Between the steps outlined in my last two posts, there is the matter of music. The metre, the accents, the stressed syllables … all that has to be considered. Hymn metres are often described numerically by the number of syllables in each line. For example, the great Lutheran hymn A Mighty Fortess Is Our God is metrically described “87 87 87 66 7” – this means that in each nine-phrase stanza, the first line has eight syllables, the second seven, the third eight, and so on.

I look over the music in Dánta Dé and determine, using this syllable-count scheme, what the metre of the translation should be, how the music fits the Irish lyrics and how best an English re-working might fit. And then, working from the literal translations of ní Ógáin and my own literal translation, I begin crafting a metrical paraphrase.

One of my favorite pieces in the hymnal is entitled The Heavenly Habitation, written by Donnchad Mór Ó Dálaigh in the 13th Century. Here it is in three versions – the original archaic Gaeilge, ní Ógáin’s translation, and my final metrical, rhyming paraphrase.

The original Irish Gaelic:

Áluinn Dún Mhic Mhuire,
An Dún is gluine blat;
Aoibhneas ann agus ceo,
Ní fhaicthear brón go brat.

Ní fhaicthear ann cean crom,
Tuirse trom ann nó cás,
Ní fhaicthear cúis no coir,
Ar aon neach ann go brat.

Do chídhtear ann do shíor,
Aoibhneas Ríogh na ngrás;
Do chídhtear sin san Dún
Soillse nach múcann smal.

An Spioraid Naomh go taithneamhac
Mar gaethibh siúbhlac’ gréine,
Is É ag scaoileadh go ceathannach
[Glé-] grása Ríogh na Féile.

San mbrúgh suaithneach solus-bhlát,
– Óir ‘s ionann lá is oidhche –
Ó chorraibh ‘n bhrógha bháin-ghil
Tig deallradh lán do’n aoibhneas.

Tá mile ógh is máirtireach
Fuair san tsaoghal gach dochar,
Lán dá n-aoibhneas taithniomhach
Ann go sámh glan socair.

Gorta is iota is ocras
‘S gach uile galar claoidhte,
Deoch as tobar na trócaire
D’fhóirfeadh iad sin choidhche.

Iompuighmíd ar ár n-ais arís,
Go bhfeicmid Ri na ngrása,
Is iarrmaoid ar ár nglúine
Ár leigean ‘san Dún is áilne.

Úna ní Ógáin’s direct translation:

Beauteous the Dún of the Son of Mary,
The Dún of purest bloom;
Delight is there and music,
And sorrow ne’er shall be seen there.

Ne’er shall be seen there a head bowed down,
Heavy weariness nor care;
Never sorrow nor crime
On anyone there for ever.

For ever is seen there
The loveliness of the King of the graces;
This is seen in that Dún,
Light that no cloud shall quench.

The Holy Spirit radiantly
Like moving beams of the sun,
And He shedding in showers
The graces of the King of generosity.

In the Fortress colour-full, light-blossoming,
– For there day and night are the same , –
From the pinnacles of the fair bright Fortress
Comes radiance full of delight.

A thousand virgins and martyrs
Who received in the world all hardships,
Filled with joyful delight
Are there, peaceful, pure, safe.

Famine and thirst and hunger,
And every wearing disease, –
A drink from the Well of Mercy
Would relieve them for ever.

We will return back again
That we may see the King of the graces,
And beseech him on our knees
To take us into the Dwelling most beauteous

My work based on this hymn:

How wondrous bright the glorious dún
of Jesus Christ our King;
Delight is there for ev’ryone,
and there the martyrs sing.

No head is bowed with sorrow there,
no heavy weariness known;
No crime, no cloud, no toilsome care,
bedims that heav’nly home.

The beauteous mansions of God’s Son
all sound with music bright;
The radiant Spirit, like the sun,
Fills them with glorious light.

The graces of the King are spread
and purest loveliness blooms
on all the holy, faithful dead
who now live in God’s rooms.

The many virgins, martyrs, saints
who hardship all endured
are filled with joy, delight, and grace;
blest, peaceful, and secure.

From famine, suff’ring, thirst, disease,
the Well of Mercy has giv’n
release and comfort to all these
who now dwell in God’s heav’n.

That heav’nly habitation we
all live in hope to share;
The King of all the graces we
beseech to take us there.

Upon our knees, the King we pray
will there make welcome our souls,
where ev’ry night is bright as day,
and ev’ry life made whole.

