If I may: Today is the 10th anniversary of Seamus Heaney's death. A suitable occasion to mention that it is the 60th anniversary year of the death of child-brother Christopher Heaney of Mid Term Break, whom he never forgot. And in passing it is the 70th anniversary to the day, of the death of my dear Mama, Gertrude, who is never far from my thoughts. Requiescant in pace.
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Originally posted by Padraig View Post
It's also my pal Alan's 65th today, Padraig - decided to buy the Heaney Translations for him. Seemed appropriate.
Christopher also gets a mention in 'Blackbird of Glanmore' ,(little stillness dancer) as was pointed out in the second of the 'Four Sides of Heaney' this week.Comment
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Yes John, the man was a genius on TV in those days. Many of my classes were treated to Seamus Heaney's Schools broadcasts and nobody enjoyed them more than me. sic.Comment
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'The Four Sides of Heaney' concluded yesterday on Radio 4 with 'Heaney the Translator'. I have thoroughly enjoyed these four programmes, but it being 11th September it was interesting to be reminded of his poem 'Anything Can Happen' based on Horace's Odes, which he wrote just after the destruction of the Twin Towers.
Anything Can Happen
Anything can happen. You know how Jupiter
Will mostly wait for clouds to gather head
Before he hurls the lightning? Well, just now
He galloped his thunder cart and his horses
Across a clear blue sky. It shook the earth
And the clogged underearth, the River Styx,
The winding streams, the Atlantic shore itself.
Anything can happen, the tallest towers
Be overturned, those in high places daunted,
Those overlooked regarded. Stropped-beak Fortune
Swoops, making the air gasp, tearing the crest off one,
Setting it down bleeding on the next.
Ground gives. The heaven’s weight
Lifts up off Atlas like a kettle-lid.
Capstones shift, nothing resettles right.
Telluric ash and fire-spores boil away.
Seamus Heaney
(based on Horace's Odes. In Book 1, poem 34)
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Thank you for that
Re: Anything Can Happen
has poem 34 as:
My prayers were scant, my offerings few,
While witless wisdom fool'd my mind;
But now I trim my sails anew,
And trace the course I left behind.
For lo! the sire of heaven on high,
By whose fierce bolts the clouds are riven,
Today through an unclouded sky
His thundering steeds and car has driven.
E'en now dull earth and wandering floods,
And Atlas' limitary range,
And Styx, and Taenarus' dark abodes
Are reeling. He can lowliest change
And loftiest; bring the mighty down
And lift the weak; with whirring flight
Comes Fortune, plucks the monarch's crown,
And decks therewith some meaner wight.
Horace. The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace. John Conington. trans. London. George Bell and Sons. 1882.Comment
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Thanks, F I. That was great to read, and it was great to see what Seamus did with it in comparison to Connington. Listening to 'Heaney the Translator', it seemed that Seamus found translating a great way to write about contemporary issues, giving the original his own voice. This translation was fascinating to read and your contribution made me want to read more.Originally posted by Forget It (U2079353) View PostThank you for that
Re: Anything Can Happen
has poem 34 as:
My prayers were scant, my offerings few,
While witless wisdom fool'd my mind;
But now I trim my sails anew,
And trace the course I left behind.
For lo! the sire of heaven on high,
By whose fierce bolts the clouds are riven,
Today through an unclouded sky
His thundering steeds and car has driven.
E'en now dull earth and wandering floods,
And Atlas' limitary range,
And Styx, and Taenarus' dark abodes
Are reeling. He can lowliest change
And loftiest; bring the mighty down
And lift the weak; with whirring flight
Comes Fortune, plucks the monarch's crown,
And decks therewith some meaner wight.
Horace. The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace. John Conington. trans. London. George Bell and Sons. 1882.Comment
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Further comments on Heaney's translations - this time more recent than Horace. Earlier this month I bought a book The Testament of Cresseid & Seven Fables by Robert Henryson (1420s - 1505), translated by Seamus Heaney - an event I had missed in 2009! I had heard in passing of Cresseid but had not read any of the Testament. Therefore I looked forward to reading this translation and the Fables, which were based on the Fables of Aesop. What was interesting about the book - a small hardback - is that it contains the original 'not very difficult' Scots language of Henryson as well as the verse by verse translation in rhyme royal stanzas on adjoining pages. I am enjoying reading the Scots, especially as the translation is beside it. I have just this evening finished my first reading would recommend adding it to anyone's collection.
The introduction to the book is well worth reading, not only for relevant information but for Heaney's incomparable style as teacher.
from The Testament of Cresseid.
