III.

The tone becomes more elevated; and then we have forest songs in honour of the outlaw Robin Hood.[594] The satire ceases to be simply mocking; the singer's laughter no longer consoles him for abuses; he wants reforms; he chides and threatens. In his speech to the rebel peasants in 1381, the priest John Ball takes from a popular song the burden that comprises his whole theory:

Whan Adam dalf and Eve span, Who was thanne the gentilman?[595]

The anonymous poet makes the dumb peasant speak, describe his woes, and draw up a list of his complaints. By way of reply, anonymous clerks compose songs, half English and half Latin, a favourite mixture at that time, in which they express their horror of the rebels.[596] Others sound the praises of the English heroes of the Hundred Years' War.

Contrary to what might be supposed, the number of these last songs is not great, and their inspiration not exalted. The war, as has been seen, was a royal and not a national one; and it happened, moreover, that none of the famous poets of the time saw fit to celebrate Crecy and Poictiers. We have, therefore, nothing but rough sketches, akin to popular prints, barbarous in design, and coarse in colouring, but of strong intent. Clerks, in their Latin, pursue France and Philip de Valois, with opprobrious epithets:

Lynxea, viperea, vulpina, lupina, medea, Callida, syrena, crudelis, acerba, superba.

Such is France according to them, and as to her king, his fate is predicted in the following pun:

O Philippus Valeys, Xerxes, Darius, Bituitus, Te faciet _maleys_ Edwardus, aper polimitus.[597]

To which the French replied:

Puis passeront Gauloys le bras marin, Le povre Anglet destruiront si par guerre, Qu'adonc diront tuit passant ce chemin: Ou temps jadis estoit ci Angleterre.[598]

But both countries have survived, for other quarrels, other troubles, and other glories.

The battles of Edward III. were also celebrated in a series of English poems, that have been preserved for us in a single manuscript, together with the name of their author, Laurence Minot,[599] concerning whom nothing is known. In his rude verse, where alliteration is sometimes combined with rhyme, both being very roughly handled, Minot follows Edward step by step, and extols his prowess with the best will, but in the worst poetry. Grand subjects do not need magnifying; and when magnified by unskilful artists they run the risk of recalling the Sir Thopas example: this risk Edward incurs at the hands of Laurence Minot. On the other hand absurd and useless expletives, "suth to saine," "i-wis," and especially "both day and night" continually help Minot to eke out his rhymes; and the reader is sorely tempted uncourteously to agree with him when he exclaims:

Help me God, my wit es thin![600]

Besides these war-songs, and at the same time, laments are heard, as in former days, sad and desponding accents. Defeats have succeeded to victories, and they contribute to raise doubts as to the validity of Edward's claims.[601] What if, after all, this ruinous war, the issue of which is uncertain, should turn out to be an unjust war as well? Verses are even composed on the subject of wrongs done to inoffensive people in France: "Sanguis communitatis Franciae quae nihil ei nocebat quaeritur apud Deum."[602]

In war literature the Scots did not fare better than the French at the hands of their neighbours. At this time, and for long after, they were still the foe, just as the Irish or French were. Following the example given by the latter, the Scots replied; several of their replies, being in English, belong to the literature of England. The most energetic is the semi-historical romance called "The Bruce"; it is the best of the patriotic poems deriving their inspiration from the wars of the fourteenth century.

"The Bruce," composed about 1375 by John Barbour,[603] is divided into twenty books; it is written in the dialect spoken in the south of Scotland from Aberdeen to the frontier, the dialect employed later by James I. and Sir David Lyndesay, who, like Barbour himself, called it "inglis." Barbour's verse is octo-syllabic, forming rhymed couplets; it is the same as Chaucer's in his "Hous of Fame."

Barbour's intention is to write a true history; he thus expects, he says, to give twofold pleasure: firstly because it is a history, secondly because it is a true one. But where passion has a hold it is rare that Truth reigns paramount, and Barbour's feeling for his country is nothing short of passionate love; so much so that, when a legend is to the credit of Scotland, his critical sense entirely disappears, and miracles become for him history. Thus with monotonous uniformity, throughout his poem a handful of Scotchmen rout the English multitudes; the highlanders perform prodigies, and the king still surpasses them in valour; everything succeeds with him as in a fairy tale. This love of the soil, of its rocks and its lochs, of its clans and their chieftains, brings to mind the most illustrious of the literary descendants of Barbour, Walter Scott, who more than once borrowed from "The Bruce" the subjects of his stories.[604]

Besides the love of their land, the two compatriots have in common a taste for picturesque anecdotes, and select them with a view of making their heroes popular; the sense of humour is not developed to an equal degree, but it is of the same quality in both; and the same kind of happy answers are enjoyed by the two. Barbour delights, and with good reason, in preserving the account of the fight in which the king, traitorously attacked by three men while alone in the mountains, "by a wode syde," smites them "rigorously," and kills them all, and, when congratulated on his return:

"Perfay," said he, "I slew bot ane forouten ma, God and my hound has slane the twa."[605]

Barbour likes to show the king, simple, patriarchal and valorous, stern to his foes, and gentle to the weak. He makes him halt his army in Ireland, because the screams of a woman have been heard; it is a poor laundress in the pangs of child-birth; the march is interrupted; a tent is spread, under which the poor creature is delivered in peace.[606]

To England's threats Barbour replies by challenges, and by his famous apostrophe to liberty:

A! fredome is a noble thing!...[607]

Some people, continues the good archdeacon, who cannot long keep to the lyric style, have compared marriage to bondage, but they are unexperienced men who know nothing about it; of course marriage is the worst state in which it is possible to live, the thing is beyond discussion; but in bondage one cannot live, one dies.