Part 4

There are other rules besides, but these are surely enough to prove that classic Irish verse was an extremely elaborate affair. It would be impossible to adapt the English language to verse so intricate. Its existence betrayed a highly refined development of the organs of speech and of hearing, which latter is what we should expect from the musical taste and skill of the race. From such rules, we can readily understand that the bardic corporation was competent to carry this refinement of technic, and to develop an intricacy of meaning to such a degree, that the outer world required an explanation. Some of the poems of Seancan Torpeist, in the seventh century, were quite as unintelligible as the most obscure of Browning's, but, unlike Browning, he was always able to translate them to a puzzled prince. Poets seemed to have a natural tendency in the direction of over-elaboration; they had been judges until they developed technicalities and an artificial law language, so that neither suitors nor audience could understand them. Then the princes interposed, adding laymen to the court. With their poetic tongue there was no interference, until it had been unduly exercised in oppressing the chiefs.

Now, if we examine the mechanism of any of these elaborate verses, we shall perceive that it contains a lesson greater than has been hitherto noticed. Open the Book of Kells and look at one of the initial letters, with its wonderful intricacy of interwoven lines, its exquisite grace of form, and marvellous delicacy of tint. The first glance shows it to be a beautiful work of art, and at once we recognise that it must have been produced by men whose minds, eyes, and hands had been cultivated to the highest degree. It is not the product of the training and refining of an individual or of a generation, but of a series of successive individuals in many generations. Than some of these initial letters nothing of the kind seems to have ever been made so beautiful before, nor anything since. Thus human skill in particular departments may ascend progressively till it reach its zenith and then gradually decline. Mankind acquires, but loses also; its advance in one direction may mean retreat in another. And as works such as these are indices to the development of refinement, and to the co-operation of certain qualities and senses in man, these also must have their time of rise and fall.

Now the form-and-colour picture presented by one of these fine initials is, in another department, the sound-picture presented by Gaelic verse. A little examination shows that, besides possessing the sounds we recognise, and those which other Europeans nations have noticed, the ancient Irish composers noted, identified and employed other and more subtle shades of sound. Consider this question for a moment, for it has a physiological as well as a literary interest. We all know what the term rhyme now means in English: the sound-echo of vowels and consonants in two or more terminal words.[3] It has many charms, but tends to become monotonous in long poems; hence authors sometimes abandon it completely for blank verse, or, using it, endeavour to evade the danger of monotony by alternating the rhyme, carrying over the sense, or varying the length of line. Now this comes of narrowing the conditions. There is no cause, save custom and imperfect audition, why only the last vowel and consonant should be echoed. The ear recognises the echo of the initial letter, or of initial consonant and vowel, in concord or alliteration. Readers of Spanish dramas and of Irish street ballads notice also the chime of the accented vowel, the vowel-rhyme, or _assonante_, although the consonants differ. But the ancient Irish, in addition to these, had also other varieties, such as the correspondence between letters of the same class. This avoided the monotony produced by a reiteration of exactly the same letter, whilst it repeated the sound with a harmonious variation, and maintained a delicate airy phantom-chime which must have been delightful to the educated ear.

In connection with this question of sound-echo I have a proposition to put forward which may well seem startling. Of all the literary possessions of the human race, the wide world over, nothing now seems to us so constant, so universal, so eternal as rhyme. Now the fact is that rhyme was quite unknown to all the dialects of Europe, with one exception, for some centuries after the Christian era. The Greeks and the Romans wrote much poetry, but never rhymed it.[4] Their metrical system was elaborate, satisfactory, and pleasing, but it did not recognise the concordant chime of syllables. Again, there is no recognition of rhyme, as the term is now understood, in any of the Gothic dialects previous to the ninth century.

Now, what are we to infer from all this? Here I state my proposition, which is, that the human ear had not then acquired the power of distinguishing and taking pleasure in these sound-echoes or repetitions which we call rhymes. That these would have been adopted, could they have been discriminated, must be inferred from their quick-extending popularity when introduced, and their subsequent universal prevalence.

