To Connaught went hastily.
And to Connaught’s king
Related his shame,
How the king of Leinster
Set upon him with force,
Took away his wife
And installed her at Ferns.
To the king of Connaught
He bitterly complained
And earnestly pleaded
For men from that household
To help him avenge
His most bitter shame.
Connaught’s king sent word
To the king of Ossory
That he should not fail
To come to their aid.
The two men promised
He’d be king of Leinster
If they first could expel
King Dermot so bold.
Then this man revolted
Against Dermot, his lord,
And Melaghlin, the traitor,
Abandoned him too;
And Mac Torkil of Dublin
Also revolted.
There joined in the treason
One Murrough O’Brien,
Later eaten by dogs
As the song will relate
All in due course
Further on in this story.
Dermot before Henry II
When Dermot the valiant,
Before King Henry
The king of England
At last had come,
He courteously saluted
And finely addressed him:
‘May God in Heaven
Save and protect you
And give you also
Courage and will
To avenge the misfortune
My people brought on me;
Hear, great King,
That I was born a lord,
In the country of Ireland
And acknowledged a king;
But my own people wronged me
And took away my kingdom.
To you, Sire, I plead,
Before your barons and lords.
Your liege-man I shall be
All the days of my life,
If you will help me
Not to lose all:
You I shall acknowledge
My sire and my lord,
Right here in front of
Your barons and earls.’
Then the king told him,
That great king of England,
That he would help him
As soon as he could.
Richard, Earl of Pembroke at Waterford
Then before long,
So the old people say,
On St Bartholomew’s Eve
The great Earl Richard
And fifteen hundred men
Landed at Waterford.
Ragnald and Sidroc
Were the city’s leaders.
On St Bartholomew’s Day,
Earl Richard, the prudent,
Assaulted and won
The city of Waterford.
Many were the citizens
Who died in the fighting
Before in the end
Waterford was won.
When the earl by force
Had taken the city,
He straightaway sent
A message to Dermot
Saying he was now
In charge of the place,
And asking the king
To come with his English.
King Dermot speedily
Set out with a will
And in the company
Of many of his barons,
Brought his daughter
To give to the earl.
The earl with honour
Wedded her in public.
King Dermot then gave
To the famous earl
The kingdom of Leinster
With his dear daughter,
Though he asked to retain
Lordship while he lived.
Then the noble earl granted
The king his desire.
PC, after the version by Goddard Henry Orpen (Norman French)
MUIREADHACH ALBANACH Ó DÁLAIGH
(fl. early 13th century)
A Poem Addressed to the Blessed Virgin
Listen to me, O great Mary
grant me the pleasure of praying to you;
do not shun your kinsman,
O Mother of the strong King of the elements.
Let me recall the story of your mother,
let me recount and bring to mind
a graceful girl with dark brows
and wavy hair.
That was Anna, God’s grandmother,
from whose fair brother a king was born;
she married in turn three husbands,
no woman neared her in dignity.
To each goodman she bore a daughter
this fair bright woman:
three girls, her beautiful children:
with smooth bodies and wavy hair.
An honour to attend them,
the three women, all called Mary.
Each one blue-eyed, a pleasure to behold;
everyone sought their company.
These three Maries from heaven of the saints
took a husband each,
that the three ladies, heavy-haired,
grew gravid and slow of foot.
The three women bore three sons
– magnificent increase.
(What gentle six were greater?)
The youngest of these was God.
The mother of James was one of these women,
shielded from every ordeal,
one was Mary, mother of John,
no one has sung this in poetry.
You are Mary, Mother of God,
none has approached your fame;
the King of true heaven, a royal branch
three-fold, grew in your womb.
Into your good house and your stronghold both,
direct and command me;
O great Mary, O dear one
O yellow gold, O flourishing apple tree.
Food, raiment in your gift,
tressed locks like the field.
Mother, Kinswoman, Love,
direct me well, your poor kinsman.
Your great Son is a kinsman of mine,
O gentle scion, noble Mother,
it is right you should shield a good kinsman,
daughter of your gentle mother.
Until I accepted your Husband’s shepherding,
O fair Mary of the thick tressed hair,
my heart was a place of black coals –
today, it is fitting to wash them.
