WILLIAM DUNBAR, THE TRETIS OF THE TWA MARIIT WEMEN AND THE WEDO, FOOTNOTES



1 Well-combed was their gleaming hair and carefully parted

2 With kerchiefs thrown above of fine fabric clear (bright) and thin

3 Of wonderfully fine appearance were their faces (countenances) gentle (of submissive or pliant disposition)

4 A beautiful table covered [with a cloth] was before those fair ladies

5 One was a widow, certainly, of amorous behavior

6 They quaffed at the strong wine and let out words

7 What mirth you found in marriage since you were men's wives

8 That none may undo it in the smallest part except death alone

9 Chains are always to be avoided; and changes are sweet

10 It was but a nuisance to be a longer time (more), unless we so desired

11 Lines 58-59: It is against the law of love, of nature, and of natural law, / Together hearts to force, that contend with each other

12 We should have mates (companions) as fresh to embrace whenever it pleased us

13 And make widely known my beauty abroad, where lovers were many

14 After I had tested his vigor the first pleasant month

15 A vigorous (powerful) man, always up front, and forceful in draftsmanship (tilling, plowing)

16 Lines 89-90: I have a slovenly fellow, a worm, an old hairy rustic, / A used up stray boar, good for nothing but words to clatter (i.e., grunt)

17 A scabby monster, a scorpion, a filthy (shitty) behind

18 When that repulsive wretch kisses me, then kindles all my sorrow

19 With slime his two angry (dirty/ugly) eyes are smeared all about

20 He showers on me his twisted mouth and parts my lips

21 For threatening demeanor of that malignant rascal, shame him beset!

22 Lines 113-14: And when the knave simpers at me with his narrow rogue's mouth, / He dribbles like a diseased horse that leers at a mare (see note)

23 Lines 117-18: When I hear mentioned his name, than I make nine crosses (i.e., the sign of the Cross nine times), / To keep me from the annoyance (trouble) of that imbecilic fool

24 How he shall catch me, by means of some trick, [while I] rendezvous with another

25 Lines 141-43: Or rest of his clumsy (rusty) ride, though he were furiously angry (stark-raving mad): / For all the bribes of Stupid John, when he above climbs, / I think the delay dearly bought, so bungled are his deeds

26 A canker that is so festered it makes me sick

27 Lines 175-76: His instrument is exhausted and lies in [a] swoon: / Was never [a] sojourn (rest period) worse expended than on that sluggard

28 He looks as [if] he were capable of love-making, though he be of little endurance (physical strength)

29 He has a fair shape without force and appearance without power

30 But in secret, at the deed, he shall be drooping discovered

31 And how it becomes him so widely [to boast] to men of such matters

32 I believed I possessed a gem, and I here had gotten an amber jewel (geit=jet: see note)

33 Who bound my bright beauty to such an impotent coward (gloss by Bawcutt 1996)

34 Lines 231-32: I would that a young woman, who might not [the pain of] a thrust (putt) endure, / Who hated men with erect implements because of hurting of flesh

35 She should not flinch at his stroke, a straw's breadth of ground (gloss by Bawcutt 1996)

36 I believe that the girl [with regard to] my [alleged marital] bliss would have cause for laughter

37 And though I was stubborn and haughty, contemptuous, and bold

38 And be as turtledoves in your talk, though you have fragile (readily yielding) tails

39 And when you need it, forthwith, employ both their strength

40 One was a gray-haired, tired-out old man, who coughed out phlegm

41 Lines 275-76: Well could I rub his crooked back (i.e., do his back a favor) and comb his cropped pate, / And with tongue in cheek make a face behind his back (see note)

