There are many poems of great beauty and interest in the Irish language,
several of which have become known to the English reader through the
medium of a translation. Of those poems there is a particular class known
to Irish scholars by the name of the “Fenian Tales”--an appellation
which they derive from Finn, or Fionn, the son of Cumhail (the Fingal of
Macpherson), and his heroes the FIONNA EIRONN. Fionn, renowned for his
martial exploits, flourished about the beginning of the third century,
under Cormac,[1] of whose forces he was the commander-in-chief. He has
been to the Milesian bards what King Arthur was to the Britons, the
theme of many a marvellous achievement and poetic fiction. Oisin, his
son, was equally celebrated as a warrior and a poet; and of him it might
be said, as of Achilles, Æschylus, Alfred, Camoens, Cervantes, and many
another, that “one hand the sword and one the harp employed.” Numerous
poems have been ascribed to him; but there is no proof that he has a
legitimate claim to any composition extant. As for the impostures of
Macpherson, they have been sufficiently exposed; and no one who has taken
pains to investigate the subject, or who has the least knowledge of Irish
history, antiquities, or language, will pretend that he is worthy of the
slightest credence. The date and origin of the Fenian Tales, from which
he drew many of the materials of his centos, are altogether uncertain.
It may seem, however, not unreasonable, from slight internal evidence,
to conjecture that some of them may have been composed soon after the
introduction of Christianity, though they must since have suffered many
changes and modifications.[2] In few countries, if in any, did the
Christian religion win its way more easily than in Ireland; and yet it
can scarcely be supposed that its triumph became universal without some
reluctance on the part of the people, whose habits it condemned, and to
whose superstitions it was strenuously opposed. It attempted to produce
such a complete revolution in their tastes and occupations, that it would
be surprising had not various objections been started to its reception.
The quiet and devotion of the monastic life formed a melancholy contrast
to the spirit-stirring excitements of the chase, and to those games of
strength and skill in which the heroes of the Ossianic age delighted.
They who rejoiced in the clash of arms, in the music of hounds and horns,
and in the feast and the revel, could have small taste for the chiming of
bells in the services of religion, for the singing of psalms, and still
less for fasting--
----the waster gaunt and grim,
That of beauty and strength robs feature and limb.
The bards, it may well be imagined, who were always not only welcome but
necessary guests at all the high festivals of the chiefs and princes,
would be among the first to lament a change of manners by which their
pleasures and honours were abridged or abolished; and to give more effect
to their complaint, as well as to conceal its real authors, they put it
into the mouth of Oisin, their great master, by poetic licence, though
in violation of chronology. They ascribed to him those sentiments which
they thought he would have expressed, had he really been the contemporary
of Saint Patrick.[3] At the same time it must be admitted, that in the
Poem of the Chase at least, such a description of the creative power of
the Deity is given by the saint, as is worthy of a Christian missionary,
though he is obliged to succumb to the stern indignation of the “Warrior
Bard.”
Leaving the further consideration of this subject for the present,
I proceed to give an analysis of the Poem of the Chase, from which
the reader may be enabled in some degree to judge how far Spenser is
justifiable in affirming that the poems of the Irish bards “savoured of
sweet wit and good invention.”
The poem commences by Oisin asking St Patrick if he had ever heard
the tale of the chase; and on receiving an answer in the negative,
accompanied with a request that it may be told truly, he feels indignant
at the suspicion that he or any of the Fionna Eironn could ever deviate
from the strictest veracity, and retaliates by declaring how much he
prized his former friends, whose virtues he records, beyond Patrick and
all his psalm-singing fraternity. Patrick, in reply, exhorts him not to
indulge a strain of panegyric which borders on blasphemy, and extols
the power of that great Being by whom all the Fenian race had been
destroyed. The mention of his friends’ extinction calls forth a fresh
burst of indignation from Oisin, and leads him to compare the pleasures
of the days gone by with the melancholy occupations of psalm-singing and
fasting. Patrick requests him to cease, and not incur the impiety of
comparing Finn with the Creator of the universe. Oisin replies in a style
more indignant, and after reciting a number of the glorious exploits of
the Fenians, asks by what achievements of Patrick’s Deity they can be
matched. The saint, justly shocked by such daring, accuses him of frenzy,
and tells him that Finn and his host have been doomed to hell-fire by
that God whom he blasphemes: but this only provokes Oisin to make a
comparison between Finn’s generosity and the divine vengeance; and as for
himself, it is a sufficient proof of his sanity that he allows Patrick
and his friends to wear their heads. Patrick, as if tacitly admitting
the validity of his argument, pays him a compliment, and requests him
to proceed with the promised tale. Oisin complies, and informs him that
while the Fenian heroes were feasting in the tower of Almhuin, Finn
having withdrawn from the company and spied a young doe, pursued her
with his two hounds Sceolan and Bran as far as Slieve Guillin, where she
suddenly disappeared. While he and his hounds are left in perplexity,
he hears a sound of lamentation, and looking round espies a damsel of
surpassing beauty, whom he accosts, and with friendly solicitude asks the
cause of her grief. She replies that she had dropped her ring into the
adjoining lake, and adjures him as a true knight to dive into the water
to find and restore the lost treasure. He complies, and succeeds; and
while handing her the ring, is suddenly metamorphosed into a withered old
man.
