Some Dead People

People die. Parents die, but lovers and spouses also die. Children do.

I'm not the first or the thousandth person to point out that, as a culture, we're terrified of death, unless it is sentimentalized and prettified.

We do our very best to hide it away, but those who have watched ones whom they love die, they  have more trouble pretending it doesn't really exist.

Muireadhach Albanach O Dalaigh, a 13th century bardic poet from Sligo, made this poem for his dead wife. It survives in one 16th century Scottish manuscript, the famous Book of the Dean of Lismore from Perthshire. 

He was called  'Albanach' because he traveled to Scotland after quarreling with the O'Donnell king, and his descendants in the Highlands became a very important bardic family, the 'Mac Vuirichs." They were among the last in Ireland and Scotland to compose poems in the complex old style, in the early 18th century.

              M’Anam Do Sgar Riomsa 

            My soul left me last night,

            a fair dear body is in the grave;

            a sweet gentle bosom was taken from us

            with a single linen sheet around it.

M' anam do sgar riomsa a-raoir,
calann ghlan dob ionnsa i n-uaigh;
rugadh bruinne maordha min
is aonbhla lin uime uainn.

            A beautiful fine flower was taken

            away from the weak fragile stem:

            my heart’s treasure has bent down;

            the fruitful branch of that house yonder.

Do togbhadh sgath aobhdha fhionn
a-mach ar an bhfaongha bhfann;
laogh mo cridhise do chrom,
craobh throm an tighise thall.

            I am alone tonight, oh God;

            this is an evil crooked world I see;

            lovely was the weight of the young body

            that was here last night, oh King.

            I mourn for that bed over there,

            my pallet  (unclear in manuscript)

            I saw a glorious and noble form

            with coiling hair lying on you, oh bed.

            I shared my bed, half and half,

            with a woman whose eyes were serene;

            there was no likeness, except the flower of the hazel,

            to the brown haired, womanly, melodious shadow.

            Maol Mheadha of brown eyebrows,

            was my vessel of mead here with me;

            the shadow that parted from me was my very heart;

            a jewel-like flower, exhausted, has bent down.

We interrupt this to bring you a reconstructed performance of another of Muireadhach Albanach's poems. This is a small version of the traditional Irish wire-strung harp, and it plays quite quietly here, though it can be loud and ringing--very very different from gut-strung harps.

He went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and was therefore a 'palmer'.  

            My body has gone from my control,

            and now belongs to her:

            I am a body divided in two parts now

            since the departure of the serene lovely fair one.

            She’s half my feet, half my side;

            oh face like the white thorn flower,   

            no one was truer to her than I;

            she’s half my eyes, half my hand.      

            The maiden like a candle is half my body;

            your judgment is bitter to me, oh King;

            I am weak in longing for her voice--

            she was the true other half of my soul.

            My first love was she of the great serene eyes,

            the white teeth and ringletted hair:

            her beautiful body, her side,

            never lay with another man before.

            We were together for twenty years,

            our conversation together was sweeter every year,

            the fresh sturdy slender-fingered branch

            bore me eleven children.

            Though I am here, I no longer live

            since the curved nut has departed;

            since our great love has been parted,

            the great world is all empty to me.

            Since the day on which a rounded post was erected

            for my house, it was never said to me--

            no guest ever put a spell there,

            on the dark-brown-haired maiden. 

            Don’t anyone try to hush me;

            it’s not forbidden for weeping be heard;

            a a full and terrible devastation has come into my house--

            the radiant brown haired warmth of it has gone away.

            He who took her away in his anger

            is the King of hosts, the King of roads;

            she with winding hair had committed no crime

            that she should die so young and leave her husband.

            Dear to me the soft hand that was here,

            oh King of the bells and churches:

            Och! the hand that was better than any jewel;  

            I am in anguish that it is no longer under my head.

I translate from the text in Irish Bardic Poetry, edited by Osbern Bergin, Dublin Institute for Higher Studies, reprinted 1974

The well-known caoineadh ("keen")  translated below was made by Eibhlín Dubh Ó Conaill from west Kerry, a woman of one of the few surviving 18th-century Irish Gaelic noble families. She defied her family and married Art Ó Laoghaire (O’Leary), another Gaelic nobleman from the wilds of west Cork. Art had spent time among the Gaelic nobility in exile on the continent, and when he returned to Ireland, it wasn’t long until he was in trouble with the English authorities. He was killed by the High Sheriff of Cork’s guards in 1773.

