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Ane Ballat of the Fenyeit Frier of Tungland, How He Fell in the Myre Fleand to Turkiland is a comic, satirical poem in Scots by William Dunbar (born 1459 or 1460) composed in the early sixteenth century. The title may be rendered in modern English as A Ballad of The False Friar of Tongland, How He Fell in the Mire Flying to Turkey.
In a modern sense, comedy refers to any discourse or work generally intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, television, film, stand-up comedy, or any other medium of entertainment. The origins of the term are found in Ancient Greece. In the Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance which pits two groups or societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old." A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions that pose obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth is understood to be constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to take recourse in ruses which engender very dramatic irony which provokes laughter.
Satire is a genre of literature, and sometimes graphic and performing arts, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.
Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster in Ireland. It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language which was historically restricted to most of the Highlands, the Hebrides and Galloway after the 16th century. The Scots language developed during the Middle English period as a distinct entity.
The poem mocks an apparent attempt by John Damian, the abbott of Tongland, to fly from a wall of Stirling Castle using a pair of artificial wings. While pillorying this event, Dunbar makes a broader attack on Damian's character, depicting him as a habitual charlatan. [1] [2] [3]
John Damian de Falcuis was an Italian at the court of James IV of Scotland. His attempts at medicine, alchemy, flying, and his advancement by the king encouraged a satirical attack by the poet William Dunbar.
Tungland or Tongland Abbey was a Premonstratensian monastic community located in Tongland in the historical county of Kirkcudbrightshire in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It was probably founded circa 1218 by Alan, Lord of Galloway, although the church of Tongland had previously been granted to Holyrood Abbey by his grandfather Uchtred in the early 1160s. Few of its early abbots are known and its history is more generally covered by a cloud of obscurity.
Stirling Castle, located in Stirling, is one of the largest and most important castles in Scotland, both historically and architecturally. The castle sits atop Castle Hill, an intrusive crag, which forms part of the Stirling Sill geological formation. It is surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs, giving it a strong defensive position. Its strategic location, guarding what was, until the 1890s, the farthest downstream crossing of the River Forth, has made it an important fortification in the region from the earliest times.
The text of the poem is preserved in the Bannatyne Manuscript and, partially, in the Asloan Manuscript. [1]
The Bannatyne Manuscript is an anthology of literature compiled in Scotland in the sixteenth century. It is an important source for the Scots poetry of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The manuscript contains texts of the poems of the great makars, many anonymous Scots pieces and works by medieval English poets.
The Asloan Manuscript is an anthology of Scots prose and poetry dating to the early sixteenth century. It was compiled by the Edinburgh notary John Asloan.
John Damian was an Italian-born cleric who came to Scotland, at the start of the sixteenth century and became a protégé of King James IV. [4] From 1501 he is recorded receiving payments from the King and is referred to as 'The French Leich' and 'The French Medicinar', suggesting that he practised medicine in some form. [4] He was made abbot of Tongland Abbey in Kirkcudbrightshire. His involvement with the natural sciences is confirmed by the alchemical experiments he carried out, at the King's expense, in Stirling in 1503. [4] [5]
James IV was the King of Scotland from 11 June 1488 to his death. He assumed the throne following the death of his father, King James III, in the Battle of Sauchieburn, a rebellion in which the younger James played an indirect role. He is generally regarded as the most successful of the Stewart monarchs of Scotland, but like his father he died in battle. His reign ended in a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Flodden. He was the last monarch not only from Scotland, but from all of Great Britain, to be killed in battle.
Kirkcudbrightshire, or the County of Kirkcudbright or the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in the informal Galloway area of south-western Scotland. For local government purposes, it forms part of the wider Dumfries and Galloway council area of which it forms a committee area under the name of the Stewartry.
