I.

: Notes on Meyer's Primer of Irish Metrics

Author(s): Osborn Bergin
Source: riu, Vol. 8 (1916), pp. 161-167
Published by: Royal Irish Academy
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30005412
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 METRICA

I.-NOTES ON MEYER'S PRIMER OF IRISH METRICS

PAGE vi. I5. The theory that 'if dk and d come together
they have between them the value of t' is erroneous. For
m1arbilniadl De we should read marbznat De. The four forms
iarb/znadht , marbltnad, marbt/ati, and marbhnat are recog-
nized variants. An example of the last is given in Ms. 24.
P. 8 (R.I.A.), p. 82:
Ni marbtnat gan fhachuin f,
mo ri is m'athair dagrmthac De.

p. I. I3. No evidence has been given to show that the

metres of the am/wrd"n and the caoineadl/ arose 'probably under
the influence of English poetry.' Take such a common type
as Keating's
Om sce61 ar ird-mhagh FAfil nif chodlaim oidhche,

with its sequence d d o i throughout the whole poem. What

was there in English poetry of the Tudor period from which
the Irish could have adapted such a metrical scheme? And
the same may be said of other Early Modern rhythmical
measures. Their true origin is to be sought in the develop-
ment of the song metres, combined with a free use of bruiling-
each/t and comltardadli briste. This is a subject that will
repay investigation. It will take us back some centuries
earlier than the sixteenth.
p. 4. 3. Alliteration of f with f, ' an alliteration merely for
the eye.' The example given, 'do fezss la Feirb,' would be
more convincing if it were taken from a poem in which allitera-
tion is regular. But in the i 56 lines of this poem more than
70 have no trace of alliteration, even for the eye.
p. 4. 5-18. The examples are all open to objection. SR.
161

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 162 OSBORN BERGIN

157 7 d7ia u/o t/ZZhinc/osc di saian : if thiZn

sain, what about the next line a no t li
preceding line ini dliar cintai/2, (diar tar
ten lines before 1. 1577 and the ten f
fourteen without alliteration. So of t
the line quoted necessarily contains allite
do Jfola'isi na ccll and screball dir s-ac
quatrain ? Of the twenty-five other
thirteen have no alliteration. So of th
this paragraph. They prove nothing. Apart from metrics
this alleged alliteration of ti and s is of some importance for
the history of the language, as it implies the reduction of
initial tz/ to hi, and it would be interesting if that could be
established for the period of SR. gibtalt in tir t1iaid (Itr il/
is not to the point, for the alliteration is between tir and
thfLaid. Similarly is e sin senchzas cach sin (1. 17), sizi and
senchas alliterate, not senchlas and sin.
p. 4. 11. 19 and 26. The laws of alliteration are here said
to have been fixed after the period of lenition, but before that
of nasal eclipsis. The mention of p is doubtless a slip, for
its changes are analogical: there were no words beginning
with p until well after the introduction of Christianity. At
all events we know nothing about the metres in use at the
period or periods to which these changes belong. I cannot
accept Meyer's explanation of the various kinds of alliteration.
There is, to my mind, a simple explanation which accounts
for the peculiar treatment of certain consonants, and agrees
with the theory and practice of the schools; but this must be
reserved for a later paper.
p. 4. 33. A better example might have been chosen, for
in strict verse duit is not an larmbl-rla.
p. 7. 7. Examples are wanted of the riming of the
diphthong -i (de) and &', and the diphthong di (ae) and dti in later
O. Ir. Such rimes do not seem to have been tolerated in
Mid. Ir.
p. 8. 9. For 'unstressed' read 'stressed,' in accordance
with Meyer's later discovery, ERIU VI. IO3 ff.
p. 9. 9. For 'long vowel' read 'long final vowel,' cf. pp.
1 6 8-9 infra.
p. I I. 15. This is not a good example. If the initial
vowel of adteock be elided, the line will be too short. It is

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 METRICA 163

quoted from a poem printed in

ence might well have been gi
that the metre is 62+62. It is t
is hypermetric, but whether that
ing the next is a question not tou

ib. 16.is
former The Mid.
here Ir. text
turned in Ir.,
into O. ER
gaiac is made glwdin, which does
period.' The elision of the initi
been marked.

ib. 26. Examples of dnal-sint are to be desired. In the

later ddan J/ircac/Z, as far as my reading goes, the sin is always
stressed, as in the modern spoken language.
p. 14. 13. The quatrain referred to (RC. 20. 404) is:
IS sin. tdte in mal ina teg rig
i ndechiult cen chassair trit. co nduibciunn ina desscip.

