Gavin Douglas

Statue of Gavin Douglas (1475-1522), St. Giles Cathedral, Edinburgh. Photo by Kim Traynor. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Gavin Douglas
File:Seal of Gavin Douglas.jpg
Senior posting
See	Diocese of Dunkeld title = Bishop of Dunkeld]] period = 1515/6 - 1522
Consecration	1516
Predecessor	Andrew Stewart (d. 1541)
Successor	Robert Cockburn post = Provost of St. Giles' Cathedral
Religious career
Previous bishoprics	None
Personal
Born	1474 Tantallon Castle, East Lothian
Died	September 1522 London

Gavin Douglas (?1475 - September 1522) was a Scottish poet (makar), bishop, and translator. His principal pioneering achievement was the Eneados, a full and faithful vernacular translation of the Aeneid of Virgil and the earliest successful example of its kind in the British Isles.

Life

Overview

Douglas, 3rd son of the 5th Earl of Angus, was born about 1474, and educated at St. Andrews for the Church. Promotion came early, and he was in 1501 made Provost of St. Giles, Edinburgh, and in 1514 Abbot of Aberbrothock, and Archbishop of St. Andrews. But the times were troublous, and he had hardly received these latter preferments when he was deprived of them. He was, however, named Bishop of Dunkeld in 1514 and, after some difficulty, and undergoing imprisonment, was confirmed in the see. In 1520 he was again driven forth, and 2 years later died of the plague in London. His principal poems are The Palace of Honour (1501), and King Hart, both allegorical; but his great achievement was his translation of the Æneid in 10-syllabled metre, the first translation into English of a classical work. Douglas's language is more archaic than that of some of his predecessors, his rhythm is rough and unequal, but he had fire, and a power of vivid description, and his allegories are ingenious and felicitous.

Of Douglas's ability, extensive and accurate learning, and strong and vigorous literary gift, there cannot be the shadow of a doubt. When we consider that his 1st considerable poem — marked by rich fancy, and compassing a lofty ideal — was produced when he was about the age at which Keats issued his last volume, and that all his literary work was done when he was still under 40, we cannot but reflect how much more he might have achieved but for the harassing conditions that shaped his career.

Youth and education

Douglas was the 3rd son of Archibald, 5th earl of Angus, familiarly known, from his influence and pronounced energy and decision of character, as "the great earl," and Archibald Bell-the-Cat. Douglas was born about 1474, but the place of his birth is not known. Although he was in all likelihood a Lothian man, like Dunbar, he may have been born at any of the various family residences in East Lothian, Lanark, Forfar, and Perth.

Little is known of his youth, but it seems quite certain that he studied at St. Andrews from 1489 to 1494, while Bishop Sage suggests that he may have continued his studies on the continent, and Warton (History of English Poetry, vol. iii.) is satisfied that he completed his education at the university of Paris.

Early career

Having taken priest's orders, Douglas was, in 1496, presented to Monymusk, Aberdeenshire, and 2 years later the king gave him the promise of the parsonage of Glenquhom, soon to become vacant by the resignation of the incumbent. But his 1st important and quite definite post was at Prestonkirk, near Dunbar. He seems to have had 2 chapels in this diocese, 1 where the modern village of Linton stands, and the other at Hauch, or Prestonhaugh, now known as Prestonkirk. This accounts for his descriptive title "Parson of Lynton and Rector of Hauch."

The result of recent research is to exclude the influence of the borders from the development of Douglas, and also to limit the dimensions of the plurality to which, about 1501, he was preferred, when the king made him provost of St. Giles, Edinburgh. While holding these posts, conveniently situated as regards distance, and not too exacting in the amount of work required, he wrote his various poems, and it is thought not improbable that the poetical address to James IV at the close of the Palice of Honour (his earliest work) may have induced the king to give him the city appointment. For several years little is known of the activity of Douglas, but in the city records we find that on 20 Septemer 1513 he was chosen a burgess, pro communi bono villæ gratis. From this year onwards his career was influenced and moulded by national events.

Within a year from the king's death at Flodden, Queen Margaret married Douglas's nephew, the young and handsome Earl of Angus, whose father had fallen at Flodden. This stirred the jealousy of the other nobles, and Douglas was involved in the quarrels and suffered from the clash of parties that followed.

