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 poem on the wedding between the most illustrious nobles Henry of Trémoille, duke of Thouars, etc. and Maria de la Tour, daughter of the Duke of Bouillon, etc.

Lord Trémoille, gazing at Lady de la Tour, receives Cupid's flame, is overcome by its heat, and the wound takes hold of him.

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[Speaking thus] with himself [he said]

Beautiful Caelia looked upon me as agreeable with her eyes, I who previously was hateful to her because the Cupids had been blind. That goddess looked at me and she fixed her gaze upon me, and a modesty flushed red my cheeks with a noble passion. The uncommon beauty before me strikes my ailing heart with love's wound; as she seeks out my eyes, face and kisses with her mouth. With a golden shaft of light she pierced through the demented consciousness of my soul; through my senseless senses, through my lifeless soul. Should I fear hope? Should I hope for fear? Or should I cultivate this flower of life on unfamiliar terrain, between hope and fear?

1If now I sing of the first infancy of the primitive world, and the origins of the human race, and the gifts of an abundant dowry, and the pleasures of the garden, and sweet marriages, or the heavenly father's miracle, and the remarkable mystery of his son resurrected on earth (who is just like his father, and from the father's starry sky he passed through the regions of light, in order to become exposed to the infernal darkness of black Hell, a and having become both holy victim and the altar, in order to pacify, as priest, forever the hostile deity according to eternal law; he who was pledged to his betrothed through the death of a dying husband, and the life of a living man, and the love of a loving man and reciprocating wife so that the wife might enjoy his embrace and peace), surely this will be a pleasing theme, and an appropriate one for marriage, as it makes bright the wedding torches with happy tidings? These things you, venerable Duke of Tour, provide for your son-in-law, a cherisher to a lover, one Henry to another; under your direction he learned to endure military service and the harsh toil of Mars, learning of your exploits b in the first bloom of life, and the spring of flourishing youth; he has admired you from those first years, and has been fired up by a wondrous love of the glory of the nation: which so often so many ancestors obtained in so many triumphs.

22 Of which glories justly did martial courage reap high honours for you who deserved it, as did your golden facility for eloquence: the judicious intellect of a cautious mind, and an inspired passion for high heaven is directing the well-weighted conclusions of a disciplined mind; in which the abundant generosity of blessed heaven enriches you, generosity which your grace, flowing in full rivers, increases.   [p78] For this reason it pleases me as a poet worn out by time, numbed by old age c and decaying to approach fresh fountains, and to drink pure water from the Muse's source, beside the mountain of the Graces and the Goddess of the Arts: d far from the sacred spring of Helicon, and atop the forked Grampians e frequented by the Muses.

33Born from a God, the unblemished Grace, both the perpetual source of love, and the sun burning for Justice, for whom marriage bonds are a source of care; I call upon you: initiate me with a large splash of your flowing breath, and freely exhale in my well-watered heart; so that I can free myself from such great troubles, and fire up my spirits with an intense love of the divine light.

39 In the beginning f while the omnipotent creator of all was constructing the walls of the universe, in setting up its first foundations he hung the formless, desolate globe of the lifeless earth: which a blind fog covers and surrounds in every direction: and his massive breath makes contact with the still waters in a powerful blast.

45And now the father, as he broke his silence with a mighty utterance, ordered the light to shine forth through the darkness; quickly did the dawning day fall upon the fleeing shades, and nourishing light pressed upon the footsteps of black night, and their allocated time moves on, yielding in an alternating cycle.

50The next day, g covering the vaults of highest heaven, and marking out the heavens in clustered constellations, he bent the lofty expanses of heaven into the shape of a curved dome; and the lofty expanses of the sea were separated from these airy expanses by his light breath and the kindred realm of light.

55On the third day, h he compelled the trembling waters to flow into the azure sea and the hidden depths of the immense ocean, and to lay bare the land, and to shut off the sea god Nereus in the deep, and vast rivers to gush forth from their sources. And then for the first time the wonder-working earth brought forth into the air the flourishing meadows, budding with flowers, and at the same time the leaf-sprouting forests, and their fruits heavy with the produce of the woodland meadows, and their stalks pregnant with seeds: before the heavenly father let flourish the valleys fertile with rainwater, or man turned clods of earth with a ploughshare, or the waters rising from the depths moistened the parched back of a then barren Mother Nature.

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67On the fourth day, i animating night and day, he marked out the courses of light from that of dark, and the divisions of the year and months: when fair Phoebus covers all in light with his golden cloak, and silvery Phoebe shines forth with her shining rays: and the faintly-lit heavens glow with burning stars.

72 On the fifth day, j he marked out the liquid lakes, and apportioned the azure expanse of the sea to the fins of the scaly creatures, and the airy tracts under the clouds to the swift wings of birds. Thus the sources of the sea were brought into life. Now huge whales attempt the sport that entices with Venus' sweetness: k and the colourful birds propagate their species through their descendants.

78 On the sixth day, l with the darkness put to flight Aurora reddened the sky, and Mother Earth beheld all types of animals and beasts, both slow oxen, and fierce lions, the best of the swift horses, the massive frame of the snake-handed elephant: and the snakes, sliding over the ground on their mighty coils, twist their sinuous folds.

