Four Short Texts

Older Scots Reading 1

Chapter 7 · Four Short Texts

📜 Four Short Texts

I could not find a long passage for this chapter that a free source prints in Older Scots, so it reads four short ones instead: an inscription over a doorway, a sentence by a king, a line of 16th-century prose, and a line by one poet about another. Three of the four come with the source's own gloss, which gives you something to check your reading against.

A. Over a doorway

Source: Wikipedia, Scots language, "Early Scots" sample; the gloss is the article's.

1. Lufe is "love" with u in place of o, and abufe is "above" the same way; Chapter 1's table does not cover this swap of u for o, so it is my observation.
2. yi is "thy". The y stands for thorn, as in Chapter 1 and in the charter of Chapter 2. So yi nychtbour is "thy neighbour", and yi self is "thyself".
3. nychtbour uses ch for gh (Chapter 1), the sound spelled gh in neighbour. al is "all".

B. A king on poetry

Source: Wikipedia, Scots language; James VI, Reulis and Cautelis. The gloss is the article's.

1. albeit means "although", as in the gloss. sindrie is "sundry", here "several". hes written is "have written": a plural subject with hes; Middle English Grammar 1, Chapter 6 listed the Northern -es ending.
2. quhilk is "which" (quh-, Chapter 1) and lykest is "likest", the superlative, "most like". our and language need no help.
3. The king is saying that English is the language nearest to Scots. That is the article's gloss, not a claim I checked elsewhere.

C. A prose passage on Merlin

Source: Wikipedia, The Complaynt of Scotland, chapter 10, Merlin section. The page printed no translation for this passage; the reading below is mine and unverified.

My reading: "the prophecies of Merlin, to which the Englishmen give more credence than they give to the gospel".

1. giffis and gif are both "give". The same speaker uses -is after Inglishmen (a plural noun) and a bare gif after thai (a pronoun). I do not know a rule that explains this pattern from the sources I read, so I note it only.
2. thai is "they" (the th- form, Chapter 5). nor here appears to mean "than"; that is my reading from the sense, not something the article states.
3. confidens is "confidence"; here it seems to mean "trust, credence". evangel is "gospel", as I read it, from the Greek and Latin word behind evangelist.
4. Merlyne and Inglishmen have y for i, and prophesies keeps the older -ie-.

D. One poet about another

Source: Wikipedia, Robert Henryson, quoting Dunbar's Lament for the Makaris, lines 81 and 82. The article's only gloss is for hes done roune. The rest of the reading is mine.

My reading: "Death in Dunfermline has whispered in private with Master Robert Henryson", meaning that Henryson has died. The article uses the lines to place Henryson in Dunfermline; I did not read more than that.

1. hes done roune is a past construction with done, glossed by the article as "has whispered in private". It does not mean "has done a round" or anything else.
2. Maister is "Master", a title. Henrysoun ends in -soun, "-son", the same ou for o as in the charter's spellings (Chapter 2).
3. The two lines rhyme: roune / Henrysoun.
4. Chapter 4 read the refrain and lines 17 to 24 of this same poem. Lines 81 and 82 are the ones where Dunbar names Henryson, whom Chapter 5 read.

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