Some years ago, a German professor introduced, and Mr. Gladstone, with the characteristic vigour of his many-sided mind, supported the theory that primitive man was partially colour-blind, that he could not discriminate well between differing hues. Many passages from the classic authors were adduced in support of this hypothesis, and the argument is based largely on the paucity or descriptive incompleteness of the colour-epithets. But, I venture to think that both these eminent authors would have considered their case strengthened beyond cavil had there been an entire absence of colour-epithets. That is my case: there is an entire absence of rhyme from the classic compositions and from the Gothic dialects, in the early ages, and therefore we must infer that the producers were deaf to the nice distinctions of chiming sounds. In other words, they were rhyme-deaf.

Whence, then, came this new faculty with which mankind has been endowed? There can be no doubt that all the European races, spread as they now are over the world, are indebted for this great gift, which has quickened, delighted, elevated, and ennobled them for ages, to the Celts, and demonstrably to the ancient Irish. That seems a great claim to make--so great that when an Irishman makes it, one might suppose exaggeration; but foreign scholarship confesses it in part, and the facts render its acceptance imperative. In our most ancient poems, such as that assigned to Lugad, son of Ith (who flourished long before the Christian era), where the language is archaic, full end-rhymes (of consonants and of vowels) are found amongst other examples of perfect correspondence.[5]

Granting that the ancient Irish possessed the gift of discerning and composing rhymes before other European nations, as well as a highly developed metric machinery, another question may arise. It might be alleged that, confined apart in an island remote from the Continent, Irish methods could in no way affect the literature of the central and southern peoples, whilst as regards the northern, it might be urged that the Irish had no points of contact with them except where sword met sword. And for this contention, which, I shall prove erroneous, support may indeed be found in some of our chroniclers and others who seem to imagine that fighting, not thinking, is the glory of nations, and so exaggerate the first and show a practical contempt for the last.

Before entering on that topic, let me add another observation. The earlier development of auditory power in the ancient Irish, their keen discrimination of subtle sound-agreements and differences, did not stand alone. It must have been correlated with a corresponding evolution of the faculty of articulation, and, as this process went on, language as well as literature was consequently influenced. Other senses evidently shared in the development. In those initial letters, already mentioned, there is overflowing evidence of acute visual perception of colour, whilst appreciation of grace of outline and form is proved also from the writing of our oldest manuscripts, the finely wrought implements of metal, and the admirable shape of some of the flint arrow-heads, fashioned before metal was supposedly known. Mankind may lose what it has acquired (though not necessarily the inner aptitude), and with the ancient language is passing away some of the articulation-gains, as with our ancient civilisation have disappeared some of the educated powers of eye, and ear, and hand.

It occurs to me that from the mechanism of a people's literature, the composition of its metric especially, we can deduce conclusions as to the qualities and capacities in social and governmental matters. Building up verse may be correlated with the building up of a State, for it is an index of constructive power. The rhythmical tramp of the hexameter of Hellas and Rome, and the sustained strength of their great epics, re-appear in the disciplined tread of phalanx and legion, and the long-continued control of their rule. In the ancient Irish metric there was less of the rhythmic tread, and probably, as a consequence, much less sustained power exhibited, whilst there is a great capacity for detail, a special aptitude for fine arrangements and nice distinctions. Our ancient laws and history reveal the existence of great capacity for complex social mechanism with a minor grasp of dominating and sustained control. The character of our metric might have changed had the race developed a strong central authority. In support of this speculation, I think it may be said that in France and England the classic form, borrowed from Rome, ruled with autocracy and disappeared with the theory of the right divine. The Revolution revolutionised poetry as well as politics.

