This was a man of the true and sovereign seed of genius. Sir Walter Scott calls Dunbar 'a poet unrivalled by any—that Scotland has ever produced.' We venture to call him the Dante of Scotland; nay, we question if any English poet has surpassed 'The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins through Hell' in its peculiarly Dantesque qualities of severe and purged grandeur; of deep sincerity, and in that air of moral disappointment and sorrow, approaching despair, which distinguished the sad-hearted lover of Beatrice, who might almost have exclaimed, with one yet mightier than he in his misery and more miserable in his might,
'Where'er I am is Hell—myself am Hell.'
Foster, in an entry in his journal, (we quote from memory,) says, 'I have just seen the moon rising, and wish the impression to be eternal. What a look she casts upon earth, like that of a celestial being who loves our planet still, but has given up all hope of ever doing her any good or seeing her become any better—so serene she seems in her settled and unutterable sadness.' Such, we have often fancied, was the feeling of the great Florentine toward the world, and which—pained, pitying, yearning enthusiast that he was!—escaped irresistibly from those deep- set eyes, that adamantine jaw, and that brow, wearing the laurel, proudly yet painfully, as if it were a crown of everlasting fire! Dunbar was not altogether a Dante, either in melancholy or in power, but his 'Dance' reveals kindred moods, operating at times on a kindred genius.
In Dante humour existed too, but ere it could come up from his deep nature to the surface, it must freeze and stiffen into monumental scorn —a laughter that seemed, while mocking at all things else, to mock at its own mockery most of all. Aird speaks in his 'Demoniac,' of a smile upon his hero's brow,
'Like the lightning of a hope about to DIE
For ever from the furrow'd brows of Hell's Eternity.'
Dante's smile may rather be compared to the RISING of a false and self- detected hope upon the lost brows where it is never to come to dawn, and where, nevertheless, it remains for ever, like a smile carved upon a sepulchre. Dunbar has a more joyous disposition than his Italian prototype and master, and he indulges himself to the top of his bent, but in a style (particularly in his 'Twa Married Women and the Widow,' and in 'The Friars of Berwick,' which is not, however, quite certainly his) too coarse and prurient for the taste of this age.
'The Merle and the Nightingale' is one of the finest of Moelibean poems. Beautiful is the contest between the two sweet singers as to whether the love of man or the love of God be the nobler, and more beautiful still their reconciliation, when
'Then sang they both with voices loud and clear,
The Merle sang, "Man, love God that has thee wrought."
The Nightingale sang, "Man, love the Lord most dear,
That thee and all this world made of nought."
The Merle said, "Love him that thy love has sought
From heaven to earth, and here took flesh and bone."
The Nightingale sang. "And with his death thee bought:
All love is lost, but upon him alone."
'Then flew these birds over the boughis sheen,
Singing of love among the leaves small.'
William Dunbar is said to have been born about the year 1465. He received his education at St Andrews, and took there the degree of M.A. in 1479. He became then a friar of the Franciscan order, (Grey Friars,) and in the exercise of his profession seems to have rambled over all Scotland, England, and France, preaching, begging, and, according to his own confession, cheating, lying, and cajoling. Yet if this kind of life was not propitious, in his case, to morality, it must have been to the development of the poetic faculty. It enabled him to see all varieties of life and of scenery, although here and there, in his verses, you find symptoms of that bitterness which is apt to arise in the heart of a wanderer. He was subsequently employed by James IV. in some official work connected with various foreign embassies, which led him to Spain, Italy, and Germany, as well as England and France. This proves that he was no less a man of business-capacity and habits than a poet. For these services he, in 1500, received from the King a pension of ten pounds, afterwards increased to twenty, and, in fine, to eighty. He is said to have been employed in the negotiations preparatory to the marriage of James with Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII., which took place in 1503, and which our poet celebrated in his verses, 'The Thistle and the Rose.' He continued ever afterwards in the Court, hovering in position between a laureate and a court-fool, charming James with his witty conversation as well as his verses, but refused the benefices for which he petitioned, and gradually devoured by chagrin and disappointment. Seldom has genius so great been placed in a falser position, and this has given a querulous tinge to many of his poems. He seems to have died about 1520. Even after his death, misfortune pursued him. His works were, with the exception of two or three pieces, locked up in an obscure MS. till the middle of last century. Since then, however, their fame has been still increasing. In 1834, Mr David Laing, so favourably known as one of our first antiquarians, published a complete and elaborate edition of Dunbar's works; and in a newspaper this very day (May 23) we see another edition announced, in a popular and modernised shape, of the poetry of this great old Scottish Makkar.
