Lament for the Makers: timor mortis conturbat me
Are you in the mood for a danse macabre?
This piece is part of The Choc Board, a 30-day writing challenge from my friend Chocolate Knox. You can follow Chocolate Knox’s Diagnostic Doxology on Substack, as well as his profile on X.
Today’s installment of the Choc Board is my rendering of a William Dunbar poem published in scots English in 1508, Lament for the Makers1. Danse macabre poems featuring the phrase timor mortis conturbat me2 from the Offices for the Dead were common at the time; several are frequently anthologized, but this is the best-known.
Enjoy.
Lament for the Makers Timor Mortis conturbat me I that in health was, and gladness, Am troubled now with great sickness, And feeble with infirmity; Timor mortis conturbat me. Our pleasure here is all vain glory, This false world is but transitory, The flesh is frail, the Fiend is wily Timor mortis conturbat me. The state of man does change and vary, Now sound, now sick, now blithe, now sorry, Now dancing merry, now like to die; Timor mortis conturbat me. No state on earth here stands secure; As with the wind waves the wicker, Wavers this world’s vanity. Timor mortis conturbat me. On to the dead go all estates, Princes, prelates, and potestates, Both rich and poor of all degrees; Timor mortis conturbat me. He takes the knights in to field All armored under helm and shield; Victor he is at all melee; Timor mortis conturbat me. The strange unmerciful tyrant Takes, sucking on the mother’s breast The babe full of benignity; Timor mortis conturbat me. He takes the champion in the jouster, The captain enclosed in the tower, The lady in bower, full of beauty; Timor mortis conturbat me. He spares no lord for his potence, No clerk for his intelligence; His awful stroke may no man flee; Timor mortis conturbat me. Art-magician, and astrologist, Rhetorist, logician, and theologist, No reasonings sly will help thee; Timor mortis conturbat me. The most practiced in medicine, Leeches, surgeons,and physicians, Themselves from death may not be freed; Timor mortis conturbat me. I see that makers among living souls Play here their pageant, then to grave they go; Spared is not their faculty; Timor mortis conturbat me. He‘s already piteously devoured The noble Chaucer, of makers the flower, The Monk of Bury, and Gower, all three; Timor mortis conturbat me. The good Sir Hugh of Eglintown, And also Herriot, and Wynton, He has taken out of this country; Timor mortis conturbat me. That scorpion fell that infects Master John Clark, and James Affleck, From ballad-making and tragedy; Timor mortis conturbat me. Holland and Barbour he has bereft; Alas! that he with us has not left Sir Mungo Lockart of the Leigh; Timor mortis conturbat me. The clerk of Tranent he has taken, That made the Adventures of Gawain; Sir Gilbert Hay ended has he; Timor mortis conturbat me. He has slain Blind Harry and Sandy Trail With his shower of mortal hail, Which Patrick Johnston could not flee; Timor mortis conturbat me. He’s robbed Merseir of that composed, Who in life of love so lively wrote, So short, so quick, of sentence high; Timor mortis conturbat me. He has taken Roland of Aberdeen, And gentle Roland of Corstorphine; Two better fellows did no man see; Timor mortis conturbat me. In Dunfermline he’s secretly runed With Master Robert Henryson Sir John the Rose embraced has he; Timor mortis conturbat me. And now he’s taken, last of all, Good gentle Stobo and Quentin Shaw, Of whom all wise men have pity: Timor mortis conturbat me. Good Master Walter Kennedy At point of death lies verily, Great pity it were that so it should be; Timor mortis conturbat me. Since he has all my brothers taken, He will not let me live forsaken, Perforce I must his next prey be; Timor mortis conturbat me. Since for the dead there is no remedy, Best is that we for death be ready, That after our death our life may be. Timor mortis conturbat me.
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1
original makaris, i.e. makers or poets and bards
2
The fear of death disturbs/dismays/turmoils me.