Alchemy was an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition practiced throughout Europe, Africa, and Asia, originating in Hellenistic Egypt between the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE. It aims to purify, mature, and perfect certain objects. Common aims were chrysopoeia, the transmutation of "base metals" into "noble metals" ; the creation of an elixir of immortality; the creation of panaceas able to cure any disease; and the development of an alkahest, a universal solvent. The perfection of the human body and soul was thought to permit or result from the alchemical magnum opus and, in the Hellenistic and Western mystery tradition, the achievement of gnosis. In Europe, the creation of a philosopher's stone was variously connected with all of these projects.
William Dunbar was a makar who was also close to James IV. [4] In his youth, he had accompanied diplomatic missions to France and England [5] and from 1500 was employed at the Royal court, often writing poetry which dealt with courtly events. [4] Dunbar's poem The Birth of Antichrist seems to be a second satire of John Damian with its reference to a flying abbot clothed in feathers. [1]
William Dunbar was a Scottish makar poet active in the late fifteenth century and the early sixteenth century. He was closely associated with the court of King James IV and produced a large body of work in Scots distinguished by its great variation in themes and literary styles. He was likely a native of East Lothian, as assumed from a satirical reference in The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie. His surname is also spelled Dumbar.
A makar is a term from Scottish literature for a poet or bard, often thought of as a royal court poet.
Damian's career was described by the later historian John Lesley.
John Lesley was a Scottish Roman Catholic bishop and historian. His father was Gavin Lesley, rector of Kingussie, Badenoch.
Lesley records that, in 1507, Damian declared that he would travel to France by flight faster than a recently departed Scots embassy. He then leapt from a wall wearing his feathered costume and landed heavily, breaking a femur.
He then records that Damian explained his failure to achieve flight thus;
or, in English:
Lesley compares Damian's exploit to a mythical King Bladud, but no further explanation for the Abbot's actions is given. [5]
The Fenyeit Freir of Tungland is composed in verse in the form of a Dream vision and forms a supposed biography of John Damian up to and including his attempt at flight. The tone of the poem is consistently humorous and scurrilous. Passages of fanciful fiction are mixed with elements of truth, albeit exaggerated for comic effect. In these respects it bears a strong resemblance in style to the contemporary literary form of flyting. [1]
The poem opens in formal, aureate style, with Dunbar declaring that, at dawn, he had a dream.
The mood quickly becomes scurrilous. Although he will never be explicitly named, John Damian appears in the dream and is described as having Turkish origins,
Damian is accused of having killed a cleric in Italy in order to acquire his habit and so impersonate him. This seems to be the origin of the epithet Feinyeit Freir.
Damian is then supposed to have fled from Lombardy to France once his true identity was discovered. There, he pretended to be a physician, hiding his Italian origins.
He is then accused of having no skill in bloodletting and being obliged to flee again.
He arrives in Scotland, where he continues his medical malpractice.
It is suggested that, after being appointed as an abbot, he neglected his religious duties in favour of alchemy.
After the failure of his alchemical work, he decides to fly back to Turkey with a coat of feathers. He takes off, observed by marvelling birds who compare him to mythical characters.
The birds attack. During an extended descriptive passage, each species adopts a different tactic. They peck him, claw him, pluck his hair and tear at his wings.
In a particularly scatological detail, the panic-stricken Damian loses control of his bowels above a herd of cattle,
Deprived by the birds of his 'plumage', he falls into a midden, 'sliding up to the eyes in muck'.
Damian hides in the mud for three days while the carrion birds search for him.
Dunbar is then woken by the dawn chorus. To his frustration, his vision of Damian is 'taken with the tide'.
It is unclear how much of the poem is truthful and how much is exaggeration or fiction.
Certain episodes, such as the long and elaborate description of Damian's attack by a flock of outraged birds, are obvious fantasy.
Some of Dunbar's details are however corroborated by other documents. Principally, the Treasurer's accounts confirm that John Damian did indeed practice medicine and also dabbled in alchemy. [4] Bishop Lesley's history gives further corroboration. [6]
Dunbar's clear intention is to mock his target by any means available and so the reader must be the final judge of what is true and false in the poem.