42 When the churlish one would chide me, with snarling jaws

43 Although the churl had become "chaste" (i.e., impotent) before the child was begotten

44 That low-class person was never of such worth to presume at any time

45 He never once dared disregard my summons, for before a second command

46 But at times it accumulated so huge, till it needed (behooved) to issue out

47 And given his buildings to my child, and tall tenements in the burgh

48 My legal proofs of documents of inheritance before they were all sealed

49 That my anger nearly burst out before the drawing up of the contract (gloss by Bawcutt 1996)

50 But when my legal documents and my denunciations were all amply sealed

51 While after [the] death of that wretched [fellow] who was of no account in the bedchamber

52 When he a whole year was restrained and he needed to take sexual pleasure

53 His equipment is all but fruitless and fails at the climax

54 Are recognized by their dispositions and known by the same

55 My clothes they are mournful in color of black (sable) (i.e., mourning clothes)

56 As if with sexual intercourse I was finished for the remainder of my life

57 In accordance with my black raiment I must have sad manners

58 We direct us all for show to deceive men away from the truth

59 But folk a cooked dish may spoil, who lack understanding

60 That worthless fellows hold in favor and have to do with them so long

61 That he be lost or with me lie (in the carnal sense), his life shall not be endangered




WILLIAM DUNBAR, THE TRETIS OF THE TWA MARIIT WEMEN AND THE WEDO, SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY




Manuscripts

Maitland Folio (Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge MS 2553) (1570-86).


Early Printed Edition

Chepman and Myllar (National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh), pp. 177-89 (c. 1507).


Editions

Bawcutt, Priscilla, and Felicity Riddy, eds. Selected Poems of Henryson & Dunbar. Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press, 1992.

Bawcutt, Priscilla, ed. William Dunbar: Selected Poems. London: Longman, 1996.

---. The Poems of William Dunbar. 2 vols. Glasgow: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 1998.

Conlee, John. The Works of William Dunbar. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, forthcoming.

Craigie, W. A., ed. The Maitland Folio Manuscript, Containing Poems by Sir Richard Maitland, Dunbar, Douglas, Henryson, and Others. Scottish Text Society n.s. 7. Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1919. Pp. 98-115.

Kinsley, James, ed. The Poems of William Dunbar. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979.

Laing, David, ed. The Poems of William Dunbar, Now First Collected. With Notes and a Memoir of His Life. Edinburgh: Laing and Forbes, 1834.

MacKay, Colin Edward. The Poems of William Dunbar: A Descriptive and Critical Analysis. Ph.D. Diss., Brown University, 1957.

MacKay MacKenzie, William, ed. The Poems of William Dunbar. London: Faber & Faber, 1932; rpt. 1966. Pp. 85-97.

Rickly, Patricia. William Dunbar's Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo: A Critical Edition. Ph.D. Diss., University of Rhode Island, 1980.

Schipper, J., ed. The Poems of William Dunbar. Vienna: Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissen-schaften, 1894.

Small, John, ed. The Poems of William Dunbar. Scottish Text Series, first series 2. Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1893.

Wood, Harriet Harvey, ed. William Dunbar: Selected Poems. Manchester: Fyfield Books, 1999. Pp. 68-83.


Related Studies

Bawcutt, Priscilla. "Dunbar's Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo 185-187 and Chaucer's Parson's Tale." Notes and Queries 11 (1964), 332-33.

---. Dunbar the Makar. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.

Bentsen, Eileen, and S. L. Sanderlin. "The Profits of Marriage in Late Medieval Scotland." Scottish Literary Journal 12.2 (Nov. 1985), 5-18.

Bitterling, Klaus. "The Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo: Some Comments on Words, Imagery, and Genre." Scottish Studies 4 (1984), 337-58.

Burness, Edwina. "Female Language in The Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo." Scottish Studies 4 (1984), 359-68.

Dobson, E. J., and Patricia Ingham. "Three Notes on Dunbar's The Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo." Medium Ćvum 36 (1967), 38-39.

Ebin, Lois. "Dunbar's Bawdy." The Chaucer Review 14 (1980), 278-86.

Evans, Deanna Delmar. "Dunbar's Tretis: The Seven Deadly Sins in Carnivalesque Disguise." Neophilologus 73 (1989), 130-41.

Fradenburg, Louise. "Spectacular Fictions: The Body Politic in Chaucer and Dunbar." Poetics Today 5 (1984), 493-517.

Fries, Maureen. "The 'Other' Voice: Woman's Song, Its Satire and Its Transcendence in Late Medieval British Literature." In Vox Feminae: Studies in Medieval Woman's Songs. Ed. John Plummer. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1981. Pp. 155-78.

---. "Medieval Concepts of the Female and Their Satire in the Poetry of William Dunbar." Fifteenth-Century Studies 7 (1983), 55-77.

