Translating Early Medieval Poetry
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spreading darkness of idolatry across the face of the earth, as articulated in the first half of the poem, so in the second half of the poem come the apostolic missions,
expressed in imagery of light and fire, a pentecostal blaze which spreads across
the earth, in order to resolve – in historical, theological, and poetic terms – the
supposed darkness of pre-Christian ignorance with the light of Christian truth.
There are, significantly, twelve stanzas dealing with the apostles, and if we
examine one of them closely in translation we can see again this creative tension of
the international and the cultural y specific:
Barnabas, ever-victorious flame,
luminous the very bright torch,
the branching tree was martyred
on the tranquil Tyrrhenian Sea. (§ 23)
The Irish poet uses imagery associated with what is general y characterised as
‘secular’ praise poetry to describe each of the apostles (though again we see the
artificiality of such distinctions between ‘religious’ and ‘secular’ in a medieval Irish context). Barnabas is an ‘ever-victorious flame’ and a ‘branching tree’. Matthew is a
‘great gentle leader’ (§22). Bartholomew is a ‘strong bright hero’ (§19). Of Philip he writes ‘though the hero was bloodied, he was not weak’ (§16). Through the heroic
vocabulary of praise the apostles of the universal Church are given a distinctively
Irish hue.
International literary traditions regarding the fate of the apostles, drawing on,
and expanding upon, the New Testament account of the Acts of the Apostles, are
here reconceived as complex Irish verse, which casts the apostles as heroic figures,
bloodied leaders, martyrs spreading the light of truth across the world in order to
combat darkness and ignorance. On 27 February 2015 Reuters quoted ISIS militants,
who had destroyed Assyrian artefacts in Mosul, stating: ‘The Prophet ordered us to
get rid of statues and relics, and his companions did the same when they conquered
countries after him.’ Modern poets often use the past to reflect on the difficulties
of the present, and it is instructive that early medieval Irish poets were looking far beyond Ireland for their poetic inspiration.
How about this? A Poem on Irish and Assyrian History
In the fourteenth-century manuscript known as the Book of Bal ymote (Dublin,
Royal Irish Academy MS 23 P 12), there is a late Middle Irish poem, probably datable
to the twelfth century, which links Assyrian history with the invented pre-history
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of Ireland. The poem begins with reference to the mythical Ninus son of Belus, who
was believed in the Middle Ages to have been the first king of the Assyrians. Over
the course of twenty-one stanzas, the poet connects Irish mythical pre-history with
that of the Assyrian empire, while raising ideas about legitimate kingship and the
legitimacy of rule by invaders, since Irish pre-history was believed in the twelfth
century to have involved successive waves of invasion and conquest. Again, possible
modern political resonances are striking. The poem is written in an elaborate form
of the metre known as deibide, with an ornate rhyming pattern: every stressed word in the last line of each stanza has a rhyme with a word in the penultimate line.
Again the metre itself may be of interest to poets who experiment with form. The
poem was very poorly edited and translated by Bartholomew MacCarthy in the
nineteenth century and has not been the subject of much scholarly attention since.40
Nin mac Bel, roga na rīg,
oirderc a blad, ’s a būainbrīg,
a gēglī ba blodaib bes,
cētrī in domain co dīles.
Fic h i ocus blīadain bladāig
do Nin ac gein Abrat hāim --
linn as meba[i]r gan merblad;
’na lebair ’ga lānderbad.
Trī fic h it blīadan bregda
dh’aīs Abrat hāim oiregda;
nert a badbros h lōig fa bloid
ag techt Parrt h alōin portgloin.
(Ninus son of Belus, best of the kings,
il ustrious his fame and his lasting power,
whose branching splendour will be famous,
the first legitimate king of the world.
Twenty-one years of famous valour
for Ninus at the birth of Abraham.
We remember it without deceptive fame,
the books ful y verifying it.
Sixty splendid years
of the age of noble Abraham.
At the coming of Parthalón of the bright landing place,
the strength of his deadly great host was famous.)
40 Bartholomew MacCarthy, The Codex Palatino-Vaticanus No. 830, Todd Lecture Series 3 (Dublin, 1892), pp. 310–17. I cite here from my own forthcoming edition and translation of the poem. I have been able to offer a translation of considerably more of the poem than MacCarthy, who left many lines blank: Elizabeth Boyle, ‘Biblical History in the Book of Bal ymote’, in Codices Hibernenses Eximii II: The Book of Bal ymote, ed. Ruairí Ó hUiginn (Dublin, forthcoming).
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As we can see from these opening three stanzas, the poem seeks to place Irish
pre-history (‘the coming of Parthalón of the bright landing place’) within a wider
scheme of world history, referencing notable events from Biblical history, in this case the birth of Abraham, and most particularly linking Irish history to the successive
‘world kingships’ which were perceived as having begun with the Assyrian empire.
