Violet Hughes here afore Us
All accolades, We would hear
That make her a worthy Peer
She and the Blue Tyger Cat
Walk together, but apart
Their mind is set on kingdom
Hers covers clever outcome
She’s about the silent search
purposely pours through research
Sparky does not envy her
Her work’s cause for them to purr
When on task, lone together
The East faces fair weather
She brings to bear and then some,
Boundless boon to kingdom
At times the Blue Tyger nets
The birds, like belov’d assets
Violet, as her net’s thrown
Finds Crux of hard meaning now known
The Blue Tyger bids their eye
Spanning from meadow to sky
She eases her eye to pledge
On the keenness of knowledge
Blue tyger is Joyful swift
Gazing at folk as a gift
Her joy sparkles like a gem
When wending through a problem
When We're working together
We'll not worry the other
Wielding weapons or the pen
Joyus in our clever ken
We, on these Tyger Thrones see
That understanding clearly
That which is difficult
Is expertise we exalt
Order of the Pelican
Members of its august span
Brought before Violet Hughes now
She’s to receive its renown
Ryouko'jin Demon King
of the three heavens brings
Rani Indrakshi to see
This Eastern Peer, by Our decree
Done by these letters patent
Purpure, a punner Argent
With these symbols We adorn
On September 3rd, at Barleycorn
These praises We'll not disavow
AS Fifty Seven now
In Crown Province of Ostgardr
With Our sincerest regard
Wordcount 261
Inspired by the anonymous 11thc Irish poem “Pangur Bán.”
7 syllables per line
*perspective switch
Alliteration
We’ve pulled her from the populous
Violet Hughes here afore Us
All accolades, We would hear
That make her a worthy Peer
*She and the Blue Tyger Cat
Walk together, but apart
Their mind is set on kingdom
Hers covers clever outcome
She’s about the silent search
purposely pours through research
Sparky does not envy her
Her work’s cause for them to purr
When on task, lone together
The East faces fair weather
She brings to bear and then some,
Boundless boon to kingdom
At times the Blue Tyger nets
The birds, like belov’d assets
Violet, as her net’s thrown
Finds Crux of hard meaning now known
The Blue Tyger bids their eye
Spanning from meadow to sky
She eases her eye to pledge
On the keenness of knowledge
Blue tyger is Joyful swift
Gazing at folk as a gift
Her joy sparkles like a gem
When wending through a problem
*When We're working together
We'll not worry the other
Wielding weapons or the pen
Joyus in our clever ken
We, on these Tyger Thrones see
That understanding clearly
That which is difficult
Is expertise we exalt
Order of the Pelican
Members of its august span
Brought before Violet Hughes now
She’s to receive its renown
Ryouko'jin Demon King
of the three heavens brings
Rani Indrakshi to see
This Eastern Peer, by Our decree
Done by these letters patent
Purpure, a punner Argent
With these symbols We adorn
On September 3rd, at Barleycorn
These praises We'll not disavow
AS Fifty Seven now
In Crown Province of Ostgardr
With Our sincerest regard
'Pangur Bán' 'Pangur Bán',
There is nothing in this life but mist,
And we will only be alive,
for a short time.
Níl sa saol seo ach ceo,
Is ní bheimid beo,
ach seal beag gearr.
-The Secret of Kells
Inspiration - how I got to Pangur Bán
Violet has stated, both in person and on her wiki, that her favorite scroll is her Silver Tiger, which has inky paw prints running over it, modeled after: Centuries Ago, a Cat Walked Across This Medieval Manuscript
Inspired by her love of cats, poetry and paw prints I immediately thought of "Pangur Bán," a poem I have known and loved for years.
There was a caveat in her ICOP section where she requested that all the speakers at her elevation do so in Limerick. I had discovered writing an Award of Arms in 2018 that while the Limerick verse we are all familiar with was popular from the 18th century on, there were similar forms in Old Irish poem styles going back to the 12th century.
Pangur Bán is, essentially, this long forgotten Monk watching his white cat hunt mice. The poem is written with the author comparing himself to his cat, as they both enjoy their roles in life.
My first step was to research the poem itself. I found a YouTube video in which Dr. Mark Harman read a couple of verses of the poem in Gaelic and then in English. Hearing it spoken in the original language really did help me get into a groove for writing it.
The poem is preserved in the Reichenau Primer and now kept in St. Paul's Abbey in the Lavanttal.
Research on the poem , rhyme & meter
Then I started to look for translations of the poem. I found many. Including one version by W.H. Auden, a modern poet whose works I admire. These short translations were wonderful and certainly gave me a feel for what the poem was, but I wanted to find full translations.
I found them in the University of Cambridge, as well as one by James Marchand.
Then I looked for the verse form the original had been written in.
