Or euir this wicht at heart be haill and feir healthy,vigorous
Both thow and I most in the court appeir,
For he hes lang maid service thair in vane.
With sum rewaird we mane him quyt againe, must
Now in the honour of this guid Newʒeir.
( 51 – 55 )The racked body of the petitioner mirrors the body politic of court and
realm; if Discretion and Nobleness at last put in an appearance at court, all
will be well. The point is further underlined when Affection–partiality, and
so presumably favoritism–is overruled by Reason:
I grant thow hes beine lord a sessioun
In distributioun, bot now the tyme is gone.
Now I may all distribute myne alone.
Thy wrangous deidis did euir mane enschesoun. unjust deeds;every;injure
( 62 – 65 )The court, as Reason’s legal terminology betokens, will now oversee the just
distribution of benefices that Dunbar’s poems constantly request, and the man
who has complained“humblie into ballat wyse”be rewarded. But the decorum
of the poem has been abruptly broken. If Reason’s intervention (“Now I may
all distribute myne alone”) is a metaphor for the reassertion of justice at court,
then her words imply the very partiality that as Reason she should transcend.
This ethical and didactic allegory, in other words, is undoing itself, and it
continues to unravel as the authoritativefigure of Discretion delivers a most
uncharacteristic rejoinder to Reason’s words:
“Weill spokin, Ressoun, my brother,”quoth Discretioun;
“To sett on dies with lordis at the Cessioun dais;session
Into this realme thow war worth mony ane pound.”
( 73 – 75 )Discretion speaks the language of material advantage, and Reason’s worth is
measurable in pounds. And it is at this moment that the more disreputable
Inoportunitie and the nightmare clerical pluralist Sir Johne Kirkpakar enter
the picture.
Reason reasserts her more usualpersona, and herfinal verdict is a familiar
and a dejected one:“With gredines I sie this world ourgane [overrun], / And
sufficience dwellis nocht bot in heavin”( 99 – 100 ). However, the next stanza
demolishes the notion that the petitioner is motivated solely by just offence
at long service unrewarded:
“I have not wyt thairof,”quod Temperance, blame
“For thocht I hald him evinlie the ballance,
And but ane cuir full micht till him wey,“My panefull purs so priclis me” 81