Sionnach – Fox

For St. Patrick’s Day, the first of two poems by Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, with my poor translation.

Sionnach

A Mhaidrín rua,

rua rua rua rua,

nach breá nach bhfuil fhios agat

dá mhéid a ritheann leat,

sa deireadh

gurb é siopa an fhionnadóra

a bheid mar chríoch ort.

Nílimidne filí

pioc difriúl.

Deir John Berryman

go ndeir Gottfried Benn

go bhfuilimid ag úsáid ár gcraiceann

nuar pháipéar falla

is go mbhuafar orainn.

Ach fógra do na fionnadóirí;

bígí cúramach.

Ní haon giorria

í seo agaibh

ach sionnach rua

anuas ón gcnoc.

Bainim snap

as l´mh mo chothaithe.

Fox

O little red fox,

red, red, so red

how well you know not

that no matter how you run

that at last

in the furrier’s shop

you’ll meet your end.

With us poets

there’s not a jot of difference.

John Berryman says

that Gottfried Benn says

that we are using our skins

for wallpaper

and that we cannot win.

But a warning to furriers;

be careful.

It’s not a hare

you have there

but a cunning red fox

come down from the hills

I’ll snap

the hand that feeds me.

Some notes. This is from Selected Poems: Rogha Dánta, translated by Michael Hartnett. His translation is a little different from mine, and probably a lot better. I stole the second line from him; the “red red red red” of the original sounds better in Irish, the “red, red, so red” that Hartnett gives has almost a fairy tale feel.

The reference in the second stanza to John Berryman and Gottfriend Benn is to Berryman’s Dream Song #53. Benn was a German Expressionist poet who had initially supported the Nazis, then broke with them (but not very forcefully); immediately after the war, his work was banned by the Allies because of his earlier support of the Nazis, though he was rehabilitated in later years. He may not be a bad example at all of a poet who bit the hands that fed him.

Ní Dhomhnaill uses two words for “fox”–”sionnach” and “madra (diminutive maidrín) rua.” “Maidrín rua” is literally “little red dog,” whereas “sionnach” has a sense more of a fox’s craftiness than its smallness. We don’t have this distinction in English, one word apparently enough for the fox. That’s why I added “cunning” in the last stanza.

Hartnett uses the English idiom “bite/at the hand that feeds me,” which is certainly accurate to the tone of the poem. But I like that the English word “snap” makes its way into the poem (it’s also in my Irish dictionary, which made me suspect that it’s of Irish origins, but it appears to be a Germanic word that probably made its way into Irish from English). So I kept it, for its … well, snappiness.

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