John Barbour Quotes (12 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

John Barbour: 12 quotes 1 like

Famous John Barbour Quotes

“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!”

John Barbour

Freedom is a noble thing!
Great happiness does freedom bring.
All solace to a man it gives;
He lives at ease that freely lives.
Bk. 1, line 225; p. 53.
The Brus

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

John Barbour

Kenneth Sisam Fourteenth Century Verse and Prose (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964) p. 108.
Criticism

“Although for food they hungered sore
He sent them drink, enough and more!”

John Barbour

Bk. 14, line 363; p. 334.
The Brus

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

John Barbour

With full good will they all fell to,
And sought no other sauce thereto
Than appetite.
Bk. 3, line 539; p. 99.
The Brus

“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.”

John Barbour

George Gordon The Discipline of Letters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946) p. 88.
Criticism

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

John Barbour

For love is of such potent might
That of misfortune it makes light.
Bk. 2, line 523; p. 80.
The Brus

John Barbour Quotes

“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.”

John Barbour

John Pinkerton, in his edition of The Bruce (London: G. Nicol, 1790) vol. 1, p. x.
Criticism

Life , Sense , Time

“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.”

John Barbour

A story gives delight to read
Though it be fabulous indeed.
Then should a story that is true,
And told in skilful manner too,
Give pleasure that is full twofold.
The first is in the tale as told;
The second is to know full well
That all is true the tale may tell.
Bk. 1, line 1; p. 45.
The Brus

War

“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.”

John Barbour

But he that has been always free
Can ne'er know the reality,
The anguish and the wretched fate
That is a part of thraldom's state.
A thing, when we experience it,
Makes evident its opposite.
If bondage he has ever known,
Then freedom's blessings he will own,
And reckon freedom worth in gold
More than the world will ever hold!
Bk. 1, line 233; p. 53.
The Brus

Thinking

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

John Barbour

Nor can a man a fire so cover
That smoke or flame shall not discover.
Bk. 4, line 123; p. 109
The Brus

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

John Barbour

Although for food they hungered sore
He sent them drink, enough and more!
Bk. 14, line 363; p. 334.
The Brus

“Men should make merry while they may.”

John Barbour

Men suld mak mirrie quhill thay mocht.
The Buik of Alexander, Part 2, line 4879; translation from Bartlett Jere Whiting and Helen Wescott Whiting Proverbs, Sentences, and Proverbial Phrases (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968) p. 380.
The attribution of this poem to Barbour is considered doubtful.
Disputed

Making love , Men