           

Only a few verses of her improvised formal lament over the body of he dead husband is translated here, from Caoineadh Airt ui Laoghaire, edited by Sean O Tuam, An Clochomhar, 1979.

A bit of the caoineadh is recited in the video below from RTE.

Caoineadh Áirt Uí Laoghaire 

            You are my dear love!

            The day that I saw you

            in front of the market house,

            my eyes were drawn to you,

            my heart delighted in you,

            I ran away from my kin,

            far from home with you.

Mo ghra go daingean tu!
La da bhfaca thu
ag ceann ti an mharagaidh
Thug mi shuil aire dhuit,
thug mo chroi taitneamh dhuit.
Déalaios o'm charaid leat,
i bhfad o bhaile leat.

            You are my dear love!

            I recall well in my mind

            that fine spring day;

            a hat suited you well

            with golden bands,

            a silver-hilted sword,

            a brave right hand,

            a formidable hero,

            a man who’d strike fear

            into treacherous enemies.

            You were ready to ride

            on a slender white-headed horse.

            The English would bow before you,

            down to the ground,

            and not out of fondness for you,

            but in utter terror of you,

            though it was they that killed you,

            my soul’s beloved.

Mo chara go daingean thu!
Is cuimhin le'm aigne
an la brea earraigh ud,
gur bhrea thiodh hata dhuit,
faoi bhanda oir tarraingthe,
laoimh cinn airgid,
lamh dheas chalma,
rompsail bhagartach,
fir-chritheagla
ar namhaid chealgach,
Tu i gcoir chun falaracht,
a's each caol ceannann fut....

           

            You are my dear love!

            I never believed you were dead

            until your horse came to me

            his reins dragging the ground,

            your heart’s blood on his side

            and on your fine saddle,

            where you used to sit and stand.

            I made a leap to the threshold,

            a second leap to the gate,

            a third leap up to your horse.

            I struck my hands together

            and took off running

            as fast as was in me,

            until I saw you dead in front of me

            next to a little furze bush,

            with no Pope or bishop,

            with no clerk or priest

            who would read a psalm over you,

            no one but a withered old woman

            who’d spread a corner of her cloak over you--

            your blood was flowing in streams

            and I didn’t stop to clean it,

            I drank it up in my hands.

            You are my dear love!

            Stand up now

            and come back home with me,

            so that I can get a beef slaughtered for you,

            so that I can gather a great company,

            so that we’ll set music dancing,

            so that I can prepare a bed for you,

            with bright sheets,

            with fine multicolored quilts

            that will bring a sweat from you,

            in place of the cold that’s come upon you.

            It will be my everlasting bitter sorrow

            that I wasn’t beside you

            when the bullet was shot at you,

            so I could take it in my right side

            or at the top of my shirt,

            and I’d have thrown  hundred spears for you,

            smooth-palmed horseman.

            You are my love and my dear!

            Your corn stacks are made up.

            your cows are being milked;

            there’s a sorrow in my heart

            that all Munster can’t cure,

            nor all the smiths of Ireland.

            Until Art Ó Laoghaire comes to me,

            my sorrow will never diminish,

            pressing me in the center of my heart

            shut up firmly inside me,

            like a lock on a trunk

            for which the key has been lost.

                                                                                     -Eibhlin Dhubh Ní Chonaill

A caoineadh from Scotland. Seathan probably died several centuries before Art Ó Laoghaire, and this  piece exists in several versions in folk tradition. Only portions are translated here, translated from Carmina Gadelica, Volume V, edited by Alexander Carmichael, Scottish Academic Press, 1987.

The version in Carmina Gadelica is very long and probably spurious in parts, though not the parts I translate here. Why spurious? Carmichael (from Lismore island)  and his collaborator, Kenneth MacLeod from the isle of Eigg wanted make available to the English and Gaelic reading publics, songs, traditional prayers, incantations and charms that would have the same effect when read that the shorter oral versions had had on them when heard. So they added and splendified and convoluted in places. 

