Book XX

. 223, 234. Thereafter, however, he strikes off from Barbour. Douglas goes to “the haly graif,” where--

[118] In part; but see the reconciling passage in note on xx. 191-2.

[119] Stanza xxxi.

“XXXVII.

“He gart hallowe the hart, and syne couth it hyng About his hals[120] (neck) full hende (respectfully), and on his awne hart.”

[120] But _cf._ xx. 307, where this comes before.

The story then proceeds:

“XXXVIII.

“Now bot I semble for thi saull with Sarasenis mycht, Sall I never sene be into Scotland!”

An extension of the original commission, be it noted, and a motive for what follows:

“Thus in defence of the faith he fure to the fecht With knychtis of Cristindome to kepe his command. And quhen _the batallis_ so brym, brathly and bricht, War _joyned_ thraly in thrang, mony thousand, Amang the hethin men the hert hardely he slang, Said: ‘Wend on as thou was wont, Throw the _batell_ in bront, Ay formast in the front, Thy fays amang;’

“XXXIX.

“‘And I sall followe the in faith, or feye to be fellit,-- As thi lege man leill, my lyking thow art.’

* * * * *

Thus frayis he the fals folk, trewly to tell it, _Aye quhile he coverit_ (recovered) _and come to the Kingis hart, Thus feile feildis he wan, aye worschipand it_, Throwout Cristindome kid (known) War the dedis that he did, Till on a time it betid As tellis the writ.”[121]

[121] _Cf._ also xlii.

So we go back to Barbour (“the writ”), but in the final scene there is no mention of throwing the heart, any more than in the genuine _Bruce_, though it is stated that “His hardy men tuk the hart syne upon hand.”[122]

[122] XLI. _Cf._ _Bruce_, xx. 486, 487.

Obviously we have in these stanzas, and especially in the words underlined, the source of the lines in the _Bruce_, which are further in express contradiction to Barbour’s narrative, and have no place in it. The threefold argument leads inevitably to the one conclusion that these lines are an interpolation, and, as a corollary, that their source is the _Howlat_. Mr. Amours, in editing that poem,[123] has gone so far as to say that this is “almost certain.” I would remove the qualification.[124]

[123] Ed. S.T.S.

[124] _Cf._ also _Preface_, pp. vii-viii.

APPENDIX E

THE “ALEXANDER” AND THE “BRUCE”

_The Buik of the Most Noble and Vailyeand Conquerour, Alexander the Great_ is an anonymous Scots translation of three French romances in the Alexander cycle, dated, in a rhyming colophon, 1438, and published for the Bannatyne Club in 1831. Between this translation and the _Bruce_ there is a remarkably intimate and undisguised connection, not only in spirit and method, but in “the diction as a whole, the choice of words and the arrangement of the sentences, (and) the abundant use of alliteration,” to such an extent that “in reading the _Buik of Alexander_ one would often think that he discerned the singer of the _Bruce_.”[125] A few examples have been given in the notes, but for a full survey of this literary phenomenon the reader must go to the dissertation quoted from above, or to Mr. J. T. T. Brown’s _The Wallace and the Bruce Restudied_, pp. 100-112 (Bonn, 1900), or Mr. Neilson’s _John Barbour, Poet and Translator_ (London, 1900), which is devoted to the subject; or, for the parallels in the Bannockburn account, to Mr. Neilson’s article on Barbour in Chambers’s _Cyclopædia of English Literature_, vol. i.

[125] _Untersuchungen über das schottische Alexanderbuch._ Albert Hermann, Halle, 1893, pp. 26, 27.

On the facts there is no dispute; for explanation three hypotheses have been put forward. Hermann, accepting the 1438 date, concludes that the translator of the _Alexander_ was so familiar with the language of the _Bruce_--“here and there, indeed, knew it by heart” (_stellenweise es wohl auswendig wusste_)--that his translation was necessarily strongly influenced thereby.[126] This is inadmissible; the French poems are earlier than the _Bruce_, and to these the links of connection ultimately go back. The relationship is really deeper than the mere language of the translation, as Hermann himself indicates. Mr. Neilson, accordingly, in a detailed and forcible argument, claims Barbour himself as the translator of the _Alexander_, arguing that, the literary proofs being so conclusive, the date given must be an error, “scribal or printer’s.”[127] Given Roman numerals to begin with, such a slip is not in the least unlikely; variations of this sort occur in the _Bruce_ itself,[128] and 1438 may have been a misreading of 1338, or the date may be that of the scribe’s copy, not of the actual work. Mr. Neilson has an ingenious section on the wayward fortunes of dates.[129] Thus, reversing Hermann’s thesis, he holds that “Barbour’s mind and memory had been steeped in the _Alexander_ when he wrote the _Bruce_.”[130] Mr. Neilson’s argument and conclusion are vigorously contested by Mr. Brown in a _Postscript_ to the work cited. His more elaborate hypothesis is that David Rate translated the _Alexander_ in 1437, and that “John Ramsay, Sir John the Ross, wishful to improve the plain song of John Barbour, used the translation of the _Alexander_ extensively, taking freely whatever he required.”[131] Mr. Brown’s negative criticism is independent of this proposition which is involved in his wider theory regarding the construction of the _Bruce_. The eclectic conclusion of the writer in the _Cambridge History of English Literature_, vol. ii., is: “Either the book (_i.e._, the _Alexander_) is the work of Barbour preserved in a somewhat later form, or the author was saturated with Barbour’s diction, so that he continually repeats his phrases.”[132]

[126] As cited, p. 35.

[127] As cited, p. 45.

[128] _Cf._ p. 292.

[129] Pp. 43-47.

[130] P. 56.

[131] P. 162.

[132] P. 448.

In the dust of the conflict a crucial fact has gone unobserved--namely, that one of the parallel lines enumerated by Brown and Hermann appears in the portion of the _Bruce_ incorporated in his own work by Wyntoun.[133] _Here, then, we have a line of the alleged translation of 1438 occurring in the “Bruce” as it existed before 1420._ Thus the only outstanding difficulty of Mr. Neilson’s proposition disappears. The effect on the rival propositions is obvious.

[133] The _Bruce_, I. 160; _Alexander_, 8, 8; _Wyntoun_,