A Reading Book in Irish History :: XXXVII. TENNYSON'S "VOYAGE OF MAILDUNE."

XXXVII. TENNYSON'S "VOYAGE OF MAILDUNE."

("Founded on an Irish Legend: a.d. 700.")

Of the tale called the "Voyage of Maildune," the oldest copy is in the Book of the Dun Cow, which was copied from older books eight hundred years ago: but here the story is imperfect at both the beginning and end, portions of the book having been torn away at some former time. There is, however, a perfect copy in the Yellow Book of Lecan.[50] It was translated and published for the first time in "Old Celtic Romances" in 1879. When this book appeared, the great English poet, Alfred Tennyson (afterwards Lord Tennyson), read the story, and made it the subject of a beautiful poem, also called "The Voyage of Maildune." Portions of the beginning and end of this poem are here given:—

I was the chief of the race—he had stricken my father dead—
But I gather'd my fellows together, I swore I would strike off his head.
Each of them looked like a king, and was noble in birth as in worth,
And each of them boasted he sprang from the oldest race upon earth.
Each was as brave in the fight as the bravest hero of song,
And each of them liefer had died than have done one another a wrong.
He lived on an isle in the ocean—we sail'd on a Friday morn—
He that had slain my father the day before I was born.

II.

And we came to the isle in the ocean, and there on the shore was he.
But a sudden blast blew us out and away thro' a boundless sea.

XI.

And we came to the Isle of a saint who had sail'd with St. Brendan[51] of yore,
He had lived ever since on the Isle and his winters were fifteen score,
And his voice was low as from other worlds, and his eyes were sweet,
And his white hair sank to his heels and his white beard fell to his feet,
And he spake to me, "O Maeldune, let be this purpose of thine!
Remember the words of the Lord when he told us 'Vengeance is mine!'
His fathers have slain thy fathers in war or in single strife,
Thy fathers have slain his fathers, each taken a life for a life,
Thy father had slain his father, how long shall the murder last?
Go back to the Isle of Finn[52] and suffer the Past to be Past."

XII.

And we came to the Isle we were blown from, and there on the shore was he,
The man that had slain my father. I saw him and let him be.
O weary was I of the travel, the trouble, the strife and the sin,
When I landed again, with a tithe of my men, on the Isle of Finn.

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