Alan Riach: Aonghas MacNeacail created one of the world's great love poems

Not to lapse into idealism nor to waste our time in anguish, but to think practically, should we not begin by finding ways to confirm affirmation of all that is truly worthwhile? All the essays I’ve written for these columns have been in some small respects attempts to make such affirmation possible. Here’s a defining one.

Aonghas MacNeacail is perhaps the most-loved of all the Gaelic poets working today, and among the most senior. His poem “thug thu dhomh samhradh” / “you gave me summer” is published in dèanamh gàire ris a’ chloc: dàin ùra agus thaghte / laughing at the clock: new and selected poems (Edinburgh: Polygon, 2012), where it is given in the original Gaelic with Aonghas’s English-language translation on the facing page.

It first appeared in an earlier collection entitled The Avoiding And Other Poems (Edinburgh: Macdonald, 1986). And it has also been translated into the Scots language by J Derrick McClure, published in his collection

Scotland o Gael an Lawlander (Glasgow: Gairm, 1996). It is reproduced here by permission.

Derrick McClure’s judgment on the poem is straightforward: “If this is not one of the greatest Scottish poems of the 20th century I’m an Englishman.”

Now, no-one would mistake Derrick for an Englishman but it is not only one of the great Scottish poems but a great love poem – in Gaelic, Scots and English. Each language has its virtues and limitations, but despite all claims to the contrary, the poetry remains the most translatable thing. First, the Gaelic:

thug thu dhomh samhradh
de los lenguajes humanos el pobre solo sabria tu nombre — Pablo Neruda
thug an geamhradh buaidh air an earrach
bha e fuar, bha e nimheil
gheàrr sgeinean an reothaidh an cèitean
chùm na craobhan an guirme
dùint’
ann an rumannan caol an geugan
thrèig smeòraich gaoil na raointean
thriall camagan ciùil às gach linne
sgap a’ ghàire na neulagan anail
thar firich chrìon àrsaidh ar dualchais
air gaothan geur neo-aireil
thuislich danns’ a’ mheudaidh gun dùsgadh nar n-anam
leig sinn
bhuainn a bhith sireadh
cuach òir na grèine torraich
chaidh teanga na treubha balbh
ach osann gann bìgeil f hann
fad cruas mall an earraich
gun shamhla againn
a shuaineadh ar spiorad ’s ar gnè
ann an ròp soilleir daingeann

. . .

bha mise, ’s mo shannt gu tràghadh,
a dh’aindeoin, sìor shireadh
fiu ’s gaoireag à fidheall
no fannal à fanas.
is choinnich mi riutsa
mar lasair bhlàth ròis às an domhan
nochd dhomh blasad dhed bhinneas
nad ghnogadh gun f hiosta ’s do thighinn a-staigh orm, is
thug thu dhomh samhradh

. . .

cha ghabh d’ àilleachd innse, mo luaidh, chan eil air mo theanga
de bhriathran, ach teine falaisgreach. seinneam
òran dhut is tuigidh mo chinneadh e, tuigidh
m’ aiteam am fonn. tha thu beò
rubain ruaidh m’ f hala
a dhùisg mi le brùchdadh dearg-leaghte
do ghaoil à buillsgean na cruinne
’s tu m’ iarmailt ’s mo thràigh, mo reul-iùil tro gach dochann
’s tu mo ràmh air a’ chuan thoirmsgeach
nuair a tha na stuaghan ag èigheach deàlrachd deàlrachd
thubhairt fear eile ri tèil’ ann an suidheachadh eile
“anns gach cànan a labhras daoine, na
truaghain a-mhàin a dh’aithnicheas d’ ainm”
ach m’ aideachd àigheach-sa
anns gach cànan a labhras daoine bidh
d’ ainm air gach teanga, pròiseil, prìseil
’s tu mo chànan bheag sheang
’s tu gam ionnsachadh
mo ghaol àrsaidh òg

If you’re fortunate enough to be fluent in Gaelic and the poem can do what it does without the effort of study, let that be sufficient. But if study is required, or if you’d like to consider how the meaning is changed, and yet stays the same, in another language, here’s the English:

you gave me summer
de los lenguajes humanos el pobre solo sabria tu nombre — Pablo Neruda
winter prevailed over spring
it was cold, it was bitter
knives of frost cut may
trees kept their green
enclosed
in the narrow rooms of their branches
the songbirds of love fled
the fields
ripples of music abandoned the pools
laughter dispersed in vapours of breath
beyond the crumbling ridges of our history
on sharp indifferent winds
the dance of growth stumbled without wakening in our soul
we gave up our search for
the golden cup of the fertile sun
the tribe’s tongue went dumb
only a rare sigh, a whisper
through the slow hardness of spring
we had no symbol
to plait our spirit and kind
into a bright durable rope

