SOURCE: "Of the Bruce," in The "Wallace" and the "Bruce" Restudied, P. Hanstein's Verlag, 1900, pp. 85-155.

[In the following excerpt, Brown argues that The Bruce has been extensively altered by a later editor.]

… John Ramsay's hand in The Bruce.

Do the Cambridge and Edinburgh manuscripts of The Bruce preserve the work of John Barbour in its original form, due allowance being made for fifteenth century orthography of the scribe: or do they exhibit the fourteenth century poem in a form more or less recast, amplified and embellished by an editor in the succeeding century? That question without doubt is of far more importance than anything concerning Barbour's authorship of The Stewartis Orygynalle, the Troy Book, Legends of the Saints or The Brut.

Some years ago, after repeated perusal of The Bruce, I began to suspect that another and later hand than Barbour's is discernible at more than one place of the poem. The language, when compared with and tested by dated fourteenth century documents, seemed to suggest contamination after 1375. So too, certain things in the narrative indicated redaction involving a series of changes running through the structure of the work. I purposely avoid a discussion of the diction, preferring rather to leave it to experienced philologists; but as regards certain superficial evidences of disturbance of the original text I would point to the thrice told story of the Brooch of Lomn:² to the fact that Edward I is spoken of in Book VIII as still alive although the account of his death is particularly related in Book IV.³ It is also odd, as Professor Skeat remarks, to find in Book VIII Sir Simon Fraser mentioned as alive in 1307, considering that 'he was put to death the year before; and it is still more odd that he should be mentioned yet again in Book IX.'⁴ Such palpable inconsistencies are not to be classed merely among Barbour's historical errors: they are direct violations of the ordinary canons of romance and for that reason it is difficult to believe them to be attributable to carelessness on the part of Barbour himself. There is also the passage in Book XIII, 704 where Barbour accurately dates his work as 1375, a kind of colophon seemingly out of place, that appears 'to have been added at some later time'. 'We should have expected', says the learned editor, 'to find it at the end of the poem. Else we must suppose that Barbour merely made a note of the date en passant and completed the poem afterwards'.⁵

It was not, however, until after realising the very intimate relation between The Wallace and The Bruce and carefully examining the manuscripts of Ramsay as well as the long quotation from Barbour's poem incorporated in Wyntoun's Cronykil that a reliable criterion for testing The Bruce was obtained. Observing the uniform nature of the emendations in the different manuscripts, and noting the variations between the Cronykil and the Edinburgh manuscript in the long parallel passage, it occurred to me to begin by scrutinising more particularly some of the lines in The Bruce that are assumed by the editors of that poem to have been omitted by Wyntoun of set purpose, and, as the scope of the investigation widened, the evidence which I am about to adduce gradually unfolded itself.

The passages to be subjected to fair and ordinary tests are the following:—

1. The allusion in Book I to the Trojan War, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and King Arthur.
2. The Account of Gaudifer of Laryss in the Alexander Romance.
3. The reference to the Romance of Ferumbrace in Book III.
4. The Tydeus episode in Book VI.
5. The Hannibal Example in relation to Wyntoun's Cronykil.
6. The interpolated passage relating to the Heart of King Robert the Bruce; the relation of The Bruce to Froissart's Chronicles, and a few minor points.

By means of these selected examples I hope to be able to shew that my hypothesis of fifteenth century redaction has a basis in demonstrable fact.

(I.) The Trojan War, Alexander, Caesar, and Arthur passage, extends from lines 515 to 560 of Book I. Its literary setting deserves special attention. Barbour has been telling of the conference between Bruce and the false Comyn.

'As thai come ridand fra Strevillyn'

and it will be remembered it is just at that place where, as Professor Skeat remarks, we meet with 'the most extraordinary of the author's errors'—that by which Barbour 'confuses Robert Bruce the grandfather with Robert Bruce the grandson'. That error, in the opinion of the learned editor 'is enough to render us cautious as to believing any of his statements without additional evidence'. A more recent writer, Sir Herbert Maxwell, referring to the same error comments thus strongly on it. 'Unhappily', he says, 'Barbour's poem which is of the deepest interest to the philologer as the very earliest extant specimen of Scottish vernacular literature,⁶ has been almost irretrievably discredited as a chronicle by a monstrous liberty which the author takes in rolling three real personages into one ideal hero. In this way he has treated father, son and grandson—all of whom bore the name of Robert de Brus—and gravely presented them as one and the same individual. Barbour was at work on his poem, as he himself informs us in 1375, forty six years after the death of Robert I, and it is impossible to doubt that he deliberately and consciously perpetrated the fabrication whereby he made Robert de Brus the 'competitor' the same as his grandson Robert de Brus, Earl of Carrick, crowned King of Scots in 1306, and threw into the same personality the intermediate Robert de Brus, Lord of Annandale, who was King Edward's Governor of Carlisle during John Bailliol's brief war. Such a glaring figment placed in the forefront of an historical work might render, and in the eyes of some people, has rendered, all that follows it, of no historical importance. This great national epic has been denounced as of no more value to history than the romances of Walter Scott⁷ or Alexander Dumas. As the late Cosmo Innes observed in editing The Brus for the Spalding Club in 1859,—

'It suited Barbour's purpose to place Bruce altogether right, Edward outrageously wrong in the first discussion of the disputed succession. It suited his views of poetical justice that Bruce, who had been so unjustly dealt with, should be the Bruce, who took vengeance for that injustice at Bannockburn though the former was the grandfather, the other the grandson. His hero is not to be degraded by announcing that he had once sworn fealty to Edward and once done homage to Balliol, or ever joined any party but that of his country and freedom.'

'It must be confessed that at first sight little of value could be looked for from such a dubious source. But closer examination reveals that the cardinal falsehood is all disposed of in the first fewcantos. The first ten of these may be rejected as irrelevant to any honest purpose.⁸

Poor Barbour might perhaps have preferred to burn his Book could he have foreseen how harshly the historical and literary critics of a later time were, by means of it, to impugn his 'suthfastness' as a chronicler. But it is surely due to his memory, even at this distant day, to defend him from undeserved strictures, and all the more so that it is in the interest of history to render the needed service.

Now both in The Bruce and in the long parallel passage of the Cronykil there is a mistake in designating the grandfather as Earl of Carrick, that title having been first borne by the son; but notwithstanding that slip, Wyntoun carefully distinguishes, as Professor Skeat remarks, 'between the three generations'.⁹ But by the single line in The Bruce—

'Thys lord the Brwyss, I spak of ayr,'

the whole confusion is occasioned; for the Bruce of whom the poet 'is going to speak is the hero of his poem; but the Bruce of whom he has already spoken (67. 153) is that hero's grandfather' who died in 1294. It is most noticeable, however, that the line in question is one of the variants between the poem and the Cronykil, and by preferring Wyntoun's text to the manuscripts the 'glaring figment' at once disappears.

The Cronykill.

Quhen all this sawe the Brwss Robert
That bare the crowne swne eftirwart
Gret pytte off the folk he had
Set few wordis tharoff he mad.

The Bruce.

This lord the Brwyss I spak of ayr
Saw all the kynryk swa forfayr
And swa trowblyt the folk saw he
That he tharoff had gret pitte.

It is surely permissible to correct the error by the aid of the Cronykil seeing that it is admittedly in other respects the better text; indeed Professor Skeat actually does so in another place where both the Cambridge and Edinburgh Mss. miss a whole line which is required to complete a couplet.¹⁰

Besides, when we find in The Bruce constant inversion of the Christian name and surname, merely for the sake of the rime, is it not reasonable to suppose that Wyntoun's reading—'The Brwss Robert'—is the original? 'Vallanch schir Amery', 'Brechine schir Davy', 'the erle of Adell, Davy', 'the erle of Carrick, schir Edward' 'Calzeoun schir Edward', 'the Erie of Murref Thomas', 'Keth gud schir Vilzame' are only a few instances of similar inversion. And other cogent reasons have been advancedby Mr. T. F. Henderson in support of the view I am contending for. After pointing out that Wyntoun's non acceptance 'of the accidental or intended fiction' shews that there can have been no general desire on the part of the Scots to bolster up either the national cause or that of Bruce by such a stupid artifice, he adds with point, that 'Barbour had no need to have recourse to it, for his theme did not include the years in Bruce's life when, perhaps, his patriotism was stifled by his rivalry with Baliol; and to have introduced him simply as the grandson of him he "spak of ayr" would equally well have suited his purpose. And lastly,—and this seems conclusive—if Barbour did wilfully falsify facts, how could he have set himself to expose his own falsification by compiling the genealogy of the Stewarts, ending with Robert II of Scotland'!

The mere suspicion of contamination of the manuscripts in an all important line should at any rate lead us to examine with greater vigilance all other lines that awaken doubts concerning their authenticity.

The Trojan War allusion is as follows:—

'Bot off all thing, wa worth tresoun!
For thar is nothir duk ne baroun
Na erie, na prynce, na kyng off mycht,
Thocht he be neuir sa wyss na wycht
For wyt, worschip, price, na renoun,
That euir may wauch him with tresoune!
Wes nocht all Troy with tresoune tane
Quhen ten ɜeris of the wer wes gane?
Then slayn wes moné thowsand
Ofi thaim with-owt, throw strenth of hand
As Dares in his buk he wrate,
And Dytis that knew all thar state
Thai mycht nocht haiff beyn tane throw mycht
Bot tresoune tuk thaim throw hyr slycht.

