Dunbar's Lament
Older Scots Reading 1
Chapter 4 · Dunbar's Lament
📜 Dunbar's Lament
This chapter replaces the planned Wyntoun. Wikipedia's articles on Andrew of Wyntoun quote no Scots lines at all, so I looked for a verse text I could verify and found one in the article on William Dunbar's Lament for the Makaris, a poem about Death taking everyone, poets included. It is a grim subject, but the language is clear and the lines are short.
The text
| Line | Older Scots | Gloss (mine) |
|---|---|---|
| 17 | On to the ded gois all estatis, | Unto the dead go all estates (ranks), |
| 18 | Princis, prelotis, and potestatis, | princes, prelates and potentates, |
| 19 | Baith riche and pur of al degre; | both rich and poor of every degree; |
| 20 | Timor mortis conturbat me. | (Latin) fear of death troubles me. |
| 21 | He takis the knychtis in to feild, | He takes the knights into the field, |
| 22 | Anarmit under helme and scheild; | armed under helmet and shield; |
| 23 | Victour he is at all mellie; | victor he is in every battle; |
| 24 | Timor mortis conturbat me. | (Latin) fear of death troubles me. |
Source: Wikipedia, Lament for the Makaris, the extract the article cites as lines 17 to 24, as the page tool gave them. The article prints no translation; it glosses a few words through links: ded links to "dead", estatis to "the Estates", mellie to "battle". The Latin refrain's translation, "fear of death troubles me", is the article's. The article quoted the refrain twice in the extract, and I placed it at lines 20 and 24 from that; the line numbers 20 and 24 are my placement. The glosses are mine and unverified.
The rhymes: estatis / potestatis (lines 17 and 18), degre / me (19 and 20), feild / scheild (21 and 22), mellie / me (23 and 24). So the Latin refrain rhymes with the Scots line before it. That is my observation.
Walking through it
- Plural nouns in -is. estatis, Princis, prelotis, potestatis and knychtis all carry the plural -is that Chapter 1 described.
- Present endings in -is. gois ("go") has the plural subject all estatis, and takis ("takes") has the singular He. The first fits the Northern -es plural of Middle English Grammar 1, Chapter 6; the second fits the 3rd singular -es variant there. Both are my readings.
- The pronoun and the subject. He in line 21 is Death, the subject of the poem. The article says only that the refrain is about fear of death; reading He as Death is my inference from the sense.
- Baith. This is the Scots form of the word both. Middle English Grammar 1, Chapter 9 listed both among the words from Norse (baðir), so Baith is the same word.
- Participle. Anarmit ends in -it, the Scottish past ending of Chapter 1. It sits before under helme and scheild, so I read it as "armed". It looks like "unarmed", but the sense does not fit.
- Letters. scheild has sch- for sh-. knychtis has ch for gh. feild and scheild have ei where we write ie.
- The article. the, with th, not thorn; this text prints no thorn at all in these lines, though other texts in the course do. The sources do not say why.
- The unglossed words. pur ("poor"), riche, degre ("degree"), helme and Victour are my readings from the sense and from Modern English. riche ends in -e where a plural-adjective rule would predict it, but the rule from Middle English Grammar 1, Chapter 4 was for Middle English, and I do not know if it applies in Scots.
Other lines the article quotes
| Older Scots | What the article gives |
|---|---|
| That scorpion fell hes done infek, / Maister Johne Clerk, and James Afflek, | From the commentary; fell links to "terrible". No translation. hes ends in -s with a singular subject. |
| Fra balat making and tragidie | balat links to "ballad" and tragidie to "tragedy"; the article adds that in Scotland at that time "tragedy" meant any story, play or poem with a sorrowful or disastrous outcome. |
These are fragments of other stanzas. I do not know their position in the poem, and the article gives no translation, so I read nothing more into them.
New words
| Older Scots | Meaning | Modern English relative |
|---|---|---|
| ded | the dead | dead |
| estatis | estates, ranks | estates |
| prelotis | prelates, high churchmen (my reading) | prelates |
| potestatis | potentates, rulers (my reading) | potestates (archaic) |
| baith | both | both |
| pur | poor | poor |
| knychtis | knights | knights |
| mellie | battle, melee | melee |
Try It Yourself
Say the answer first, then click to check.
1. Who wrote the poem, and about when?
Show answer
William Dunbar, about 1505.
2. What does the Latin refrain mean, and is it Scots?
Show answer
"Fear of death troubles me"; it is Latin, not Scots.
3. Translate Baith riche and pur of al degre.
Show answer
"Both rich and poor of every degree."
4. Which plural nouns in lines 17 and 18 end in -is?
Show answer
estatis, Princis, prelotis, potestatis.
5. What do gois and takis have in common?
Show answer
Both end in -is, a present-tense ending: gois with a plural subject, takis with a singular one.
6. What is the link between Baith and Middle English Grammar 1, Chapter 9?
Show answer
Both was listed there as a Norse word (baðir); Baith is the Scots form.
7. Why is Anarmit read as "armed"?
Show answer
It is followed by under helme and scheild, so the sense needs "armed"; it ends in the past -it.
8. What does mellie mean?
Show answer
"Battle", as the article's link has it.
9. Which pairs of words rhyme in lines 19 to 24?
Show answer
degre / me, feild / scheild, and mellie / me.
10. Why does this chapter replace Wyntoun?
Show answer
The articles on Wyntoun quote no Scots lines, so no text could be verified.