English Literature For Boys And Girls by H.E. Marshall

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It was not long ere the King's hiding-place was found, and one of
the traitors leaped down beside him with a great knife in his
hand. "And the King, doubting him for his life, caught him
mightily by the shoulders, and with full great violence cast him
under his feet. For the King was of his person and stature a man
right manly strong."*

*The same.

Seeing this, another traitor leaped down to help his fellow.
"And the King caught him manly by the neck, both under him that
all a long month after men might see how strongly the King had
holden them by the throats."*

*The same.

Fiercely the King struggled with his enemies, trying to wrench
their knives from them so that he might defend himself. But it
was in vain. Seeing him grow weary a third traitor, the King's
greatest enemy, Robert Grahame, leaped down too into the vault,
"with a horrible and mortal weapon in his hand, and therewithal
he smote him through the body, and therewithal the good King fell
down."*

*The same.

And thus the poet King died with sixteen wounds in his brave
heart and many more in his body. So at the long last our story
has a sad ending. But we have to remember that for twelve years
King James had a happy life, and that as he had loved his lady at
the first so he loved her to the end, and was true to her.

Besides The King's Quair, there are a few other short poems which
some people think King James wrote. They are very different from
the Quair, being more like the ballads of the people, and most
people think now that James did not write them. But because they
are different is no real reason for thinking that they are not
his. For James was quite clever enough, we may believe, to write
in more than one way.

Besides these doubtful poems, there is one other poem of three
verses about which no one has any doubt. I will give you one
verse here, for it seems in tune with the King's own life and
sudden death.

"Be not our proud in thy prosperite,
Be not o'er proud in thy prosperity,
For as it cumis, sa will it pass away;
For as it comes, so will it pass away;
Thy tym to compt is short, thou may weille se
Thy time to count is short, thou mayst well see
For of green gres soyn cumis walowit hay,
For of green grass soon cometh withered hay,
Labour is trewth, quhill licht is of the day.
Labour in truth, while light is of the day.
Trust maist in God, for he best gyd thee can,
Trust most in God, for he best guide thee can,
And for ilk inch he wil thee quyt a span."
And for each inch he will thee requite a span.

BOOKS TO READ

An illustration of this chapter may be read in The Fair Maid of
Perth, by Sir Walter Scott; The King's Tragedy (poetry), by D. G.
Rossetti in his Poetical Works. The best version of The King's
Quair in the ancient text is by W. W. Skeat.

Chapter XXX DUNBAR--THE WEDDING OF THE THISTLE AND THE ROSE

THE fifteenth century, the century in which King James I reigned
and died, has been called the "Golden Age of Scottish Poetry,"
because of the number of poets who lived and wrote then. And so,
although I am only going to speak of one other Scottish poet at
present, you must remember that there were at this time many
more. But of them all William Dunbar is counted the greatest.
And although I do not think you will care to read his poems for a
very long time to come, I write about him here both because he
was a great poet and because with one of his poems, The Thistle
and the Rose, he takes us back, as it were, over the Border into
England once more.

William Dunbar was perhaps born in 1460 and began his life when
James III began his reign. He was of noble family, but there is
little to know about his life, and as with Chaucer, what we learn
about the man himself we learn chiefly from his writing. We
know, however, that he went to the University of St. Andrews, and
that it was intended that he should go into the Church. In those
days in Scotland there were only two things a gentleman might be
- either he must be a soldier or a priest. Dunbar's friends,
perhaps seeing that he was fond of books, thought it best to make
him a priest. But indeed he had made a better soldier. For a
time, however, although he was quite unsuited for such a life, he
became a friar. As a preaching friar he wandered far.

"For in every town and place
Of all England from Berwick to Calais,
I have in my habit made good cheer.
In friar's weed full fairly have I fleichet,*
In it have I in pulpit gone and preached,
In Dernton kirk and eke in Canterbury,
In it I passed at Dover o'er the ferry
Through Picardy, and there the people teached."

*Flattered.

Dunbar himself knew that he had no calling to be a friar or
preacher. He confesses that

"As long as I did bear the friar's style
In me, God wot, was many wrink and wile,
In me was falseness every wight to flatter,
Which might be banished by no holy water;
I was aye ready all men to beguile."