O Mother of God,
hair bright-coloured and deep,
set aside your anger, let us make peace,
O great Mary, red-gold in a vessel of clay.
Have I not sufficient kinship with your Husband
O pure fair woman with the curling hair?
From heaven came his thigh and his fair side,
noble as the river.
O Trinity, O gentle Mary,
every glory passes but yours.
Hear my poem, O Four Persons,
please offer no gold as reward.
Virgin Mary, black brow,
bright garden, great tree,
of women most beloved,
grant me heaven for my humility.
You are descended from David,
great gentle one, no tree compares to you;
from Abraham the fragrant branches
braided on your head.
A Sign of your Husband’s wisdom
that You carried him, bright his arm
bright his hand. Your Husband and Father
cradled at your side.
A lovely pair you were, seeking refuge glen to glen:
a dark-browed, white-handed baby,
a woman, heavy-limbed,
slow-moving and comely.
Riding on the ass, you cradled him,
your pure hand caressing
/> his crown of yellow hair,
his fingers tugging at your locks.
His hand at your white breast:
no need of his was unmet,
you washed the fair branch, kissed
the slender hand and foot.
A yellow-gold splendour on your gentle head
my kind-eyed kinswoman;
Mary of the smooth white heavy breast,
suckling the noble infant.
Woe to him who slanders you –
unslanderable, sinless. Lady,
if your womb is not chaste,
no branch bears a nut in the greenwood.
Vain to mention the clan of thieves,
woman of the fair tresses.
Foolish to doubt you,
soft-haired lady.
The Lord begot Mary’s son
with no unholy union,
replete, like the fish’s belly
was your full womb.
Because of you, great Mary
it’s plain to a man enslaved:
to shun low women is to find peace,
lady of the curled hair.
He resembles you, in his curled hair,
your only son, the slender one –
the same round eyes of the noble scion,
his hands are yours, and the pure red nail.
Your hand is long and bright.
– beneath your sheltering brow,
your face shines, blue-eyed,
– I say the truth, in poetry.
Pure and yellow the curls
wreathed around your head,
pure your slender-fingered hand,
your strong perfect foot.
Your equal has never died,
never will she be born. In truth:
none like you has ever tasted life,
bright womb, God-cradling.
Give me board and ale,
O high head, earth-unsullied,
spare me the endless feast of falsity,
O strong one of the white teeth.
May your dark brow plead
for the love of your soul, O pure love;
your Husband will not be jealous
that I pray to you, bright, white-toothed one.
O Mary of the fine brows,
of the wavy yellow hair,
bear me in your heart,
and forsake me not.
Let us honour together with feasting
your handsome form, O swift one
I offer up my poems, my well-wrought verse,
O noble, O shapely one.
No woman but you in my house,
you its Mistress. Let what is mine
not be led by false women,
nor lured by wealth.
May the drinking-horns of others
be as nought to me, nor their women,
their fine horses and their dogs;
wealth, dogs, horses may I disdain, fair swan.
Lift the dark brow, let me behold
the countenance like calf’s blood,
lift and let me witness
the beautiful dark hair.
Lift to me the foot and hand,
the resplendent curls. Raise to me
the clear, blue youthful eye,
that I may revel in your soft locks.
Kathleen Jamie
Praise of a Dagger
(Before going on Crusade)
The dagger that goes wherever I go –
She is the woman I love!
Until her master returns home safe
My rapt devotion she’ll have.
No thick-ankled peasant girl is she
But a lady – graceful, refined;
The man who gave her as a gift
Is expert in horses and wine.
That deep-browed lord has granted
Ornament for her lip,
All the gold that she can carry
And a blue luxurious slip;
Her point is beautifully keen,
And slender and sleek her side:
A prince has given me royal steel
To wear on my belt with pride.
A fine new plaited scabbard
Holds her in close embrace:
Its gold ridge runs the length of her back
Its carved bough covers her face.
A distinguished southern lady
In otherworld ivory swanked!
A woman of Munster to hang from my waist
With her shapely, clean-edged flank!
Donnchadh Cairbreach of the sleek hounds
From his poet holds nothing back;
I cherish the blade of that golden-haired man
In its covert under my cloak.
And bless Maol Ruanaidh, the craftsman –
May his prestige never fade
Who took no rest but kept working
Until the dagger was made.