Middle Scots was the Anglic language of Lowland Scotland in the period from 1450 to 1700. By the end of the 15th century, its phonology, orthography, accidence, syntax and vocabulary had diverged markedly from Early Scots, which was virtually indistinguishable from early Northumbrian Middle English. Subsequently, the orthography of Middle Scots differed from that of the emerging Early Modern English standard. Middle Scots was fairly uniform throughout its many texts, albeit with some variation due to the use of Romance forms in translations from Latin or French, turns of phrases and grammar in recensions of southern texts influenced by southern forms, misunderstandings and mistakes made by foreign printers.
A Satire of the Three Estates, is a satirical morality play in Middle Scots, written by makar Sir David Lyndsay. The complete play was first performed outside in the playing field at Cupar, Fife in June 1552 during the Midsummer holiday, where the action took place under Castle Hill. It was subsequently performed in Edinburgh, also outdoors, in 1554. The full text was first printed in 1602 and extracts were copied into the Bannatyne Manuscript. The Satire is an attack on the Three Estates represented in the Parliament of Scotland – the clergy, lords and burgh representatives, symbolised by the characters Spiritualitie, Temporalitie and Merchant. The clergy come in for the strongest criticism. The work portrays the social tensions present at this pivotal moment in Scottish history.
David Arnot, C.R.S.A., was a 16th-century Scottish canon regular and bishop. He was from the Arnot family of Arnot, Fife.
Schir Johine the Ros, ane thing thair is compild, also known as The Flyting of Dumbar and Kennedie, is the earliest surviving example of the Scottish version of the flyting genre in poetry. The genre takes the form of a contest, or "war of words", between two poets, each trying to outclass the other in vituperation and verbal pyrotechnics. It is not certain how the work was composed, but it is likely to have been publicly performed, probably in the style of a poetic joust by the two combatants, William Dunbar and Walter Kennedy, before the Court of James IV of Scotland.
The Camus Cross, otherwise known as the Camuston or Camustane Cross, is an Early Medieval Scottish standing stone located on the Panmure Estate near Carnoustie in Angus, Scotland. First recorded in the 15th century in a legal document describing the boundaries between Camuston and the barony of Downie, and described in the 17th century by Robert Maule, it is a freestanding cross, rare in Eastern Scotland.
Antoine d'Arcy, sieur de la Bastie-sur-Meylan and of Lissieu, was a French nobleman involved in the government of Scotland.
William Stewart was a Scottish poet working in the first half of the 16th century.
The Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo or The Tretis Of The Twa Mariit Wemen and the Wedo is a narrative poem in Scots by the makar William Dunbar. The title translates into English as The conversation of the two married women and the widow.
"Of Ane Blak-Moir" is a short comic poem in Scots by William Dunbar.
The Dregy Of Dunbar also known as Dumbaris Dirige to the King is a humorous poem in Scots and Latin composed by William Dunbar. at an unknown date.
Remonstrance to the King is a Scots poem of William Dunbar composed in the early sixteenth century. The Remonstrance is one of Dunbar's many appeals to his patron James IV of Scotland asking for personal advancement. In this particular case, the unseemly personal pleading is combined with more dignified subject matter; lavish praise and pointed criticism of the King's court is delivered in an open manner.
The Chepman and Myllar Press was the first printing press to be established in Scotland.
The Wife of Auchtermuchty is a Scots poem of the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries.
The Thrissil and the Rois is a Scots poem composed by William Dunbar to mark the wedding, in August 1503, of King James IV of Scotland to Princess Margaret Tudor of England.
The Petition Of The Gray Horse, Auld Dunbar is an appeal by the Scots poet William Dunbar to his patron King James IV of Scotland in which he requests a new gown to mark Christmas.
Of James Dog or, more fully, Of James Dog, Kepair of the Quenis Wardrop is a poem of William Dunbar in which the poet complains to Queen Margaret Tudor of Scotland about the keeper of her wardrobe, James Dog.