It was a splendid idea of the bards to conjure back Oisin from the land of Youth, and present him and St. Patrick--types of Paganism and Christianity--in dramatic debate. The great passionate character of Oisin, his vivid love of battle and the chase, his generous spirit, his pathetic regret for lost kin and comrades, with his fiery flashes of revolt, constitute a creation in literature. No wonder that, even though amplified and altered in the garb of another language, the great conception left its impress on a later age. But I cite it here for a special reason, because it may also be taken as typifying the meeting and interaction of ancient Irish and Roman literatures. Christianity gave the Irish that cohesive organisation which their political system lacked, and the great schools took new vigour and vitality. Their rapid and wide-extended reputation shows that this must have been a pre-cultured people who could thus throw themselves so alertly into new study and so quickly conquer fame. The island became the University of Europe, whither students came from many foreign lands, and where they were warmly welcomed, supplied with food and books, and all gratuitously. But never in any land had learning such an explosive power upon a people as upon the Irish. Elsewhere it merely gave limited impulses. Here, no sooner had scholars trained themselves in academic studies than all the old adventurous spirit of the nation revived, and, ignoring minor ambitions, they swarmed off, like bees from a full hive, carrying with them the honey of knowledge and the ability to create other centres that should be celebrated for all times.

They are known to have been the first settlers in Iceland. They penetrated to Athens, and helped potently to revive or establish the study of Greek in Europe. Some lines of their influences only may be noticed here, but these are remarkable. St. Sedulius (Siadal), A.D. 430, introduced from the Irish the terminal sound-echo or rhyme into Latin verse. This innovation was made in hymns, and as some of these, on account of their beauty and style, were adopted and chanted in the Church (as some till this day are sung), their influence in educating the ear and popularising rhyme over Christendom was incalculable. Take this example of interwoven echoes:

"A solis =o=rtus car_dine_, =a=dusque terræ limi_tem_, =C=hristum =c=anamus princi_pem_, natum Maria vir_gine_."[6]

Sedulius also produced a work of sustained power in hexameter verse, consisting of five books of nearly 1,800 lines, entitled Carmen Paschale, or The Paschal Song. It was the first great Christian Epic, and opened the way for all which came after.

Now, in this great poem, characterised by so much originality and dramatic power, Sedulius impresses certain marked Irish peculiarities upon the classic hexameter. Thus, in the following passage, we find not only examples of "concord" in the alliterated letters, but also of "correspondence" in the terminal rhymes:

"Neve quis ignoret, speciem =c=rucis esse =c=_olendam_, Quæ Dominum =p=ortavit ovans, ratione, =p=_otenti_ =Q=uattuor inde plagas =q=uadrati colligit _orbis_. Splendidus =a=uctoris de vertice fulget =E=_ous_, Occiduo =s=acræ lambuntur =s=idere pl_antæ_ =A=rcton dextra tenet, medium læva =e=rigit =a=_xem_."

The influence of this remarkable epic, read as it was in all the Irish (and all the Christian) schools on the Continent and in Britain, must have been immense. The systematic adoption by its author of rhyme, assonant and consonant, and of alliteration, must have moulded the forms of subsequent literary production in all the nascent languages of Europe, north and south, as it taught them the art of alliteration, of assonant, and of consonant rhymes.

The influence of St. Brendan was not less vast. If the tale of his voyage to the West, and his arrival in a land of fair birds and great rivers be true, he discovered America a thousand years before Columbus. In any case, this voyage to the Land of the Blessed stimulated the imagination of generations. It has been termed a prelude to the "Divina Commedia," and, taken with other mystical visions, which, starting from Ireland, circulated over the Continent, it doubtless helped to direct the great genius of Dante. In a similar manner an Irish visionary tale of St. Patrick's Purgatory, transferred into the Continental languages, gave origin to one of Calderon's Spanish dramas.

