THE LAST OF THE CLASSIC POETS
The first half of the seventeenth century saw an extraordinary
re-awakening of the Irish literary spirit. This was the more curious
because it was precisely at this period that the old Gaelic polity with
its tribal system, brehon law, hereditary bards, and all its other
supports, was being upheaved by main force and already beginning to
totter to its ruin. This was the period when to aggravate what was
already to the last degree bitter--the struggle for the soil and racial
feuds--a third disastrous ingredient, polemics, stept in, and inflamed
the minds of the opposing parties, with the additional fanaticism of
religious hatred. Yet whether it is that their works have been better
preserved to us than those of any other century, or whether the very
nearness of the end inspired them to double exertions, certain it is
that the seventeenth century, and especially the first half of it,
produced amongst the Irish a number of most gifted men of letters. Of
these the so-called Four Masters, Seathrun or Geoffrey Keating, Father
Francis O'Mulloy, Lughaidh [Lewy] O'Clery, and Duald Mac Firbis were
the most important of the purely Irish prose writers, whilst Phillip
O'Sullivan Beare, Father Ward, and Father Colgan, John Lynch (Bishop
of Killala), Luke Wadding, and Peter Lombard (Archbishop of Armagh),
reflected credit upon their native country by their scholarship, and
elucidated its history chiefly through the medium of Latin, as did
Ussher and Sir James Ware, two great scholars of the same period
produced by the Pale.
The century opened with an outburst of unexpected vigour on the part
of the old school of Irish classical bards, over whose head the sword
was then suspended, and whose utter destruction, though they knew
it not, was now rapidly approaching. This outburst was occasioned
by Teig mac Dairé,[1] the ollamh or chief poet of Donough O'Brien,
fourth Earl of Thomond, (whose star, thanks to English influence, was
at that time in the ascendant), making little of and disparaging in
elaborate verse the line of Eremon,[2] and the reigning families of
Meath, Connacht, Leinster, and Ulster, whilst exalting the kings of
the line of Eber, of whom the O'Briens were at that time the greatest
family. The form this poem took was an attack upon the poems of Torna
Eigeas, a poet who flourished soon after the year 400, and who was
tutor to Niall of the Nine Hostages, but whose alleged poems I have not
noticed, not believing those attributed to him to be genuine, as they
contain distinct Christian allusions, and as the language does not seem
particularly antique. The bards, however, accepted these pieces as the
real work of Torna, and Teig mac Dairé now attacks him on account of
his partiality for the Eremonian Niall one thousand two hundred years
before, and argues that he had done wrong, and that Eber, as the elder
son of Milesius, should have had the precedency over Ir and Eremon,
the younger children, and that consequently the princes of Munster,
who were Eberians, should take precedency of the O'Nialls, O'Conors,
and other Eremonians of the Northern provinces, and of Leinster. Teig
asserts that it was Eber or Heber, son of Milesius, from whom Ireland
was called Hiber-nia. This poem, which contained about one hundred
and fifty lines, began with the words _Olc do thagrais a Thorna_,
"Ill hast thou argued, O Torna," and was immediately taken up and
answered by Lughaidh [Lewy] O'Clery, the ollamh of the O'Donnells, in
a poem containing three hundred and forty lines, beginning "O Teig,
revile not Torna." To this Teig replied in a piece of six hundred and
eighty-eight lines, beginning _Eist-se a Lughaidh rem' labhradh_,
"Listen to my speech, O Lewy," and was again immediately answered in
a poem of about a thousand lines by O'Clery, beginning, _Do chuala ar
thagrais a Thaidhg_, "I have heard all that thou hast argued, O Teig."
In this poem O'Clery collects such facts as he can find in history
and in ancient authors, to prove that the Eremonians had always been
considered superior to the Eberians in past ages. This called forth
another rejoinder from his opponent of one hundred and twenty-four
lines, beginning _A Lughaidh labhram go séimh_, "Let us speak
courteously, O Lewy," which was in its turn answered by O'Clery in a
poem beginning _Ná broisd mise a Mhic Dhaire_, "Provoke me not, O son
of Dairé."
By this time the attention of the whole Irish literary world had been
centred upon this curious dispute, and on the attacks and rejoinders of
these leading poets representing the two great races of Northern and
Southern Ireland respectively. Soon the hereditary poets of the other
great Gaelic houses joined in, as their own descent or inclination
prompted. Fearfeasa O'Cainte, Torlough O'Brien, and Art Og O'Keefe were
the principal supporters of Teig mac Daire and the Southern Eberians,
while Hugh O'Donnell, Robert Mac Arthur, Baoghalach ruadh Mac Egan,
Anluan Mac Egan, John O'Clery, and Mac Dermot of Moylurg, defended Lewy
and the Northern Eremonians. For many years the conflict raged, and the
verses of both parties collected into a volume of about seven thousand
lines, is known to this day as "The Contention of the Poets."
There is something highly pathetic in this last flickering up of the
spirit of the hereditary classical bards, who conducted this dispute
in precisely the same metre, language, tone, and style, as their
forefathers of hundreds of years before would have done it, and who
chose for the subject-matter of dispute an hereditary quarrel of twelve
hundred years' standing. Just as the ancient history of the Irish began
with the distinction between the descendants of the sons of Milesius,
of which we read so much at the beginning of this volume, soon the
self-same subject does the literary spirit of the ancient time which
had lasted with little alteration from the days of St. Patrick, flare
up into light for a brief moment at the opening of the seventeenth
century, ere it expired for ever under the sword of Cromwell and of
William.
