) by using equivalents in other vowels : e.g.
ee is represented by y.

Made syk warm stovis. — Prol. vii. 89.

(c) Frequently hene is written for heen ; dej)e for deef, etc.
0 was used for au.

Semyt tobe a clos volt. — Bk. ix. 8, 114.

e was used for o, as in appreve = approve, widely in use in
North-eastern Scotland still.
Frequently a final d appears, supplementary in script, though
not sounded in the vernacular : e.g.

With rude engyne and barrand emptyve brayn. — Prol. i. 20.
Final d was sometimes added in Old English, e.g.
Ilde oiWizt. — Beuis of Hampton, 1, 1335.

This tendency to add d after final n was very general in Middle
English, and in the first period of modern English, where hine
became hind, and expone became expound ; especially was it
used after I, where vild appears in Elizabethan writers for vile.

The letter t also occurs in the same usage in Scots, e.g.

The storme furtht sent be eolus.— Prol. i. 160. (E.Ms.)
Enee maid nevir aitht. — Prol. i. 438. (lb.)

In heycht wysnyt treis. — Prol. vii. 124.

Thocht for though ; prolixt for prolix. — passim.

This is still common after I final in certain districts of central
Scotland, where vennel, meaning alley, is daily spoken of as
venneU. This final t appeared sometimes in proper names. I
have a document before me in which Bishop Farquhar of Caith-
ness in 1309 is spelt " Ferquhard," and another of date 1655
where Kemp is spelt Kempt. In the Records of Inverness we
find, in 1521, Kenny cht for Kenneth or Coinnich, M''Intoisicht
for Mac-an-toiseach, Cumenycht for Cuminach, Tearlocht for
Tearlach, etc.

Language and Influences 165

(a) d is used for th :

Cesar the eld fader. — Bk. vi. 14, 58.

And gaddir hys folkis to wart the cost togydder. — Bk. iv. 6, 19.

Kepand na sudroun. — Prol. i. 111.

This usage is still very common in Aberdeenshire.
(6) t, also, is used for th :

Of secret materia and attentik thing. — Bk. viii. 8, 30.

Also Fift, saxt, etc.

Middle Scots retained hard t in attar for autlwr, an
etymological retention, representing auctor.

L in Scots is so liquid that it runs out into silence. It is used :

(a) as merely phonic :

Amang rolkis unsure. — Bk. iii. 6, 133.

Forfeblit wolx hys lemand gylty levyn. — Prol. vii. 10.

That dolly pyt of syte.— Bk. vi. 9, 80.

Sometimes its phonetic form is written r

Strippyt of thar weid in every howt. — Prol. vii. 66.

This usage remains in Southern Dialects, where owd = old :
and in certain parts of North-eastern Scotland.

(b) with the effect of prolonging a syllable :

To graith the chalmeris. — Bk. i. 11, 21.
Quharof the altar says thus. — Prol. vii. 164.

L is, indeed, in Scots a very active liquid ; and in this respect
may be compared with the Dutch I, which may be said to oscillate
without running over into silence as in Scots. For example,
take a word common to both, — balk = a rafter, or roof beam. In
Dutch this is pronounced ball"k, a kind of sheva sUpping in
between I and k, while in Scots it is pronounced bawk, as in
Bums when he speaks of the withered leaves

Wavering like the bawky bird,

i.e. the bat, fluttering down from the beams. The poets wrote
the letters in the words, but they were not sounded in reading.
Burns wrote phonetically, marking his elisions by an apostrophe,
e.g. /a', ha\ for fall and hall. Henryson wrote dully, and Douglas
most frequently dolly for dowie ; but the usage of Douglas proves
the identity of the forms. David Calderwood, in his History,
makes an explicit statement on the matter, when, speaking of

166 Language and Influences

the Waldenses he says, " Their offspring were called in England
Lollards . . . and in Scotland Lowards, according to our custome,
in turning a double II in a German w, as when we pronounce Bow,
Paw, Row, Scrow, for Boll, Poll, Roll, Scroll." By Bums's time
the Scots would have read the two Vs as in English, but he always
wrote the word dowie, as it sounded on the hps of the people.
It is to be remembered that the Enghshman does not trill r, but
he trills I. The Scot on the other hand trills r, but does not trill I.
Therefore, when I is doubled the first only prolongs the precedent
vowel, and the second I runs out altogether, e.g. hall is, in Enghsh
=hawl ; but in Scots it is haw, or, as Burns wrote it, hd'. BUnd
Harry ^ and others frequently used the phonetic form without
marking the fact of consonantal elision with the apostrophe.
Curiously in Barbour there is scarce a symptom of this Scottish
characteristic, but in Wallace we find such words as call rhymed
with laiv, and small written stnaw, while fulled is written as
fowed. Dolly disappeared as a written form after 1581.
N liquid also appears in such words as the following :

In cace I faill haue me not at disdenze. — Prol. i. 476 (Small, 482).
Hys hair enoynt well prunzeit. — Bk. iv. 5, 80.

A similar usage holds with I, e.g.

Aad into a^t failzeis. — Prol. iv. 119.
B drops out in writing, here following the vernacular ; as :

And eik stamping of their feit maid me trembil,

My wrechit fuid wes beiTeis of the brymmel. — Bk. iii. 9, 110. (E.)

Here we have the vernacular phonetic alongside of the purely
literary form, in which, of course, the h would be lost in reading,
the rhyme proving the pronunciation. This usage is common
to-day in Scotland with such proper names as Abereromby, which
is pronounced Abercnimmy. We find also MacCombie for
Mac'Omie, i.e. the Son of Thom.

Ge for S :

We clenge ws first. — Bk. iii. 4, 132.

Ful mony carcage of thir oxin gret. — Bk. xi. 5, 35.

Cf. Wallace viii. 1339 ff .

Great Julius that tribute gat aff aw.

His wynnyng was in Scotland bot full smavr.

Language and Influences 167

Here we have coalescence of sibilants, following vernacular

influence.

S for Sh :

Sal and sud, vernacular for shall and should, literary. — Passim.

The fasson eik and gys we lernyt thar. — Bk. iii. 2, 89.
Eftir all was faUin in puldir and in as. — Bk. vi. 3, 135.

This is vernacular still, — ase = ashes : and wish is wis in

Aberdeenshire, and the North- East.

Similarly, S for ch :

sersand ahont me. — Bk. ii. 11, 123.
The reverse is not uncommon :

Of massy gold the veschel war furth hynt. — Bk. ii. 12, 10.
Bew schirris, haue gud day. — Tyme, etc., 27.
Ch for sh :

Chiverand for cald.— Prol. vii. 137.

Cf. chyf = shop, devilitch for devilish, in Aberdeen and
Angus.

K for ch :

The benk ybeldyt of the grene holyne. — Bk. viii. 3, 193.

Cf. birk, breeks, kirk, etc. in Scots usage.

Quh for wh.

Quha, sometimes quho, for who. Quhen, quhilk, etc.

This combination may have been suggested by the written
form of wh or hw, and is to be taken, in its initial position, as of
that power. But the breathing wh in Scots is always more
guttural than with an Englishman who, e.g. pronounces wharf as
warf, from old custom. Baildon says, " The combination fell out
of use, and is only perpetuated in proper names." But there it
does not represent wh. Such names as Farquhar represent the
Gaehc strong guttural name Fearchar, which is pronounced
Ferrachar, and not the modem Farkwar, nor Farwhar. In fact,
in places where Gaehc has died out, that name is pronounced
Fra'har, under the traditional influence of the old tongue. So
also with the Highland name Marquis, which has nothing to do
with the peerage but is only the genitive of Marcus. Imperfect
observation persists in spelling the King's Quair as Quhair ; and

168 Language and Influences

Sir Walter Scott was responsible for quaich for the Gaelic cuach,
a cup ; but lie meant qu to be sounded kew, and not as kw.

G has the power of hard g and z, the latter being equal to y
in pronunciation e.g. year was always written zeir ; although in
certain words it was equivalent to g.^ The power of z in Scottish
names and words is being forgotten, and it has generally become
merely the soft English s. This is very strikingly seen in the
name Mackenzie, representing the Gaelic MacCoinnich, i.e. the
Son of Kenneth, pronounced MacConnyich. This name in Scots
was, and still in the North famiHar to many ears is, under GaeUc
influence, called Mackennie or MacKinnie, though in certain
districts Mackenzie, and in the seventeenth century the two forms
appear on the same page. The modem pronunciation is not
older than the eighteenth century. Lord Kames said it turned
his stomach to hear it.^ Even in Edinburgh the old habit
survived till recent times in colloquial usage ; and old people
tell me how the Edinburgh boys used to pelt the door of the
tomb in Greyfriars Churchyard, of Sir George Mackenzie,
of odious memory for Presbytery, crying out, as they ran
away :

Bluidy Mackenyie, come oot, if ye daur :
Lift the sneck and draw the bar !

In the Roll of Highland Landlords and Chiefs, appended to an
Act of Scottish Parliament in 1587, the name is spelt Mackanyie ;
in the Roll of Clans, of the same year, it appears as Clankayne,
while Menzies appears as Menyess ; in the Roll of 1594 it is
Clankenyie.^

H breathing, or Cockney h, is foimd, for example, in the
Elphjnistoun manuscript :

Hinder his chargis. — Prol. i. 442,

where in the printed text we read " under." Bhnd Harry also
wrote this breathing :

And witt haboundyt than. — Wallace, Bk. i,
while Wyntoun wrote it also.

^ Cf. the double usage in Scotland Mengis and Meenis. Cf. also the district
of the Enzie in Banffshire pronounced the Engie.
* Cf . the change in Scotland of Forbz for Forbess.
3 Cf. R. L. Stevenson's Edinburgh, p. 94, ed. 1914.

Language and Influences 169

The Gn combination becomes -ng, as in :

Kything na syng of heyt. — Prol. vii. 5.
This vsage condyng. — Bk. iii. 6, 103.

V disappears in utterance, being oftenest written as u,
approacliing the power of w. Deuil = vernacular deil.

This is to-day habitual, as in proper names like Purves and
Beveridge, which the Scots pronounce Purris — Paris, and
Burridge or Berridge ; while gahle, in Scots gavil, is pronounced
gale ; and shovel = skill or shool} This weak power of v is not
a Scots pecuUarity. Puttenham in The Arte of English Poesie,
Chapter XVI, says that it was usual to contract 'peradventure
into peraunture ; povertee into poortie (Cf. Scots poortith), sove-
raigne into souraigne, etc., Queen Elizabeth herself habitually
employing this mode. It may disappear in Scots script, as in
cunnand for covenant = promissa, e.g.

This is nocht thy last cunnand. — Bk. xi. 4, 30.

V also appears in Middle Scots as / :

Relief our lang travail. — Bk. i., 6, 49. (E. Ms.)

Sauf is also used for saive : moif for move : wyfjis for
wyvis, etc. I found in the war, in Flanders, that the EngUsh
common soldier speaks of leave as hif, probably perpetuating
old habit.

A very common transliteration, common still in Scotland also
to-day, is such metathetic usage as :

Scho bryst forth mony a teir. — Bk. iii. 5, 60.
Warpit my heid. — Prol. vii. 95.

There are districts where we still hear, " My hert's brast." ^

Certain words also press themselves upon our notice in Douglas,
as in the Middle Scots writers.

(a) Alkyn, alkin, is originally a genitive phrase — omnis generis,
or omnium generum, which, used before a noun = of every
kind or every sort, e.g.
With alkyn portage quhilk was bidder brocht. — Bk. ii. 3, 64.

* Cf. poem attributed to Dr Beattie, addressed to Alexander Ross, Lochlee,
author of Helenore, The Fortunate Shepherdess. " The foremost place Gavin
Douglas claims," where Gavin is =Ga'n.

* Cf. in Aberdeenshire in writing and in speech the peculiar metathetic form
tvardle for ivarld. See Abel's Wylins fae my Wallet.

170 Language and Influences

(b) Allthiir, is also a genitive 3rd plural. Douglas, erroneously,

following late usage, writes :

Bot gret lak war to return althar last. — Bk. v. 4, 71.

al thar last
The ancyant kyng Acestes. — Bk. v. 9, 21.

Shakespeare uses (2 K. Henry VI i. 1) alderliefest = the

dearest of all — a residuum of this ancient case-ending.

(c) Allyris is another form, = al-re = omnium.

our allyris offens. — Bk. xii. 1, 40.

(d) Til = to. In reality it has a substantive meaning, " goal.^^

It appeared first as a preposition in the Northern dialect
of EngHsh, in the Durham Gospels, of the eleventh century.
It appears also in Scots as the mark of the simple infinitive.
This form is still in vernacular use.
Hys awin myschief weill worthy til allow. — siii. 6, 112.

Douglas uses hiddirtillis = hitherto.

(e) Into and ontyl for in, are found, but not so often in Douglas

as in The King's Quair.

(/) Suppois, is commonly used by Douglas, for */ ; or

(g) except, with gif or geif in the same sense.

The plural is in -is or -ys, where the i or y, like the Chaucerian
final e, may be either silent or sounded according to exigency of
metre. For example, in the opening Une of the version one must
slur batalis, while in the second line houndis must be read as a
dissyllable. The same remark applies to the termination -it.
And illustrations of these might be multiphed ad infinitum. But
Douglas, following vernacular usage in regard to crowding
sibilants, writes burgeis for burgesses :

Burgeis bringis hame the boithe. — Prol. viii. 85. (E. Ms.)

This does not rule his form in

sic as muUs, horas. — Prol. vii. 81. {lb.) '

which expresses a common mode of speech. In Ascham we

find " Tame and well-ordered horse," which was a regular usage.

In Scotland, a farm is described in regard to size, as a four-

horse farm ; and a lad will tell you that he looks after horse and

^ C. text : burgeisais : horasis.

Language and Influences 171

tiowt, and likes to work among horse. In Douglas we find the
opposite also, in a singular sense for a plural noun, as :

to a houndis constrenyt. — Prol. i. 293,

a usage one which hears in America everjrwhere to-day, where
you will be told that a certain place is " a long ways " distant.

A cognate usage is found in Shakespeare's Merry Wives of
Windsor :

Come a little nearer this tvays. — ii. 2, 50.

T/^e adjective is frequently placed after the noun, a French
custom, of course, but in Douglas's case directly from Latin
influence, most naturally, that language being, to him, and every
Scottish student of his time, as famiUar as his own. The plural
adjective agrees with the plural noun, a habit also of Latin
origin, not necessarily as Murray suggests, from Latin usage, nor
as others, from French influence as with Chaucer, but as probably
from the fact that Scottish scholars were steeped in Latin forms
from beginning to end of their scholarship, and would have
followed these even if they had observed it in Chaucer's page or
heard it elsewhere. This apphes to the use of quhilk :

For naturall lufe and frendely affectioun
Quhilkis I beir to thy warkis and endyte. — Prol. i. 37.
And mony thingis quhilkis Virgill dyd rehers. — lb. 187.
The pressoneris . . . quhilkis. — xi. 2, 67. (E. Ms.)

Sometimes we find the adjective used for the noun, as :

To spy thia auld that was als slow of speech. — Prol. xiii., 79. ^

This same usage is foimd in The Pilgrimage of the Lyf of Manhode
(early fifteenth century) :

These twejTie olde.

