from rivalry in order to occupy the position of adviser–and his concern
with the king’s body, ironically, requires a profession of his own inad-
equacy. The scene the poem stages is a response to scurrilous verses the king
has written, attacking Lyndsay’s reputation as a lover. As a result, it
transpires, ladies refuse to have anything to do with him:
Thay banis me, sayand I am nocht able
Thame to compleis, or preis to thare presence. please;advance
( 12 – 13 )Lyndsay, however, ostensibly refuses to engage the king, pleading a lack of
poetic competence and art:
Wer I ane poeit, I suld preis with my pen
To wreik me on your vennemous wryting,
Bot I man do as dog dois in his den, must
Fald baith my feit, orfle fast frome yourflyting ( 15 – 18 )The modesty topos returns; the poet will not venture further because of his
inability. But here there is a difference; the poet’s impotence allows him to
speak from a position of authority. Lyndsay’s response to the king’s taunts is
tofigure himself as a venerable greybeard:
Quhat can ye say forther, bot I am failyeit
In Venus werkis? I grant, schir, that is trew.
The tyme hes bene, I wes better artailyeit provided with artillery
Nor I am now. ( 29 – 32 )Lyndsay also cedes to the king superiority in poetry, calling him“offlowand
rethorik theflour”( 70 ), as Dunbar did Chaucer, and proclaiming him
“prince of poetry”( 21 ), a title, as Janet Hadley Williams notes, more often
given to Virgil. By positioning himself beyond a rivalrous relationship with
the young king, Lyndsay is able to reverse traditional symbolism and place
himself in a paternal–and patronal–role. In a reorientation of Dunbarian
tropes, the unregulated and fragmented body is that of the sexually pro-
miscuous king,“strang lyke an elephand / And in till Venus werkis maist
vailyeand”( 25 – 26 ). Lyndsay thus builds to a ferocious culmination
like ane boisteous bull, ye rin and ryde boisterous
Royatouslie, like ane rude rubatour, Riotously;scoundrel
Ay fukkand lyke ane furious fornicatour. raging
( 47 – 49 )Yet a rivalry still exists for him; he specifically blames the king’s unbounded
sexual activity on“your counsale ... That wald nocht of ane princes
[princess] yow provide”( 43 – 44 ).
172 Court Poetry in Late Medieval England and Scotland