Madrachas – Dogs
Madrachas
le Michael Davitt
Seanmadra cois tine
Gan aird ar an saol
Smaointeach mar fhile
Is cancarach ann féin.
Dúisiíonn le fiosracht
Comhaireann a mhéara
Éiríonn ina sheasamh
Is breacann véarsa.
Tagann bean an tí
Le cor ina srón
Léann an fhilíocht
Tugann cic dó sa tóin.
Seanmhadra faoin mbáisteach
Bréan den saol
Ag cumadh mar mháistir
Ach brónach ann féin.
Dogs
by Michael Davitt
A useless old dog
Lies by the fire
Spiteful and cranky.
He wakes with a start
Rises to his feet
And scatters verses.
The landlady comes
Turning up her nose
At his poetry
And gives a kick to his ass.
The old dog lying in the rain
With a foul life
Shaped by his master
But wallowing in his own sorrows.
I’m quite sure I didn’t get this one right; I was puzzled by Comhaireann a mhéara, which I take to mean Counts his fingers; though I’m not entirely certain that we’re talking about a literal dog here (“seanmadra” is literally “old dog,” but idiomatically can mean “veteran”), the fingers didn’t fit with the image that the poem otherwise consistently builds.
I chose to render Tugann cic dó sa tóin. as Gives a kick to his ass rather than something more genteel in part because the first Irish just about anyone learns, thanks in part to the great Shane MacGowan
Another interesting item to note here is the word véarsa (verse). The letter v is rare in Irish, appearing only in loan words from Latin and English. (The letter h is, strictly speaking, rare as well; it appears frequently to indicate aspiration, but usually acts more like a diacritical mark, replacing the aspiration dot found in the old script; as a letter in its own right, its appearance typically denotes a loan word from Greek or Norse.) Flann O’Brien