So after a time we find him no longer a friar, but a courtier.
Soon we find him, like Chaucer, being sent on business to the
Continent for his King, James IV. Like Chaucer he receives
pensions; like Chaucer, too, he knows sometimes what it is to be
poor, and he has left more than one poem in which he prays the
King to remember his old and faithful servant and not leave him
in want. We find him also begging the King for a Church living,
for although he had no mind to be a friar, he wanted a living,
perhaps merely that he might be sure of a home in his old age.
But for some reason the King never gave him what he asked.
We have nearly ninety poems of Dunbar, none of them very long.
But although he is a far better poet than Barbour, or even
perhaps than James I, he is not for you so interesting in the
meantime. First, his language is very hard to understand. One
reason for this is that he knows so many words and uses them all.
"He language had at large," says one of his fellow poets and
countrymen.* And so, although his thought is always clear, it is
not always easy to follow it through his strange words. Second,
his charm as a poet lies not so much in what he tells, not so
much in his story, as in the way that he tells it. And so, even
if you are already beginning to care for words and the way in
which they are used, you may not yet care so much that you can
enjoy poetry written in a tongue which, to us is almost a foreign
tongue. But if some day you care enough about it to master this
old-world poet, you will find that there is a wonderful variety
in his poems. He can be glad and sad, tender and fierce.
Sometimes he seems to smile gently upon the sins and sorrows of
his day, at other times he pours forth upon them words of savage
scorn, grim and terrible. But when we take all his work
together, we find that we have such a picture of the times in
which he lived as perhaps only Chaucer besides has given us.

*Sir David Lyndsay.

For us the most interesting poem is The Thistle and the Rose.
This was written when Margaret, the daughter of King Henry VII of
England, came to be the wife of King James IV of Scotland.
Dunbar was the "Rhymer of Scotland," that is the poet-laureate of
his day, and so, as was natural, he made a poem upon this great
event. For a poet-laureate is the King's poet, and it is his
duty to make poems on all the great things that may happen to the
King. For this he receives a certain amount of money and a cask
of wine every year. But it is the honor and not the reward which
is now prized.

Dunbar begins by telling us that he lay dreaming one May morning.
You will find when you come to read much of the poetry of those
days, that poets were very fond of making use of a dream by which
to tell a story. It was then a May morning when Dunbar lay
asleep.

"When March was with varying winds past,
And April had, with her silver showers,
Tane leave of nature with an orient blast;
And pleasant May, that mother is of flowers,
Had made the birds to begin their hours*
Among the tender arbours red white,
Whose harmony to hear it was delight."

*Orisons - morning prayers.

Then it seemed that May, in the form of a beautiful lady, stood
beside his bed. She called to him, "Sluggard, awake anon for
shame, and in mine honor go write something."

"'What,' quoth I, ' shall I wuprise at morrow?'
For in this May few birdies heard I sing.
'They have more cause to weep and plain their sorrow,
Thy air it is not wholesome or benign!'"

"Nevertheless rise," said May. And so the lazy poet rose and
followed the lady into a lovely garden. Here he saw many
wonderful and beautiful sights. He saw all the birds, and
beasts, and flowers in the world pass before Dame Nature.

"Then called she all flowers that grew in field,
Discerning all their fashions and properties;
Upon the awful Thistle she beheld,
And saw him keeped* by a bush of spears;
Considering him so able for the wars,
A radiant crown of rubies she him gave,
And said, 'In field go forth, and fend the lave.**

And, since thou art a king, be thou discreet,
Herb without virtue hold thou not of such price
As herb of virtue and of odour sweet;
And let no nettle vile, and full of vice,
Mate him to the goodly fleur-de-lis,
Nor let no wild weed full of churlishness
Compare her to the lily's nobleness.

Nor hold thou no other flower in such dainty
As the fresh Rose, of colour red and white;
For if thou dost, hurt is thine honesty
Considering that no flower is so perfect,
So full of virtue, pleasance and delight,
So full of blissful angelic beauty,
Imperial birth, honour and dignity.'"

