Poetic Breastplate of Cú Collchaille
Background and Apparatus
The Poetic Lorica is a poem and commentary composed by Cú Collchaille Eachduine that presents key principles of Gaelic prosody intended for "the uplifting of the minds and hearts of the people of Tír Righ and the undoing of the depredations of the Lucht Claon since the time of the Wild Geese." The "Wild Geese" is a reference to the "Flight of the Earls" in 1607 (by the Common Reckoning). The commentary goes into several key points related to the poem including history and metrics, but several terms may need further explanation, offered here.
Rannaigheacht is one of the two most common meters in the extant corpus of mediaeval Gaelic poetry, the other being deibide. That being said, this form which combines elements of rannaigheacht proper and leathrannaigheacht mór has only the one exemplar (mentioned below). It is not an easy metre by any consideration, and ensuring clarity and some semblance of aesthetic value is tricky. For the original exemplar of this metre see: John Carey, “An Old Irish Poem about Mug Ruith” in the Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society: 2005, vol. 110, pp. 113 – 34; available at An Old Irish poem about Mug Ruith (corkhist.ie).
A number of traditional images are cited here. Among these, the Salmon of Wisdom was said to have fed on sacred hazelnuts that fell into its pool. Poetic inspiration was connected deeply to both pools, cauldrons and hazel trees, this poem drawing on all these in different ways. See Sharon Paice MacLeod’s “A Confluence of Wisdom: The Symbolism of Wells, Whirlpools, Waterfalls and Rivers in Early Celtic Sources” in Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium vol. 26/27, 2006/2007, pp. 337–355. Similarly, the poen draws parallels between lines of text and lines of battle. This is no mistake and not original here. The parallel comes up throughout classical and mediaeval poetry.
With regard to the system of consonants mentioned in the poem, Eleanor Knott’s Irish Syllabic Poetry: 1200–1600, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies 1974 gives the best description along with good references. For original discussions of this metre, see Osborn Bergin’s “Irish Grammatical Tracts” in Ériu vols. 8, 9, 10, 14 and 17 (1916, 1923 – ‘25. 1946, 1955), as well as Thurneysen’s “Mittelirische Verslehren.” Bergin’s work is an untranslated edition of several tracts found in the manuscript record in various places.</p?
The Airaiccecht na nÉices is a didactic text of the seventh century focusing on language, poetics, technical terminology, logical structures and mythopoetic lore that was central to the first year’s studies for the Gaelic bard as detailed in Text II of Rudolf Thurneysen’s “Mittelirische Verslehren” published in Irische Texte mit Übersetsungen und Wörterbuch (Leipzig, 1893), vol. III pp. 1-183: text II is presented on pp. 31–66 “Duodecim Partes Poeticae” describing the twelve-year progression of studies that produced the Irish bard. The Airaiccecht, usually modernised to Auraicept, was first edited and partially translated by George Calder in 1917 (Auraicept na nÉices: The Scholar’s Primer … :Edinburgh, John Grant) and then by Anders Ahlqvist in 1983 (The Early Irish Linguist: an Edition of the Canonical Part of the Auraicept …: Helsinki, Societas Scientiarum Fennica). Calder’s work is available at archive.org and is generally more useful than Ahlqvist’s.
The account of Cú Chulainn needing to be quenched comes from Recension II of the Táin Bó Cuailgne where Fergus mac Roích relates the childhood feats Cú Chulainn (ll. 734—1200) in perhaps the earliest example of the trope of the Ignored Expert outside Greek tradition. See Joseph Dunn, The Ancient Irish Epic Tale, Táin Bó Cuailgne, “The Cualgne cattle-raid;” London 1914, p. 77.
Text
Be still and hear, O fair folk!
Rally near to me!
Hear the cure of every fault
That kills victory!
Vast the vaults of bardic store
From which spells may spill,
Wild In war or winsome hall
From throne room to hill.
Coryleticanis I!
Bardic lore I’ve found
Where books and hazelwood lie,
The far wand’ring hound.
Here and there the shards are strewn
Waiting to be found
The wild wood to be rehewn
The lost now renowned.
Raging, wrangling warriors fall
Lacking light of lore
That strengthens arm, lifts them tall
Shakes off ghastly gore.
Glorious should hero’s light
Burn then from their pate
Filling hand and mouth alike
Changing bloody fate.
For seven stand, goodly guards
To measure the tongue
In contests of arms and words
Far the lines are flung.
First the fedha, the wild wood
Letters in plain sight
Arrayed in words, strong they’ve stood
Inspiration bright.
Building on the fedha fine
Deach is next to hear.
Advancing the foot in line
Keeps the bold from fear.
Folding alt, the joint between
Sets apart each one
Sets the pulse, though oft unseen
Then connects each one.