It survives in modern custom, when we speak of shallows, deeps, etc.

The article ane is not universal with Douglas, who as frequently
uses a.

Douglas uses at for quhilk. At is also in his work for that by
Douglas, is indeed a feature of his.

But at syk thyngis ar possibill this I schew. — Prol. i. 214.
' Cf. Wyntoun, v. 9, 14. C. reads stern.

172 Language and Influences

At is rare in Middle Scots after 1500. In Early Scots at
was regularly used for the relative pronoun. Douglas has quhill
ci — until}

Sir J. A. H. Murray says that qulm for the relative was not used
before 1540. Henryson and Dunbar used it for " he who," as
in the latter poet's Epitaph on Donald Oure :

Quha is a tratour,

Vpoun him selfE turnis the mischief,

in the sense of quisquis. The accusative form is quham ; but
is the following a feminine, made by the French addition of e to
the usual form ?

On hir quham by Troy brynit is. — Bk. ii. 10, 50.

The King^s Quair writes quho, quhois, imder English influence
of course. Quhich that = ivhich, never occurs in Douglas. The
initial th was, of course, unvoiced in Old and Middle Enghsh,
till the close of the Middle English period. It is still common in
the North, vide Alexander's Johnny Gihh of Gushetneuk and
George Macdonald's novels, where the dialect of Aberdeenshire
is reproduced in fulness.

The undechned possessive is common ; e.g.
his fodder brudir.

Of course, in Old Enghsh, this very word father had formed the
genitive with -es, but in the first half of the sixteenth century
as well as throughout the Middle Enghsh period, words which had
so formed their genitive were found without that distinguishing
mark of inflexion. This was especially so with proper names, as :

Umy son. — Sir Oawayne and the Greene Knight, 113,
but also with others, as :

for God merci. — Caxton. The four Sonnes of Aymon, 450.
Douglas speaks of Nereus douchtir, and Tithonus spous, and
moneth space, where of course the sibilants control the con-
struction. Traces of this uninflected use are still to be foimd
in the Scots vernacular, and naturally in connection with the
pronoun it. A woman in the North will say that a child has
" bladdit it hand." Everybody knows the sound grammatical
reason why — its not coming into use till the sixteenth century,

1 xi. 25. i.

Language and Influences 173

and not finding its way into the Authorised Version, or into
Spenser's verse. It is rare in Bacon and in Shakespeare ; more
frequent in Milton, and common in Dryden. His was the
genitive of it.

When the verb is remote from the governing subject a third
personal form is occasionally used by Douglas with the first
personal pronoun : as :

I set my bissy pane . . .
. . . and s^e^ts as I lemyt. — Prol. i. 109-111.
Syne I defend and forbiddis euery wicht.— Prol. i. 283.

In the very stately Proclamation on the news of Flodden in
Edinburgh, this is regular throughout e.g. " We wyssis . . ."
It is still common in Scotland to say " I runs," etc.

Frequently also a singular verb is found with a plural noun ; e.g.

Haldis sawlys hoppys fra body to body. — Prol. i. 186.

Douglas's use of the imperative, with the person unexpressed,
is quaint and alien to Scots :

Beis nocht our studyus to spy a moyt in myne E. — Prol. i. 498.
Traistis me. — Ibid,

a modification of the EngUsh imperative plural, in -th. An
imperative Eschames is employed for Let us be ashamed.
The past tense is usually -it or -yt, but sometimes in -at :

I crosyt me, syne bownyt me for to sleip. — Prol. vii. 99.
Quhou mony crakyt cunnand. — Prol. viii. 102.

Past-participles are frequently of such unmodified Latin form
as fatigat, repite, jyredestinate, etc.

He is very prone to the use of the prefix y-, representing the
Old Enghsh ge-, with the past-participle ; e.g.

Yconquest in this batall. — Bk. xi. 2, 50.
Yplet ilk nycht.— Bk. xii. 2, 126.
Yclept, frequently.

But he also uses this prefix with the ordinary preterite, making
such forms as, y-tvymjpyllit ; y-lowpit ; y-fetterit ; y-slain : all
exotics.

174 Language and Influences

The present participle is of course in -and ; the verbal noun in

-yng :

Forfeblit wolx hys lemand gylty levyn.

Throw the dedynyng of his large round speire. — Prol. vii. 10.

Smale byxdis flokkand throu thik ronys thrang,

In chyrmyng and with cheping changit ther sang. — Prol. vii. 69, 70.

In the earUest periods of English -ende was the West Saxon
participial termination, -and the Northumbrian. Ben Jonson
in his Sad Shepherd played upon this Northern note, just as
Spenser did, with his archaic art, using glitterand and trenchand.
Chaucer employs it rarely, but has frequently the French termina- |
ation -ant. It appears in the proud motto of one of our best
Scottish regiments — Bydand, i.e. siccar, staunch, sure.

Douglas writes the root of the verb for the past participle : as :
Quharin was grave maste curyus to behold. — Bk. i. 9, 110.

He is fond of taking or than as signifying before, or rather

than ; e.g.

Or the soft violet that doys freschly schyne,

Or than the purpour flour hait jacynthyn. — Bk. xi. 2, 29.

Wyntoun has the same usage of the phrase. In Lancelot of
the Laik the combination = or.

The Editor of Lancelot of the Laik points out that while the

author of that poem, along with the author of The Quare of

Jelousy, under the influence of Chaucer, uses the word Soundeth

in the sense of tends, Douglas alone of all the Makars employs it.

The first soundia towart virteu sum deyll. — Prol. xi. 49.

Other rare words used by Douglas are seen in the following lines :

The dasy dyd on breid hir croivnell smaill. — Prol. xii. 113.
This word is used in Lancelot 59, and also in Douglas :

His crownel picht wyth mony precyus stane. — Bk. vii. 1, 111. (Small,

vii. 2).

The hevynly portis cristallyne,
Vpwarpis braid. — Prol. xii. 19.

He also employs adew in a pregnant sense ; as :

We wenyng thame hame passit and adew. — Bk. ii. 1. 22.

Trevoux's Dictionairre Universelle Frangois et Latin (Paris,
1752), says of this word : " Adieu est aussi un terme de com-
mandement de chagrin ou de refus, = apage <e."

Language and Influences 175

Douglas also uses it in combination with the verb to go, e.g.
Thus he repreuis, bot sche is went adew. — Bk. i., 6, 173.
TaHbus incusat gressumque ad mcenia tendit. — 1. 410.

The author of Lancelot has the same figure :

Your wordly honore nedis most adew. — 1. 518.

His use of the word Ward is also notable :

Apon this wys the ostis and wardis haOl

On athir part retumyt in bataill. — Bk. xdi. 9, 1 15.

He makes a wide use of quhy as a substantive, in the sense of

cause or reason, a usage foimd also in The Kingis Quair, The

Quare of Jelousy, and later on in Alexander Scot, and Stewart's

Croniclis : e.g.

Syne zeild the to thy fa, hut ony quhy. — Prol. xi. 138.

Frequently words that are compound are written as separate
elements, as attanys and at anys : ouer floivys and ouer flowis.

Naturally one finds also the double negative intensive, as
elsewhere, with the constant usage of unrude for rude, with the
same power of strengthening.

Douglas's page is a quarry from which can be dug out innumer-
able words which, neither beautifying nor poetic, lay where they
fell. Some had really no vital spark in them to ensure continuity
of fife.

He had certain words which he Hked to use, such as derne,

and sprangis or sprayngis, with fine effect :

purpour sprangis with gold and asure ment. — Prol. xii. 22.
twynkland sprayngis with their gilten glemys. — Bk. vii. 2, 82
(SmaU, 3).

He uses the word acquart as equivalent to aversa :

Dydo aggrevit ay quhU he his tayl tald

Wyth acquart luke gan towart hym behald. — Bk. iv. 7, 1.

And he has the word Adelytit = debueram :

And was adelytit for my mysdoing. — Bk. ix. 14, 76.

He employs freely the intensitive per, as in perbraTckit schippis
for fessas navis ; and sailrif se, which gives a strong picture, true
enough in effect. He conveys the idea of untimely by expres ;
and he uses the word ery in the sense of being afraid, rather than
in the later sense of fearsome. One can easily grasp his enteche-
ment for rudiments, tyrment for interment, dolf for dull, and

176 Language and Influences

bowand for hent. But words like the following can have
no resurrection : barnage = childhood ; baivburd = larboard ;
bewauit = wandered ; bylappit = surrounded ; camscho = crooked ;
cwrfewfoe = leather ; c^es6ot(J = poppy ; ^afiar = maple ; forowtin —
without ; naimcouth = known ; hjrneUis = battlements ; fertyrs =
biers; bellane = ^lovea; thoilmude = 'pa,tient; widequhair = eveTj-
where ; pilchis = gowns ; scurrevagis = wanderers ; stupefak =
shocked ; haitsum = warm ; vgsum = ugly ; howsouris = extem-
plo ; queme = silence ; tichwris = spots ; wmberauch — fire flaucht ;
ourthortour = over across ; indigest = rash ; and crowds of others
like them. They are dead, and never had the secret of life
in them ; and we may bet hankf ul that they practically were
still-born.

As with Chaucer there are found Unes in Douglas which can
only be counted regular by use of eUsion, or taking the steep bits
at a gallop. Otherwise, by counting the syllables with the
fingers, they become Alexandrines. Only, one must remember
that non-classical poetry is accentual on the whole, though,
with Douglas and earlier writers, it is, on occasion of exigency,
purely syllabic.

Thus the Hues :

Ne charge thame nother to be callyt Troianys. . . .^
Intil hys hyddus hand thame thrymlyt and wrang,^

and many others, just as in Chaucer, may be looked upon as
Alexandrines, if so coimted out as by a pendulum ; but it is
questionable whether the translator intended them to be so read.
Scottish vernacular is however rich in slurs and ehsions.
Certainly the following, in which ensenzies is not trisyllabic with
Douglas, but more like its descendant " ancients," is not Alex-
andrine, for the Scot still would take " armour and " at a dis-
syllabic canter, as " arm'r'n."

And Troiane armour and ensenzies uith me saw,
i.e. " And Troiane artri'r'n enshens uith me saw"

is how it would be run through even to-day.

Some of the alterations in manuscript and in the Black Letter
edition make Alexandrines, as :

Quhare at the last they of Anchises gat ane sycht
1 xii. 13-79. 2 iii. 9-67.

Language and Influences 177

But the genuine text avoids this quite clearly, except in one or
two instances where quite apparently a word has slipped in from
the margin, where it had been kept as if being weighed against
another of the same meaning.

Now and again we find localism of utterance making itself
felt in the matter of rhythm, as when a syllable so receives a
wave utterance which makes it dissyllabic. Thus, a line may
have to be read,

Quhil blude and brae-an all togiddir mixt.

This is quite common colloquially in many districts of Scotland
to-day, and was carried from England to the Southern States of
America where you hear such words as him and hymn pronounced
somewhat Uke hay-um.

In Rhyme, he often uses the same word if it have a different
meaning, as in Book XI., cap xi. 11, 91-2, where grond rhymes
with grund :

And with hir solis first dyd mark the grond
With dartis keyn and hedis scharply grund.

He rhymes also -ing and -ing, -age and age frequently, while
to avoid this he makes such changes as be for bene, beforne for
before, etc.

APPENDIXES

READINGS

E.:

BL.=
V.=

= Cambridge MS. *=eye error.

= Elphynstoun MS. § = ear error.

= Ruthven MS. t — interpretation.

= Black Letter Edition. **= correction.

:: VirgiUan Text. §§ = editorial alteration.

A

Readings Dependent on the Latin Text

Boi

ok I.

1.

2

: 62

C.
E.
V.

byreft furth of the Troianys sycht.
brest out ,, „ „
Eripiunt / ex oculis .

3

:20

C/E.
*R.
V.

2.

turnyt hir braid syde
„ turnit braid saill.
„ „ dat latus

3.

3

: 43

c.

E.

§§BL.

V.

quhoyn salaris
quhen salaris.
few saland.
apparent rari nantes .

3:

49

c.

4.
raif rovis

E.

tR.

V.

„ ruvis
„ ribbis
laxis laterum compagibus omnes

88-9

105

118

122

179

180 Appendix A

Book I. 5.

3 : 69 C/E. I sal zou chastys

R. ,, „ beseik

V. mihi non similia poena commissa

luetis ..... 136

6.

i6. 99 C. He wyth his wordis gan slaik thar mynd

and swage
E. He w}^h his wordis can slaik thar moide

and swage
V. ille regit dictis animos et pectora

mulset 153

4 : 24 C. goddessis

*E. goddes

V. nympharum ..... 168

8.

5 : 25 C/E. the sammyn myschance

R. the samyn fa perchance

V. nunc eadem f ortuna . . . 240

9.

5 : 127 C. with gret fard of weyngis
E. „ greit faird of wyngis

§BL. „ „ „ „ windis

V. remigio alarum ..... 301

10.

5 : 132 C. the queue hir self has kaucht

E. „ ,, „ knaucht

V. regina / accipit .... 303—4

11.

6 : 79 C/E. And of the gret luf of hys systir suyr

f BL. not mouit of piete unto his sister sure

V. Securus aniorum / germanae . . 350-1

12.

6 : 82 C. with vaynhope trumpit the wofuU lufEar

fE/R. „ wanhope „ „ lele „

V. aegram / vana spes lusit amantem . 351-2

Appendix A 181

Book I.

13.

7:

13

C.

E.

*R.

V.

And welt vp stanys to the wark on liie
And wolt „ „ ,, „

„ „ „ to the volt
mohri arcem et manibus subvolvere
saxa .....

14.

8:

24

C.

tE.
V.

domys and law
domes of law
jura dabat legesque

15.

«:

84

C/E/R.
tBL.
V.

Albeit the strenth of men zhe set not by

„ „ scanth of men „ „
Si genus humanum et mortaha temnitis
arma .....

16.

10:

45

C/E.
tR.
V.

Hym sail I sownd slepand steill away
Himself I send slepand to stele away
hunc ego sopitum somno . . . recondam

17.

10;

; 58

C/E.
*R.
V.

Kyssand sweitly thi quhyte nek

55 55 55 swete 5,
amplexus atque oscula dulcia figit

18.

11 :

: 30

C/E.
tR.
V.

brusyt or payntit tapetis

brusit and payntit carpetis

toris . . . pictis , . . .

19.

11

: 66

C/E.
tR.

V.

A wechty

ane raychty

gravem . . . . .

20.

11

: 80

C/E.

tR.

V.

gevar of glaidnes

growar „

laetitise dator . . . .

21.

11

: 116

\ C/E.
BL.
V.

kynd hors

kynd of hors

quales . . . equi . . . .

424

507

542

680-1

687

708

728

734

752

182

Appendix A

Book II

22.

1 :

77

E.

Hyd Grekis covert with irne to haue rent
owt

tR.

The Grekis covert with joy

V.

(Cf . How Dido . . . hir perpos to covert.
Heading, IV. c. 9.)
ferro ArgoUcas fcedare latebras .