These lines, it appears to me, if they stood alone, would furnish no argument against Barbour's authorship. I regard Barbour as the author of the fragment of The Troy Book preserved in the Cambridge Mss.¹¹ and consequently no one would be more likely than he to draw upon Guido's Trojanum Bellum for whatever he required to lend colour to his narrative. If anything can be urged against their authenticity it must be on account of their intimate connection with the Alexander, Caesar, and Arthur allusions. But some one may say, anticipating any objection whatever, that the entire passage relates nothing about Troy, Alexander, Caesar, or Arthur but what was commonplace in the 14th century—nothing that Barbour is not to be presumed to have known as a scholar poet. Up to a point, such a general objection would be fair enough. For undoubtedly we must assume his knowledge both of history and romance to have been at least equal to that of other poets, his contemporaries. But granting all that, there yet remains a question wholly unaffected by such considerations; a question that relates to the sources used by the composer of these particular lines. For example, if it can be shewn that the Alexander, Caesar, and Arthur lines are derived partly from the Monk's Tale and partly from the alliterative poem Morte Arthure then there need be no hesitation whatever in affirming that they cannot have been written by Barbour. And that I submit is what an examination discovers.

Let us take the Alexander and Caesar allusion examining it with the Monk's Tale in which the same heroes are also brought together.

The Bruce. B. I. 1. 529.

And Alexander the Conqueroure,
That conqueryt Babilonys tour,
And all this warld of lenth and breid
In twelf yher, throw his douchty deid,

Was syne destroyit throw pusone
In his awyne howss throu gret tresoune.
Bot or he deit his land delt he;
To se his dede wes gret pité

Julius Caesar als that wan
Bretane and Fraunce, as douchty man
Affryk, Arrabé, Egipt, Surry,¹³
And all Europe halyly

And for his worschip and valour
Off Rome wes fyrst maid emperour

Syne in hys Capitol wes he
Throw thaim of his consaill privé

Slayne vith punsoune rycht to the dede

And quhen he saw thar wes na rede
His eyn with his hand closit he
For to dey with mar honesté.

The Monk's Tale.

(1) The storie of Alisaundre,^{* * *}
    This wyde world, as in conclusion
    He wan by strengthe^{* * *}
(5) Twelf yher he regned as seith Machabee¹²

O worthy gentil Alisaundre, allas!

Empoysoned of thyne owne folk
              thou were

(5) Who shall me yeven teres to compleyne

Allas who shal me helpe to endyte
Falsd fortune and poison to despyse

(1) Up roos he, Julius the Conqueror

That wan al thoccident by land and
                          see

By strengthe of hand, ^{* * *}
And sithe of Rome the Emperour
                      was he.

(5) This Julius to the Capitolie went
    Upon a day ^{* * * *}
(4) But on a tyme Brutus and Cassius

    Ful prively had made conspiracye
(5) and stikende him with boydekins
                        anoon
(6) And as he lay of diyng in a traunce
    And wiste verraily that ded was he.¹⁴
    Of honestee yit hadde he remembraunce.

In The Bruce we have only twenty lines to compare with ninety six in Chaucer, consequentlywe must expect the former to be very much a summary, exhibiting more or less skilfulness in assimilation and combination on the part of the borrower. It is to be carefully noted at the outset, how the Scottish poet exactly follows the sequence of the Chaucerian narrative. It is worthy of remark too that while Chaucer mentions the Book of Maccabees in his story of Alexander, the Scottish poet, immediately before commencing his disquisition on the heinousness of treason, makes passing reference to the Maccabees, who—

   'as men in the bibill says
Throw thair gret worship and valour
Fawcht into mony stalwart stour"¹⁵

and the reader who turns to the Monk's Tale will note the mention of the

'Kinges princes erles and dukes bolde'

said to have been conquered by Alexander, and the very similar enumeration in The Bruce in the opening lines under examination—

         'wa worth tresoun,
For ther is nothir duk ne baroun
Na erie na prynce, na king off mycht.'

The Julius Caesar passage is not less remarkable for significant agreement, as regards the sequence of the narrative, with the Monk's Tale. So far as concerns the diction it approaches even nearer the Chaucerian original. The conquests in the Orient and Occident; the elevation of Julius as Emperor; his death in 'the Capitol' compassed, according to Chaucer, by 'friends ful previly', in The Bruce by 'thaim of his consaille privé'; the slaying with 'bodekins' or 'punsounes'; and the dying in 'honestee', are not to be explained either as commonplaces or as mere coincidences.

Turn we now to the Arthur lines—

'Als Arthur that throw chevalry
Maid Bretane maistres and lady
Off twelf kinrykis that he wan;
And alsua as a noble man
He wan throw bataill Fraunce all fre,
And Lucius Yber vencusyt he
That then of Rome was emperour.
Bot ɜeit, for all his gret valour
Modreyt his syster-son him slew,
And gud men als, ma then inew,
Throw tresoune and throw wikketnes,
The Broite beris tharoff wytnes.'

In that epitome of Arthurian story it may be that at first sight one will not observe much thatis calculated to awaken suspicion. All the same there is something. It is an excellent summary of the Morte Arthure. In Huchown's poem we read of 'kyngrykes' won by Arthur 'thorowe craftys of armes', and of 'Lucius the Emperour' of Rome. No doubt if Barbour knew The Brut of Wace or Layamon he would find Lucius there styled Emperor.¹⁶ But ought we to assume him to have been acquainted with the French or English version? I think not. There is not in the whole range of Scottish literature the slightest trace of influence of either of these authors: but it is quite otherwise with Geoffrey of Monmouth. The Stewartis Orygynale itself was largely derived from the Latin original. But the fact that Wyntoun—anticipating critics who might 'perchance argwe his cunnandnes' because he styled Lucius Emperor—was careful to justify his own use by citing the poet Huchown as a precedent, goes very far indeed to prove that in the year 1420 the Arthur passage was no part of the authentic text of The Bruce. No other author knew Barbour's poem better or used it so extensively as Wyntoun. Yet he altogether ignores the fact that Barbour as well as Huchown had extended the imperial style to Lucius Tiberius. Surely The Bruce would have supplied, if not a weightier, at least as weighty, a precedent as the Morte Arthure of Huchown. One remembers how studiously Wyntoun lets it be known that he himself is well acquainted with the work of Geoffrey, and the ingenious plea advanced for Huchown—

'Had he cald Lucius Procurature
Quhare that he cald hym Empyroure,
That had mare grevyd the cadens
Than had relyvyd the sentens.
Ane empyroure in propyrté
A comawndoure suld callyd be
Lucius swylk mycht have bene kend
Be the message that he send.
Here suffysyand excusatyownys
For wylful defamatyownys.
He man be war in mony thyng
That will hym kepe fre mysdemyng.'

The contiguity of the Troy and Arthur lines with the suspect Alexander and Caesar allusions must also be taken into account. When appropriating part of the embroidery from Chaucer it appears to me that Ramsay borrowed from his two favourite poems the Gest Historiale and Morte Arthure. In a cumulative argument, at any rate, the whole passage must be brought into account and passed under review.

The Alexander Romance: Gaudifer de Laryss.

In Books III and X there is a reference to the Romance of Alexander the Great that treats of the Forray of Gadderis. The story is found in the Buik of Alexander the Great, published by the Bannatyne Club in 1831. Professor Skeat was aware that the Romance was translated into Scottish in 1438, consequently to his note on Book III 1. 73 he added 'that Barbour must have seen it in an earlier form. Barbour had probably seen a copy of Li Romans d'Alexandre by Lambert de Tors and Alexander de Bernay which was written in the 13th century'. That John Barbour cannot have seen the Scottish version is beyond dispute, for the colophon of the translator, who, I believe, was DavidRate, Confessor of James I of Scotland,¹⁷ is accurately dated. It tells us that the work was translated from the French in 1438—

'Before the tyme that God was borne
To save our saulls that was forlorne
Sensyne is past ane thousand ɜeir
Four hundred and threttie thair to neir
And aucht and sumdele mare, I vis."¹⁸

The question, therefore, is whether the passage of The Bruce is derived directly from the French Romance or from the Scottish translation of 1438; John Ramsay, it will be admitted, might very well have known the vernacular version.

Let us look first at the persons named in The Bruce. These are, in Book III, Gaudifer de Laryss, Betyss, Alysaundir, Tholimar, Coneus, Danklyne and in Book X Arestee. Now, in the Scottish translation of 1438, the names are the same,—with the slightest difference in spelling, viz. Gaudifeir de Laryss, Betys, Alisandir, Tholomere, Coneus, Danklyne, Arrestee. In the French original, however, Tholomere is called Tholomes;¹⁹ Coneus, Corineus; Danklyne, Dans Clins; Betyss, Betis; Arestee, Ariste son dru. It is surely not to be readily believed that two Scotsmen translating independently would assimilate French proper names alike, and the agreement between the 1438 version and The Bruce is therefore most significant. We should notice also that the famous grey palfrey of Lord James Douglas is called Ferrand, which is also the name of the equally famous steed of King Alexander's doughty companion Eumenydus.