84 Then the creator said: m 'let me fashion a divine being, full of sagacious wisdom, and in my image, who may hold the sea and earth under its authority: in their kingdom let them rule the brood of the sea, and the silent sealife, and the species of birds, and the animals, and the race of the wild beasts.'

89 After saying these things, he fashioned the first man on earth from the dry soil: and he breathed the life-giving air into his open nostrils, and brought the clay to life. Now, like the divinity, the golden image of the divine visage shone forth. Daybreak shone on the pleasant fields of Eden, where in the morning Phoebus drove on his fiery horses in breathless haste, driving them towards the peaks of steep Olympus: here the more abundant ether covered the meadows with a rosey hue, here Aurora drained from the fields the round dew drops sent condensed from heaven's seed, and the light Zephyrs rustled through on gentle breezes. And here has the nourishing hand of the supreme ruler planted every kind of root and flourishing plant: n soon to be sweet enticements for the mouth and a vision of splendour. And a rough forest of fearful thickets surrounded and guarded it.

103 In the middle a noble, huge shoot, an offspring of fertile life spread out its limbs and golden branches, and shakes its golden-leafed head amid the glowing stars.   [p80] Next to it another one, similar in appearance, with enticingly sweet fruit seemed to rise up to the stars above; but its top drooped towards the ground. But even if it were not concealing the foul stench of death, it was a life-giving tree in its appearance; it itself was the teacher of wisdom, since it was called the instructor of right and wrong.

112 The river of Eden, descending from the northern regions o flows down to the rushing waters through the pleasant meadows of the blessed groves: and purer than liquid amber it irrigates the flourishing fields with its streams. Moreover, at both top and bottom the river casts itself into two routes: and on each side the twin channel conveys two rivers apiece. For the river Phison, in a huge surge towards the south, while making its way toward the waves of the sea in the Persian Gulf, in swirling motions, and golden-yellow with sand, encircles the eastern shores of the place called Havilah. Where the rich ornaments of the land, and abundance of outstanding gold and the rich palm oil from the sweet-smelling wood all shine forth: and gem stones shine out from shining marble.

125Thus Gichon, facing the warm south winds and near to the land, flows forth: and it flows near the Cushite lands, p and the rich groves of the Arabs, and the Sabean q incense plants: and it infuses the Red Sea with its own sands.

129 Departing the raised peaks of the extensive Niphates, on one side the wandering Euphrates and on the other the swirling Tigris, r bound along their length by a reed-hemmed margin, are borne on opposing winds from the high mountains of Armenia: one closer to the rising Sun; the other to the setting Sun.

134 The maker of the universe places the first-born man in this fertile home of the fruit-bearing tree, of the well-watered grove, and of the pleasant hideaway; s and now the image of God, the earthy clay looks around far and wide at everything now subjected to his feet. Whatever surfs the liquid air on whistling wings, and whatever surfs the calm sea with cleaving fins; both the tame animals and the wild beasts, the dependents of all-powerful Earth; the first man on earth gives a name to all these things. However, even though he examines everything with his eyes strained in every direction, he does not behold a suitable helper and companion t for his blessed life anywhere: but surely it is contrary to divine law for a blessed   [p81] man to be alone? Therefore the father overwhelms man's innermost marrow with deep sleep: he tears open the exposed side of the snoring man, and rib extracted, he mends and restores his body again. From this, with wondrous skill, the creator fashions a beautiful girl, alluring in eyes, face, mouth, cheeks, and rosey lips, who, ripe for a husband, might be golden and surpass the brilliance of Venus. She is just like the star shining forth which passes round the slow-moving Arctos on a wintry night, or like early-rising Aurora, or as when the golden Sun just departs the Ocean; this is the fame of divine Maria, and the chaste virgin's nourishment: to this the maiden of Tours strives in body and soul: just so by fate has her nature been created, baptised in wholesome waters, the same name, striving to draw from the example of the mother in both her life and her manners, who contends with her divine sisters.

159 Soon behold the wedding god sets up this feminine charm in one person, as the promised help and agreed marriage, and he yokes her to another with happy tidings, and favourably proclaims: 'Go into the sweet embraces of your partner, and being fertile bring forth offspring, and fill up the land with busy farmers.' Thus God spoke. But now the man born of the earth speaks: 'Now for me finally there is a bone from my bones and blood from my blood. You are now called wife, sprung forth for and from man: and Eve you will be called, as parent of every generation, and parent to my family and to the bloodline of my descendants. For her each son will leave the support of their father and the care of their mother, and as husband will join themselves to their beloved wife. Henceforth both will be one body under a chaste covenant, just as the bonds of marriage endure fixedly in sacred harmony, so the marriage union joins via a holy binding. Together, uncovered, they flourished in the first bloom of youth: naked in limbs and torso, and naked in beautiful bosom. No garment was covering their indecent region, modesty was neither concealing anything indecent nor their beautiful faces, but rather virtue held sway over their entire bodies.