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

  [p337]

A defence against the insults and falsehoods of a certain Theon, who conceals his own name

1 Which Zoilus, driven by Hell's madness and an unhinged mind, has directed the blows of a savage tongue toward me, I who was recently unknown, harmless, guiltless, and now am staggering towards the close of the tenth lustrum of my age? a Which author dared to dishonour the spotless propriety of my reputation, and smears my flourishing name with stinking filth?

7 This Cynic, clearly relying on the evidence from his dull nose and the wanderings of his thick wits, has spewed forth the vile poisons of his toxic mouth that poems were written by me against the four exiled ministers, which the mob were undoubtedly already reading in the streets without me as author, b for he wishes to be seen a champion to those wretched in this battle, while lying through his teeth, being dull of mind, and coarse in verse, the dog from Cerberus' breed, now recalling its ancient bond, and never very friendly to any son of Hercules. c

16 But I, untroubled by the poetry of this unknown poet,   [p338] who has stung the sacred heralds with the point of his pen, whether it is learned or unlearned, whether full of truth, or of groundless slander (let the author himself claim his deserts for himself by supporting his own insults), I shall speak a little about myself: I call upon the good gods as witness, and all those who have apprehended my poems with their eyes, that never have I in the guise of poet pursued this type of thing through insults, nor have I offended the reputation of anyone with a disreputable little work. Do not let me stab the exiled ministers with the point of my pen and scoff meanly at those prostrate men, and vex those who are worn-out, since I am one who has observed that this madman among prophets fights his battles with two weapons: the poisonous hole of a lying mouth, and the spear-point of a tongue spitting out insults, both detested by heaven and by the faithful. And now as avenger I shall repress arms with arms, force with force; and you will indulge (I hope) a man who is unwilling and reluctant, o holy troop, o beautiful men, and learned poets. But come now, what are those thunderbolts from his barking mouth with which this envious Alastor d has attacked me, undeserving as I am? My overriding hunger for gold, and an ill-fated love for gain e are wheeled out amid the insults. But my strength is not something I have created though any sort of harming, nor through deceit do I instigate wickedness. Supposing that my mind were to have lusted after yellow gold, would I then have not wasted so many years in idle study amid Apollo's hills and wild lands known to the Muses? For divine law has deemed it important that they are well-off whom the golden bounty of the forum nurtures as sons. And already when my brood of numerous children, and both wife f and home drives me on during the unwelcome twilight of my life, while slow grey old-age covers my cheeks and temples, to neglect the vain Muses, and poems pleasing in the shade, and prefer business and work in the harsh light of day: where I may better bear the pressing cares and the bitterness of old age. You think this the mind, this the mindset, Zoilus, of a greedy poet? And after my hunger for gold my station in life is summoned as evidence: I was lately a grammarian, and am now a slavish follower of Justice. g No one good, or learned will disapprove of these professions, no one will think ill of this change of profession for me (I think) who knows how disagreeable the urban mob h is to teachers. Mindful   [p339] friends, you have seen that, although recently there was the spectre of an unspeakable sin attributed to me, i my pupils learned more than their little teachers, and they taught greater