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comann na s3nibeann VOL. XIX. L1917.1 ~A~A~GAISseantuis ti-r61n EDITEDFROM '. THE BOOKOF LISMOREAND THREEOTHER VELLUM MSS. BY DOUGLAS HYDE.LLD.. D.LITT., M.R.I.A. PREFACE. THEearly Irish were well acquainted with Charlemagne and his career.1 His life, in fact, and his court and his ambitions had their due effect upon the Irish kings. Hence it is not vely sur- prising that in later times such a text as the present should have become popular, not only for its own sake-and as a piece of literature it is quite well written, and the death of Roland really pathetic--but also because it must have appealed to a ~~eoplewtio, with their innumerable houses and foundations on the Continent, could hardly haw wholly forgotten their lettered ancestors who kdd once adorned the French court. The following text is one of a number of allied pieces of literature translated in to Late-Middle or Early-Modern Irish in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, at a time when the English power in Ireland was reduced to a mhriinum and the Norman invaders had become gaeliciscd. The present story is taken direct from a Lath original, but others were translated from French and others again from Middle English. The texts are preserved in vellum MSS. of the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries and have certain traits in common. Thus our test resembles very much in style and vocabulary the translation of the French story Fierebras contained in a fifteenth century vellum, and also thc Early-English story of Bevis of Hampton, the fragmentary Queste del Saint Graal, the History of the Lombards and Maun- deville's Travels. This last is the only one of these pieces that we can date with any certainty, and it was written in 1475, as Fingin O'Mahony the translator tells us in his interesting preface. !shall trv to show that our present text must have been written 1. Charlemagne knew Ireland too, and sent fifty shekels of silver as a present the community at Clonmacnois. His favourite Alcuin was educated there. Dungal wrote letters an3 poems to him. Scotus Eriu-gena (i.e.the Irish-born) resided for a time in the palace of Charlemagne's grandson, Charles the WM. Professor Mac Neill has sustained the thesis that Charle- magne's career consciously influenced later Irish kings. vi. PREFACE. in or about 1400.' If before this date, it could not have been long before, for it is almost as much an Early-Modern as a Late- Middle Irish text. THE LATIN ORIGINAL. The Latin original from which the text was made is ascribed to Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, a con temporary of Charlemagne, and he professes in the text to be the author of certain chapters. His authorship was not questiomd when the book was first printed in 1566 by S. Scardius of Frankfort-on-Main in a tome called "Germanicarum rerum quatnut?rcelebriores vetustiores-que chronographi," nor yet by his next editor. Roth accepted it as the genuine work of Turpin, who was a real character and flourished from about 753 to 800, and was known to the Germans as Tylpinus. Gaston Paris however proves in his Latin treatise De Pseudn Twpino what other scholars had long suspected, that the chronicle is not Turpin's at all, but the work of different people writing at different times between the beginning of the eleventh and the middle of the twelfth century, that is from 1020 to about 1150. Some of the work is built upon old French Chansons de Geste, for certain of the names such as Aigolandus, Marsile, etc., are found only in the Chansons. The bulk of the book from Chapter VI. to Chapter XXXII., with the prologue, was probably written by a monk of St. Andrew's at Vienne with some alterations by a n~onkof St. Denis any time between 1109 and 11 19. The first five chapters are the oldest part of thc work, and were obviously written by a monk of Coipostella. There is no pretence in these earlier chapters that Turpin is the author, and as for Rolancl, whose name later on dominates the entire legend in every country, he is not even mentioned ; the only object of the worthy writer l. It is probably nearly a hundred years older than thc Ma.uxldeville, which abounds in foreign words, as mainev manner, maizdser manger, potu pot, pyejaiu prelate, pudar dust, raibkev river, vostad roast, statuid statute, faibern tavern, tumba tomb, uindimrint ointment, cavbbuficla carbuncle, dima clime, cursa a course, fersa a verse, fisice a physician, gmibel gravel, halla a hall, iampn a lamp, offrail offering, nzitajl mettle, perse a perch, titad title, trist~il trestles, deithfw dlfiercnce, fund~mintfoundation, etc. vii. being to urge the