Mean time the absence of their chief begins to create some fears for his
safety in the breasts of the Fenians. Caoilte expresses his apprehension
that he is irrecoverably lost, when bald Conan, the Thersites of the
Fenian poems, rejoicing at the idea, boasts that he will in future be
their chief. The Fenians having indulged in a laugh of scorn to hear such
arrogance from one they contemned, proceed in quest of Finn, and discover
the old man, who whispers in the ear of Caoilte the story of his strange
metamorphosis. Conan, on hearing it, waxes valiant, and utters some
bitter reproaches against Finn and the Fenians. He is rebuked by Caoilte;
but still continuing to vituperate and boast, he is answered at last
by the sword of Osgar. The Fenians interfere, and having put an end to
the strife, and learned the cause of Finn’s misfortune, they search the
secret recesses of Slieve Guillin, and at length find the enchantress,
who presents a cup to Finn, of which he drinks, and is restored to his
former strength and beauty.
Miss Brooke, a lady to whose genius and taste Irish literature is greatly
indebted, has given a translation of this poem in her “Reliques of Irish
Poetry,” published in 1788. Every Irish scholar is bound to speak with
respect of her patriotic literary labours, and the present writer would
be among the last to pluck a single leaf from the chaplet which adorns
her brows--
----neque ego illi detrahere ausim
Hærentem capiti multa cum laude coronam.--HOR.
Not from her head shall I presume to tear
The sacred wreath she well deserves to wear.--FRANCIS.
To Miss Brooke is due the well-merited praise of having been the first
to introduce the English reader to a knowledge of these compositions.
But that province of translation into which she led the way is open to
all, and no one has a right to claim it as his exclusive property.
Chapman translated Homer: he was followed by Hobbes, Hobbes by Pope, Pope
by Cowper, Cowper by Sotheby. Who will be the next competitor in this
fair field of fame? How many translators have we of Virgil, of Horace,
of Anacreon, and of all the most eminent Greek and Latin poets, each
advancing a claim to some kind of superiority over his rivals? Would
that we had more such honourable rivalship in translations from the
Irish! Miss Brooke has been faithful to the sense of her originals; but
it appears to the present writer that she not unfrequently errs by being
too diffuse, that several passages are weakened by unnecessary expansion,
and that the spirit of the whole can be better preserved in a more varied
form of versification than in the monotonous quatrains which she adopted.
The prevalent fault of most poetical translations is diffuseness or
amplification, by which the thoughts are weakened and their spirit lost.
Much allowance, however, must be granted to those who attempt to clothe
in English verse such compositions as the Irish Fenian tales; and any one
who makes the experiment will feel the difficulty of preserving a just
medium between a loose paraphrase and a strict verbal translation. It is
almost if not altogether impossible to translate into rhyme without an
occasional accessory idea or epithet on the one hand, and the omission
of some unimportant adjunct on the other. The great object should be to
preserve the spirit of the original--to be “true to the sense, but truer
to his fame”--_nec verbum verbo reddere fidus_. Some passages could not
be understood, others would not be endured by any reader of taste or
refinement if rendered word for word.
In my next communication I shall send you a translation of the first
part of the Poem of the Chase--namely, the introductory dialogue between
Patrick and Oisin. This shall be followed by the succeeding part of the
poem, should you deem such compositions suited to the pages of your
“Journal,” which I hope will be eminently useful in promoting both the
literary and moral taste of the people of Ireland.