Note 1. “This lovely poem,” says Crantoun, “is one of the happiest efforts of Montgomerie’s Muse, and shows his lyric genius at its best. It is perhaps the oldest set of words extant, to the air, ‘Hey tuttie taittie’—the war-note sounded for the Bruce on the field of Bannockburn and familiarized to every one by Burns’s ‘Scots wha hae.’ From allusions to the tune, Dunbar and other poets prior to Montgomerie, we conclude that it enjoyed a rare popularity. Gavin Douglas bears testimony to the favour in which it was held by the ‘menstralis’ of his day in the following lines of ‘The Proloug of the Threttene Buik of Eneados:’
Note 2. The turtle that true is. Compare, “As doth the turtle for her make,” in Montgomerie’s poem He Bids Adieu to His Mistress. The turtle-dove became celebrated for the constancy of its affection. Indeed, the “billing and cooing” of the pigeon has passed into a proverb. Compare Catullus:
