THESE verses from William Dunbar's great reflection on mortality make as strong an impact, emotional and philosophical, now as they must have done in the early 16th century when William Dunbar (1465-1530) composed them.
LAMENT FOR THE MAKARIS, QUHEN HE WAS SEIK
Our pleasance here is all vain-glory,
This false warld is bot transitory,
The flesh is brukill, the Fiend is sle;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
The state of man dois change and vary,
Now sound, now seik, now blyth, now sary,
Now dansand merry, now like to die;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
No state in erd here standis siccar;
As with the wind wavis the wicker,
So wavis this warldis vanitie;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Unto the deid goes all Estatis,
Princes, Prelatis, and Potestatis,
Baith rich and puir of all degree;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
He takis the knichtis in-to field,
Enarmit under helm and shield;
Victor he is at all melee;
Timor mortis conturbat me.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article