RISE OF A NEW SCHOOL
In poetry the external form, or framework, or setting of the poetic
thought--the word-building in which the thought is enshrined--has
varied vastly from age to age and from nation to nation. There is the
system of the Greeks and Romans, according to which every syllable
of every word is, as it were, hall-marked with its own "quantity,"
counted, that is, (often almost independently of the pronunciation) to
be in itself either short or long, and their verse was made by special
collocations of these short or long syllables--a form highly artistic
and beautiful.
Then there is the principle of the Anglo-Saxon, Icelandic, and Teutonic
peoples, which prevailed in England even down to the time of Chaucer,
in which verse is marked only by accent and staff-rhyme, in other words
is alliterative as in the "Book of Piers Ploughman."
Lastly, there is the rhymed poetry of the later Middle Ages, of which
outside of Wales and Ireland there probably exists no example in
a European vernacular language older than the ninth century. This
system, apparently invented by the Celts, assumed in Ireland a most
extraordinary and artificial form of its own, the essence of which was
that they divided the consonants into _groups_,[1] and any consonant
belonging to a particular group was allowed to rhyme with any other
consonant belonging to the same. Thus a word ending in _t_ could rhyme
with a word ending in _p_ or _c_, but with no other; a word ending
in _b_ could rhyme with one ending in _g_ or _dy_ but with no other,
and so on. Thus "rap" would have been considered by the Irish to make
perfect rhyme with "sat" or "mac" but not with "rag"; and "rag" to make
perfect rhyme with "slab" or "mad," but not with "cap," "sat" or "mac."
This classification of the consonants which was taught in the Irish
schools for very many hundred years, and which forms the basis of
the classical poetry which we spoke of in the last chapter, is to a
considerable extent--I do not quite know how far--founded upon really
sound phonological principles,[2] and the ear of the Irishman was so
finely attuned to it that no mistake was ever made, for while such
rhymes as "Flann" and "ram" fell agreeably on his ear, any Irish poet
for a thousand years would have shuddered to hear "Flann" rhymed with
"raff." This accurate ear for the classification of consonants is now
almost a lost sense, but even still traces of it may be found in the
barbarous English rhymes of the Irish peasantry, as in such rude verses
as this from the County Cavan--
"By loving of a maiD,
One Catherine Mac CaBe,
My life it was betrayeD,
She's a dear maid on me."
Or this--
"I courted lovely _Mary_ at the _age_ of sixteeN
Slender was her _waist_ and her carriage genteeL."
Or this from the County Dublin--
"When you were an acorn on the tree toP
Then was I an aigle[3] coCK,
Now that you are a withered ould bloCK
Still am I an aigle cock."
Or this from the County Cork--
"Sir Henry kissed behind the bush
Sir Henry kissed the QuaKer;
Well and what if he did
Sure he didn't aTe her!"
Upon the whole, however, that keen perception for the nuances of sound,
and that fine ear which insisted upon a liquid rhyming only with a
fellow liquid, and so on of the other classes, may be considered as
almost wholly lost.
We now come to the great breaking up and total disruption of the Irish
prosody as employed for a thousand years by thousands of poets in the
bardic schools and colleges. The principles of this great change may
be summed up in two sentences; first, _the adoption of vowel rhyme in
place of consonantal rhyme_; second, _the adoption of a certain number
of accents in each line in place of a certain number of syllables_.
These were two of the most far-reaching changes that could overtake
the poetry of any country, and they completely metamorphosed that of
Ireland.
