This week I picked number 66 from the top 100 Irish poems list. This is a sad and powerful poem written in Irish by Padraic Pearse. But don’t worry if you do not speak Irish I have included the translation.
The Irish poem ‘Bean Sleibhe ag Caoineadh a Mhac’ English translation is “A Woman of The Mountain Keens Her Son” or in short: “mountain woman crying son”
What is the poem Bean Sleibhe ag Caoineadh a Mhac all about?
They say that this poem reads better in Irish. However, it is written in older Irish so anyone who knows Irish presently may have a harder time understanding it.
The English on the other hand is still excellent and really does convey that sense of loss that must rack any Mother when a child dies. It is certainly a sad and moving poem.
English Translation of Bean Sleibhe ag Caoineadh a Mhac:
Grief on the death, it has blackened my heart:
lt has snatched my love and left me desolate,
Without friend or companion under the roof of my house
But this sorrow in the midst of me, and I keening.
As I walked the mountain in the evening
The birds spoke to me sorrowfully,
The sweet snipe spoke and the voiceful curlew
Relating to me that my darling was dead.
I called to you and your voice I heard not,
I called again and I got no answer,
I kissed your mouth, and O God how cold it was!
Ah, cold is your bed in the, lonely churchyard.
O green-sodded grave in which my child is,
Little narrow grave, since you are his bed,
My blessing on you, and thousands of blessings
On the green sods that are over my treasure.
Grief on the death, it cannot be denied,
It lays low, green and withered together,—
And O gentle little son, what tortures me is
That your fair body should be making clay !
Irish version: Bean Sleibhe ag Caoineadh a Mhac
Is brón ar an mbás, nach dubh mo chroí istigh,
Sé a d’fhuadaigh mo ghrá uaim is a d’fhág mé go cloíte,
Gan caraid ná compánach fá dhíon mo thíse,
Ach mo leanbh ar lár agus mé dá chaoineadh.
’S ag siúl an drúcht sléibhe dom tráthnóinín,
Labhrann na héanlaithe liom féin go brónach,
Labhrann an naosc bhinn is an crotach glórach,
Ag inseacht domsa gur éag mo stóirín.
Do labhair mé leat agus glór níor chualas,
’Gus labhair mé aríst leat agus freagra ní bhfuair mé,
Do phóg do bhéilín is, a Dhia, nach ba fuar í
Ach is fuaire í do leaba ins an gcill atá uaigneach.
’Gus brón ar an mbás, nach deacair é a shéanadh,
Mar tagann sé go dlúth agus go cruinn le chéile,
’S a mhaicín bán deas, nach thú a chéas mé,
Is do cholainn chaomh agus í ag déanamh créafóig’.
Luigh siar san uaigh ghlas anois, a leana,
Mar ní he é an codladh gearr é ach an codladh fada,
Mar d’fhág tú go deo mé is mo cheann i bhfolach
Ag silt na ndeora nó go dté mé i dtalamh.
Bean Sléibhe ag Caoineadh a Mhac: meaning and analysis
Pearse wrote most of his poetry in Irish, and this lament comes from his 1914 collection Suantraidhe agus Goltraidhe (“Lullabies and Laments”).
What it means
The poem is a caoineadh, a keen: the traditional Irish lament sung over the dead. A mother living on the mountain has lost her son. Her house is empty, and the birds, the snipe and the curlew, are the ones who bring her the news. She calls to him and gets no answer, kisses his cold mouth, and blesses the narrow green grave that is now his bed. What tortures her most is the thought of his fair body turning to clay.
The Irish version has one more verse than the English above. In it she tells him to lie back in the green grave, because this is not the short sleep but the long one, and she will keep weeping until she is in the ground herself.
Form
Four-line stanzas built on the vowel rhymes of Irish song. In the first verse, “chroí istigh”, “cloíte”, “thíse” and “chaoineadh” all ring on the same “í” sound, which gives the poem its music when read aloud in Irish.
Key themes
- Grief: raw and physical, not softened by consolation.
- The keening tradition: an old Irish way of mourning, mostly done by women.
- Motherhood: a theme Pearse came back to in “The Mother” in 1916.
More Irish poems
- The Mother by Pádraig Pearse
- The Wayfarer by Pádraig Pearse
- The Fool by Pádraig Pearse
- Ireland’s top 100 Irish poems
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