The Brus
Older Scots Reading 1
Chapter 3 · The Brus
📜 The Brus
The first verse of the course is a poet explaining why true stories are better than made-up ones. That makes it easy to follow, because the argument is plain and the lines come in rhyming pairs. Wikipedia's article on the poem prints about thirty lines of this proem. The page tool gave me the first sixteen, and no translation, so the glosses are mine.
The text
| Line | Older Scots | Gloss (mine) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Storyß to rede ar delitabill, | Stories to read are delightful, |
| 2 | suppoß þat þai be nocht bot fabill, | even if they be nothing but fable, |
| 3 | þan suld storyß þat suthfast wer, | then should stories that truthful were, |
| 4 | And þai war said on gud maner, | and they were told in a good manner, |
| 5 | Hawe doubill plesance in heryng. | have double pleasure in hearing. |
| 6 | þe fyrst plesance is þe carpyng, | The first pleasure is the telling, |
| 7 | And þe toþir þe suthfastnes, | and the other the truthfulness, |
| 8 | þat schawys þe thing rycht as it wes; | that shows the thing right as it was; |
| 9 | And suth thyngis þat ar likand | and true things that are pleasing |
| 10 | Tyll mannys heryng ar plesand. | to man's hearing are pleasant. |
| 11 | þarfor I wald fayne set my will, | Therefore I would gladly set my will, |
| 12 | Giff my wyt mycht suffice þartill, | if my wit might suffice thereto, |
| 13 | To put in wryt a suthfast story, | to put in writing a truthful story, |
| 14 | þat it lest ay furth in memory, | that it last for ever on in memory, |
| 15 | Swa þat na length of tyme it let, | so that no length of time hinder it, |
| 16 | na ger it haly be forȝet. | nor make it wholly be forgotten. |
Source: Wikipedia, The Brus, the Text section, proem lines 1 to 16, as the page tool gave them. The article links a modern English translation by George Eyre-Todd as an external reference but prints none, so every gloss here is mine and unverified. Some words (carpyng, ger, let, likand) are readings from the sense. The article's famous line, "A! fredome is a noble thing", is quoted in its Background section and is not in these sixteen lines.
The lines rhyme in pairs: delitabill / fabill, wer / maner, heryng / carpyng, suthfastnes / wes, likand / plesand, will / þartill, story / memory, let / forȝet. That is my observation. It means you can often work out an unfamiliar word from the word it rhymes with.
Walking through it
- Letters. Thorn (þat, þan, þe), yogh in forȝet, and ch for gh in rycht, mycht and nocht (Chapter 1). schawys has sch- for sh-. The article prints ß at the end of Storyß and suppoß; I cannot say what character that is in the manuscript, and I read Storyß as a plural, "stories".
- Participle and verbal noun. This text shows the contrast Chapter 1 described. heryng and carpyng end in -yng and are nouns ("hearing", "telling"). likand and plesand end in -and and work as adjectives ("pleasing", "pleasant"), which is what a present participle does.
- Present endings. schawys ends in -ys with a singular relative subject, a 3rd singular ending like the -es variant of Middle English Grammar 1, Chapter 6. is and ar ("are") are forms of be; Chapter 7 gave aren, so ar is a spelling variant (my reading).
- Past of be. wes (line 8), war (line 4) and wer (line 3) all appear. Chapter 7 gave was and weren. The sources do not say when Barbour chose which, so I only note that war and wer have plural subjects here (þai, storyß) and wes a singular one.
- Modals. suld ("should"), wald ("would"), mycht ("might"). Chapter 7 gave scholde, wolde, mighte. The Scots forms keep a vowel (u, a) where Chapter 7's forms have o or i; that is my observation.
- Nouns. thyngis carries the plural -is. mannys is a genitive with -ys (Chapter 2 of Middle English Grammar 1; Chapter 1 here).
- Pronouns. þai ("they") begins with þ like the Norse line of Chapter 5's table (þei); I take it as a spelling of that line, my reading. it and my are as expected.
- Little words. Giff is "if", the same word as gif in Chapter 2. Swa ("so") and na ("no" in line 15, "nor" in line 16) echo sa and na in the 1379 charter.
- Spelling of have. Hawe is "have" with w where we write v. Chapter 1 listed u, v and w as interchangeable.
New words
| Older Scots | Meaning | Modern English relative |
|---|---|---|
| delitabill | delightful | delightful |
| fabill | fable | fable |
| suthfast | truthful | soothfast (archaic, my knowledge) |
| plesance | pleasure | pleasance (archaic) |
| carpyng | telling (my reading) | carp (not the same sense) |
| toþir | the other | the tother |
| fayne | gladly | fain |
| wyt | wit, intelligence | wit |
| wryt | writing | writ |
| lest ay | lasts for ever | last, aye |
| haly | wholly | wholly |
Try It Yourself
Say the answer first, then click to check.
1. Who wrote The Brus, and about when?
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John Barbour, about 1375.
2. Translate line 1.
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"Stories to read are delightful."
3. What are the two pleasures of a true story, according to lines 5 to 8?
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The telling (carpyng) and the truth (suthfastnes), which shows things as they were.
4. Which two words end in -and as participles-turned-adjectives?
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likand and plesand.
5. Which two words end in -yng as nouns?
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heryng and carpyng.
6. What does schawys tell you about its subject?
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It is third person singular: "(the other) that shows".
7. Give the Scots words for "should", "would" and "might" in these lines.
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suld, wald, mycht.
8. Which three forms of "was/were" appear, and which does each go with?
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wes with the singular it (line 8); war with þai (line 4); wer with storyß (line 3).
9. Which pair of words rhymes in lines 3 and 4?
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wer and maner.
10. Does the article print a translation of the proem?
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No. It links one by George Eyre-Todd as an external reference only.