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

INTRODUCTION.
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But he assumes that the line is “mutilated,” for the follow¬
ing reason. In Mair’s History of Scotland, we find the
following remarks, as quoted by Irving, Lives of the Scot-
ish Poets, p. 144. They refer to King James I. “In
vernacula lingua artificiosissimus compositor: cujus codices
plurimi et cantilenae memoriter adhuc apud Scotos inter
primes habentur. Artificiosum libellum de regina dum
captivus erat composuit, antequam earn in conjugem
duceret; et aliam artificiosam cantilenam ejusdem, Yas sen,
etc. et jucundum artificiosumque ilium cantum At Beltayn,
etc. quern alii de Dalketh et Gargeil mutare studuerunt:
quia in arce aut camera clausus servabatur in qua mulier
cum matre habitabat.”—Major, De Gestis Scotorum, fol.
cxxxv a., Paris, 1521, 4to. All admit that the artificiosus
libellus de regina is certainly the Kingis Quair; the next
endeavour of the critics was to find the song beginning
with Yas sen, or the poem beginning with At Beltayn.
Now it should have been observed at the outset that Mair
(or his printer) seems to have made a mistake; for the
words Yas sen give no sense, and there is indeed no such
word as Yas. Pinkerton was probably thinking of yes, but
this in Scottish would be spelt 3is, as in Barbour, or 3us ;
and, since the symbol g was denoted in print by z, it would
have appeared as Zis. Hence Mair’s evidence is not of
much help, and certainly Pinkerton was not justified in
supposing that he had found the song intended because he
found one beginning with the word Sen. In fact, it is not
a little remarkable that the Ballad, which we know to be
genuine, also begins with the same word ! Hence there is
absolutely no evidence in favour of attributing to King
James this Song on Absence. It is a pleasing poem, and
not foreign to the style of the Kingis Quair; the la7ignage
b