Irish / Gaelic
Irish Poetics in Gaelic: 8th-9th Centuries
Early Irish poetry had a number of specific forms to choose from, and there is even extant evidence of the
period terms for those meters and forms.1 One of my main sources in my present research begins by
admitting that, “Irish metrics is a wide and complicated subject” before going on to give just enough
examples to “give the reader some appreciation of the technicalities of the Irish verse-forms in the present
volume.”2 The main texts I was using, however, used a modern notation for the various meters that givens
a different perspective of both the recurring trends and yet wide variety of available meters and patterns3.
In many ways, the impression I got reading through the collection in Lehmann was of a framework in
which the poet establishes certain features in stanza one—the number of syllables per line, the number of
syllables in each end word, which lines rhyme with each other, and whether there is to be some linking
rhyme or internal rhyme or end-word consonance to further tie the stanza together—and having chosen
those features, repeats the pattern with each successive stanza. Even then, the very first line may be
significantly shortened, especially to three syllables, particularly if that line is used to set the subject
and/or address the nominal audience of the poem. Also, some features, such as alliteration, linking rhyme
and internal rhyme might be used to varying extents across the poem, perhaps only in a couple of key
stanzas to make them extra ornamented. Added to this basic framework, there are poems in which the
stanzas vary far more than that, requiring a paragraph’s worth of shorthand notation to track everything
going on from stanza to stanza as the meter alters. While there are numerous named verse forms, “A
poem is not necessarily composed in stanzas of the same metre,” giving rise to even more variation within
the various available poetic frameworks.4
Form & Subject: Choice & Execution
Given all of this, I was left with a profound sense of having only scratched the surface of the interlocking
rules at play. Rather than attempt any more free-form setting of criteria in an opening stanza, therefore, I
decided to imitate a meter more exactly from an extant poem. I chose “Dom-farcai fidbaide fál” (“Writing
in the Wood”), looking also at another poem on writing, “Is scíth mo chrob ón scríbainn” (“The Weary
Scribe”), and considering thematically yet another writing/scribing poem, the famous “Pangur Ban.”
Many, many Irish poems feature birds, particularly blackbirds5, including my primary model poem, so I
quickly decided I wanted to include a blackbird as well. There are also multiple poems in which the
speaker compares their own activity or life to that of a nearby animal—for example the scholar and his cat
1
Lehmann, Ruth P.M. trans & ed. Early Irish Verse. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982; p.8. See also O’Brien,
Maureen. “Irish Poetic Forms” < http://suburbanbanshee.net/irishptr/drchpoem/index.html> .
2
Carney, James. Medieval Irish Lyrics with The Irish Bardic Poet. Dublin: The Dolman Press, 1967, (new edition
1985), x.
3
Carney; also Clancy, Thomas Owen and Gilbert Márkus. Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd., 1995.
4
Carney xiv.
5
For blackbirds alone see for example Lehmann’s #2, 3, 4, 24, 55, 57, 79, 85 etc.; also Carney XXVII in addition to
overlaps from Lehmann.
in “Pangur Ban”, a grieving parent and a blackbird whose nest has been destroyed in “Cumthach labras in
lonsa”.6 I picked up this devise, having the bard speaker compare his singing to the blackbird’s.
Lehmann breaks down “Dom-farcai fidbaide fál” as follows: “Meter: 71 71 72 71; rime 2/4; consonance
1/2/4; st 1, linking rime ¾; st 2, linking rime ½, ¾; alliteration in all lines but 1.4” (Lehmann 25). In the
first set of numbers, the large numbers represent the number of syllables in the line, and the subscript
represents the number of syllables in the final word of the line.7 He indicates that lines 2 and 4 rhyme (in
notation of English quatrains we would usually say this was an ABCB rhyme scheme).8 By consonance,
Lehmann usually is referring to consonance of end words, so 1/2/4, where 2 and 4 already rhyme, means
that additionally line 1 has consonance with the rhyming pair without actually rhyming with them, for
example “lip” would have consonance with the rhyming pair “hope” and “rope.”9
Early Irish had different rules for rhyme than English has.10 Irish rhymed classes of consonants, not
identical ones.11 For instance, all voiceless stopes would have rhymed so that “hope” “float” and “oak”
would all be excellent rhymes with one another.12 From studying Lehmann’s examples, I believe these
rules extended into consonance and alliteration as well13. I tried a short poem using these rules, but
worried that an English-trained ear would not actually pick up the various patterns at work in Irish verse if
I also used the Irish language rules of the time. So I wrote a second poem using Irish verse form rules, but
English rhyming rules to make the pattern play more clearly for an English-speaking audience.
Returning to the poetic form of “Dom-farcai fidbaide fál”, Lehmann next indicates that both verses had
linking rhyme from the end of line three into the beginning of line four.14 In stanza 2 there is additionally
a linking rhyme from the end of the first line into the beginning of the second.15 From analyzing the Irish
originals of various poems she has identified as including linking rhyme, this appears to mean the last
syllable of the first line involved to the first stressed syllable of the next line, even if the first stressed
syllable is not the first syllable. For example, “ní toirthech talam cen bráen,/ nim náem cen anam cen
dér” is explicitly identified as a linking rhyme.16 I took the linking rhyme from 3 to 4 as part of the
pattern, included as it was in both stanzas, and the linking rhyme from 1 to 2 as an optional
ornamentation, occurring as it did in only one stanza.