23.

2:

18

c.

with eyp blent about

E.

with ane „ „

V.

ocuhs agmina circumspexit
24.

2:

60

C/E.

Hevyly weyand my innocent frende
thus slane

tR.

Heavyly wittand my innocent frende
thus slane

V.

Casum insontis mecum indignabar amici
25.

2:

91

c.

The Grekis oft

E.

„ oist

V.

ssepe fugam, etc. ....
26.

2:

142

c.

E.
V.

Amang the rysp and redis out of sycht

„ „ rispand redis „ ,,
obscurus in ulva . . . .

27.

3:

45

C/E.
tR.
V.

bludy handis

grisley handis

manibusque cruentis ....

28.

t"&.

58

C/E.
tR.

Thrys schyning ...
„ schowing

V.

terque . . . emicuit
29.

4-

32

C.
E.
V.

thar sprutUt skynnys

„ spurtlet „
squamea / terga ....

55

68

93

108

135

167

174-5

218-9

Appendix A

Book II.

30.

4: 66

C/E.

K.

V.

mony bassyn raip

„ brasyn „
stuppea vincula

31.

5: 35

C/E.

K.

V.

on fordoverit mortale creaturis

„ forwalkit „ „
mortalibus segris

32.

6: 31

C.
E.
V.

trumpys blist
trumplis „
clangor tubarum

33.

7 : 8

i

C/E.
"♦BL.
V.

stekit in stretis

strekit „

perque vias sternuntur

34.

8: 19

C.
E.
R.
V.

gilt sperris
,, sparris
grete
auratasque trabes

35.

8: 72

C/E.

R.

V.

f urth of bar
f urth of hir
a cardine vellit

36.

8: 96

C/E.

R.

V.

zet chekis
zettis snekkis
postisque

37

8: 104

C/E.
tR.
V.

bettis

brekkis

evicit ....

183

. 236

268

. 313

. 364

. 448

480

. 480

. 497

184

Appendix A

Book II

38.

8:

109

C/E.

R.

V.

I saw my self thair Neoptolemus
Mak felloun slaughter wod and furyus
I saw myself Neoptolemus thare
Mak felloun wod and furious slauchter.
vidi ipse furentem / caede

39.

8:

117

C/E.
tR.
V.

Fyfty chawmeris . . . quhar warryn

„ „ quharin was
quinqueginta ilU thalami

40.

9:

6

c.

V.

The auld grayth

The aid gray

Senior .....

41.

9:

38

c.

E.

§R.
V.

voyd hall

woyd

wyde

vacua atria ....

42.

9

52

C/E.
§R.
V.

at thou has done
that now is done
quae taUa curet

43.

10

80

C/E.

R.

V.

Behald ! for I . . .
„ for thy . . .
namque . . . eripiam

44.

10

81

C.

**E.

V.

So cleir
sail „
nubem eripiam

45.

10.

100

C/E.

R.

V.

Fell Gorgones

Gregiouns

Gorgone sseva ....

!

499-500

503

509

528

536

604-«

606

616

Appendix A 185

643

Book II.

46.

10:

143

C/E.

R.

V.

Remanyng alyve eftyr the cite tane

„ eftir the ciete fell plane
excidia et captae superavimus urbi

47.

11 :

3

C/E.
tR.
V.

Quhen suddanly a wonder thing to tell
Wounderlie ane suddane ,, „
Cum subitum dictuque oritur mirabile

48.

11 :

13

C/E.

§R.
V.

the blesand haris
the plesand „
crinemque flagrantem

49.

11 ;

: 24

C/E.

tR.

V.

begouth to rumbill and rout

,, rattill
fragore / intonuit Isevum

50.

11 ;

; 34

C/E.

R.

V.

quhil al enveron rekit lyke bryntstane

„ bimstane „
late circum loca sulphure fumant

51.

11

: 40

C/E.

§R.
V.

zour awyn kynrent defend

„ kynrik
servate domum „

52.

U

: 75

c.

E.
V.

in quhat cost or cuntre

land
in quascumque vehm pelago deducere
terras ....

Booh III.

53.

1

: 48

C/BL.

E.

V.

greyn bewis doune to haill
grene levis „
viridem . . . silvam , . .
ramis tegerem ut frondentibus aras

54.

1

: 117

C.
E.
BL.
V.

of erd a gret fluyr

of the erd „

to the erd ,,

ingens aggeritur Iwmulo tellus

680

685

692-3

702

800

25

63

186 Appendix A

Book HI. 55.

2 : 14 C. it flet roily ng from costis to and fro

E. „ fleit „ „

BL. quhen it fletit ,, „

V. oras et litoras circum / errantem . 75-6

56.

2 : 18 C/BL. and comptis nowthir the wynd
E. „ „ „ hie wynd

V. et contemnere ventos ... 77

57.

2 : 52 C/E. We plat law gruflyngis on the erd

BL. we plat lay „ „ „

V. summissi petimus terrain . . 93

58.

2 : 123 C/E. The folio wand wynd blew strek in our

tail
BL. The followand wynd blew sterk in our

tail
V. prosequitur surge ns a puppi ventus

euntis ..... 130

59.

4:

135

C/BL.

E.

V.

active gemmys

Actiane „

Actiaque .....

60.

6

27

C/E.
V.

Harpye Celeno

happy

Harpyia Celaeno ....

61.

6

57

C/E.
tR.
V.

far landis alswa

sere landis ,,

longa procul . . . terris

62.

6

181

c.

E.
V.

and zet pertrubbil thus / Tha thyn leiffis

„ perturbit „
turbavit janua frondes

280

365

383

44»

Appendix A

Booh in

63. '

7:

54

C.

with Grekis fors ourrunnyn

E/R.

„ ourcumyn

BL.
V.

,, „ „ overrunnyng.
minus obvia Graiis

64.

8:

13

C/E.

or the speyre his howris rolUt

tR.
V.

„ „ „ his ouris reuht
necdum orbem medium nox Horis acta
subibat .....

65.

8:

; 28

C/E.

syne slakis down the schetis and maid

R.
V.

sayll
syne schakis „ „ „ „
velorum pandimus alas

66.

8;

: 41

C.

hie eft castell

E.

his „

BL.

hiest „

V.

celsa in puppi ....
67.

8:

110

C/E.

Saland on bawburd towart the left syde

BL.
V.

„ . „ „ „ „ west syde
contorsit laevas proram ... ad undas

68.

8:

; 128

C/E.

R.

V.

The grisly Ethna dyd rummyll schudder

and cry
The grisly Ethna dyd rummyll thunder

and cry
sed horrificis iuxta tonat Aetna

69.

8:

: 146

C/R
tE.
V.

his irkit syde

„ hukit „
fessum . . . latus ....

70.

9

: 34

c.

E.

seys brak ( = salt ?)
seis wrak

V.

vastoque . . . ponto

187

499

512

520

527

562

571

581

605

188 Appendix A

Booh III. 71.

9 : 62 C/E. Hutyt to speke of and aucht not

nemmyt be
fR. hatit to speke of and aucht not nemmyt

be
V. nee visu facilis nee dictu adfabilis ulli

621

9 : 89 C.
E.
V.

10 : 20 C/E.

BL.
V.

10 : 78 C/E.

§§R.
V.

72.

thrawyn front

his awn figur

torva . . . subfronte

73.

We far from thens affrayt
„ war „
fer
nos procul inde fugam trepidi

74.

Undir the sey gan thyddir flow and

wayd
Undir the sey gan thyddir flow and

glaid
occultas egisse vias subter mare .

036

666

695

10 : 100 C.
E.
V.

Book IV.
1 : 11 C.
§§E.

1 : 17 C/E.
R.
V.

1 : 66 C/E.

R.
V.

LyUbe

Libie

Lilybeia

75.

76.

with hys lamp brycht

„ „ bemys „
lustrabat lampade ....

77.

quhat swevynnys beyn thir

„ schevynys
quae . . . insomnia terrent

78.

Ever murnand thus waist away thy

zouthed
Ever murnand waist thi womanheid
perpetua mserens carpere juventa

706

32

Appendix A 189"

Book IV. 79.

1 : 74 C. Suppos thou lychtlyit than

E. „ „ lychtUe thame

V. nulli quondam flexere mariti . . 35

80.

1 : 84: C. Heir the ondantit folk of Numyda dwell

E. „ „ indowtit „

fR. „ „ intractable ,, „ „

V. genus insuperabile bello/et Numidse

infreni ..... 40-41

81.

1 : 87 C/BL. . . . the desert regioun alsswa

Ay full of thryst, in barrand Libya

. . . the desert regioun alsswa
E. ay full of thryst, in burnand Libya

V. deserta siti regio .... 42

82.

2 : 9 C/BL. thai sekyng
E. thai beseik

V. per aras / exquirunt .... 56

83.

2 : 11 C. brytnyt

R. bykynnit

V. mactant ..... 57

84.

2 : 75 C/E. euyr of weir

3: 38

3:58

V.

sere of were
bello/tuta

85.

c.

E.
V.

I afEeir me les the fatis onstabill
„ offer les „ „ ,,
sed fatis incerta feror

86.

C/E.
BL.
V.

and setis set the glen
and sutis the glen
saltusque indagine cingunt

87

110

121

190 Appendix A

Book 7P

87.

4:

11

C/E.
tR.
V.

rungeand the fomy goldyn byt gyngly
gnyppand „ „ „ „ „
ac frena . . . spumantia mandit

88.

4;

; 18

C/E.

R.

V.

envolupyt war and wond
involuppit war and sound
crines nodantur

89.

4;

; 19

C.

fE.

V.

quayf
knafe
nodantur ....

90.

5:

29

C/E.
R.

sclirewit sawys
schort ,,

V.

ficti pravique
91.

5;

; 92

c.

E.
V.

graith the wyndis
graith thi wingis
voca Zephyros

92.

7 :

: 62

C/E.

R.

V.

apon rych carpettis spred

„ „ tapettis „ (Cf. No. 18)
stratisque ....

93.

7:

;77

C/E.

R.

V.

saysyng half onwrocht

baissing „ „

infabricata ....

94.

8:

; 8

C/E.

R.

V.

Dyn and resoundyng al the large see
dynand „ „ „ „
litora fervere late . • • / tantis clam-
oribus sequor

95.

8;

; 40

C/E.

his dul ontretabill eris

BL.
V.

„ „ uncredyble „
duras demittere in auris

135

138

*6.

188

223

392

400

409-11

428

Appendix A

Book IV

96.

8:

41

C.
E.
V.

Quhidder haistis he sa fast
» . „ „ „ salf
quo ruit ? ...

97.

8:

78

C/E.
*R.
V.

stikkis to the rochis

„ to the rutis
ipsa haeret scopulis

98.

9:

28

C/E.
tR.
V.

sleipryfe chesbow seyd
slepery
soporiferumque papaver

99.

9:

43

C/E.

R.

V.

intil our innar clos

„ „ inwart „
secreta . . . tecto interiore

100.

10:

: 8

C/E.
tR.
V.

in the braid lochis
„ „ „ lowis
lacus late

101.

10:

; 62

C/E.

R.

V.

Hecht to Sycheus assys

„ „ „ oft syis
fides cineri promissa Sychaeo

102.

11

: 20

C.
E.
V.

quhar am I ?

quhair am I now ?

ubi sum ? ...

103.

11

: 22

C.

E.

tR.

V.

werdis onkynd
weirdis „
wourdis „
facta impia

104.

11

: 27

c.

E.
V.

Quham as thai say.
Quham as they see.
quern . . . aiunt

191

429

445

486

. 494

526

552

595

. 596

. 598

192 Appendix A

Book IV. 105.

11 : 53 C/E. Ze infernale fureys that wrekis al wrang
§§R- » „ „ „ wirkis „

V. Dirae ultrices G0»

106.

11 : 106 C. Se on this wys scho cum
§E. „ „ „ „ scho can
V. sic veniat 637

107.

11 : 112 C. And byrn zon Troiane statw in flamb

funeral
E. And byrn zon Troians statw in flamb

funeral
R. To bring zon Troianis state in flambe

funerall
V. Dardaniique rogum capitis permittere

fiammae ..... 640

108.

12 : 5 C. tythirris

E. tichwris

f R. with teris

V. macuUsque . . . interfusa . . 643-4

109.

12 : 44 C. the noys ran wild out our the cite waUis

§§E. „ „ „ wyde „ „ „ „ „

V. bacchatur Fama per urbem , . 666

110.

12 : 72 C. And the self hour mycht haue tane hyne

away
E. And the self hour myght haue tane us

away
R. And the self hour myght haue tane him

away
V. ambas . . . eadem hora tuUsset . 679

111.

12 : 82 C. To wesch hir woundis

E. „ „ „ handis

V. vulnera . . . abluam . . . 683-4

193

693

699

11

22

23

87

(These are synonyms, but the C. text
avoids the hard repetition of word
form.)

118.

2 : 102 E. Hys faderys hie sawle queith

K/BL. „ „ „ ,, queinth

V. genitori instaurat honores . . 94

119.

3 : 63 C. seyttis and thoftis

E. settis „ thortis

R/BL. „ „ coistis

V. transtris . . . • .136

Appendix A

Book IV

112.

12 : 100

C/E.

R.

V.

of hir lang sorow and tarysum ded

„ „ „ „ tarsone „
longura miserata dolorem

113.

12 : 109

C/E.
BL.
V.

dubbyt hir hed ...

doublit ,, ,,

caput damnaverat Oreo

Book V.

114.

I : 21

C/E.

R.

V.

the streym wolx vgsum of the dym sky
„ storme „ „ ,, „ „
irihorruit unda tenebris

115.

1 : 40

C/E.
V.

let ws follow tharon
„ „ ,, tharefore
superat quoniam Fortuna sequamur

116.

1 : 42

c.

E.
V.

not far hens
„ „ thens
nee Utora longe ....

117.

2:90

c.

E.
V.

frekUt sprutUs

„ spraiklis
cerulese cui terga notse maculosus

194 Appendix A

Booh F. 120.

3 : 85 C/E. tlirou the gild and rerd of men so zeld

K. „ ,, ,, the rers ,, ,, ,,

V. turn plausu fremituque virum . . 148

121.

4 : 109 C. not byssy weyngyt hot planand esyly

E. „ besy wingit

BL. „ „ „ „ playand „

V. radit iter Uquidum celeris neque com-

movet alas .... 217

122.

5 : 22 C. clewis

E. clukis

V. uncis ...... 255

123.

5 : 29 C. a habirgyon

E. a habirgeoun

§R. ane habir Johne

V. loricam . ..... 260

124.

5 : 55 C/E. Lyke as oft happy nnys

R. Lyke as the oist hapnys

V. quahs ssepe ..... 273

125.

5 : 64 C/E. Strekand hyr nek with hyssis

§R. „ „ „ „ hissilis

V. sibila colla / arduus attolens . . 277-8

126.

5 : 76 C/E. in the craft of Mynerve wondyr sle

fR. „ „ „ weiffing

V. hand ignara Minervse . . . 284

127.

6 : 40 C/E. with brycht hedis . . . schort speris

BL. „ „ „ „ sharp speris

V. „ ,, „ „ lucida / spicula 306-7

128.
6 : 49-54 BL. omits . . .

V 311-314

Appendix A 195

Book V. 129.

6 : 54 E. And fra thai hard the takyn sone onane

R. Quhen they had the takynnys sene by

ane
V. signoque repente .... 315

130.

6 : 92 C. And gre Dyor has nummyn

E. „ „ „ wunnyn

V. tertia palma Diores .... 339

131.

7 : 22 E. hym avansyt of Kyng Amycus blude

R. „ avantit „ „ „

V. Amyci de gente ferebat . . . 373

132.
8 : 22 C. gowsty

E. goustly

V. anhelitus artus ..... 432

133.

8 : 113 C. persyt the hard pan

**E. „ ,, harn pan

V. inhsit in ossa cerebro . . . 480

134.

10 : 52 C/E. blythnes

fR. lychtnes

V. gaudentque ..... 575

135.

11 : 37 C/E/R. in myscheif ful expart

BL. „ „ maist expert

V. hand ignara nocendi . . . 618

136.

11 : 40 C. by came agyt Beroes
E. by come „ ,,
V. fitBeroe 620

137.

11:83 C. the peralus fyre first hynt scho forsably

E. „ „ „ furth „ ,, „

V. prima infensum vi corripit ignem . 641

196 Appendix A

Book V. 138.

11 : 91 C. 0 matronys

E. 0 matrouns

R, Of matronis

V. matres ..... 646

139.

11 : 105 C. And with evil willy eyn the schippys

behaldis
fE. and with evil wil ane the schippys be-

haldis
*R. and with evil will evin the schippys

behaldis
V. ocuUsque maUgnis . . . / spectare rates 654-5

140.

11: 109-10 E. omits

V. 656-7

141.

12 : 2-3 C/E. First brocht Ewmolus word quhou the

navy Was al infyryt
*R. First brocht Ewmolus word quhere the

navy Was al infyryt
V. incensas perfert navis . . . 665

142.

12 : 7 C/E. als swyft and fersly spurris hys steid fute

hoyt
R. And spurris als swift and fersly his steid

fute bote
v. acer equo turbata petivit / castra . 668-9

143.

12 : 18 C. al voyd

E. all wod

V. inanem ...... 673

144.

12 : 46 C/E. outscrape
R. vnskape

V. evadere ...... 689

145.

12 : 63 C/E. smyte with this smart cace.

R. smert with his scharpe cais

V. casu . . . acerbo .... 700

Appendix A 197

Book V. 146.

12 : 141 C. quhom fleys thou ?

E. quhy fleis thow

V. quern fugis ?..... 742

147.
13]: 64 C/R. maid byrn
E. gart birn
V. exussit 794

148.
14 : 33 C/E. ane howris rest

R. „ nychtis „

V. hora quieti ..... 844

149.
14 : 81 C. bewaland gretly

E. beleifand weill

V. multa gemens ..... 869

Book F/.i 150.

1 : 30 C/E. perpetually ilk zeir a sair presand.

(Sm. 38) BL. and of ther lynes ther to mak ane end

V. pcenas . . . quotannis . . . 20-1

151.
1 : 32 C/E. wairin draw

(Sm. 40) R. mycht thai draw

V. sortibus ductis ...... 22

152.
1 : 44 C. Onreturnabil dissait

<Sm. 52) E. Vnreturnable desait

BL. ouerturnabil „

V. inextricabilis error .... 27

153.
1 : 100 C. Of thi bedis nor the prayeris

(Sm. 108) E. „ „ „ and of

BL. of thi devotioune ^ . . .

V. vota precesque . . . . . 51

154.
1 : 157 C. forgeand hir sayngis.

(Sm. 165) E. forsand „ ,,

V. fingitque premendo .... 80

' Vide p. 144. * Vide p. 141.

198 Appendix A

Book VI. 155.

2 : 43 C/E. In subtel wordis of obscurite .

Involupand the trewth and verite
BL. involwand

V. obscuris vera involvens. . . . 100

156.

2 : 70 C. perellis of fiudis stremys

E. of stremis seis . . .

V. omnis pelagique minas . , . . 113

157.

2 : 146 C. pollutis al thi navy

§§E. infekkis ,, ,,

V. totamque incestat funere classem . 150

158.

3 : 22 C. jonand

E. jouand

V. obibat et hasta ..... 167

159.
3 : 40 C. for the sepulchre funerale fyre

E. „ „ sepultur

V. aramque sepulcro .... 177

160.

3 : 58 C/E. zon goldyn branch

R. thou „ ,, (more probably

Than)
V. ille aureus arbore ramus . . . 187

161.
3 : 61 C. our trew, alace

E. cum trew ,,

V. vere / heu nimium .... 188-9

162.

3 : 99 C/E. Siklyke was of this gold the figur brycht

BL. „ „ ,, ,, „ cullour „

V, talis erat species auri .... 208

163.

3 : 137 C/E. the reliqueis and the dry ammeris syne

R. and the rehquyis of the dry ameris syne

V* rehquias . , . et bibulara lavere favillam 227

Appendix A 199

Book VI. 164.

4 : 69 C. waist dongion

E. werst „

V. vacuas ...... 269

165.
4 : 70 C. voyd boundis

E. wyde

V. inania regna ..... 269

166.

4 : 77 C. befor the porcb

E. „ „ port

V. vestibulum ante ipsum . . .273

167.

5 : 5 C/E. popland and bulrand

R. „ „ bowkand

V. sestuat . . . eructat .... 297

168.

5 : 35 C/E. Quhom the cald sesson cachis owr the

see
§§E. Quhen the cald sesson thame cachis

V. ubi frigidus annus / trans pontum fugat 311-2

169.
5 : 90 E. starnys
BL. stormis
V. sidera 338

170.

5 : 182 C/E. reiosyt of the grond hys surname bayr

R. reositure „ ,, ,, ,, ,,

V. gaudet cognomine terra . . . 383

171.

6 : 47 C/E. The rageand hart all full of wraith and ire

Than wolx appesit of this laithhe syre.
R. transposes these hnes.

V. tumida ex ira turn corda residunt . 407

172.
6 : 59 C/E. byg weghty Ene

R. „ wourthy

V. ingentem ^Enean .... 413

200 Appendix A

Book VI. 173.

6 : 62 C. Gan grane or geig ful fast the sewit barge

E. „ „ „ „ „ jonit „

f R. gan grane or grank full fast the jonit or

sewit barge. (Here probably a
marginal explanation incorporated.)
V. cumba / sutilis ..... 413-4

174.

416

6:

68

C.
*E.
BL.
V.

Amang the fawch rispis harsk and sear
,, ,, ,, ,, harsk and star
„ ,, ,, rilsis harsk and star

glaucaque ,, ulva

175.

7 :

; 42

C/E.
*R.
V.

infectioun wastit away

infortoun „ „

crudeh tabe peredit ....

176.

7:

65

C/E.

R.

V.

fey Dido

fare Dido

infeUx Dido .....

177.

8;

: 60

C/E.

Apon the wrethis and wandrand gaistis

tR.

cryis
Upoun the wandring and wiachit gaistis

V.

cryis
magna manis ter voce vocavi

8;

: 83

c.

178.
hedis
ledis
ducebat ......

179.

8:

: 115

C/E.

R.

V.

Quhat f ortoun doith the each and steyr

„ „ teich
quae te fortuna fatigat

180.

9:

; 23

C/E.

souerane nun

BL.
V.

souerane now

magna sacerdos ....

442

456

506

518

533

544

Appendix A 201

Book VI. 181.

9 : 83 C/E. skurge and bete

R. skoure

V. castigat / flagello . . . 567-70

182.

9 : 137 C/E. brudy bowellys

BL bludy

V. fecundaque poenis / viscera . . 598-9

183.

9 : 153 C. langand tyl a kyngis fest (Cf. every

deill langand the goddes)
E. redy til a kingis fest

V. epulse . . . paratse . . . regifico luxu . 604-5

184.

9 : 165 C/E. warryn chasj^

§R. war inchasit

V. pulsatusve parens .... 609

185.

10 : 1 C/E. the ancyant nun of Dan Phebus

*R. „ „ „ Deiphebus

BL. „ „ „ Dame Phebus

V. Phcebi longfBva sacerdos . . . 628

186.

10 : 25 C. beyn swardis

E. grene suardis

V. amoena virecta ..... 638

187.

10 : 112 C. in the hie way

E. „ „ rycht „

V. faciU iam tramite .... 676

188.

11 : 7-8 C/E. His tendir nevois and posterite

Thare fatis and thair fortonys euery gre
BL. transposes these, and for the first line

reads : The noble actis of ther posteritie.
V. carosque nepotes / fataque fortunasque

virum 682-3

202 Appendix A

Book VI. 189.

12 : 49 C. large feildis of Elysee

E, „ seis „

V. ampluin . . . Elysium ... . . 743-4

190.

12 : 78 C/E. rowmyt to and fro

§ V. rownit ( = whispered)

V. venientum ..... 755

191.

13 : 16 C. Comniixit of

E. „ with

fR. comptit of

V. commixtus sanguine .... 762

192.
13 : 24 C. lordschip hald
E. „ haif
V. dominabitur 766

193.

13 : 30 C/E. of piete or in were

*R. in pece or in were

V. pietate vel armis .... 769

194.

13 : 48 C. grandschir
E. gudschir
BL. grant schir
V. avo 777

195.

13 : 90 C. On schuldir

E. In „

V. umero ...... 797

196.

14 : 38 C/E. sail blason

§R. sail bUssing

V. ferent ea facta ..... 822

197.

14 : 80 E. Agamemnonys realm Mycene

C. „ regioun „

V. Agammemnoniasque Mycenas . . 83ft

Appendix A

Book VI

,

198.

14 : 101

E.
R.
V.

Quhilk only throw thi slycht and tareyng
„ onely throw the sicht of cawing.
unus qui . . . cunctando .

199.

15 : 23

C.
E.
V.

deirly dycht {deirly ?)

duly dycht

insignis spoUis . . . opimis

200.

15: 50

c.

*E.
V.

dyrk as nycht (avoids contiguity of blak)
blak as nycht
nox atra ....

201.

15: 67

C/E.
V.

thou God of the flude Tyberyne

„ ,, „ blude Tyberiene
Tiberine ......

202.

15: 68

C/E.
BL.
V.

fertyrris

fercyns

funera ......

203.

15 : 112

C/E.
V.

Departis all ways
Dapertis all wyse.
faciUs datur exitus ....

Book VII

204.

1 : 13 C/E.
(Sm. 2 : 13)§R.
V.

sworland weUs

swelland „

verticibus rapidis ....

205.

1 : 25

C/E.
BL.
V.

now thou
now now
nunc age .....

206.

1 : 77

C/E.

§R-

V.

bUsfuU bewis

blythfuU „

sacra comam .....

205

84e

855

866.

87a

874

894

31

37

60

204 Appendix A

Book VIL 207.

1 : 145 C/E. ane hundreth wollit wedderis

§R. „ „ . walit

V. centum lanigeras .... 93

208.

2:8 E. Thar navy can thai ankyr fast and hank

(Sm. 3) R. * Thare navy come, they ankirrit fast and
hank
V. rehgavit . . . classem. . . . 106

209.

2 : 46 C/E. mesis etyn, done, and lost

BL. meissis consumit ar and loist

V. accisis . . . dapibus . . .125

210.

2 : 67 C/E. He dyd involup and aray his hed

BL. He did inuoluend „ ,, „

V. tempora / imphcat .... 135-6

211.

3 : 22 C/E. And fast by the ilk costis syde of the see
(Sm. 4) Hys first mansioun.

BL. And first ,,

V. primasque in litore sedes . . . 158

212.

4 : 34 C/R. thame hard I say
(Sm. 5) E, Than hard I say

V. memini / Auruncos ita ferre . . 205-6

213.
4 : 35 C/E. of this cuntre.

BL. of this mater

V. his ortus ut agris .... 206

214.
4 : 80 C/E. plagis temperate

§R. placis „

V. plagarum / quattuor .... 226-7

215.
4 : 157 C/E. and joy

BL. na ioye

V. opulentia ...... 262

Appendix A 205

Book VII. 216.

4 : 166 C. as a gaist

E. as ane „

§R. as agast

V. exhorrescat ..... 265

217.

4 : 169 C/E. turnand zour went

§R. tome in your went

V. mandata referte .... 267

218.

4 : 193 C/E. Thar brusyt trappuris

BL. thare brusouris ,,

V. pictisque tapetis .... 277

219.

4 : 201 C. fast sneryng owt

E/R. „ swermyng „

BL. fast furth snering

V. spirantis naribus ignem . . . 281

220.

5 : 33-4 C/E. fund / sovir way
(Sm. 6) R. „ sone away

V. invenere viam ..... 297

221.

5 : 45 C/E. Syrtis

BL. certes

V. syrtes 302

222.

6 : 17 C/E. Thys eddir slydyng our slekit bodeis soft
(Sm. 7) R. this eddir slyding oureshppit sleikit

bodyis soft. (Cf. No. 173)
V. ille inter vestis et levia pectora lapsus . 349

223.

7 : 21 C/E. hyghty boundis
(Sm. 8) §R. lichtlie

V. tectis ... in altis . . . .413

!06

Appendix A

Booh VII.

224.

7 ;

: 104

C/E.

R.

V.

consider tliir syngis
„ thir thingis
respice ad haec .....

225.

7 ;

: 115

C/E.
BL.
V.

lith and bane
lyth and vane
ossaque et artus ....

226.

7;

: 126

C.
E.
V.

The licour sparklis for the heyt bulyng
„ lykoure sparkis „ „ hait buhng
exsultantque sestu latices .

227.

7;

; 127

C/E.
V.

the fervent bullyr violent
„ frawart „
furit intus aquai ....

228.

8 : 3-4
<Sm. 9)

c.

E/R.
V.

With hir infernall weyngis f urth can cary
Alecto towart Troianys but mair tary.
transpose these

Allecto in Teucros Stygiis se concitat
ahs ......

229.

8:

; 15

C.
E.
V.

wild fosteris
,, forstaris
animos accendit agrestis

230.

8:

; 18

c.

E.
V.

With large hed and tyndis burnyst far
,, ,, heis ,, ,, furnest fayr.
cornibus ingens .....

231.

8:

22

C/E.
BL.
V.

gyde / of studdis flokkis bowis

„ „ stedis folkis „
cui regia parent / armenta .

232.

8:

; 43 C.

**E.

§R.

V.

to cuyll his feit

„ „ „ heit

„ „ „ heid
sestus . . . levaret ....

454

458

464

464

476

482

483

485-6

495

Appendix A 207

BooJc VII. 233.

8 : 75-76 C/E. Tyrrlieus / The churlys all assemlyt

jx. ,, ,, carlis J, J,

V. vocat agmina Tyrrhus . . . 508

234.

8 : 91 C/E. the blast was hard
BL. the blaw „ „

V. audiit et, etc. ..... 516

235.

8 : 138 C/E. fyve flokkis pasturyt

BL. „ „ fosterit

V. quinque greges illi . . . . 538

236.