The poem is situated in its manuscript context amongst other texts – both poetic
and prose – which deal with issues of world history and chronology. For example, a
seven-stanza poem, preceding that on Ninus son of Belus in the manuscript, deals
with the chronology of events in biblical history, as we can see from the first two
stanzas:
Se bliadna .l. ’malle
ar se .c.aib ar mile
o cruthugud Adaim gan on
cor’ baidh in dili in doman.
Da bliadain. nochad – ni breg –
ar dib .c.aib ra coimed.
is fir – mar rimím – re radh –
o dilinn co hAbraham.
(Fifty-six years together
on six hundred on a thousand
from the creation of Adam without blemish
until the Flood drowned the earth.
Ninety-two years – it is no lie –
on two hundred, for keeping,
it is true – as I reckon – to say
from the Flood until Abraham.)41
These kinds of poetic chronological calculations, although their historical value is
obvious, may seem like poor fare for the creative writer or general reader, but the
poem of Ninus son of Belus offers more than straightforward chronology. Indeed,
the poet himself asserts that he is ‘not padding out a statement with numbers’ ( Ni cor āirmi re fōgra, §14). Rather, he is articulating a vision of strong leadership through reference to past kingships, and linking Ireland’s own past to a powerful historical
narrative.
Masailius robo mōr blad
ag techt do Nemed nertmar
– armglan gach tīr ō tharba –
na rī[g] adbal Asarda.
(Masailius whose fame was great
at the coming of strong Nemed
41 Edited in H. L. C. Tristram, Sex Aetates Mundi: die Weltzeitalter bei den Angelsachsen und den Iren. Untersuchungen und Texte (Heidelberg, 1985), pp. 281–2. Translat
ion is my own.
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– clear of weapons every land from his benefit –
was the mighty king of the Assyrians.) (§11)
This poem does, however, raise a significant cultural issue which may help to
explain the reluctance of some scholars and poets to engage with medieval Irish
poetry beyond lyric and nature verse. This is the unavoidable fact that the role of
poets and poetry within society has transformed from the medieval period to the
modern, with the poet shifting from the heart of the political and cultural order to
the periphery. The job of medieval poets was to uphold and promote the dominant
ideology of their society (in the case of medieval Ireland, a hierarchical, profoundly unequal, Christian society) whereas surely one of the roles of modern poets is to
question dominant ideologies, whatever they may be. This fundamental incompat-
ibility of the aims of medieval and modern poets perhaps helps to explain why the
political, pedagogical, historical and hortatory verse of medieval Ireland has held
little attraction for modern writers. We can explore this problem further if we briefly turn to an example of didactic verse.
How about this? A Poem to a Clerical Student on His Coming of Age
One didactic poem which has recently been edited and translated is the poem to
Máel Brigte on his coming of age.42 This poem, probably datable to the eleventh
century on linguistic grounds, offers advice to a young man who has come to the
end of his studies and is about to make the choice of whether to pursue a career
within the Church or whether to be a layman. The poet warns Máel Brigte about
worldly temptations, the distractions that await him in secular society, and the spir-
itual rewards of abstinence, chastity and scholarship. If we compare this with the
poem ‘On the Flightiness of Thought’ discussed above, we can see that its concerns
are similar, but what separates one poem from the other is the personal, confes-
sional mode of the earlier poem, whereas the ‘Poem to Máel Brigte’ is addressed by
the poet to another individual, adding a distancing layer between poet and reader.
‘On The Flightiness of Thought’ articulates from a personal perspective a scholar’s
struggle between the moral high ground and worldly temptations, but the ‘Poem to
Máel Brigte’ is addressed by a more senior cleric to his junior and takes a didactic
form. This shift from the confessional (and first person) to the didactic (and second
person) alters the tone considerably, even though the subject matter is broadly
similar.
The forty-one stanza poem was edited and translated by Liam Breatnach in 2008,
but Breatnach’s translation is given in long lines and aims primarily for a literal
sense translation, rather than reproducing any of the poetic or stylistic features of
the original. This poem is less metrical y interesting than the previous two examples
discussed, which perhaps reflects the circumstances of its composition as an item
of occasional verse, but its content offers startling insights into the nature of an
educated adolescent’s life choices in medieval Ireland:
42 Liam Breatnach, ed. and trans., ‘ Cinnus atá do thinnrem: A Poem to Máel Brigte on his Coming of Age’, Ériu 58 (2008), 1–35.
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What is your course of action, o soft-nailed, soft youth; since you have reached the
pure, bright prime of life, is it fol y or wisdom which you go with?43
The image of the ‘soft-nailed’ youth deciding on his life course is timeless, even
though the exhortation to adhere to Christian values is cultural y and historical y
contingent:
Do not hold back, let us hear you say it, for our conversation is confidential, since you have been a star pupil until now, without deceit, o Máel Brigte.
