Lament for the Makaris

Lament for the Makaris

I that in Heill wes and Gladnes, also known as "The Lament for the Makaris", is a poem in the form of a danse macabre by the Scottish poet William Dunbar. Every fourth line remorselessly repeats the latin refrain "timor mortis conturbat me" (fear of death distroubles me) a litanic phrase from the Office of the Dead.

The poem is important for the roll call of makars it contains, some of whom we know of only from their citation in this work. It thus stands in part as a poetic testimony to historic loss in literature. Yet the poem is more than simply a historical record, but is an effective and moving work of personal meditation with a highly compressed emotionally stark expression.

The makars listed, chiefly but not exclusively Scottish, are cited as having died by the time of composition (with the two exceptions of Patrick Johnston and Walter Kennedy). Most of the names can be traced to either the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries. From internal evidence the lament is thought to have been composed c.1505.

Leet of names in the Lament

In order and form of citation, the poets Dunbar mourns in "The Lament" are:

* Chaucer
* The monk of Bery (=Lydgate)
* Gower
* Syr Hew of Eglintoun (d.1377, brother-in-law of Robert IITasioulas, J.A. "The Makars" Canongate 1999, p.788-9.] ; association with the poet Huchown far from certain)
* Heryot (unidentified)
* Wyntoun
* Maister Johne Clerk (unidentified; "maister" signifies university education; the name John Clerk occurs in Bannatyne MS)
* James Afflek (or James Auchinleck?; not certain; no works known)
* Holland
* Barbour
* Schir Mungo Lokert of the Le (?"knycht" d.1489 [Priscilla Bawcutt] ; no known works)
* Clerk of Tranent (described by Dunbar as author of "the anteris of Gawane"; work not traced)
* Schir Gilbert Hay. A copy of his "Buik of King Alexander the Conquerour" is dated 1499.
* Blind Hary
* Sandy Traill (unidentified; see also Trail family)
* Patrik Johnestoun (produced plays for the royal court; no surviving works; citation suggests he was still alive)
* Merseir (not identified; some love poems attributed to a "Mersar" in Bannatyne MS)
* Roull of Aberdene (unidentified)
* Roull of Corstorphin (unidentified; only one poem accredited to a man by the name of Roull extant [ [http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/769.html Lament for the Makaris] See notes section.] )
* Maister Robert Henrisoun
* Schir Johne the Ros (Dunbar's "commissar" in the "Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedy"; nothing else known)
* Stobo (John Reid; priest in Kirkcudbright; served as clerk and notary in royal courts of James II-James IV; no surviving works)
* Quintyne Schaw (one brief satire extant; Kennedy's "commissar" in the "Flyting"; see also Clan Shaw of Tordarroch)
* Gud maister Walter Kennedy

References

ee also

* [http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/769.html Text of the "Lament for the Makaris"]


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