Next in series runs the réim
Each by each they lie,
Coursers they in all but name
Squadrons passing by.
Bold stands forbaid, dark the tale
Emphasis it gives
Heavy blows will fall like hail
Fierce where forbaid lives.
Long the complicated tale
Distinction absent
Lest etargaire avail
Descent from ascent.
Insce, that is meaning next
Cuisle croí, it sings
Statement clear within the text
True intent it brings.
Bright these seven measures shine
Deepest wells they guard
Of inspiration divine
For hero and bard.
Bracing arms against all foes
Though these seven be
From a firm foundation grows
Understanding free.
Four fine cornerstones lie strong
Person, Place, and Time
Finally the Cause lies long
Forms arguments fine.
Four again above these stand
Poets will affirm
Poetic art will command
Bristling points to turn.
Trusted rhyme, harmony round —
Forge the golden chain —
Six affinities of sound
Poetry to reign.
Right alliteration rare
Adorns each aspect
Forming fetching phrases fair
Comely words connect.
Seven deich the feet advance
Give the poem shape
Two to eight they lilt and dance
Thirst for truth they slake.
Syllables two, recomharc
In the poet’s purse.
Syllables three, íarcomharc
A powerful pulse!
Pusillanimous feles,
Cloenre with its five,
Luibenchosach six, no less.
May the poet thrive!
Claidemnas with its seven
Sacred bricht with eight:
To poets these are given,
Wonders to relate!
Seven measures, seven deich,
Treasures for the bards,
Foster fantasy and faith,
Reforge ancient shards.
Shining wisdom shows the way
Neither right nor left
Fleet along the fernie brae
These sevens are warp and weft
With such grace as these bestow
To bards bold and free
Not but battle ready thou
Fairest shalt thou be!
Commentary
This is the Poetic Lorica of Coryleticanis Peregrinus. What is the person, place, time and cause of the Lorica? Not hard that: it was composed by Coryleticanis Peregrinus, .i. The Wandering Hound of the Hazelwood, known as Cú Collchaille Eachduine among the Aos Dána and James Acken among the Lucht Claon. Its time of composition is LIX Anno Societatis which is the two-thousandth and twenty-fifth year by popular reckoning. Its place of composition is Insula Acrifontis that is called Inis na dTobar Sailte among the Gael and Bitter Waters in the Isles of Dispute between Seagirt and Lions Gate. Its cause of composition is the uplifting of the minds and hearts of the people of Tír Righ and the undoing of the depredations of the Lucht Claon since the time of the Wild Geese.
What is the measure of the Lorica? Not hard: it is in the meter described by John Carey as cró cummaisc etir rannaigheacht agus leathrannaigheacht mór, .i. a combination of rannaigheacht and great half-rannaigheacht. This means that in each of the rainn (quatrains) are two leathrainn (couplets) each divided into two ceathrurainn (lines). The first and third ceathrurainn are made up of seven syllables while the second and fourth are made up of five. Rhyme (comhardadh) stands between the last words of lines 1 and 3, and 2 and 4 respectively, with ornamental alliteration (uaim) throughout and connective alliteration between each rann. This form of poem may be found in the Book of Lecan (Royal Irish Academy Manuscript 23 P 2), and while this copy was probably made in the early fifteenth century, linguistically the poem, which relates the deeds of the wildly fantastic hero Mug Ruith predates the Classical Gaelic period.
It should be pointed out that comhardadh is not precisely rhyme as invented in Modern English, though where possible English rhyme is followed in this composition. Comhardadh, termed here “Gaelic rhyme,” groups consonants into the following classes:
Strict Consonants: B, D, G
Rough Consonants: F (PH), TH, CH
Soft Consonants: P, T, C
Strong Consonants: MM, LL, RR, NG,
Weak Consonants: L, MH, N, R, GH, BH, DH
‘S’ is in its own class and rhymes only with itself.
Proper rhyme occurs between words in which consonants from the same class conclude the word. In this way, ‘dog’ rhymes with ‘lob,’ ‘cliff’ rhymes with ‘pith,’ and Naturally, these consonants are unique to Gaelic and its phonetic structure, many of the sounds being unrepresented in English. To apply this form of rhyme properly, the idiosyncrasies of English dialects and pronunciation, which are at this stage of the language far removed from its orthographic representation of sounds, would have to be taken into account. This is not within the scope of this project, so usual English rhyming has been used where possible with Gaelic rhyme being approximated where it would not be too jarring.
