Life
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[ top ] Commentary [ top ] “The Monk and His Pet Cat (Pangur Ban)”: ‘I and my white Pangur / Have each his special art: / His mind is set on hunting mice, / Mine is upon my special craft. / I love to rest better than any fame! / With close study at my little book; / White Pangur does not envy me: / He loves his childish play. When in our house we two are all alone / A tale without tedium! / We have sport never-ending! / Something to exercise our wit. // At times by feats of derring-do / A mouse sticks in his net, / While into my net there drops / A difficult problem of hard meaning. // He points his full shining eye / Against the fence of the wall: / I point my clear though feeble eye / Against the keenness of science. // He rejoices with quick leaps / When in his sharp claw sticks a mouse: / I too rejoice when I have grasped / A problem difficult and dearly loved. // Though we are thus at all times, / Neither hinders the other, / Each of us pleased with his own art / Amuses himself alone. // He is a master of the work / Which every day he does: / While I am at my own work / To bring difficulty to clearness. (For further translations see attached.) [ top ] Irish literature: The stream of Irish literature ran deep and broad, and iif in its course it carried along with it some earthy matter, such slight admixture did not affect the general purity of the waters, from which none need hesitate to drink deeply. The literature of no nation was free from occasional grossness, and considering the great antiquity of Irish literature and the primitive lifne which it reflected, what would strike an impartial observer is not its licence or coarseness, but rather the noble, lofty, and tender spirit which pervaded it. (Lectures on Irish Literature, rep. in The Irish Catholic, 5 April 1902; quoted in Tymoczko, p.309.) Love of nature: These poems occupy a unique position in the literature of the world. To seek out and watch and love Nature, in its tiniest phenomena as in its grandest, was given to no people so early or so fully as the Celt. (Quoted in Seamus Heaney, The God in the Tree, Preoccupations, London: Faber 1980, p.182; note that the reference in Heaneys title is to a line in Patrick Kavanaghs The Great Hunger.) [ top ] Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry (Constable & Company Ltd. 1911), Introduction: In Nature poetry the Gaelic muse may vie with that of any other nation. Indeed these poems occupy a unique position in the literature of the world. To seek out and watch and love Nature, in its tiniest phenomena as in its grandest, was given to no people so early and so fully as to the Celt. Many hundreds of Gaelic and Welsh poems testify to this fact. It is a characteristic of these poems that in none of them do we get an elaborate or sustained description of any scene or scenery, but rather a succession of pictures and images which the poet, like an impressionist, calls up before us by light and skilful touches. Like the Japanese, the Celts were always quick to take an artistic hint; they avoid the obvious and the commonplace; the half-said thing to them is dearest. (pp.xii - xiii; quoted by Mitsuko Ohno, ‘Hokusai, Basho, Zen and More: Japanese Influences on Irish Poets’, in Journal of Irish Studies, IASIL-Japan, XVII, 2002, p.27 [on Cathal Ó Searchaigh], with the comment: This passage from the famous introduction is endlessly drawn upon by Gaelic scholars. It is always assumed that Meyer was referring to haiku, but that word is not found in this paragraph written before the First World War. [... &c.] Ancient Irish Literature (q.d.): Like the Japanese, the Celts were always quick to take an artistic hint; they avoid the obvious and the commonplace; the half-said thing to them is dearest. (Quoted by Padraic Colum, in Anthology of Irish Verse, 1922, Introduction - with remarks: This is said of the poetry written in Ireland many centuries ago, but the subtility that the critic credits the Celts with is still a racial heritage. [ top ] References [ top ] W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (IAP 1976; 1984), cites K. Meyer, trans., Merugud Uilix Maicc Leirtis: The Irish Odyssey (London 1886); also R. T. Meyer [sic], Merugud Uilix Maic Leirtis (Dublin 1958), and The Middle Irish Odyssey, Folktale, Fiction or Saga, in Modern Philology, 1 (1952), 73-78. Sean Lucy, Irish Poets in English (1973), lists Meyer, Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry (Constable 1911) in bibliography. Also, Maurice James Craig, ed., Cats and Their Poets (Lilliput 2003), commences with Meyers translation of Pangur Bán. [ top ] DIAS Catalogue (Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies/Celtic Studies 1994) lists rep. edns. The Death Tales of the Ulster Heroes, orig. Todd Lecture Series 14, publ. RIA 1906, 1937 (twice); vii, 53pp; Meyer, Fianaigecht, being a collection of hitherto inedited Irish poems and tales relating to Finn and his fiana; with an English translation, by Kuno Meyer (1910, 1937 [two times]), xxxi, 115pp.; also The Vision of MacConglinne: A Middle Irish Wonder Tale [rep. of 1894 edn.] (NY: Lemma Publishing Corp. 1974). See also note also Kenneth H. Jackson, ed., Aislinge meic Conglinne (DIAS 1990), Middle Irish text, with notes and intro. in English. Three Geese Books (1999 Cat.) lists Cath Finntraga [Anecdota Oxoniensia] (1st ed. 1885); Early Relations between Gael and Brython, in Y Cymmrodor, Vol. IX (1896); Selections for Ancient Irish Poetry (1st ed. 1911). [ top ] Various sources, Learning in Ireland in the Fifth Century and the Transmission of Letters (Dublin 1913) [another source]; Expulsion of Dessl (1901). Ulster Univ. Library (Morris Collection) holds Contributions to Irish Lexicography, Vol.1, Pt.I [A-C] (Halle as Niemeyer; London: David Nutt 1906), 574pp; A Primer of Irish Metrics (1909). [ top ] Notes Douglas Hyde, wrote of Kuno Meyer and others: But unfortunately, distracted as we are and torn by contending factions, it is impossible to find either men or money to carry out this simple remedy, although to a dispassionate foreigner - to a Zeuss, Jubainville, Zimmer, Kuno Meyer, Windisch, or Ascoli, and the rest - this is of greater importance than whether Mr. Redmond or Mr. MacCarthy lead the largest wing of the Irish party for the moment, or Mr. So-and So succeed with his election petition. (On the Necessity for De-Anglicizing Ireland, 25 November 1892; rep. in Mark Storey, Poetry and Ireland since 1800: A Source Book, London: Routledge 1988, pp.78-84; p.81.) [ top ] |