Scottish Text Society publications > New series > Kingis quair; together with A ballad of good counsel

Xll
INTRODUCTION.
and lamenting his fate, which continues till st. 28. But in
st. 29 there is a great change; he had been bewailing his
long days and nights for some time, and I suppose that
st. 1 to 28 represent some of his reflections during this
period. All at once a new note is struck, one of hope; he
now no longer drifts about, but sets to his self-imposed
task in good earnest, having found something definite
to say; and it is not without some significance that the
favourite extract from the poem begins with the thirtieth
stanza.
§ 6. I do not find that any one has noticed a curious
expression in st. 191. The lines to which I allude are the
third and fourth of that stanza :—
“ Thankit mot be the sanctis marciall,
That me first causit hath this accident.”
For marciall, the editions by Tytler and others have mer-
ciall, and there is no note upon the line ; nor does the word
appear in Thomson’s glossary, so that this interesting point
has been missed. The “ Martial saints ” are the saints of
the month of Mars, i.e. of March ; and the poet blesses
all the saints of this happy month, because it “ first caused
him this accident,” i.e. was the original cause of his good
fortune. I take this to refer, not to his first sight of
his lady, but to the month in which he was taken prisoner,
a circumstance which at last guided him to his new
happiness.
§ 7. The hypothesis that the poem was composed with
some interruptions seems to be required by its frag¬
mentary nature; for, notwithstanding that some art has
been shown in giving a certain connectedness to the
whole by (as I suppose) the subsequent introduction of