Interestingly, 'Seathan' is the old Ulster version of the name Sean. Remember Shane O'Neill in

the 16th century? (Shane is what the English called him, but it reflects Irish 'Seathan.')

Cuil Ao (where the choir in the video below is from) isn't that far from where Art O Laoire was killed.

 Seathan 

            Oh Seathan, Seathan, you are lifeless,

            true son of my king from Tír Chonaill.

            It's often I lay beneath your plaid;

            if I did, it wasn’t at home,

            but in a green hollow of a wooded field,

            under the flanks of the jagged blue mountains,

            the wind of the mountains sweeping over us,

            the wind from the glen calling out, taking

            it's fill of the freshness of spring.

            It's many a glen and summit that we traveled,

            I was in Ile with you, I was in Uibhist with you...

            I was in Cill Donnain of the pines with you,

            I was three years in the hills with you.

            I watched out for a day in the tops of the trees with you,

            I spent a time in the sea-wrack with you,

            I watched out a night on an ocean rock;

            I did, my love, and I don’t regret it,

            I was in the fold of your plaid,

            the sea spray ceaselessly flying over us,

            the pure freezing healthy water of spring.

            My love is Seathan of the quiet eyes,

            I’d lie with you on a rough bed,

            on a bed of heather, my side on the rocks;

            dearer was Seathan lying on a coil of heather rope

            than the son of a king on a bed of linen;

            dearer was Seathan under the boundary dike,

            than a king’s son in silk on a wooden floor,

            though his bed was pleasant,

            having been planed by the wrights,

            having been bespelled by the druids;

            dearer was Seathan in the branchy wood

            than to be in Magh Meall with Airril,

            even with satin and silk under his feet,

            pillows shining with red gold...

            But Seathan tonight is in the upper village;

            Neither gold nor tears can bring him back,

            neither drink nor music can disturb him,

            neither battle nor force can bring him back from his fate,

            neither clamor nor struggle can wake him from his sleep;

            my heart is broken and battered

            my tears run like a well,

            I sleep restlessly on a pillow,

            and you’ve no one to lament for you,

            but me, running to your body, away, and to you again.

            Seathan, my brightness of the sun,

            despite all I could do, death took you,

            and left me behind miserable and weeping,

            desperately yearning after you;

            and if it's true, what the clergy say,

            that there’s a Hell and a Heaven,

            I’d give my own share of Heaven (here’s a welcome to death)

            for one night together with my beloved,

            together with my mate, lovely Seathan.

Gormlaith, in the poem below, was a historical 10th-century Irish queen. A number of poems lamenting the death of her husband, the famous king Niall Glúndub, have been attributed to her. This one is also translated from Irish Bardic Poetry, Bergin.                                  

                          Gormlaith

            Move your foot away, monk;

            move it away from Niall’s side;

            you throw the earth down too heavily,

            onto him with whom I used to lie.

Bheir, a mhanaigh, leat an chois,
toccaibh anos do thaobh Neill;
as rothrom chuireas tu an chre,
ar an te re luighim feain.

            You are too long at it, monk,

            piling earth on top of glorious Niall;

            Time is long to me, with him in a brown coffin,

            where his feet don’t reach the board.

            Against my will that he’s laid under a cross, 

            the son of Aodh Finnleith who held feasts;

            set the flagstone down on his bed;

            move your foot away, monk.

            As I am now, Deirdre once was,

            after the glorious sons of Uisneach--

            her heart swelled up in her breast;

            move your foot away, monk.

            I am Gormlaith, she who makes poems,

            noble daughter of Flann from Dun Rois;

            alas that the flagstone does not cover me too;

            move your foot away, monk.

Two cheerful little Welsh penillion to finish. They are individual traditional verses dating from anywhere from the 16th through 18th centuries. The best collection is still Hen Benillion, edited by Parry-Williams, and that's where I have translated these from. 

Until the end of the 18th century, they were very common in at least northwest Wales. The description below is from Edward Jones' "Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards", based on the description in Thomas Pennant's ""Journey to Snowdon", 1781.

