Bridging the Continental divide: neo-Latin and its cultural role in Jacobean Scotland, as seen in the Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum (1637)

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A birth-poem for the most serene prince of Scotland, England and Ireland, James VI, son of Queen Mary

1Just like the splendour of the sun as it shines forth, when it rises from dawn's fields, and plucks the mortal hearts from blind shadows, and fertilises the lands with its rosy torch: so has the sight of your birth dawned upon the Scottish people, o prince. So the glory of your forefathers commends you, while you will equal heaven in your own right.

7Already now nourishing Ceres is drooping with heavy corn, and the hunger of a barren year is leaving the fields, a and the author of all things is turning war, burning in civil strife, into peace. We marvel at the easy breezes, and the kindly divinity of a beautiful sky, and we see the tide run far out from the shore: either now the hardness of iron softens into gold, and Saturn's kingdom returns once more, or mother nature divined that a great hero would come into the view of our sight, who could pronounce laws upon the earth, and unite the world amid chaotic conditions.

18So it pleases the gods. A powerful nymph, born from the noble bloodline of kings, restrains the war-like breasts of the Scottish people with her rule: once she was joined in matrimonial wedlock to King Francis: b now magnanimous Henry c holds sway with brave heart and arms. The powerful progeny of kings, wife of kings, now the gods wish her to be the mother of kings. And indeed the Scots' destiny would not allow them, whom no force - not even the Romans themselves - d   [p14] had been able to overcome with the sword, to submit to the power of a foreign tyrant, which are the usual rewards of war for the conquered. Indeed, as long as the goldern-haired sun runs across the expanse of heaven, and nature drives on the seasons, may the government of the kingdom and the crown always await the descendants of Mary under the Stewart line.

32Therefore soon shall come the age of Merlin's prediction, e aged, and the useful augur of divine prophecies, who said, 'the royal nymph will depart from France's fields, and - brought here by the sea-lanes, carried by a favourable wind - will land at last on Caledonian shores. And there she will resume the rule, established by the virtue of her forefathers: and she will happily reign for many years. That maiden will, from her marriage bed, bring forth a fortunate man, but he will be yet more blessed by his descendants. Oh, what spirits does the covered cradle with its small burden shelter? When you, small boy, grow to adolescence in enduring years, you will fill the agitated sea with mighty vessels, and the fates will grant you to expand the limits of your realm, until at last you learn to unite in one martial realm the defunct British kingdoms.' So he sang, nor did his foreseeing intellect deceive him. For just as rumour of the royal birth, flying on a favourable wind, touched the joyful cities of the kingdom, the River Tweed (if the trustworthiness of those recounting is certain) who divides our realms with his liquid border - astounded by the novelty of events - was thought to recede into his springs: the other part of him was carried into the dawn-mixed sea. Then afterwards father Tweed, speaking to the river spirits and nymphs in his dry cavern, said: 'the ruler of divine heaven has not given these residences for eternity, nor shall we always wash these shores: we must seek our dwellings under another sun, either where Wales now resides in the wintry waves, or where Cornwall observes the tired sun, and extends itself into the setting sea. There we may flow down into placid waters, and again we will measure out the domains of the Scots in the waves. For thus has Jupiter,

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who holds the reins of all things, ordered the Fates with his steadfast divinity.'

66Therefore, compelled by so many warnings from heaven, the English lay aside the anger from their souls, and prepare offerings throughout the kingdom; whatever yellow gold France had piled high when its state was subject to the kings of the English, and whatever pounds of gold dug from foreign seams, and the various honours of the eastern land, which the Spanish pines f had procured and borne across the previously unknown sea. Behold the nobles who wield subordinate power in the kingdom, they bear the crown and sceptre to you that has been promised you by the decree of the gods. They are sick of foreign bloodshed: their liberty was formerly oppressed by the arms of Saxon legions; and even Normandy exacted more than enough penalties in bitter war. But to you, whom mother Thetis g of the green arms will support, they rejoice to submit the fasces h of their kingdom forever to you, and think you alone worthy in glory for the fated seat. Those are the people, tiny boy, and look kindly upon them with the gentle face with which you delight to join kisses to your dear mother, and to draw forth the nectar dripping from her breasts.