This is not rannaric/it, but a variety of debide.

ib. 9 9. The quatrain quoted is not an example of cas-
baib-anze, cruiaid and ugra are separated in the facsimile; so
are mlnai( and Mugna, which alliterate. The same quatrain,
with two others, is quoted FM. If. 570, and Chron. Scot. 182,
and the whole poem of twelve quatrains is given in Tihree
Fragnients, 216 ff. It is in the metre ae fresh/e, and belongs
to p. 20, 3 41.
p. 5. 10TO. Read meic : dcei/. mf should be extended maic
only in O. Ir.
ib. I I. Read a mnitlid a MIdlainn, 'O warrior from Maila.'
See Hogan, Onom. 536.
ib. 20. Read mieic : gleic. Cf. gleic, cdir; gleac, lockdac/i,
H.2.I 7, 265b.
p. 16. I8. 'Silva Gad., p. I 17.' The reference is wrong,
for the poems on the page are in riindaird or debicte.
ib. 27. 'All scdillte' is inaccurate. The quatrain in LL.
297a3I reads:
Rotfiasu i mBroccross, a Find inn Aga,
m6naind na m6na saill muicce Slinga.
Here the third verse consonates with the second and fourth,
and such consonance is common throughout the whole poem,

Of course ac dit gdizui siu, Ml. 22a5, is a scribal error.

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 i64 OSBORN BERGIN
though most of the quatrains are aicclech. Th
quatrain
Fulocht Chind Tire, fasc Inbir FEile,
fedil daimi Chnuicc Clire, saill bruicc a Bdrre-

so far from being scailte, is cetharchkubaid.

p. 17. OI. -sa . . . gabsus. The variants obu, obo, obsa,
and gabais, t-abus (IT. III. 37 and 68) point to a reading 0 bu
becadn gabais gleith, 'since he was small he grazed.'
p. 19. 4. For 265a read 265b8. But the LL. version is:
Masat cethra co ndatli chethra ni himmirgi oenbd
ata fer borb bertas broengd ar druim cacha oenb6,

which gives at all events the consonance of broengd and oenbd.

Meyer's version is probably taken from his edition of Aided
Conrdi, RC. vi. 188.
ib. 8. For Ib. read 265a 6.
ib. I I. ' Dechnad n;;, 82- 52.' The example does not
agree with the description, for the second and fourth verses
are not 52 but 62. The metre is the same as that described
in the preceding paragraph, dechnad fota and dechnad umdr being
alternative names. The error in classification is doubtless due

to the fact that in IT. III. I52 a very corrupt quatrain from
LL., described as dechnad modr, apparently counts 8' + 52. The
correct text edited in Zu ir. Handschr. u. Litt. I. 75 has of
course 82+ 6 . Meyer, adopting Thurneysen's earlier classifica-
tion, but discarding the unintelligible example from LL., has
replaced it by an example of the real dechnad muodr, overlooking
the discrepancy. 32 and 33 should be combined.
ib. I7. Omit 45b39, for the poem referred to is in the
metre rindaird.

ib. 25. For ranluaigecct read carnraznait echt. (Cf. p. 20, 38.)
p. 20. 2. The reference cannot be right, for the text of
LL. is :

Fail and 6tach meic ind Rig assa cds for cach n-den
fail and is amru cach hbrig a iuil fir assa thoeb,
and this is not an example of 71+ 51. In fact, the whole poem
in LL. is irregular.
p. 21. 8. The reference is out of place. It belongs to
38 on the preceding page, for the poem in Tochmarc Ferbe
is in 71+ 31.

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 METRICA 165
p. 22. I 3. For dognithi read donilhi (
has donithi). It alliterates with newduaide (n
In artistic examples of seudna the first
quatrain are regularly connected by allite
makes the poet guilty of the metrical fault
As a point of grammar it may be noted tha
lost its g in the Early Mid. Ir. period: cf. th
I 19a32 (twice), Atk. PH. p. 665, doneth
(see Thurneysen, Ind. Forsch. xxxi1., A
poetry the forms with g (go) are exceedin
thirteenth century on we find almost in
alliterating with n-. Of course the chang
is not a purely phonetic one, for in all othe
the accent remains to the present day, e.
ghinth. It is due to the analogy of the p
Recently the archaizing tendencies of editor
in Keating's Thiree Shafts, have reintroduce
and obscured the historical development.
ib. I7. Ollbairdne, 42+ 83. It should b
Goffraidh 6 Cl6righ's poem the common
4' + 83, and there is one case of 83 + 43 : t
should evidently be printed thus:
Cindus rachad 'sa Raimh re snechta sindeorach ?
mellaid in tsraid gel griananach fer frimedlach.
This gives alliteration in the third verse, and connects it by
internal rime with the fourth and by consonance with the
second and fourth.

ib. 24. 'a maic Muire inzgine' is a syllable short. Read:

am lat uile is ti Mac Muire ingine,

'I am all thine: thou art the Son of the Virgin Mary.' See
IT. III. I . This gives the requisite number of syllables, with
the internal rimes lat : Mac and uile : Muire. The reading of
H. a meic maith muiri ingine would also give the eight
syllables.
p. 23. I3. 'Silva Gad., p. I6o; ib. 214.' These are not
further examples, merely other copies of the poems referred
in the preceding line to Stokes's Acall. Delete.
ib. 14. ' Zeitschr. vi. p. 27 1.' Another version of the poem
on the canonical hours for which we have just been referred to
Acall. 1. 2956 ff. and SG. 16o. Delete.