THE DANCE OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS THROUGH HELL.
I.
Of Februar' the fifteenth night,
Full long before the dayis light,
I lay into a trance;
And then I saw both Heaven and Hell;
Methought among the fiendis fell,
Mahoun[1] gart[2] cry a Dance,
Of shrewis[3] that were never shrevin,[4]
Against the feast of Fastern's even,
To make their observÀnce:
He bade gallants go graith[5] a guise,[6]
And cast up gamounts[7] in the skies,
As varlets do in France.
II.
* * * * *
Holy harlottis in hautane[8] wise,
Came in with many sundry guise,
But yet laugh'd never MahÒun,
Till priests came in with bare shaven necks,
Then all the fiends laugh'd and made gecks,[9]
Black-Belly and Bawsy-Broun.[10]
* * * * *
III.
'Let's see,' quoth he, 'now who begins:'
With that the foul Seven Deadly Sins
Began to leap at anis.[11]
And first of all in dance was Pride,
With hair wyld[12] back, and bonnet on side,
Like to make wasty weanis;[13]
And round about him, as a wheel,
Hang all in rumples to the heel,
His kethat[14] for the nanis.[15]
Many proud trompour[16] with him tripped,
Through scalding fire aye as they skipped,
They girn'd[17] with hideous granis.[18]
IV.
Then Ire came in with sturt[19] and strife,
His hand was aye upon his knife,
He brandish'd like a beir;
Boasters, braggers, and barganeris,[20]
After him passed into pairis,[21]
All bodin in feir of weir.[22]
In jackis, scripis, and bonnets of steel,
Their legs were chenyiet[23] to the heel,
Froward was their affeir,[24]
Some upon other with brands beft,[25]
Some jaggit[26] others to the heft[27]
With knives that sharp could shear.
V.
Next in the dance follow'd Envy,
Fill'd full of feud and felony,
Hid malice and despite,
For privy hatred that traitor trembled;
Him follow'd many freik[28] dissembled,
With feigned wordis white.
And flatterers into men's faces,
And backbiters in secret places
To lie that had delight,
And rowneris[29] of false lesÌngs;[30]
Alas, that courts of noble kings
Of them can never be quite![31]
VI.
Next him in dance came Covetice,
Root of all evil and ground of vice,
That never could be content,
Caitiffs, wretches, and ockerars,[32]
Hood-pikes,[33] hoarders, and gatherers,
All with that warlock went.
Out of their throats they shot on other
Hot molten gold, methought, a fother,[34]
As fire-flaucht[35] most fervÈnt;
Aye as they tumit[36] them of shot,
Fiends fill'd them new up to the throat
With gold of all kind prent.[37]
VII.
Syne[38] Sweirness[39] at the second bidding
Came like a sow out of a midding,[40]
Full sleepy was his grunyie.[41]
Many sweir bumbard[42] belly-huddroun,[43]
Many slute daw[44] and sleepy duddroun,[45]
Him served aye with sounyie.[46]
He drew them forth into a chenyie,[47]
And Belial with a bridle-rennyie,[48]
Ever lash'd them on the lunyie.[49]
In dance they were so slow of feet
They gave them in the fire a heat,
And made them quicker of counyie.[50]
VIII.
Then Lechery, that loathly corse,
Came bearing like a bagged horse,[51]
And Idleness did him lead;
There was with him an ugly sort[52]
And many stinking foul tramort,[53]
That had in sin been dead.
When they were enter'd in the dance,
They were full strange of countenance,
Like torches burning reid.
* * * * *
IX.
Then the foul monster Gluttony,
Of wame[54] insatiable and greedy,
To dance he did him dress;
Him followed many a foul drunkÀrt
With can and collep, cop and quart,[55]
In surfeit and excess.
Full many a waistless wally-drag[56]
With wames unwieldable did forth drag,
In creish[57] that did incress;
Drink, aye they cried, with many a gape,
The fiends gave them hot lead to laip,[58]
Their leveray[59] was no less.
X.
* * * * *
No minstrels play'd to them but[60] doubt,
For gleemen there were holden out,
By day and eke by night,
Except a minstrel that slew a man;
So till his heritage he wan,[61]
And enter'd by brief of right.
* * * * *
XI.