85And the cruel business of Mars did not pass without retaliation, so that their spirit was not broken by the dangers of ancient battle, and death-bringing hostility, and fields flowing with so much blood of your people. The shades of the Scots have felt what a race hard in war, and lively courage can do in battle, and have been drenched liberally in blood. Enough has been given to Mars, and to war: now joyfully enter into the covenants of peace, and you who have finally been chosen by the British kingdoms, cherish both Scot and Englishman with no distinction.

94And while this concern occupies the Britons, cut off from the world, i see now! Joyful Sabaudia j furnishes ambassadors with gifts, and the French assemblies prepare the bodies of their elite youth, in whom there is no-one readier with advice, nor anyone more remarkable in golden arms. Should I recall the gems and precious gifts of metal, which the rich sands of the Tagus and Pactolus turn up? k And should I speak of the garments of Dione's cloth, l and the clothes overlaid with gold, and the snaking threads with fringes of gold, and the wools embellished by Phrygian thumb? m   [p16]Of such quality that if ever Arachne had made such things, Pallas would have assuredly by her own judgement declared herself defeated. n

106In return, the court, fitted out with the famous triumphs of ancestors, hereafter will receive them in courtly pomp; French ambassadors will seek the treaties of ancient peace hammered out under Charles. o Do not reject those who plead that you not be anxious to join your right hand to their right hand. Our courage has helped them, and France has known aid furnished in uncertain circumstances more than once. Mindful of it, if ever our enemy provokes perfidy in our nation, and the gods attend to neither justice nor law, she will join her tried and tested forces, and her auxiliaries to you, so that you can more quickly subdue the rebels.

117And now, when you have confirmed the treaties with a slaughtered sow, p let mortal concerns be absent; consider heavenly matters alone in your mind. Then the nobles will lift you into the pure baptismal waters, so that cleansed by the blood of the sacred fount, and having cast off the stain of our ancient parent, q with true piety towards God, as the sacred dogmas of the word teach, you will cultivate a path of pure living.

124Thus seize upon the path of virtue; your elders provide copious examples. Now look upon your parent's deeds with your eyes, how possessed she is of the reward of divine beauty, how beautiful the endowments shining forth in her body: as immortal a face that seized, in the son of Priam's judgment of beauty, r the envied honours of the fruit-tree. Especially see how fitted with a noble breast the queen is, and how chaste the behaviour that binds her heart: how dear she is to her own people, and how justly and with equitable laws she tempers her rule, and guides the reins of the kingdom. Let these things be foremost to you, o highest king, under the youthful years of your age. Now fill up your breast with heavenly nectar. For after you have reached manhood, arms, arms must be taken up by you, which (shameful times!) the royal hand reddens with civil slaughter. s You will expiate those soaked with abominable slaughter through the hoped-for destruction of the Turks.

140That man, an ancestor of yours from the race of Lorraine, t a raging tyrant in war, carried off the kingdom of rich Jerusalem after decimating it, and placed every law of the kingdom in arms.  [p17] But why do I go over private matters at length with you? Do you not see with what great terror he makes the whole world shake, how he strikes down upon Christ with his accursed arms? Are bronze towers, or battlements stretched up to heaven, or trenches flowing to the broad sea unable to contain him, or to check such rage? I suppose, perhaps, that eagles and lilies yield to him too favourably, and bold Spain, with its various standards, but will he be able to endure the Lion Rampant on its crests? To have mastery over that one lion, do you believe that he is capable of enduring the force of the many lions that warlike Scotland gave birth to? She, indeed, for a long span during the fallen times u - both when the arms of the Frankish empire was rising among the Gauls, and when heathens subjugated the mastered Spaniards, and when England was booty for foreign lands, and Germany changed its seats of power too much - stood with her dominion intact, having reigned for one thousand and eighty years, but not without the goodwill of the gods: so that an ancient kingdom and an unbroken chain of your ancestors could lead you forth, as ruler of the world.

163Meanwhile, while the joyful glory of longed-for praise remains to us, let us celebrate, rejoicing, the birth of our king, in whom no-one more beautiful begins to shine except when the sun, aflame with snow-white love for Leucothea, v washes himself thoroughly with all the ocean's waves. Thus now let feasts be veiled with garlands through the towns, and let everyone lead forth dances, and sing songs, and sound rattles, and forbid the moon to draw down from heaven. w

171Because if Apollo does not deceive my breast in vain, and there is some power in my song, whether you prefer that you are addressed in Latin or Greek song, may my Muse, bearing the praise of the Stewarts and their deeds throughout the world, immortalize them for posterity; perhaps then the ages to come will call me the Prophet of the North.