This voyage of Brendan was influential in another direction--in the discovery of America. Columbus studied the narrative. Hrafn of Limerick, the Norse voyager, thoroughly knew it, as did others of his nation, such as Leif and his friends. But there is direct proof of its coercive power. As you sail into Bristol, you must pass under a high hill which is known to this day as St. Brendan's Hill.[7] There was a little chapel to St. Brendan on its summit, because of the reverence which all seamen, whether Norse, Saxon, or Celt, professed for the sailor-saint. Now, in 1480 two British merchants equipped two ships to sail to the Isle of Brasylle in the west of Ireland, but after nine weeks' vain voyaging they put into an Irish port. The Bristol men (who were largely of Norse blood) were not discouraged. In 1498, the Spaniard De Ayala informed his sovereign that for seven years they had every year sent out two, three, or four light ships in search of the Island of Brazil (_i.e._, the Irish "Hy-Breasail") and the Seven Cities. The adventure was under the direction of Cabot, the Genoese, who discovered the northern shore of America a year before Columbus reached its more inviting isles. Thus, either St. Brendan's voyage is a fact, and then he was the true First Discoverer; or it is a fiction, and then it was the direct cause of that discovery. This were a remarkable result of the power of the imaginative literature of the ancient Irish. No other people on earth can claim the discovery of a Continent as the result of a romance.

Whilst some of the early Christians deprecated the study of the pagan classics, the Irish held large and more liberal views. This was peculiarly true of St. Columbanus. Authoritative, inflexible, a daring missionary, his royal mind embraced the wide domain of letters. His eloquence is confessed. His monastic maxims are described as fit for a brotherhood of philosophers, whilst his wit is shown in his lighter poems, his culture in the adoption of old Greek metre, and his Irish training in the terminal rhymes in the alliteration of many of his verses. The following show both final rhymes and concordant initials:

"Dilexerunt =t=enebras =t=etras magis quam l_ucem_, =I=mitari contemnunt vitæ =D=ominum =d=_ucem_: =V=elut in somnis =r=egnent una hora læt_antur_, Sed =æ=terna tormenta =a=dhuc =i=llius par_antur_."[8]

His national characteristics were impressed on the great School of Bobbio, which he created, in which he died, and whence his influence long radiated over Italy and the North.

Entering the old Cathedral of Aachen, or Aix-la-Chapelle, you will be shown the great marble chair in which, cold as the marble, Charlemagne sat enthroned, sceptre in hand, robed in imperial purple, and with diadem on brow, dead. So he sate when, a century and a half later, Otho and his riotous courtiers broke open the vault and stood sobered and appalled before the majesty of death. On that same chair he sate, in similar apparel, but with the light of life in his eyes, the new Augustus of a new Empire, when two Irish wanderers were brought before him. In the streets of the city in which he hoped to revive the glory of Athens and the greatness of Rome, they had been heard to cry out: "Whoso wants wisdom, let him come to us and receive it, for we have it for sale." Their terms were not onerous--food and raiment. Their claims stood the test. One, Albinus, was sped to Pavia in Italy; the other, Clement, had the high honour of superseding the learned Anglo-Saxon Alcuin in the Palatine school of the Imperial city. Here, he taught the _trivium_ and _quadrivium_--grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, and arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy--the seven arts. In his school sate Charlemagne under the school-name of David, the members of his family each under an academic name, and with these the members of the cortége, the Palatins or Paladins, destined to power and feats of fame. The teaching of the Irish professors here must have had considerable influence on the literature (_e.g._, the _Chansons de Geste_) which afterwards took its heroes from their scholars. Their authority was enhanced by the fact that Charlemagne himself worked with his Irish professors at a revision of the Gospels on the Greek and on the Syriac text.[9]

