Help translating translating Sean O’Riordain

[abbeygatebooks]

I’ve been reading through Scáthán Véarsaí, the Selected Poems of Sean Ó Riordain, but keep coming across vocabulary I can’t find in my dictionary and also constructions I’m not familiar with. Any help from anyone more proficient than me iwould be greatly received.

In An Dall Sa Studio I don’t understand ‘na snámhaithe’. In the dictionary it seems to be the plural of ‘an snamhaí’ – a creeper, crawler, dawdler.

He is describing the blind man’s fingers feeling their way:

Gach méar ag snámh go mall
mar mhéaranna ceoltóra ar a uilis
is bhí an uirlis ann:
do sheinn sé ar an aer táin notaí ciúnais.
goltraí bog na ndall,
na snámhaithe critheaglacha gur thuirling
ar bruach na habhann –
an suíochan sin a luas-sa leis ….

So how would you translate that sixth line?

David

á é í ó ú

[eadaoin]

??the trembling swimmers that arrived …

the blind ma’s fingers are feeling his way to the chair, like an unsure swimmer eventually finds the way to the bank of the river …??

that’s how I think of it anyway – it puts a picture in my mind …

eadaoin

[abbeygatebooks]

Thanks! That’s very helpful. I don’t know why my dictionary doesn’t have ‘swimmer’! It makes much more sense.

[eadaoin]

Thanks! That’s very helpful. I don’t know why my dictionary doesn’t have ‘swimmer’! It makes much more sense.

mine doesn’t either! It’s just I saw “snámh” elsewhere in the poem, and I remembered one of my kids learning the poem for an exam many years ago.

I think I’ve seen “snámhaí” used to mean a crawler in a pejorative way … a toady …

eadaoin

[Seáinín]

Ón Foclóir Beag:

snámhaí [ainmfhocal firinscneach den cheathrú díochlaonadh]
snámhóir; sleamhnánaí; máinneálaí; slíbhín.

Foirmeacha Dírithe :
snámhaíocht [ainmfhocal baininscneach den tríú díochlaonadh]
Foirmeacha
snámhaí – ainmfhocal snámhaí [ainmneach uatha]
snámhaí [ginideach uatha]
snámhaithe [ainmneach iolra]
snámhaithe [ginideach iolra]

Is foirm de snámhach atá snámhaí.
Tagann snámh ó snámhach.
snámh [ainm briathartha][ainmfhocal firinscneach den tríú díochlaonadh]
gluaiseacht ar barr uisce nó thíos faoi nó tríd le cabhair na ngéag nó le heití agus eireaball; cumas snámha (níl aon snámh aige); cineál snámha (snámh brollaigh, snámh droma); sní, sleamhnú (eascann ag snámh ar an talamh); máinneáil (ag snámh thart).

[aonghus]

I’m surprised your dictionary doesn’t list swimmer since that it the principal meaning.

critheaglach – crith + eagla i. shaking with fear

Following the swimmin metaphor earlier on he is describing the fingers as anxious swimmers thrashing until they finally land safely on the riverbank – the back of the chair he told the blind man about.

[eadaoin]

I’m surprised your dictionary doesn’t list swimmer since that it the principal meaning.

tá an ceart agat Aonghus
– bhí mé ag féachaint in Ó Dónaill – ní fhacha mé an dara míniú (2 = snámhóir)

eadaoin

[Héilics Órbhuí]

Snámh, while almost always meaning “swim” is also used to mean “slither”. This might help a bit with what I think is the intended imagery of the verse.

[Author]

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