It is altogether probable, however, that under the appearance of
literary zeal and genealogical fury, the bards who took part in this
contest were really actuated by the less apparent motive of rousing
the ardour of their respective chiefs, their pride of blood, and
their hatred of the intruder. If this, as I strongly suspect, were
the underlying cause of the "Contention," their expiring effort to
effect the impossible by the force of poetry--the only force at their
command--is none the less pathetic, than would have been on the very
brink of universal ruin, their quarrelling, in the face of their common
enemy, upon the foolish old genealogies of a powerless past.
We know a good deal, however, about this Teig, son of Dairé, the
ollamh of the O'Briens, of whose poetry, all written in elaborate and
highly-wrought classical metres, we have still about three thousand
four hundred lines. He possessed down even to the middle of the
seventeenth century a fine estate and the castle of Dunogan with its
appurtenances, which belonged to him by right of his office, as the
hereditary _ollamh_ of Thomond. He was hurled over a cliff in his old
age by a soldier of Cromwell, who is said to have yelled after him with
savage exultation as he fell, "Say your rann now, little man."[3] A
beautiful inauguration ode to the English-bred Donogh O'Brien, fourth
Earl of Thomond, proclaims him a bard of no ordinary good sense and
merit.
"Bring thy case before Him (God) every day, beseech diligently Him
from whom nothing may be concealed, concerning everything of which
thou art in care, Him from whom thou shalt receive relief.
"Run not according to thine own desire, O Prince of the Boru tribute,
let the cause of the people be thy anxiety, and that is not the
anxiety of an idle man.
"Be not thou negligent in the concerns of each: since it is thy due to
decide between the people, O smooth countenance, be easy of access,
and diligent in thine own interests.
"Give not thyself up to play nor wine nor feast nor the delight of
music nor the caresses of maidens; measure thou the ill-deeds of each
with their due reward, without listening to the intervention of thy
council.
"For love, for terror, for hatred, do not pass (be thou a not-hasty
judge) a judgment misbecoming thee, O Donough--no not for bribes of
gold and silver."[4]
In another poem, Mac Dairé warns the O'Briens to be advised by him,
and not plunge the province into war, and to take care how they draw
down upon themselves his animosity. Here are a few of these verses,
translated into the exact equivalent of the Deibhidh metre in which
they are written. They will give a fair idea of a poet's arrogance.
"'Tis not War we Want to =Wage=
With THomond THinned by =out=rage.
SLIGHT not Poets' Poignant =spur=
Of RIGHT ye Owe it =hOn=our.
Can there Cope a Man with Me
In Burning hearts Bitterly,
At my BLows men BLUSH I =wis=,
Bright FLUSH their Furious =Fa=ces.[5]
Store of blister-Raising =Ranns=
These are my Weighty =Wea=pons,
Poisoned, STriking STRONG through =men=,
They Live not LONG so =strick=en.
SHelter from my SHafts or =rest=
Is not in Furthest =Fo=rest,
Far they FALL, words Soft as =Snow=,
No WALL can Ward my =ar=row.[6]
* * * * *
To QUench in QUarrels good =deeds=,
To Raise up WRongs in =hun=dreds,
To NAIL a NAME on a =man=,
I FAIL not--FAME my =wea=pon."
The men who most distinguished themselves in the extraordinary
outburst of classical poetry that characterised the early seventeenth
century were Teig Dall O'Hĭginn, a poet of the county Sligo, brother
to the Archbishop of Tuam, and Eochaidh [Yohy] O'Hussey, the chief
bard of the Maguire of Fermanagh. Teig Dall O'Hĭginn has left behind
him at least three thousand lines, all in polished classical metres,
and O'Hussey nearly four thousand. Teig Dall was the author of the
celebrated poem addressed to Brian O'Rorke, urging him to take up
arms against Elizabeth on the principle "si vis pacem para bellum:"
it begins _D'fhior cogaidh comhailtear síothchain_ "to a man of war
peace is assured," and it had the desired effect. The verses of these
bards throw a great deal of light upon the manners customs and politics
of the age. There is a curious poem extant by this Teig Dall, in
which he gives a graphic account of a night he spent in the house of
Maolmordha Mac Sweeny, a night which the poet says he will remember for
ever.[7] He met on that memorable night in that hospitable house Brian
mac Angus Mac Namee, the poet in chief to Torlogh Luineach O'Neill,
Brian mac Owen O'Donnellan, the poet of Mac William of Clanrickard,
and Conor O'Hĭginn, the bard of Mac William-Burke. Not only did
the chieftain himself, Mac Sweeny, pay him homage, but he received
presents--acknowledgment evidently of his admitted genius--from the
poets as well. Mac Sweeny gave to him a dappled horse, one of the best
steeds in Ireland, Brian mac Angus gave him a wolf-dog that might be
matched against any; while from Brian mac Owen he received a book "a
full well of the true stream of knowledge,"--in which were writ "the
cattle-spoils, courtships, and sieges of the world, an explanation of
their battles and progress, it was the flower of the King-books of
Erin."[8] Where, he asks, are all those chiefs gone now? Alas! "the
like of the men I found before me in that perfect rath of glistening
splendour, ranged along the coloured sides of the purple-hung mansion,
no eye ever saw before,"[9] but they are scattered and gone, and
the death of four of them in especial seemed a loss from which Banba
[Ireland] thought she could never recover. This great poet, in my
opinion by far the finest of his contemporaries, came to a tragical
end. Six of the O'Haras of Sligo calling at his house, ate up his
provisions, and in return he issued against them a special satire. This
satire, consisting of twelve ranns in Deibhidh [D'yevvee] metre,[10]
stung them to such a pitch that they returned and cut out the tongue
that could inflict such exquisite pain, and poor O'Hĭginn died of their
barbarous ill-treatment some time prior to the year 1617. None of the
bardic race had ever thought that such an end could overtake the great
poet at the hands of the Gael themselves. It was only a short time
before that, when some bard envying him his position at Coolavin in the
west, far from the inroads of the murdering foreigner, had sung:--
"Would I Were in Cool-O-=vinn=
Where Haunteth Teig O =Hig=inn
There my LEASE of LIFE were =free=
From STRIFE in PEACE and =Plen=ty."[11]
We find the poet O'Gnive, the author of the well-known poem, "The
Stepping-down of the Gael,"[12] bitterly lamenting in Deibhidh metre,
the death of O'Hĭginn, and that breaking-up of the Bardic schools which
was even then beginning.