"Numbers of persons of both sexes assemble and sit around the Harp, singing alternately Pennillion, or stanzas, of ancient or modern composition...The young people usually begin the night with dancing; and, when they are tired, assume this species of relaxation. They alternately sing, dance, and drink...Often, like the modern Improvisatori of Italy, they sing extempore verses...Many have their memories stored with several hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Pennillion, some of which they have always ready for answers to every subject that can be proposed; or, if their recollection should ever fail them, they have invention to compose something pertinent and proper for the occasion. The subjects afford a great deal of mirth: some of these are jocular, others satirical, but most of them amorous...They continue singing without intermission, never repeating the same stanza, (for, that would forfeit the honour of being held first of the song,) and, like nightingales, support the contest through the night."

They are still sung in concert today, though very stuffily to a piano-like harp accompaniment. Similar stanzas were sung into the 1970s in the folk tradition in remote parts of Brittany.

I will not go to my bed tonight;

            the one whom I love is not in it.

            I will go and lie down on a rock.

            Break now, if you will, my dear little heart.

My heart is as heavy as a ball of lead

            through love of a young man: I will not name him.

            Since I said farewell to that dearest boy,

            all food and drink tastes like wormwood to me.

But never mind.

Here's Jim Donohue, a whistle player like you've never heard before, as Tony MacMahon says. He was from Ballaghadereen, northwest Roscommon, which not so long ago spoke a very very interesting Irish dialect that combined more or less "Munster" word stress with a vocabulary that begins to show signs of Ulster.

           

       

Love and That Is All

Love and That Is All

(Cogar i leith....Cad faoi ndear dom aistriuchain a chur ar fail anso, seachas na bun-danta? Na fuil dothain Bhearla ar an saol so? Dothain aistrichain?

Ni ansa. 

Ni mise a chum na bun-danta, a's ni liom coipcheart na teacsanna. Ni mise a chuir isteach an obair is dual i measc lamhscribhinni chun teaccs cruinn ceart a thabhairt ar an saol aris. Ni leisc liom fo-rann a chaitheamh isteach anso, ach ni bheadh se ceart an t-iomlan a scriobh amach anso.

Agus biodh a's gur chuireas isteach ordu Amazon ar bhosca 'fadaithe' fado, nil faic agam fos. B'fheidir, nuair a thagaid siad san, go mbeidh ath-chuineamh ann....

The medieval story of the love of Diarmuid and Grainne is well known in Irish and Scottish Gaelic literature. Grainne was meant to marry the great poet/seer/hunter/warrior Fionn Mac Cumhaill, but she went off to the wild with Diarmuid Ó Duibhne instead.

Grainne le Diarmuid

Fil duine
frismad buide lemm diuterc;
dia tibrinn in mbith mbuidw,
huile, huile, cid diupert.

There is one on whom it would be a joy to gaze;
for whom I would give this bright world;
all of it, all of it--
let others call it an unequal bargain.

That seems to say it all quite succinctly, but since I am a talkative person, I will continue.

The poem occurs in six manuscripts, in all ot them being part of the 11th century commentary on the 6th century Amra Choluim Chille. In other words, it survived only because it became somewhat accidentally attached to a larger more important work. Much much more probably did not survive.

The above is translated, by the way,  from the text in Early Irish Lyrics, edited by Gerard Murphy in 1956; another of those classics. Browsing in the wonderfully detailed Glossary, one can lose oneself for hours, and learn a lot about Irish. The book itself establishes good texts of many of the early texts, secular and religious, though not of all, particularly of the 'Leinster poems.' There are translations, variants, discussions of sources....Heaven.

Love was often imagined as a deadly illness. Below, an unknown 16th or 17th- century Irishman or Scotsman offers another perspective on the matter, in the poem below.

                       

                             Aoibhinn an Galar 

            Aoibhinn an galar gradh mna,
            ni do b'annamh da radh riamh;
            gradh marbhhthach don taobh is-toigh,
            beatha is aoibhne dar chruth Dia.

            The love of a woman is a pleasant sickness;

            there’s a thing that has not often been said.

            With a desperate love inside of one, this is

            the finest of lives ever fashioned by God.

            Such a man lives according to his desire;

            neither age or decay can take hold of him;

            how could such a man ever die,

            the man who is in love with a woman?

