Sometimes Dunbar is a blinded, blundering, earthy giant, sometimes he has the vastness and strength of a genial, blustering, boisterous north wind, – a geniality that can blacken and turn dangerous. Yet even when he is most wind-like, his spirit has at the same time a queerly animal quality, – almost a smell; his genius has a terrible animal force, stinking and rank like that of Swift; but it is for the most part a genial and friendly rankness, unlike that of Swift. This rank darkness and animal stink is present, or can be present, in nearly all genius, but in most, ‘the angel that stands near the naked man’ has interfused it with sweetness and light.
EDITH SITWELL: A Poet’s Notebook (1943)
Little is known of Dunbar’s life that is certain. Mention is made of a William Dunbar who studied at St Andrew’s, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in 1477 and a master’s in 1479. There seems to be no documentary evidence of his whereabouts between 1479 and 1500, but it has often been deduced from his poems that he was a Franciscan novice, became a preaching friar and travelled abroad in the King’s service. He was granted a royal pension of £10 in 1500, and by 1504 had taken priest’s orders. He probably died at the Battle of Flodden Field. Among his greatest poems are ‘The Thrissil and the Rois’ (1503) and ‘The Dance of the Sevin Deidly Synnis’ (1507). The ‘Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo’, which deals with three women who discuss their experiences of marriage, is reminiscent of Chaucer’s satire on women in the ‘Wife of Bath’s Prologue’ in the Canterbury Tales. Dunbar’s ‘The Lament for the Makaris’ is an elegy about the ephemerality of life, and laments the passing, among other figures, of Chaucer and Gower. ‘The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie’ (a flyting is a Scots literary form that blends literary criticism and lampoon) displays Dunbar’s Rabelaisian humour. Some eighty poems survive in manuscript, with no obvious line of development.
Rorate celi desuper.2
Hevins distill your balmy schouris,
For now is rissin the bricht day ster
Fro the ros Mary, flour of flouris;
The cleir sone quhome no clud devouris,
Surmunting Phebus in the est,
Is cummin of his hevinly touris
Et nobis Puer natus est.3
[Archangellis, angellis, and dompnationis,4
Tronis, potestatis, and marteiris seir,
And all ye hevinly operationis,
Ster, planeit, firmament, and spear,
Fyre, er, air, and watter cleir,
To him gife loving, most and lest,
That come in to so meik maneir
Et nobis Puer natus est.
Synnaris, be glaid and penance do
And thank your maker hairtfully,
For he that ye mycht nocht cum to
To yow is cumin full humly;
Your saulis with his blud to by
And lous yow of the feindis arrest,
And only of his awin mercy
Pro nobis Puer natus est.
All clergy do to him incline
And bow unto that barne benyng,
And do your observance devyne
To him that is of kingis king;
Ensence his altar, reid and sing
In haly kirk, with mynd degest,
Him honouring attour all thing
Qui nobis Puer natus est.
Celestiall fowlis in the are,
Sing with your nottis upoun hicht,
In firthis and in forrestis fair
Be myrthfull now, at all your mycht;
For passit is your dully nycht,
Aurora hes the cluddis perst,
The son is rissin with glaidsum lycht,
Et nobis Puer natus est.
Now spring up, flouris, fra the rute,
Revert yow upwart naturaly,
In honour of the blissit frute5
That rais up fro the rose the rose Mary;
Lay out your levis lustily,
Fro deid tak lyfe now at the lest
In wirschip of that Prince wirthy
Qui nobis Puer natus est.]
Syng hevin imperiall6, most of hicht,
Regions of air mak armony;
All fishe in flud and foull of flicht
Be myrthfull and mak melody;
Hevin, erd, se, man, bird, and best:
He that is crownit abone the sky
Et nobis Puer natus est.
London, thou art of townes A per se.
Soveraign of cities, semeliest in sight,
Of high renoun, riches, and royaltie;
Of lordis, barons, and many goodly knyght;
Of most delectable lusty ladies bright;
Of famous prelatis in habitis clericall;
Of merchauntis full of substaunce and myght:
London, thou art the flour of Cities all.
[…]
Strong be thy wallis that about the standis;
Wise be the people that within the dwellis;
Fresh is thy ryver with his lusty strandis;
Blith be thy chirches, wele sownyng be thy bellis;
Riche be thy merchauntis in substaunce that excellis;
Fair be thy wives, right lovesom, white and small;
Clere be thy virgyns, lusty under kellis2:
London, thow art the flour of Cities all.
[…]