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.