. . .

i, desire all but ebbed,
still continued my search for
even the mewl of a fiddle
or the merest breath from the void.
and i met you
like the flame of a rose-blossom out of the universe
a taste of your sweetness was given to me
in your knocking unnoticed and coming in on me, and
you gave me summer

. . .

your beauty can not be told, my love, there are not on my tongue
enough words but a spreading heathfire. let me sing
a song for you and my clan will know it, my people
will know the melody. you are alive
red ruby of my blood
who woke me with the molten eruption
of your love from earth’s core
you are my sky and my shore, my pole-star through every hardship
you are my oar on the turbulent sea
when the waves are crying glitter glitter
an other said to another, in other circumstances
“in all the languages of men, the
poor alone will know your name”
but i proclaim exultantly
in all the languages of men, your
name will be on every tongue, proud, priceless
you are my small slender language
and you are learning me
my young ancient love

After which it seems almost unnecessary to go any further, and yet, when we read the Scots language version as well, surely we can understand the fact that language, while it can be a barrier between people, can also equally be what connects us across all the differences.

Ye gied me the simmer
de los lenguajes humanos el pobre solo sabria tu nombre – Pablo Neruda
the winter wan the gree abuin the spring
cauld it wes an atterie
mey gat haggit wi gullies o frost
the green o the trees wes hainit
steikit
in the brainches’ nerra rooms
mavies o luve forhouit the parks
maisic o lippers wes quaet on the lochans
lauchter skailt in the haars o braith
ayont our birthricht’s auld crynit bauks
on wunns sae snell an tentless
the dance o the brairdin stachert, waukenin nocht in our sauls
we devault wi seekin
the gowden quaich o the growthie sun
the tung o the fowk gaed dumb
but for an antrin souch, a dwaiblie peuch
throu the langsome hard o spring
wantin a patren til’s
tae plet our kin an our speirit
intae a strang bricht raip

…

an me, houbeit at the ebb o my ettle
aye wes I seekin
the peeriest peek o a fiddle
or a sowff frae the howes
an I met yoursell
lik the bleeze o the bluim o a rose frae the hert o the warld
kythit the gust o your sweetness tae me
in your chappin unkent an your comin inbye tae me
an ye gied me the simmer.

…

Your bonnieheid’s no tae be telt, my luve,
there isna the words on my tung
but a lowe lik muirburn breengin.
Lat me sing ye a sang an my fowk will ken it,
my clan will ken the lilt o’t.
och my bluid’s reid ruby
that dang me awauk wi the gowd-burnin brist o your luve
frae the warld’s het hert
my hevin are you an my shore, my laidstarn throu ilka skaith
my oar are you on the walterin seas
whan the swaws cries skinkle skinkle
anither man said tae anither ’mang ither ongauns
“in aa men’s leids, there nane but the puir wull ken your name”
but here my ain hertsome furth-tellin:
in aa men’s leids, your name wull be hard on ilka tung
sae vogie, sae vauntie
my leid, smaa an spirlie, are you
an ye are learnin me
my yung auncient luve

So much is carried and conveyed by such a poem, so many possible forms of praise and respect, humility and desire, the matter of love itself, are reflected and represented by seeing it reflected and refracted through the different languages. A love song for a partner, a beloved person, yes, but also a love song to a language, and perhaps to language itself, to all the forms of language in the world.

And thus, a way of speaking and listening to each other, a form of touching gently, firmly, and an end to war, a stay against the chaos and all the malevolent intentions of certain particular women and men.

We’ll always need such poems as this. Summer returns but it also moves on. We are given such things in our lives, in all the complementarities of human difference, in all the various governments of the tongue.

There are those you can tell will have neither the time nor the sympathy to find the understanding for such matters. Heed them not. Shun them. But be guarded.

They will cause harm and great grief. But there are those who know and whose knowledge comes with their feeling, and whose feelings bring more understanding. Such women and men form the government of the tongue.

Pay attention to them. Keep them in mind. Their works are more needed than ever. Let the poem sink in and stay. The antidote is within it.