things than the manners and wits of their boorish parents, even though, by an edict of an ungrateful city (lament the anger of our country, O future generations, and condemn it with curses!), the golden offspring of Jove, the Muses, were outlawed, and ignorance has been ordered to return to the classroom's hearths, and a squawking goose to succeed in the place of a swan! j Deservedly indeed are pigs, while they tread upon seeds of grain, condemned to live amid husks and acorns. Just like that wise man, who authored the twelve tables of the Romans, k and who, most outstanding Ephesian exile, l suffered undeserved punishments in virtues' name, and was ordered on account of his merit to turn his attentions towards other citizens in another place, since the crimes and dark deeds of the wicked could not tolerate the light of so bright a Sun. Heraclitus m decreed that their every shameful throat be throttled by force. But I will never be ashamed to have turned brass into gold, in order that the remainder of my life may pass off far from boys amid the company of adults, and moreover that the brute with many a head and empty-headed n may stop making laws for me: whom, under my direction, no sensible man will henceforth employ who would not wish to get a return equal to my efforts. Now my foremost duty is to watch the sacred Senate, o and listen to experts dispensing the grave judgement of the law, and to come to understand the decrees of the great Senators in difficult court cases, to be assessed amid the toga-ed tribe, and to be greeted as such, to unlock the secrets of Justice, to be ready for trial, to undo the fetters of riddles, and to come back to the Judge's bench in the company of my peers, and also here to collect golden grains of law (as if one who still has his harvest in the meadow). O nourishing God drive on my faithful work! I am also proclaimed the right-hand man of the great king and court: indeed royal authority's unsentimental judgement demands grim retribution with the blood of the wicked when I advise it. Always, I confess that to me the majesty of the crown is sacred through the precepts of the eternal diety, as it is an image of the eternal deity on earth. p But whoever attentively considers the praises   [p340] of our king, both the outstanding gift of his mind, and his rivers of rich speech, his soul immersed in the muses, his affable countenance, and his love of peace and justice, and compares this one king with all the kings who rule the earth far and wide, he will not be amazed that I follow the noble arts: may I continue to devote myself to following in the footsteps of a guiltless life on the path of virtue, at the great pleasure of this hero, so that I may be ready to undertake his commands and advice. Let the court's battles end, and peace follow, so that he may observe me with his gentle gaze as I look upon him, or address me at his side with a friendly word (for truly have our efforts deserved nothing more than these things). q Then I, his servant, will be seen to have attained a generous price for my labour: not because my opinions engage with the great matters of state, or because my advice has dared to place a limit upon mercy or retribution: this is the foremost responsibility of the august Senate, and my energies do not take in hand such weighty matters. r None of the Senators summon me to them, much less the voice of the prince as well, without wondrous shame flushing red my trembling face, and my frozen heart being stupified by fear, and my tongue scarcely carry a few blubbering words. I am destitute and so far removed from the counsellors at the great court. O Gods, protect the father of our fatherland, ward off grim treacheries from our dear chief, and ward off the rebellious commoners too: so many of them, alas, we have recently endured! Shatter their arrogance.