In the crash and chaos which followed soon after his death, when feudal vassals, strong as their nominal suzerain, lived an isolated war-like life and forgot letters, in the confusion caused by the shifting about of nations from the east and north--partly a rebound from imperial coercion--certain Irish names shine with especial splendour. The first is that of Johannes Scotus Erigena. Of unquestioned learning, versed in Greek, he was the founder of Scholastic Philosophy. This affects us still, for in Scholasticism, as in a forge, the intellect of the Middle Ages was fired, tempered, and made supple, keen, and trenchant. Hence, with all its powers awakened and under alert control, it was rendered fit for the production of the new sciences of modern times. Nor should it be forgotten that Fearghal the Geometer had but recently died, whose daring scientific speculations as to the Antipodes had shocked the stiff-minded Saxon Boniface. Dicuil brought exact science to bear on a cognate subject, in his work on the measurement of the earth--a work which has been republished in several foreign countries, but never in his native land.

The multitudes of students who flocked to Paris to hear Erigena, contented with couches of straw in the Rue de la Fouarre and old halls of the University, were not the last who invaded it to hear an eloquent Irishman. Four hundred years later, in the very beginning of the fourteenth century, another, and perhaps a still more illustrious, representative of Irish thought, in the person of Duns Scotus the Subtle Doctor, throned it over the minds of men. So great was his renown that when in 1308 he came to Cologne the city accorded him a triumphal entry, more splendid than a king's.

Far, in every sense, from such ovations is that desolate island off the Scotch coast, where, in the sixth century, "a grey eye turned ever in vain" towards that Ireland "where the songs of the birds are so sweet, where the clerks sing like birds, where the young are so gentle, the old so wise, and the maidens so fair to wed." The exile charges his parting pupil to bear his blessing, part to Alba, part to Ireland--"seven times may she be blessed.... My heart is broken in my breast. If death comes to me suddenly, it will be because of the great love I bear the Gael."

Columba is the first Irish poet of exile--of which our nation has such sad experience since. His poetry, like his life, is instinct with the deepest affection for his native land, whilst his work has been the most fruitful in influence over the intellectual development of Scotland and England. From the island of Iona, chiefly, went forth that persuasive power which carried education over Britain. The majority of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, all the North of England, where English learning and literature took its rise, were bathed in an Irish intellectual atmosphere. Caedmon began his song in this environment, and when later, in the eight century, English Aldhelm first wrote rhymed Latin verse, it was because he had been a pupil of the Irishman Mailduff, the first Abbot of Malmesbury.[10]

To speak of literary relations between the Irish and the Norse may provoke some derision. Were not these the fierce sea-kings the "Danes," whose delight was in war, and whose avocation in peace was the plunder of shrines? They were, however, paradoxical enough to build Christ Church, and to richly endow it. And it is also a curious fact that, previous to three great invasions of other countries, for which they are severely blamed, they had been appealingly besought for help by their supposed victims. Iarl Hacon went to oppose the aggressions of the Emperor Otho; King Harald Sigurdson to avenge wrongs inflicted by English Harold; and Iarl Sigurd of the Orkneys (whose mother was an Irishwoman) could not resist the appeal of Irish beauty in distress--in the person of Queen Brian Borumha, who was mother of the Norse king of Dublin.

There were, in fact, many and important matrimonial alliances between the Irish and Norse princes, who often joined forces against foes. This happened at Clontarf, where the Irish of Leinster had the alliance of the Dublin and Orkney Norse, whilst Brian brought up the Danes of Limerick. This battle, let me remark, is described in the literature of both countries, and in both descriptions there are omens and spiritual beings such as signalise the epic of Homer. So great was Norse influence over Ireland that three of our provinces retain the Northern name-endings, and many a headland and bay has a Norse appellation. They delighted in the loveliness of the land. Linnæus, in latter days, fell on his knees before the splendour of a furze-bush in blossom, and we can readily imagine how tears came into the eyes of the Arctic rovers when they beheld the fresh green of Ovoca or were dazzled by the crimson and gold of Benn Edair, which they called Howth.[11] Irish music charmed them, and even now some of our old airs awake echoes along the norland fiords.[12]