It was only on the destruction of the great Milesian and Norman
families in the seventeenth century, that the rules of poetry, so long
and so carefully guarded in the bardic schools, ceased to be taught;
and it was the break up of these schools which rendered the success of
the new principles possible. A brilliant success they had. Almost in
the twinkling of an eye Irish poetry completely changed its form and
complexion, and from being, as it were, so bound up and swathed around
with rules that none who had not spent years over its technicalities
could move about in it with vigour, its spirit suddenly burst forth
in all the freedom of the elements, and clothed itself, so to speak,
in the colours of the rainbow. Now indeed for the first time poetry
became the handmaid of the many, not the mistress of the few; and
through every nook and corner of the island the populace, neglecting
all bardic training, burst forth into the most passionate song. Now,
too, the remnant of the bards--the great houses being fallen--turned
instinctively to the general public, and threw behind them the
intricate metres of the schools, and dropped too, at a stroke, several
thousand words, which no one except the great chiefs and those trained
by the poets understood, whilst they broke out into beautiful, and at
the same time intelligible verse, which no Gael of Ireland and Scotland
who has ever heard or learned it is likely ever to forget. This is to
my mind perhaps the sweetest creation of all Irish literature, the
real glory of the modern Irish nation, and of the Scottish Highlands,
this is the truest note of the enchanting Celtic siren, and he who has
once heard it and remains deaf to its charm can have little heart for
song or soul for music. The Gaelic poetry of the last two centuries
both in Ireland and in the Highlands is probably the most sensuous
attempt to convey music in words, ever made by man. It is absolutely
impossible to convey the lusciousness of sound, richness of rhythm, and
perfection of harmony, in another language. Scores upon scores of new
and brilliant metres made their appearance, and the common Irish of the
four provinces deprived of almost everything else, clung all the closer
to the Muse. Of it indeed they might have said in the words of Moore--
"Through grief and through danger thy smile has cheered my way
Till hope seemed to bud from each thorn that round about me lay."
It is impossible to convey any idea of this new outburst of Irish
melody in another language. Suffice it to say that the principle of it
was a wonderful arrangement of vowel sounds, so placed that in every
accented syllable, first one vowel and then another fell upon the ear
in all possible kinds of harmonious modifications. Some verses are
made wholly on the Á sound, others on the Ó, Ú, É, Í sounds, but the
majority on a wonderful and fascinating intermixture of two, three, or
more. The consonants which played so very prominent a part under the
old bardic system were utterly neglected now, and vowel sounds alone
were sought for.
The Scottish Gaels, if I am not mistaken, led the way in this great
change, which metamorphosed the poetry of an entire people in both
islands. The bardic system, outside of the kingdom of the Lord of the
Isles, had apparently scarcely taken the same hold upon the nobles,
in Scotland as in Ireland, and the first modern Scotch Gaelic poet to
start upon the new system seems to have been Mary, daughter of Alaster
Rua MacLeod, who was born in Harris in 1569, and who appears to have
possessed no higher social standing than that of a kind of lady nurse
in the chief's family. If the nine poems in free vowel metres, which
are attributed to her by Mackenzie in his great collection,[4] be
genuine, then I should consider her as the pioneer of the new school.
Certainly no Irishman nor Irishwoman of the sixteenth century has left
anything like Mary's metres behind them, and indeed I have not met more
than one or two of them used in Ireland during that century.[5] No one,
for instance, would have dreamt of vowel-rhyming thus, as she does over
the drowning of Mac'Illachallun:
"My _grief_ my _pain_,
Re_lief_ was _vain_
The _seething wave_
Did _leap_ and _rave_,
And _reeve_ in _twain_,
Both _sheet_ and _sail_,
And _leave_ us _bare_
And FOUNDERING.
Alas, _indeed_,
For her you _leave_
Your brothers _grief_
To them will _cleave_.
It was on _Eas_ter
Monday's _feast_
The branch of _peace_
Went DOWN WITH YOU."
The earliest intimations of the new school in Ireland which I have been
able to come across, occur towards the very close of the sixteenth
century, one being a war ode on a victory of the O'Byrnes,[6] and the
other being an abhran or song addressed by a bard unknown to me, one
John Mac Céibhfinn to O'Conor Sligo, apparently on his being blockaded
by Red Hugh in the country of the Clan Donogh in 1599.
As for the classical metres of the schools they were already completely
lost by the middle of the eighteenth century, and the last specimen
which I have found composed in Connacht is one by Father Patrick
O'Curneen,[7] to the house of the O'Conors, of Belanagare, in 1734,
which is in perfect Deibhidh metre.
"She who Rules the Race is =one=
SPrung from the sparring =Ter=non,
MARY MILD of MIEN O'=Rorke=,
Our FAIRY CHILD QUEEN =bul=wark.[8]
Let me Pray the puissant =one=
To Mark them in their =Man=sion,
Guard from FEAR their FAME and =wed=
Each YEAR their NAME and =home=stead."