Hope, A. D. "'The two mariit wemen and the wedo': Protest or Satire?" In Proceedings of the Ninth Congress of the Australasian Universities' Languages and Literature Association, 19-26 August 1964. Ed. Marion Adams. Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press, 1964. P. 48.

Kinsley, James. "The Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo." Medium Ćvum 23 (1954), 31-35.

McCarthy, Shaun. "'Syne maryit I a Marchand': Dunbar's Mariit Wemen and Their Audience." Studies in Scottish Literature 18 (1983), 138-53.

Parkinson, David. "Prescriptions for Laughter in Some Middle Scots Poems." In Selected Essays on Scottish Language and Literature. Ed. Steven R. McKenna. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1992. Pp. 27-39.

Pearcy, Roy. "The Genre of William Dunbar's Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo." Speculum 55 (1980), 58-74.

---. "William Dunbar's Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo." Studies in Scottish Literature 16 (1981), 235-39.

Reiss, Edmund. "The Ironic Art of William Dunbar." In Fifteenth-Century Studies: Recent Essays. Ed. Robert F. Yeager. Hamden, CT: Archon, 1984. Pp. 321-31.

Ridley, Florence. "A Plea for the Middle Scots." In The Learned and the Lewed: Studies in Chaucer and Medieval Literature. Ed. Larry D. Benson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974. Pp. 175-96.

---. "Studies in Douglas and Dunbar: The Present Situation." In Fifteenth-Century Studies: Recent Essays. Ed. Robert F. Yeager. Hamden, CT: Archon, 1984. Pp. 93-117.

Ross, Ian S. William Dunbar. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1981.

Roth, Elizabeth. "Criticism and Taste: Readings of Dunbar's Tretis." Scottish Literary Journal sup. 15 (1981), 57-90.

Singh, Catherine. "The Alliterative Ancestry of Dunbar's The Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo." Leeds Studies in English 7 (1974), 22-54.

---. "Line 124 of William Dunbar's The Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo." Notes and Queries 21 (1974), 163.

---. "'Sabot' and 'Saull' in Line 502 of Dunbar's The Tretis of the Tua Maritt Women and the Wedo." Forum-for-Modern-Language Studies 21 (1985), 185-86.




WILLIAM DUNBAR, THE TRETIS OF THE TWA MARIIT WEMEN AND THE WEDO, EXPLANATORY NOTES



Abbreviations: B1: Priscilla Bawcutt (1996); B2: Priscilla Bawcutt (1998); B&R: Priscilla Bawcutt and Felicity Riddy; C: W. A. Craigie; DOST: Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue; HW: Harriet Harvey Wood; Ki: James Kinsley; Mac: William MacKay MacKenzie; MS: Maitland Folio (Pepys Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge MS 2553); Sm: John Small.

Incipit: Here beginnis the tretis of the twa mariit wemen and the wedo, complyit be Maister William Dunbar [found in the Maitland Folio]. The Maitland Folio is a handwritten compilation of 366 pages dated between 1570 and 1586 and owned by Sir Richard Maitland. According to Priscilla Bawcutt, the Folio "was not written by Sir Richard himself, who was blind in old age, but seems to have originated in family piety" (B2, p. 8). The Maitland Folio, now housed in the Pepys Library at Cambridge University, is the most significant repository of Dunbar's work, containing over sixty poems now attributed to him.
1 Midsummer evin. This marks a specific day and time, i.e., St. John's Eve (23 June) which was traditionally celebrated with revelry, hence the mirriest of nichtis. The nativity of John the Baptist was 24 June and because of that date the celebration became associated with festivities connected to the summer solstice. The festivities were later condemned (1577) for promoting superstition.

21-25 Many scholars have suggested that the flowing hair and exquisite clothes worn by the women in the garden point to romance and its heroines. The women are also connected to Nature and in this sense their presence indicates otherworldliness. A. D. Hope sees a parallel to a scene from an earlier Breton lay, Sir Orfeo. See A Midsummer Eve's Dream: Variations on a Theme by William Dunbar (New York: Viking Press, 1970).

