John Barbour

The Bruce, with which the Scottish contribution to English literature begins, long held its place as the national epic of Scotland.

Storys to rede ar delatibill
Suppos that thai be nocht bot fabill,
Than suld storys that suthfast wer
And thai war said on gud maner
Have doubill plesance in heryng.
The first plesance is the carpyng,
And the tother the suthfastnes
That schawys the thing rycht as it wes.

Scottish literature begins effectively with Archdeacon Barbour's Bruce some sixty years after Bannockburn, and to the Bruce and Blind Harry's Wallace (so staunch is the Scot, and such an antiquary in grain) must be attributed much of the colouring and subsequent tone of Scottish sentiment. The Bruce is the better poem, simple, truthful, noble, stirring, a proper start for the literature of a fighting people.

Na thar may na man fyr sa covyr
Than low or rek sall it discovyr.

A! Fredome is a noble thing!
Fredome mays man to haiff liking.
Fredome all solace to man giffis,
He levys at es that frely levys!

Luff is off sa mekill mycht,
That it all paynys makis lych.

He maid thaim na gud fest perfay
And nocht-forthi yneuch had thai.

Thai eyt it with full gud will
That soucht na nother sals thar-till
Bot appetyt.

Na he that ay has levyt fre
May nocht knaw weill the propyrte
The angyr na the wrechyt dome
That is couplyt to foule thyrldome,
Bot gyff he had assayit it.
Than all perquer he suld it wyt,
And suld think fredome mar to prys
Than all the gold in warld that is.

Men suld mak mirrie quhill thay mocht.

Perhaps the editor may be accused of nationality, when he says, that, taking the total merits of this work together, he prefers it to the early exertions of even the Italian muse, to the melancholy sublimity of Dante, and the amorous quaintness of Petrarca…Here indeed the reader will find few of the graces of fine poetry, little of the attic dress of the muse; but here are life and spirit, and ease and plain sense, and pictures of real manners, and perpetual incident and entertainment. The language is remarkably good for the time, and far superior in neatness and elegance even to that of Gawin Douglass, who wrote more than a century after.