But when we go a little farther afield the evidence becomes positive. For example, we find these lines about Spring at the beginning of Book V. where strangely enough the subject matter of the book itself relates to things that happened in September 1306.²⁰

The Bruce. Book V.

This wes in Vere quhen wyntir tyde
With his blastis hydwiss to byde,
Wes ourdriffin: and birdis smale,
As thristill and the nychtingale
Begonth rycht meraly to syng       5
And for to mak in thair synging
Syndry notis and soundis sere,
And melody plesande to here.
And the treis begonth to ma
Burgeonys and brycht blumys alsua,        10
To wyn the heling of thar hevede
That wikkit wytir had thame revede;
And all grevis begonth to spryng.

And in Book XVI. 1. 63 this very similar passage—

This wes in the moneth of May
Quhen byrdis syngis on the spray,
Melland thar notys with syndry sowne
For softnes of that sweit sesoune:
And levis on the branchis spredis,
And blomys bricht besyd thame bredis,
And feldis florist ar with flowris,
Weill savourit of seir colouris;
And all thing worthis blith and gay
Quhen that this gud king tuk his way.'

Compare these passages with the following from the 1438 version of the Alexander.²¹

page 107.

   In mery May quhen medis
   springis,
And foulis in the forestis singis,
And nychtingalis thair notis neuis,
And flouris spredis on seirkin hewes.

 As kynd thame colouris gevis divers
 And burgeons of thare brancheis
bredis
And woddis winnis thare winfull
wedis.'

page 248.

    This was in middes the moneth
    of May
 Quhen wyntir wedes ar away
 And foulis singis of soundis seir
 And makes thame mirth on thare
manere,
 And graues that gay war, waxis
grene,
 As nature throu his craftis kene
 Schroudis thame self with thare
floures,
 Wele savorand of sere colouris'

and also at page 159

'That strouit war with sindry floures
Wele savorand of sere solouris.'

Again in Book V. 1. 580 of The Bruce we are told of the Carrick ruffian who plotted with his two sons to waylay the king. Bruce had been warned of the treason and on seeing the three armed men approach, turned to the young 'chalmir page' who accompanied him and asked—

'Quhat wappyn has thou? 'A! schir perfay,
'I haf a bow, bot and a wyre.'       595
'Gif me thame smertly baith'. 'A! syre,
How-gat will ɜhe than that I do?'

The king then

'tit the bow out of his hand       603
For the tratouris wes neir cumand

He tasit the vyre and leit it fle,
And hit the fader in the e,
Till it rycht in the hamys ran.'       625

Is it merely a coincidence that at page 250 of The Alexander we read of Porrus, in the Garden of Venus, getting similar help from his page?—

'Ane chyld besyde him went
With ane stane-bow in hand all bent.'

Porrus addresses him—

'Len me that bow',—'I grant', said he;
He tuke the bow and taistit sone.²²
And thairin hes ane pellok done'

which

     'he hit richt on the hede,
Quhill on the stane the harnis glede,
And out of the hede the ene out brast.'

We are left in no doubt about The Alexander being one of the sources used in this particular episode of The Bruce for we find couplets borrowed almost verbatim,—

'Till he him umbethocht at the last
And in his hert can umbecast.'
B. V. 551.

'Quhill he umbethocht him at the last
    And in his hert cleirly can cast.'
A. p. 193. 1. 29.

and,

'He ruschit doune of blude all rede
And quhen the king saw thai war ded.
B. V. 645.

… But we are only as it were on the threshold as yet. For, when the two poems are carefully examined, it is as clear as daylight that the Scottish translation of 1438 has been used extensively throughout The Bruce as a direct source. Some scores of passages might easily be cited shewing cunning selection, pruning and combination, precisely similar to what one finds on comparing The Wallace with The Gest Historiale & Morte Arthure; but these need not be noticed at present for we can have indisputable evidence. As I remarked in an earlier chapter the alliterative metre of the Gest Historiale & Morte Arthure rendered it impossible for Ramsay when composing The Wallace to appropriate lines verbatim; but the case was different when he chose The Alexander as one of his models in editing Barbour's poem. The metre of both poems was identical and he manifestly did not scruple to take freely whatever seemed to suit his purpose. Here is the evidence—

The Alexander.

p. 176 1. 5.
Bot he was nocht sa fare suthly,
That men bird spek of him gretly,
For he wes broun rede in visage.

p. 22, 4.
With lymmis square and manly maid.
And armys lang and schoulderis braid.

p. 46 1. 23.
How he Erll Sabolour hes slane
And uthir als of mekill mane.

p. 21 1. 16.
Quha for his lord deis, he sall be
Harbreid with Angellis gle.

p.3 82 1. 18.
The grene gras vox of blude all rede,
And covered with wondit men and dede.

p. 362 1.26
 … into thair first cumming
War laid at eard but recovering.

p. 88 1. 20.
For to defend all the flearis
And for to stony the chassaris.

p. 46 1. 7.
With spurris he straik him sturdely,
And he lansit deliverly.

p. 79 1. 25.
With spurris he brocht him in hy,
And he lansit deliverly.

p. 190 1. 13.
For gif I leif in leige pouste,²³
Thow sall of him weill vengit be.

p. 40 1. 1.
And towart him raid in full great hy
And smot the first sa sturdely.

p. 4 1. 24.
Ferrand he straik with spurris in hy
And straik the first sa rigorusly,
That throw the bodie he him bair.

p. 38 1. 3.
That he met first sa sturdely,
That deid doun to the erd him bare.

p. 380 1. 1.
Had he nocht all the better bene
He had bene deid forouttin wene.

p. 20 1. 26.
Thocht thay be ma nor we, forthy
Seik we the first as sturdely,
That the hindmaist abasit he.

p. 2 1. 25.
Now rydis the furreouris thair way,
Richt stoutly and in gude array.

p. 97 1. 11.
For ane worthiar knicht na he,
I trow, thair may nane fundin be.

p. 49 1. 2.
Outtane the king allanerly
And his gude eme, quhome to that I
Dar compare nane.

p. 389
1. 25. Thare micht men se into that place
Mony ane worthy man and wicht.

p. 354 1. 29, p. 37
2 1.10.  … wilfull to fulfill
His avow with gude hert and will.

p. 76 1. 13.
The gude duke callit his men previe
And said: Lordingis now may ze sie.

p. 26 1. 26 ff.
He sawe sa feill broundin baneris,
And pennonis upon seir maneris …
The greatest host and the stoutest
Of ony cuntry and the best
Suld of that sicht abasit be.

p. 8 1. 17.
He saw the battelis approchand
With baneris to the wynd waiffand.

p. 281 1. 10.
And gif we foly agane foly
And sagait mak ane iepardy.

p. 340 1. 25.
To morne, gif God will, we sall fecht,
Now help us God for his mekill mycht.

p. 351 1. 12.
Thus armit all the nicht thay lay
Quhill on the morne that it wes day.

p. 227 1. 5.
Mony helm hewin and mony knicht
Throw force was fellit in the fecht.

p. 80 1. 18.
Bot with wapons stalwart of steill
Thay dang on uther with all thair micht.

p. 366 1. 4.
Stert Clarus up that herd the dintis
Of wapnis that on helmis styntis.

p. 42 1. 15.
  … I tak on hand,
Thay have of him sie ane menyng
Thai sail neid, I wis, of leching.

p. 362 1. 20.
Under thair scheildis thay war naked…
Thay sail nouther hardement have nor
                          micht
Aganis armit men to ficht.

p. 236 1. 24.
And hard the dinging of thare dyntis,
That kest fyre as man dois flyntis.

p. 45 1. 32.
Quhan he the rinkis saw shudder swa
And the battellis togidder ga.

p. 283 1. 20.
Than ferleid all that ever thar was,
How ony man on ony wyse
Durst undertak sa hie ane pryse.

p. 54 1. 19.
Bot thay war all to few to ficht
Agane sa fele, bot nocht for thy …

p. 8 1. 19.
And saw few with him for to fecht
Aganis men sa mekill of micht.

p. 19 1.18.
         … the king
That we hald of all our halding.

p. 118 1. 14, and p. 338 1. 19. The hoste thame restit all the nicht
Quhil on the morne that day was licht.

The Bruce.

B. I 1. 380. Bot he was nocht sa fayr that we
Suld spek gretly of his beaute:
In wysage wes he sumdeill gray.…
Bot of lymmys he wes weill maid
With banys gret and schuldris braid.

B. II. 1. 37.
Schyr Edmund cumyn als wes slayn
And othir alas of mekill mayn.

B. II 1. 340.
That he that deis for his countre
Sall herbryt intill hewyn be.

B. II. 1. 360.
Sum woundyt and sum all deid
The gres woux off the blude all rede.

B. III 1. 121.
 … at thar fyrst metyng
War layd at erd but recoveryng

B. III 1. 81.
For to reskew all the fleieris
And for to stonay the chasseris.

B. III 1. 121.
And strak with spuris the stede in hy,
And he lansyt furth delyverly.

B. V 1. 165.
Bot and I lif in lege pouste,
Thair ded sall rycht weill vengit be.

B. VI 1. 135.
And raid till him in full gret hy.
He smat the first sa rygorusly …
Till he doun to the erd him bare.

B. VI 1. 162.
Had he nocht the bettir beyn,
He had beyn ded forouten veyn.

B. VIII 1. 243.
For gif the formast egirly
Be met zhe shall se suddenly
The henmast sall abasit be,
And thouch that thai be ma than we.

