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Ancient Irish Poem To Make You Smile
I have been reading Thomas Cahill’s book How the Irish Saved Civilization, and I came across a delightful little poem, written in about the Ninth Century, in a monastery in Ireland. The young monk/poet/scribe had his pet with him, while he copied his manuscript.
I and Pangur Ban my cat,
‘Tis a like task we are at;
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.
‘Tis a merry thing to see,
At our tasks how glad are we;
When at home we sit and find,
Entertainment to our mind.
‘Gainst the wall he sets his eye,
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
‘Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.
So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban my cat and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his.
Published in Culture
Thanks for sharing. Would you recommend the book? I’ve heard of it but never picked it up.
Yes. It is pretty short. I’m not sure if it would tell you anything you don’t already know. I knew that the Irish monks preserved a lot of Western civilization when the Romans left.
I was expecting something older when you said “Ancient.” Twelve hundred years ago is nearly modern. 😁
The intensely beautiful animated movie The Book of Kells has this weird and lovely scene with the cat Pangur Ban:
Yer just mad bc she didn’t cite you on your poem-thing.
I don’t know very much unfortunately.
She spared us by giving us a translation. The distance becomes more apparent when one is presented with the germanic Old English, the jumbled, irregular Church Latin, or the always impenetrable Celtic dialects. Even worked into rhyme in the modern language. Very pre-muctated.
The impenetrable Gaelic it is, then.
Interesting that rhymes appear to be either strong, full rhymes or missing. But I know from hard experience that the Gaelic correlation between actual and phonetic pronunciation can be dramatically remote. Not that English can’t be like that on any given night.
Years ago I encountered a poem, perhaps a sonnet, where the ending of each line had the O sound, but every line had a word that spelled it differently: …o, Oh!, …eau, etc.
We have that movie! Time to watch it again! We just loved this, and we are adults with no kids. Who happen to love Japanese Anime, too. Thanks!
When I went to bed at around midnight last night, I checked my post, and my last thought was “Where is @arahant?”.
I was in the other world.
I am going nuts on Ireland this year. I discovered author Frank Delaney, and I am reading all his books. I have one I just got and two still on order. I also found two blogs by Irish people that I have started following (courtesy of the WordPress Reader/Discover). If the world opens up its borders next year, I want to go there. I also have been reading Patrick Taylor’s “Irish Country” novels, which are just good fun.
This august crowd probably knows this, but some cat put all the poems entered in the margin of Irish monk text translations and copies into an opera, Carmina Burana. The most well known and popular, O Fortuna, inserted into the scores of countless action movies, is a story that is a medieval version of Luck Be A Lady. Heh. So it’s not a clarion call to stand, to fight, to see the mission or quest through. Instead it’s like blowing on the dice and hollering “baby needs shoes!” just before you throw.
Excalibur
While watching the special features that came with “The Secret of Kells”, we learned what Pangur Ban means. Whiter than white. The extras included the voice-actors recording and artists drawing.
Here’s the little guy.