The Poem-Book of the Gael / Translations from Irish Gaelic Poetry into English Prose and Verse

THE LOVES OF LIADAN AND CURITHIR

St. Cummine, in whose days the lovers lived, died 661. The
language is of the ninth century.

A young poet and poetess of Connaught were betrothed; but during the year's interval preceding their marriage, Liadan, for some unexplained reason, took the veil. When Curithir returned to fetch her to his home, he found that by her vows she had for ever separated herself from him. In his despair he determined to follow her example and become a monk. The lovers placed themselves together under the direction of St. Cummine, a severe and hard man, who permitted them to meet, with the object of accusing them of wrong-doing. Finally, he gave Curithir the choice of seeing Liadan without speaking to her, or speaking to her without seeing. He chooses the latter, and henceforth they wander round each other's cells, speaking together through the wattled walls, but never looking on each other's faces. The time comes when this can be no longer borne, and Curithir sails away to strange lands on pilgrimage, so that Liadan saw him no more. She died upon the flagstone on which Curithir was wont to pray, and was buried beneath it.
The poem is in the form of a dialogue.

(Liadan speaks)

Curithir, maker of sweet song,
By me beloved, you do me wrong!
Dear master of the two Grey Feet,[106]
Is it like this we meet?

(Curithir speaks)

Of late,
Since I and Liadan understood our fate,
Each day hath been a month of fasting days,
Each month a year of doubting of God's ways.

I had my choice
To see her gentle form, or hear her voice;
"Some comfort yet may reach her from my speech,"
I said; "we have been ever looking each at each."

(Liadan speaks)

His voice comes up to me again,
Is it in blame, or is it pain?
I catch its accents strained and deep,
And cannot sleep.

The flagstone where he bent the knee,
Beside the wattled oratory,
'Tis there, at eve, each lonely day,
I go to pray.

Never for him dear hearth or wife,
Homestead, or innocent baby life;
No mate at his right hand
Will ever stand.

Cummine accuses her of wrong and she turns on him:

Cleric, thy thought is ill;
Not with my will you link my name with his,
From Loch Seng's borderland he comes, I wis,
I from Iar-Conchin's Cill.

We met, you say;
But sure, no honeyed pastures of the flock
Where lover's arms in lover's arms enlock,
Was ours that May.

If Curithir is gone to-day
To teach the little scholars of the school,
Small help he'll get who does not know his rule;
Curithir's thoughts are very far away.

At length the news is brought to her that Curithir is gone for ever, and she breaks out into a passionate lament.

The Cry of Liadan after Curithir

'Tis done!
Joyless the victory I have won,
The tender heart of him I loved I wrung!

He called me near
A little space to please him, but the fear
Of God in heaven withheld me, and I would not hear.

Great gain
To us the way love pointed plain,
To win the gates of Paradise through pain.

Reckless and vain
The whim that caused my lover's love to dim;
Great ever was my gentleness to him.

Liadan am I,
And Curithir I loved; it is no lie,
He would not doubt me now if he were by.

Short while were we
Together in the closest intimacy,
Sweet was the time to him, and sweet to me.

The music of the lightly waving tree,
When Curithir was here, would sing to me,
With the deep voice of the empurpled sea.

Surely to-day
No whim of mine would turn his heart away,
No senseless act or speech, do what I may.

And to myself I say,
My love to him was given, my heart, unshriven,
At his dear feet I lay.

My heart is flame,
A tempest heat no ice on earth can tame,
I cry "I was to blame! I was to blame!"

FOOTNOTES:

[106] A play on Curithir's patronymic, Mac Doborchon, i.e. "Son of the Otter."

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