Lament for the Makaris

"I that in Heill wes and Gladnes", also known as "The Lament for the Makaris", is a poem in the form of a danse macabre by the Scottish poet William Dunbar.

Every fourth line repeats the Latin refrain timor mortis conturbat me (fear of death troubles me), a litanic phrase from the Office of the Dead.

The list of names in the Lament for the Makaris, all of which are from what Dunbar in the poem calls his "facultie", suggests a picture of the Scottish literary culture of the period which is wider than that otherwise handed down to us from the surviving record.

Finally, if the lines "That scorpion fell hes done infek,/ Maister Johne Clerk, and James Afflek,/ Fra balat making and tragidie" can be taken to impart literal information, then it might infer that some particular reputation for work with more serious themes attached to these names.

[5] On to the ded gois all estatis, Princis, prelotis, and potestatis, Baith riche and pur of al degre; Timor mortis conturbat me.