121 The other abuses of our name s which that progenitor of stupid barking hurls forth, that melodious buffoon, have been gleaned from the mob, t and from the children's playground, neither fit to utter from a respectable mouth, or to be rebutted in a virtuous poem: I do not smear them on my pages! They are even shameful for vulgarian, and convulse wrinkled noses, and soon they will perish with their author's reputation!

128 I now turn to you, u you who flees from the well-aimed barbs of my spear, and hides your name in gloomy mist, lest you be fatally wounded by your own weapons when face-to-face and at close quarters. Yet I shall bring low by force this man obscuring light with darkness and smoke, and with his throat forced open into the light, I will reward him with the penalties of Cacus which Hercules' blind rage previously bestowed. v   [p341]There is no better way to describe who you are than for me to deny those things that are not yours, and without artifice or greasepaint abandon you stripped of your disguise.

137 You are not capable of being honest or dutiful, nor a child of peace, nor agreeable to the Muses, nor a friend of justice and equity, nor judicious of mind, nor faithful to king and court. For no one is capable of being honest, who rages in an unrestrained free fall into vile insults, while their voice is devoid of truth, and in their front ranks the detestable pretence of virtue is deployed, and who is like the frothing boar, gnashing and raging with its fierce teeth, and charging against everything with its hooked tusks. The laws of men and divine justice punish a lying mouth, and a tongue spitting out womanish insults also pays its penalty. Do you not, avenging assembly, w drive out such a man, whether learned, or a doctor, or a minister, in punishment for such a crime? But I without merit, let me be the due fertile plane for abuse and fury as I deserve: he stung me not first with this point of his Bacchic spear, nor will he sting me last, that constant lover of satire and constant lover of the angry iamb: x especially after Bacchus fires up the bibulous gourmand, and when his poetic limbs warm up with wine. y For what does the voracious parasite, and the eloquent jester not speak out about with impunity over dinner, having gained by chance the power of prattling drink? What does the babbling philosopher not attempt? Now he thunders forth that everything on earth has been preserved only for the holy, and the most sumptuous things are due to the servants of God: z then it is a salutary lesson to hear him ranting like a Bacchante against the leaders of the world, the kings and the governors: and also, with his brawling having degenerated into the battle of the Lapiths, aa to witness the speech of some friendly minister cut off by his blows. Then with much wine scarcely softening his spirits, his blows and bickering would have turned to belching and vomiting, had not the hypocritical author given up the crazed feasts of the drunken taverns for me. But this man, sober after his slumber, whenever he has re-cooked yesterday's porridge in the morning, ab derives the sustenance for his native bitterness in no other way than when he brands a mark of shame on the reputation of an absent friend, and spits forth the seeds of lying abuse against the people.   [p342] Here the wretch strains at the leash, now he sneers, and domineers with derision, and head down and with free rein he glides over this plane: just as if the abuse of others gives rise to his reputation. In this way the torch of some unknown soldier is said to have dissolved the great riches of the temple of Ephesus ac into ashes, so that he would immortalize his own name on posterity's records.

179 Yet his cloak of piety conceals a pustulant ball of wickedness, but it is only a disguise: for who would believe him a friend to the Gods who reproduces Theon with his teeth while lying and snarling? You nation of youth, you celebrated men, ad whether you hear this man amid the devoted explaining the oracles of heaven, or the wisdom of the ancients, or plying sophistry with puffed-up pride, listen to me who sees the truth, and who is telling you what he has seen: and strike down the whims of pride warring within this church which have followed the hostile path. For since the leaders of the church are now dejected, he has boldly presented himself as liberator, and under my name smears a certain master ae with the ink of the dark squid. Piety has not constrained him, nor so far has a love of holy religion (don't believe him, people) tempered his slurs upon his associates who bear undeserved grief: but what venom simmers within his black heart, a disease frothing forth from his mouth against all living men, and a zeal for harming the harmless wherever they may be. Behold his piety! Behold his protection for his sacred companions! Amid their many hardships nothing more disgraceful has befallen them than this one failing: that they ordered that their holy cause's battles entrust themselves to a disreputable patron. Indeed very cunningly does this trapper and wily deceiver lurk in the shadows: and uninvited does he force himself as guardian upon the unwilling (the audacity of his insensible presumption!) so that in no way may battles for his pugilistic pen run out.

204 Clearly it is the mind of a man born to hate, a mind turned from the God who yearns for peace, and filled with an inimicable aversion for his enemies. For truly does he signal war, horrible war, with his pitiless trumpet; af he rouses his neighbours to war, and brings war to the city ag which, alas, is helpless, but a servant to the Muses. He also threatens the king and court with the Furies, and the whole kingdom with conflagration. Rather he is just like a Timon of Athens (if the comparison is just) ah for the whole world, since he was responsible for that recent insurrection which fired up   [p343] the demented citizens against their king and rulers, when the capital was generating anxiety amid its great guests, and the father of the fatherland. ai So the church itself starts up dangerous opinions internally, and with him as tiller and sower, it starts sowing discord, and the pastures of deadly war.

