Pangur Ban

Every now and then, I’m reminded about little man has changed over the centuries. How many of the same emotions, situations, and daily activities have been noticed for the first time by someone, repeated by millions of us over time, and still resonate as “quaint” or personal.

I recently attended a lecture by Seamus Heaney where this poem was featured.

Background
Patrick O’Sullivan gave the following lecture on Pangur Ban at Ulster-American Folk Park.

There is a fragmentary ninth century manuscript belonging to the monastery of St. Paul, Unterdrauberg (in southern Austria). Preserved in that manuscript, along with a Virgil commentary and some Greek paradigms, are Irish language poems – including the little poem about the scholar and his cat, Pangur Ban – perhaps noted down by a bored monkish copyist. That poem had no readership, and no influence, for one thousand years – until it was published by Stokes and Strachan in 1902.

It is now the most famous poem in the Irish language, and one of the best known and the best loved poems in the world – the various translations have been much anthologised, and practically every Irish poet has made her or his version. The Robin Flower translation was chosen by Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes for their successful children’s anthology The Rattle Bag. A new translation, by Sean Hutton, Chair of the British Association for Irish Studies, will be found in Shaun Traynor, The Poolbeg Book of Irish Poetry for Children. In fact, in these days of the Internet, a simple way of discovering Irish language enthusiasts throughout the world is to start a Web search for ‘Pangur Ban’.

The Poem
According to O’Sullivan, Robin Flower’s  version appeared in Heaney’s book, Poems and Translations, 1931 - but it is visible all over the web.  One can tell its date by the poetic diction, and by Flower’s attention to the metre and rhyme.

Pangur Bán

BY ANONYMOUS

TRANSLATED BY SEAMUS HEANEY

Read the translator’s notes

 

From the ninth-century Irish poem

Pangur Bán and I at work,

Adepts, equals, cat and clerk:

       His whole instinct is to hunt,

       Mine to free the meaning pent.

More than loud acclaim, I love

Books, silence, thought, my alcove.

       Happy for me, Pangur Bán

       Child-plays round some mouse’s den.

Truth to tell, just being here,

Housed alone, housed together,

       Adds up to its own reward:

       Concentration, stealthy art.

Next thing an unwary mouse

Bares his flank: Pangur pounces.

       Next thing lines that held and held

       Meaning back begin to yield.

All the while, his round bright eye

Fixes on the wall, while I

       Focus my less piercing gaze

       On the challenge of the page.

With his unsheathed, perfect nails

Pangur springs, exults and kills.

       When the longed-for, difficult

       Answers come, I too exult.

So it goes. To each his own.

No vying. No vexation.

       Taking pleasure, taking pains,

       Kindred spirits, veterans.

Day and night, soft purr, soft pad,

Pangur Bán has learned his trade.

       Day and night, my own hard work

       Solves the cruxes, makes a mark.