Fáilte (Welcome) › Forums › General Discussion (Irish and English) › Help translating translating Sean O’Riordain
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Héilics Órbhuí.
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December 22, 2012 at 5:57 pm #36433
abbeygatebooks
ParticipantI’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
December 22, 2012 at 7:33 pm #42982eadaoin
Participant??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
December 22, 2012 at 10:18 pm #42984abbeygatebooks
ParticipantThanks! That’s very helpful. I don’t know why my dictionary doesn’t have ‘swimmer’! It makes much more sense.
December 23, 2012 at 12:26 am #42985eadaoin
ParticipantThanks! 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
December 23, 2012 at 1:05 am #42986Seáinín
ParticipantÓn 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).December 24, 2012 at 9:07 am #42987aonghus
ParticipantI’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.
December 24, 2012 at 5:42 pm #42988eadaoin
ParticipantI’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
January 3, 2013 at 8:45 pm #43016Héilics Órbhuí
ParticipantSnámh, 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.
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