Then cried Mahoun for a Highland padyane,[62]
Syne ran a fiend to fetch Mac Fadyane,[63]
Far northward in a nook,
By he the Correnoch had done shout,[64]
Ersch-men[65] so gather'd him about
In hell great room they took:
These termagants, with tag and tatter,
Full loud in Ersch began to clatter,
And roup[66] like raven and rook.
The devil so deaved[67] was with their yell,
That in the deepest pot of hell
He smored[68] them with smoke.
[1] 'Mahoun:' the devil. [2] 'Gart:' caused. [3] 'Shrewis:' sinners. [4] 'Shrevin:' confessed. [5] 'Graith:' prepare. [6] 'Guise:' masque. [7] 'Gamounts:' dances. [8] 'Hautane:' haughty. [9] 'Gecks:' mocks. [10] 'Black-Belly and Bawsy-Broun:' names of spirits. [11] 'Anis:' once. [12] 'Wyld:' combed. [13] 'Wasty weanis:' wasteful children. [14] 'Kethat:' cassock. [15] 'Nanis:' nonce. [16] 'Trompour:' impostor. [17] 'Girn'd:' grinned. [18] 'Granis:' groans. [19] 'Sturt:' violence. [20] 'Barganeris:' bullies. [21] 'Into pairis:' in pairs. [22] 'Bodin in feir of weir:' arrayed in trappings of war. [23] 'Chenyiet:' covered with chain-mail. [24] 'Affeir:' aspect. [25] 'Beft:' struck. [26] 'Jaggit:' stabbed. [27] 'Heft:' hilt. [28] 'Freik:' fellows. [29] 'Rowneris:' whisperers. [30] 'LesÌngs:' lies. [31] 'Quite:' quit. [32] 'Ockerars:' usurers. [33] 'Hood-pikes:' misers. [34] 'Fother:' quantity. [35] 'Flaucht:' flake. [36] 'Tumit:' emptied. [37] 'Prent:' stamp. [38] 'Syne:' then. [39] 'Sweirness:' laziness. [40] 'Midding:' dunghill. [41] 'Grunyie:' grunt. [42] 'Bumbard:' indolent. [43] 'Belly-huddroun:' gluttonous sloven. [44] 'Slute daw:' slovenly drab. [45] 'Duddroun:' sloven. [46] 'Sounyie:' care. [47] 'Chenyie:' chain. [48] 'Rennyie:' rein. [49] 'Lunyie:' back. [50] 'Counyie:' apprehension. [51] 'Bagged horse:' stallion. [52] 'Sort:' number. [53] 'Tramort:' corpse. [54] 'Wame:' belly. [55] 'Can and collep, cop and quart:' different names of drinking-vessels. [56] 'Wally-drag:' sot. [57] 'Creish:' grease. [58] 'Laip:' lap. [59] 'Leveray:' desire to drink. [60] 'But:' without. [61] 'Wan:' got. [62] 'Padyane:' pageant. [63] 'Mac Fadyane:' name of some Highland laird. [64] 'By he the Correnoch had done shout:' by the time that he had raised the Correnoch, or cry of help. [65] 'Ersch-men:' Highlanders. [66] 'Roup:' croak. [67] 'Deaved:' deafened. [68] 'Smored:' smothered.
THE MERLE AND NIGHTINGALE.
In May, as that Aurora did upspring,
With crystal een[1] chasing the cluddËs sable,
I heard a Merle[2] with merry notËs sing
A song of love, with voice right comfortÁble,
Against the orient beamis, amiable,
Upon a blissful branch of laurel green;
This was her sentence, sweet and delectable,
'A lusty life in LovË's service been.'
Under this branch ran down a river bright,
Of balmy liquor, crystalline of hue,
Against the heavenly azure skyis light,
Where did upon the other side pursue
A Nightingale, with sugar'd notËs new,
Whose angel feathers as the peacock shone;
This was her song, and of a sentence true,
'All love is lost but upon God alone.'
With notËs glad, and glorious harmony,
This joyful merle, so salust[3] she the day,
While rung the woodis of her melody,
Saying, 'Awake, ye lovers of this May;
Lo, fresh Flora has flourish'd every spray,
As nature, has her taught, the noble queen,
The fields be clothed in a new array;
A lusty life in LovË's service been.'
Ne'er sweeter noise was heard with living man,
Than made this merry gentle nightingale;
Her sound went with the river as it ran,
Out through the fresh and flourish'd lusty vale;
'O Merle!' quoth she, 'O fool! stint of thy tale,
For in thy song good sentence is there none,
For both is tint,[4] the time and the travail,
Of every love but upon God alone.'