From the outset his own personal comfort and professional standing were directly affected. Shortly before the marriage, probably in June 1514, the queen nominated him to the abbacy of Aberbrothock, one of the many vacancies caused by Flodden, and soon after the marriage and before the nomination was confirmed she expressed her wish to have him made archbishop of St. Andrews. This was another of the tragically vacated posts, of which Bishop Elphinston, Aberdeen, to whom it was offered, had not taken possession when he died, 25 October 1514.

There were 2 other aspirants to the archbishopric, and Douglas, who trustfully went into residence at the castle, was now rudely disturbed. Hepburn, prior of St. Andrews (acting on an ecclesiastical law rarely used), got the canons to vote him into the position, and he expelled Douglas and his attendants, in spite of help from Angus. Then Forman, bishop of Moray, armed with his appointment from the pope, ejected Hepburn, and compelled him to content himself with a yearly allowance from the bishopric of Moray and the rents already levied from St. Andrews. Meanwhile, Aberbrothock had been given to James Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow, so that Douglas's prospects of preferment were dim and uncertain enough.

Bishop of Dunkeld

In January 1515, the Bishop of Dunkeld having died, the queen resolved that Douglas should be his successor, and duly presented him to the see in the name of her son the king. Here again there was strong opposition. The Earl of Atholl wished his brother, Andrew Stewart, to be bishop of Dunkeld, and his authority, backed by the influence of those opposed to the queen and her party, was sufficient to get the canons to accede to his request. The queen both wrote to the pope, Leo X, herself on the subject and got her brother, Henry VIII, to appeal on Douglas's behalf. The result was an apostolical letter conceding the request, and at the same time emphasising the appointment of Forman to St. Andrews.

Before the matter was settled, the late king's cousin, the Duke of Albany, came from France as regent (acting in the interests of those opposed to the queen and her friends), and after examination of Douglas's claims to Dunkeld, and the measures taken to advance his interests, imprisoned him, in accordance with an old statute, for receiving bulls from the pope. He was not released for nearly a year, and only after the pope had written severely condemning the regent's proceedings. It is probable that Albany's rigid treatment of the queen, who had been obliged to take refuge at the English court, hastened the termination of Douglas's captivity.

In July 1516 his name appears as the elect of Dunkeld in the sederunt of the lords of council, and in the same month we find the regent writing the pope a most plausible letter regarding the settlement of the difficulty between Douglas and Andrew Stewart. It seems that the Archbishop of Glasgow first consecrated Douglas to his new office, and that Forman, not satisfied with this, insisted on certain formalities at St. Andrews, including a humiliating apology from Douglas for past opposition.

Being at length fairly installed as bishop of Dunkeld, Douglas showed himself anxious and able fully to perform his duties. It was not possible for him, however, to remain quietly among his people and attend to their social and spiritual welfare, however desirable in itself such an arrangement might have been. Within a year of his appointment he accompanied Albany to France, and assisted in the negotiations that led to the treaty of Rouen. The news of this policy he conveyed to Scotland, where the nobles opposed to Angus were becoming turbulent in the regent's absence.

This reached a crisis in 1520, when the partisans of the Earl of Arran were completely overthrown in the Edinburgh streets — in the skirmish known as ‘Clean-the-Causeway’ — by the troops of the Earl of Angus. Douglas was present on this occasion, though not engaged, and by timely interposition saved the life of the Archbishop of Glasgow, who had taken an active part in the struggle. Angus, being now both powerful and demoralised, gave occasion for the queen's resentment when she ventured to return from England in the regent's absence. Finding how matters were, she resolved on a divorce. This led to the return of Albany and the flight of Angus and his friends.

Exile and death

Bishop Douglas, going to the court of Henry VIII, partly for safety and partly in the interest of Angus, was deprived of his bishopric and achieved no political results. Henry and Wolsey both appreciated him, and his friend Lord Dacre wrote and worked on his behalf, but there was nothing more. Everything seemed to be against him. Even Beaton, archbishop of Glasgow, when Forman died, ungratefully wrote letters vilifying Douglas, still no doubt dreading one that had it in him to be a formidable rival for a post on which he had set his own heart.