"Fallen the LAND of Learned =men=,
The Bardic BAND is =fal=len;
None now LEARN true SONG to =Sin=g,
How LONG our FERN is =Fad=ing!
Fearful your Fates O'=Hi=ginn,
And Yohy Mac =Me=laughlinn,
Dark was the DAY through FEUD =Fel=l
The GOOD, the GAY, the =GEN=TLE.[13]
Ye were Masters Made to =please=
O'Higinnses, O'=Da=lys;
GLOOMY ROCKS have WRought your =fates=,
Ye PLUMY FLOCKS of =Po=ets."
O'Hussey, probably the greatest contemporary rival of Teig Dall, is
best known through Mangan's translation of his noble ode to Cuchonnacht
Maguire, lord of Fermanagh,[14] who was caught by the elements on some
warlike expedition and in danger of being frozen and drowned.
"Where is my chief, my master, this black night? movrone!
Oh, cold, cold, miserably cold is this black night for Hugh,
Its showery, arrowy, speary sleet pierceth one through and through,
Pierceth one to the very bone.
* * * * *
An awful, a tremendous night is this, meseems,
The floodgates of the rivers of heaven I think have been burst wide,
Down from the overcharged clouds, like unto headlong ocean's tide,
Descends grey rain in roaring streams.
Though he were even a wolf ranging the round green woods,
Though he were even a pleasant salmon in the unchainable sea,
Though he were a wild mountain eagle, he could scarce bear, he,
This sharp sore sleet, these howling floods."[15]
When it is remembered that O'Hussey composed this poem in that most
difficult and artificial of metres, the Deibhidh, of which we have just
given specimens, it will be seen how much Mangan has gained by his
free and untrammelled metre, and what technical difficulties fettered
O'Hussey's art, and lent glory to his triumph over them.
Both these great poets and their contemporaries had been reared in
the bardic colleges, which continued to exist, though with gradually
diminishing prestige, until near the close of the seventeenth century.
I doubt if a single college survived into the eighteenth, to come under
the cruel law which made it penal for a Catholic to teach a school. In
the seventeenth century, however, several famous colleges of poetry
are still found. They are frequently alluded to by the poets of that
century, both in Ireland and Scotland, and always under the generic
name of "the schools," by which they mean the bardic institutions.
Few or none of those persons who did not themselves come of a bardic
tribe were admitted into them, which accounts for the prevalence of
the same surnames among the poets for several centuries, O'Dalys,
O'Hĭginnses, O'Coffeys, Macgraiths, Conmees, Wards, O'Mulconrys,[16]
etc. None of the students were allowed to come from the neighbourhood
of the college, but only from far-away parts of Ireland, so as not
to be distracted by the propinquity of friends and relations. This
produced a certain unity of feeling among the bardic race, and to a
great extent broke down all class prejudice, so much so, that the bards
were almost the only people in later Ireland who belonged to their
country rather than to their lord, or tribe, or territory. It may very
well be, however, that the bardic race was not in the long run an
advantage to Ireland, and that the elaborate system of pedigrees which
they preserved, and their eulogies upon their particular patrons tended
to keep the clan spirit alive to the detriment of the idea of a unified
nationality, and to the exclusion of new political modes of thought.
However this may be, it is absolutely necessary to study the poets of
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries if one would come to a right
understanding of the great transformation scene then being enacted.
The feelings, aspirations, and politics of the Irish themselves are
faithfully reflected in them, and though no Irish historian, except
perhaps O'Halloran, has ever read them, yet no historian can afford
to utterly neglect them. It has become common of late years to deny
that there was any real national struggle of Ireland against England
in the seventeenth century, and my friend Mr. Standish O'Grady, in
particular, from a perusal of the English State Papers and other
documents, has striven with eloquence and brilliancy to prove that the
fight was a social and an economic one, a conflict between the smaller
gentry and the great upper lords. But such a view of the case is flatly
contradicted, indeed absolutely disproved, by a study of the Irish
bards. The names of Erin, Banba, Fódhla, the Plain of Conn, the Land
of the Children of Ir and Eber, are in their mouths at every moment,
and to the very last they persisted in their efforts to combine the
Gael against the Gall. Here, for instance, is a poem, one specimen out
of scores, by an unknown poet of the sixteenth century, exhorting the
Irish of all the provinces to resistance, and it would be impossible
to tell to what tribe or even to what province the poet belonged. I
translate the poem here into a modification of the Irish metre, and
one which, it seems to me, could be very well taken over and adapted
with a fairly good effect into English.[17]
"Fooboon upon you, ye hosts of the Gael,
For your own Innisfail has been taken,
And the Gall is dividing the emerald lands
By your treacherous bands forsaken.[18]
Clan Carthy of Munster from first unto last
Have forsaken the past of their sires,
And they honour no longer the men that are gone,
Or the song of the God-sent lyres.