PC
On Cutting His Hair before Going on Crusade
This hair is for you, Father God.
A light gift, but a hard one.
Great till tonight my share of sins:
this hair I give you in their place.
Good its combing and its keeping
within Ireland’s soft-grassed land;
I’m sad for the poor ugly thing.
This fair hair, Maker, is yours.
I promised to you, Father God,
My hair shorn from its curling head;
it’s right, Father God, to accept it –
it would have gone on its own.
My hair and my comrade’s curled hair
for your waving hair and soft glance:
this fair hair and the yellow hair –
I think they’ll be too dark for you.
The shearing – small the sacrifice –
of these two heads for fear of doom;
these two tonight, Son of Mary,
offer you their fine yellow locks.
Better is your body, wounded
for our sake – cruel the deed –
better your hair’s grace, and purer,
bluer eye and whiter feet.
Brighter the foot and slender side,
whiter your breast like trees’ flower,
whiter the foot, heart’s hazel nut,
which was pierced, fairer the hand.
Whiter the teeth, browner the brow,
finer body, gentler face;
lovelier the hue of your curled locks,
smoother the cheek, softer hair.
Four years has this whole head of hair
been on me until tonight;
I will shear from me its curved crop:
my hair will requite my false poems.
Thomas Owen Clancy
On the Death of His Wife
I parted from my life last night,
A woman’s body sunk in clay:
The tender bosom that I loved
Wrapped in a sheet they took away.
The heavy blossom that had lit
The ancient boughs is tossed and blown;
Hers was the burden of delight
That long had weighed the old tree down.
And I am left alone tonight
And desolate is the world I see,
For lovely was that woman’s weight
That even last night had lain on me.
Weeping I look upon the place
Where she used to rest her head –
For yesterday her body’s length
Reposed upon you too, my bed.
Yesterday that smiling face
Upon one side of you was laid
That could match the hazel bloom
In its dark delicate sweet shade.
Maelva of the shadowy brows
Was the mead-cask at my side;
Fairest of all flowers that grow
Was the beauty that has died.
My body’s self deserts me now,
The half of me that was her own,
Since all I knew of brigh
tness died
Half of me lingers, half is gone.
The face that was like hawthorn bloom
Was my right foot and my right side;
And my right hand and my right eye
Were no more mine than hers who died.
Poor is the share of me that’s left
Since half of me died with my wife;
I shudder at the words I speak;
Dear God, that girl was half my life.
And our first look was her first love;
No man had fondled ere I came
The little breasts so small and firm
And the long body like a flame.
For twenty years we shared a home,
Our converse milder with each year;
Eleven children in its time
Did that tall stately body bear.
It was the King of hosts and roads
Who snatched her from me in her prime:
Little she wished to leave alone
The man she loved before her time.
Now King of churches and of bells,
Though never raised to pledge a lie
That woman’s hand – can it be true? –
No more beneath my head will lie.
Frank O’Connor
GIOLLA BRIGHDE MAC CON MIDHE
(?1210–?72)
The Harp that Ransomed
Bring my King’s harp here to me,
That my grief, forgot, may flee;
Full soon shall pass man’s sadness
When wakes that voice of gladness.
Noble he, and skilled in all,
Who owned this tree musical;
Many lofty songs he sang
Whilst its soft sweet numbers rang.
Many jewels he bestowed,
Seated, where this fair gem glowed;
Oft he guerdoned the beholder,
Its curved neck on his shoulder.
Dear the hand that smote the chords
Of the slight, smooth, polished boards;
Bright and brave, the tall youth played,
True his hand, for music made.
When his hand o’er this would roam –
Music’s meet and perfect home –
Then its great soft tender sigh
Bore away man’s misery.
When the curled Dalcassians came,
Guests, within his hall of fame,
Then its deep voice, woke again,
Welcomed Cashel’s comely men.
All men admired the Maiden,
Banba with praise was laden:
‘Doncad’s harp,’ they all exclaim,
‘The fair, fragrant tree of fame!’
‘O’Brian’s harp! clear its call
O’er the feast in Gabran’s hall;
How the heir of Gabran’s Kings
Shook deep music from its strings!’
Son of Gael, of weapon sharp,
Wins not now O’Brian’s harp:
Son of stranger shall not gain
The Penguin Book of Irish Poetry Page 16
