I'm teaching Bible themes from the English translation of the Hymn, Be Thou My Vision - which has lost a LOT in translation from the Old Irish poem - entire stanzas are missing in modern versions. You are correct that I don't know ANY Old Irish at all, except for little bits as I've studied this poem. But just like any Bible study would look at the original meaning of a Greek or Hebrew word from the Bible, to understand the meaning of a passage a little better, I was hoping to understand the meaning behind some of the Old Irish words in this very old poem. I knew it was Old Irish; I merely failed to include the phrase "Old Irish" in my subject line, and thankfully others corrected that.

/SB

Don't mind me Sue, it's just some of the American posters take a certain tone that is almost mocking. Not that they don't do so with things from other European countries.

Anyways, this is 'cotlud' in the eDIL:
http://edil.qub.ac.uk/dictionary/result ... =edil_2012

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__̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.___

This is 'cotlad'. One of the meanings is to do with desire/love, it seems


http://edil.qub.ac.uk/dictionary/result ... &&limit=10

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__̴ı̴̴̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡ ̡͌l̡*̡̡ ̴̡ı̴̴̡ ̡̡͡|̲̲̲͡͡͡ ̲▫̲͡ ̲̲̲͡͡π̲̲͡͡ ̲̲͡▫̲̲͡͡ ̲|̡̡̡ ̡ ̴̡ı̴̡̡ ̡͌l̡̡̡̡.___

It wasn't so much that material was lost in translation as it was that Hull (who created the versified version) was charged with coming up with a useable, easily singable, hymn from the Irish tradition for the CofI hymnal. She collapsed some stanzas into one another, and rendered some of the others rather freely to allow them to fit with the chosen tune ("Slane"). That's pretty much how poetic translation works, I'm afraid.

I've often wondered why Aodh Ó Dúgáin only translated two of the verses for the Contemporary Irish version. When we do it, we usually repeat the first verse, as two verses is pretty short for a performance piece.

Redwolf

Yes, Redwolf - I see that Hull had to "versify" and condense the English; however even some of Hull's work never made it into the final published hymn (At least, I haven't found it anywhere). She created six verses; my church hymnal only has four, the Trinity hymnal has five, but the fifth of Hull's six verses begins "King of the seven heavens, grant me for dole..." and I have not found anything like that published in a single hymnal anywhere, even on line. Perhaps - as you suggest - it would have simply been too long. Maybe hymnal publishers just condensed it further to what they felt was a more suitable length for a church service.

It's nice to discuss this with people who actually know something about it! And thank you Jay Bee for the definition! /SB

Given how parishioners bitch and moan if we sing all the verses of a long hymn, such as "For All The Saints" or "St. Patrick's Breastplate," I'm guessing some foresightful hymnal editors cut it down. There are only three in ECUSA 1982 (which also, oddly, has Byrne as the versifier and Hull as the translator). I can be pretty sure why they left out the "Be Thou my Breastplate" verse (the trend in ECUSA has been to remove or downplay any martial imagery, alas), but I can't speak for the others.

Redwolf

Ha ha! You are probably right!

Good night from the U.S. /SB

Or - rather - I should have said "Good night from the east coast" to a Californian. Sorry!