Thocht lufe be hait, yit in ane man of age
It kendillis nocht sa sone as in youtheid,
Of quhome the blade is flowing in ane rage;
And in the auld the curage doif and deid,
Of quhilk the fyre outward is best remeid:
To help be physike quhair that nature faillit
I am expert, for baith I have assaillit.
Though love is hot, yet in an older man
It kindles not so soon as in the young:
Their blood burns furiously in every vein
But in the old the blaze is lapsed so long
It needs an outer fire to burn and bring
The spark to life - as I myself know well:
Remedies, when the urge dies, can avail.
I stacked the fire and got warm at the hearth,
Then took a drink to soothe and lift my spirit
And arm myself against the bitter north.
To pass the time and kill the winter night
I chose a book - and was soon absorbed in it -
Written by Chaucer, the great and glorious,
About fair Cresseid and worthy Troilus.
Translated by Seamus Heaney 2009Comment
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Thanks, Padraig. A nice paperback copy of the book arrived from one of those online second-hand sites. Also enjoyed the introduction and looking forward to reading through - hadn't been aware of Robert Henryson before.Comment
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I don't think that anyone articulated about their craft more clearly than Heaney, and I never tire of hearing him talking about or reading his work - 'Poetry belongs in the memory of those who value it'. This programme, 'Out of the Marvellous', recorded for the BBC World Service in 2005 finds Seamus in conversation with Leon McAuley.
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Originally posted by johncorrigan View Post
Thanks for that excellent programme, John.
Funny, I always thought Leon McCawley was from Northern Ireland and that he was really Leon McAuley as you did. But no. His passport's not green - but he's OK
. I once heard him play at a concert here.
The Letters Of Seamus Heaney was mentioned during the programme. I think it's in my Christmas stocking. In fact I know it is but I'm not telling - it's a surprise from Santa Claus.
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The Letters duly arrived - by Post! I'm having a dabble. It's a bit like finding missing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, but also discovering a new untravelled trail.
I had intended to post a poem from The Translations which continue to amaze. For instance, Heaney's observation that the poem 'pads naturally out of Irish and into the big-cat English of "The Tiger" ' had me running to Blake's poem to discover that The Tyger and Pangur Ban(small white cat) share the same stanza form, though written centuries apart.
Heaney knew by heart Robin Fowler's version, ' which keeps the rhymed and endstopped movement of the seven-syllable lines, but changes the packed, donnish/monkish style of the original into something more like a children's poem, employing an idiom at once wily and wilfully faux-naif'.
Pangur Ban (uncollected)
Pangur Ban and I at work,
Adepts, equals, cat and clerk:
His whole instinct is to hunt,
Mine to free the meaning pent.
More than loud acclaim, I love
Books, silence, thoughts, my alcove.
Happy for me, Pangur Ban
Child-plays round some mouse's den.
Truth to tell, just being here,
Housed alone, housed together,
Adds up to its own reward:
Concentration, stealthy art.
Next thing an unwary mouse
Bares his flank: Pangur pounces.
Next thing lines that held and held
Meaning back begin to yield.
All the while his round bright eye
Fixes on the wall, while I
Focus my less piercing gaze
On the challenge of the page.
With his unsheathed, perfect nails
Pangur springs, exults and kills.
When the longed-for, difficult
Answers come, I too exult.
So it goes. To each his own.
No vying. No vexation.
Taking pleasure, taking pains,
Kindred spirits, veterans.
Day and night, soft purr, soft pad,
Pangur Ban has learned his trade.
Day and night, my own hard work
Solves the cruxes, makes a mark.
The Translations of Seamus Heaney 2022
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For an interesting PS, I add a link which includes two versions by Robin Fowler and Paul Muldoon, plus two stanzas in the original Irish.Originally posted by Padraig View Post
Oops! so full of noise and riot: Two translations of Pangur Ban (anon.)
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Worth mentioning the fascinating discovery, for Heaney followers, of the body in the bog at Bellaghy; tentatively named Bellaghy Boy.
Dig out your copies of North and Wintering Out.Comment
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Police Find Ancient Teenager’s Body, Preserved in Irish Bog for 2,500 Years | Smart News| Smithsonian MagazineOriginally posted by Padraig View Post
As I'm here, let me mention that I am reading Heaney's 2002 book Finders Keepers Selected Prose 1971- 2001. Essentially about poetry and poets' work, essays and lectures autobiographical, topical and specifically literary fill the pages. Excellent case studies on one or two of his own poems, which is where I am at the moment,Comment
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