26 thair faceis meik. Meik is used here as a courtly term meaning "gentle," "quiet," "obedient," "unaggressive," "kind," "sweet," "demure," "lowly," "humble," "submissive," "docile," "amenable," "soft," "supple," "pliant." (See MED mek adj.) I have glossed the phrase "faces (countenances) gentle (of pliant disposition)" to focus attention on the courtly fantasy of the protagonist as he looks upon the lovely faces of the women, which leads him to his self-indulgent voyeurism. The joke is, of course, how unpliant, ungentle, independent, and disobedient to men these boisterous women are, if seen from the other side of the hedge - hardly "warm wex" that men may "with handes plye," to borrow Januarie's fantastic notion (The Merchant's Tale IV[E]1430).

58-63 agane the law of luf, of kynd, and of nature. Natural law, discussed by scholastics in the thirteenth century, referred to natural phenomena as implanted in Nature by the Creator. The laws of Nature were imagined to be discernible by rational creatures to do good and avoid evil through the "right" use of reason. Ki notes that Dunbar's immediate model for the complaint against the repeal of nature is Lydgate's Floure of Curtesey, but the ultimate source is Ovid's Metamorphoses, Book X, lines 32 ff. (trans. Frank Justus Miller [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1916; rpt. 1984]) and the retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth in which Orpheus speaks to Hades:
. . . I beg of you, unravel the fates of my Eurydice, too quickly run. We are totally pledged to you, and though we tarry on earth a little while, slow or swift we speed to one abode. Hither we all make our way; this is our final home; yours is the longest sway over the human race. . . .
60 ff. Birds were said to take mates on St. Valentine's Day as in line 206. Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls makes a narrative of nature's selection process.

67 curage. B&R point out that this word has a range of meaning including "spirit," "vigor," and "courage," as well as "sexual desire." However, its association with male impotence seems most likely to indicate an emphasis on male sexuality.

70-72 I suld at fairis.The peregrinations of the widow are reminiscent of Chaucer's Wife of Bath. Lydgate also mentions such wanderings of women in "Payne and Sorowe of Evyll Maryage":
They hem rejoise to see and to be sayne,
And to seke sondry pilgremages,
At grete gaderynges to walken upon the playne,
And at staracles to sitte on hie stages.
     (Lines 106-09)
 seen
various
plain (open spaces)
plays; raised seats
A "staracle" is a public entertainment, a pageant, spectacle, or play.

85 A forky fure. Mac takes forky to be a variant of forsy. When describing fure, which later means "man," the phrase translates to "forceful man." Ki prefers fortly, meaning "forward," "enterprising," or "bold." Two emendations are possible based on this interpretation: 1) Fortly to fure with fure understood as a verb "to bear, go, fare" or as a noun, "furrow," or 2) Forthy in fure which Ki prefers because of the equine images that follow and the popular medieval metaphor for sexual intercourse as "ploughing." But it might also simply mean one with good legs as in the verbal sense to forken, meaning to stride swiftly or vigorously.

89-92 wallidrag . . . ane scutarde behind. B&R identify this contemptuous portrait of the husband as belonging to the senex amans (elderly lover) tradition. Chaucer's old John the Carpenter or Januarie along with John Gower's Amans in the Confessio Amantis, may be the most explicit sources for Dunbar. But Dunbar is more graphic than either of his predecessors. Scutarde suggests defecation, as B1 observes; thus scutarde behind suggests something like "shitass." Ki glosses the term as "skitterer" (n.b. skit, meaning "shit" as in the expletive Noah hurls at Gill - "We! hold thi tong, ram-skyt" - in the Towneley Noah play, line 313). If this is the gloss, there is perhaps an aroma of incontinence about the old man.

94 carybald. Ki notes the obscurity of this word's origin, though its connotation in the context of the poem is pejorative.

101 Mahowne. A colloquial form of a Saracen god, possibly Mohammed himself. The name also occurs in late medieval English romances, such as Bevis of Hampton, where it is equated with all that is non-Christian and, therefore, considered evil. In the Corpus Christi plays it equates with tyranny and is the god by which Pharaoh, Caesar, Herod, and their minions swear.

111 bogill. Hobgoblin, perhaps the original bogeyman. According to DOST, this term is "of uncertain origin; in northern English dialect as boggle. A supernatural being of an ugly or terrifying aspect; a bugbear" (p. 296).

