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

NOTES.
Ill
On the sentiment cf. Early English Meals and Manners,
p. 182,1. 189 ff.—
Yf mow aske pe good for goddys sake.
And pe wont thynge wher-of to take,
Gyf hym boner wordys on fayre manere
"With glad semblaunt and pure good cher.
Spec. Christ., 39, 12 ff. has, Gregorius: Numquam est uacua
manus a munere si fuerit archa cordis repleta bona uoluntate.
Idem: Nihil deo dicius offertur bona uoluntate. Ibid. 42,
17 ff. : It es wretyn ; 3cue to eeche body askynge the gud if
thou may or gude wyl. Our text may derive from some such
source. Rather different is the form often found elsewhere,
‘ if you have nothing you give much if you have the will to
give,’ for which see, e.g., Proverbs of Prophets, 52 f., in Minor
Poems of the Vernon MS.
635 ff. On the passage cf. Tob. iv. 17 : Panem tuam cum
esurientibus et egenis comede, et de uestimentis tuis nudos
tege, and i. 20 : esurientibus alebat nudosque uestimentis
praebebat.
In 1. 636 met and drink have been transposed.
643 f. Cf. Ecclus. iii. 33 : Ignem ardentem extinguit aqua et
eleemosyna resistit peccatis ; and Dan. iv. 24 : . . . et peccata
tua eleemosynis redime.
661. vynynge : an error for venynge. Cf. 1. 819.
665. Cf. 11. 1278 ff., 1300. The sentiment is common to all
mediaeval moralists and needs no illustration, but cf. Henryson,
Test, of Cresseid, 461: Nocht is your fairnes bot ane faiding
flour. See also Fergusson’s Scottish Proverbs, MS. 424 : Fairnes
is a faiding floure.
675 ff. On riches see also Dicta Sal., Appendix 6, 1. 269 f.
( = Eccl. v. 13). Cf. Henryson, Orpheus and Erudices, 551 f.—
. . . gottin with gret laubour,
Kepit with dreid and tynt Is with dolour.
677. cowatics : miswritten for cowatus, but clearly -ics with
dotted
680. Eding is probably a slip for Ending (so Lumby).