B. VIII 1. 271.
Now gais the nobill kyng his way
Richt stoutly and in gude aray.

B. IX 1. 662 ff.
I trow that worthyar than he
Micht nocht in his tyme fundyn be
Outakyn his brothir anerly,
To quhom into gude chevelry.
I dar peir nane.…

B. XI 1. 126
Men mycht se than that had beyn by,
Mony ane vorthy man and vycht.

B. XI 1. 266
 .…wilfull to fulfill
His liking with gude hert and will.

B. XI 1. 270.
And callit all his consell preve
And said thame; lordingis, now ze se.

B. XI 1. 464 ff.
Thai saw so fele browdin beneris,
Standartis, pennownis apon speris …
That the mast host and the stoutest
Of crystyndome and ek the best
Suld be abasit for till se.

B. XI 1. 312, and B. IX 1. 244. Com with thair battalis approchand,
The Banerys to the vynd vaffand.

B. XII p. 261.
To set stoutnes agane felony
And mak swagat ane Juperdy.

B. XII 1. 323.
Now makis zow reddy till the ficht²⁴
God help us, that is mast of mycht.

B. XII 1. 333, and B. XIX 1. 403. And swagat all the nycht baid thai,
Till on the morn that it wes day.

B. XII 1. 523.
That mony worthy man and wicht
Throw fors wes fellit in that ficht.

B. XIII 1. 14.
For with wapnys stalwart of steill
Thai dang on thame with all thar mycht.

B. XIII 1. 28, and B. XIII 1
. 153. Thar mycht men her richt mony dynt
And vapnys apon armour stynt.

B. XIII 1. 44.
     … I undirta,
Thai left eftir thame taknyng,
That sail neid, as I trow, lechyng.

B. XIII 1. 97.
And agane armyt men to ficht
May nakit men haff litill might.

B. XIII 1. 35.
Men herd nocht ellis bot granis aod dyntis
That slew fire as men dois flyntis.

B. XIII 1. 63.
Quhen that he saw the battalis swa
Assemmyll and togidder ga.

B. XIV 1. 504.
And of the sicht had gret ferly
That sa quhein durst on ony wis
Undertak sa hye empris.

B. XV 1. 146
. Thay war to few all out, perfay.
With sic a gret rout for to ficht,
Bot nocht for thy.…

B. XVIII 1. 61.

That thair kyng with sa quheyn vald
                        ficht
Agane folk of sa mekill mycht.

B. XIX 1. 65.
       … the king
That he held of all his halding.

B. XIX 1. 715, B. IV 1. 157, B. IX 1. 207,
B. X 1. 466
And maid thame gud cher all that nycht
Quhill on the morne that day wes lycht.

We notice also the following identical lines in both poems, vizt:—

Richt as the day begouth to spring.
B. VI 319; A. 3, 16.

Bot on the morne in the mornyng.
B. XIV 165; A. 3, 15.

Till on the morn quhen it wes day.
B. XII 334; A. 317, 15;
B. XIX 404, 503, 752.

And on the morn quhen day wes lycht.
B. XIII 514; A. 338, 20;
B. XIV 172; A. 118, 15;
B. IV 165.

The sone wes rysyn schynand (and schynit)
B. VIII 216; B. IV 166;

                              bricht.
A. 219, 4.
That speris all to fruschit war (thair).

B. 11 350; A. 826, 12.
And routis ruyd about thaym (him) dang.

B. II 356; A. 407, 28.
Raucht him sic rout in randoun richt.

B. V 632; A. 400, 23.
And smait the first sa rigorusly.

B. VII 449; A. 4, 25.
For to manteyme that stalward stour.

B. XI 401; A. 45, 7; A. 46, 19.
Thai dang on othir with vapnys seir.

B. XII 511; A. 415, 9.
Inmyd the vysage met thame thar.

B. XII 576; A. 4, 28; A. 410, 17.
Thar men mycht se ane stalward stour.

B. XII 577; A. 34, 5.
Ane felloune fechting wes than thair.

B. XIV 294; A. 77, 31.
And sic dyntis about him dang.

B. XVII 155; A. 43, 3.
For quhen that he his poynt mycht (culd) se.

B. VII 388; A. 45, 14.
He all till-hewyt that he ourtuk.

B. II 381; A. 366, 11.
Undyr hors feyt defoulyt thar (swa).

B. II 389; A. 86, 6.
That arme and schuldyr flaw him fra.

B. III 115; A. 411, 5.
He rouschit doun of blude all rede.
B. III 139; B. V 645; A. 33, 31;
A. 413, 13.
Till top our taill he gert him ly.

B. VII 455; A. 72, 8.
Till red blude ran of voundis rath.

B. VIII 322; A. 401, 30.
That we of purpos ger thame (him) faill.

B. XI 68; A. 71, 13.
And slew all that thai mycht ourta.
B. XIII 93; A. 379, 21; B. IV 415;
B. XVI 638.
That all the feldis strowit war.

B. XIV 443; B. XVI 63
3;
A. 53, 4. Gifand an takand woundis wyd.
B. XIII 160; B. XV 54;
A. 222, 8; B. VI 288.

And syne vend to the vod avay.

B. V 561; A. 215, 32.
He turnit his bridill an to ga.

B. VIII 351; A. 87,
18;
A. 218, 4. That sum war ded and sum war tane.

B. VIII 353; A. 384, 18;B. IX 263.
The remanand thar gat ar gane,
B. VIII 354; A. 363, 28.
And magre thairis left the place.
B. XIII 170; A. 36, 12.
And sum of thame fled all planly.
B. XIII 277; A. 61, 1.
That thai that fle mycht fled avay.

B. XVIII 468; A. 53, 7;
A. 423, 15. Thus maid wes (mak thay) pes quhar wer wes
 air.

B. XX 63; A. 429, 20.
For thai that dredand (doutand) war to de.

B. IV 417; A. 385, 26.
And lap on hym delyverly.

B. II 142; A. 398, 2.
His assenɜhe can he cry.
B. II 378; A. 4, 14; B. III 27.
His men till him he gan rely.
B. III 34; B. IV 426; A. 4, 4.
With that in hy to him callyt (turnit) he.

B. III 331; A. 89, 15.
Syne (all) in ane sop assemblit ar.

B. VII 567; A. 4, 16.
With spurys he strak the steid of pris (pryde).

B. VIII 79; A. 83, 9.
And towart him he went (come) in hy.

B. XII 39; A. 102, 21.
And till his menɜhe can he say.

B. XV 471; A. 7, 8.
He maid thame mekill fest and far.

B. XVI 46; A. 433, 20.
flowris weill savourit of seir colowris.

B. XVI 70; A. 248, 23; A. 159; 24.
That in his hert gret angyr hes.
B. VIII 16; A. 24, 15; A. 431,19.
He prysit hym in his hert gretly.

B. XI 58; A. 93, 20.
Quhar velcum heir all tym (mot ever) 3e be.

B. XVIII 536; A. 304, 14.
And pensalis to the vynd vaffand.

B. XI 193; A. 33, 20.
Thai tursit thair harnes halely.

B. IX 360; A. 3, 11.
Armyt in armys gude and fyne.

B. XII 32; A. 46, 28; A. 54, 23.
And als a man of mekill mycht.
B. V 294; A. 57, 25.
And he that stalward wes and stout.

B. VI 146; A. 58, 7.
Cum on forouten dreid or aw.

B. XI 555; A. 10, 29.
Quharfor I zow requeir and pray.
B. XII 263; A. 125, 14.
That wer fulfillit of gret bounte.
B. XII 423; A. 297, 3; A. 344, 6.
Quhy suld I mak to lang my tale.
B. XI 135; A. 277, 4; A. 440, 12;A. 417, 4.
Thousand armyt on hors bath fut and hand.

B. XIX 411; A. 53, 18.
Men mycht se than that had beyn by²⁵
B. XI 126; A. 98, 18.

Two questions are suggested by these parallel passages, vizt. (1) Did the 1438 translator of the Alexander borrow from The Bruce? or, (2) Has the Alexander translation been used by a fifteenth century editor of The Bruce?

In considering the first question let us assume that Barbour while composing The Bruce had certain episodes of the famous French Alexander Romance before him as models, which he imitated extensively; and further that he translated couplets and single lines, incorporating them in his ownwork. There is of course nothing improbable in such an assumption per se; but observe where it leads us. If we accept it as true, then we must also believe that a poet, a skilful versifier, while engaged, some sixty years later, on a complete translation of the identical episodes of the French romance, took the infinite trouble to hunt through the long Bruce manuscript not merely to pick out the scattered lines translated by Barbour, but to fit these, one by one, into the narrative as the French original required. Every one who considers the question will agree that any such explanation is simply incredible.