The O'Briens of Banba whom Murrough led on,
They are gone with the Saxon aggressor,
They have bartered the heirloom of ages away
And forgotten to slay the oppressor.
The old race of Brian mac Yohy[19] the stern,
With gallowglass kerne and bonnacht,[20]
They are down on their knees, they are cringing to-day,
'Tis the way through the province of Connacht.
In the valleys of Leinster the valorous band
Who lightened the land with their daring,
In Erin's dark hour now shift for themselves,
The wolves are upon them and tearing.
And O'Neill, who is throned in Emania afar,
And gave kings unto Tara for ages,
For the earldom of Ulster has bartered, through fear,
The kingdom of heroes and sages.[21]
Alas for the sight! the O'Carrolls of Birr
Swear homage in terror, sore fearing,
Not a man one may know for a man, can be found
On the emerald ground of Erin.
And O'Donnell[22] the chieftain, the lion in fight,
Who defended the right of Tirconnell,
(Ah! now may green Erin indeed go and droop!)
He stoops with them--Manus O'Donnell!
"Fooboon for the court where no English was spoke,
Fooboon for the yoke of the stranger,
Fooboon for the gun in the foreigner's train,
Fooboon for the chain of danger.
"Ye faltering madmen, God pity your case!
In the flame of disgrace ye are singeing.
Fooboon is the word of the bard and the saint,
Fooboon for the faint and cringing."
The session of the bardic schools began about Michaelmas,[23] and the
youthful aspirants to bardic glory came trooping, about that season,
from all quarters of the four provinces to offer with trembling hearts
their gifts to the ollamh of the bardic college, and to take possession
of their new quarters. Very extraordinary these quarters were; for the
college usually consisted of a long low group of whitewashed buildings,
excessively warmly thatched, and lying in the hollow of some secluded
valley, or shut in by a sheltering wood, far removed from noise of
human traffic and from the bustle of the great world. But what most
struck the curious beholder was the entire absence of windows or
partitions over the greater portion of the house.
According as each student arrived he was assigned a windowless room
to himself, with no other furniture in it than a couple of chairs, a
clothes rail, and a bed. When all the students had arrived, a general
examination of them was held by the professors and ollamhs, and all
who could not read and write Irish well, or who appeared to have an
indifferent memory, were usually sent away. The others were divided
into classes, and the mode of procedure was as follows: The students
were called together into the great hall or sitting-room, amply
illuminated by candles and bog-torches, and we may imagine the head
ollamh, perhaps the venerable and patriotic O'Gnive himself, addressing
them upon their chosen profession, and finally proposing some burning
topic such as O'Neill's abrogation of the title of O'Neill, for the
higher class to compose a poem on, in perhaps the Great or Little
Rannaigheacht [Ran-ee-ăcht] metre, while for the second class he sets
one more commonplace, to be done into Deibhidh [D'yevvee] or Séadna
[Shayna], or some other classic measure, and any student who does not
know all about the syllabification, quartans, concord, correspondence,
termination, and union, which go to the various metres, is turned over
to an inferior professor.
The students retired after their breakfasts, to their own warm but
perfectly dark compartments, to throw themselves each upon his bed,[24]
and there think and compose till supper-hour, when a servant came
round to all the rooms with candles, for each to write down what he
had composed. They were then called together into the great hall, and
handed in their written compositions to the professors, after which
they chatted and amused themselves till bed-time.
On every Saturday and the eve of every holiday the schools broke up,
and the students dispersed themselves over the country. They were
always gladly received by the landowners of the neighbourhood, and
treated hospitably until their return on Monday morning. The people of
the district never failed to send in, each in turn, large supplies to
the college, so that, what between this and the presents brought by the
students at the beginning of the year, the professors are said to have
been fairly rich.
The schools always broke up on the 25th of March, and the holidays
lasted for six months, it not being considered judicious to spend the
warm half of the year in the close college, from which all light and
air-draughts had been so carefully excluded.
I can hardly believe, however, that the students of law, history,
and classics--all the educated classes could speak Latin, which was
their means of communication with the English[25]--were treated as
here described, or enjoyed such long holidays. It was probably only
a special class of candidates for bardic degrees who were thus dealt
with, and the account above given may be somewhat exaggerated; the
students probably composed in their dark compartments only on certain
days.
In the seventeenth century we find that the three or four hundred
metres taught in the schools of the tenth century had been practically
restricted to a couple of dozen, and these nearly all heptasyllabic.
It is quite probable, as Thurneysen asserts, that the metres of the
early Roman hymns--themselves probably largely affected by Celtic
models--exercised in their turn a reflex influence upon Irish poetry,
and especially on that of the bards, in contradistinction to that of
the _filés_. Indeed, it is pretty certain that if the Roman metres
had not before existed in Irish the bards would have made no scruple
about copying them; and they may thus have come by these octosyllabic
and heptasyllabic lines about which they were in after times so
particular. Of the metres chiefly in vogue in the schools of the
later centuries, the most popular was the Deibhidh, of which I have
already given so many examples.[26] It was, as it were, the official
metre--the hexameter of the Gael. All the seven thousand and odd lines
of the "Contention of the Bards," for instance, are written in it.