The complexities of this metre, even though it is not the most complex in the mediaeval bard’s repertoire of 365 metres, represent the most difficult aspect of this project as composing a poem of this length in so strict an idiom without losing aesthetic appeal has been quite challenging, to say nothing of clarity. Such structure is a not inconsiderable aid to memorization as any fault in the metre indicates a fault in transmission. Even then there are demands of this metre that were simply too difficult to accommodate in the time provided. For example, when a version of a metre stipulates that it requires only words of two syllables to end each line, it is described as recomharcach because a two-syllable foot is called a recomharc (referenced in stanza 22). In the exemplary poem Mug Ruith, rígfhilí cén goí, each line ends with a single-syllable word. Even though it is not formally described as díaltach — in the manuscript indeed there is no metrical description at all! — this implies that such is the norm. Rannaigheacht and rannaigheacht mór use words of various lengths at their line-ends, so in this composition I have simply ended the lines with what words made sense without insisting on using words of the same syllabic length.
What are “The Seven Measures?” Not hard that: they are a recasting of the sechta frise-toimsiter Gaeilge: the Seven things by which Gaelic is measured as it is told in the Airaicceacht na nÉices: the Fundamental Precepts of Poets. These are fid (letter), deach (syllable), réim (series), alt (joint), forbaid (accent/emphasis), insce (meaning), and etargaire (distinction). The Airaicceacht was the core text for the first year’s instruction of bardic students, and the sechta are central to its material as they provide a terminology for aesthetic structuring applicable not only to the literary but the visual and narrative arts as well.
Fid and deach are very much comparable to the modern terms ‘letter’ and ‘syllable’ save for the fact that the one denotes ‘wood’ and the other is often applied as a term roughly equivalent to ‘verse-foot,’ not in the sense of a repetitive unit of length useful in defining, say, iambic pentameter but as an analytical term useful in referring to syllabic arrangement. (See again the mention of dialtach and recomharcach above). Fid (modern Irish fiodh) connects with the extensive association of letters with trees that connects to Ogham and the more generally Celtic focus on the natural world as the source of authority and the foundation of wealth.
Thus “wild wood” in stanza taps into this just as “building” draws on the use of timber for construction. Similarly, ‘bright’ and ‘light’ suggest the action of fire which is also associated with wood not only as fuel but as the solar energy from which trees grow. This connection extends across Celtic narrative tradition as a whole, most singularly in the poetic inspiration of heroes. Cú Chulainn famously “runs hot,” melting the snow around him during the Táin Bó Cuailgne and needing to be “quenched” during his boyhood deeds in three vats of water. It is hardly surprising that each of Cú Chulainn’s fights is punctuated with feats of poetic excellence, since Brighid, a goddess associated with poetry, blacksmithing and motherhood (which makes sense as they all involve fabrication and production through occult, chemical transformations) is also associated with fire.
The seven deich are effectively line lengths. Each rann, presented here as stanzas, is comprised of two leathrainn, which we would read as couplets, and four ceathrurainn, written here as lines. Each ceathrurann has a specified length, and such lengths are deich each with individual names. A ceathrurann or line of two syllables, for example, is a recomarc. The full list is as follows:
- Recomarc: two syllables
- Íarcomarc: three syllables
- Feles: four syllables
- Cloenre: five syllables
- Luibenchosach: six syllables
- Claidemnas: seven syllables
- Bricht: eight syllables
Each of these has various associations suggested by the meaning of each word. Comarc denotes a battle-cry, slogan or verbal token, so recomarc and íarcomarc can be taken as ‘fore-’ and ‘hind-’statements. My suspicion (to my knowledge not shared generally by academics) is that this comes from the custom in many places of beginning a rann with a shorter than metrically standard ceathrurann of two or three syllables. ‘Íar’ can also be used in the sense of ‘hidden’ or ‘secret:’ the Airaiccecht refers to the iarmberla or ‘secret speech’ of the poets. Feles can also mean ‘futile’ or ‘vain,’ which would make sense why so few metrical forms require any lines of four syllables. Cloenre is almost certainly to be understood as cláen-ré: “crooked-speech,” as five-syllable lines are not terribly common and often have a kind of lilt or cant to them. This was one of the appealing aspects of this meter for me.
Luibenchosach should probably be taken as ‘stem-footed’ from luibne and cos (though the DIL suggests luben, despite the possibility that the tassels and fixtures to which luben refers are probably drawing on luibne). Claidemnas appears to draw its form from claidid in the sense of ‘cut’ or ‘divide,’ from which we also get the word claideb or sword as in claideb mór, the origin of the Scottish “claymore.” This is almost certainly from the natural cadence of a seven-syllable line having a hiatus after the third or fourth syllables (though this is not always the case.) The octosyllabic bricht is significant in Gaelic tradition and there is a whole metre rooted in and deriving its name from it. The word can literally mean an incantation, charm or spell and so in rann 24 I describe it as ‘sacred.’
The point of this poem is that in any “war of words,” a grasp of both the fundamentals of grammar, poetics, and critical thinking/reading will always offer a tactical advantage, making the poet “battle ready.”