The translator of the Alexander tells us,—_²⁶

'For to translait in Inglis leid
Ane romaine quilk I hard reid ^{* * *}
107.21.

To short thame that na Romanes can
This buke to translait I began
And as I can, I maid ending.'
441.21.

He mentions also that he followed 'that in Franche' he 'fand written' endeavouring—

'To mak it on sa gude manere
Sa oppin sentence and sa clere
As is the Frenche.'

His work is made up of three parts (1) The Forray of Gadderis; (2) The Avowes of Alexander, and (3) The Great Battel of Effesoun. The particular text followed in parts I and II is not easily determined; Michelant's edition of the Alexander of Lambert the Crooked, and Alexander of Bernay, enables us, however, to follow the Scottish rendering of the Forray of Gadderis through some thousand of lines.²⁷ The main difficulty in comparing the French and Scottish texts is occasioned by the different arrangement of certain parts of the narrative, the translation having evidently been made from another manuscript than the one edited by M. Michelant.

An affirmative answer to the second question appears to me to be inevitable. Nothing else but redaction of The Bruce, subsequent to 1438, will explain the presence in that poem of lines and couplets manifestly transferred from the fifteenth century translation of the Alexander. A careful examination of parallel and imitated passages suggests even the method followed by The Bruce editor. That he kept the translation before his eyes can scarcely be doubted. The borrowed lines and imitations, scattered throughout the twenty books of The Bruce, are far too numerous to have been written from memory. They exhibit deliberate selection, cunning combination, order in apparent disorder.

Take the portrait of the good Lord James Douglas in B. I 380: it is plagiarised, being obtained by blending the portraits of Porrus (176. 5) and the nameless knight (21. 4).²⁸ In the same way King Robert's address to his men before the battle of Methven is a mere cento from the speeches of Emynedus to his companions, the original shining through the thin veil of tiffany thrown over it by the editor. The closing lines—

      'he that dies for his cuntre
Sall herbryt intill hevyn be'

would by themselves lead to discovery of the source. The eulogy of Sir Edward Bruce and of King Robert (B. IX 662) is also a combination of two passages celebrating the courtesy of Gaddifer (97. 11) and Emynedus and his nephew (49. 2).

We see also how frequently single lines descriptive of nature are transferred to The Bruce—'The sone was rysin schynand brycht'²⁹ and the like. One observes also that the lines on Spring in The Bruce that serve as a preface to B. V precede the incident in which King Robert slays the Traitor by means of the bow and arrow of his 'chalmer page': and how in The Alexander the original of the prefatory verse is found in the same close relation to the similar incident of Porrus and his little page. The fact that The Bruce editor actually quotes from the Alexander four lines almost verbatim leaves us in no doubt whatever about the source of the Traitor story.

It is unnecessary to multiply examples; a word, however, may be said concerning the extent to which the translation is used in The Bruce. Direct quotations of more than single lines is scarcely met with in Books VII, XVI and XVII; it is still slight in Books I, IV, VI, VIII, IX, X, XIV, XV, XIX and XX; in Books II, III, V, XI, XII and XIII, more especially in the last three, it is considerable. In all, the number of lines nearly identical may be approximately estimated at between 150 and 200. But there is also a degree of imitation that testifies quite as much as verbatim quotation to the editorial method. Leaving out of view the constantly recurring phrases descriptive of combats—many of them an inheritance from early poets—it is plain when one reads the Alexander translation and The Bruce together, that a considerable part of the machinery of the latter has been unblushingly borrowed. Like a mole, the fifteenth century editor, burrowing into his material, has thrown up the soil upon the surface in such a way that it is rarely difficult to discover where he has been at work.

The Ferumbras Romance.

Come now to another equally well known passage. In Book III 435 it is narrated how King Robert the Bruce on the occasion of his followers crossing Loch Lomond—

'Red to thaim that war him by,
Romanys off worthi Ferumbrace,
That worthily our-cummyn was
Throw the rycht douchty Olywer;
And how the duk-peris wer
Assegyt in-till Egrymor,
Quhar King Lawyne lay thaim befor
With may thowsandis then I can say.
And bot eleuen within war thai,
And a woman; and war sa stad,
That thai na mete thar-within had,
Bot as thai fra thar fayis wan.
Yhete sua contenyt thai thaim than,
That thai the tour held manlily,
Till that Rychard off Normandy,
Magre his fayis, wamyt the king
That wes joyfull off this tithing:
For he wend thai had all bene slayne;
Tharfor he tumyt in hy agane
And wan Mantrybill and passit Flagot;
And syne Lawyne and all his flot,
Dispitusly discumfyt he;
And deliueryt his men all fre,
And wan the naylis, and the sper,
And the croune that Jesu couth ber;
And off the croice a gret party
He wan throw his chewalry.'

Of all the Charlemagne romances that of Ferumbras was for long the most popular as well in France, where it originated, as in England and Scotland. Professor Skeat's note on the Bruce lines is as follows:—'Ferumbrace, (Fierabras of Ferumbras) the Saracen was the son of Balan or Lavan the Sultan of Babylon and brother of the fair Floripas or Florippa. We have in English two versions of this romance; one of them the Farmer Ms. analysed by Ellis, and now in the library of Sir Thomas Phillips; the other a fragment of great length in Ms. Ashmole 33. They both belong probably to the end of the fourteenth century. The original of the romance is the French Fierabras; see Les Anciens Poetes de la France, tom IV, &c. Warton's History of English Poetry, Ed. Hazlitt ii 197. The Farmer Ms. was printed for the Roxburgh Club in 1854 with the title Romance of the Sowdone of Babylone and of Ferumbras his sone who conquered Rome, and was reprinted in 1881 by Hausknecht (E. E. T. S.). The Ashmole Ms. begins with the combat between Fierabras (ferri brachium) and Oliver; see the edition by Herrtage (E. E. T. S.) 1899.' The learned Editor of The Bruce does not express any opinion on the question whether the Scottish poet was acquainted with the French Fierabras or only with one of the English versions. Having no doubt about the authorship of the lines, he appears to have assumed that both English translations were as early as Barbour's day. As a consequence, his annotation of the passage does not touch the vital question at all, which is—whether the epitome in The Bruce is due to the poet's knowledge of a French text or merely of an English translation; and further whether John Barbour can be the author of the lines.

Let it be noted that in the French and Provencal texts the hero is always named Fierabras, Ferabras and Fierenbras, while in Barbour the name occurs as Ferumbrance. Practically the same English form of the name is found in both translations,—Ferumbras and Fyrumbras in the Ashmole poem; and Ferumbras in the Sowdone. of Babylone. That fact by itself, points to a knowledge on the part of the Scottish poet of one or other of the translations. But the name Lawyne is much more tell-tale.. In all the French tests save one, the father of Ferumbras is designated Balan, the exception being the short work now known as The Destruction of Rome, another of the Charlemagne romances. In that work the sowdan is called Laban. That poem, however, which is preserved in an unique ms., is merely related to the Charlemagne cycle and is certainly not identical with what M. Gaston Paris styles the French Balan romance.³⁰

In the Ashmolean Ferumbras the name occurs always as Balan. Not so, however, in The Sowdone of Babylone where it generally is written as Laban, but also, be it noted, as Lavane—

'O quod Lavane what may this be
To suffer this amonge my knyghtes alle?'

Now Dr. Hausknecht has shewn that while the Ashmolean Ferumbras is on the whole 'a mere translation of a French original, the Sowdone must be looked upon as a free reproduction of an English redactor, who, though following his original as far as regards the course of events, modelled the matter given there, according to his own genius, and thus came to compose an independent work of his own ^{* * *}. The subject of 'the introductory account' or the first part of the Sowdone is nearly the same as that of the Destruction de Rome, differing from this poem only in the omission of a few insignificant incidents or minor episodes, and in greater conciseness, which latter circumstances, however, enter into the general plan of the author'. The Destruction of Rome does not relate the Ferumbras story epitomised in The Bruce; it is interesting, however, to observe that it, the only French poem which calls Balan Laban, is incorporated in the Sowdone. It is observable enough also that in the Sowdone the name Laban occurs; but it is surely conclusive of their intimate relation to each other to find that the Sowdone and The Bruce alone preserve the form of the name as Lavane or Lawyne. Besides, the Sowdone relates exactly the whole of the story epitomised by the Scottish poet.³¹ So much being discoverable from an examination of the French and English texts of the Ferumrbras, it remains to be seen whether Barbour writing in 1375 could have known the Sowdone of Babylone. Here Dr. Hausknecht's testimony, given without any idea of its bearing on any question relating to The Bruce, may be requisitioned. He points out that the opinion of Warton, Ellis and others who have regarded the poem as belonging to the end of the fourteenth century, must be wrong. 'Having seen' he says 'from the summary of grammatical peculiarities that there is a great similarity between the language of Chaucer and that of the composer of this romance we might be inclined to consider the latter as a contemporary of Chaucer. From some passages of the Sowdone which seem to contain allusions to Chaucerian poetry we may conclude that the poet must have known the Canterbury Tales.*"³² Having set forth the parallel passages of the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, the Knightes Tale and the Prologue of Queen Anelida and False Arcite,³³ Dr. Hausknecht concludes that as the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales and the Knightes Tale were composed after 1389 the poet of the Sowdone cannot have been merely a later contemporary of Chaucer but must have lived some time after him. 'This would bring us,' he says, 'to the beginning of the fifteenth century as the date of the romance.' My own opinion is that the Sowdone belongs to even a later time than the editor suggests; but even assuming it to have been composed as early as 1400 that date would altogether preclude any knowledge of the poem on the part of John Barbour.

