Mark Alexander Boyd (13 January 1562 – 10 April 1601) was a Scottish

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

and soldier of fortune. He was born in Ayrshire,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

. His father was from Penkill, Carrick, in Ayrshire. He was educated under the care of his uncle, the

Archbishop of Glasgow The Archbishop of Glasgow is an archiepiscopal title that takes its name after the city of Glasgow in Scotland. The position and title were abolished by the Church of Scotland in 1689; and, in the Scottish Episcopal Church, it is now part of ...

, James Boyd of Trochrig. As a young man, he left Scotland for

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

, where he studied civil law. He took part in the

French Wars of Religion The French Wars of Religion is the term which is used in reference to a period of civil war between French Catholics and Protestants, commonly called Huguenots, which lasted from 1562 to 1598. According to estimates, between two and four mi ...

, serving in the army of

Henri III Henry III (french: Henri III, né Alexandre Édouard; pl, Henryk Walezy; lt, Henrikas Valua; 19 September 1551 – 2 August 1589) was King of France from 1574 until his assassination in 1589, as well as King of Poland and Grand Duke of L ...

. He had two collections of

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

poem Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

s published, in 1590 and 1592, at a time when he was teaching at the

College of Guienne The College of Guienne (french: Collège de Guyenne) was a school founded in 1533 in Bordeaux. The ''collège'' became renowned for the teaching of liberal arts between the years 1537 and 1571, attracting students such as Michel de Montaigne. Histo ...

in Bordeaux. He returned to Scotland in 1596, and died back in Ayrshire on 10 April 1601. He is now remembered for one poem in Scots, the ''Sonnet of Venus and Cupid'', which was attributed to him by

Arthur Quiller-Couch Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (; 21 November 186312 May 1944) was a British writer who published using the pseudonym Q. Although a prolific novelist, he is remembered mainly for the monumental publication '' The Oxford Book of English Verse ...

in 1900, and which Ezra Pound called "the most beautiful sonnet in the language"Pound, Ezra (1934), p. 134

Works

* * Epistolae Heroides et Hymni (1592)Boyd, Mark Alexander (1592), ''Epistolae Heroides et Hymni'', Jérôme Haultin, La Rochelle * Sonnet of Venus and Cupid

References

Bibliography

*Pound, Ezra. ''ABC of Reading'' (1934) New Directions (reprint).

External links

Significant Scots
Scottish soldiers 16th-century Scottish poets 16th-century soldiers 16th-century Scottish people Lallans poets 1562 births 1601 deaths Scottish mercenaries {{Scotland-poet-stub