I that in heill wes and gladnes,
Am trublit now with gret seiknes
And feblit with infermite;
    Timor mortis conturbat me.

Our plesance heir is all vane glory.
This fals warld is bot transitory,
The felsch is brukle, the fend is sle;
    Timor mortis conturbat me.

The stait of man dois change and vary,
Now sound, now seik, now blith, now sary,
Now dansand mery, now like to dee;
    Timor mortis conturbat me.

1. heill, health 7. brukle, frail, fend, fiend, sle, cunning 10 sary, wretched

from Lament for the Makaris

Re-inventing Scottish poetry in the twentieth century, Hugh MacDiarmid's war cry was: 'Not Burns - Dunbar!' With it, he celebrated William Dunbar (1460?-1520?) as 'in many ways the most modern, as he is the most varied, of Scottish poets'. His verve, wit, metrical skill, malice and elegiac power made him one of the greatest poet of the fifteenth century and a defining Scottish poet of all time.

A priest for most of his adult life, he saw himself, perhaps more than most of his literary contemporaries, as a professional poet rather than a cleric and took pride in the exercise of his craft, reminding the King, his employer, of the unwisdom of neglecting to reward poets. He was influenced as much by Villon as by Chaucer and drew on mediaeval traditions which in his hands are made serviceable one last time - vivid, challenging, expressive.

More than any other mediaeval poet, Dunbar speaks to us in accents which we recognise today. 'Whatever your taste, pious, gay, melancholy, bawdy, he will write a poem for you, apt and elegant', said W.H.Auden. Poems of all these kinds are included in this selection.

Dr Harriet Harvey-Wood read English and Mediaeval Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She joined the British Council in 1973, becoming Literature Director until her retirement in 1994. She is currently working on a biography of John Gibson Lockhart. She was a judge of the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1992 and was appointed OBE in 1993.

Table of Contents

Introduction

References and Abbreviations



Dunbar at Oxinforde

The Thrissil and the Rois

On His Heid-Ake

How Dunbar Was Desyrd to be Ane Frier

Complaint to the King Aganis Mure

And his Awin Ennemy

The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie

Meditatioun in Wyntir

Of Discretioun in Asking

Of Discretioun in Geving

Of Discretioun in Taking

Remonstrance to the King

To the King, That he war Johne Thomsounis Man

To the Lordis of the Kingis Chalker

To the King

In This Warld May None Assure

The Petition of the Gray Horse, Auld Dunbar

A Brash of Wowing

Of a Dance in the Quenis Chamber

Of James Dog, Kepair of the Quenis Wardrep

Of the Said James, quhen he had plesett him

The Fenzzeit Freir of Tungland

the Testament of Mr. Andro Kennedy

The Dregy of Dunbar

To the Merchantis of Edinburgh

The Twa Cummeris

The Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo

'Quhat is this lyfe'

'Sweit rois of vertew'

Inconstancy of Luve

Fasternis Erin in Hell

   The Dance of the Sevin Deidly Synnis

   The Sowtar and Tailzouris War

   The Amendis to the Tailzouris and Sowtaris

All Erdly Joy Returnis in Pane

Lament for the Makaris

Ane Ballat of Our Lady

Of the Nativitie of Christ

On the Resurrection of Christ



Notes