But we have further evidence, which no one hitherto seems to have observed, to shew that the Sowdone is another source of The Bruce, used in two of the best known of its episodes, vizt. the Douglas Castle and Linlithgow Peel stratagems. In the Sowdone we are told how Charlemagne, marching on Mauntrybill commissioned Rychard of Normandy with twelve knights disguised as merchants,³⁴ having weapons hidden under their clothes, to effect. a capture of the bridge bysurprising its keeper. Rychard proposed that Charles should lie privily with his army in a wood near by—

'And XII of us shalle us araye
In gyse of stronge marchauntes,
And fille oure somers withe fog and haye
To passe the brigge Currauntes.
We shalle be armed under the cote
with good swerdes wele i-gyrde,
We most paye tribute wele I wote,
An elles over we may not sterte.
But whan the chaynes be lete down
Ouer ther for to passe,
Than wole I that ye come on
In haste to that same place.
When I see tyme for to come
Than shalle I my home blow,
Loke ye be redy alle and some
For that shall ye welle knowe.

The ruse succeeded, the bridge keeper being slain by Rychard 'with a barr of bras' that 'he caught at the gate', and entry to the city was obtained for Charles and his troops. This episode, so closely related to The Bruce, is peculiar to the Sowdone, the story being quite different in the Ashmolean Ferumbras.

The Story of Thebes: the Tydeus Episode.

Let us turn now to a passage extending to fully a hundred lines, occurring in B. VI 180. In the first sixteen lines we have a summary of the well known story, told by Statius, of the sons of Oedipus who agreed to reign alternately, each for a year—leading up to the incident where Tydeus, after escaping from Thebes, vanquished singlehanded fifty men. The classical story is brought into The Bruce as an 'ensample' in order to give an air of probability to the incident that immediately precedes it, where King Robert is made to perform a feat of arms even more prodigious. Professor Skeat, nevet doubting the lines to be by Barbour, concludes that they are borrowed direct from the Thebaid of Statius. Such an opinion, as we shall see immediately, is demonstrably erroneous. The entire passage is almost certainly derived from the Story of Thebes a poem written by Lydgate when he was 'nie fifty yeare of age' or, in other words, in or about the year 1420.

It matters little for our present purpose whether Lydgate, as Dr. Koeppel supposes, translated partly from the Latin text of Statius and partly from some lost French prose version of the classical epic. It is enough to be able to shew that Lydgate's work and the hundred lines of The Bruce are too closely related to be independent translations either of Statius or of a supposed lost prose version. A comparison of the Thebaid and of Lydgate's work will satisfy every one that the latter is an abridgement, and at the same time a very free paraphrase, of the classical Latin text; in no proper sense is it a translation. Lydgate himself informs us that the poem was intended to be a supplementary Canterbury Tale treating of part of the same story 'compendiously rehearsed in the Knighte's Tale'. Instead of the tedious rhetoric and cumbrous mythology of the Roman poet we have in the English version, what Warton very well characterised as 'the Thebaid of a Troubadour', the old classical tale 'clothed with feudal manners, enlarged with new fictions of a Gothic species and furnished with descriptions, circumstances, and machineries, appropriated to a romance of chivalry'. The chivalric embroidery gives to the English version a character all its own: there is nothing in Statius to suggest it.

Now, when we compare the Story of Thebes and The Bruce as regards the Tydeus passage common to both, we find that (1) they agree in detail with each other and (2) they both differ alike from the Latin text. For example, where Statius tells us that Eteocles ordered 'a chosen band'³⁵ to lay an ambuscade for Tydeus, Lydgate and the Scottish poet specify the number as fifty, under a leader who is called in the Story of Thebes 'Chief Constable of his (Eteocles) chivalry', and in The Bruce 'his (Eteocles) constable.' The place of the ambuscade, according to the Roman poet, was 'far from Thebes beside two hills whose summits rose towards heaven, one side bounded by a grove, the middle space overshadowed by a mountain'. In Lydgate it is described as 'under a hille at a streite passage'; in The Bruce 'betwix and hye crag and the se'. Then, the approach of Tydeus is thus described in the Thebaid—

'Coeperat humenti Phoebum subtexere palla
Nox, et coeruleam terris insuderat umbram.
Ille propinquabat sylvis, et ab aggere celso
Scuta virum, galeasque videt rutilare comantes,
Qua laxant rami nemus, adversaque sub umbra
Flammeus aeratis Lunae tremor errat in armis.
Obstupuit visis, ibat tamen.³⁶

This is Lydgate's rendering of these lines,—

'But at the last, liftyng up his hede
Toward Eve, he gan taken hede,
Mid of his waye riɜt as eny lyne
Thoght he saugh ageyn the mone shyne;
Sheldes fresshe and plates borned bright
The which environ casten a gret lyght;
Ymagynyng in his fantasye &c.'

In The Bruce the same passage reads thus,—

'And as he raid into the nycht
Sa saw he with the monys licht
Schynyng of scheldis gret plente
He had woundir quhat it mycht be &c.'

It will not readily be believed that the classical parsimony of independent translators shouldbe so nearly alike as unquestionably it is in these two examples.

Again, when the details of the famous encounter are examined one remarks the great similarity in diction and thought. Lydgate tells how Tydeus slew 'the first platly that he mete'; how he his 'swerde whette'; how 'on ane hill he fond a narrow passage' from which vantage ground he hurled 'an huge ston' on his foes so that ten of them 'wenten unto wrak and the remnaunt amased drogh abak'. In The Bruce, Tydeus 'ruschit in among his foes' and—

'The first he met he gert him fall;
And syne his suerde he swappit out.'

Then—

'A litill rod he fand
Up toward the crag strikand'

from which he 'tumlit down' 'a gret stane' killing ten men; by which feat he

'sua stonait the remanand
that thai war weil neir recryand.'

Statius tells how the whole band was slain save one, but Lydgate is particular in stating that Tydeus—

'Fyfty kuyghtes slogh in his dyffence
But on except'

who was reserved to 'make relacyone' to Eteocles.

The same circumlocution is followed by the Scottish poet: Tydeus—

'Hewit and slew with all his mayn
Till he had nyne and fourty slane,'

preserving one man in order that

               'he suld ga
To King Etheocles and tell
The auenture that thame befell.'

The Hannibal example.

We have seen that a considerable portion of Barbour's poem is incorporated in Wyntoun's Cronykil with express acknowledgment; and that, with the exception of that portion, no text older than the Cambridge Ms., written by Ramsay in 1487, is now extant. Consequently it is only by a minute and painstaking examination of fifteenth century manuscripts that we can hope to clear up the question of redaction now under discussion. Further, when we find Wyntoun at several places acknowledging the Archdeacon's 'Buk' as one of his sources, it certainly seems most natural to assume, in other places where there is no express citation of the original but where nevertheless there is striking agreement in thought or diction between the Cronykil and The Bruce, that the fourteenth century poem is still being used by the fifteenth century chronicler. Such lines, for example, as those referring to Julius Caesar in B. IV ch. XVII, 2312 of the Cronykil—

'Thai stekyd hym rycht fellownly
Wytht scharpe pownsownys,^{* * * *}'

look uncommonly like direct appropriation from the Julius Caesar passage in The Bruce—

'Slayne with punsounes rycht to the ded.'

The same may be said of the two lines in the Proem of the Cronykil—

'For romans to rede is delytabylle
Suppos that thai be quhyle bot fabylle'

and the opening words of The Bruce—

' Storyss to rede are delitable
Suppos that thai be nocht bot fabill.'

The prima facie presumption in such instances, therefore, will undoubtedly require strong evidence to rebut it. So much may be admitted frankly. But at the same time we must take care not to accept the presumption as establishing the fact. If the evidence be indeed sufficiently strong to raise a presumption that in every case Wyntoun is the borrower from Barbour, then every test, fairly applied, will strengthen rather than weaken it.

While holding it as certain that Wyntoun borrowed from Barbour, I also maintain that a fifteenth century editor of The Bruce, deliberately embellishing that poem, laid Wyntoun's Cronykil under contribution; and on that hypothesis I base the agrument which follows.

We shall begin by examining a passage of The Bruce and its parallel in the Cronykil, placing them side by side. The lines in Wyntoun which have nothing corresponding to them in The Bruce are printed in italics to facilitate comparison.

The Bruce III 207.

