Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry/The Lament of the Old Woman of Beare
THE LAMENT OF THE OLD WOMAN OF BEARE
The reason why she was called the Old Woman of Beare was that she had fifty foster-children in Beare. She had seven periods of youth one after another, so that every man who had lived with her came to die of old age, and her grandsons and great-grandsons were tribes and races. For a hundred years she wore the veil which Cummin had blessed upon her head. Thereupon old age and infirmity came to her. 'Tis then she said:
Ebb-tide to me as of the sea!
Old age causes me reproach.
Though I may grieve thereat—
Happiness comes out of fat.
I am the Old Woman of Beare,
An ever-new smock I used to wear:
To-day—such is my mean estate—
I wear not even a cast-off smock.
It is riches
Ye love, it is not men:
In the time when we lived
It was men we loved.
Swift chariots,
And steeds that carried off the prize,—
Their day of plenty has been,
A blessing on the King who lent them!
My body with bitterness has dropt
Towards the abode we know:
When the Son of God deems it time
Let Him come to deliver His behest.
My arms when they are seen
Are bony and thin:
Once they would fondle,
They would be round glorious kings.
When my arms are seen,
And they bony and thin,
They are not fit, I declare,
To be uplifted over comely youths.
The maidens rejoice
When May-day comes to them:
For me sorrow is meeter,
For I am wretched, I am an old hag.
I hold no sweet converse,
No wethers are killed for my wedding-feast,
My hair is all but grey,
The mean veil over it is no pity.
I do not deem it ill
That a white veil should be on my head:
Time was when many cloths of every hue
Bedecked my head as we drank the good ale.
The Stone of the Kings on Femen,
The Chair of Ronan in Bregon,
'Tis long since storms have reached them.
The slabs of their tombs are old and decayed.
The wave of the great sea talks aloud,
Winter has arisen:
Fermuid the son of Mugh to-day
I do not expect on a visit.
I know what they are doing:
They row and row across
The reeds of the Ford of Alma—
Cold is the dwelling where they sleep.
'Tis 'O my God!'
To me to-day, whatever will come of it.
I must take my garment even in the sun:[1]
The time is at hand that shall renew me.
Youth's summer in which we were
I have spent with its autumn:
Winter-age which overwhelms all men,
To me has come its beginning.
Amen! Woe is me!
Every acorn has to drop.
After feasting by shining candles
To be in the gloom of a prayer-house!
I had my day with kings
Drinking mead and wine:
To-day I drink whey-water
Among shrivelled old hags.
I see upon my cloak the hair of old age,
My reason has beguiled me:
Grey is the hair that grows through my skin—
'Tis thus I am an old hag.
The flood-wave
And the second ebb-tide—
They have all reached me,
So that I know them well.
The flood-wave
Will not reach the silence of my kitchen:
Though many are my company in darkness,
A hand has been laid upon them all.
O happy the isle of the great sea
Which the flood reaches after the ebb!
As for me, I do not expect
Flood after ebb to come to me.
There is scarce a little place to-day
That I can recognise:
What was on flood
Is all on ebb.
- ↑ 'Je tremble à present dedans la canicule.'—Molière, Sganarelle, scène 2.