In Munster I find the poet Andrew Mac Curtin some time between the year
1718 and 1743,[9] complaining to James Mac Donnell, of Kilkee, that he
had to frame "a left-handed awkward ditty of a thing," meaning a poem
of the new school; "but I have had to do it," he says, "to fit myself
in with the evil fashion that was never practised in Erin before, since
it is a thing that I see, that greater is the respect and honour every
dry scant-educated boor, or every clumsy _baogaire_ of little learning,
who has no clear view of either alliteration or poetry,[10] gets from
the noblemen of the country, than the courteous very-educated shanachy
or man of song, if he compose a well-made lay or poem." Nevertheless,
he insists that he will make a true poem, "although wealthy men of
herds, or people of riches think that I am a fool if I compose a lay or
poem in good taste, that is not my belief. Although rich men of herds,
merchants, or people who put out money to grow, think that great is
the blindness and want of sense to compose a _duan_ or a poem, they
being well satisfied if only they can speak the Saxon dialect, and are
able to have stock of bullocks or sheep, and to put redness [_i.e._, of
cultivation] on hills--nevertheless, it is by me understood that they
are very greatly deceived, because their herds and their heavy riches
shall go by like a summer fog, but the scientific work shall be there
to be seen for ever," etc. The poem which he composed on that occasion
was, perhaps, the last in Deibhidh metre composed in the province of
Munster.[11]
In Scotland the Deibhidh was not forgotten until after Sheriffmuir,
in 1715. There is an admirable elegy of 220 lines in the Book of
Clanranald on Allan of Clanranald, who was there slain.[12] It is
in no way distinguishable from an Irish poem of the same period.
There are other poems in this book in perfect classical metres, for
in the kingdom of the Lord of the Isles the bards and their schools
may be said to have almost found a last asylum. Indeed, up to this
period, so far as I can see,--whatever may have been the case with
the spoken language--the written language of the two countries was
absolutely identical, and Irish bards and harpers found a second
home in North Scotland and the Isles, where such poems as those of
Gerald, fourth Earl of Desmond, appear to have been as popular as
they were in Munster. We may, then, place the generation that lived
between Sheriffmuir and Culloden as that which witnessed the end
of the classical metres in both countries, over all Ireland and
Gaelic-speaking Scotland, from Sutherland in the North, to the County
Kerry in the South, so that, from that day to this, vowel-rhyming
accented metres which had been making their way in both countries from
a little before the year 1600, have reigned without any rival.
Wonderful metres these were. Here is an example of one made on the
vowels é [æ] and ó, but while the arrangement in the first half of the
verse is o/é, é/o, é/o, o; the arrangement in the second half is o é,
o é, o é, é. I have translated it in such a way as to mark the vowel
rhymes, and this will show better than anything else the plan of Irish
poetry during the last 250 years. To understand the scheme thoroughly
the vowels must not be slurred over, but be dwelt upon and accentuated
as they are in Irish.
"The pOets with lAys are uprAising their nOtes
In amAze, and they knOw how their tOnes will delight,
For the gOlden-hair lAdy so grAceful, so pOseful,
So gAElic, so glOrious enthrOned in our sight
UnfOlding a tAle, how the sOul of a fAy must
Be clOthed in the frAme of a lAdy so bright,
UntOld are her grAces, a rOse in her fAce is
And nO man so stAid is but fAints at her sight."[13]
Here is another verse of a different character, in which three words
follow each other in each line, all making a different vowel-rhyme.
"O _swan_ brightly GLEAMING o'er _ponds_ whitely BEAMING,
Swim _on_ lightly CLEAVING and =_flashing_= through sea,
The _wan_ night is LEAVING my _fond_ sprite in GRIEVING
Be_yond_ sight, or SEEING thou'rt =_passing_= from me."
Here is another typical verse of a metre in which many poems were made
to the air of Moreen ni [nee] Cullenáin. It is made on the sounds of o,
ee, ar--o, ar--o, repeated in the same order four times in every verse,
the second and third o's being dissyllables. It is a beautiful and
intricate metre.
"AlOne with mE a bARd rOving
On guARd gOing ere the dawn,
Was bOld to sEE afAR rOaming
The stAR MOreen ni Cullenaun.
The Only shE the ARch-gOing
The dARk-flOwing fairy fawn,
With sOulful glEE the lARks sOaring
Like spARks O'er her lit the lawn."[14]
Here is another metre from a beautiful Scotch Gaelic poem. The Scotch
Gaels, like the Irish, produced about the same time a wonderful
outburst of lyric poetry worthy to take a place in the national
literature beside the spirited ballads of the Lowlands. Unlike the
Lowlands, however, neither they nor the Irish can be said to have at
all succeeded with the ballad.