*Guarded.
**Rest = others.

By the Thistle, of course, Dunbar means James IV, and by the Rose
the Princess Margaret.

Then to the Rose Dame Nature spoke, and crowned her with "a
costly crown with shining rubies bright." When that was done all
the flowers rejoiced, crying out, "Hail be thou, richest Rose."
Then all the birds - the thrush, the lark, the nightingale--cried
"Hail," and "the common voice uprose of birdies small" till all
the garden rang with joy.

"Then all the birdies sang with such a shout,
That I anon awoke where that I lay,
And with a start I turned me about
To see this court: but all were went away:
Then up I leaned, half yet in fear,
And thus I wrote, as ye have heard to forrow,*
Of lusty May upon the nineth morrow."

*Before = already.

Thus did Dunbar sing of the wedding of the Thistle and the Rose.
It was a marriage by which the two peoples hoped once more to
bring a lasting peace between the two countries. And although
the hope was not at once fulfilled, it was a hundred years later.
For upon the death of Elizabeth, James VI of Scotland, the great-
grandson of Margaret Tudor and James Stuart, received the crown
of England also, thus joining the two rival countries. Then came
the true marriage of the Thistle and the Rose.

Meanwhile, as long as Henry VII remained upon the throne, there
was peace between the two peoples. But when Henry VIII began to
rule, his brother-in-law of Scotland soon found cause to quarrel
with him. Then once again the Thistle and the Rose met, not in
peace, but in war. On the red field of Flodden once again the
blood of a Scottish King stained the grass. Once again Scotland
was plunged in tears.

After "that most dolent day"* we hear no more of Dunbar. It is
thought by some that he, as many another knight, courtier and
priest, laid down his life fighting for his King, and that he
fell on Flodden field. By others it is thought that he lived to
return to Scotland, and that the Queen gave to him one of the now
many vacant Church livings, and that there he spent his last days
in quietness and peace.

*Sir David Lyndsay.

This may have been so. For although Dunbar makes no mention of
Flodden in his poems, it is possible that he may have done so in
some that are lost. But where this great poet lies taking his
last rest we do not know. It may be he was laid in some quiet
country churchyard. It may be he met death suddenly amid the din
and horror of battle.

BOOKS TO READ

In illustration of this chapter may be read "Edinburgh after
Flodden" in Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers, by W. E. Aytoun. The
best edition of the Poems of Dunbar in the original is edited by
J. Small.

Chapter XXXI AT THE SIGN OF THE RED PALE

IF the fifteenth century has been called the Golden Age of
Scottish poetry, it was also the dullest age in English
literature. During the fifteenth century few books were written
in England. One reason for this was that in England it was a
time of foreign and of civil war. The century opened in war with
Wales, it continued in war with France. Then for thirty years
the wars of the Roses laid desolate the land. They ended at
length in 1485 with Bosworth field, by which Henry VII became
King.

But in spite of all the wars and strife, the making of books did
not quite cease. And if only a few books were written, it was
because it was a time of rebirth and new life as well as a time
of war and death. For it was in the fifteenth century that
printing was discovered. Then it was that the listening time was
really done. Men began to use their eyes rather than their ears.
They saw as they had never before seen.

Books began to grow many and cheap. More and more people learned
to read, and this helped to settle our language into a form that
was to last. French still, although it was no longer the
language of the court or of the people, had an influence on our
speech. People traveled little, and in different parts of the
country different dialects, which were almost like different
languages, were spoken. We have seen that the "Inglis" of
Scotland differed from Chaucer's English, and the language of the
north of England differed from it just as much. But when printed
books increased in number quickly, when every man could see for
himself what the printed words looked like, these differences
began to die out. Then our English, as a literary language, was
born.

It was Caxton, you remember, who was the first English printer.
We have already heard of him when following the Arthur story as
the printer of Malory's Morte d'Arthur. But Caxton was not only
a printer, he was author, editor, printer, publisher and
bookseller all in one.

