Lyr Add: An Roghainn (The Choice)

Subject: Lyr Add: An Roghainn (The Choice)
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Dec 20 - 07:27 PM

An Roghainn
(The Choice)


Composed by Sorley MacLean (1911-1996) in 1943.
One of Scotland's most significant Scottish Gaelic poets and literary characters.

Appears in his seminal work
Dàin do Eimhir (Poems for Eimhir) (1943), no. XXll.
Written mostly during the 1930s, the sequence of poems consists of forty-eight love poems addressing a universal 'eimhir', or woman, and explores his own feelings on love, choice, politics and injustice. At the heart of the poems is a sense of lamentation for lost love and opportunity yet they are also sharply political.


In his poetry, MacLean emphasized the struggle between love and duty, which was personified in the poet's difficulty in choosing between his infatuation with a female figure, Eimhir, and what he sees as his moral obligation to volunteer in the Spanish Civil War. In Irish mythology, Eimhir is "the loveliest woman" in the Ulster Cycle and the wife of Irish hero Cuchulainn.  MacLean said that the Eimhir of his poetry represented two real women in his life, Nessa O'Shea and an unnamed red-haired Scottish woman, but some critics have suggested that she actually represented three women, and, according to Christopher Whyte, there may have been as many as four. MacLean intentionally blurred the different Eimhirs together so that the individual women would not be distinguishable.


THE SONG

Because of his socialist convictions, Sorley MacLean wanted to fight in the Spanish Civil War, but was prevented by family circumstances. In 1937, MacLean, then working as an English teacher at Portree High School, met and fell in love with Nessa O’Shea, an Irish woman whom he believed to be romantically involved with a friend; MacLean did not approach her and she later married someone else. She inspired the poem An Roghainn (Dàin do Eimhir XXII) in which the poet chooses between a love interest and going to fight in Spain.

The poet confronts a paradox here,
that having decided not to fight in the Spanish Civil War, he questions whether he has proved himself unworthy of Eimhir's love, as he hears she is marrying another. Yet if he had gone he would surely have been killed: 'I did not take a cross's death/ in the hard extremity of Spain/ and how then should I expect/ the one new prize of fate?'
In the final verse he realises that despite heartache and pain, he would make the same choice again.


"An Roghainn"

Choisich mi cuide ri mo thuigse
A-muigh ri taobh a' chuain;
Bha sinn còmhla ach bha ise
A' fuireach tiotan bhuam.

An sin thionndaidh i ag ràdha:
A bheil e fìor gun cual
Thu gu bheil do ghaol geal àlainn
A' pòsadh tràth Diluain?

Bhac mi 'n cridhe bha 'g èirigh
'Nam bhroilleach reubte luath
Is thubhairt mi: Tha mi cinnteach;
Carson bu bhreug e bhuam?

Ciamar a smaoinichinn gun glacainn
An rionnag leugach òir,
Gum beirinn oirre 's gun cuirinn i
Gu ciallach 'na mo phòc?

Cha d' ghabh mise bàs croinn-ceusaidh
An èiginn chruaidh na Spàinn
Is ciamar sin bhiodh dùil agam
Ri aon duais ùir an dàin?

Cha do lean mi ach an t-slighe chrìon
Bheag ìosal thioram thlàth,
Is ciamar sin a choinnichinn
Ri beithir-theine ghràidh?

Ach nan robh 'n roghainn rithist dhomh
'S mi 'm sheasamh air an àird,
Leumainn à neamh no iutharna
Le spiorad 's cridhe slàn


"The Choice"

I walked with my reason
out by the sea
We were together but it was
keeping a little distance from me.

Then it turned saying:
Is it true you heard
that your beautiful white love
is getting married early on Monday?

I checked the heart that was rising
in my torn swift breast
and I said: most likely:
why should I lie about it?

How should I think that I would grab
the radiant golden star,
that I would catch it and put it
prudently in my pocket.

I did not take a cross's death
in the hard extremity of Spain
and how then should I expect
the one new prize of fate?

I followed only a way
that was small, mean, low, dry, lukewarm,
and how then should I meet
the thunderbolt of Love?

But if I had the choice again
and stood on that headland,
I would leap from heaven or hell
with a whole spirit and heart.



BIOGRAPHY

Sorley MacLean was born at Osgaig on the island of Rasaay on 26 October 1911. He was brought up within a family and community immersed in Gaelic language and culture, particularly song. He studied English at Edinburgh University from 1929, taking a first class honours degree and there encountering and finding an affinity with the work of Hugh MacDiarmid, Ezra Pound, and other Modernist poets. Despite this influence, he eventually adopted Gaelic as the medium most appropriate for his poetry. However, it should be noted that MacLean translated much of his own work into English, opening it up to a wider public than the some 80,000 speakers of the Gaelic language.

During the Spanish Civil War, MacLean was torn between family commitments and his desire to fight on behalf of the International Brigades, illustrating his left-wing - even Marxist - political stance. He eventually resigned himself to remaining on Skye. He fought in North Africa during World War Two, before taking up a career in teaching, holding posts on Mull, in Edinburgh and finally as Head Teacher at Plockton High School.

Never a full-time writer, he was also a scholar of the Highlands with a vast knowledge of genealogy, and an avid follower of shinty. Amongst other awards and honours, he received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1990. He passed on in 1996 at the age of 85, and was survived by his wife and two daughters.


Sorley MacLean official website
http://www.sorleymaclean.org


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Subject: RE: Lyr Add: An Roghainn (The Choice)
From: GUEST,Rory
Date: 20 Dec 20 - 07:29 PM

An Roghainn (The Choice)

Recordings

Artist: Fiona Mackenzie
Album: Elevate (2008)

Artist: Joy Dunlop
Album: faileasan/reflections (2013)

Artist: Julie Fowlis
Album: Gach sgeul/Every story (2014)



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