112 Belzebub. A derogatory form of the Syrian deity, Baal-zebul. He appears as one of the fiends in the cycle plays.

113 smake smolet. For this obscure phrase, E. J. Dobson and Patricia Ingham offer an explanation: "since the context requires the sense 'mouth' for smolet, and since smake is properly a noun meaning 'rogue' . . . it is possible that we should read smake[s] and emend the second word to mol[l]et," a diminutive form of mull or "lip." See "Three Notes on Dunbar's The Tua Maritt Wemen and the Wedo," p. 38.

128 nought . . . worth a bene. I.e., utterly worthless, with some phallic overtones. Compare May's scorn of old Januarie, whose "pleyying" is "nat . . . worth a bene" (CT IV[E]1854). B2 has worght.

132 dangerus. Alluding to the porter of the Roman de la Rose whose name is Danger, this term is taken to mean "resistance." However, recent scholars have questioned this singular meaning particularly in the context of The Wife of Bath's Prologue where it is also found. There it accrues meanings of risk and potential bodily harm. See Elaine Tuttle Hansen, "'Of his love daungerous to me': Liberation, Subversion, and Domestic Violence in the Wife of Bath's Prologue and Tale," in Geoffrey Chaucer: The Wife of Bath, ed. Peter G. Beidler (Boston: St. Martin's Press, 1996) and Eve Salisbury, "Chaucer's 'Wife,' the Law, and the Middle English Breton Lays," in Domestic Violence in Medieval Texts, ed. Eve Salisbury, Georgiana Donavin, and Merrall L. Price (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 2002).

135-36 pené . . . purse. The sexual economy here is not only similar to that found in Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Prologue in which Alisoun makes it clear that she has gained financially from having "swynked" (CT III[D]202) her first three elderly husbands to death with her "nether purs" (CT III[D]44b), but it is also a motif found in The Shipman's Tale as well as in "The Complaint of Chaucer to His Purse." Both the pené and purse motifs derive from the idea that conjugal debt was a marital obligation to be rendered or "paid" by each spouse. B severs the final -e in pené and points out the "monetary pun on recompense" (B2, p. 289).

139 engranyt claith. A cloth "ingrained" or dyed in scarlet or crimson derived from the berry or grain of a plant. B2 has claight.

141 rousty raid. The OED defines rousty as an obsolete form of "rusty." Ki (p. 267) suggests that this may mean "clumsy" or a "foray with a rusted weapon," particularly when understood in relation to raid (sexual foray, ride; rod), the noun it modifies.

142 Johne Blunt. A pejorative term impugning a man's intellectual capability, social situation, or, perhaps, his sexual ability, if his "instrument" be blunt. Contrast the idiom "kene swerd" as a metaphor for sexual prowess.

185-87 There is a parallel between these lines and a passage in Chaucer's The Parson's Tale. In the section on lechery the Parson uses a similar image of the impotent lover. This may be a common image Bawcutt says, though she has "not encountered its use elsewhere. Dunbar is clearly emulating Chaucer in the construction of The Tretis, and it seems likely that this is an instance of direct indebtedness to one of the more striking (and probably original) passages of the Parson's Tale" (p. 333). See "Dunbar's Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo 185-187, and Chaucer's Parson's Tale," pp. 332-33.

201 geit. Ki glosses as "jet bead"; B1 simply says "jet." Normally the implication is "glossy black" and might imply something or someone gleaming or fashionable like Chaucer's Pardoner, who "thoughte he rood al of the newe jet" (CT I[A]682). Line 202 says the husband "had the glemyng of gold," which might mean that initially he seemed a golden-haired prize (or it might simply mean that he was rich or had the glow of success). But, although the term with reference to gems usually means black, the MED cites a passage in Trevisa which says "Gete . . . is double, that is to seye 3elow and black," to suggest that there might also be "yellow jet, ?amber" (get n. 2[c]). So, given the suggestion of line 202, I have hesitantly glossed the term "amber jewel." On the other hand, if it simply means "fashionable black," haif geit might simply mean "have black hair," while the gleaming gold of the next line signifies that he is wealthy.

206 Sanct Valentynis day. St. Valentine's Day celebrated now in popular culture was once an official feast day commemorating the martyrdom of one of two possible saints - either a Roman priest martyred under Emperor Claudius circa 269 A.D. or a Bishop of Terni martyred at about the same time. It is possible that the legend of St. Valentine conflates both into a singular entity. St. Valentine's Day may also have its origins in the mid-February pre-Christian festival of Lupercalia, a celebration of courtship and fertility. See also explanatory note to lines 60 ff.