William Caxton, as he himself tells us, was born in Kent in the
Weald. But exactly where or when we do not know, although it may
have been about the year 1420. Neither do we know who or what
his father was. Some people think that he may have been a mercer
or cloth merchant, because later Caxton was apprenticed to one of
the richest cloth merchants of London. In those days no man was
allowed to begin business for himself until he had served for a
number of years as an apprentice. When he had served his time,
and then only, was he admitted into the company and allowed to
trade for himself. As the Mercers' Company was one of the
wealthiest and most powerful of the merchant companies, they were
very careful of whom they admitted as apprentices. Therefore it
would seem that really Caxton's family was "of great repute of
old, and genteel-like," as an old manuscript says.*

*Harleian MS., 5910.

Caxton's master died before he had finished his apprenticeship,
so he had to find a new master, and very soon he left England and
went to Bruges. There he remained for thirty-five years.
In those days there was much trade between England and Flanders
(Belgium we now call the country) in wool and cloth, and there
was a little colony of English merchants in Bruges. There Caxton
steadily rose in importance until he became "Governor of the
English Nation beyond the seas." As Governor he had great power,
and ruled over his merchant adventurers as if he had been a king.

But even with all his other work, with his trading and ruling to
attend to, Caxton found time to read and write, and he began to
translate from the French a book of stories called the Recuyell*
of the Histories of Troy. This is a book full of the stories of
Greek heroes and of the ancient town of Troy.

*Collection, from the French word recueillir, to gather.

Caxton was not very well pleased with his work, however--he "fell
into despair of it," he says--and for two years he put it aside
and wrote no more.

In 1468 Princess Margaret, the sister of King Edward IV, married
the Duke of Burgundy and came to live in Flanders, for in those
days Flanders was under the rule of the Dukes of Burgundy.
Princess Margaret soon heard of the Englishman William Caxton who
had made his home in Bruges. She liked him and encouraged him to
go on with his writing, and after a time he gave up his post of
Governor of the English and entered the service of the Princess.
We do not know what post Caxton held in the household of the
Princess, but it was one of honor we may feel sure.

It was at the bidding of the Princess, whose "dreadful command I
durst in no wise disobey," that Caxton finished the translation
of his book of stories. And as at this time there were no
stories written in English prose (poetry only being still used
for stories), the book was a great success. The Duchess was
delighted and rewarded Caxton well, and besides that so many
other people wished to read it that he soon grew tired of making
copies. It was then that he decided to learn the new and
wonderful art of printing, which was already known in Flanders.
So it came about that the first book ever printed in English was
not printed in England, but somewhere on the continent. It was
printed some time before 1477, perhaps in 1474.

If in manuscript the book had been a success, it was now much
more of one. And we may believe that it was this success that
made Caxton leave Bruges and go home to England in order to begin
life anew as a printer there.

Many a time, as Governor of the English Nation over the seas, he
had sent forth richly laden vessels. But had he known it, none
was so richly laden as that which now sailed homeward bearing a
printing-press.

At Westminster, within the precincts of the Abbey, Caxton found a
house and set up his printing-press. And there, not far from the
great west door of the Abbey he, already an elderly man, began
his new busy life. His house came to be known as the house of
the Red Pale from the sign that he set up. It was probably a
shield with a red line down the middle of it, called in heraldry
a pale. And from here Caxton sent out the first printed
advertisement known in England. "If it please any man spiritual
or temporal," he says, to buy a certain book, "let him come to
Westminster in to the Almonry at the Red Pale and he shall have
them good cheap." The advertisement ended with some Latin words
which we might translate, "Please do not pull down the
advertisement."

The first book that Caxton is known to have printed in England
was called The Dictes* and Sayings of the Philosophers. This was
also a translation from French, not, however, of Caxton's own
writing. It was translated by Earl Rivers, who asked Caxton to
revise it, which he did, adding a chapter and writing a prologue.

*Another word for sayings, from the French dire, to say.

To the people of Caxton's day printing seemed a marvelous thing.
So marvelous did it seem that some of them thought it could only
be done by the help of evil spirits. It is strange to think that
in those days, when anything new and wonderful was discovered,
people at once thought that it must be the work of evil spirits.
That it might be the work of good spirits never seemed to occur
to them.

