He was certain of the passage facilis descensus Averni, for Gavin was Scotch, the time was Stewart. It ran in this wise—
"It is richt facill and eithgate, I tell thee
For to descend, and pass on down to hell,
The black zettis of Pluto, and that dirk way
Stand evir open and patent nicht and day.
But therefore to return again on hicht
And heire above recovir this airis licht
That is difficul werk, thair labour lyis,
Full few thair bene quhom hiech above the skyis,
Thare ardent vertue has raisit and upheit
Or zit quhame equale Jupiter deifyit,
Thay quhilkie bene gendrit of goddes may thy oder attane
All the mydway is wilderness unplane
Or wilsum forest; and the laithlie flude
Cocytus, with his drery bosom unrude
Flows environ round about that place."
But he was not quite certain that he had been splendid enough, and daring enough, in his application of the royal lines—
"Hic Cæsar et omnis Iuli
Progenies, magnum caeli ventura sub axem."
So he had sent for his friend, William Dunbar, Kynges Makar, laureate to the sovereign. And Dunbar was never loath for a "Flyting," a scolding. He had them on every hand, with every one, and not only those he held with "gude maister Walter Kennedy," and published for the amusement of the King and his Court. It was a more solemn event when the future Bishop of Dunkeld summoned him. Though Gavin was fifteen years younger than William, he was more serious with much study, and under the shadow of future honours, and then, too, he was a Douglass.
So Dunbar came, striding up the Canongate between the tall inquisitive houses—even he found them "hampered in a honeycaim of their own making"—a very handsome figure, this Dunbar, in his red velvet robe richly fringed with fur, which he had yearly as his reward from the King, and which I doubt not he preferred to the solemn Franciscan robe he had renounced when he entered the King's service.
James was away at Stirling. James was a poet also. Surely, on internal evidence, it is the Fourth James and not the Fifth, who wrote those charming, and improper poems, "The Gaberlunzieman" and "The Jolly Beggar."
"He took a horn frae his side, and blew baith loud and shrill,
And four and twenty belted knights came skipping o'er the hill.
"And he took out his little knife, loot a' his duddies fa';
And he was the brawest gentleman that was amang them a'."
"And we'll gang nae mair a roving,
So late into the night;
And we'll gang nae mair a roving, boys,
Let the moon shine ne'er so bright."
Dunbar, official Makar, would fain secure the criticism of young Gavin on this joyous lament he had writ to the King in absence—