Appendix D — The Throwing of the Heart
Book XX. *421-*432
These lines are found only in Hart’s printed edition. Pinkerton thought there was “no reason to view them as an interpolation,” and Jamieson regarded their agreement with the account in the Howlat103 “a strong presumption of authenticity.” By Skeat they were at first accepted as genuine, but afterwards, influenced by the reasoning on Barbour’s rhymes of P. Buss in Anglia,104 he surrendered them as an interpolation. In the passage of twelve lines three rhymes occur, which are unusual—more strongly, impossible—for Barbour on the basis of his admitted work. These are battell—tell, to be—de, ho—to. In the first case, Barbour, it is claimed, elsewhere always uses the “liquid” form bataill (battalyhe) to rhyme with another word of the same character as assaile or travaill (travailyhe).105 In the second, he “never rhymes be with de (correctly dey),” as Skeat puts it, for de (Icel. deyja) was still influenced by the terminal semi-guttural, giving it an “impure” sound, whereas “be,” with no ghostly after-sound, is quite “pure.” The final example brings together two different values of “o,” and, it may be added, in the four cases in which Barbour uses the word, it is in the form hoyne.106 These rhyme-tests had also been applied to the same result by Mr. W. A. Craigie.107
With this conclusion Mr. Brown agrees, “although on slightly different grounds.”108 Hart’s edition, of course, takes a place in his general scheme of redaction. But he would “hesitate to reject the lines on the rimes alone,” and “The be, de test” seems to him “quite untrustworthy.”109 Skeat thinks it unanswerable.110 Mr. Neilson pleads “that this canon begs the whole question of the text of the Bruce... first you find your canon; then you edit out of your text all that is disconform.”111 Arguing specially on its application to The Legends of the Saints, he points out that “There are not a few metrical and other solecisms in the Bruce,” and that the “exceptional e-rhyme” is the stamp of transition.112 It is to be observed also that Chaucer, Barbour’s contemporary, and more careful in such matters than he, rhymes ho, y-do in the Knight’s Tale.113 In the Alexander occurs the tell—battell rhyme.114 On the whole, the test is perhaps not so conclusive—out of Germany—as Skeat imagines. Further, from the indubitable reference in the Howlat to the Bruce, Neilson accepts the latter as the sole source of its digression, and the lines as therefore authentic.115
If, however, what has already been said of the passages from Hart hold good,116 then this one must go with the rest. Fortunately, in this specific case that argument can be greatly strengthened, for the lines have never been tried by their relation to the context and their historic implications, and that obvious and indisputable test puts the question beyond doubt. They have but an outside connection with the narrative of Barbour, and otherwise are in flat contradiction thereto. So much is at once evident from the closing couplet:
“And took it up in gret daintie;
And ever in field this used he.”
It is a series of performances of this kind that is contemplated, not a single example, which is all that Barbour’s account gives room for. Douglas is credited with a habit of this sort, “ever in field”; while Barbour, like Froissart, knows of only one battle in which Douglas fought while bearing the heart of Bruce.117 Nor is Barbour likely to have omitted such a “point of chivalry” on the part of his twin hero, had a valid tradition of it existed in his day.
The problem becomes clearer when we consider alternative and later accounts of the expedition of Douglas, for which see note on Book XX. 191, 192. Evidently the idea of his going to the Holy Land, as Froissart explains the commission,118 and as it occurs in Bower, gave an opening for embellishment, which expands in the hands of Boece to the extent of thirteen victories achieved by Douglas over the Turks! This, however, is only to give more precision to a composite account contained in the Buke of the Howlat of the middle of the fifteenth century, a poem written in glorification of the Douglases. The author, supposed to be Richard Holland, speaks of the great friendship Bruce had for Douglas: “Reid the writ of thar work to your witness”119—a clear reference to the Bruce, especially as in xxxv. and xxxvi. he paraphrases the reply of Douglas to the King in Book XX. 223, 234. Thereafter, however, he strikes off from Barbour. Douglas goes to “the haly graif,” where—
“XXXVII.
“He gart hallowe the hart, and syne couth it hyng
About his hals120 (neck) full hende (respectfully), and on his awne hart.”
The story then proceeds:
“XXXVIII.
“Now bot I semble for thi saull with Sarasenis mycht,
Sall I never sene be into Scotland!”
An extension of the original commission, be it noted, and a motive for what follows:
“Thus in defence of the faith he fure to the fecht
With knychtis of Cristindome to kepe his command.
And quhen the batallis so brym, brathly and bricht,
War joyned thraly in thrang, mony thousand,
Amang the hethin men the hert hardely he slang,
Said: ‘Wend on as thou was wont,
Throw the batell in bront,
Ay formast in the front,
Thy fays amang;’
“XXXIX.
“‘And I sall followe the in faith, or feye to be fellit,—
As thi lege man leill, my lyking thow art.’
Thus frayis he the fals folk, trewly to tell it,
Aye quhile he coverit (recovered) and come to the Kingis hart,
Thus feile feildis he wan, aye worschipand it,
Throwout Cristindome kid (known)
War the dedis that he did,
Till on a time it betid
As tellis the writ.”121
So we go back to Barbour (“the writ”), but in the final scene there is no mention of throwing the heart, any more than in the genuine Bruce, though it is stated that “His hardy men tuk the hart syne upon hand.”122
Obviously we have in these stanzas, and especially in the words underlined, the source of the lines in the Bruce, which are further in express contradiction to Barbour’s narrative, and have no place in it. The threefold argument leads inevitably to the one conclusion that these lines are an interpolation, and, as a corollary, that their source is the Howlat. Mr. Amours, in editing that poem,123 has gone so far as to say that this is “almost certain.” I would remove the qualification.124