Printing, indeed, was a wonderful thing. For now, instead of
taking weeks and months to make one copy of a book, a man could
make dozens or even hundreds at once. And this made books so
cheap that many more people could buy them, and so people were
encouraged both to read and write. Instead of gathering together
to hear one man read out of a book, each man could buy a copy for
himself. At the end of one of his books Caxton begs folk to
notice "that it is not written with pen and ink as other books
be, to the end that every man may have them at once. For all the
books of this story, called the Recuyell of the Histories of Troy
thus imprinted as ye see here were begun on one day and also
finished in one day." We who live in a world of books can hardly
grasp what that meant to the people of Caxton's time.

For fourteen years Caxton lived a busy life, translating,
editing, and printing. Besides that he must have led a busy
social life, for he was a favorite with Edward IV, and with his
successors Richard III and Henry VII too. Great nobles visited
his workshop, sent him gifts, and eagerly bought and read his
books. The wealthy merchants, his old companions in trade, were
glad still to claim him as a friend. Great ladies courted,
flattered, and encouraged him. He married, too, and had
children, though we known nothing of his home life. Altogether
his days were full and busy, and we may believe that he was
happy.

But at length Caxton's useful, busy life came to an end. On the
last day of it he was still translating a book from French. He
finished it only a few hours before he died. We know this,
although we do not know the exact date of his death. For his
pupil and follower, who carried on his work afterwards, says on
the title-page of this book that it was "finished at the last day
of his life."

Caxton was buried in the church near which he had worked--St.
Margaret's, Westminster. He was laid to rest with some ceremony
as a man of importance, for in the account-books of the parish we
find these entries:--

"At burying of William Caxton for four torches 6s. 8d.
For the bell at same burying 6d."

This was much more than was usually spent at the burial of
ordinary people in those days.

Among the many books which Caxton printed we must not forget Sir
Thomas Malory's Morte d'Arthur, which we spoke of out of its
place in following the story of Arthur in Chapter VIII. Perhaps
you would like to turn back and read it over again now.

As we have said, Caxton was not merely a printer. He was an
author too. But although he translated books both from French
and Dutch, it is perhaps to his delightful prefaces more than to
anything else that he owes his title of author. Yet it must be
owned that sometimes they are not all quite his own, but parts
are taken wholesale from other men's works or are translated from
the French. We are apt to look upon a preface as something dull
which may be left unread. But when you come to read Caxton's
books, you may perhaps like his prefaces as much as anything else
about them. In one he tells of his difficulties about the
language, because different people spoke it so differently. He
tells how once he began to translate a book, but "when I saw the
fair and strange terms therein, I doubted that it should not
please some gentlemen which late blamed me, saying that in my
translation I had over curious terms, which could not be
understood by common people, and desired me to use old and homely
terms in my translations. And fain would I satisfy every man.
And so to do I took an old book and read therein, and certainly
the English was so rude and broad that I could not well
understand it. . . . And certainly our language now used varieth
far from that which was used and spoken when I was born. . . .
And that common English that is spoken in one shire varyeth from
another. In-so-much that in my days it happened that certain
merchants were in a ship in Thames, for to have sailed over the
sea into Zealand. For lack of wind they tarried at Foreland, and
went to land for to refresh them.

"And one of them, named Sheffield, a mercer, came into a house
and asked for meat. And especially he asked for eggs. And the
good wife answered that she could speak no French. And the
merchant was angry, for he also could speak no French, but would
have had eggs, and she understood him not.

"And then at last another said that he would have eyren. Then
the good wife said that she understood him well. So what should
a man in these days now write, eggs or eyren? Certainly it is
hard to please every man by cause of diversity and change of
language. . . .

"And some honest and great clerks have been with me, and desired
me to write the most curious terms that I could find. And thus
between plain, rude, and curious I stand abashed. But in my
judgement the common terms that be daily used, be lighter to be
understood than the old and ancient English."

In another book Caxton tells us that he knows his own "simpleness
and unperfectness" in both French and English. "For in France
was I never, and was born and learned my English in Kent, in the
Weald, where I doubt not is spoken as broad and rude English as
in any place in England."