faithful to visit the tomb of St. James at Santiago de Compostella. This chronicle soon became very popular. No less than five translations were made of it into Old French at the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century. A splendid Welsh translaticin in which it is woven into the Roman d' Otucl, arid part of the Ghanson de Roland, was made not later than 1275. The chronicle was first published in 1566, at Frankfort, and eighteen years later at the same place by Reuber. Sub- sequent editions appeared at Florence and Brussels and finally an accurate edition from seven vellum MSS. at Montpellier was published by M. Castets in 1880, the best of the vellums being of the twelfth or thirteenth century. "Si ce n'est pas," says Castets, "le Turpin primitif, c'est bien celui qui de borme heure a 6t6 le Turpin officiel, c'est dui qu' on n'a cess6 de lire de traduire et d'imiter au Moyen-Age et que les romanciers italiens clepuis Nicolas de Padoue jusqu' a Arioste ont accept6 comrne le chroniqueur en titre des hauts faits de Charlemagne et de Roland? I have made use of the Frank- fort text of 1W9(Fr.), and also of this text of Castets (C.), and compared the Irish carefully with both of them. These texts do not always agree with me another nor does the Iiish text wholly agree with either of them, but now with oile now with the other, and occasionally wit h neither. HOW THE IRISH VERSIONS DIFFER FROM THE L.4TIN. The following are the principal differelms : all the Irish MSS. except the fragment in the King's Inns Library omit the prefatory epistle ascribed to Turpiri which the published Latin texts contain, but which the Welsh also omits. It is a brief letter 1. Under the title of the "Ystorya cfe Carolo Magfio" from the Red Book of Hergest, see4'YCyrnmodor" of 1883 for the text, and of1907 for the trans- lation and notes by Rev. Robert Williams. The Turpin chronicle amcunts to not much more than a third of the Welsh text, the rest being taken from the Roman d'Otuel the CEanson de Roland. 2. It is the text "dont s'est servi Ciarnpi . de dixhuit manuscrits h Paris, et de sept dc Montpellier." 3. Entitled "veterum scriptorum qui Caesarum et imperatorum Gernlanicoriim ~esper aliquot secula gestas literis manclaverunt." addressed to Leoprandus of Aix la Chapdle giving Turpin's reasons for writing the book, stating that he records events of which he had been an eye-witness,' and that he writes these doings of Charlemagne because they are not all hund in the chronicle of St. Denis.2 The Irish translator in accordance with the Frankfort text [Fr.] omits the greater part of Chapter 111. which Castets gives. This contains a list of the "urbes et majores villaeJ' which Charles had conquered, and is evidently the work of some Spanish monk, for no Frenchman could have known them. These names with those of "iiisulae et telures" number about one hundred and sixteen. The Irish translator may have had the list before him, but if so he preferred not to encumber his pages with a mass of names that could have had no significance for his readers. He omits, probably for the same reason, many of the countries and kings mentioned in Chapter IX. of the Latin. He very wisely passes by without notice the constant and tedious Latin exclama- tions "0 virum laudabilem" ! etc., and the tiresome and constantly recurring "quid plura" ! His translation gains much by this restraint. We see further traces of what I take to be a desire to avoid tediousness in the omission of the long-winded and obviously intercalated chapter "De septem artibus quas Karol~sdepingi fecit in palatio suo," namely, grammar, music, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, and astrology. This chapter is also missing in the Frankfort text. The Irish also omits the short chapter on St. Denys, which is Chapter XXX. in Castets edition and XXIX. in the Frankfort text. The names of the seven bishops who con- secrated the graveyards at Arles and Bordeaux are omitted with the names of their sees, probably as being of small interest to the Iiish reader, and also, no doubt for the same reason, the chapter and a half containing the names of those buried at Blaye and Arles does not appear. The text in the Book of Lismore -- P 1. Quae propriis oculis intuitus sum quatuordecim annos perambulans Hispaniam et Galeciarn una cum eo [Carolo Magno] et exercitibus suis. 2. "in Sancti Dionysii cronica regali." PREFACE. ix. and the King's Inns Library text apparently with the same intention-i.e., to make the story more concise .and readable- avoid all mention of chapters.' There is no attempt made-and this is to be regretted-to turn any of the occasional Latin verses into poetry.