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 x66 OSBORN BERGIN

ib. 18. The reference to M/,ag L

for, owing doubtless to scribal corru
in the edition fits any metrical sche
ib. 19. '6 51, SG. i., p. 384.' There is no such metre
on the page. Probably the poem referred to is the one
beginning :
I nanmini na trindite - trin6it cita nem,

but that is in the metre 7 51, and should have been

mentioned in 62 above.
ib. 28. 'Lismore Lives, p. xviii. 1. 9.' The quatrain re-
ferred to is :

Ocht n-aerich na dualuch

don-roichet for rith
indagaid na sualach
1ia ndichur don bhith.

This is the beginning of a 'religious poem in sixty-six

quatrains.' The sixty-first quatrain has already been men-
tioned three times in 62, as an example of 7s+ 51. The
error by which the first quatrain is here taken as 62+ 51 is
due to reading dualac/i and sualackl as dissyllables. Similarly
throughout the tract in ZCP. III. 24-28 Meyer wrongly prints
diaalckae, etc., as if the words contained the diphthong ua.
But sn-dl/azg and du-dlazg, compounds of diazi, are trisyllabic,
and retain the quantity of the simplex. Cf. SR. 22 13
Ar dilgud d'anmain Adaim
dia phecthaib, dia dualchaib.

In Mod. Ir. the J is still long in duZb/dilcc', sub/di/ce ; O'Reilly

wrongly omits the accent; so does Atkinson in his edition
of T/rwee Shafts, where the Mss. have -d-, and Dinneen follows
suit, in spite of the pronunciation. 0 MAille (ZCP. IX. 347)
strangely expresses doubts as to the relation of the modern
and the earlier forms, regarding the change of ic/ > c as
'not sufficiently authenticated.' But the spelling sub/zidilc/e
is common in O'Hussey's Teagasg Crziosda'id/e, secunda editio
1707.
ib. 28. 'A metre 61+ 51 occurs in Silva Gad., p. 384.' A
duplicate of the statement made in 1. 19 above. Delete.
p. 25. 7. 'Rev. Celtique, xv. p. 203.' Strictly, this should
have been put under the 'other arrangements,' for, though

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 METRICA 167

thfe first part of the stanza,

IS zinainzz in gabalsa, correspo
scheme of the second part is 2 X
ib. 9. This line should be de
to is an example of ochtfoclac
in the following paragraph, an
again, this time in the proper pl
ib. I I. The scheme of the
p. 81I, 19, is 3 x 73+ 51 2 2 X 7i+
ib. 25. Delete 3309. There is no verse in this part
of TBC.
ib. Rev. Celt. xv. 319. The reference is out of place, the
metrical scheme of the stanza being 3 x 7+ 51 1 3 x 73+ 51
It should follow i. Io in the preceding paragraph.
ib. 26. RC. xxIII. 426, 48. Here again the second part
of the stanza is shorter than the first, the scheme being
2X 6'+5'.
ib. 29. For 2 X 4 + 31 1| 2 x 42 + 31 read 42 + 41+ 31
41 +41 +31
p. 26. The example of d'voignech has suffered much in the
editing, and its author SeaAn 6g O Dilaigh would blush to
acknowledge the authorship. As it stands there are metrical
faults in three out of the four lines. The first line has no
alliteration, and the internal rimes between the first and second,
and between the third and fourth, are spoiled. fiorthobar (!)
should be ovrt/irv (sic 23 F 16, p. 195), which alliterates with
f~liroioinih and rimes with chrzc/1ilJzzgh ' saffron host' (sic leg., Ms.
crdchsloid ; O'Grady's crioc/shldikh 'territorial host' is meant
to rime with the impossible [st]iorthdoir). In the third line the
O'Gara iMS. rightly has ua na ccait/zb/eodkamzh (:flaithleoghan)
'descendant of the battle-vigorous heroes' (lit. 'stags'). In
this metre, with the exception of the first words of the first
and third lines, technically called urlanna, every word not an
larmvberla rimes with one in another line.

I I.-TIE ALLEGED RIMING OF LONG WITH SHORT VOWELS

In ERIU VII. 12 Meyer suggests that in debide 'long

monosyllables ending in a consonant may rime with short un-
stressed syllables. . . . Similarly with rhyme-words of two and

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