The Ancient Irish Epic Tale Táin Bó Cúalnge | Page 9

that in it both prose and verse are mingled. It was not in my power, however, to reproduce at once closely and clearly the metrical schemes and the rich musical quality of the Irish and at the same time compress within the compass of the Irish measure such an analytic language as English, which has to express by means of auxiliaries what is accomplished in Early Irish by inflection. But I hope to have accomplished the main object of distinguishing the verse from the prose without sacrifice of the thought by the simple device of turning the verse-passages into lines of the same syllabic length as those of the original--which is most often the normal seven-syllable line--but without any attempt at imitating the rhyme-system or alliteration.
In order not to swell the volume of the book, the notes have been reduced to the indispensable minimum, reserving the commentary and the apparatus of illustrative material for another volume, which we hope some day to be able to issue, wherein more definitely critical questions can be discussed. There are a few Irish words which have been retained in the translation and which require a word of explanation: The Old Irish geis (later, also geas[12]; plural geasa) has as much right to a place in the English vocabulary as the Polynesian word tabu, by which it is often translated. It is sometimes Englished "injunction," "condition," "prohibition," "bond," "ban," "charm," "magical decree," or translated by the Scots-Gaelic "spells," none of which, however, expresses the idea which the word had according to the ancient laws of Ireland. It was an adjuration by the honour of a man, and was either positive or negative. The person adjured was either compelled or made in duty bound to do a certain thing, or, more commonly, was prohibited from doing it. The Old Irish gilla is often translated "vassal," "youth," "boy," "fellow," "messenger," "servant," "page," "squire" and "guide," but these words bear false connotations for the society of the time, as does the Anglicised form of the word, "gillie," which smacks of modern sport. It meant originally a youth in the third of the six ages of man. Compare the sense of the word varlet_ or _valet in English, which was once "a more honourable title; for all young gentlemen, untill they come to be eighteen years of age, were termed so" (Cotgrave), and of the same word in Old French, which was "un jeune homme de condition honorable" (J. Loth, Les Mabinogion, I, page 40, note). A liss or rath is a fortified place enclosed by a circular mound or trench, or both. A _d?n_ is a fortified residence surrounded by an earthen rampart. In the case of names of places and persons, I have thought it best to adhere as closely as possible to the spellings used in the LL. manuscript itself. It is of the utmost importance to get the names of Irish places and of Irish heroes correctly determined and to discard their English corrupted spellings. There are certain barbarisms, however, such as Slane (Slemain), Boyne (Boann), and perhaps even Cooley (Cualnge), which have been stereotyped in their English dress and nothing is to be gained by reforming them. The forms Erin (dative of Eriu, the genuine and poetic name of the island) and Alba have been retained throughout instead of the hybrids "Ireland" and "Scotland." Final _e_ is occasionally marked with a grave (e.g. Manè, Darè) to show that it is not silent as it often is in English.
I quite perceive that I have not always succeeded in reproducing the precise shade of meaning of words certain of which had become antiquated and even unintelligible to the native scholars of the later Middle Irish period themselves. This is especially true of the passages in rosc, which are fortunately not numerous and which were probably intentionally made as obscure and allusive as possible, the object being, perhaps, as much the music of the words as the sense. Indeed, in some cases, I have considered myself fortunate if I have succeeded in getting their mere drift. No one takes to heart more than the present writer the truth of Zimmer's remark, that "it needs no great courage to affirm that not one of the living Celtic scholars, with all the aids at their disposal, possesses such a ready understanding of the contents of, for example, the most important Old Irish saga-text, "The Cualnge Cattle-raid," as was required thirty or more years ago in Germany of a good Gymnasium graduate in the matter of the Homeric poems and without aids of any kind."[13] However, in spite of its defects, I trust I have not incurred the censure of Don Quijote[14] by doing what he accuses bad translators of and shown the wrong side of the tapestry, thereby obscuring