Great Rannaigheacht[27] [Ran-ee-ăcht] was another prime heptasyllabic
favourite. It ran thus--
"To Hear Handsome Women WEEP,
In DEEP distress Sobbing Sore,
Or Gangs of Geese scream for FAR,
They sweeter ARE than ARTS snore."[28]
I may observe here that there has been on the part of Irish
Continental scholars an extraordinary amount of discordant theories as
to the scansion of the Irish classical metres. None of them seem to be
agreed as to how to scan them. Zimmer insists that the word-accent and
the metrical accent in Irish are identical, which, as Kuno Meyer has
shown, is plainly not the case. He would probably scan--
"Or wíld geese thát scream fróm fàr,"
while Kuno Meyer again would insist on reading--
"Ór wild geése that scréam from fár,"
because, as he says, all heptasyllabic lines are to be read as
trochaic, a theory which may apply very well to some lines, as to the
above, but which is almost certain to break down after a line or two,
as in the very next line of this verse which I have taken for a model--
"Théy sweet / ér are / thán Arts / snóre,"
a scansion which does extraordinary violence to the natural
pronunciation of the words. I, for my part, do not believe that there
was ever any real metrical accent, that is, any real alternation of
stressed and unstressed syllables in the classical Irish metres.[29]
The one thing certain about them is the fixed number of syllables and
the rhyme, but each verse was, as it were, separately scanned, if one
may use such a term, on its own merits. Thus the verse just quoted
would be read some way thus--
"To hear handsome
Women _weep_
In _deep_ distress,
Sobbing sore,
Or gangs of geese
Scream from _far_,
They sweeter _are_
Than Arts snore."
I have frequently heard preserved in ranns or proverbs, even to this
day, isolated quatrains in these classic metres pronounced by the
people,[30] and they never dream of pronouncing them otherwise than
according to the natural stress of the voice upon the words themselves,
as if they were talking prose,--they never attempt to transform the
seven-syllable lines into trochees, as Kuno Meyer would, nor the
eight-syllable lines into iambics. Of this old Gaelic prosody there
appears to be a distinct reminiscence in Burns. Take this verse of his
for example--
"Blythe, blythe, and merry was she,
Blythe was she but and ben,
Blythe by the banks of Ern,
And blythe in Glenturit glen."
This, supplying, say the syllable "and," in the second and third lines
makes a good Rannaigheacht mór quatrain, which the poet evidently
pronounced exactly as an old Irish bard would have done.
"Blythe, blythe,
And merry was she,
And blythe was she
But and ben,
Blythe by
The banks of Ern,
And blythe in
Glenturit glen."
Bonaventura O'Hussey was another fine classical poet of the beginning
of the seventeenth century. He was educated for a bard, but afterwards
became a Franciscan in Louvain, where he wrote and published an Irish
work on Christian Doctrine in 1608, which was reprinted in Antwerp
three years later. The Irish, having no press of their own in Ireland
(though they had some outside it), were obliged to print and set up all
their books abroad, chiefly at Louvain, Antwerp, Rome, and Paris. Any
attempt to introduce founts of Irish type in the teeth of the English
Government would, I think, have been futile, so that except for the
works she was able to print in Irish type abroad, and afterwards to
smuggle in, Ireland during the seventeenth century was thrown nearly
a couple of hundred years out of the world's course, by having to use
manuscripts instead of printed books. It is curious to find O'Hussey
compressing the Christian doctrine into two hundred and forty lines of
the most accurate Deibhidh metre. When leaving for his foreign home he
bade farewell to Erin in a poem of great beauty.
"_Slowly_ pass my Aching =Eye=,
Her _Holy_ Hills of =beau=ty
Neath me TOSSING To and =fro=,
Hoarse CRies the CROSSING =bil=low."[31]
In another poem he laments sorely at leaving the poets and the schools
"to try another trade," that of a cleric, which he says he does, not
because he thinks less of poetry, or because the glory that was once
to be had from it was departing amongst the people of Erin, but from
religious motives alone.
"Now I _stand_ to Try a =Trade=
Mid Bardic B_and_ less =fa=mèd
Than the P_art_ of Poet =is=
Hacked is my H_eart_ in =pie=ces.
'Tis not that I Veer from =Verse=
So Followed by my =Fa=thers,
Lest the _fame_ it Once did =Win=
In _vain_ be Asked in =Eri=n."[32]
Fearfeasa O'Cainti was another well-known poet of this period who
attempted to rouse the Irish to action. Here are a few of his verses to
the O'Driscoll--
"Many a Mulct--requite their =sin=--
Fetch from them heir of =Finn=in;
Spare not to SPURN the brute =Gall=
To BURN the BEAR and =jack=al.[33]
Ruthless Rapine leads them on
Slaying CHief CHild CHampion!
BLood they BLINDLY _spilt_, no law
BINDING their _guilt_ in Banba.
Pour their BLood to BLEND with blood,
Conor HAND of Hardihood,
CALL for ransom not my King;
Slay ALL, be Untransacting.
Lies they Lie! their Love is one
With TReachery and TReason,
Nay! thou Needest NOT my spur;
Revenge is HOT, Remember!"
The quantity of verse composed in these classic metres all through
the seventeenth century was enormous, and amounts to at least twenty
thousand lines of the known poets not to speak of the anonymous ones.
Not more than a dozen of them have ever been published,[34] and yet no
one can pretend to understand the inner history of Ireland at that
period without a reference to them. Their chief characteristic is an
intense compression which produces an air of weighty sententiousness.