            He is content with his own lordship,

            he has small interest in goods or possessions;

            he that gives and receives love,

            lives always in the midst of delight.

Translated from the text in O Rathaile's Danta Gra. I have already translated three or four other (out of total 106) poems from there on this blog,  in the post entitled Classical Irish Love Poems. The poems in O Rathaile's book are so good and so utterly Irish that it is a wonder the world can continue on every day in the somewhat tedious and terrifying way it does.

The next poem comes from an Irish manuscript, but it can’t simply be described as ‘Irish’. Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland used the same form of written language until the sixteenth century, and they shared a common literature. It was only seventeenth century political and social developments which led to the growth of separate literary traditions.


A Chompain, Cuimhnigh Meise

 Dear friend, remember me,
 place my love inside your heart;
 you who have drawn my love,
 beloved,  you are the one of whom I speak.

 Don’t leave me
 for anyone else like me,
 and neither will I leave you;
 promise to be true to me now,

Whether you’re far away or near,
 think of me, young man;
 there’s a fresh wound from love’s fire
 wasting me now, dear friend.

Translated from Two Female Lovers, edited by Mairin Ni Dhonnchadha in Eriu--volume 45, I think.

                        Slán le Sibhreanradh

            Young Art bids farewell to his dalliances;

            All of a sudden, he has changed his mind;

            it's wonderful that he’s straightened himself out;

            this new disposition is a great improvement. 

            Art has given up, though it was painful,

            all of the lovely women of Ireland

            for the sake of one faithful true love;

            enough to straighten out his desire for awhile.  

            Art mac Airt, that ardent man,

            his difficulties, his troubles and his despairs 

            now concern only this slender queen;

            his mind is taken up with just one woman. 

Translated from A Reformed Lover, edited by Briain O Cuiv in Eriu. What volume, I did not note. That was in the days when I was foolish and didn't care about such things. It's on page 213, though, I can tell you that.

           

           

                                  Luaithe Cú

            Luaithe cu na a cuideachta--
            tosach luighe dom leannan;
            luaitha na gach truidealta
            aigneadh geige an da gheallamh.

            There’s always one hound that is swiftest;

            my beloved is first of all in this regard:

            the mind of my girl of two promises

            is swifter than any flock of starlings.

            Swifter than a biting wind

            whistling among the rugged mountains

            is the capricious mind ( not womanly)

            of the green-eyed girl.

            By the eternal King,

            who gives hard judgments,

            I never saw before her

            any woman whose mind was swifter.

From O Rathaile's Danta Gra, The translation below is also from the text in that book..

                          Mairg Dhúinn Dar Dhán

            Mairg dhuinn dar dhan,
            a chul na dtath bhfiar,
            ribhse cur ar gcuil,
            a rosg luithleasg liath

            Alas for me, whose fate it is,

            --oh woman whose hair hangs in twisting locks--      

            to turn my back and to leave you,

            --oh gray eyes both ardent and hesitant.

           

            Tug se bioga an bhais
            triom ar bhfas go gear,
            dealu ribh fa dheoidh,
            a chuisle ceoil mo chleibh.

            Oh sweet pulse of my heart,

            it shook me like death itself,

            that we have grown so unfriendly,

            to be parting with you in the end.

                       

            Oh generous white hand,

            face most modest, most joyous;

            I regret this journey of mine,

            oh desire of the poets’ eyes.

            I would give all of the cattle,

            in the North, in the South,

            to have never even seen you,

            oh woman with winding tresses,

            It was a reason for sorrow,

            my coming into the circle of this world,

            so to be put into the earth;

            this is a grief to me, oh God.

           

            I will lament as long as I live,

            I will weep for this sorrow ,

            that I myself am going to die,

            for I belong wholly to death now.

            Since you are the one who wounded me,

            heal the wound you have given;

            If you do not, gracious girl

            alas for me, who must see you before me.

            Oh girl with yellow, bright, curling hair, alas for me who must

            see you every day, now when you’ve grown unfriendly to me;

            and my soul has been slain by your smooth soft body,

            battered in pain by love that means nothing to you at all.