"To a fAR mountain hARbour
Prince ChARlie came flYing,
The wInds from the HIghlands
Wailed wIld in the air,
On his breast was no stAR,
And no guARd was besIde him,
But a girl by him glIding
Who guIded him there.
Like a rAy went the mAiden
Still fAithful, but mOurning,
For ChARlie was pARting
From heARts that adOred him,
And sIghing besIde him
She spIed over Ocean
The Oarsmen befOre them
ApprOaching their lair."[15]
These beautiful and recondite measures were meant apparently to imitate
music, and many of them are wedded to well-known airs. They did not
all come into vogue at the same time, but reached their highest pitch
of perfection and melody--melody at times exaggerated, too luscious,
almost cloying--about the middle of the eighteenth century, at a time
when the Irish, deprived by the Penal laws of all possibility of
bettering their condition or of educating themselves, could do nothing
but sing, which they did in every county of Ireland, with all the
sweetness of the dying swan.
Dr. Geoffrey Keating, the historian, himself said to have been a casual
habitué of the schools of the bards, and a close friend of many of the
bardic professors, was nevertheless one of the first to wring himself
free from the fetters of the classical metres, and to adopt an accented
instead of a syllabic standard of verse. We must now go back and give
some account of this remarkable man, and of some of his contemporaries
of the seventeenth century.
[1]
Their classification was as follows:--
S stood by itself because of the peculiar phonetic laws which it obeys.
P.C.T. called soft consonants [really hard not soft].
B.G.D. called hard consonants [these are in fact rather soft than hard],
F. CH. TH. called rough consonants.
LL. M. NN. NG. RR. called strong consonants.
Bh. Dh. Ch. Mh. L.N.R. called light consonants.
[2] "Diese Klasseneinteilung bekundet einen feinen Sinn für das Wesen
der Laute," says Herr Stern, in the article I have just quoted from.
See also the prosody in O'Donovan's grammar.
[3] "Eagle." This English rann dramatically denotes the longevity of
that bird, as does also a well-known Irish one.
[4] See for her poems "Sár-obair na mbárd Gaelach," by Mackenzie, p.
22. Unfortunately he gives us no full account of where the poems were
collected, all he says is, "We have the authority of several persons
of high respectability, and on whose testimony we can rely, that
Mary McLeod was the veritable authoress of the poems attributed to
her in this work." This is, in an important matter of the kind, very
unsatisfactory, but Mary's poem, "_An talla 'm bu ghná le MacLeód_,"
seems to bear internal evidence of its own antiquity in its allusions
to the chief's bow--
"Si do lámh nach robh tuisleach,
Dol a chaitheadh a chuspair
Led' bhogha cruaidh ruiteach deagh-neóil,"
to which she alludes again in the line--
"Nuair leumadh an tsaighead ó do mheoir."
("When the arrow would leap from your fingers.")
[5] There are some poems in the Book of Ballymote in almost the same
metre as the well-known "Seaghan O'Duibhir an Ghleanna." This metre
was technically called, "Ocht-foclach Corranach beag." O'Curry gives
a specimen in "Manners and Customs," vol. iii. p. 393, from the Book
of Ballymote which has an astonishingly modern air, and may well give
pause to those who claim that Irish accentual poetry is derived from an
English source.
[6] This poem, which like O'Daly's war-song, is entirely accentual and
vowel-rhyming, begins thus--
"A _Bhratach_ ar a _bhfaicim-se_ in _gruaim_ ag fás
Dob' _annamh_ leat in _eaglais_ do _bhuan_-choimheád,
Da _mairfeadh_ [sin] fear-_seasta_ na _gcruadh-throdán_
Feadh t'_amhairc_ do bhiadh _agat_ do'n _tuaith_ 'na h-áit.
O Flag, upon whom I see the melancholy growing,
Seldom was it thy lot to constantly guard the church (shut up there);
If there lived the man-who-withstood the hard conflicts
Far-as-thy-eye-could-see thou wouldst have of the country in place
of it" [_i.e._, the church.]
(See_ Catalogue of the MSS. in the British Museum.)
[7] The O'Curneens were, according to Mac Firbis's great Book of
Genealogies, the hereditary poets and ollamhs of the O'Rorkes, with
whom the O'Conors were closely related. The O'Conors' ollamh was
O'Mulchonry.