Let your thoughts be fixed, o dear boy, on the noble King of holy heaven; it is he who is capable of protecting you, crowning you, destroying you.44
The poet then gives Máel Brigte some extended life advice. In the manner of Polo-
nius’ advice to Laertes, the modern reader may see the advice as banal, facile and
narrow-minded, or as wise, moral y upstanding and inspirational. Either way, we
can recognise the poetic quality with which the advice is conveyed, in the metre
called deibide, with rhyme, alliteration and anaphora:
Nírbo thibe im léignid lac;
ní derna féin fonámat;
nírbat gúach, imgaib ainble;
nírbat lúath do chomairle.
(Do not laugh at a weak scholar; do not engage in jeering; do not be false, avoid arrogance; do not be quick to give advice.)45
Though comparable in theme, sentiment and poetic quality to ‘On the Flightiness
of Thought’, the ‘Poem to Máel Brigte’ exemplifies the way that didactic verse has
hitherto held less interest than lyric verse to modern scholars and poets. But one
hopes that making such verse available in print at least provides creative writers
and general readers with raw material which can expand the horizons of our under-
standing of medieval Irish poetry.
Conclusion
Medieval Irish literature has been famously characterised, and limited, as possessing
(in Frank O’Connor’s phrase) ‘the backward look’.46 However, even when early
medieval Irish poets did look back, for example in composing historical verse,
they also looked outwards, usual y to Greek, Roman and Middle Eastern history.
Although we see evidence of interest in the local and the particular, such as in the
verse on the ‘Blackbird of Belfast Lough’, we also see an arguably more dominant
interest in locating Ireland within the wider world. We see a concern with both
abstract and practical theology, with politics, with genealogy, with global history,
with morality and social behaviour. Although the appeal of nature poetry and lyric
43 Breatnach, ‘ Cinnus Atá Do Thinnrem’, §1.
44 Ibid., §3–4.
45 Ibid., §32.
46 Frank O’Connor, The Backward Look: A Survey of Irish Literature (London, 1967).
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verse to modern poets is obvious, there is a huge corpus of poetry surviving from
medieval Ireland which has a broader range of forms and functions. Although some
of it may be too pedagogic, hortatory, propagandistic or banal to attract modern
Anglophone readers, there is much that would repay closer attention from creative
writers and readers and much that could provide the raw material for experimenta-
tion, and springboards for new poetic works.
The appeal of lyric and nature poetry for modern Irish poets is clearly very great.
But it is also limiting. Paul Muldoon recently published a poem, ‘Cuthbert and the
Otters’, in memory of Seamus Heaney. It surely marked the nadir of the use of medi-
eval Irish literary culture as inspiration for modern poetry. Muldoon’s poem was
ingeniously and mercilessly parodied by the satirist David Taylor in Private Eye: You’d think that by now Irish poetry would
Have said goodbye to some of its
Ancient symbolic urges. Like those sadly redundant
Otters and the ungraspable place-names – Bal ybunnion and
Auchnamacloy – that rage across the page in
Sesquipedalian surges. Oh, and the Danes and the
Mention of Bal ynahone Bog. Not forgetting the grave
Goods found deep in the earth of Tir-na-Nog. Me, I got
Out early to a nice little earner on the Princeton sward.
But Seamus, you stayed in the old place, yet –
Mysteriously – never were bored. And the years
Roll by like those Yeatsian swans on the lake
That flapped wings and were gone. And if you speak to
Us stil , it’s to say that the smart Irish poet
Real y ought to move on.47
Taylor may be savage in his mockery, but he is also right. Even in looking back to
medieval verse for inspiration, modern Irish poets real y ought to move on. There
is so much more.
47 D. J. Taylor, ‘Paul Muldoon, End of the Line (in Memory of Seamus Heaney)’, Private Eye 1386 (20 February–6 March 2015), 29. Reproduced by kind permission of Private Eye magazine / David Taylor.
7
Aislinge Meic Conglinne:
Challenges for Translator and Audience*
Lahney Preston-Matto
Aislinge Meic Conglinne is a Middle Irish tale, the main text of which is
contained in the Leabhar Breac, and dates to the first decade of the fifteenth century (although the language of the tale dates it to the late eleventh or
early twelfth century). The tale has been relatively neglected, but it is difficult to understand why: it is one of the earliest European texts dealing with food-filled
fantasy, is hilariously funny, and cynical y observes clerical and political life in
Ireland in the late eleventh century. There have been two major scholarly editions
of the text: Kuno Meyer published an edition with a translation into English in
1892,1 and Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson published a much improved edition without
a translation in 1990.2 In terms of popular versions, Austin Clarke published a verse
drama based on the text called The Son of Learning in 1927.3 Influenced by Clarke’s Dublin Verse-Speaking Society, Padraic Fallon also adapted the text in 1953 for his
* I would like to thank the editors of this volume for all their efforts in putting it together, but also for organising the conference from which this volume takes its inspiration. I would also like to thank the participants of that conference for all the wonderful discussions about translation. And my thanks to Michael Matto, who ran a discerning eye over a few drafts of this article.
1 Kuno Meyer, ed. and trans. Aislinge meic Conglinne: The Vision of MacConglinne, a Middle-Irish Wonder Tale (New York, 1974 [1892]). This edition is not easily available.