minstrel: [question] patterns for Irish Verse.

[Prof Robert D Madison]

Conchobar,
     You probably already know most of this, but . . .
     I haven't a clue what's happening in Gaelic, but if you are writing
in English (as I suppose you are) then you are better off following
English prosody.  In the example you give, the poet (in this case
translator) seems to be using a four-stress alliterative line: the poet
creates the expectation of  four strongly stressed syllables, two or more
of which share the same initial sound. Within reason, the number of
unstressed syllables doesn't matter ("within reason", because if you
introduce too many syllables some of them will beg to be accented).  Let's
see how it works with your example:

>   Summer's come, safe, sound,
    S        C     S     S    
>   it bound the black brake;
    I(?) B         B     B
>   leaping deer, spry, slim;
    L       D     S     S
>   seals swim with smooth wake.
    S      S         S      W
> 
The Gaelic might run the same way:
>   Ta'inic sam sla'n so'er.  
    T       S    S     S
This particular system works especially well with the short, harsh (to our
ears) words of Old English and their offspring, the traditional ballad
form to which most popular lyrics are (rather unartistically) still
written.  The typical ballad is an accentual form (with varying numbers of
unstressed syllables) in which the 4th stress of every other line has
been replaced with a prominent pause (giving a pattern of 4-3-4-3
stresses). And in the ballad the alliteration becomes vestigial.  This
form also becomes syllabically regularized into the Common Meter
of hymn tunes.
 Our fascination with counting syllables as well as stresses
is a French thing; the four stress line is Anglo-Saxon.  Some one else
will have to tell you what to expect from pre-Hastings Gaelic/Celtic
verse.
                             Robert, Clerk of Talbot


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