9 : 88 C. and rowpyt eftir batale ernystfuUy
(Sm. 10) **E. „ „ „ „ rycht ernystly

§R. and roupit efter fatale ernyst folly

V. Martemque fatigant .... 582

237.

9 : 91 C/E. Contrar answeris and dispositions

BL. „ „ ,, disputacyounis

V. contra fata deum perverso numine . 584

238.

10 : 7 C/E. quhen first thai move

(Sm. 11) BL. „ first euir thay move

V. cum prima movent .... 603

239.

10 : 34 C/E. pronunce the new weir

BL. promyse „ „ „

V. vocat pugnas ..... 614

240.

10 : 71 C/E. battellit about

R. battelit all about

V. turrigerae ...... 631

241.

10 : 77 C/E. With latit sowpill siluer weill annelit
BL. „ „ „ „ „ ammelyt

V. lento . . . argento .... 634

208 Appendix A

Book VII . 242.

11:2 C. mont of Helycone

(Sm. 12) E. mont Helicone

BL. mouth of Elicone

V. Pandite nunc Helicona . . . 641

243.
11:41 C/BL. insete
E. inset

V. clipeoque insigne .... 657

244.

11 : 56 C/BL. in his handis
E. in thair handis

V. manu . . . gerunt .... 664

245.

11 : 59 C. poyntaUs

E. pynsaUs

R. poyntis

V. tereti . . . mucrone . . . 665

246.

12 : 38 C/E. in the zallow corn

(Sm. 13) BL. in ane zallow ,, '

V. flaventibus arvis .... 721

247.

12 : 71 C/E. Nor thow
BL. nor now
V. nectu 733

248.

12 : 107 C/E. all enarmyt laubour thai thar land

*R. „ „ „ „ thorn land

V. armati terram exercent . . , 748

249.

13 : 39 C/E. 0 Numycus thou hallowit fresch ryver

(Sm. 14) BL. Of Munitus now „ „ „

V. tuos sacrumque Numice . . . 797

Appendix A

Booh VII.

250.

14: 78
(Sm. 15)

C.

E.

R.

BL.

V.

thai gove

thai gofe

thai gang

thay go

miratur . . . et prospectat euntum

Book VIII.

251.

3 : 33

C/E.
BL.
V.

Quham hardy Pallas did / forbyd

quhen „

audax quos . . . vetat

252.

3 : 104

C/E.
BL.
V.

starrit speir cumpas
sterrit cumpas ,,
ffitherios . . . orbis .

253.

3: 126

C/E.
BL.
V.

treuth and band

faith and band

fidem

254.

3: 172

C/E.
BL.
V.

adionyt in band
adjoint in hand
iuncta est mihi foedere

255.

3: 176

C/E.
BL.
V.

and suppovell

and uith supple

auxiUo .....

256.

3: 183

C/E.
BL.
V.

with ws do hallow

„ „ alhallow
celebrate / nobiscum .

257.

4: 1

C/E.
V.

Eftir that stanchit was the hungris rage

„ „ „ „ hungry „
Postquam exempta fames .

258.

4:2

C/E.
BL.

appetit of meyt
appetite of men
amor . . . edendi

0

209

813

110-1

137

150

169

171

173-4

18

184

210

Appendix A

Booh VIII.

259.

4

: 26

C/E.
BL.
V.

sonnys beme nevir schane
sonnys beme neuer nane
solis inacessam radiis .

260.

. 195

4

: 32

C.

tE.

V.

ordur of filth stilland th.ar fra
odour of fylth stynkand tharfra
caede tepebat humus .

261.

. 196

4

: 46

C/E.
BL.

bodeis thre
hedis thre

V.

tergemini .....
262.

. 202

4

58

C/E.
BL.
V.

out from thar stand

out from that land

a stabuhs .....

263.

. 207

4

66

C/E.
BL.
V.

queym stane
quhine stane
saxo . . . opaco

264.

. 211

4:

75

C.
E.

V.

dynnyt

dyndilUt

impleri . . . clamore

265.

. 216

4:

128

C/E.
*R.
V.

demmyt wyth the rokis ran abak
dynnyt quhill the rolkis „
dissultant ripse refluitque . . . amnis

266.

. 240

4:

150

c.

E.
V.

warpand
wappand
instat .....

267.

. 250

5 :

39

C/E.

R.

V.

of Creit the monstreis
in Crete „ „
Cresia . . . prodigia .

. 294-5

Appendix A

Book VIII.

268.

5:

: 61

C/E.
BL.
V.

In sic sangis thar fest thai sanctify

,, ,, „ „ and sacrify
talia carminibus celebrant

269.

6;

: 10

C.
E.
V.

hard runtis

hard rutis

duro robore ....

270.

6;

: 19

C.
E.
V.

from the hie hevynnys
from the hevynis
primus ab setherio

271.

6:

; 22

C/E.

tR.

V.

ontaucht pepill

uncouth ,,

genus indocile ....

272.

6:

: 45

C/E.
BL.
V.

hys auld trew name
his awin trew name
verum vetus . . . nomen.

273.

6 :

84

C.
E.
V.

wyld beistis
„ busMs
silvestribus horrida dumis

274.

7 :

106

C/E.
BL.
V.

furth of hys bed startis
„ „ „ steris
e stratis . . . surgit

275.

8:

190

C/E.
BL.
V.

OTibyr

Of Tyber

Thybri pater ....

276.

9:

17

C.

*E.

V.

on the followand flude
„ „ flowand „
secundo defluit amni .

211

303

315

319

321

332

348

415

540

549

212 Appendix A

Book VIII. 211.

9 : 57 C/E, enarmouris spulzeit dene.
BL. „ of spulze clane

V. exuit armis ..... 567

278.

10 : 35-36 C/E. Amyd ane holl cleuch or a dern valle

Off hir fre will tyll hym apperis sche
§§R. Amyd ane holl or ane derne vaill

Of hir fre will to him scho tald ane tale
V. in valle reducta talibus adfata est dictis 609-11

279.

10 : 46 C/E. child
fR. son
V. nate 613

280.

10 : 80 C/E. gresy

§R. grisly

V. \aridi ... in antro . . . 630

281.

12 : 22 C/E. stammys sic as schippis beris
BL. stanis „ ,, „ „

V. navali . . . rostrata .... 684

282.

12 : 35 C/E. ruschand

BL. ruschit

V. omnes ruere ..... 689

283.

12 : 66 C/E. in plait and mail

BL. in place and male

V. caelatus ferro ..... 701

284.

12 : 69 C/E. in went
BL. inuent
V. vadit 702

Appendix A 213

Book VI 1

U.

285.

12 : 73

C/E.

§§R-
V.

Actyus Apollo seand in the sky
Of this meUe the dowtsum victory
And utheris Goddis in thar cumpany
Actius Apollo fleand in the sky.
Actius haec cernens, etc.

286.

12 : 83

c.

E.
V.

sclakand schetis

scaland „

laxos . . . immittere funis .

Booh IX.

287.

1: 30

C/E.
BL.

zour cartis
zone cartis

V.

currus .....
288.

2: 47

C/E.

R.

V.

hys feris all ressauyt the clamour hie
„ „ all rasit „ „ „
clamorem excipiunt socii

289.

2: 69

C/E.
V.

Rasys in ire

raisis in the air

ira/saevit ....

3: 45

C/E.
BL.
V.

290.
Enee
euer
Eneas .....

291.

3: 78

C/E.
BL.
V.

gret plesand lycht
new plesand lycht
nova lux . . . et ingens

292.

3: 167

C.
E.
V.

0 ze valzeand knychtis

0 waUt ,, ,,

lecti ....

293.

4: 5

C/E.
tR.
V.

f eill tymys
fyue tymes
nee non .....

704

708

12

54

62-3

97

110

146

169

214

Appendix A

Book IX.

294.

6: 20

C/E.
BL.

Fordoverit
fordwart

V.

passim sorano .
295.

6: 46

C/E.
tR.
V.

trake of deth

straik

pestem

296.

6: 106

C/E.

R.

V.

lat be

Lat thame be

absistamus

297.

6: 118

C/E.
BL.
V.

and beft {= finished)
and neft
perfecta

298.

. 316

328

. 355

. 357

7 : 57 C/E. persewit

BL. persauit

V. sequentum ..... 394

299 .

7 : 86 C. or bawkis Me

E. of balkis hie

R. And bawkis hie

V. aut ... ad fastigia . . . 408

300.

7 : 97 C/E. hang on his bak

f R. nerehand his bak

V. in tergum ...... 412

SOL

7 : 98 C. al in schuldir brak

E. „ schundir „

V. ibique / frangitur .... 412-3

302.

8 : 2 C/BL. Titan

E/R. Tithone

V. Tithoni 460

Appendix A

Book IX.

303.

8: 55

C.

E/R.
BL.
V.

to leif alyve
to leve on live
to leif alase
Unquere solam

304.

8: 82

C/E.
BL.
V.

brandis
handis
absumite ferro .

305.

8: 103

C/E.
BL.

armys
handis

V.

manus ....
306.

8: 126

C/E.
BL.
V.

with pikkis
with wappinys
duris . . . contis

307.

9: 1

C/E.

R.

V.

CaUiope and 0 ze Musys all
CalUope 0 thou god of musis all
Vos, 0 CalUope .

308.

9: 52

C/BL.

E.

V.

evill farrand

onfarrand

inglorius ....

309.

9:57

C/E.
BL.
V.

TSigyt best

ragent

ut fera . . . furit

310.

9 : 77

C.
E.
V.

wytles
rackles
demens ....

311.

9: 118

C/E.

R.

V.

fulychly

full lichtly

demens ....

215

482

494

502

. 510

525

548

551-2

560

577

216

Appendix A

Booh IX

312.

10

: 22

C/E.
tE.

wigbtis
wretcbis

V,

en qui

313.

10

: 29

C/E.
BL.
V.

a pepill derf and dour
of nature ,, „ „
durum a stirpe genus .

314.

10

52

C/E.

§§R.

V.

on bedis bair
„ „ bare
canitiem galea .

315.

10-

67

C/E.
BL.
V.

of turnyt buscbboun tre
„ „ buscbbome
buxusque .

316.

10:

80

C/E.

R.

V.

love
lovy
lovem

317.

10:

91

C/E.
tR.
V.

witb bornys fuyn and put

crune „ „
cornu petat

318.

11 :

23

C/E.

R.

V.

foresteres
fostaris
silvestris .

319.

11 :

30

C/E.
BL.
V.

to kepe stekit

to be streikit

portam . . . recludunt

320.

11 :

34

C/E.

fors
bors

V.

armis

. 600

. 603

. 612

619

. 624

. 629

. 673

675

676

Appendix A 217

Book IX.

321.

11 : 49

C/R.
E.
V.

Tynarus . . . menyt
Tymarus fers myndyt
praeceps animi Tmarns

322.

685

12: 16

C.
E.
BL.
V.

febill bestes onstabill

„ J, onfensabill

„ „ miserabil
pecora inter inertia . . . .

323.

730

12: 54

C/E.

E.

V.

hevyng hys swerd
heving up his swerde
sublatum ... in ensem .

324.

749

12: 67

C/E.

§R.
V.

of dreidf ull raddour ( — fear)

witli dredful dreddour

formidine . . . . .

325.

756

12: 113

C/E.

§R.

BL.
V.

sangis and gestis musyk and harpyng
„ musyng „
,, ,, „ musit in harpying
„ „ „ carmina semper

et citharse cordi numerosque intendere
nervis ......

326.

775-6

13: 18

C.
E.

§R.
V.

onselly cuntre

onsylly

awne sylly „

infelicis patriae .....

786

Book X.

327.

1 : 22

C/E.

E/BL.

V.

inhibitioun

inhabitacioun

contra vetitum .....

328.

9

1 : 23

C/E.
BL.
V.

tbame or tbame
thaim or thayrs
hos aut hos .....

9-10

218

Booh X.
1 : 26

1 : 36

2: 75

4 : 78

5: 73

5: 76

5: 91

5: 95

5 : 123

Appendix A

329.

C/E.

R.

V.

with bludy wappynnys
the bludy ,,
ferrumque lacessere .

330.

C.
E.
BL.
V.

glaidly do makis {imperative
glaidly to mak
glaidly and with one mak
laeti componite .

331.

C/E.
BL.
V.

the Phrigyane febill geir
the Utill Phrigiane gere
fluxas Phrygiae res

332.

C/E.

R.

V.

Led hys age
„ „ hfe
duxisse senectam

333.

C.
•pi

R/BL.
V.

Gyf thow belevys not my sa^
„ „ „ nocht
„ „ beleves ocht j

mea si non inrita dicta puts

334.

C/E.
BL.
V.

by fell occisioun
by fel occasioun
caedis acervos

335.

C.
E.
V.

moder of the Goddis
modir of wodis
parens . . . deum .

336.

C.
E.
R.
V.

lyonys zokkyt to the char
„ „ thi chayr
,, lokkit in ane schare
biiugique ad frena leones

337.

C.
E.
V.

of crannys crowplyng

„ crowping
dant signa grues

10

15

88

192

invayn
in vane

. " . 244
. 245
. 252

25a

265

Appendix A 219

Book X.

338.

5 :

127-^

5C/E.

BL.
V.

Thai fle the weddiis blast. . . .
Thar glaidsum soundis foUowand thame

behynd.
Thar glaidsum sownes flowand thame

behynd.
fugiuntque Notos clamore secundo

5:

133

C/E.
BL.
V.

339.
towart
endlang
versas ad .....

340.

5 :

175

C.
E.
V.

hardy men
hardy me nt
audentis ......

341.

6:

86

C/E.
BL.
V.

quhais zallow berd

zoung berd

flaventem prima lanugine .

6 :

164

C/E.
V.

342.
zokkit
lokkit
concur runt . . . . .

343.

7 ;

: 17

C/E.

R.

V.

quhidder do ze fle

do ze fle hens

quo fugitis . . . . .

344.

7

: 146

C/E.

R.

V.

that it may throw Alesus body scheir
that I may Ilessus body here
viam duri per pectus Halsesi

8

: 10

C/E.
BL.
L.

345.

anerly
enterly

solus ......

•

346.

8

: 160

C/E.

§R.
V.

plente of terys
playnt of teris
multo gemitu ....

26ft

268

284

324

361

369

422

442

505.

220

Appendix A

Booh X.

347.

9

: 73

C/E.

R.

V.

writh down
bowit downe
reflexa / cervice

348.

10

: 82

C/E.
*R.
V.

into sycht
in to fecht
apparuit .....

349.

11

: 116

C/E.
BL.
V.

My rycht hand sal the saysing geif
„ „ „ » » sauyng „
hac dabitur dextra tellus

350.

11 :

: 160

C/E.
BL.
V.

evir . . . se

neuer se

iterum . . . videbo .

11 :

: 197

C/E.

§§R-

V.

351.
slydand
saland
labitur alta ....

12:

: 2

C/E.
BL.
V.

352.
ardour
furoure
ardens .....

353.

14 :

82

C/E.
R.
BL.
V.

revengear

revengeade

revengit

ultor .....

354.

14 :

89

C/E.
BL.
V.

0 moist forcy

0 thou „

fortissime .....

355.

14 :

92

c.

E.

BL.

