LYRICS
and internal alliteration. The earliest example is the
eulogy to Colm Cille, composed by Eochaid Dallán
Forgaill circa 600. It begins:
God, God, may I beg of him
before I go to face Him
Through the chariots of battle.
God of heaven, may He not leave me
in the path where there’s screaming
From the weight of oppression.Over a period of time, possibly influenced by the new
Latin poetry, there developed the new meters based on
syllabic count that lasted until the seventeenth century.
These contain stanzas, alliteration, consonance, and
rhyme that are impossible to illustrate in translation.
Prosimetrum, the combination of prose and poetry,
is unusually common in early Irish sagas. Although
some sagas contain no poetry, most prose tales include
poems that appear at points of high emotion. The poem
by Líadain from the saga The meeting of Líadain and
Cuirithir, where she bemoans hurting her lover,
Cuirithir, by entering a convent, for example:
Without pleasure
the deed that I have done;
the one loved I have vexed (tormented.)...
I am Líadan;
I loved Cuirithir,
It is as true as is said.
...
A roar of fire
has split my heart;
for certain, without him it will not live
Many of the early lyrics are characterized by a love
of nature and an appreciation of birds and of animals:
The little bird
that has whistled
from the end of a bill
bright-yellow.There is also a strong tendency for the use of masks
throughout, and nearly a total absence of personal,
emotional poetry. In the poem about his cat, White
Pangur, the persona of the poet is at its most immediate
here, and the voice feels modern, individual, and self-
reflective:
I and white Pangur
practice each of us his special art:
his mind is set on hunting,
mymind on my special craft.
It is usual, at times, for a mouse to stick
in his net, as a result of warlike battlings.
for my part, into my net falls some
difficult rule of hard meaning.These poets use older, preestablished masks that
depend on the audience recognizing the character, for
example, Finn Mac Cumaill:
I have tidings for you:
the stag bells;
winter pours;
summer is gone;
Wind is high and cold;
the sun is low;
its course is short;
the sea runs strongly...
Many masks are female; they give a male poet the
power to express emotions that might otherwise be
seen as female fragility. One historical female poet,
Úallach daughter of Muinechán, appears in the annals,
and the following poem, the Caillech Bérre, may have
been composed by a woman.
Ebb-tide to me as to the sea;
old age causes me to be sallow;
although I may grieve thereat,
It comes to its food joyfully.
I am the Old Woman of Beare, from Dursey;
I used to wear a smock that was always new.
Today I am become so thin that I would not
Wear out even a cast-off smock.
Religious poetry also uses masks, for example,
Colm Cille:
My hand is weary with writing;
mysharp great point is not thick;
myslender-beaked pen juts forth a
beetle-hued draught of bright blue ink.
The early lyrical hymns remain anonymous:
Shame to my thoughts
how they stray from me!
I dread great danger from it
on the day of lasting doom.
Finally, there are those stray stanzas, personal,
funny, and touching:
I do not know
who Etan will sleep with,
but I do know that blond Etan
Will not sleep alone.
He’s my heart,
a grove of nuts,
he’s my boy,
here’s a kiss for him.
Bitter is the wind tonight,
it tosses the sea’s white hair;
I do not fear the wild warriors from Norway,
Who course on a quiet sea.MUIREANN NÍ BHROLCHÁIN