Then England declared war against Scotland, in connection with continental affairs, and Douglas was thus in the heart of the enemy's country. Meanwhile he had formed a valued friendship with Polydore Vergil, to whom he submitted what he considered a correct view of Scottish affairs to guide him on these points in his ‘History of England.’

Vergil records (in his History, i. 105) the death of Douglas. "In the year of our Lord md.xxii.," he says, "he died of the plague in London.' The death occurred, September 1522, in the house of his staunch friend, Lord Dacre, in St. Clement's parish, and in accordance with his own request he was buried in the hospital church of the Savoy, ‘on the left side of Thomas Halsey, bishop of Leighlin, who died about the same time.’ There is a ring as of the vanity of human wishes in the pathetic sentence closing the twofold record over the burial-places of the prelates: ‘Cui lævus conditur Gavanus Dowglas, natione Scotus, Dunkeldensis Præsul, patria sui exul.’

Writing

Douglas's 3 works are: The Palice of Honour, King Hart (both of which are allegories, according to a prevalent fashion of the age), and a translation of the Æneid with prologues.

Eneados

Douglas's most important literary achievement is the Eneados, a Scots translation of Virgil's Aeneid, completed in 1513: the earliest full translation of a major poem from classical antiquity into any modern Germanic language. His translation, which is faithful throughout, includes the 13th book by Mapheus Vegius. Each of the 13 books in addition is introduced by an original verse prologue. These deal with a variety of subjects, sometimes semi-autobiographical, in a variety of styles.

In his translation of Virgil, Douglas is on quite untrodden ground. He has the merit of being the earliest classical translator in the language, and he seems to have set his own example by working at passages of Ovid, of which no specimens exist. He must have done the whole work, prologues and all, together with a translation of the supplementary book by Vegius, within the short space of 18 months. He writes in heroic couplets, and his movement is confident, steadfast, and regular. In several of the prologues he reaches his highest level as a poet.

He shows a strong and true love for external nature, at a time when such a devotion was not specially fashionable; he displays an easy candour in reference to the opinions of those likely to criticise him; he proves that he can at will (as in the prologue to book viii.) change his style for the sake of effect; and in accordance with his theme he can be impassioned, reflective, or devout. The hymn to the Creator prefixed to the tenth book, and the prologue to the book of Maphæus Vegius—descriptive of summer and the ‘joyous moneth tyme of June’—are specially remarkable for loftiness of aim and sustained excellence of elaboration.

Of the Virgil the important editions are the first (1553), Ruddiman's, and the handsome edition, in 2 volume. 4to, of the Bannatyne Club (1839).

Palice of Honour

The Palice of Honour, dated 1501, is a dream-allegory extending to over 2000 lines, composed in nine-lined stanzas. It is his earliest work. In its descriptions of the various courts on their way to the palace, and of the poet's adventures — when he incautiously slanders the court of Venus, and later when after his pardon he joins in the procession and passes to see the glories of the palace — the poem carries on the literary traditions of the courts of love, as shown especially in the "Romaunt of the Rose" and "The Hous of Fame." The poem is dedicated to James IV, not without some lesson in commendation of virtue and honour.

The theme of the Palice of Honour is the career of the virtuous man, over manifold and sometimes phenomenal difficulties, towards the sublime heights which his disciplined and well-ordered faculties should enable him to reach. It is marked by the exuberance of youth, sometimes running out to the extravagant excess that allegory so readily encourages, but there is plenty in it to show that the writer has a genius for observation and a true sense of poetic fitness. It is manifest that he has read Chaucer and Langland, but he likewise gives certain fresh features of detail that anticipate both Spenser and Bunyan. The poem is a crystallisation of the chivalrous spirit, in the enforcement of a strenuous moral law and a lofty but arduous line of conduct.

