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

  [p352]

On the wretched state of Scotland, on account of its internal wars, contempt for God, and the pernicious group of Papists dwelling there

Alas, fates, where do you run off to? Do the commands of the Thunderer stand thus, to overturn so many times the kingdoms of the Scots, formerly kept safe? Is this the people whom the Nile poured forth from seven shores, a thrown violently on sea and shore by various tempests? And the exile who had wandered for a long time through transitory lands, until the unkind fates at last, after a variety of misfortunes, allowed a respite, and Britain revealed a homeland,   [p353] which has been held by a strong hand through two thousand years, uncowed by Latin leaders, or Caesar's arms, or the animosity of the Picts, or the deceits of the savage English? But Scotland, your courage, which kept you safe so many times from the bold enemy, has now been directed against your own insides. b You excite yourself with war, free from foreign sword. You perish by your own volition, and you do not have any enemy more fierce than yourself. Alas, your very own beloved youth rushes against itself in hatred, and after the victor taught the armies frequently ravaging all across your lands to turn their backs in flight, now unwounded it unsheathes the sword directed against the enemy towards its own belly. No faith is entertained among friends: no rank of blood, or pleasant wedding does any good; parents throw missiles in the way of their offspring; and with society's compact turned upside down their children go against them, and stain their sword with their father's blood. Alas fierce leaders and a reckless soldiery have fallen to injury amid such hatreds and with a madness raging far and wide: and the nobles of the kingdom, and the needy mob without title, with hostile hand throw so many thousands of missiles which never rushed down from foreigners. Wherever each man is very ready for battle, there he is nearer to death: he who at close quarters fears to take on the enemy, falls under the weight of a flaming cannonball. The enormous crime terrifies the stars, and entire rivers foaming with gore run red: and the earth, teeming with many a funeral, is stunned at the new terrors it brings forth for itself. The wife bereaved of her spouse mourns alone on their wedding-bed: and the orphaned child grieves for its parent before the day. Youth lies dead, unmastered by education, its character unreadied for the rewards of peace. Without a spouse, the sorrowful virgin groans, deprived of the honour of the pleasant wedding-bed. With Vulcan ravaging the houses, and the rewards of the harvest, the fields of the lords lie untilled, and the country fields of the husbandman. Towns - with their wealth scattered, shaken to ruins, their citizens thrown out, with Mars forbidding business - grow squalid with rough filth, exposed to the depredations of thieves. And now the king (under a fortunate star) of the Caledonian race himself is angry that his race has fallen, that the stock has been pruned back, c (alas, bereft over three years of as many guardians), and that he has been besieged by his own race.   [p354] After a double betrayal, an unhappy third succumbs to the violence of sickness, d with their fate testifying to the fury of the Gods. A more bitter enemy rages with the strangeness of an peculiar evil, now allowing everything unspeakable for the sudden ruin of the nobles. And thus it rushes backwards with savage arms: and a new regent e attempts to expel the rebel mob: and he defends the royal sceptre with arms. We fall upon it with blows, and a Hydra of evils sprouts forth. The dismembered butchery marks the beginning of a new war. Not even then, Scotland, did the cunning divinities place limits upon themselves in relation to your calamities (graver events follow). It is, I suppose, unimportant that deprived of the governors of the nation you totter, and with the wolfsteeth relaxed f you wander without law, and that you nourish your limbs with wretched war: but the religion which once had set apart the British from the whole world, g that will lead souls to everlasting thrones, now languishes, and gradually falls, and choked with shadows the freedom of piety is absent: and contempt for the divine word wanders through choked ears and minds. And now godlessness has returned from Hell: and with all restraints burst apart, and with fear of the Gods long shut away, has been reborn. For some of the nobles have torn the bridles of religion off themselves, while others have reswallowed the dogmas of the Roman race which they had previously thrown up, along with its profane rituals. The stars mingle with the lands so that they cause harm to the enemy, and summon wicked kings into a dire covenant. The rewards which the people, burning with sacred prayers, had formerly fixed upon, the impious soldier now draws up: and these supports for body and soul have been snatched from their practitioners, h and are lavished upon their enemies. Meanwhile, if happy fortune comes to pass, then that pious father, guardian of salvation, envoy of eternal peace, and faithful trumpet of the Thunderer Knox, i has returned from where first he came to the shores of the heaven-dwellers, so that he does not lament his race overthrown or the sorrows of a hateful city, but rather rejoices in the deserved stars. Ancient wounds (which will mend slowly) are laid open to new assaults, and new blows double earlier pains. It is the same as when a wave crashes down, being followed by receding waves as they roll themselves onto the same shores,   [p355] and having conspired to overturn the mass of the lands they wear down the rocks, and prepare to make the mountains level with the grottoes. Why have you made the sheep wretched after killing their keeper? Why have you slaughtered with dogs? The noxious mob of she-bears and wolves and hyenas carry away the flock with a bloody grin. Thus, o race, deprived of your kingdom's leaders, and of the ministers of the gods, j you lie prostrate in the path of enemy missiles: prey ripe for destruction, and unsure of your future fate. And I am tortured more, and with the fates urging on both sides Mars is not sated with the blood already drawn by civil hatred, but rouses wars against you with foreign arms, and the beast k calls forth the whole world to take part in your destruction. You should not fight for your freedom, or the boundary-line of your kingdom: for neither will your home protected with arms, or your wife, or riches, or the offspring joyful to their father, or your blood have been a sacrifice scarcely pleasing to the enemy: worse nourishes the monster, he seeks greater things than these tokens: with only one part of you will you please him as a sacrifice. Namely he prepares to hold your