Heroic Romances of Ireland — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 351 pages of information about Heroic Romances of Ireland — Complete.

Heroic Romances of Ireland — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 351 pages of information about Heroic Romances of Ireland — Complete.

PAGE 81

Line 11.  “Fair seems all that’s red, &c.,” is literally “fair is each red, white is each new, beautiful each lofty, sour is each known, revered is each thing absent, failure is each thing accustomed.”

For a translation of the poem in which Fand resigns Cuchulain reference may be made to Thurneysen (p. 101).  A more accurate translation of the first verse seems to run thus: 

I am she who will go on a journey which is best for me on account of strong compulsion; though there is to another abundance of her fame, (and) it were dearer to me to remain.

Line 16 of poem, translated by Thurneysen “I was true and held my word,” is in the original daig is misi rop iran.  Iran is a doubtful word, if we take it as a form of aur-an, aur being the intensitive prefix, a better translation may be, “I myself was greatly glowing.”

PAGE 82

Line 26.  “The lady was seized by great bitterness of mind,” Irish ro gab etere moir.  The translation of etere is doubtful.

PAGE 83

For the final poem, in which Fand returns to Manannan, reference may as before be made to Thurneysen’s translation; but a few changes may be noted: 

Line 1 should be, “See the son of the hero people of the Sea.”

Line 5 seems to be, “Although” (lit. “if”) “it is to-day that his cry is excellent.”

Line 7 is a difficult one.  Thurneysen gives, “That indeed is the course of love,” apparently reading rot, a road, in place of ret; but he leaves eraise untranslated; the Irish is is eraise in ret in t-serc.  Might not eraise be “turning back,” connected with eraim, and the line run:  “It is turning back of the road of love”?

Lines 13 to 16 are omitted by Thurneysen.  They seem to mean: 

When the comely Manannan took me, he was to me a fitting spouse; nor did he at all gain me before that time, an additional stake (?) at a game at the chess.

The last line, cluchi erail (lit. “excess”) ar fidchill, is a difficult allusion.  Perhaps the allusion is to the capture of Etain by Mider as prize at chess from her husband.  Fand may be claiming superiority over a rival fairy beauty.

Lines 17 and 18 repeat lines 13 and 14.

Lines 46 and 47 are translated by Thurneysen, “Too hard have I been offended; Laeg, son of Riangabra, farewell,” but there is no “farewell” in the Irish.  The lines seem to be:  “Indeed the offence was great, O Laeg, O thou son of Riangabra,” and the words are an answer to Laeg, who may be supposed to try to stop her flight.

PAGE 85

Line 24.  “That she might forget her jealousy,” lit. “a drink of forgetfulness of her jealousy,” deoga dermait a heta.  The translation seems to be an accepted one, and certainly gives sense, but it is doubtful whether or not eta can be regarded as a genitive of et, “jealousy “; the genitive elsewhere is eoit.

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Heroic Romances of Ireland — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.