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

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NOTES TO GOOD COUNSEL.
4. His steppis sew, follow its steps. Here /lis is the genitive
of the neuter pronoun, and refers to virtue. The old word sew
has been translated in later copies by persew and follow, to the
ruin of the scansion.
Dreid thee non effray, dread for thyself no terror. Thee is the
dat. case. Effray, dread, fear, terror, occurs in The Bruce, xi.
250, xiii. 270, &c., and answers to F. effroi. Affray is not
quite so good a spelling, but is common, occurring in The Bruce,
iii. 26, vi. 423, &c.
5. Exil, exile, banish ; the reading eject vice gives a sad jolt
to the rhythm. Such spellings as wyce for vyce are common in
Lowland Scotch MSS.
6. Thy luf began, began by loving thee. Here thy luf means
‘ love of thee.’ This use of thy occurs occasionally.
7. ‘And for every inch he will requite thee (by giving thee) a
span.’ Alluding to the proverb—‘ Give him an inch, and he’ll
take an ell.’ In Hazlitt’s Proverbs, p. 142, this proverb is cited;
and with it a quotation from Armin’s Nest of Ninnies, 1608:
‘Give me an inch to-day, I’ll give thee an ell to-morrow.’
1 o. Thy tym to compt, thy time (when thou comest) to count it;
i.e., the length of thy life, when considered.
11. Soyn; I adopt this spelling of ‘soon’ from The Bruce
(iv. 126, 179, &c.) in preference to sone, in order to avoid writing
a final e. It should always be remembered that final e seldom
constitutes a syllable in the Northern dialect, and is best avoided
in writing. We might write soun; we find soune in The Bruce,
i. 566. The line means: ‘for of green grass soon comes withered
hay’ ; suggested by various passages in the Bible, such as James, i.
10, Ps. xc. 6 ; &c. Jamieson illustrates walowit from Douglas’s
Virgil (see Small’s edition, ii. 127, 14, iii. 76. 10, 110. 11) ; Pink¬
erton’s Select Ballads, i. 13; Wyntoun, i. Prol. 123; &c. The
most interesting examples are to be found in Wyclifs translation of
Mark, iv. 6, and James, i. 11 : ‘And whanne the sunne roos vp,
it welewide for heete, and it driede vp, for it hadde no roote.’ ‘ The
sunne roos vp with heete, and driede the gras . . . ; and so a riche
man welewith in hise weies.’ It is the A.S. wealwian, to dry up,
and has nothing whatever to do (as Jamieson imagined) with the
G. falb, E. fallow, or the Lat. flauus.
12. Quhill licht is of the day, whilst the light of the day remains,
whilst daylight lasts. This is nothing but a version of John, ix. 4,
and is the best reading. Indeed, the reading quhilk suith is of thy
fay, i.e., which is the truth of thy faith, gives no good sense. Suith
is for suth, sooth ; both sb. and adj.
15. Sen word is thrall, since speech is a slave; the author
contrasts speech with thought, and calls it a ‘thrall’ by com¬
parison with the freedom of thought.
16. Thou dant, do thou make tame ; E. daunt, derived (through