private calendar dating from his entry into the royal service, so Sir David
Lyndsay entered the service of James IV’s third and only surviving son, later
James V, on“The day of thy natyvitie”(The Complaynt of Schir David
Lindesay, 16 ). As Master Usher, he presents himself as a constant presence in
the young prince’s life, noting that he“lay nychtlie be thy cheik”( 80 ), and
inAne DremeLyndsay amuses the young James by pulling faces, while at the
same time he stresses the instability of his own form faced with the
sovereign’s imaginary unity:
sumtyme lyke ane feind tranfegurate
And sumtyme lyke the greislie gaist of Gye,
In divers formis, oft tymes disfigurate,
And sumtyme dissagyist full plesandlye. ( 15 – 18 )Lyndsay picks up the fears of bodily transformation that have plagued
Dunbar and Douglas, but incorporates them for the pleasure of his
monarch.
InThe Complaynt, Lyndsay describes his care for the young prince’sbody.
as ane chapman beris his pak,
I bure thy grace upon my bak
And sumtymes strydlingis on my nek, astride
Dansand with mony bend and bek. leap;bow
Thefirst sillabis that thow did mute
Was,‘Pa, Da Lyn’. play (?) David Lyndsay
( 87 – 92 )
The king alsofigures as prelinguistic; it is, as R. James Goldstein points out,
Lyndsay whofigures as the Name of the Father. Goldstein observes that
“the body mystic of the sovereign offers an ego-ideal for the identity
formation of a subject (in both the political and psychoanalytic senses of
the word) while the adult offers an ego-ideal to the body natural of the child-
king.”^8 For a time the sole locus of royal authority was in Lyndsay’s charge,
entertained in more than one aspect by the poet’s performances of identity.
In Lyndsay’sAnswer to the Kingis Flyting, written around 1535 , the king
has found new bedfellows. The king, through hisflyting, has–in a reversal
of the poet–patron relationship that we have seen pertain previously–
attempted to inaugurate a relationship of equality between himself and
Lyndsay by allowing, or rather mandating, competition. Irrespective of
whatever real affection may have existed between king and poet, this is a
scriptedcommunitas. Lyndsay’s strategy of response resists it by admitting
the king’s superiority, but depicting it as an imperative. In what will turn
into a reflection on the king’s amatory habits, Lyndsay removes himself
Conclusion 171