217 You, avenger God, destroy the monstrous creator of such madness, and provide the joys of peace in your holy assembly; provide the nourishment of a heavenly harvest to a sick flock; provide refinement and knowledge for our spirits; provide gentle repose for the Muses, so that under your direction they may illuminate dull minds. Yes, punish those men, Father, who defile the waters of Hippocrene with Cerberean filth, and with the Stygian mud. Punish, I say, the Sirens daring to smash the innocent ship on the notorious rocks with their friendly song; provide the soul's gentle arts sent from heaven; and torture the cunning of a mind threatening great things to the detriment of the human race. But you, o citizens of the groves and of the dark countryside, you Muses who breathe in the ever fresher air, which comes from those shining springs of water, where you pass the blessed years in sweet song and with chaste spirits, far away at the spring of Permessus and the gardens of Aonia, keep at a distance this man, be he poetaster or ignorant versifer. For it is my duty to describe this poet, who has nothing more than the form and words of a poet, and who conceals his deadly poison, his filthy sordidness and evil potions under their deceiving cover. O you, Father Apollo, and Minerva, and all the other gods in heaven, who soothe soporific minds with the pleasant study of the Humanities, remove from the assembly of the learned this ignorant pseudo-intellectual and sophist uttering his vacuous drivel. And whenever you invite elegant friends to your banquets with nectar and ambrosia, keep at a safe distance this harpy who robs the nourishing food with his huge claws, and with an eruption of his disgusting bowels, defiles dinner tables reserved for chaste youth with his bile and pus. Fit out your sons Zetes and Calais with wings, Boreas, so that they may drive this unhappy beast either towards Farthest Thule, or better beyond the zones of the earth and the storms of the seas   [p344] towards deepest Hell. Let thunderbolts falling from heaven take back this monstrous portent to the kingdom of Dis. He has an astonishing desire to destroy right and wrong, and the chains of justice and fairness (this is the foremost reward for his pains), to mock with false testimony the counsel of poets paying heed to holy matters, and, lacking the modesty of the Fathers, to lie with gusto in front of the whole assembly. Then let the trickster himself come to the aid of his friends, and keep the name for himself of holy man safe and sound; the 'intermediary' of a contrived peace. aj

260 While he grasps after the honorific title of wise man for himself with these skills, and slyly with concealed cunning applauds himself, Ardalion has brought himself into the light: ak the octopus has revealed himself to the world, and just like a shrew he will perish through his own squeaks. al Wise men have already seen it from their lofty towers; now the rabble understand it, though with dullish wit. am Also fooled by the mask of a lying face for a long time, finally now the order which oversees the church observe that this man is that conductor of the wickedness, the author of the unhappy discord, because of whom the Northern World an will all but be consumed by flames, as quite a few rise up against the royal sceptre. Thus has the crown embraced God in order to strip worldly power from the hands of puffed-up arrogance, and in turn defends itself as much by force as by the laws of Gods and men. ao From this source the uncertain opinion of the people would stagger to and fro, and scarely would either side restrain themselves from hostile battle.

276 However, it is your own interests at danger, great king, and most especially those of the court and nobles. For one destruction threatens all, while this one man weaves his deceits and conducts the war drum. For a long time now there were no thunderbolts hurled against you from the holy churches, which that Cyclops did not fashion in his own cave. Till now none of the Titans have dared to harm your majesty, unless the counsel of such a severe instructor leads and trains the rebel fighters. Since the people have lawlessly threatened king and servants of court with destruction, and have sought wicked war (o wickedness, o disgrace even now rising against the holy authority of the messengers of the Word!) and the stern judgement of the crown has contained the wrath of the people, now let good prophets themselves be directed to pronounce the good words to   [p345] the author of the wickedness. With him still alive never will the crown stand free from hatred; with him unharmed never will the church pay allegiance to the king, nor join itself harmoniously in a pact as participant in an enduring peace. Royal clemency restrains the tormenter, having respected and honoured the holy church's protection of the base scoundrel. But you yourselves, ministers, though in all other respects mild, if you have compassion for yourselves and the word, immediately give up this enemy so foul now hidden safe under your protecting strength (if you would please now put your trust in a ready friend). Your reciprocal favour has caused you harm, and while some of you accuse others, the wicked impose law and subjection on the church, as the matter dictates. Clearly this thing is the Hydra itself, abounding in heads and bursting with venom; and if my blade of steel should not completely cut it down, then Hercules' funeral pyre will burn beneath the Lerna's waters. ap Through my own meagre endeavours I shall strive to expel it far off from these borders, or contain it within the enclosure of its accustomed swamp. Very great is the vigour in the vile gaping mouth of its foul friends, and amid its pups, whom even now it has begot and dispersed throughout the world, and it will continue to produce and distribute every day. O Gods cast out such a plague as this from our Northern realms.