This was necessitated by the laws of their composition, which required
at the end of every second line a break or suspension of the sense
(such as in English would be usually expressed by a semi-colon or
colon), and which absolutely forbade any carrying over of the sense
from one stanza into another. Hence the thought of the poet had with
each fresh quatrain to be concentrated into twenty-eight syllables
(thirty syllables in Séadna metre), with a break or pause at the end of
the fourteenth (or fifteenth). Accordingly O'Gnive calls the poets the
"schoolmen of condensed speech,"[35] and the Scotch bard Mac Muirich in
the Red Book of Clanranald speaks of Teig Dall O'Hĭginn as putting into
less than a half-rann what others would take a whole crooked stanza to
express.[36] The classical metres went, in Irish, under the generic
name of _Dán Direach_, or "straight verse;" and O'Molloy, who wrote
an Irish prosody in Latin in the seventeenth century, carried away
by a contemplation of its difficulties, exclaims that it is "Omnium
quæ unquam vidi vel audivi, ausim dicere quæ sub sole reperiuntur,
difficilimum."
It was during the seventeenth century that the greatest change in the
whole poetical system of the Irish and Scotch Gaels was accomplished,
and that a new school of versification arose with new ideals, new
principles, and new methods, which we shall briefly glance at in the
following chapter.
[1] His real name was Mac Brodin, "Daré" or Dairé being his father's
name.
[2] _See_ above, p. 64.
[3] See O'Flanagan's "Transactions of the Gaelic Society, 1808," p. 29.
[4]
"Ar ghrádh ar uamhan, ná ar =fhuath=
Ná beir (bi ad' bhreitheamh =nea=mh-luath)
Breith nár _chóir_, a _Dhonchadh_, =dhuit=,
Ar _chomhthaibh óir_ ná =ar=guit."
This fine poem, containing in all 220 lines, was published by
O'Flanagan in 1808.
[5]
"Tig díom da ndearntaoi m'=fioghail=
Gríosadh bhur ngruadh =lasamh=ail,
Fios bhur gníomh a's gníomh bhur =sean=
Tig a sgrios díom no a n=di=dean."
From a MS. of my own; this poem contains a hundred lines.
[6]
"Ni bhi díon i ndiamhraibh gleann
Ná i bhfíodh dhlúith uaignach fhairseang,
Ná i múr caomh _cneas-aolta_ cuir,
Ag fear m'_easaonta_ ó'm armuibh.
Múchadh deigh-ghníomh, deargadh gruadh,
Toirmeasg ratha re diombuan,
Cur anma a's _eachta_ ar fhear
_Creachta_ ár n-airm-ne re n-áireamh."
[7]
"Tánac oidhche go h-Eas-Caoile
Budh cuimhin liom go lá an bhráith,
Mairfidh _choidhche_ ár _ndol_ do'n _dún-sa_
_Cor_ na _h-oidhche_ a's _cúrsa_ cháich."
Metre Séadna.
[8]
"Tána, Tochmairc, Toghla an bheatha,
Do bhi 'san aiscidh fuair mé,
_Mineachadh_ a _gcath_, 's a _gcéimeann_
_Sgath rí-leabhar Eireann_ é."
[9]
"Samhail na bhfear fuaireas rómham
'San rath foirththe do b'úr niamh
Ar sleasaibh _datha_ an _dúin chorcra_
Ni _fhaca súil rompa_ riamh."
See Catalogue of Irish MSS. in British Museum.
[10] It commences:--
"Sluagh seisir tháinig do m' thigh,
Béarfad uaim iúl an tseisir,
Tearc do lacht mé ar na mhárach
O thart na ré selánach (_i.e._, bitheamhnach);"
and the last verse runs:--
"Guidhim Dia do dhóirt a fhuil
O sé a mbás bheith na mbeathaidh,
(Ni mhairid gar marthain sin!)
Nár marbhthar an sluagh seisir."
_I.e._, "I pray to God who poured his blood, since it is their death to
be in life,--they do not live whose living is that of theirs!--may that
crew of six be never slain"! This last poem of the unfortunate Teig
Dall is preserved in H. 1. 17 T.C.D. f. 116, 6, whence I copied it, but
it has lately been printed in the brilliantly descriptive Catalogue of
the Irish MSS. in the British Museum.
[11] I found this poem in a MS. in Trinity College, Dublin, written by
one of the Maguires about the year 1700, but I forget its numbering. I
quote the verse from memory:--
"Och gan mé i g Cúl O fhFinn
Mar a bhfuil Tadhg O h-Uiginn,
Dfheudfainn suan go seasgar ann
Gan uamhain easgair orom."
[12] _See_ Hardiman's "Irish Minstrelsy," vol. ii. p. 102. But it may
not have been the same O'Gneev or O'Gnive, who laments Teig Dall, or if
it was, he must have been a very old man, seeing he accompanied Shane
O'Neill to London in 1562. His poem on the "Stepping-down of the Gael"
has been spiritedly translated by Sir Samuel Ferguson, beginning--
"My heart is in woe,
And my soul is in trouble,
For the mighty are low,
And abased are the noble."
But the metre is the favourite and dignified Deibhidh.
[13]
"Oighidh Thaidhg dhuan-sgagtha Dhoill,
Eag Eochaigh mhic Mhaoilsheachlainn,
Tug draoithe Eireann fá oil,
Géibheann maoithe fa mhenmoin."
From a manuscript of my own. _i.e._, "The tragic-fate of Teig Dall, the
Strainer-of-lays, the death of Eochaidh Mac Melaughlin has brought the
druids (_i.e._, learned poets) of Ireland under reproach, and fetters
of weakness on [their] spirits."
