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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THE SMALL GARLAND given to the King of Scotland at the coronation of the Queen,17 May 1590

1I would now recite the correct means by which someone may take up a kingdom, where the honours of kingship are governed only in accordance with law, the crafts which govern peace, and which govern war: if the remarkable subject-matter, and the unequal burden on my neck, were not deterring me on the very threshold. But oh! If our amicable divinity were to nod approvingly to me, I would take it upon these shoulders: and this labour will alleviate my dawdling, and giving way beneath the unjust load of such an undertaking. For why should I (whose shoulders cannot bear even small things, and refuse to bear great ones), throw doubt upon my strength, if the divinity is amicable? And shall I hold back such a great turn of events? Not so did the Sacred Muses instruct me during my first years. I approach the thing which must be dared: and I should attempt some small prefatory remarks before such a great work. So: if our poetry pleases the king, the work should proceed with such a king as its patron, a and with the support of the heavenly king. Therefore, o greatest of kings, dear king of the heaven-dwellers, you who by your divine will gives kings not indecorous to kingdoms, and enriches celebrated kingdoms with good kings, and enhances them with the successes of their undertakings: and wrathful against others, not without good reason you drive them from them their ancestral throne, while on equal scales you weigh up the goodness and sin of the righteous turned on a levelled balance: grant, I beg you, favour, peace, to such great deeds of daring: and to the boat, b ploughing the calm sea and manageable sky with its sails and the imperious sea of the kingdom with its oars, give oars and sails; grant that it may lightly cruise the sea-shore, and the farthest shore-line, and avoid the ringing rocks; and breath gentle air, and peaceful light,   [p72] until the joyful little skiff is closed up in its port. And I approach you who the dire enemy among the seven citadels and ramparts of Rome now shudders at, and before whom deadly arms quake. Begotten from Fergus, c the most indisputable offspring of Heaven: just as the Briton d once raised kings for the world, and as many kingdoms, so you are going to raise as many heirs to the kingdoms, you who have risen from so many kings, you who will raise so many kings in the future with fortunate stars; a happy man in the sacred embraces of much-desired Anna. Anna, whose love swept you away, after you had traversed so many sky-blue shallows, so many crags, so many steep cliffs and rugged rocks, such a winter, and so many inhospitable wastes pregnant with wild animals, and brought you back from tarrying on frozen shores: so far away from your homeland, both from the people and the kingdoms which you left behind. Being so much closer to Phoebus, e grant light to my Muses, while I sing your every honour, all the honour of your people, King James, you great glory of the Muses and Apollo.

44It is a great, majestic, huge honour, to be revered upon the highest seat to give commands to all others, to impose laws, to defend both sea and lands, and peace and war. It is a praise as worthy of God as it is emulous of divine praise, to keep fraud away from good people, to bring destruction to the profane, and to watch over the saints under your divine majesty. But with this greater honour there is the greatest burden. How hard a thing it is to reign, and to curb the proud races with kingship, first reason, then example teaches. Do you wish to investigate this? By what craft is divine law, under one person with such a burden, to control so many people? And to drive the unbridled people, discordant in arms and mind, untamed and fierce both in number and in strength, into the circle of reason, and to round them up beneath the bounds of rule, and the hand of justice, and the whip of law? To bear the yoke and suffer the bridles, and to become accustomed to the reins?

59 Do deeds done excite you by their example? Unroll, and roll back f the years, mindful of every age in long coils, until all kingdoms, all kings are in a long line: how few kings you find at last, who have discharged such a great duty with praise, who have been found without any failing: who have merited the name of king, or the shadow of the name. The story goes that once a powerful king of Asia had said:   [p73] 'all kings could be engraved together upon one ring, and enclosed in the single gem which divides the tawny gold.' g

68To hold this course straight on the wavy sea, through the shallows and the sand-banks, and the blind rocks beneath the surface, is almost unnatural: unless virtue secures the raft with a firm anchor, and experience reads the changeable winds of circumstance: and the gracious mercy of heaven is willing to soothe the fierce floods, and to extend a clear light for the ship: and rule the rudder, and attend to the sails. So heavy is the burden on he that sails upon the sea of ruling.

76Yet a secret power of nature, and elements privy to their destiny, and the sparks of light from which a new flame shines forth, sets mortal hearts alight with new heat, now enflaming with generative rays of nourishing light those now lingering and not wholly immersed in the deep gloom. Hence this power, kindled among men through the dense adversity of wordly affairs, is borne rejoicing, and demands for itself the honours due to kings. But in fact, the labour is easy to praise: high glory, fitted with the outstretched wings of a lofty spirit, makes the work light. Is it affection for the human race? What about a lively sense of virtue, unable to endure lazy shade and ignoble leisure? What about ancestry? What about blood? What about the love of a golden wife? And the exceedingly sweet children born from a beloved wife? And the luscious splendour of one's homeland? And the safety of one's people and one's forefathers which must be sought even by war, or by a thousand trials, a thousand killings, and by death istelf, a thing too hard to bear? How would love for the heavenly homeland not take hold, and for the celestial court, which crowns the king with eternal light? And the honour of the highest creator? And the glory of birth? The glory which alone can snatch up the humble minds carried above the firmament on starry chariots and on heavenly wings: for whose benefit piety strives for the stars, and aims for the path of Olympus. Yet how many of us, and how many things, they carry with them! O how are we joined with a single bond, we who are ruled with a king? That leader already travels the path of his virtue: We, his companions, follow behind. Does he carry us headlong across difficult paths? Now we press onwards. Does he flourish under the west winds? We too flower. Does winter cause his fall? Cut off in the prime of life, we totter and fall down. In such a way are we drawn close,   [p74] bound in a tight knot: as the common good, so the common danger.

