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Page 32
(1) Lord Napier and Ettrick points out to me that, unluckily, the tradition is
erroneous. Piers was not executed at all. William Cockburn suffered in
Edinburgh. But the _Border Minstrelsy_ overrides history.
_Criminal Trials in Scotland_ by Robert Pitcairn, Esq. Vol. i. part I. p. 144,
A. D. 1530. 17 Jac. V.
May 16. William Cokburne of Henderland, convicted (in presence of the King) of
high treason committed by him in bringing Alexander Forestare and his son,
Englishmen, to the plundering of Archibald Somervile; and for treasunably
bringing certain Englishmen to the lands of Glenquhome; and for common theft,
common reset of theft, out-putting and in-putting thereof. Sentence. For which
causes and crimes he has forfeited his life, lands, and goods, movable and
immovable; which shall be escheated to the King. Beheaded.
Words, empty and unavailing--for what words of ours can speak our thoughts or
interpret our affections! From you first, as we followed the deer with King
James, or rode with William of Deloraine on his midnight errand, did we learn
what Poetry means and ali the happiness that is in the gift of song. This and
more than may be told you gave us, that are not forgetful, not ungrateful,
though our praise be unequal to our gratitude. _Fungor inani munere!_
XVI.
To Eusebius of Caesarea.
(Concerning the Gods of the Heathen.)
Touching the Gods of the Heathen, most reverend Father, thou art not ignorant
that even now, as in the time of thy probation on earth, there is great
dissension. That these feigned Deities and idols, the work of men's hands, are
no longer worshipped thou knowest; neither do men eat meat offered to idols.
Even as spoke that last Oracle which murmured forth, the latest and the only
true voice from Delphi, even so 'the fair-wrought court divine hath fallen; no
more hath Phoebus his home, no more his laurel-bough, nor the singing well of
water; nay, the sweet-voiced water is silent.' The fane is ruinous, and the
images of men's idolatry are dust.
Nevertheless, most worshipful, men do still dispute about the beginnings of
those sinful Gods: such as Zeus, Athene, and Dionysus: and marvel how first
they won their dominion over the souls of the foolish peoples. Now, concerning
these things there is not one belief, but many; howbeit, there are two main
kinds of opinion. One sect of philosophers believes--as thyself, with heavenly
learning, didst not vainly persuade--that the Gods were the inventions of wild
and bestial folk, who, long before cities were builded or life was honourably
ordained, fashioned forth evil spirits in their own savage likeness; ay, or in
the likeness of the very beasts that perish. To this judgment, as it is set
forth in thy Book of the Preparation for the Gospel, I, humble as I am, do
give my consent. But on the other side are many and learned men, chiefly of
the tribes of the Alemanni, who have almost conquered the whole inhabited
world. These, being unwilling to suppose that the Hellenes were in bondage to
superstitions handed down from times of utter darkness and a bestial life, do
chiefly hold with the heathen philosophers, even with the writers whom thou,
most venerable, didst confound with thy wisdom and chasten with the scourge of
small cords of thy wit.
Thus, like the heathen, our doctors and teachers maintain that the Gods of the
nations were, in the beginning, such pure natural creatures as the blue sky,
the sun, the air, the bright dawn, and the fire; but, as time went on, men,
forgetting the meaning of their own speech and no longer understanding the
tongue of their own fathers, were misled and beguiled into fashioning all
those lamentable tales: as that Zeus, for love of mortal women, took the shape
of a bull, a ram, a serpent, an ant, an eagle, and sinned in such wise as it
is a shame even to speak of.
Behold, then, most worshipful, how these doctors and learned men argue, even
like the philosophers of the heathen whom thou didst confound. For they
declare the Gods to have been natural elements, sun and sky and storm, even as
did thy opponents; and, like them, as thou saidst, 'they are nowise at one
with each other in their explanations.' For of old some boasted that Hera was
the Air; and some that she signified the love of woman and man; and some that
she was the waters above the Earth; and others that she was the Earth beneath
the waters; and yet others that she was the Night, for that Night is the
shadow of Earth: as if, forsooth, the men who first worshipped Hera had
understanding of these things! And when Hera and Zeus quarrel unseemly (as
Homer declareth), this meant (said the learned in thy days) no more than the
strife and confusion of the elements, and was not in the beginning an idle
slanderous tale.
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