No manuscript of the poem is extant. The earliest known edition is an undated 1 printed in London, and probably to be assigned to 1553, the year in which W. Copland published the translation of Virgil. The poem, however, was issued several times in the 16th century, and the preface to the 1st Edinburgh edition (1579) contains a reference to the London issue, as well as to certain "copyis of this wark set furth of auld amang ourselfis." The latter cannot now be traced, but they are supposed to have appeared before 1543, when Florence Wilson imitated the Palice of Honour in his De Tranquillitate Animi. The Edinburgh edition, with the prologues to the Virgil, formed the 2nd volume of a series of Scottish poets published in Perth by Morison in 1787. Pinkerton used the same edition in his Ancient Scotish Poems, and the Bannatyne Club in 1827 likewise reprinted it, together with a list of the variations from the London edition.

King Hart

King Hart is a poem of doubtful accreditation. It is a later allegory and of high literary merit. The poem runs to over 900 lines and is written in 8-lined stanzas. The text is preserved in the Maitland folio manuscript in the Pepysian library, Cambridge. .

Like the Palice of Hoour, King Hart embodies a drastic and wholesome experience. It is a presentation of the endless conflict between flesh and spirit, in which the heart, who is king of the human state, knoweth his own trouble, and is purged as if by fire. The poet exhibits more self-restraint in this poem than in its predecessor; he is less turgid and more artistic, stronger in reflection and not so expansively sentimental, and much more skilful in point of form.

"Conscience"

A minor piece on "Conscience," a dainty little conceit, completes his moral poems. Conscience is a short 4-stanza poem. Its subject is the conceit that men first clipped away the "con" from "conscience" to leave "science" and "na mair"; then they lost "sci" and had nothing but "ens": that schrew, Riches and geir.

King Hart and "Conscience" were both poems of recognised merit by the middle of the 16th century, for they were included by Maitland in his famous manuscript collection, and it was from this source that Pinkerton printed them (presumably for the 1st time) in his Ancient Scottish Poems, 1786.

Miscellaneous

There is a legend that Douglas wrote other works than those now mentioned, and he has even been credited with "dramatic poems founded on incidents in sacred history," but these, if ever produced, have completely disappeared. Tanner ascribes to Douglas "Aureas Narrationes," "comœdias aliquot," and a translation of Ovid's "De Remedio Amoris."

Ruddiman's folio edition of the Æneid, 1710, marked an era in philology by supplying, in its glossary, a foundation for Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary. Douglas is the first to use the term ‘Scottis’ in reference to the language of his poems, and this he does while freely coining words, especially from Latin, to meet his immediate necessities. While, however, this is the case, it is universally admitted that his poems are of notable importance in philology as well as literature.

The earliest collected edition, which is not likely to be superseded, was edited in 4 volumes by the late Dr. John Small, and published in Edinburgh, 1874.

Critical introduction

by Andrew Lang

Douglas attempted the poet’s art amidst the clash of arms; he was learned in an age and among a people that despised literature. The revival of letters, when it reached Scotland, was crushed out by the nobles, who hated dominies and Italians. Classical literature and Erasmus had a pupil in the young Archbishop of St. Andrews, a Stuart who fell under the English arrows, when ‘groom fought like noble, squire like knight’ around the king at Flodden. Gawain Douglas, noble by birth and ambitious of nature, ceased to court poetry, after poetry had done her best for him,—had helped the recommendations of the English Court to win him a bishopric from Leo X. The lilies and laurels of Italy, the sweet Virgilian measures, were soon blighted and silenced by the wind and hail of Scotland, by clerical austerity, and the storms of war that in those days beat round even episcopal palaces. Among all the poets beheld by Douglas in vision (in the Palice of Honour), but two or three were countrymen of his own.

The chief original poem of Douglas, The Palice of Honour, is an allegory of the sort which had long been in fashion. Moral ideas in allegorical disguises, descriptions of spring, and scraps of mediaeval learning were the staple of such compositions. Like the other poets, French and English, of the last two centuries, Douglas woke on a morning of May, wandered in a garden, and beheld various masques or revels of the goddesses, heroes, poets, virtues, vices (such as ‘Busteousness’), and classical and Biblical worthies. In his vision he characteristically confused all that he happened to know of the past, made Sinon and Achitophel comrades in guilt and misfortune, while Penthesilea and Jeptha’s daughter ranged together in Diana’s company, and ‘irrepreuabill Susane’ rode about in the troop of ‘Cleopatra and worthie Mark Anthone.’ The diverting and pathetic combinations of this sort still render Douglas’s poems rich in surprises, and he occasionally does poetical justice on the wicked men of antiquity, as when he makes Cicero knock down Catiline with a folio. To modern readers his allegory seems to possess but few original qualities. His poem, indeed, is rich with descriptions of flowers and stately palaces, his style, like Venus’s throne, is ‘with stones rich over fret and cloth of gold,’ his pictures have the quaint gorgeousness and untarnished hues that we admire in the paintings of Crivelli. But these qualities he shares with so many other poets of the century which preceded his own, that we find him most original when he is describing some scene he knew too well, some hour of storm and surly weather, the bleakness of a Scotch winter, or a ‘desert terribill,’ like that through which ‘Childe Roland to the dark tower came.’

