Winter weather

I had this passage in my mind last Thursday, as I was travelling by car through the wild weather. This is the first chance I have had to look it up.

The Scots poet Gavin Douglas made the first translation of Virgil’s Aeneid into English. He prefaced each book with an original verse prologue of his own. The prologue to Book Seven, of which this is an extract, takes the form of ‘an eloquent description of wynter wyth hys grete stormes and tempestis’. There is a lot in this passage about floods, mud, wind. Also icicles (‘isch-schoklis’). I am missing icicles very much in this strange winter; and frost even more. But there is no shortage of rain, wind and mud.

The dowy dichis war all donk and wait,
The law vaille flodderit all wyth spait,
The plane stretis and every hie way
Full of fluschis, doubbis, myre and clay.

Laggerit leys wallowit farnys schewe,
Broune muris kithit thair wysnit mossy hewe,
Bank, bra and boddum blanschit wolx and bair;
For gurll wyddir growyt bestis haire;
The wynd maid wayfe the reid weyd on the dyk;
Bedovin in donkis deyp was every syk;
Our craggis and the front of rochis seyre
Hang greit isch-schoklis lang as ony speire;
The ground stude barrand, wedderit, dosk and gray;
Herbis, flouris and girsis wallowit away;
Woddis, forestis, with nakyt bewis blowt,
Stud strypyt of thair weyd in every hout.
So bustuysly Boreas his bugil blewe,
The deyr full dern doune in the dalys drewe;
Smal byrdis, flokand throw thik ronnis thrang,
In chyrmyng and with cheping changit thair sang,
Seikand hidlis and hirnys thaim to hyde
Fra feirfull thuddis of the tempestyuus tyde.
The wattir lynnis routtis, and every lynde
Quhyslyt and brayt of the swouchand wynde.

Gavin Douglas (1475?–1522)

from The Proloug of the Sewynt Buik of Aeneados (1513)

( Translation (added later) )

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