Scottish Text Society publications > Third series > Ratis raving and other early Scots poems on morals

INTRODUCTION.
XXIX
Quite distinct from all are the two versions here printed.
These are copies or adaptations of an original which,
except for a few pieces of general and conventional
advice, differs completely in form and spirit. Compared
with one another each, as noted above, has extensive
omissions or additions, but errors in transcription prove
that each was copied from an earlier MS., and the confusion
in 1. 223 ff. (= 259 ff.) suggests an error common to the
remoter original of both. The dialect of both is Scots,
and the date is at all events a. 1487, the date of the
Cambridge MS. MS. Kk. 1. 5 may fairly be assigned to
the same period or even earlier, and the assumed older
Scots version can hardly be much later than the middle
of the fifteenth century. This may have been a form of
the poem preserved in the other MSS. named, but if so
the material has been transformed beyond recognition.
If the suggestion of Chaucerian influence in 1. 19 is just,
we are entitled to believe that our poem is not earlier
than the beginning of the century, but the divergence
of the text at this point renders the conclusion uncertain.
The explicit is not really suitable for this poem, and
undoubtedly applies to the whole collection. In that case
No. 11 is an after-thought to fill up the empty pages.
The poem has been printed previously in Stevenson,
op. cit., p. 173 ff., and by Skeat in his editions of Bruce
for the E.E.T.S. and S.T.S.
11, ff. 53®-54a. The Vertewis of the Mess =
Appendix 7, p. 192 ff.
This short tract begins about the middle of f. 53“ and
extends to about the middle of f. 5401. The title is derived
from the opening words. It consists of a collection of
sayings from the Fathers on the advantages which issue
from attendance at Mass. On these sayings, see T. F.