A poem of Douglas’s which was not printed during his lifetime, "King Hart", is also allegorical. King Hart, or the heart of man, dwells in a kind of city of Mansoul; he is attended by five servants — the five senses,— besieged and defeated by Dame Pleasance, visited by Age, deserted by Youthhead, Disport, and Fresh Delight. There is nothing particularly original in an allegory of which the form was common before, and not unfrequently employed after the age of Douglas.

The little piece of verse called "Conscience" is not bad in its quibbling way. When the Church was young and flourishing, Conscience ruled her. Men wearied of Conscience, and cut off the Con, leaving Science. Then came an age of ecclesiastical learning, which lasted till the world ‘thought that Science was too long a jape,’ and got rid of Sci. Nothing was left now but ens, worldly substance, ‘riches and gear that gart all grace go hence.’ The Church in Scotland did not retain even ens long after the age of Douglas. Grace, on the other hand, waxed abundant.

The work by which Douglas lives, and deserves to live, is his translation of the Aeneid. It is a singular fruit of a barren and unlearned time, and, as a romantic rendering of the Aeneid, may still be read with pleasure. The two poets whom Douglas most admired of all the motley crowd who pass through The Palice of Honour were Virgil and Chaucer. Each of these masters he calls an a per se. He imitated the latter in the manner of his allegorical verse, and he translated the former with complete success. We must not ask the impossible from Douglas,—we must not expect exquisite philological accuracy; but he had the ‘root of the matter,’ an intense delight in Virgil’s music and in Virgil’s narrative, a perfect sympathy with ‘sweet Dido,’ and that keen sense of the human life of Greek, Trojan, and Latin, which enabled him in turn to make them live in Scottish rhyme. If he talks of ‘the nuns of Bacchus,’ and if his Sibyl admonishes Aeneas to ‘tell his beads,’ Douglas is merely using what he thinks the legitimate freedom of the translator. He justifies his method, too, by quotations from Horace and St. Gregory. He is giving a modern face to the ancient manners, a face which his readers would recognise. In his prologues, his sympathy carries him beyond orthodox limits, and he defends the behaviour of Aeneas to Dido against the attacks of Chaucer. He is so earnest a ‘humanist’ that he places himself in the mental attitude of Virgil, and avers that Aeneas only deserted Dido at the bidding of the gods:—

  ‘Certes, Virgill schawis Enee did na thing,
Frome Dido of Cartaige at his departing,
Bot quhilk the goddes commandit him to forne;
And gif that thair command maid him mansworne,
That war repreif to thair divinitee
And na reproche unto the said Enee.’

But though Douglas is a humanist in verse, all the Bishop asserts himself in prose. In his prose note he observes that ‘Enee falit then gretly to the sueit Dido, quhilk falt reprefit nocht the goddessis divinite, for they had na divinite, as said is before.’ Though he adores the Olympians in verse, Douglas adopts the Euhemeristic theory in prose: ‘Juno was bot ane woman, dochter to Saturn, sistir and spows to Jupiter king of Crete.’ In spite of these edifying notes, Douglas’s conscience pricked him, ‘for he to Gentiles’ bukis gaif sik keip.’ Even if he knew Greek, he probably would not have translated Homer, as a friend asked him to do. The prologue to the Thirteenth Book of the Aeneid (i.e., of the book ‘ekit’ to Virgil by Mapheus Vegius) proves that there were moments when he thought even Virgil a perilous and unprofitable heathen.