For Rome quhilum sa hard was stad
Quhen Hannibal thaim wencusyt had

That off ryngis with rich stane
That war off knychtis fyngeris tane
He send thre bollis to Cartage;
And syne to Rome tuk his wiage
Thar to destroye the cite all.
And thai within bath gret and small
Had fled quhen thai saw him cummyng
Had nocht bene Scipio the ying
That, or thai fled, wald thaim haiff slayn,
And swagat turnyt thaim agayn.
Syne for to defend the cite
Serwandis and threllis made he fre
And maid thaim knychtis euirilkane;
And syne has off the temples tane
The armys that thar eldrys bar
In name of wictory offeryt thar.
And quhen thai armyt war and dycht
That stalwart karlis war and wycht
And saw that thai war fre alsua
Thaim thocht that thai hadleuir ta
The ded, na lat the toun be tane.
And with commowne assent as ane
Thai ischit off the toun to fycht
Quhar Hanniball his mekill mycht
Aganys thaim arayit was.
Bot throw mycht off Goddis grace,
It ranyt sa hard and hewyly
That thar wes nane so hardy
That durst into that place abid:
Bot sped thaim intill hy to rid:
The ta part to thair pailɜownys
The tothir part went in the toun is
The rayne thus lettyt the fechtyn:
Sa did it twyss thar eftir syne:
Quhen Hanibal saw this ferly
With all his gret chewalry
He left the toun and held his way:

Wyntoun IV Ch. 16 1545 & Ch. 17.

To the Romanys but ony wene
This the lattast day had bene
Gyve Hannibal in tyll all hy
Quhen done was all the wictory

Had past strawcht wytht his menyhe
For tyll have tane up the cite,
In takyn off that wictory
Quhen endyt was this juperdy
Off gold rengys fayre and brycht
Tane off thare fyngrys slayne in fycht
Thre moys that was thre bollys mete
This Hanyball wythowtyn lete.
To Cartage gert in hy be send
Quhen that this jomay had tane end.
Than were the Romanys sa wa
And for this cas disparyd swa
That thai maid thame haly bowne
For till have fled and left the towne.
Na hade bene Scypio Affrycane.
That off the knychtis wes chyftane
Wyth drawin swerd that held thame in
And thoucht awantage yhit to wyne.
Off Counsale than wyth owtyn bade
Off the threllys that thai hade
Bowcht before off commowne prys
Wyth-in the towne to mak serwys
He made knychtis in that nede
And thaim arayid in honest wede.
And armwrys that halowyd ware
To goddys in thair tempyllis thare
Thai tuk in that necessyte
And in thai gert thame armyd be
All thai threllys evryilkane
For that ensawmpyll had thai tane
Be counsale off ane Junyus
That tauld thame has that Romulus
Off murtheraris he knychtis made
And thewys that he in presoun hade.
And mysdoarys mony ma
All unpunysyd he lete ga
In fredome quhill that he had hale
Sex thousand wycht men to batale.
The Romanys be this counsall sone
The lyk maner has all done
Sa Rom before disparyd than
Respyre in to gud hope began.
Bot yhit, as Orosius
In tyll his cornyklis tellis us
Quha that in Rome befor had bene
And had off it the wyrschype sene,
He wald have bene all rede for schame
Fra he had sene thare reale fame
Chawngyd and thare reawte
Than turnyd in deformyte
For nane thare gouernale than had
To sauff barnyss off yhowthad
Threllys, both bownd or carle
That osyd befor to bere and harle;
And suppos that thai war soucht
And all in tyll hale nowmyr broucht
Yhit war thai nocht to sicht plesand
Na in tyll all point sufficiand;
For that tyme all thaire senatowrys
That chosyn wes to thare succowrys
Behuwyd to be in thare serwys
Informyd and kend, as yhong nowys.

Chap. XVII.

 How Hanyball throw schowrys snell
 Wes lettyde off his purpos felle.
Twa hundyr yhere and twyss thre
Befor the blessit Natyvyte
Hanyball, wytht mekyll bost
Off Champayne mowyd hale his host
And thre myle wyth out the town abade
And tharefore the Romans murnyng made
And all the senatowrys ilkane
Sa wytht radnes wes ourtane
And owte off thare wit sa qwyte
That thai were, but pres, discumfyte,
Yhit the women nevyrtheless
Apon the wallis besy wes,
Layand stanys here and thare
Quhare that thai thoucht mast lykely ware
Thame to defend in tyme off were
Eftyr as thai saw thare mystere.
And Hanniball with his host syne
Come to the yhet wes callyd Collyne
Thare the Consule Fulvyus
Saw that he wes cummyn thus
Gaddryd all the Romanys hale
For tyll have gyvyn thare batale:
And as thai suld have summyn bene
Togyddre runnyn on the grene,
Sa gret tempest and haylestane wycht
Fell wyth sik fors and wyth sic pyth
That bathe the ostis anoyid wes sare
Or thai wythin thare tentis ware.
Thus fyrst quhen-that that tempest left
For tyll have met thai trysted eft
The neyst tyme that thai mycht se
A day set in serenyte.
On the tyme that thai that sete
Bathe hayle and tempest were thame
                        wete
That wytht mare dowt etchapyde thai
Than na thai did the fyrst day.
Hanybill be that welle thoucht
That he be man was lettyd nocht
To wast and mide the cite
Bot throucht Goddys gret powste;
Fra Rome than he remowyd hale
Hys ost, but fanding off batale.

That we have here two closely related passages does not admit of doubt. How is the relation explainable? Is it an instance of copying, on the part of Wyntoun, from Barbour? Any such assumption, as we shall see immediately, becomes highly improbable as soon as the evidence is carefully examined. The 'three bollis' of rings might be merely a dismembered phrase, reminiscent of Barbour, if it stood alone; but similarities in thought and language permeate both narratives. Wyntoun's account of Hannibal, through whole chapters, is a consecutive discourse, written not from memory, but line by line from a determinate source. He tells us expressly that his authorities are Orosius and Martinus Polonus, and a glance at the text of Martinus confirms the statement, if any confirmation be needed. His knowledge of Orosius one can see is derived from Martinus. Did he in the course of translating a long story extending through several chapters, remembering that Barbour had taken an 'ensample' from Martinus, turn from his author to The Bruce and imitate a passage of some forty lines? That was not his usual method of working. One remembers how when he wrote Chapter 2 Book VIII he simply incorporated some hundreds of lines from Barbour's 'Buk' verbatim giving the Archdeacon praise for having 'tretyde' the subject 'more wysely'

'Than I can thynk with all my wyt.'

He did the same thing in the case of several chapters of B. VIII which he found ready to his hand, composed by an anonymous person; and so at the beginning of Chapter XX after acknowledging his indebtedness, he adds with delightful frankness that he neither wishes to 'usurp fame' nor 'bere more blame than he deserwys'.

In the passage under examination are we to suppose that he found some forty or more octosyllabiclines ready to hand, composed by Barbour, and set himself the task of rendering them of new in the same metre? That is what he must have done if we allow ourselves to entertain the belief that The Bruce is the original. But fortunately it will not be difficult to satisfy one who approaches the question with an open mind (1) that Wyntoun did not imitate The Bruce passage; (2) that The Bruce passage is not an independent translation; and (3) that it is copied from the Cronykil.

At the outset, notice how closely Wyntoun renders the general sense of Martinus; and how much fuller and more particular is his narrative than the one in The Bruce. The greater fulness and particularity, indeed, prove conclusively that in composing he used Martinus, not The Bruce. Being thus certain that Wyntoun's author is Martinus, we must now, if possible, ascertain if the Hannibal lines in The Bruce bear the stamp of an independent translation. The agreement with Martinus is much too close for it to be considered to be written from memory; and that being so the comparison of the vernacular versions with each other, and with the Latin text, is all the more interesting.

First: there are identical errors and amplifications: (a) both versions mistranslate Martinus in stating that the thralls were made knights, whereas the text simply implies that they were made soldiers (militiae, milites); and (b) there is nothing in Martinus that should lead us to expect independent translators to ascribe such a victory to God and in terms so similar—

'Bot throw Goddis gret powste'
'Bot throw the mycht of Goddis grace.'

Second: it is noticeable that Wyntoun follows his author in differentiating between the thralls who were made freedmen by Junius in return for military service, and the gaol delivery by which thieves, in the days of Romulus, were set at large in order that they might serve in the war. The distinction is missed altogether in The Bruce. Third: wherever the Bruce lines differ in sense from the Cronykil they also differ from Martinus. Wyntoun says the 'three bollis' of rings were of gold; so does Martinus. The composer of The Bruce lines says they were 'ringis with rich stane'. And lastly: there is not one single touch in the whole Bruce passage, peculiar to it, which accords either with Orosius or Martinus,—e.g. the author of The Bruce lines, carelessly summarising Wyntoun says the rain 'lettyt the fechtyn twyss' after the first great storm, which is a mistake. Here also the Cronykil follows Martinus. It is most noticeable also that in The Bruce the egregious blunder is made of treating two distinct incidents far separated in point of time, as one and the same. Wyntoun follows Martinus exactly in the division of the chapters, merely substituting Christian chronology for Roman. The mistake in The Bruce would not be readily made by one using Martinus at first hand: it is easily accounted for when one observes, in the very lines that occasion the false nexus, that the Cronykil is still being used. Wyntoun at the beginning of Chapter XVII speaks of Hannibal 'with mekyll bost' moving hishost from Campania towards Rome, which be it observed is an amplification of his author. So in The Bruce the phrase 'Hannibal his mekyll mycht' is an echo of the Cronykil, not a translation of anything in Martinus.