V.

nor that the hst dedeyn
„ „ „ „ dedene
. nor at the leist dedenete.
neque credo . . . dignabere

535-6

579

650

671

687

689

864

865

865-6

Appendix A 221

Book XL 356.

1 : 47 C/E. Goddis

BL. god

V. superi ...... 20

357.

1 : 109 C/E. war bald and stern ; said we had wer at

hand.
*R. wald were and sterf sa we had were at

hand.
V. acris esse viros cum dura proclia gente . 48

358.

3 : 27 C/E. restyng place providit and herbry

BL. „ „ promouit ,, „

V. locum sedemque dedissent . . 112

359

3 : 28 C/E. Ne na weirfar
fR. na mare ,,
V. necbellum 113

360.

3 : 36-7 C/E. To end the weir or Troianys of this land

Forto expell.
R. or for to were oure Troianis . . .

V. si bellum finire manu, si pellere Teucros 116

361.

3 : 74 C/E. Tharto annerdis with haill voce

fl^- ,. cryis „ „

V. unoque omnes eadem ore fremebant . 132

362.

4 : 2 C/E. of sa gret womentyng

BL. of the grete ,,

V. tanti . . . luctus . . . .139

363.

4 : 21 C/E. Thar was na fors Evander mycht

refreyn
BL. Thar was na fors Evander mycht not

refrene
V. at non Euandrum potis est vis uUa

tenere ..... 148

222 Appendix A

Bool XI.

364.

4: 62

C/E.

BL.

V.

As therto detbund in my wrachit age
„ „ detborne „ ,, „
senectse / debita erat nostrse

365.

5 : 26

C/E.

R.

V.

spulze

spulzeing

spolia .....

366.

5: 63

C/E.

R.

V.

scrapis owt atanys

trumpis ,, „

ruebant .....

367.

6: 57

C/E.

R.

V.

0 fortunat folk

y ^ 5 > 5 »

0 fortunatae gentes
368.

6: 108

C/E.
tR.
V.

natyue land
. . . cuntre
patriis . . . aris

369.

7 : 92

C/E.

^1-

our febill weill
oure pepill weill
rebus . . . fessis

370.

10: 65

C/E.

R.

V.

schaip on our cite
scbapis in our cietie
adventat ad urbem

371.

10: 67

C/E.

§R.
V.

enbuschment

ane buschment

furta ... in tramite silvse

11 : 34

C/E.
tR.
V.

372.

bulryt
bokkit
spumabat ....

165-6

193

211

252

269

335

514

515

548

Appendix A

Boo

kXI.

373.

11

: 118

C/E.
R.
BL.
V.

is at all tyrne

is all tyme

is oft al tyme

seternum ....

374.

11

: 140

C/E.

BL.
V.

And dekkyt
Indekkit
addekkit
circumdata

375.

12

: 42

C/E.
R.
BL.
V.

to schuldris with a crak

in schunderis ,, ,,
to schudderis ,, ,,
ruinam / dant sonitu .

376.

12

: 103

C/E.

R.

V.

so bustuus blomyt he
„ „ bownys he
tantus in arma patet

12;

; 106

C/E.
tR.
V.

377.
schakand
stakkerand
tremit ....

13:

36

C/E.
BL.
V.

378.
smait
straik
deicis ....

379.

13:

70

C/E.
R. &BI
V.

bustuus powis
1. „ browis
caput ingens

380.

14 :

39

C/E.

R.

V.

fat ofEerandis
first oiferandis
hostia pinguis .

381.

15:

69

C/E.
R.
BL.
V.

haymwart brocht

hame war brocht

hame has brocht

reducem ut patria alta videret

223

583

. 596

613-4

644

. 645

. 665

680

740

797

224 Appendix A

Book XL 382.

16 : 60 C/E. Quhill that the bow and nokkis met

almaist
fR. Quhill that the bow nokkis met almaist

V. donee curvata coirent .... 860

Book XII . 383.

1 : 4 C/E. onbrokyn

BL. vnwrokin

V. implacabilis .....

384.

2 : 50 C/E. nor quhen I pas onto thir mortall werys

R. Bot that I may recounter my aduersaris

V. me ... in certamina . . . euntem . 72-3

385.

2 : 73 C/E. fast to hys in he spedis

R. „ „ his stable in

V. rapidusque in tecta recessit . . 81

386.

2 : 108 C/E. rude
BL. gude
V. ingenti 92

387.

2 : 116 C. now the in hand withhaldis

E. „ ,, ,, vphaldis

V. te Turni nunc dextra gerit ... 97

388.

4 : 159 C/E. chekis walxin leyn

tR. „ „ thyn

V. tabentesque gense .... 221

389.

5 : 143 C/E. feirfuU braid

R. felloun braid

V. csecique ruunt ..... 279

390.

6 : 34 C. Dyd hym avant he wondit had Ene.

E. That present was persauit in the melly

V. sese .i^nese iactavit vulnere . . 323

Appendix A

Bool

tZ/i

r

391.

6

: 156

C/E.

R.

V.

lymouris and hamys

„ „ hamouris
jugis

392.

7

: 89

C/E.
tR.
V.

strynkland
springland
spargitque . . . .

393.

9

: 56

C/E/R.

BL.

V.

from the month a large gait
from the mouth of ane large gate
de montibus altis

394.

9 :

: 110

C/E.

R.

V.

hous and famyll
housis of famell
domus alta ....

395.

10:

: 80

C/E.
tR.
V.

and wyde the zettis^cast
and wyde to the walhs cast
pandere portas ....

396.

10:

129

C/E.

BL.

V.

scartis sche

startis she

manu . . . laniata genas .

397.

12:

39

C/E.

R.

V.

patent was the plane
patent was and plane
ut vacuo patuerunt aequo re campi

398.

12:

57

C/E.
BL.
V.

Fe mastris

The maistris

pavidi . . . magistri

399.

12:

67

C/E.

R/BL.

V.

bedy
body
sanguine largo ....

225

374

418

523

546

584

605-6

710

717

721

226

Appendix A

Booh XII

,

400.

13:

; 116

C/E.
BL.
V.

sanctify

sacrify

celebrabit ....

401.

13:

; 125

C/E.
fR.
V.

ane other craft
ane vther cast
aUud . . . .

402.

14:

; 41

C/E.
tR.
V.

that he ne knew hym selvyn

„ mysknew „ ,,
se nee cognoscit

403.

14:

; 75

C/E.

R.

V.

ne can he fynd
ne fend he fyndis
nee quo se eripiat

404.

14:

: 88

C/E.

BL.

V.

fulderis
sulderis
fulmine . , . .

840

843

903

. 917

922

Readings in Translation not dependent on Text, beino
Impletive or Explicative Phrases

Booh I. 1.

4:4 C. prosper cours

E. propir „

V. dat lora secundo . . . .156

Booh II. 2.

5 : 7 C/E. vapour of sleip

R. sapour

V. sopor . . . complectitur artus , . 253

3.

7 : 33 C/BL. rowch serpent

E. ruth

V. anguem ......

4.

8 : 103 C. brusch and fard of watir

E. bruschand ,, „

V. spumeus amnis .... 496

9 : 2 C/E. chance

R. case .......

6.

9:6 C the auld grayth

E. the auld gray

V. senior ...... 509

7.

10 : 161 C. Besowth my fader to salue his wery

banys
E. besocht my fader to salue his wery

banys
R. besocht my fader to salue his wery

barnys .....

227

228 Appendix B

Book II. 8.

11 : 49 C/E. clym vp anone

R. wy up anone .....

Book III. 9.

1 : 130 C/E. The mon we follow

BL. there „ „ ....

10.
4 : 75 C/E. Theyfage

§R. they fuge

BL. theiffage ......

11.

4 : 82 C. of torment

E. and turment

V. Furiarum ego maxime . . . 252

12.

5 : 42 C/E. onbodeit

fR, unberyit ......

13.

5 : 52 C/E. half mangit fel scho down

R. all mangit „ ,,

V. calor ossa rehquit / labitur . . . 308-9

14.

5 : 127 C/E. bricht teris

**R. grete „

V. multum lacrimas . . . fundit . . 348

15.

8 : 98 C. brokyn seys vost

E. broldn seis bost

Y. longe fractasque ad litora voces . . 556

Book IV. 16.

8 : 56 C/E. without weir

R. forowtin were .....

17.

8 : 76 C. maister stok schank . . .

E. maister stok is smyte

V. vaHdam . . . quercum ... 441

Appendix B 229

Book IV.

18.

8: 99

C/E.

changyt and altyr

R.

changit in the altare ....
(The word altares occurs a few lines up.)

19.

12 : 107

C/E.

befor hir day had hir self spilt

BL.

„ ,, had onusylie hir self spilt

V.

misera ante diem ....

Book V.

20.

1 :58

C.

The followand wynd blew strek thar
saill furth evyn

E.

The followand wynd blew strek thar
saill full evin.

V.

et vela secundi / intendunt Zephyri
21.

2: 52

c.

to preif hys picht

tE.

„ „ „ pith

V.

qui viribus audax ....

22.

3: 16

C/E.

fair armouris of trivmphe and myche
glory

R.

fair armouris of trivmph and mychty
glory

V.

armaque ......

Book VI.

23.

5: 14

C.

pevagely

E.

prevagely .....
24.

5: 55

C.

Anchises get, heynd child curtas and
gude

E.

Anchises get, heynd kynd curtas and

gude ......

(C. avoids here the repetition of
similar word.)

25.

6 : 41 C/E. skuggis of hell
**R. stagis „ „

697

32

67

111

230 Appendix B

Book VI. 26.

9 : 85 C/E. to pyne thame

§R. apoun thaim .....

27.
11 : 5-6 C/E. Hail the nowmyr of hys geneologye

His tendir nevoys and posterite
BL. Transposes these lines and reads for the

second —
The nobil acts of ther posteritie
V. fataque fortunasque virum . . . 683

15 : 10

C/E.
BL.

for til exers

for tyl expert .....

15: 26

C.
E.

29.
bontie
beutie ......

Book VII.

30.

4 : 122 C/E.
(Sm. 5) tR-

mast douchty

maist wourthy .....

31.

5: 71

(Sm. 6)

C/E.
tR.

To thame that far doun into Achiron

dwell
To them that far doun into Achiron fell

32.

5: 119

C.
E.
V.

dochtir of the dyrk nycht

„ „ „ myrk „
sata Nocte .....

33.

6: 38
(Sm. 7)

C/E.
BL.

wyld dotage

auld dotage . . . . .

34.

6: 87

C/E.
§R.

the round tap of tre
the ground top „ .

35.

6: 126

C/E.
BL.
V.

pylchis of fowne skynnys
pilchis and foune skynnis
incinctge pelUbus . . . .

331

396

Appendix B 231

398

Booh VII.

36.

6 : 132 C.
E.

wedding sangis and ballettis
„ „ „ battallis

V.

hymenseos

37.

7 : 70 C/E.
(Sm. 8) *K.

hef na way
Uef ha may

38.

9 : 102 C/E.
(Sm. 10) BL.

thai assay
thay affray

39.

10 : 50 C/E.

marbill hirst

(Sm. 11) BL.

mekil hirst . . ,^^^.

40.

11 : 21 C/E.
(Sm. 12) **R.

the gydar of hys army
togiddir with his army

41.

12 : 41 C/E.
(Sm. 13) R.

stamping stedis
stamping of stedis

42.

12 : 66 C/E.
R.

at thar fays
at thar feris

BL.

in thair face

Book VIII.

43.

3 : 50 C.

folkis

E.

peple . . . .

44.

3 : 160 C.

or band

E.

ane band

BL.

our band . . . ,

45.

4 : 25 C/E.

fendUch hole

tR.

fendich hell

V.

spelunca .

193

232

Appendix B

Book VIII.

46.

4: 45

C/E.
BL.

stern melle

Strang melle ....

47.

4: 46

C/E.

BL.

V.

bodeis thre

hedis thre

tergemini .....

48.

5: 24

C.
E.

§R.
BL.

Lugyng a bab in creddill

lugging abed „

lugeing a bab ....

49.

6: 16

C/E.

Bot as thir beistis or the doillit as
Bot as thir beistis ar thai dulht was

50.

7: 53

C/E.
R.

answerd

welterand .....

51.

9: 36

C/E.

BL.

V.

sair hart
sad hart
lacrimans .....

52.

10: 79

C/E.

had tharin porturat
had thar importurate

Book IX.

53.

3: 162

C/E.
R.

Thair lyfe is now

That Hvis now ....

54.

4: 62

C/E.
BL.

Quhat thinkis thow, now say
quhat thingis thow now say

55.

4: 66

C/E.
BL.

witteryng

wrytyng .....

202

559

Appendix B

Book IX.

56.

5

: 24

C/E.

I zow tell

R.

I zow fur

57.

7

: 26

C/E.

and turnys wentis

§R.

tnrnis and wentis
58.

7;

:90

C/E.

in wilsum den

R.

in this wisdome then .
59.

8:

: 69

C/E.

to reduce thy spreit

R.

to reduce again „
60.

8:

: 133

C/E.

Onsyverit

BL.

vnserit ...

Bool

; X.

61.

5:

36

C/E.

of fyr and bych tre

R.

„ „ of the busche tre

V.

finus is alone in text .
62.

5:

50

C/E.

forto leif and lest

tR.

„ „ „ rest

V.

sevumque agitare sub undis
63.

5:

173

C/E.

half deil in efEray

§R.

half deid „ „

V.

trepidi . . . ,
64.

6:

144

C/E.

that auld cite

BL.

that cald ciete .
65.

8:

130

C/E.

wil he be

§R.

Quhillhebe
66.

9:

24

C/E.

His promys and cunnandis

BL.

„ „ ,, commandis

V.

dextrseque datae

233

230

235

283

517

234

Appendix

B

Booh X.

67.

10 : 2 C/E.
*R.

rude
gude

68.

.

11 : 55 C/E.
R.
V.

claT- agane
all agane
totumque .

69.

.

11 : 118 C/E.
*R.
BL.
V.

baith schuke and schew
„ drewe
with ,, ,,
coruscat .....

11 : 191 C/E.
*R.

70.

bay

lay . . ' .

12 : 48 C/E.
tR.

71.

Quhryne
cry .

13 : 174 C/E.
BL.

72.
armys
handis

14 : 94 C/E.
*R/BL.

73.

towartly
cowartlie .

74.

.

14 : 127 C/E.
R.

starve iu fyght
stoure „ „

.

14 : 136 C/E.
*R.

75.
dyntis

dartis .....
{Dartis occurs three Unes below.)

Book XL

76,

2 : 25 C/E.
R.

lyggyn

bigging .

.

3 : 5 C/E.
tR.
V.

77.
feldis
bentis
campos

626

651

102

Appe7idix B 235

Book XL 78.

3 : 7 C/E. gentre

R/BL. gentricee ......

79.

5 : 28 C. as helmys scheildis and rych swerdis

seir
E. as helmys swerdis and riche scheyldis

seyr
V. galeas ensis decoros . . . .194

80.
5 : 76 C/E. Cryand ichane, allace and weill away.

fR. „ ilkane ,, ,, ,, ,,

81.
7 : 57 C/E. holtis

*R. hillis

(Repeating from line above.)