The language of Douglas, as he observes (Prologue to the First Book), is ‘braid and plane,’ that is to say, it is good broad Scotch, and still ‘plain’ enough to a Scotch reader. He does not, however, ‘clere all sudroun refuse,’ when no Scotch word served his turn, and he frankly admits that

  ‘the ryme
Causis me to mak digressioun sum tyme.’

Douglas’s rank is that of an accomplished versifier, who deserted poetry with no great regret for the dangerous game of politics.

Critical reception

Douglas's reputation among modern readers was bolstered somewhat in 1934 when Ezra Pound included several passages of the Eneados in his ABC of Reading. Comparing Douglas to Chaucer, Pound wrote that "the texture of Gavin's verse is stronger, the resilience greater than Chaucer's". C.S. Lewis was also an admirer of the work: "About Douglas as a translator there may be two opinions; about his Aeneid (Prologues and all) as an English book there can be only one. Here a great story is greatly told and set off with original embellishments which are all good — all either delightful or interesting — in their diverse ways." Kenneth Rexroth called it "a spectacular poem", albeit one that "bears little relationship to the spirit of Virgil".

Publications

Poetry

• The Palice of Honour. London: At the Sygne of the Rose Garland / Wyllyam Copland, 1553; Edinburgh: J. Ballantyne, 1827;
  • (edited by David John Parkinson). Kalamazoo, MI: Medieival Institute Publications, Western Michigan University, 1992.
• A Description of May (modernized by Francis Fawkes). London: J. Whiston & B. White / A. Millar / R. Dodsley, 1752.
• The Poetical Works (with memoir by John Small). Edinburgh: William Paterson, 1874. Volume I, Volume II, Volume III, Volume IV
• Gavin Douglas: A selection from his poetry (edited by Sydney Goodsir Smith) Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, for the Saltire Society, 1959.
• Selections from Gavin Douglas (edited by David F.C. Coldwell). Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1964.
• The Shorter Poems of Gavin Douglas (edited by Priscilla J. Bawcutt). Edinburgh & London: William Blackwood, for the Scottish Text Society, 1967.
• The Makars: the poems of Henryson, Dunbar, and Douglas (edited by J.A. Tasioulas). Edinburgh: Canongate Books, 1999.

Translated

• Virgil, Aeneid. Edinburgh: T. Constable, 1839. Volume II.
• Virgil's Aeneid: Translated into Scottish verse by Gavin Douglas, bishop of Dunkeld (edited by David F.C. Coldwell). (4 volumes), Edinburgh: William Blackwood, for the Scottish Text Society, 1957–64.

A Scottish Winter By Gavin Douglas

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• Scottish literature
• List of British poets
• Timeline of British poetry

References

Scots language Eneados part 1

• Bawcutt, Priscilla. Gavin Douglas: A critical study. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1976.
•  Bayne, Thomas Wilson (1888) "Douglas, Gavin" in Stephen, Leslie Dictionary of National Biography 15 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 292-295  Wikisource, Web, Jan. 7, 2017.
• Maxwell, Sir Herbert. A History of the House of Douglas. II Vols. Freemantle. London, 1902.

External links

Poems

• Douglas, Gavin (1475?-1522) (from The Aeneid) at Representative Poetry Online
• Gavin Douglas at PoemHunter (2 poems)
• Gavin Douglas at Poetry Nook (2 poems)
• Douglas in The English Poets: An anthology:
  • Extracts from The Palice of Honoure: "A Desert Terrible," "The Fête Champêtre," "A Ballade in Commendation of Honour"
  • Extracts from The Aeineid: A Scottish Winter Landscape, The Ghost of Creusa, Dido's Hunting, Sleep, Spring, The Tribes of the Dead, The Destiny of Rome

Audio / video

• Scots-language Eneados
• Gavin Douglas at YouTube

Books

• Gavin Douglas at Amazon.com

About

• Gawin Douglas in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Gavin Douglas in the Gale Encyclopedia of Biography
• Gavin Douglas in the Catholic Encyclopedia
• Gavin Douglas at Electric Scotland
• Gavin Douglas in the Cambridge History of English and American Literature
• "The Prologue to the Eneados: Gavin Douglas's directions for reading" from Studies in Scottish Literature
• Dougls, Gavin" in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Douglas, Gavin