231-34 The point is that even if he were trying to copulate with a tender virgin, for whom sex might be painful, she would not wince a bit, since his equipment would be non-functional.

262 turtoris. Turtledoves symbolize marital fidelity and affection. B2 notes a sarcastic use of the turtle dove in Reson and Sensuallyte, lines 6855-90 (p. 291).

269 nought worth a hen. "Not a bit." A hen may be worth more than a bean, but it is still worth very little. Compare Chaucer's monk, who "yaf nat of that text a pulled hen, / That seith that hunters ben nat hooly men" (CT I[A]177-78).

275 keyth. DOST cites keyth as a verb meaning "to do a favour"; hence "rub" his crooked back. B1 and B2 emend to claw, which is glossed as "scratch gently"; that gloss is in keeping with Chaucer's drunken cook who is so pleased with the bawdry of The Reeve's Tale that "he clawed him [the Reeve] on the bak" (CT I[A]4326). One gets the impression that there is nothing particularly "gentle" about his action, however. Ki emends to krych, which he glosses as "scratch." Krych is the emendation proposed by E. J. Dobson and Patricia Ingham, "Three Notes on Dunbar's The Tua Maritt Wemen and the Wedo," p. 38.

290 chuf. "Churlish fellow"; a boor. But perhaps also a pun on "chough," the jackdaw or rook, said to announce adultery. N.b. The Wife of Bath's ability to prove to her jealous husband that "the cow is wood" (III[D]232).

316 For never bot in a gentill hert is generit ony ruth. Compare Chaucer's Knight's "For pitee renneth soone in gentil herte" (CT I[A]1761), the most repeated line in CT. See also The Man of Law's Tale (CT II[B1]660); The Merchant's Tale (CT IV[E]1986); and The Squire's Tale (CT V[F]479).

351 carll. B2 suggests that the "sexual role reversal, latent in the Widow's references to herself (e.g., 326, 371, 379), is here explicit" (p. 293).

384 maid a stalwart staff. B1 suggests an allusion to the proverb: "to make a rod with which to beat oneself (Whiting S652)" (p. 356). Whiting lists Dunbar's line as well as references to use of the proverb in Cursor Mundi, Chaucer, Gower, the Knight of La Tour Landry, Froissart, and many others (see Whiting).

424 my bright buke. B&R suggest that this is an illuminated Book of Hours. Ki notes that this indicates membership in the upper classes.

465 a hunder yeir of eild. B1's gloss is to the point: "May the woman who reaches the age of a hundred, but remains a foolish girl, be publicly derided" (p. 357). She cites J. A. Burrow, The Ages of Man (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 155-56, who suggests a perversion of Isaiah 65:20 (puer centum annorum morietur, et peccator centum annorum maledictus erit) in this "boldly feminized version."

502 sabot. A later hand has inserted sall not. Many editors find this word obscure and disturbing. B1 notes that "the most ingenious but not wholly convincing suggestion [for meaning] is that this means 'God', from the Biblical Dominus Sabaoth, 'Lord of Hosts'"(p. 240). Ki agrees with this interpretation while Catherine Singh offers another possibility, i.e., that sabot is "a sort of shoe rather like a present-day Dr. Scholl's or a wooden clog. They were known as 'sabots' or 'saparts' in Trinidad. . . . What exactly the Middle Scots sabot looked like is a matter for conjecture or further research but it is apparent that it was some form of sandal or shoe and that the Widow in the poem is simply being flippant about her chances of a safe passage to heaven: 'My innocent sole (or soul) shall be safe, when the shoe is judge of all'"(p. 186). See "'Sabot' and 'Saull' in Line 502 of Dunbar's The Tretis of the Tua Mariit Wemen and the Wedo," pp. 185-86. Another possibility is that sabot, or "shoe," has a sexual connotation, like "bele chose" (CT III[D]447) in the Wife of Bath's remarkable vocabulary; see CT III[D]492-94, where she passes judgment on her fourth husband's promiscuity by making the shoe fit ill. See also The Merchant's Tale, CT V[E]1553.