[8] This poem begins--
"Togha teaghlaigh tar gach tír
Beul átha na gcárr gclaidh-mhín
Múr is fáilteach re file
An dún dáilteach deigh-inigh."
_I.e._, "A choice hearth beyond every country, is the mouth of the ford
of the cars [Belanagare], the smooth-ditched. A fortress welcome-giving
to poet, the bestowing homestead of good generosity." The accented
system had now been in vogue for nearly a century and a half, and if
O'Curneen had wished to preserve an even rise and fall of accent in
his verses (which he does do in his first line) he might have done so.
That he did not do so, and that none of the straight-verse or classical
poets attempted it, long after they had become acquainted with the
other system, seems to me a strong proof that they did not intend it,
and that they really possessed no system of "metrical accent" at all.
It is noticeable that O'Curneen wrote this poem in the difficult bardic
dialect, so that Charles O'Conor of Belanagare, whose native language
was Irish, was obliged in his copy to gloss over twenty words of it
with more familiar ones of his own. These uncommon bardic terms were
wholly thrown aside by the new school.
[9] His poem with its prose Irish preface is addressed to Sorley Mac
Donnell, and Isabel, his wife, who was an O'Brien. They were married in
1718, and Mac Donnell died in 1743. See a collection of poems written
by the Clare bards in honour of the Mac Donnells of Kilkee and Killone,
in the County of Clare, collected and edited by Brian O'Looney for
Major Mac Donnell, for private circulation in 1863.
[10] "Nach léir dó _uaim_ no aisde."
[11] I have since, however, found a poem by Micheál óg O'Longain,
written as late as 1800, which goes somewhat close to real Deibhidh. It
begins--
"Tagraim libh a Chlann Éibhir,
Leath bhur lúith nach lán léir libh
Méala dhaoibh thar aoin eile
A dul d'éag do'n gaoidheilge."
[12] Cameron's "Reliquiæ Celticæ," vol. ii. p. 248.
[13] This is a poem by the Cork bard, Tadhg Gaolach O'Sullivan, who
died in 1800. He wrote this poem in his youth, before his muse gave
itself up, as it did in later days, to wholly religious subjects. In
the original the rhymes are on é and ú.
"Taid Éigse 'gus Úghdair go trÚpach ag plÉireacht
So sÚgach, go sglÉipeach 's a ndrÉachta dá snígheam
Ar SpÉir-bhruinnioll mhÚinte do phlÚr-sgoth na h-Éireann
Do Úr-chriostal gAOlach a's rÉiltion na righeacht;
Ta fiÚnn-lil ag plÉireacht mar dhÚbha ar an Éclips,
Go clÚdaighthe ag PhoÉbus, le AOn-ghile gnaoi,
'Sgur'na gnÚis mhilis lÉightear do thÚirling Cupid caÉmh-ghlic
Ag mÚchadh 'sag milleadh lAOchra le trEan-neart a shaoighid."
[14]
"_D' easgadh_ an _pheacaidh, fóríor_,
Do _sheól sinn_ faoi dhlighthibh námhad,
Gan _flathas Airt_, ag _pór Gaoidheal_,
Gan _seóid puinn_, gan cion gan áird,
'Sgach _bathlach bracach beól-bhuidhe_
De'n _chóip chríon_ do rith thar sáil
I _gceannas flaîth 's_ i _gcóimh-thigheas_
Le _Móirín_ ni Chuillionáin."
This is a verse from the same poem, but not the one above translated.
[15] _See_ "Eachtraidh a' Phrionnsa le Iain Mac Coinnich," p. 270. The
poem is by D. B. Mac Leóid. It looks like a later production, but will
exemplify a not uncommon metre.
Gu cladach a' _chuàin_
Ri _fuar_-ghaoth an Anmoich
Thriall TeArlach gan deAllradh
Air Allaban 's e sgìth,
Gun reull air a bhroIlleach
No freIceadan a fAlbh leis
Ach ainnir nan gòrm-shul
Bu dealbhaiche lìth.
Mar _dhaoimean_ 'san _oidhche_
Bha(n) _mhaighdean_ fu _thùrsa_
Si _cràiteach_ mu _Thearlach_
Bhi _fàgail_ a _dhùthcha_;
Bu trom air a _h-osna_,
S bu _ghoirt_ deòir a _sùilean_
Nuair chonnaic i 'n _iùbhrach_
A' _dlùthadh_ re tìr.