106Just as Phoebus sets his swift chariot in motion from lofty Olympus, h whether at the instigation of heaven or by his own will, first bringing back the day with light, then bringing forth the dark shadows of night to the affairs of the mortal world: just so is the sublime prince in action in his high court, either by the prompting of the nobles, or turning i on his own will, brings the light of joy to his people and the shadows of grief: and right and wrong, and debauchery and restraint, in quick succession. Thus whoever of you men is king, j you who wields the reigns, whether selected as the best from the people, or born from your ancestors onto the throne, whether by new law, or ancient custom, appointed to the honour of the sceptre and the crown of the kingdom; turn your ears here, and store up with the deepest observations that which I say. Believe me, my words will bear salvation: 'just as in a kingdom subjects cannot be compelled to do that which is best and most blessed, so even more so the wretched course, the one which deserves to be shunned, is not to be urged on them.'

122There was a stone once boiled down in a blazing furnace: as cold as it was on the outside, so the inner part blazed correspondingly. Its name is quicklime. k If seawater rains down upon this stone, the cold downpour kindles the fire lying hidden within: behold the flame, stirred and panting for air, rushes out, and with burning heat spews forth flames all around with smoke, and crackling, and a foul smell. This is just the same (if great things can be compared to small ones) as the unflinching hardness of souls cooked up in the Phlegethonian furnaces, and the harmful flame of vices fed into the arteries, and greed for gold, and lust for power, and rage, and hatred, and sex, and the wantonness of appetite concealed in the bowels and hidden in the blind depths which grows as the more flattering dew-drops of the court rains upon the kingdom with enticements: and the voice of the king, with the lightning-bolt of law, thunders in the ears. This rapidly moving storm cloud, broken open, now bursts forth in the air, and gathers up a foul tempest, with black flames rolling upon the smoking night: and rushing down with a huge din breathes out a soiling exhalation of sulphur upon the stars and kingdoms. Thus Camarana, l moved from noisome Lake Avernus, m rages, while far below the applauding court of the Stygian Tyrant n gives out a rumble, but all heaven roundabout reddens with shame.

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144So guard against dinning in our sacred ears those things which the throng of flatterers sings: which endures as the sweet poison of the age and of the whole court. Now risen from the Stygian depths, the spreading evil of the Tuscan plague o is: 'that the king is outside, and above, and beyond the columns of the law court and legal acts. The will of the king, as the lord of the kingdom, stands as law.' Hell spews up such sayings from its vicious jaws. It corrupts the whole court: it ingratiates itself into the breasts of kings.

152O almighty father, grant that this shame be obliterated by our weapons! Make it so that this dire plague, assaulted by my wounding of it, falls in battle and quits both the courts and borders of the kingdoms.

155Can such as he give commands to those who serve him? Is a king a tyrant or the father of his country? p Or guardian of the people, and of the senate? Or the sacred and holy minister of justice and the laws? When he, each king, comports himself as inferior to God, this is God: or the living image of the living God: against whom it is a sin to wage war, and right to obey: the king's remit is to serve: and his will, ruled by God, reigns. God's will is the standard of all justice and rightness. He is an animal - he is worse than an animal, he is a wild beast! - who believes that he has been born for himself alone: who thinks that the power of ruling exists solely in his rule: and finally who by himself does not think that he is given to his subjects, but his subjects to him. O kings, is it not a gift of the people, and by divine endowment, that the commonwealth has been entrusted to your bosom, not so that you may dupe it with vain hope, but so that you may cherish it, being its sons? Is the prince not set above his people, not for the sake of the prince, but for that of the people? And isn't the salvation of the people the golden law for a king? q

172The golden stars which shine brightly in the highest heaven, are the dear stars of his light which gives breath to mortals: those kings who shine upon a kingdom, the brightest lights of the world, if they safeguard that light while doing their duty, and if they do so with praise, do they not kindle light in us from their light?

176And just as on the sea unsettled waters hammer down upon the journey of ships, and return to their sources after the tide has turned, all flowing back underneath the great earth: not otherwise does bountiful grace return to the king driven by a backwards-flowing current: a grace which the king pours forth from his own supply upon his people: and whereby he waters the sacred fields of his empire.

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183O he is outstanding in spirit, not wanting for a great mind, and exceedingly happy, who on the highest peak of worldly affairs would prefer to hear the good rather than the great: and in whom good measure is discerned in his majesty, and modesty in his exercise of royal power: whom, as he rises and shines with his light, as if the brilliance of the Sun, or just like a radiating divinity, the people and the nobles altogether eagerly look to, as they waver between hope and fear, and with uncertain minds, they are unsure whether to acclaim him a good father, or a severe king.

192This brilliant honour, this bronze tower of kings, into which human and divine laws now call you: and all the opinions of wise men, who built the world upon laws: who ruled: who with their teaching words and hand taught the arts and manner of ruling.

197The care of heaven and salvation of the people, the law and standard of rule, the praise of governance, the light of authority, the very flower of the garland r which flourishes as it serves you, and with a great richness long bears forth exceptional productions and fruits both of pious justice, and just piety, and of every kind of duty, which now the densest wood of pungent and blessed virtue sprouts from its root for you, King James, and from its sweet flowers for you, Anna: and may the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the God of Gods himself arrange it so that you are the parents of a blessed offspring (which might rule the vast world under the laws of Christ). s

208Father of the Christ-son, Almighty King of Heaven, t long may the clear brilliance of your name shine: so on earth, as in heaven, may your holy will be done. Give us today our sustenance, and the good things of life. Give us new account books without debt. u For we will give willingly. And do not expose us to plunder: but keep us free from the enemy. For yours is the kingdom, and the power, and all glory, for ever.