[14] This prince had also been eulogised by Teig Dall O'Hĭginn in a
poem of 164 lines, beginning _Mairg fheuchas ar Inis Ceithlind_, "Alas
for him who beholds Enniskillen."
[15] In the original--
"Fuar liom an oidhche-se d'Aodh!
Cúis tuirse troime a cith-bhraon!
Mo thruaighe sin d'ár seise [_i.e._, caraid!]
Nimh fuaire na h-oidhche-se.
Anocht is nimh lem' chridhe,
Fearthar frasa teinntidhe,
I gcómhdháil na gclá seacta
Mar tá is orgráin aigeanta."
The literal meaning of this last verse, which may be profitably
compared with Mangan's translation, is, "This night it is venom to my
heart how the fiery showers are rained down, in the company of the
frozen spikes; how it is, is a horror to the mind." The next verse is
also worth giving.
"Do h-osgladh as ochtuibh neóil
Doirse uisgidhe an aidheóir,
Tug sé minlinnte ann a muir,
Do sgeith an firmiminta hurbhuidh."
"There has been thrown open, out of the bosom of the clouds, the doors
of the waters of the air. It has made of little linns a sea; the
firmament has belched forth her destructiveness." The metre of the last
line in this verse is wrong, for it contains nine not seven syllables.
[16] O'Reilly mentions eight Mac-an-bháirds or Wards, eleven O'Clerys,
seven O'Coffeys, eight O'Hĭginnses, nine O'Mulconrys and no less than
twenty-eight O'Dalys, who were by far the most numerous and perhaps the
ablest bardic tribe in all Ireland.
[17] The metre of the original is hepta-syllabic, each line ending in a
dissyllable, and there is no regular beat or accentuation in the verse,
which though printed as a four-line stanza, would really run some way
thus--
"Foobon on ye,
Cringe _cowards_,
Are your _powers_
Departed?
Galls your country
Are _tearing_,
Over_bearing_,
Flint-hearted."
The Irish themselves, either through the influence of English verse or
through the natural evolution of the Irish language, changed this metre
in the next century into one not unlike my English verses above.
[18] This piece is taken from a manuscript of my own; I have never
met this fine poem elsewhere. The word _fooboon_, upon which the
changes are so rung, is new to me, and is not contained in any Irish
or Scotch-Gaelic dictionary, the nearest approach to it is O'Reilly's
_fúbta_, "humiliation"; but I find the words _fubub fubub_ in the sense
of "shame," "fy," in the Turner MS., "Reliquiæ Celticæ," vol. ii. p.
325. The metre of this poem is Little Rannaigheacht, and the first
verse runs thus--
"Fúbún fúibh a shluagh _Gaoidheal_
Ni mhair _aoin-neach_ agaibh
Goill ag comh-roinn bhur _gcríche_
Re sluagh _sithe_ mar [_i.e._ bhur] samhail."
Literally: "Fooboon to you, O host of the Gaels, not a man of you
is alive: the Galls are together-dividing your lands, while ye are
[unsubstantial] like a fairy host. The Clan Carthy of Leath Mogha
[_i.e._, Southern Ireland], and to call them out down to one man, there
is not--and sad is the disgrace--one person of them imitating the [old]
Gaels," etc.
[19] Yohy is the pronunciation of the Irish Eochaidh, genitive
Eochach, or even Eathach. The Eochaidh here alluded to is Eochaidh
Muigh-mhea-dhon [Mwee-va-on], father of Niall of the Nine Hostages.
He came to the throne in 356, and from his son Brian the O'Conors,
O'Rorkes, O'Reillys, MacDermots, etc., of Connacht are descended, who
all went under the generic name of the Ui Briain, as the families
descended from his other son, Niall of the Nine Hostages are the Ui
Neill. _See_ above, pp. 33 and 34.
[20] Bonnacht is a "mercenary soldier."
[21]
"O Néill Oiligh a's _Eamhna_
Ri _Teamhrach_ agus Tailltean,
Tugsad ar _iarlacht_ Uladh
_Ríoghacht_ go h-úmhal aimhghlic."
_I.e._, "O'Neill of Aileach and of Emania, King of Tara and of
Tailtinn, they have given away for the earldom of Ulster, a kingdom
submissively unwisely."
[22] Manus O'Donnell died in 1563, so that this poem must have been
composed somewhat earlier.
[23] This account of the later bardic schools is chiefly derived from a
curious book, the "Memoirs of Clanrickard," printed in London in 1722.
[24] Hence the bardic expression, "luidhe i leabaibh sgol," _i.e._, "to
lie in the beds of the schools," equivalent to becoming a poet.
[25] Campion, who wrote in 1574, says of the Irish of his day: "They
speake Latine like a vulgar language learned in their schooles of
Leachcraft and law, whereat they begin children and holde on sixteene
or twentie yeares." After the Battle of the Curlew Mountains,
MacDermot, anxious to let the Governor know where the body of Sir
Conyers Clifford lay, wrote a note to him in Latin.
[26] _See_ above, pp. 518-523.
[27] Of Little Rannaigheacht I gave an example a few pages back in the
poem "Fooboon." Séadna [Shayna] was another great favourite, built on
the model of the following verse, with or without alliteration--
"Teig of herds the Gallant Giver,
Right receiver of our love,
Teig thy Name shall KNow no _ending_,
Branch un-B_ending_, Erin's glove."
This verse runs rhythmically, but that it does so is only an accident.