One source said “the meter is Deibhidhe (pronounced “ jayvee”), with seven syllables per line, with an unstressed final syllable in the off-verse rhyming with the on-verse. Alliteration is common. This may be the ancestor of scaldic meters.”
Deibhidhe is:
written in any number of quatrains
each line with 7 syllables
rhymed, AABB
with alliteration between two words in each line
- all end-words should consonate (Sound in sympathy)
There are later interpretations of the same rhyme scheme that rhyme the quatrain ABAB. I think I am safe in my interpretation because listening to the poem out loud in Old Irish, it sounds like rhyming couplets. It was fascinating seeing the evolution of the form as I delved deeper into research.
I took these two translations, verse and verse together and rewrote them into a version wherein I tried to encompass the original verse form. Once again I had to shove another (very different) language into English.
I and white Felix,*
each of us two (keeps) at his specialty:
his mind is set on hunting,
my mind on my special subject.
I and white Pangur
practice each of us his special art:
his mind is set on hunting,
my mind on my special craft.
She and the Blue Tyger Cat
Walk together, but apart
Their mind is set on kingdom
Hers covers clever outcome
This sets up the pattern for the main verses. The first part of the quatrain describes the monk and their cat, the second describes them individually, split between each line.
*Felix is not a translation of Pangur. Marchand decided to insert their cat into Pangur’s role in their translation.
Perspective
I start with the perspective of Their Majesties, calling Violet before Them. Then I switch perspective to Pangur Bán, and turn him into Sparky the East Kingdom’s Blue Tyger populace badge. I use they/them pronouns to reference Sparky and She/Her pronouns to reference Violet. Violet is the monk that is no longer written in first person.
At the 8th verse the perspective changes back to Their Majesties, which takes us to the end of the piece.
Violet Hughes here afore Us
All accolades, We would hear
That make her a worthy Peer
While this was the first refrain read out on the scroll it was one of the last ones that I wrote. I tried starting it with the preceding verse, which would be how Pangur Bán was written, but the scroll needed a preamble. Here the perspective is that of TRM speaking to the populace.
*She and the Blue Tyger Cat
Walk together, but apart
Their mind is set on kingdom
Hers covers clever outcome
purposely pours through research
Her work’s cause for them to purr
I also let the alliteration go in favor of what I was trying to convey.
When on task, lone together
The East faces fair weather
She brings to bear and then some,
Boundless boon to kingdom
At times the Blue Tyger nets
The birds, like belov’d assets
Violet, as her net’s thrown
Finds Crux of hard meaning now known
In some of the other translations I found, ones that adhered more to the syllable count than I managed, the monk and their joy seems to have been downplayed. The final line here is the crux of the scroll, and so I decided to keep it.
The Blue Tyger bids their eye
Spanning from meadow to sky
She eases her eye to pledge
On the keenness of knowledge
Blue tyger is Joyful swift
Gazing at folk as a gift
Her joy sparkles like a gem
When wending through a problem
In the second line, technically I have 2 sets of alliterative sentences happening. Gazing & gift and at,as & a. Too bad that “gang” is not really an appropriate synonym for folk. And as mentioned above I enjoy alliterating different letters that sound the same.
*When We're working together
We'll not worry the other
Wielding weapons or the pen
Joyus in our clever ken
“Wielding weapons or a pen” went through so many iterations that it is worth mentioning. As with anything in the creative process one has to know when to drop a word or sentence completely.
The second couplet encapsulates the recipient's interests: fighting, calligraphy, kinds of service. If one can make an allusion to a smart mind being a service to the kingdom.
We, on these Tyger Thrones see
That understanding clearly
That which is difficult
Is expertise we exalt
Seamus Heaney's translation is somewhat different, and wasn't as perfect as the other two:
With his unsheathed, perfect nails
Pangur springs, exalts and kills
When the longed for, difficult
Answers come, I too exalt
Order of the Pelican
Members of its august span
Brought before Violet Hughes now
She’s to receive its renown
Pelican/span is an appropriate choice here. I was using Span to signify the Members of the Order of the Pelican as well as the Wingspan of the bird the Order is named for.
Ryouko'jin Demon King
of the three heavens brings
Rani Indrakshi to see
This Eastern Peer, by Our decree
Done by these letters patent
Purpure, a punner Argent
With these symbols We adorn
On September 3rd, at Barleycorn
They fit my syllable count!!
THEY FIT THE ALLITERATION!!!
That NEVER HAPPENS.
The stars have aligned once and I doubt they will again, but I will revel in this crazy random happenstance!
AS Fifty Seven now
In Crown Province of Ostgardr
With Our sincerest regard
Original ending:
At Barleycorn, September 3rd
Violet Hughes gets the Bird
I admit that when it came time to write the final verses, I was getting a tad bit punchy.
East Kingdom Gazette: Court Report for John Barleycorn – Ostgardr Investiture & Fight for a Cause Tournament
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