The next song is said to have been made by the daughter of the lord of Reelig, which is in the Aird, near Inverness town, in the Highlands of Scotland. It probably dates somewhere between the 16th and 18th centuries. It's a good example of the 'big songs' of that period, and I would gladly give all of Harry Potter, Fifty Shades, Twilight and so on, for another song like this,

I translate the text in Gaelic Poetry in the Eighteenth Century by Derick Thomson/Ruairi MacThomais, which is another of those wonderful books. He mentions that the song first occurs in the published Gillies Collection (1786), but that he follows Maclkenzie's text from Sar Obair nam Bard Gaelach. 1845. 

Flora MacNeill, the great singer from Barra, sings the song, but it's not on-line. Below is a bit of a program about her.

One of the differences between Scottish Gaelic poetry and Irish is that because of the different social and economic situations in Ireland and the Highlands, lots of Gaelic poetry was published in the later 18th and the whole of the 19th centuries. 

In Ireland, the number of such volumes can be numbered on the fingers of one hand--Tadhg Gaelach; O'Daly's books (Poets and Poetry of Munster), Hardiman, Charlotte Brooks, and Tadhg O Connialan's (Sligo) collections early in the 19th century. Hardiman and Brooks were intended for a polite English-speaking readership, the only actual Irish being the texts, lost there among fulsome gushing translations and essays. O'Daly's books necessarily include translations and editorial apparatus in English, as well. Tadhg Gaelach is religious verse, and O Coinialan's funding was cut as soon as the C of E missionaries realized that he was, in fact, simply supplying reading material for the millions of Irish-speakers  in that period, and not convincing them that the Church of England was where they should be. .                                   

                                                     Thig Tri Nithean

            There are three things that come without asking:

            fear, jealousy and love,

            and it's no cause for shame

            if they have overcome me like many another,

            for there’s many a noble woman

            who’s been guilty of this that I’m guilty of,

            who loved where she desired,

            and who had very little in return.      

            You, man there who’s ascending the pass,

            take my greeting to the little glen in the north,

            and tell my beloved

            that my love lives on forever.

            I will take no other man

            and I won’t let such a thing be mentioned;

            and until you yourself reject me, love,

            I’ll never believe from anyone that you hate me.

            Man with the alluring blue eyes,

            man from the glen of the mist,

            you with the lovely eyebrows

            that are like cotton grass on the dewy mountain,

            when you go down on your elbow,

            there’ll be blood on the deer that climbs the peaks,

            and if you were with me, love,

            I’d think you no unworthy spouse.

            If I saw you coming,

            and if I knew for certain that it was you,

            my heart would leap up

            like the sun coming up over the mountains.

            I give you my word

            that every hair that’s gray on my head

            would turn yellow,

            like the flowers on the banks of the streams.

            It wasn’t riches that I wanted

            or at all an abundance of cattle;

            it wasn’t for a man with the blood of a churl

            that I sighed so heavily,

            but rather for the glorious son of a nobleman,

            who is the best in the country in every way;

            and even were we to be poor,

            there’s many a friend who’d help us out.

            If you never come back,

            I know what bargain you’ve made.

            I’m not as rich

            as the girl in the lands over yonder.

            But I wouldn’t exchange my spirit/courage (?)

            my intelligence and the skill of my hands

            for a fold of speckled cows,

            for a girl without an ounce of sense, standing out in front of them.

            If you’ve left me and passed on by me,

            my honor is still whole and unsullied.

            I never made a secret rendezvous

            and I never lay down with you in a hidden place.

            I’d never give my blind devotion

            to any man that’s in the world,

            and I am quite capable enough

            so that I can rein in a love that’s not worth pursuing.

            My shame would be less

            if she who you’ve chosen was more worthy;

            but an ugly vulgar thing from the cow dung

            who carries a cow fetter in her hand!

            When a bad spring comes

            and her wealth perishes in the glen,

            she’ll get what’s coming to her,

            and lose all that makes her attractive.

He:      Alas that my love and I are not

            in a boat being carried away by the wind,

            or in a little hut of branches

            at the back of the glen, all alone,

            or in an oaken dwelling

            by the side of the waved sea,

            without a thought for the girl

            that I left along with the cows.

                                                                                                -Nighean Fhir na Reilig  

Johnny Connolly is a great box player from the Conamara islands.