Unless, therefore, The Bruce is to be treated differently from other works, it is surely evident that the ordinary and fair tests of historical criticism point to the whole Hannibal passage as derived from the Cronykil, and consequently to its being an interpolation in the authentic text of John Barbour.

When the true relation of the Hannibal passage is realised it becomes easier to account for certain other lines and stanzas common to the Cronykil and The Bruce. For example if the opening lines of The Bruce are borrowed from Wyntoun's proem, it is an instance precisely analogous to Ramsay's appropriation of the opening lines of the Gest Historiale for the proem of The Wallace.…

Notes

¹ One has only to compare the passages in Wyntoun with the Historia Britonum, Li Romans de Brut of Wace, or Laɜamon's Brut, to see that Geoffrey of Monmouth is the one followed by the Scottish Chronicle. The passage number 6 would by itself be conclusive of Wyntoun's source.

² Professor Skeat notices the fact: vide his note on line 146 of B. iii.

³ Vide Professor Skeats note on 1. 361 of B. viii.

⁴ Vide notes 1. 239 B. II: and 1. 397 B. IX.

⁵ It evidences in my opinion, disturbance of the authentic text to find it where it is.

⁶ It is a mistake to speak of Barbour as the earliest author. Huchown's poems are earlier specimens of the vemacular and far more meritorious as literary productions.

⁷ A just criticism in my opinion. The poem is, in Plato's memorable phrase, 'a noble untruth'; that is, untrue to the immediate appearances of things, in order that it may suggest the deeper reality underlying them: in no true sense is it an historical document.

⁸ Maxwell p. 6. The precise historical value of The Bruce will certainly never be ascertained by such eclectic method.

⁹

The Erie Dawy off Huntyngtown
A lord commendyt off renown
Ane othir douchter had, I herd tell
That cald be name wes Ysabelle.
Robert the Brus in till hys lyff
Tuk that lady till hys wyff
That Robert the Brus efftyr that
On hyr a sone cald Robert gat
The Brus: and he efftyrwart
Gat a sone, wes cald Robert
The Brus, the quhilk in till his dayis
Weddyt off Carryk The Countays:
Swa wes he Erle and Lord all hale
Off Carryk and off Annandyrdale;
The Erle off Carryk, Schyr Robert
Gat on that lady efftyrwart
Robert the Brus, that wes oure kyng
That Scotland tuk in governyng. &c.
Wyntoun B. VIII ch. 7.

¹⁰ B. I. 1. 187.

¹¹ And also of some Legends of Saints, St. Machar among others. Vide Scottish Antiquary January 1897 and The Athenaeum Feb. 27 1897, No. 3618.

¹² There is an allusion to the Maccabees a few lines earlier in The Bruce. Vide note infra. I number the stanzas in the Alexander & Caesar passages as in Chaucer's Monk's Tale.

¹³ In the Monk's Tale Caesar is said also to have conquered the Orient as well as the Occident. The Bruce passage is simply an expansion of the Chaucerian phrases.

¹⁴ The slight alteration by the Scottish poet is a distinct improvement on Chaucer.

¹⁵ Vide note supra.

¹⁶ Wace Vol. 2. p. 116.

¹⁷ Vide note supra. Every test points to Rate as the Author of the 1438 translation.

¹⁸ This minutely dated colophon is very interesting and should be carefully compared with Lydgate's The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, edited by Dr. Furnival for the E. E. T. Society; Part I, Prologue—

'And of the tyme playnly and of the date
When I began thys book to translate
Yt was a thousand (by computacione)
Four hundred ouer, nouther fer ne nere
The surplus ouer, syx and twenty yere.'

¹⁹ Once it occurs as Tholomer in Michelant's Edition.

²⁰ It seems peculiarly inappropriate that Barbour should insert this account of Spring just when it was getting dark ('a littil forrow the evyn'): vide essay on Barbour & Blind Harry as Literature by Mr. W. A. Craigie, in the Scottish Review Vol. xxii. July 1893.

²¹ The Alexander lines, without doubt, were in the first instance derived by David Rate from the Gest Historiale (cp. 1056: 2734: 12969). Ramsay who knew the Gest Historiale well, copied both from it and the Alexander when editing the Bruce, the Alexander being more particularly the model. Again, in the Wallace (B. viii 1183 and B. IX 3) he imitated the identical passages of the Gest Historiale; and it is not a little remarkable that in the Alexander, Bruce, and Wallace there are two descriptions of Spring. Their relationship is certainly phenomenal and demands examination.

²² The word tasit employed in The Bruce passage should be noticed. Professor Skeat glosses it 'put ready for shooting' adding that the expression tasit the vyre is literally, drew back (or bent) the bolt of the cross bow, which is a contradiction. It means that he bent back not the bolt but the bow.' The thing to be noticed however is that the text as it stands appears to be at fault: and it would at once be corrected by substituting the word in the Scottish Alexander, taistit, 'tested' or tried the bolt. I am aware of the use of the word tasit by other Scottish poets, and only point out that it does not accord with the context of this particular passage of The Bruce.

²³ This legal phrase is found in the Rate poems and also in the Wallace.

²⁴ The rimes fycht, mycht, slycht, knycht are as common as blackberries in the Alexander, Bruce, and Wallace as well as in the Rate poems of the Ashmole Ms. 61.

²⁵ I had undergone for fully two months the painful drudgery of comparing the Scottish translation with the Bruce in order to collect parallel passages, when I chanced in the programme 'The Taymouth Castle Ms. of Sir Gilbert Hay's Buik of King Alexander, by Dr. Albert Herrmann (Berlin 1898) to observe that that gentleman had published some years earlier a dissertation on the Scottish translation of 1438. On obtaining the dissertation I found that the author had noted fully 30% more parallels than I had then myself been able to gather and I gladly availed myself of his labours and now acknowledge with pleasure my great indebtedness. It seems extraordinary considering the pains Dr. H. had bestowed in his examination of the poem that he should for one moment have allowed himself to entertain the belief that the translator of a long work like the Alexander had ransacked the Bruce merely to pick out a few hundred lines of the same French poem supposed to have been translated some 60 years earlier by John Barbour! I have little doubt that Dr. Herrmann will see the matter in a new light now. It is to be hoped that he will soon publish an edition of the Scottish translation of the Alexander of 1438, for which no one is better qualified, as his dissertation shews. I take the following additional parallels en bloc from his tractate;—I 160: 8,8; I 302: 128,31: 437,1: I 318: VIII 481: 278,9: I 453: 99,14; II 170: IX 306: 410,18: II 233: 74,30: II 339: 87,8: III 139: 33,31: V 253: 294,32: VI 131: 16,32: 420,4: VI 148: 49,17: VII 449: 40,2: 4,25: VII 450: 46,14: VII 471: 6,6: 38,24: VII 591: 5,29: VIII 268: 54,19: VIII 320: 30,2: 92,10: IX 8: 2,26: VIII 85: 79,26: IX 566: 238,11: X 100: 12,29: X 654 f: 246,3f: XI 251: 338,14: XI 392f: 117,30: XI 419: 8,19: XI408: XII204: 342,17: 31,1 If: 315,6: XI 558: 141,25: XI 571: 175,28: XII489: 248,5: XII 504f: 286,10f: XII 582: 382,18: XII 618: 34,16: XIII 38; 3,14: XIII 260: 112,22: XIII 268: 52,32: XIII 323: 286,16: XIII 600: 219,9: XIV 84: 52,21: XV 139: 387,28: XV 501: 385,31: XV 546: 304,5: XVI 110: XVI 140: 51,31: XVII 115: 8,1: XVII 388: 54,15: 99,6: XVII 486: 370,17: XVIII 562: 234,23: XIX 587: 39,31: XX 278: 51,3: XX 280: 26,2. The Roman numerals indicate the Book of The Bruce; the Alexan-der is cited by page and line. I could easily supplement examples from my own list, but it seems quite unnecessary to do so.

²⁶ Compare with the Prologue of Lydgate's The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man, E. E. T. S. edn. Part I line 117 et seq.

²⁷ Dr. Herrmann's 'comparative table' is most helpful towards a collation of Michelant's edition and the Scottish translation.

²⁸ It will be remembered that The Bruce also has a 'nameless knight'.

²⁹ This particular one is in The Wallace also. Quite two thirds of the others can be traced in the Wallace, making the slightest allowance for the heroic metre.

³⁰ See an interesting account of the Hanover Ms. in Romania Tome XXVIII October 1899.

³¹ Compare from 1.2146. Every line is traceable in the Sowdone.

³² Dr. Hausknecht's examination of the dialect and grammar is excellent. No one will doubt, who reads his Introduction, that the Sowdone is post Chaucerian.

³³ Note that these identical sources are used by the poet of The Wallace.

³⁴ The merchants filled their 'somers with fog and haye'. Dr. Hausknecht omits 'fog' from his glossary & does not annotate the passage: but 'fog' is simply moss, and the load is practically the same as in The Bruce episodes.

³⁵ Simply 'a number of young warriors'. We do not hear of fifty until far on in the story in B. III.

³⁶ Book II 1. 636.…