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mysterious verse in 'early' Irish |
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Subject: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: keberoxu Date: 04 Sep 16 - 07:30 PM This is yet another of those poems that was preserved in monastic manuscripts. It is a brief one. Ron-bris Ron-brúi Ron-báid a Rí in ríchid rindglaine Ron-geilt in gáeth feib geiles nemáed forderg fidnaige This verse caught the attention of those German-born philologists who specialized in Gaelic during the 1800's and laid an academic foundation for the students of older forms of Gaelic who followed them, amongst others Dr. Kuno Meyer. Naturally a German translation was the result. This is the best I can make out of the German translation. We have been broken We have been crushed We have been drowned O King of the kingdom bright as the stars We have been consumed by the wind as is consumed kindling by the crimson fire of lightning from the sky What seems to have happened, is that when Gaelic was taught long ago, this little verse was taken out of whatever context/origin, and isolated for study in a Glossary. This Glossary is itself centuries old, and the entire student's Glossary, in the old Gaelic, is embedded in later manuscripts. Thus the verse was preserved until the 19th-century philologists and linguists could uncover it. The mystery of course is where this might have come from in the first place; and I rather fear it will never be known. What are the odds of discovering this archaic Irish verse, not isolated for analysis in a Glossary, but within some larger literary work that would provide context? Will we ever know what this verse is about? In English translation (different from the above) this has been set to music by Samuel Barber in the 20th century, in his Hermit Songs. |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: Jack Campin Date: 04 Sep 16 - 07:40 PM In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni? |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: leeneia Date: 04 Sep 16 - 07:48 PM What is it about? It's probably about a settlement (village, monastery, farm) that's been brutally attacked. People have been killed and buildings burned. The survivors are left to freeze in the cold winds. The King of the kingdom is God or Jesus. Very moving. Thanks. |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: Jack Campin Date: 04 Sep 16 - 08:35 PM I doubt it. Irish literature didn't go in for such direct statement. I suspect it's a riddle. It's not John Barleycorn either, though the first three lines mislead you in that direction. |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: GUEST Date: 04 Sep 16 - 09:10 PM And here's me with no Latin. A riddle! I wonder. |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: GUEST,keberoxu Date: 04 Sep 16 - 10:04 PM for what it's worth: there has been some twentieth-century commentary, also, on this verse in particular, and on the glossary that it comes from. Éoin MacNeill, for one, considered the glossary in the journal "Ériu." There is an English translation titled "The High Wind." There is another English translation titled "Sea-Snatch," which I suppose hinges on that word that means "drowned"; it's just a little far-fetched in my opinion that this is about being on a boat, when the emphasis is more on wind than water: it could be argued either way I suppose. Trinity College, Dublin, has a copy of one manuscript in which the glossary, and the little verse, are preserved. This manuscript is named the Yellow Book of Lecan, and the glossary part bears the Latin title, "de origine Scotiae linguae" although most of it is in Gaelic. This verse is NOT marginalia, as some manuscript verses are, but can be found right in the manuscript columns. |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: Jack Campin Date: 05 Sep 16 - 04:55 AM "In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni" is a palindrome - "we go about in circles at night and are consumed by fire". |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: Mysha Date: 05 Sep 16 - 04:42 PM Can we have the German as well? Bye, Mysha |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: Jack Campin Date: 05 Sep 16 - 06:03 PM The point is that the Latin and Irish phrases are from the same era and express a similar idea. So it is possible they may have a common origin. |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: keberoxu Date: 05 Sep 16 - 06:26 PM auf deutsch: Es hat uns gebrochen Es hat uns zermalmt Es hat uns ertränkt O Himmelskönig des Sternenglanzes Der Sturm hat uns verzehrt wie tiefrotes Himmelsfeuer Holzwerk verzehrt Also for what it's worth, the little Gaelic verse has been written out with an ever-so-slight difference here: Ro 'n-bris Ro 'n-brui Ro 'n-baid a Rí richid rindglaine Ro 'n-geilt in gáeth feib geiles Nem-áed forderg fidnaige The latter is from the Irisleabhar Ceilteach circa 1952. The German, however, comes from the: Sitzungsberichte der preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1914. |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: peregrina Date: 05 Sep 16 - 06:31 PM Old Irish not Gaelic, no? And is this is Roscada, ie an archaic section transmitted in a slightly less ancient text? |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: GUEST,keberoxu Date: 05 Sep 16 - 10:26 PM Guilty as charged, peregrina, in that I am too ignorant to make that distinction. I submit this verse, not because I have the answers, but to submit the questions. Mr. Campin, it is news to me that the Latin and the Irish are contemporary -- you know more than I do. |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: peregrina Date: 06 Sep 16 - 01:59 AM The Yellow Book of Lecan is a late medieval Irish manuscript; this verse, however, is much eariler. (Most Old Irish verse is transmitted in manuscripts that postdate at least some of their contents by centuries.) The latin title here is younger than the verse and might be contemporary with the compilation and copying of the book of Lecan (because titles tend to be fluid.) The Irish here looks like a fragment of a poem, or perhaps Roscada, embedded in a longer text; and the fragment was, as keberoxu explained, removed from its context. |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: keberoxu Date: 06 Nov 19 - 12:28 PM This verse is one tough nut to crack -- has anybody cracked it yet? Because I'm not aware that anybody has. There is more than one online presentation for this text. One manuscript copy of the Yellow Book of Lecan, previously cited, is kept at Trinity College Dublin. Within said manuscript is something called O'Mulconry's Glossary, which seems to have been preserved in more than one spot. A database from The Early Irish Glossaries Project of the University of Cambridge's Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Celtic has thoroughly indexed and cross-referenced this Glossary as preserved in said Yellow Book, at this website. |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: keberoxu Date: 06 Nov 19 - 12:39 PM From the online database referenced and linked to in the previous post, here is their attempt to spell out with the Roman alphabet exactly what is in O'Mulconry's Glossary in the manuscript at Trinity College Dublin. Note the combination of Irish/Gaelic with the odd phrase in Latin. Atrimther cethre nemed aile and .i. nem-aod, nem-mod, nemh-odh, nemsuth. Nem-aodh la cerda ? goibniu, ar issed dobeir nemhtenchas doib in feith doberait tre tine, ut dicitur [:] Ronbris, Ronbrúi, Ronbaid, A Rí in richid rindglaine, Rongeilt in gaeth geib geilius, Aod forderg fidnime. --O'Mulconry's Glossary, version OM1. Yellow Book of Lecan. Trinity College Dublin. MA 1318 (H.2.16), column 120. |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: keberoxu Date: 06 Nov 19 - 01:00 PM And the Cambridge connection branches out, in the 20th century, in other respects. Earlier in this thread I stated how I had first come across an English-language attempt at this text. US/American composer Samuel Barber wrote a song cycle called "Hermit Songs" which referenced, not so much hermits, as the verses and texts preserved by Irish monks in medieval manuscripts. More than one English translator is credited. It appears to me that Samuel Barber, the composer, limited himself to English-language published versions of such poetry or verse. I find no evidence whatever that Barber went to any deeper layers, for example, the scholarship in the 19th and early 20th centuries published in both German and English, often in academic journals. These journals are relevant because often as not, these versions were the point of departure for those poets who wrote English translations. In fact, Samuel Barber appears to have chosen -- and then slightly altered -- the translation of this particular text by Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson (1909 - 1991), who began as a Cambridge lecturer and proceeded to professorships in Edinburgh and at the Harvard Department of Celtic Language and Literature. Jackson's translation appears in his 1951 publication, A Celtic Miscellany. THE WIND It has broken us, It has crushed us, It has drowned us, O King of the star-bright Kingdom. The wind has consumed us As timber is consumed By crimson fire from Heaven. I could not get a look, online, at Jackson's actual book, and so I have yet to find out if Jackson has an opinion as to what this lyric is about or of its origins prior to the Yellow Book of Lecan manuscript. |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: GUEST,Starship Date: 06 Nov 19 - 02:27 PM See if this helps. The 'see inside' is at the top-left from viewer's perspective. |
Subject: RE: mysterious verse in 'early' Irish From: GUEST,keberoxu Date: 06 Nov 19 - 03:52 PM Thanks, Starship. I gave it the old college try -- all I could scrape up from inside was that Jackson dates this "author unknown" text from the eighth century. |
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