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

  [p372]

A mournful song on the plague at Edinburgh which also raged far and wide through the rest of Scotland in the year 1585

You city, who holds sway over the stretched out valleys on either side from your unbridled mount, and from your unconquered citadel you raise up high your head, just like Juno's all-seeing bird, a pressing your walls on all sides with your overhanging edifices, and jutting out as if with wings; with your spine spread out for the employment of a public byway to be trodden by the city's throng, you end with your tail unfurled at the royal palace renowned for its buildings and gardens. O city, the other bright eye of Britain, b the flower of cities, and the only repository of hope for Scottish cities, you cultivate riches for your people, and you assemble abundance, you endow prosperity which blesses the world with goods, blessed yourself with just laws, which as oracle you distribute on equal scale for the whole kingdom of the Northern region. Blessed with your royal court, and also blessed in your counsellors, and ever blessed with the stout hearts of citizens endowed with virtue, which neither strength makes rebellious towards its rulers, nor justice make soft. But you vie with yourself in a noble contest, outstanding whether in laws or arms. O city, friend to the Gods, and who has been endowed by the Gods' gift with so many advantages in all respects, by which divinity have you been sadly attacked, through whom you now toil? What anger from heaven bewitches you? Do you wretchedly pay the price for your own misdeed, or your forefathers, or your prince, as the grim plague of a threatening pestilence seethes and rages against you? And the crown of walls surrounding you cannot keep you safe,   [p373] nor can the daily and nightly efforts of vigilant attendants; nor can the wise old age of the elders c devise any relief from public sorrows, nor can the king's love for you devise a citadel for the country and a fortress for the people; nor can it determine through your health the prayers of a heedful neighbourhood, which looks to its own. For truly human effort is and will always be pointless to an unwilling God. Alas you burn with plague, as its dry power rages in an unending furnace; just as Nessus once scorched the limbs of mighty Hercules with his grief-bringing gift; d just as Medea took revenge upon her rival, born of Creon, with a powerful spell. Consequently the fleeing troop of powerful citizens leave behind their familiar national gods, and the wicked conflagrations of an accursed disease, and the inexorable plague. This man trades his fatherland for a new land across the sea, another hides in the caverns of a deep chasm, one further still entrusts his safety to the lofty peak of a mountain, some hide surrounded by ditches, either with inaccessible water, or an enclosure of rocks. Hence for the first time so many large dwellings of men are deprived of their inhabitants. Rarely does the traveller press upon the crossroads and villages, and the rocks accustomed to be trod upon by repeated footfall grow fearful in their loneliness; and the sad houses fall silent (which recently were the refuges of devotees and sacred hope) from the advice of the oracles; Nor does the forum seethe with anxious clients, and with those skilled in laws; and Astraea is heard bewailing from heaven that her own workshops have seized production. The plebs meanwhile are destitute, ill-suited to be parted   [p374] from their long-accustomed home. Their cornfields are exposed to a contagious evil, and they feed upon the air's imperfection. Why are the plebs destitute? Behold four men and as many counsellors directing the city; zealously have they taken a solemn oath on behalf of the public health. They dare to undertake any task in order to free the fatherland in its travails, even voluntarily bargaining their own death with the life of their citizens. And nor does the work of physicians soften the fury of the disease for the condemned; nor does the ministering matron heal the tumor; nor through incantation does her attendant helper cheat the sickness; nor does a friendly crowd receive the last words; neither does the wife catch her dying husband's final breath, nor does the son his dying parent's. When thus finally the body lies lifeless and bloodless in ominous death, it is not then surrounded by a linen shroud, and a mourning chorus following the procession, but the body is committed to the urn (such a dread of the menacing evil attacks all) by a hook, through the shortest route and in the dark of night; a corpse-bearer drags it, and boldly thrusts it into a gaping ditch stinking with foul sulphurous vapours. Such carnage emptied the city of its citizens and cleared houses of their masters. Yet where, o nobles and children of nobles, do you escape to on your swift course? Does heaven alter your souls, or does the sea wash away the squalor of a corrupted heart? He is that creator of destruction, the world's judge, from whom no one honest and penitent suffers retribution, and likewise no one wicked and insolent escapes his retribution.   [p375] You, although fleeing the land of your fathers for a foreign sun, and deposited on the pathless edge of a mountain's peak, or hidden in a deep chasm, or surrounded by rocks, and by the inaccessible expanses of the currents on the vast sea, he will hunt down with a keen-witted search, and rip you out from your dark burrow. And the punishments owed to your sins which you attempt to elude in flight, the avenger will demand in much harsher form than what was owed for the fugitives. Therefore in vain do we strive to overcome the plague, or to elude the fire of the sickness, or by averting the evil with water and flame, or consigning ourselves to flight. Just like the dog licking the stones which the boy threw while ignoring his creator. e while the foul cause of the disease settles in the veins, and burst forth from the root; while, I say, we eagerly proceed to contrive foul deeds, the source and kindle of our woes; thus do we incite the anger of the holy divinity, and strive for punishments from heaven; punishment for deeds truly unequal to their gravity, and during the crime trifling, as the king of kings punishes us with his own spear, with the loathsome touch of breath. But once the prophesising king preferred the whip to famine and the sword; and now only repentance can atone for any sins, as I understand it. By this route, exiles, return across the lands of the world to the threshold of the city you left behind, enjoying the protection of your former rights. And by this route drink in the now healthy winds which the love of the household gods has preserved in the city. Applaud, for the avenging plague has been overcome!