82.
7 : 123 C/E. I meyn of hym by quhais

*R. „ „ by him „ „ (eye error)
V. cuius 347

83.
8 : 2 C/E. sik sawys
f R. sic wourdis

V. taUbus . . . dictis .... 376-

84.

9 : 28 C/E. The flycht of byrdis fordynnys the thik
schaw
*R. the flycht of byrdis fedderis the thik

schaw
V. alto in luco . . . catervse / consedere

avium .... 456-457

85.
10 : 23 C/E. full provd walxis he

BL. „ „ wallopis ....

86.
10 : 64 C/E. and passage scharp and wyll

R. derne passage and will

V. per deserta ..... 514

236

Appendix B

Booli

A7.

87.

11 •

16

C/E.

§R.

onforleit
vnforgette

88.

11

32

C/E.

§R.

etlyt

enterit . . . .

89.

13

11

C/E.
tR.
V.

the giltyn bow Turcas
,, „ bow to rais
aureus ex umero sonat arcus

Bool Xli

r

90.

2

14

c.

E.

Thou all our rest
Thou art our rest

91.

2

49

C/E.

BL.

V.

giete and teris

gretand teris

lacrimis . . . .

92.

5

12

BL.

has a line here which is not i

652

72

Hardy and stout, Uberal and syncere

93.

6 : 16 C/E. And villany

§R. and fellony

94.

6 : 173 C/E. Clenly with hys brand

§§R. cruelly .

95.

11 : 96 C/E. in maner feir

R. in maner of feir

c

Readings from the Prologues and Appendices,

DEPENDENT ON CoMMON SeNSE

Prol. I.

1.

51

C.
E.

Thocht I offend onwemmyt is thy fame
„ „ „ onhermit „ „ „

128

C/E.
BL.

2.

Amang Latynys a gret patroa

,, ,, ,, ,. ciert . .

150

C/E.

§§R.

3.
to se sua spilt
to here thame spilt ....

152

c.

E.

4.

neuer thre wowrdis at all quhat Virgill
ment ^\

neuer thre wowrdis of all that Virgill
ment .....

5.

163

C.

E.

thystory (C/. Comment., — Thistory of

Saul, etc.)
the story ......

181

C.
E.

6.

Juno nor Venus goddessis neuer war
» „ „ goddea „ „

259

C.
E.

7.
for the namya
for the nanis .....

262

C.

8.
Than the nycht owle resembhs the

E.

papyngay.
na the owle resemblis the papyngay

237

238 Appendix C

Frol. I 9.

269 C. vndir cuUour of sum strange Franch

wycht
E. vndir cuUour of sum Franch. Strang

wicht
BL. vndir cuUour of sum Franch strange

wicht .....

(BL. is right, as Douglas is blam-
ing Caxton for sheltering behind
another, in a kind of pseudepi-
graphy.)

10.

270

C.
E.

franchly
frenschlie

K.

francihe

BL.

frenschly ......

11.

271

C/E.
R.

I nold zhe trast I said this for dispyte
I wald ze traist nocht „ ,, „

12.

289

C/E.

to follow a fixt sentens

R.

„ „ „ quyk „ ...
13.

357

C/E.

I follow the text als neir I may

(Sm.363)]

R.

„ as I may
14.

388

C.

semabill wordis

(Sm.394)§§E.

seuthabill „ .

15.

434
(Sm. 440)

C/BL.
E.

mycht scho not pretend na just caus
>> >j >> jj ane ,, ,, .

16.

454
(Sm. 460)

C.
E.

Thou be my muse, my gydar and laid

stern
Thou be my muse, my leidar and leid-

sterne

R.

Thou be my muse, my ledar and gyde
stern ......

^ Small inserts six lines re /Eneas at line 329, see ante, p. 60.

Appendix C 239

Prol. III. 17.

1 C/E/R. Hornyt Lady, pail Cynthia

BL. Honorit ,, ,, ., . .

18.
18 C. otheris forvayis

E. othir „

19.

22 C/E. Weyn thai to murdrys me

R. mene „ „ ,, „ .

{Weyn is repeated four lines lower,
evidently on purpose, and R. is a
correction for style's sake.)

rol. IV.

20.

5

C.
E.

Zour joly wo neidlyngis most I endyte
Zour joly were neidlings must I indite .
(C. is an oxymoron deliberative.)

21.

8

C/E.
BL.

zour fvkill seyd
„ febill „

22.

17

E.
R.

glaidnes lestis not ane houris lenth
lestis bot „

23.

29

C.
E.

Sampson thow reuist hys fors

„ rubbist „ „ .

24.

66

C/E.
R.

So rumysyng with hyduus lowand cry
Sum rumesing „ „ ,, „

25.

117

C.
E.

Sum hait byrnyng as ane onbridillyt

hors
Sum hert hait brenyng as ane vnbridlet
hors ......

26.
167 C/BL. Eschamys na tyme in rovste of syn to ly

E. „ „ thing „ sone ,.

(E. is right in na thing and wrong in
sone.)

240

Appendix 0

Prol. IV.

27.

173

C/E.

forcy alane in villans deid

,, „ ,, will and dede
(An editorial alteration which alters
and weakens sense.)

28.

220

C/E.
R.

wil I repeyt this vers agane.
„ „ report „ „ „ . .

29.

242

C.
E.

Nor at his first estait no thio" abyde
„ „ „ „ no quhile „

30.

254

C/E.
R.

In hir faynt lust sa mait, within schort

quhile
In hir faynt lust sa schort a quhile .

31.

263

C.
E.

Allace the quhile thou knew the strange

Ene
Allace the quhile thou knew the Strang

Ene

32.

266

C/E.
R.

Be the command I lusty ladeis quhyte
Be command of lusty ladyis quhite
(Wrong in sense and rhythm.)

Prol. V.

33.

1

C.
E.

Gladys the grond the tendir florist greyn
Glad is the ground of the „ „ „

34.

25

C.
E.

in thar barnage

in his barnage .....

(C. agrees with next hue, thar tahill.)

35.

43

C.

gyf he be nocht joy us now lat se.

E.

„ „ „ „ lat ws se
36.

59

E.
R.

I byd nothir of zour turmentis

I set by nowthir zour turmentis . .

Appendix C 241

Prol. YI. 37.

7 C/E. this dyrk poyse

R. „ depe „

BL. „ dark ......

{deip Acheron is in the sixth Une above.)

38.

9 BL. gaistis is wrong, as the rhyme demands

the reading ja'pis

39.

12 C/E. reid agane this volume mair then twys

BL. reid agane this volume mair then

thryis .....

40.

19 C/E. wow ! thow cryis

*R. now

>} >>

41.

24 C/E. Or cal on Sibil, deir of a revyn sleif

R. or call on our Sibil „

>> >»

42.

43 C/E/R. and purgatory

BL. ane mitigate pane ....

(The Une above ends with " endless
pane.")

43.

59 C. Virgil writis mony just claus conding

E. „ „ „ „ caus

44.
76 C/E. And maste profound philosophour he

him schawis
R. And made profound philosophour be his

sawis ......

{Saivis ends the second Une above
this one.)

45.
89-96 This purgatory stanza is omitted in BL. .

Q

242 Appendix C

Prol VI. 46.

166 C. the lyknes tHs mysty poetry

E. the lyknes of this misty poetry .

Prol. VII. 47.

28 C. bewavit oft the schipman by hys race

E. bewaUt of „ „ „ „ rays

48.

36 C/E. ourcast with rokis blak

R. „ „ cluddis „

49.

43 C. seir bittir bubbis

E. soure „ „

BL. omits 11. 43-46 probably from its refer-

ence to hell

50.

70 C/E. chyrmyng and with cheping

R. „ „ wythweping

51.

92 C. stern wyntir

E. storme „ ....

52.

93 C/E. repatyrrit weil

R. recreate. .....

53.

105 C. Hornyt Hebowd

E. Hornit he bawde

*R. Hornyt the bonde

BL. The horned byrd

54.

115 C/E. the greking of the day

tR. „ breaking „ „ . •

55.

154 C/E. ourvoluyt I this volume

R. ourevolvdt of „ ,, • •

-

Appendix C

Prol VII.

56.

162

E.

Quhen frostis doitli ourfret

„ dayis „ . . .

57.

166

C/E.
§R.

And as our buk begouth hys weirfar tell
„ „ „ „ „ welefare ,,

Prol. VIII.

58.

9

C/E.
§R.

leys, lurdanry
,, lurdanly .....

59.

48

C/E.

Sum glasteris, and thai gang at

§R.

„ glasteris at the gangat .
60.

51

c.

*E.

Sum grenys eftir a guse
,, ,, eftir a grene gus

61.

62

C/E.
§R.

The hyne crynys the corn
,, „ cries for the corn

62.

93

C/E.

a pan boddum

a plane boddum ....

Prol. X.

63.

10

C.
*E.

Sessonys and spacis

Sessionis and placis ....

243

{Placis ends the third line above.)

64.

15 C/E. Wyntir to snyb the erth

E. „ for to „ „ „

\ (The hne above has Hervyst to rendir

\ and jor upsets balance.)

65.

17 C. to that fyne thou maid all thing

*E. to that kynd „ ,, ,, . .

{Kynd is directly above, four hues up.)

244 Appendix C

Prol. X. 66.

20 C/E. Set thou ws wrocht and bocht

*R. Set vs wrocht of nocht

{Nocht is the rh5mie word already three
Unes above.)

67.

127 C/E. to male ws bondis fre

R. „ ,, „ bondis fle .

68.

137 C/E/R. in form of wyne and bred

BL. lufly with wyne and breid .

69.
170 C/E. Thy spows and queyn maid, and thy

nioder deir.
R. Thy spows maid of thi moder dere

Prol. XI. 70.

1 C/E. Thow hie renown

R. The hie renowne ....

71.

57 C/E. Gyf Crystis faithfull kuychtis lyst ws be

R. Giff of chrystis faith knychtis Ust we be

72.
137 C/E. Bot quhet avalys begyn a Strang melle

R. „ „ „ bargane or „ „ .

Prol. XII. 73.

76 C/E. law in hyr barm (=bosom)

§R. „ „ „ barne . . . .

74.

88

C/E.

the scherald fur
„ scherand „

75.

92

C/E.
§R.

the gers pihs thar hycht

» „ „ „ lycht
76.

118

C/E.
R.

columby blank and blew
» blak „ „

Appendix C 245

Prol XII .

77.

121 C/E.

Gymp gerraflouris thar royn levys
onschet

§R.

Gymp gerraflouris has thareon levis
vnschet .....

78.

193 C.

sum sang ryng sangis, dansys ledys, and
rovndis

E.

sum sang sangis, dansys ledys, and
rovndis .....

79.

212 C.

2asterevin

E.

zistrene ......

80.

247 C/E.
tR.

tonys

notis ......

81.

381 C/E. Les Phebus suld me losanger attaynt

R. „ „ „ „ to fangare „

Prol. 13. 82.

118 C/E. fift quhevill

R. thrid quhele ....

INDEX

^neas, 60, 62

Albert!, Leo Battista, 33

Alcuin, 43, 161

Alesius, Alexander, 4

Alexander Severus, 45 n.

Alexander William, 172

All for Love, 62

Allegory, 45, 47

Amyot, Jacques, 119

Anachronisms, 80

Anderson, Patrick, 13

Anglic Dialects, 149

Anglo-French, 150, 152

Angus, Earl of, 1

Apologiefor Poesie, 61, 121

Appendixes, 179

Aquinas, Thomas, 52

Aretino, Pietro, 28

Aristophanes, 157

Aristotle, 5, 26, 43, 81, 114, 158, 162

Arnold of Lubeck, 42 n.

Arnold, Matthew, 78

Ascenscius, Badius, 106, 107, 161, 162

Ascham, Roger, 155

Athenian Mercury, 20

Augustine, St, 50, 106, 113

Ayala, Don Pedro de, 158

Ay ton, Henry, 140

B

Bacon, Roger, 26, 78, 173

Bale, John, 10, 19, 20

Barbour, John, 11, 134, 149,,159,«161

Barlaam, 157

Bassandyne Bible, 17

Bate, John, 157

Bath MS., 19, 61, 139, 144, 146

Baviufl, 154

Beaton, Archbishop, 72

Beccadelli, Antonio, 30

" Bell the Cat," 2

Bellay, Joachim du, 33, 77, 78

Bellenden, Thomas, 22, 139

Bentley, Richard, 79

Bible-pricking, 45 n.

Black Book of Tayinoufh, 6

Black Letter Edition, 9, 46, 61, 63, 81

140
Blake, William, 65
Blind Harry (see Harry the Minstrel)
Bocardo and Baroco, 42
Boccaccio, Giovanni, 27, 32, 33, 54,

132, 157, 161, 162
Bochas, Lydgate's, 42 n.
Books of ^netd, confusion regarding, 8
Boes (Boece), Hector, 14
Boethius, 47, 70, 87, 114, 162
Brandt, Sebastian, 162
Brigham, Nicholas, 10
Brink, Bernhard Ten, 105
Brown, Professor Hume, 67
Browning, Robert, 91
Brus, 134, 149
Buchanan, David, 12, 17
Buchanan, George, 3, 4, 12, 14, 20, 42,

43, 70, 75, 123, 155
Buke of the Howlat, 109
Burns, Robert, 117, 160, 161
Burton, Robert, 81
Butcher and Lang, 90
Bysset, Abacuc, 40 n.

C

Caesar, Julius, 43

Calderwood, David, 13

Calverley, C. S., 78

Cambridge MS., 24, 63, 130, 133. 137,

144
Campbell, Tliomas, 118
Carlyle, Thomas, 70
Casimire, St, 112 n.
Castiglione, Baldassare, 121
Catholik and Facile Traictise, 17
Catullus, 33

Caxton, William, 56, 58, 161, 162
Celtic Hell, 107
Chambers, Robert, 117
Chapman, George, 85, 88, 119
Charles I, 45 n.
Charteris, Henrie, 7, 14, 81
Charteris, Rev. Lawience, 17
Chaucer, 15, 20, 37, 40, 44, 59, 60, 70,

87, 105, 124, 150, 151, 152, 162,

163

247

248

Index

Cheke, Sir John, 153

Chepman and Myllar, 161

Christ's Kirk on the Green, 16, 18

Chronicon Slavorum, 42 n.

