January was not a good month. No catastrophes or serious disasters, but rather a lot of vexation, stress and hassle. (February has been better, though I have been struggling to catch up with Stuff.)

Anyway, throughout January poetry about Wishing to Be Somewhere Else kept floating into the back of my head, and notably the following Chorus from Euripides’ Hippolytus. Which I have always wanted to translate properly, so this weekend I indulged myself.

The Chorus of Women of Troezen see that catastrophe threatens:

I wish I were up in the high cliffs
hidden inside some secret hole:
that God would turn me to a feathered bird
among the flying flocks;
and I would soar above the sea-swell
of the Adriatic coasts
and the delta of the Po,
where, grieving for Phaethon,
the Sun’s unhappy daughters drop amber-gleaming tears
into the purple wave.

And if I could I’d make my way
to the coast of the singing Hesperides
where the apples grow;
beyond that point
the lord of the purple sea gives sailors no further passage,
but I’d press on and come
to the awe-compelling boundary of the sky,
held up by giant Atlas;
springs of ambrosia
flow past the couches in the house of Zeus,
and there the hallowed earth, giver of life,
bestows increase of blessings on the gods.

Euripides (c. 485–c. 406 BCE)

from Hippolytus (428 BCE)

trans. Gillian Spraggs

© Gillian Spraggs, 2007

By most people’s standards I am not well travelled; but long ago I saw the Aegean in the evening light, and at that time of day it is indeed purple, or so it seemed to me.

tags: otherworld journey | Hesperides

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Just returned from a very pleasant stay in Canterbury. Second-hand book find of the week: Kuno Meyer and Alfred Nutt, The Voyage of Bran ... with an essay upon the Irish vision of the happy otherworld, &c, London, David Nutt, 2 vols, 1895. Bookseller’s pencilled note inside says ‘Very worn! Very scarce’. It is worn, but I have seen worse. I am very lucky to have found an affordable copy.

I bought the book for the sake of Nutt’s ‘essay’ (actually a lengthy study) because I already own Meyer's translation of The Voyage of Bran in the Llanerch Press edition (wonderful publisher, Llanerch Press: I recommend them to anyone with a penchant for classic collections of folklore and legends). But I am going to give part of Meyer’s translation here, since for one thing I haven’t yet had time to read Nutt’s essay and for another, The Voyage of Bran is superb, and I love it:

Bran is sailing on the sea when he meets a man driving in a chariot over the waves. The man sings:

Bran deems it a marvellous beauty
In his coracle across the clear sea:
While to me in my chariot from afar
It is a flowery plain on which he rides about.

‘What is a clear sea
For the prowed skiff in which Bran is,
That is a happy plain with profusion of flowers
To me from the chariot of two wheels.

Bran sees
The number of waves beating across the clear sea:
I myself see in Mag Mon
Red-headed flowers without fault.

Sea-horses glisten in summer
As far as Bran has stretched his glance:
Rivers pour forth a stream of honey
In the land of Manannan son of Ler.

The sheen of the main, on which thou art,
The white hue of the sea, on which thou rowest about,
Yellow and azure are spread out,
It is land, and is not rough.

Speckled salmon leap from the womb
Of the white sea, on which thou lookest:
They are calves, they are coloured lambs
With friendliness, without mutual slaughter.

Though (but) one chariot-rider is seen
In Mag Mell of many flowers,
There are many steeds on its surface,
Though them thou seest not.

The size of the plain, the number of the host,
Colours glisten with pure glory,
A fair stream of silver, cloths of gold,
Afford a welcome with all abundance.

A beautiful game, most delightful,
They play (sitting) at the luxurious wine,
Men and gentle women under a bush,
Without sin, without crime.

Along the top of a wood has swum
Thy coracle across ridges,
There is a wood of beautiful fruit
Under the prow of thy little skiff.

A wood with blossom and fruit,
On which is the vine’s veritable fragrance,
A wood without decay, without defect,
On which are leaves of golden hue.

We are from the beginning of creation
Without old age, without consummation of earth,
Hence we expect not that there should be frailty,
The sin has not come to us.’

from Imram Brain maic Febail [The Voyage of Bran son of Febal] (seventh century CE)

trans. Kuno Meyer (1858–1919)


tags: fairy beliefs | otherworld journey

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