Lehmann indicates that all lines except the last line of the first stanza contained alliteration.17 While there
were more strictly alliterative forms of poetry in Irish, when it is included in the rhymed forms, it appears
6
Lehmann #54 and 55 respectively, pp. 60-62.
Lehmann 8
8
Lehmann 9, 25.
9
See Lehmann 9 for examples from Irish verse
10
Lehmann 5, 8; Carney xi.
11
Lehmann 8; Carney xi.
12
Lehmann 8; Carney xii.
13
Carney xiii essentially asserts these rules extend to consonance and that, in addition, the vowel should
correspond in length—short or long—for consonance.
14
Lehmann 9, 25.
15
Lehmann 25
16
Lehmann 9, bold markings are my own, substituting for Lehmann’s superscript with key; note that “n” and “m”
are in the same Irish consonant class, making this a perfect rhyme, not a slant rhyme by Irish rules. The same
stanza rhymes “chél” and “dér” which is even stranger to my ear as a perfect rhyme, not just assonance.
17
Lehmann 25
7
sprinkled through ornamentally, wherever it can be fit in around the other strictures of the form.18
Looking at the fourth line of the first stanza, I don’t see any alliteration per se, but I suspect the poet was
trying for it, and only managed internal consonance: “fom-chain trírech inna n-én”.19 There are a lot of
“n” sounds in the line, as well as an “m” and a couple “r” sounds, both of which are in the same
consonant class as “n.” From all of this, I decided that attempting alliteration for every line would be
ideal, but that missing it for the occasional line would be acceptable. It is worth noting that while rhyming
and consonance rules might work fluidly in the consonant classes Lehmann described, I frequently saw
exact consonants used for alliteration, though sometimes joined by consonants in their class.
Style
Carney comments in his introduction on the fascination and appreciation for nature demonstrated in early
Irish poetry, and on the impressionistic techniques often employed for the subject. He in turn quotes Kuno
Meyer who asserts that “In none of [these poems] do we get an elaborate or sustained description of any
scene or scenery, but rather a succession of pictures and images” for “they avoid the obvious and the
commonplace; the half-said thing to them is dearest”.20
Whereas Latin poetry of the time tended to be composed in sentences, Irish poetry tended to be composed
in a succession of smaller self-contained thoughts or phrases for each line.21 As Clancy and Márkus
summarized the effect, “Gaelic poetry tended to be composed in short phrases, each phrase appearing as a
complete ‘sense unit’, juxtaposed with others in the same line and stanza without explicit grammatical
conjunction”.22 Even from the 6th to 8th centuries, however, these lines were beginning to blur, and we
find poems composed in Latin (in Gaelic-speaking contexts) with a more Gaelic poetry esthetic and
poems in Gaelic that are one complete sentence.23
Dating of the poem
Carney dates this poem to the 9th century, surviving from the St. Gall Priscian.24 The Corpus of Electronic
Texts Edition hosted by University of Cork places it more specifically from 800-850 AD.25 The
manuscript source, also known as Cod. Sang. 904 from St. Gall, is currently dated around 845 AD, and is
substantially an Irish scriptorium copy of a 6th century work in Latin with numerous glosses, many of
them in Irish.26
18
Lehmann 4-5; more?
Carney 22
20
Meyer, Kuno. Ancient Irish Poetry. Quoted in Carney xx.
21
Clancy, Thomas Owen and Gilbert Márkus. Iona: The Earliest Poetry of a Celtic Monastery. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press Ltd, 1995. 34.
22
Clancy 34.
23
Clancy 34.
24
Carney 98
25
“Background details and bibliographic information: Dom-fharcai fidbaide fál” CELT: Corpus of Electronic Texts: a
project of University College, Cork. College Road, Cork, Ireland— http://www.ucc.ie/celt (1996) (2010). [Accessed
7/18/15]
26
“St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 904: Prisciani grammatical” e-Codices – Virtual Manuscript Library of
Switzerland. (http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/csg/0904). [Accessed 7/18/15]
19
(Cod. Sang. 904, pp. 203-4, bottom marginalia.)27
Dom-farcai fidbaidæ fál,
fom-chain loíd luin – lúad nad cél
húas mo lebrán, ind línech,
fom-chain trírech inna n-én.
Fomm-chain coí men – medair mass –
hi mbrot glass de dindgnaib doss.
Débrad! nom-choimmdiu coíma,
caín-scríbaimm fo foída ross.28
I was fortunate to have three translations to compare; Lehmann and Carney each attempted a translation
of the poem into an approximate rendering of the original poetic style, to which Lehmann additionally
added a more literal translation.29
Final Notes on Execution
I found this a tricky set of rules to get around at first. The combination of counting syllables—and seven
syllables does not make line length I am used to dealing with—with end rhyme, internal rhyme, end-word
syllable count, and alliteration were an unfamiliar combination and therefore tricky. Once I got going,
things came more quickly, falling into place.
When I came back to my longer poem to edit later, I had two lines I really wanted to improve
(necessitating, in the end, some other subtle changes given the inter-locking nature of all the lines).
Editing those two lines took two hours, working within the poem’s various constraints.
27
e-Codices – Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland. http://www.ecodices.unifr.ch/en/csg/0904/204/0/Sequence-706 [Accessed 7/18/15]
28
Carney 22
29
Carney 22; Lehmann 25. There is very likely a fourth easily accessible on the CELT website.