Church and Heathen Authors, 43

Cicero, 158

Clarendon, Lord, 133

Clark, Professor, 145

Classical Revival, 30

Cockburn, Bishop, 4 '

Colonne, Guido delle, 162

Columella, 29

Comment, The, 20, 54, 63, 132, 137,

146
Comparetti, Domenico, 42 n.
Complaynt of ScoUande, 6, 32, 82, 151
Complaynt of the King's Papyngo (and

Testament), 7, 8
Confessio Amantis, 35, 42 n.
Conington, John, 70
Conrad, Ciianceilor, 42 n.
Conrad, 145

Coastantinople, Fall of, 27
Copland, William, 9, 141
Cotterill, H. B., 91
Court of Love, 63
Court of Venus, 7
Courthope, W. J., 70, 74
Cowper, William, 79, 80
Craig, John, 156
Cranstoun (Cienstoun), David, 4
CuUen, Dr William, 154
Cyriac of Ancona, 26

D

Daniel, Hermann Adalbert, 112 n.
Dante, 27, 32, 44, 50, 77
Dares the Phrygian, 45, 70, 163
Deffensc et Illustration de la Langue

Frangoyse, 33
Dempster, Thomas, 6 n, 12, 17, 20, 22
Denliam, Sir John, 89
Derby, Lord, 89
Deschamps, Eustache, 102
Dialog betuix Experience and ane

Courtier, 72
Dictys of Crete, 45 n, 70, 163
Dido, 61, 63
Donne, John, 128
Dome, John, 157
Douce, Francis, 81
Douglas, Gawain —

his misfortune and place seeking, 1

date of death, 6, 14

and Nature, 28

and classics, 31

and vernacular, 34

Douglas Gawain (continued) —

his Apologia, 36

his Muse, 53, 106

bis renaissance moments, 54, 65

his originality, 55

and Mapheus, 57

methods, 59, 86

and ^neas, 60

and Lyndsay, 72, 73

influence on Latinity, 75

his purpose, 87

descriptive power, 94

sources of language, 154

vide Readings, Prologues, and
generally.
Dream of Oerontius, 52 n.
Drummond ot Hawthornden, 14, 23,

140
Drummond, Dr, 19
Dryden, John, 40, 61, 80, 81, 85, 87,

96, 98, 101, 120, 153
Du Fresne, Charles (du Cange), 19
Dunbar, William, 6, 22, 23, 30, 47 n.,
59, 66, 73, 75, 105, 109, 112, 117,
120, 134, 151, 159, 172
Dunbar, Gavin, 12
Dunkeld, Lyves of the Bishops of, 4
Duns, Joannes, 14
Dunton, John, 20 n.
Dyer, George, 23
Dyodorus, Syculus, 56

E

Eachard, John, 51

Easy Club, 18

Echard, Lawrence, 81

Elphynstoun, Bishop, 14, 42, 136, 16J

Elphynstoun, Joannes, 136

Elphyastoun, John of Innemoclity,

i36
Elphynstoun, William, 136
Elphynstoun MS., 24, 133, 135, 137,

144
Elyot, Sir Thomas, 155
English and Scots, 158
Enoch Arden, 45 n.
Epictetus, 162

Epitaph on Donald Oure, 172
Erasmus, 25, 50, 70
Erskine of Dun, 44
Eston, Adam, 157

F

Fail-fax Manuscript, 117
Fall of Princes, 162
Faniaisies Historiques, 42 n.

Index

249

Farmer, Dr Robert, 51, 161

Faust, 42 n.

Fawkes, Francis, 20

Fenelon, 51 n.

Picino, Massilio, 46

Flemmyng of Lincoln, 157

Fly ting of Durihar and Kennedy, 159

Fontaines, Abbe des, 90

Fordoun, John, 158, 159

Freebairn, Robert, 18

French, 152

Froiseart, 105

G
Gaelic, 159
Gale, Bishop, 130
Gardiner, Bishop. 155
Geddes, Matthew, 130, 131, 132, 145
Geddie, William, 24
Genealogia Deorvm, 54, 162
Gervase of Tilbury, 42 n.
Gesta Romanorum, 42 n., 162
Gibson, Edmund, 16
Gillies, John, 81
Gladstone, W. E., 121
Goethe, 46 n.
Googe, Barnabie, 8
Gower, John, 35, 42 n., 59, 161
Gowrie, Earl, 138
Gray, Gilbert, 11
Gray, Thomas, 22, 128
Greek in Scotland, 44, 157
Greek in England, 157
Gregory the Great, 43, 87
Oriselda, 27
Grosart, A. B., 8 n.
Grosteste, Bishop Robert, 26
Guarino, Veronese, 29
Guillaume de Roy, 56 n.
Gude and Oodlie Ballads, 117

H

Hamilton, John, 17

Hamilton, Archbishop, 52

Hamilton of Gilbertfield, 18

Hamilton, Patrick, 4

Harry the Minstrel (Blind Harry), 23,

120, 134, 159
Hay, William, 136
Heinsius, Daniel, 126
H61inand, 42 n.
Helenore : the Fortunate Shepherdess,

24 n.
Helmold, 42 n.
Henderson, T. F., 24, 70
Henley, W. E., 74 n.
Henry VIII, 3

Henry of Huntingdon, 158, 159
Henryson, Robert, 35, 40, 59, 65, 66,

73, 75, 80, 103, 105, 109, 113, 132,

134, 157, 172
Hepburn, Abbot George, 4
Hesiod, 107
Hey tufti taitie, 117
Hickes, Dr George, 16, 19
Hirtzel, Su- Arthur, 145
Historice ScoticoB N omendatura, 160
Historia de Bello Trojano, 162
Hoby, Sir Thomas, 155
Holinshed, Raphael, 11
Holland, Sir Richard, 109
Homer, 29, 45, 47, 78, 122
Horace, 41, 42 n.. 87
House of Fame, 63, 163
Huchowne, 134
Humanism, 48
Hume of Godscroft, 13
Hutchison, Professor, 154

I

Iceland, Latin in, 154

Incongruities, 83

Independence, Wars of, 160

Irenaeus, 155

" Irish," 160

Irvine, ChrL«topher, 160

Irving, David, 24

Jacobitism, 18
James I, 23, 65, 151
James IV, 158, 161
James V, 71
James VI, 29, 93
Jamieson, Dr John, 19
Jebb, Professor, R. C, 49
Jerome, St, 43, 50
Jesus, son of Sirach, 40 n.
John of Ireland, 156
John of Salisbury, 42 n.
Johnny Gihb of Gusheineuk, 172
Johnson, Dr Samuel, 79, 127
Joly, A., 45
Jonson, Ben, 174
Jowett, Pi'ofessor, 79
Junius, Franciscus, 15, 19
Juvenal, 80

Keats, John, 128

Keiths. Earls Mariscliai, 41

Kennedy, Walter, 59, 159

250

Index

Kinaston, Sir Francis, 9
King Hart, 65, 66
Kingis Quair, 75, 120, 15(t
Knox, John, 4, 17

Laing, David, 162
Lambeth MS., 137. 144, 146
Lancelot of the Laik, 55, 150, 174
Landinus, Cristoffero, 29, 54, 132, 161,

162
Lang. Andrew, 24, 63, 70, 71, 81. 90,

119, 122
Langland, William ("Robert"), 12,

27
Language and Influences, 149
Latinity in Scotland. 75, 154
Lauderdale, Earl of, 75 n.
Lee, Sidney, 123 n.
Legend of Dido, 70
Legend oj Oood Women, 60, 102
Leo X, Pope, 1, 3
Leonine Verse, 112
Leslie, Bishop, 11, 16,20
Letter oj Cupid, 63, 106, 119
Limbus, 51
L'isle, William, 14
Literary Language, 151
Lombard, Peter, 4
Lorris de, 31
Lucian, 158
Lucretius, 29

Lydgate, John, 42 n., 59, 162
Lyndsay, Sir David, 7, 14, 22, 72, 120,

161

M

Machault, G. de, 102

Machiavelli, Niccolo, 121

Macro bins, 41, 161

Maevius, 154

Maidment, James, 17

Major, John, 4, 5, 14, 65, 154 n.

Manuscripts and Readings, 124

Mapheus Vegius, 8, 57, 116

March, Earl of, 34

Marmion, 64

Masson, David, 19

Medici, Lorenzo de', 28, 32, 107, 113,

116
Meditations of Chylde Ypotia, 162
Menage, Giles, 19
Meung, Jean de, 31
Middleton, Conyers, 81
Milton, John, 35, 133, 173
Minto, Professor, 118

Mitford, John, 23
Montaigne, 75, 119
Montgomerie, Alexander, 115, 117
Morison of Perth, 22
Morley, Prof. Heiu-y, 119
Morte Arthure, 134
Mudy, Joannes, 139
Murray, Sir J. A. H., 149, 172
Myln, Abbot Alexander, 4, 20
MacDonald, George, 172
MacEwen, Prof. A., 3, 67
Mackenzie, Dr George, 17, 22
Mackenzie, "Bluidy," 168

N

Nationalism, Scottish, 17
Naude, Gabriel, 42
Neckham, Alexander, 42 n.
Neilson, W. A., 24
Nettleship, Prof. Henry, 145
Newman, Cardinal, 52 n.
Nicholas of Treves, 29
NichoUs, Rev. Norton, 22
Nicolson, Bishop, 16, 19. 130
Nott, John, 76, 102

O

Occleve, John. 03, 106, 119

Ogilby, John, 75 n.

Origen, 43

Orpheus and Eurydice, 132

Orygynalle Chronykil of Scotland, 40,

134
Otia Imperifilia, 42 n.
Ovid, 31, 32, 47, 87, 107, 113, 123

Palice of Honour, 35, 59, 65, 105, 140

Parlement of Foules, 44

Paston Letters, 162

Pencriche, Richard, 152

Peter Lombard, 4

Petrarch, 27, 29, 32, 42, 48, 157, 161,

162
Phaer, Thomas, 58
Philogenet of Cambridge, 63 n.
Pilgrimage of the Lyf of Manhode, 171
Pinkerton, John, 24
Plato, 29
Plautus, 29
Pletho-Gemisthus, 46
Poets, their Apologies, 40
Poggio, Bracciolini, 29, 30, 161

Index

251

Politian, Angelo Ambrogini, 28, 32,

84,92
Pomponazzo of Padua, 47
Pope, Alexander, 79, 83, 85
Printing, 161
Prologues, 13, 20, 21, 22, 23, 28, 37, 67,

103 et seq.
Propertius, 33
ProphetcB, 50
Prophetes du Christ, 50 n.
" Protestant " Readings, 141
Pulci, Bernardo, 28
Purgatory, 52
Puttenham, Richard, 153, 169

Q

Quare of Jelousy, 174
Quintilian, 29

R

Rabelais, Francois, 5 n., 30 n., 45 n.
Ramsay, Allan, 18
Ray, John, 19
Readings, Various, 124
Reformation, Anglic influence of, 17
Reginald of Durham, 158
Renaissance, 25, 26, 49
Reulis and Cautelis of Scottis Poesie, 29,

93
Revival of Learning, 26, 27, 30
Rhetoriqiieres, 32
Eibbeck, Otto, 145
Ritson, Joseph, 23
Rodocanachi, E., 42 n.
Roll, Richard, of Hampole, 149
Rolland, John, of Dalkeith, 7
Rolment of Courtes, 40 n.
Roman de la Rose, 31
Roman de Troie, 45 n., 162
Roscommon, Earl of, 89
Ross, John M., LL.D., 24
Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 41, 88, 92
Row, John, 158
Roy, Guillaume de, 56 n.
Ruddiman, Thomas, 15, 18, 20, 21, 24,

61, 140, 157 n.
Ruthven MS., 18, 134, 138, 144

Sad SJiepherd, 174
Sage, Bishop, 17, 19, 20
Sainte-Beuve, 51, 63, 69
St Gelais, Octavien de, 162
Sainte More, Benoit de, 162

Saintsbury, George, 57, 65

Sallust, 161

Savoy, Church of the, 2

Scotichronicon, 158

Scot, Sir Michael, 42 n,

Scots, Middle, 163

Scots Wha Hae, 117

Scott, Sir Walter, 24, 67 n., 86, 115

Scottish Catechism, 52 n.

Scottish Language, 150, 158

SeduUius, 14

Sellyngc, John de (Tilly), 157

Sepet, M., 50 n.

Serm^ contra Judceos, 50

Servius, 144, 154

Seven Sages, Book of the, 162

Shakespeare, 81, 126, 173

Shaw, Quintin, 59

Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 77, 128

Shepheard's Calendar, 22

Sibbald, James, 23

Sibbald, Sir Robert, 16, 19

Sidney, Sir Philip, 61, 121

Siege of Troy, 162

Silius Italicus, 29

Sinclair, Lord, 34, 45

Skeat, Professor, 120, 149

Skelton, John, 56

Skinner, Stephen, 19, 152

Small, Dr John, 19, 24, 60, 132, 136,

140
Smith, G. Gregory, 24, 132, 160
Solomon, 59
Sophocles, 127
Sortes Virgilianae, 45
Speght, Thomas, 8
Spelman, Sir Henry, 15, 19
Spenser, Edmund, 22, 128, 173
Speroni, Sperone, 33 n.
Spottiswoode, Bishop, 6
Statins, 29

Statutes of Scottish Churches, 36 n.
Stillingfleet, Bishop, 6 n.
Stone, Jerome, 21
Stuart, Alexander,
Sturm, Johannes, 155
Suetonius, 154
Surrey, Earl of, 76, 81
Sylvius, ^neas, 5
Syocerus, Nicolaus, 29

T

Tale of Troy, 162
Taymouth, Black Book of, 6
Tennyson, 45 n.
TertuUian, 43, 52
Terence, 161
Testament of Love, 34

252

Index

Testavieni of the Papyngo, 7, 8

Theocritus, 107

Thomas the Rhymer, 42 n.

Thompson, Professor, 79

Thorns, W. J., 42 n.

Thomson, James, 115

Thorp, Thomas, 8

Tibullus, 33

Tilly (de Sellynge), 157

Todd, Eyre, 24

Translation, 77, 93, 81, etc.

Trevisa, John de, 38, 92, 149, 152

Trionfi d'Amore, 163

Troj'es, Chretien de, 31

TroyluH and Creseide, 37 n., 44, 45

Tucca, 125, 145

Turriff, 136

Twyne, Thomas, 58

U

Urry, John, 19, 140
Usk, Thomas, 34 n.

Valla, Lorenzo, 59, 161

Varius, 125, 145

Vcgius, Maphcus, 8, 57. 116

Venturi, Pompeo, 50

Vergil, Polydore, 2, 5, 12, 20

Verruicular. Renaissance of, 31, 32

Verstegen, Richard, 152

Villey, Pierre, 33

Villon, Fran9ols, 30, 113

Vinci, Leonardo da, 104
Virgil —

and Churchmen, 42

medieval view of, 42

and Christianity, 43, 50

position, 44

and Petrarch, 44, 48

appeal to Douglas, 45

Douglas's view of, 50

and Limlius, 51

and Homer. 122

Readings. 125

Grsecisms, 153
Virgilio net Medio Eva, 42in.
Virgille, Les Faitz Merveilleux de. AS, n.
Voltaire. 90
Vossius, 19, 20

W

Ward, Professor, 152

Warton, Thomas, 21, 22

Williamson, Adam (Wyllyamson), 1, 3,

133
Winzet, Ninian, 17, 154
Wodrow, Robert, 17
Wolsey, Cardinal, 1, 2, 71
Worsley, Philip Stanliope, 90
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, 76
Wyntoun. Andrew of, 40, 134, 149,

158, 174

Zwingli, Ulrich, 141

a(

31^-77-1

Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process.
Neutralizing agent; Magnesium Oxide
Treatment Date: Feb. 2009

PreservationTechnologies

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION

111 Thomson Park Drive
Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066
(724)779-2111 _

•« I