soul, born to serve the Thunderer alone, with force, and to set down laws over your mind: and that which you owe to God is set beneath human reins. Nature sowed weak embers of light into our hearts, and commanded that these shine forth in the whole mind: it is true that men lift their breasts higher, and with human minds they conquer other living things. l Yet see! He comes forth, who smothers flames with the Stygian floods, and after extinguishing the light leads in the shadows. The pope is that wretch hated by the Gods, and the minister of Erebus: he who decided, since the name of the Latin race had diminished, which once had stood out, celebrated with many triumphs, to loose the people from Italian bonds: a coward, he despaired of being able to make the world his with his ancestral forces. m But lest he lie completely hidden, n unequal to the honours of his fathers, slyly and with cunning he renews his strength: turning this alone over in his mind, he was able to extend the dominion of his empire assailed by his fraud and wyles. He is not dissimilar to the leader who had once had arms deadly with strength, who laments that his throwing power had diminished with old age: and powerful in one thing alone, he renews his strength through struggle.   [p356] Thus he wishes to be held up as the chief agent of the soul and of religion, and as the lead bishop fixed to the eternal towers: and he spits forth new dogmas into a heedless world, and thus he gives laws to the people indirectly, o which the people publicly drive out, and openly refused to bear. p He is the Rome that once poured forth armed cohorts, and which produced triumphs famous for the courage of their leaders. Now he nourishes you beneath an imitation of divine worship, with monks, wretched mystae, swarms of bees, and monsters decorated in a variety of ways with painted rags. The pope fosters such slaves, and commands that they go out through every kingdom, so that they spread dictates through the whole world, and give goblets of dire sap to the people to drink. If men refuse to draw these goblets up, and send back that which has been drawn up, with a heavenly antidote purging the Stygian poison, then behold, the acolyte thundering the commands of the Latin tyrant now dedicating souls with dire songs to Orcus, and summoning the butcher, q who scorches the limbs with slow fires, or exacts other penalties from the body. If there is perhaps a race in which his honour does not agree with Roman ministers, but they despise his dreadful anathema; while a purer reckoning of divine worship goes forth: Rome, which once was the head of the world, rages that its name falls backwards: nor is it angered that tribes yield to deceit, but rather it attempts to conquer with art and arms at the same time, those whom it does not know how to bridle with its imitation of piety alone, or with arms alone. For it bewitches the luminaries of kingdoms with sleight of hand, and (abomination) with the art of magic. Rome, not fit for war itself, stirs the races to strife and heedless calls kingdoms, that oppose kingdoms, to its standard. As Medea r subjugated the brothers risen from the deceits of bulls, and conquered with poison those unconquered by Mars: and turned the weapons which Jason had thrown against the lords. What madness is this, kings, that dulls your lights? As you send the scorched races under the yokes of another Titan, and you add foreign regions to your own: even then, you willingly want to serve the Latin tyrant, cultivating peace or war for his empire. Scotland is saner, and freed from such darkness of mind,   [p357] where it will be known in posterity that heaven was allowed to direct the course of affairs, and the dogma of sacred law has been laid open, after listing its ancient ancestors serene with courage, and pondering the heroes of its unconquered race. Now at last it refuses to give service to Italy, body and resources as one setting loose the mind from darkness, and it takes delight in itself, and refuses to serve the proudness of the Pope. The neighbours of the Scots, after their example, gradually vomit up the Roman slime, follow in the footsteps of the right path, and dissolve the offensiveness of long error. As that savage sees that Rome totters amid its great ruins, he sprinkles the seeds of social war by means of his art, and orders the South to go against the North with violent forces. s Races follow the standard of the Roman prince, and prepare to lay waste to the guiltless Britons. Oh Gods, where has sacred faith and piety retreated to! And plunged into what depths does the divine Church now lie! Romes wishes to seem the flock of Christ, and cultivator of the Gods, and sends men armed with sword and fire into the sheepfold. Alas Scotland, where do you fall with matters hopeless? And beneath what shield can you keep back the madness of the Gods, and repulse the thunderbolts primed for your ruin? Now you come under the yokes, plunder for the Roman tyrant: your mind, a prisoner in the darkness, and your body, in chains, both lament. But he is wretched, who wounded does not feel his own wounds: for he neither takes care over his fortunes, nor injured seeks Phoebus' art, so that he overcomes the sickness after finding a remedy. Look! The breasts of the Scots, accustomed to the blows, stiffen and now, after a long time, a callous covers over wounded hearts, and free from care they rejoice to wrap themselves up in their own pain, while they hasten to meet war-like Mars who comes with savage forces from far abroad, and they gird their breasts with iron. Nor do they mourn for present evil, or fear for the future, but undaunted they mar the sad countenance of their own nation with slaughter and blood, so that Phoebus is now amazed at new atrocities, and the world is horrified at immense outrages, and calamity stuns, evilly lost in slaughter such as Rome did not see when Marius or Caesar were raging. t Hence heaven, and Erebus call forth sad gods   [p358] to dire thunderbolts, and wish to weigh us down with deserved penalties. Thus the vengeance of the Thunderer, long menacing, will at last rush down upon the undaunted, and at length he will more keenly scorch them; and where foreign plagues and internal war menace. At last God will wipe out the ancient name of your race, and will strike down upon Rome, protected for a long time under its great ruins. u Dire signs foretelling future slaughter appear. And all around wars rush in with weapons clattering. There is no hiding-place for retreat, or any hope of salvation. Only you, great God, take pity on your people doing harm, pluck out she who is so deserving of graver things from such dire fortunes, turn the wolf from the sheepfold, drive the flock wandering without law into the pasture of life, turn the rebel to the Lord, and hostile fury against its own limbs.