The Irish could always have got their Séadna verses, at least, of eight
and seven syllables, to run smoothly if they had wished, but they did
not. Here is a more Irish-like stanza in the same metre--
"Of / lowliness / came a / daughter,
And / he who / brought her / was / God,
Noble / her / son and / stately,
Ennobling / greatly / this / sod."
Great Séadna is the same metre as this, except that every verse ends
with a word of three syllables. In Middle Séadna the first and third
lines end in trisyllables, the second and fourth in dissyllables.
Ae-fri-Slighe is like Middle Séadna, except that instead of the first
and third lines being octosyllabic, they all have seven syllables, as--
"Ye who bring to slavery
Men of mind and reading,
God bring down your bravery,
Leave you vexed and bleeding."
Little Deachna is a pretty metre with five syllables to each line, as--
"God gives me three _things_,
Them he _brings_ all three
When the soul is _born_
Like a _corn_ in me."
Great Deachna contained eight and six syllables, each line ending in
dissyllables--
"I believe this _wafer_ holy,
Which is _safer_ surely,
Flesh, blood, _Godhead_ strangely mingled,
In bread _bodied_ purely."
The above metres are a few of the most favourite.
[28]
"Mná módhach' go ngoimh ag gul,
Gan árach ar sgur d'á mbrón,
Caoi chadhain an oidhche fhuar
Is binne 'ná fuaim do shrón."
From a manuscript of my own, a comic poem by an anonymous bard, on a
snoring companion.
[29] Windisch appears to me to have come closest to the truth: "If
we suppose," he says, "that the accented syllable coincides with the
natural accent of the word, if we consider that polysyllabic words,
besides having an accented syllable, can also have a semi-accented one
(neben den Hauptton auch einen Nebenton haben können), finally, if we
take it for granted that the syllables in which rhyme or alliteration
appear must also bear the accent or up-beat of the voice (in der Hebung
stehen mussen), we then at once come to the conclusion that each
half-verse contains a specified number of accented syllables, without,
however, any _regular_ interchange of up and down beats of accented and
unaccented syllables."--_See_ "Irische Texte," I. i. p. 157.
[30] Thus when O'Carolan, in the last century, made the extempore
response to the butler who prohibited his entering the cellar
"Mo chreach a Dhiarmuid Ui Fhloinn
Gan tu ar dorus ifrinn,
'S tu nach leigfeadh neach ad' chó'r
'San áit bheitheá do dhoirseóir."
He spoke (perhaps unwittingly) an excellent Deibhidh stanza, but he
never scanned it,
"Mó chreach / á Dhiar / múid Ui / Fhloínn
Gan tu / ár dor / us if / rinn."
He said,
"Mo chreách / a Dhíarmuid / Uí / Fhloínn
Gan tú / ar dórus / ifrinn."
So, too, in a rann I heard from a friend in the county Mayo, and
printed in my "Religious Songs of Connacht," p. 232:--
"Ni meisge is miste liom
Acht leisg a feicsint orom [orm],
Gan digh meisge's miste an greann
Acht ni gnáth meisge gan mi-greann,"
which is not spoken as--
"Ní meis / gé is / míste liom,"
but as--
"Ni / méisge / is míste / liom."
[31]
"Do chuadar as rinn mo ruisg
Do tholcha is áluinn éaguisg,
Is _tuar orcra_ dá n-éisi
_Dromla fhuar_ na h-aibheisi."
From a manuscript of my own.
[32]
"Ni fuath d'ealadhain m' _aithreach_
Thug fúm _aigneadh_ aithrigheach,
No an _ghlóir_ do _gheibhthí_ dá chionn
Ar _neimhuidh ó phór_ Eirionn."
From a manuscript of my own. This poem appears not to have been known
to O'Reilly.
[33]
"Iomdha eiric nach í sin
Agad a oighre Fhinghin,
Gan _séana_ ar _garbh-amhsaibh_ Gall
_Méala_ an _t-amhgar-soin_ d'fhulang."
_I.e._, "Many an eric that is not that, [be] to thee, O heir of
Finneen, without refusing [to inflict loss] on the coarse-monsters of
Galls: a grief to endure that affliction!" From a manuscript of my
own. This poem was also unknown to O'Reilly. It consists of 180 lines,
and begins _Leó féin cuirid clann Iotha, i.e._ "By themselves go the
children of the Ithians," of whom the O'Driscolls were the chief tribe.
For an account of the little band of Ithians, the fourth division of
the Gaelic family see above, p. 67.
[34] Since writing the above a German Celticist, Ludwig Christian
Stern, has written a most interesting account of a collection of bardic
poems, chiefly of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, now preserved
in the Royal Library at Copenhagen. This interesting collection is
chiefly dedicated to the praises of the Maguires of Fermanagh, and is
the work of a number of accomplished poets, most of whom are unknown to
O'Reilly, even by name. The whole collection contains 5,576 lines, of
which Herr Julius Stern has printed about a thousand, thus having the
honour of being the first to render accessible a fair specimen of the
work of the current poetry of the schools in the sixteenth century. The
characteristics of this poetry he appraises, very justly as I think, in
the following words, "The language is choice and difficult, the poetry
is of the traditional type, poor in facts, but elevated, stately,
learned, and _very artistic_." See for this interesting article the
"Zeitschrift für Celtische Philologie," II. Band, 2 Heft., pp. 323-373,
"Eine Sammlung irischer Gedichte in Kopenhagen."
[35]
"Ni mhair sgoluidhe sgéil teinn
D'uibh nDálaigh ná d'uibh n-Uiginn."
From a manuscript of my own.
[36] "Reliquiæ Celticæ," vol. ii. p. 297. Last stanza.