504 legeand. B&R suggest that this term refers to a saint's life, a popular form of narrative written in both Latin and the vernacular in the late Middle Ages.

530 Quhilk wald ye waill to your wif, gif ye suld wed one. B&R suggest that the posing of such a question was "both a literary game and a social pastime" (p. 241). Formally called demande d'amour, this marks a satiric response to the earlier question posed by the Widow. The implicit rhetorical opposition between the narrator and the Widow links this part of the poem to flyting, the informal art of argumentation and debate often associated with the English alliterative tradition, a genre in which Dunbar thrives.




WILLIAM DUNBAR, THE TRETIS OF THE TWA MARIIT WEMEN AND THE WEDO, TEXTUAL NOTES



1 Midsummer evin. MS: missummer evin.

2 in meid. MS: in is omitted.

21 war. MS: war. All editors agree, except Mac, who emends to was.

cleir. B2 has clier.

34 cleir. Most editors agree, except Sm, who reads thre, and B2, who has clier. This portion of the MS is faded and difficult to read.

36 twa. MS: wyth tua.

40 ff. Immediately following this line is a Latin directive: Aude viduam iam cum interrogatione sua. ("Hear now the widow with her question.") Latin interjections at various points in the poem appear in the MS: after lines 48, 149, and 244.

48 ff. Responsio prime uxoris ad viduam. ("Response of the first wife to the widow.")

65 we war fre. MS: we war. HW, Ki, Mac: we war fre; B1: we war born. All emendations complete the line, though B1 differs from the others.

66 feiris. MS: freiris.

69 jolie, and gent, richt joyus, and gent. To avoid the repetition, Mac emends to joyus, and gentryce. Others oppose.

98 gor his. MS: gor is his. Ki, B1: gor his. HW: gor is.

104 This is the point where CM begins.

106 schowis on me. MS: chowis me. B1: schowis on me. Ki, HW, Mac: schowis one me.

schedis. MS: scheddis. B2 has schendis, departing from past editors.

109 the. MS: that.

111 bogill. MS: bugill.

113 smake smolet. The phrase appears as smakes molet in Ki's edition. See also explanatory note to this line.

115 sound of. MS: soundis.

123 cacis. MS: cassis. B1, Ki: cacis. HW, Mac: casis.

124 trawe, at trist. MS: trew atryst. From the OE thrawan meaning "turn," "twist," "trick." Catherine Singh suggests an emendation from trawe to traine, "a word used elsewhere by Dunbar in its variant forms trane and trayne." See "Line 124 of William Dunbar's The Tretis of the Tua Maritt Wemen and the Wedo," p. 163.

125 keik. MS: luik.

129 yerne yeild, for. MS: warne 3eild quhair.

131 Ay. MS: And.

135 pené. MS: pen. HW, Mac, Ki read pene, while B1 and C read pen.

in bed. MS: in to bed.

138 have. MS: have ane.

curche. MS: curchef.

139 claith. B2 has claight.

141 wod. MS and CM: wmyod.

149 ff. Hic bibent et inde vidua interrogat alteram mulierem et illa respondet ut sequitur. ("Here they drink and from there the widow questions the other wife and she responds as follows.")

152 man. MS: men.

menskit. MS: mensit; CM: menkit.

155 leill. B1, HW, and Ki emend to lell.

157 dissymyland. MS: dissembland.

160-61 Transposed in MS.

162 fra rute. MS: the rute.

164 so. MS: bein.

166 devoid. MS: avoyd.

167 the swalme. MS: that swalne.

172 as. MS: ane.

177 rap. MS: ryd.

182 kemmyng of his hairis. MS: kemmit his hair is. B1: kemmyng of his haris. HW, Ki, Mac: kemmyng of his hair.

183 As. MS: And. Also occurs in variant forms in lines 186, 187, 263, 457, and 489.

184 semys. MS and CM: sunys.

193 ralis. MS: rail3eis.

196 sege. MS: segis.

197 say. MS: sa.

201 josit. MS: had chosin.

geit. MS: ane geit.

204 and. MS: ot. B1: and. HW, Mac, Ki emend to or.

218 sych. MS: sicht. B1 has syth.

219 Than. MS: That.

221 no betir. MS: nocht betir.