How wondrous bright, the glorious dún
of Jesus Christ our King;
Delight is there for ev’ryone,
and there we all shall sing.

There ev’ry soul is pure and bright,
and ev’ry loveliness known;
There joy, and peace, and pure delight
bless our eternal home.

There are about eighty ancient Gaelic hymns in the hymnal (there are also Gaelic translations of familiar hymns, especially Christmas carols, which I will be ignoring). My sabbatical project will be to work on these metrical, rhyming English paraphrases for as many as I can complete during my time on leave.

Continuing from my last post ….

Here’s an example of what I was describing in my last post. This is the first verse of the fourth hymn in Dánta Dé, in the section titled Maidin (“Morning”). The hymn is described as Cantain Tíre-Chonaill (“Chant [from] Tyrconnell”) and the ascription reads, Ó na daoinibh tré Antoine Ó Dochartaigh (“From the people by Anthony O’Doherty”).

A Íosa mhilis, a Mháighistir ‘s a Dhia,
A Fhuasglóir oirdheirc ainglidhe,
Féach d’ár laige ‘s ná leig ár gclaoidhe
Le tonnaibh buadhartha an pheacaidh.

Úna ní Ógáin translates this as follows:

O, Jesu sweet, O master and God!
Deliverer august, angelic,
Look on our weakness, and let us not be overcome
By the troublous waves of sin

Now, I’m quite certain that her translations are correct, but I want to understand this Irish Gaelic text as thoroughly as possible, so I go to work translating for myself. Many of the words are familiar to me – the name of Jesus, for example, Íosa, or the word meaning “sweet”, mhilis, or the verb “to see”, féach. Others look like words I know, but they seem to be older forms – for example, ainglidhe (which she has translated as “angelic”) does remind me of aingeal meaning “angel”, and tonnaibh (which she has translated as “waves”) is similar to the word I know for “wave”, tonn. Others are new to me.

So I spend a lot of time leafing through the dictionary learning new words and trying to understand the meaning of the almost-familiar words. However, many of these words are not found in my modern Irish-English dictionary (I’m primarily using Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla by Níall Ó Dónaill, as well as various other sources) because of the changes made in modern standard Gaeilge. For example, ainglidhe has been simplified to aingli. The changes to other words are not so easily discovered: tonnaibh, for example. The plural of “waves” that I know is tonnta, so I think that perhaps this is a related word meaning a particular kind of wave? I know from dealing with other “modernized” words that the “bh” letter combination has been often replaced with either “ch” or “dh”, so I look in the dictionary for that variant spelling. Nothing. I also know that “ai” has frequently been simplified to “a”. Aha! The dictionaries have both tonnach (“quagmire”) and tonnadh (“surge” or “tide”). There’s no way to really know which of these the “folk of Tyrconnell” might have intended, so either could be used as a translation and both suggest imagery for the later step of putting this chant into metrical, rhyming English.

I move on to the next word, buadhartha, which ní Ógáin translated as “troublous” (which I’m not sure is even an English word!) This one is also unfamiliar to me, but it reminds of a word I do know, buaigh, the verb “to win”. The structure of buadhartha suggests to me that it is what the Irish call an aidiacht bhrathartha (“verbal adjective”), but the verbal adjective of buaigh is buach (“victorious” or “winning”). Further, “winning” and “troublous” hardly seem to fit one with the other, so this is obviously some other word. This requires the time-consuming process of simply reading the dictionary word by word until something comes close to ní Ógáin’s “troublous” rendering. The “r” in the word, by the way, is a lead, so I look particularly for words beginning with “bua” and including an “r”. The search ends when I find buair, a verb meaning “to grieve”, and its related word buartha (“grievous, worrying, or sorrowful”). (And a bit of learning for use later on … the letter combination “adha” here was simplified to “a”; this pattern may be repeated in other words.)

This is the process I work through which each word, each line, each stanza of the hymn. In the case of this first verse of Anthony O’Doherty’s chant from Tyrconnell, I render the verse as follows:

O Sweet Jesus, Master and God,
O exalted [and] angelic Redeemer,
See our infirmity and do not allow our conquering
By [With] the grievous tide [quagmire] [of our] sins

Not too dissimilar to ní Ógáin’s original translation, but by doing the work of translation myself, delving into deeper and alternative renderings of the text, I gain insights and ideas that will be of use in the next step, turning the translation into something in English that can fit the metre of the original music to which the Irish words were set. More on that in a later post.