'Cease,' quoth the Merle, 'thy preaching, Nightingale:
Shall folk their youth spend into holiness?
Of young saintis, grow old fiendis, but[5] fable;
Fy, hypocrite, in yearis' tenderness,
Against the law of kind[6] thou goes express,
That crooked age makes one with youth serene,
Whom nature of conditions made diverse:
A lusty life in LovË's service been.'
The Nightingale said, 'Fool, remember thee,
That both in youth and eild,[7] and every hour,
The love of God most dear to man should be;
That him, of nought, wrought like his own figour,
And died himself, from death him to succour;
Oh, whether was kythit[8] there true love or none?
He is most true and steadfast paramour,
And love is lost but upon him alone.'
The Merle said, 'Why put God so great beauty
In ladies, with such womanly havÍng,
But if he would that they should loved be?
To love eke nature gave them inclinÍng,
And He of nature that worker was and king,
Would nothing frustir[9] put, nor let be seen,
Into his creature of his own making;
A lusty life in LovË's service been.'
The Nightingale said, 'Not to that behoof
Put God such beauty in a lady's face,
That she should have the thank therefor or love,
But He, the worker, that put in her such grace;
Of beauty, bounty, riches, time, or space,
And every goodness that been to come or gone
The thank redounds to him in every place:
All love is lost but upon God alone.'
'O Nightingale! it were a story nice,
That love should not depend on charity;
And, if that virtue contrar' be to vice,
Then love must be a virtue, as thinks me;
For, aye, to love envy must contrar' be:
God bade eke love thy neighbour from the spleen;[10]
And who than ladies sweeter neighbours be?
A lusty life in LovË's service been.'
The Nightingale said, 'Bird, why does thou rave?
Man may take in his lady such delight,
Him to forget that her such virtue gave,
And for his heaven receive her colour white:
Her golden tressed hairis redomite,[11]
Like to Apollo's beamis though they shone,
Should not him blind from love that is perfite;
All love is lost but upon God alone.'
The Merle said, 'Love is cause of honour aye,
Love makis cowards manhood to purchase,
Love makis knightis hardy at essay,
Love makis wretches full of largËness,
Love makis sweir[12] folks full of business,
Love makis sluggards fresh and well beseen,[13]
Love changes vice in virtuous nobleness;
A lusty life in LovË's service been.'
The Nightingale said, 'True is the contrary;
Such frustis love it blindis men so far,
Into their minds it makis them to vary;
In false vain-glory they so drunken are,
Their wit is went, of woe they are not 'ware,
Till that all worship away be from them gone,
Fame, goods, and strength; wherefore well say I dare,
All love is lost but upon God alone.'
Then said the Merle, 'Mine error I confess:
This frustis love is all but vanity:
Blind ignorance me gave such hardiness,
To argue so against the verity;
Wherefore I counsel every man that he
With love not in the fiendis net be tone,[14]
But love the love that did for his love die:
All love is lost but upon God alone.'
Then sang they both with voices loud and clear,
The Merle sang, 'Man, love God that has thee wrought.'
The Nightingale sang, 'Man, love the Lord most dear,
That thee and all this world made of nought.'
The Merle said, 'Love him that thy love has sought
From heaven to earth, and here took flesh and bone.'
The Nightingale sang, 'And with his death thee bought:
All love is lost but upon him alone.'
Then flew these birds over the boughis sheen,
Singing of love among the leavËs small;
Whose eidant plead yet made my thoughtis grein,[15]
Both sleeping, waking, in rest and in travail;
Me to recomfort most it does avail,
Again for love, when love I can find none,
To think how sung this Merle and Nightingale;
'All love is lost but upon God alone.'
[1] 'Een:' eyes. [2] 'Merle:' blackbird. [3] 'Salust:' saluted. [4] 'Tint:' lost. [5] 'But:' without. [6] 'Kind:' nature. [7] 'Eild:' age. [8] 'Kythit:' shewn. [9] 'Frustrir:' in vain. [10] 'Spleen:' from the heart. [11] 'Redomite:' bound, encircled. [12] 'Sweir:' slothful. [13] 'Well beseen:' of good appearance. [14] 'Tone:' taken. [15] 'Whose eidant plead yet made my thoughtis grein:' whose close disputation made my thoughts yearn.