223 Quoth. B1 has Quod.

224 is happinit. MS: hes happinit.

227 e, quhen. MS: and quhen the.

229 warit. MS: waryit.

233 my gud man. MS and CM: man gud my.

237 a beid. MS: beid.

240 Loud lauchand. So B1 and MS. HW, Ki: ludly lauchand. Mac: loudly lauchand. CM: Luly rauthand.

242 bewis. MS: levis.

243 swapit of. MS: swappit at.

244 ff. Nunc bibent et inde prime due interrogant viduam et de sua responsione et quomodo erat. ("Now they drink and then the first two question the widow about her response and what it was [meant].")

249 Sa that. MS: Sa.

251 sisteris in. MS: sisteris in to.

252 innocent. MS: inicrit, an abbreviated form of the word.

258 be forleit. MS: befoir be.

260 kene. MS: kene and.

263 ay. MS: and.

265 angellis. MS: angell.

272 hogeart. MS: hachart.

278 chekis. MS: cheik.

282 be mery. MS: mery.

283 lufsummar. MS: lustiar.

285 sicir. MS: secreit.

286-87 B2 and Ki concur that these lines are defective.

288 litill. MS: lytill.

289 gud. MS: the.

292 chevist. MS: I wist.

295 wichtnes. MS: vertuousnes.

296 marcheand. CM: nichand.

302 furth. B has furtht. Also in line 308.

303 tuichandly. MS: twichand.

309 buthman. MS: bicheman.

310 my rycht. MS: me rycht.

311 severance. MS: soueranis.

315 mercie. CM: nicy.

mekle. MS: greit.

327 subjeit. MS: subiectit.

set. CM: soit.

329 unmerciable. MS: vnmercifull.

331 raip. MS: ane raip.

334 hepit. MS: hapnit.

behud. MS: be hid.

340 throu the. MS: of that.

345 beild. MS: beild and.

347 bauchles. MS: bauchlis. CM: bauthles.

351 carll. Omitted in MS. C omits the term, while Ki, B1, Mac, and HW include it.

werkis. MS: laubouris.

352 laid. MS: laid doun.

mensk. MS: mens.

356 drawis. MS: drew.

360-61 These lines are omitted in MS.

362 my lumbart. MS: lumbart.

me all. MS: all my.

363 fra me. MS: fre.

368 hely. MS: all helie.

373 luf. MS: the luif.

378 honoris. MS: honour.

389 Na. MS: And.

391 had I. MS: I had.

at. MS: of.

396 saw. MS: saw him.

398 weill. Omitted in MS.

that he. MS: for he.

399 valyeandnes. MS: fal3eit anis.

401 effeir. MS: affect.

403 bot. MS: his.

405 held. MS: had. Mac's emendation, followed by Ki and HW. B1 reads MS as heid, glossing heid at feid as "despised." B2 reads MS as had.

408 thir. MS and CM: ther.

thai. Not in MS.

412 dolly. MS: dullit.

417 it makis. MS: makis.

419 ryght. Not in MS.

my corse is. MS: is my corps.

421 I. MS: omits, but supplied by all modern editions.

had done. MS: done had.

423 fleise. MS: flesche.

429 brand or. MS: branit in.

442 This line is not in MS.

449 for. MS: fra.

451 wemen. MS and CM: men.

452 behaip. MS: begaik.

453 convoyis. MS: gydis.

457 As dois. MS: And dois.

461 hir. MS: hir awin.

feyne. MS: fenye.

465 the. MS: that.

466 sobir. B2 reads sovir.

470 quhill. MS: to the.

473 persounis. B2 reads person is.

475 perdoun. B2 reads pardon.

479 And. MS: Sum.

480 rownis. MS and CM: rowis.

488 for. MS: nocht for.

nought. MS: omits.

491 serf. MS: schir.

492 hard on him lene. MS: hard on him.

493 befor. MS: before me.

502 sabot. A later hand has inserted sall not.

503 no lassis. MS: nocht.

506 thai. MS: than.

509 ther. Omitted in MS.

516 in. MS: in the.

schill. MS: still.

517 gladit. MS: glaid.

518 the. MS: thai.

523 thir. MS: ryer.

529 thir. MS: yer.

Colophon MS: Quod maister Williame

Dunbar CM: Quod Dunbar.