A previous post mentioned the way Tolkien, because of the mythos his poetry is able to access in LoTR, is able to write in a beautifully understated idiom. It allows him casual mention of things that do not have to be elaborated. Words like "tree" have a symbolic resonance in the mythworld that allows a poet merely to mention them and move on, carrying their wider mythological significance in the structure of the poem. A similar kind of beautiful understatement can be found, I think, in the Gaelic tune "Lament of the Three Marys."
The second and fourth line of each of these stanzas contains a lament that is difficult to translate, but means something like "Wail-a-way." It seems, to the best of my knowledge, that the phrase actually capitalizes on the vowel sounds to create wailing words, barely articulate cries. And these cries punctuate a narrative that moves by easy, even playful (if "playful" can apply to something so grief-stricken) steps.
"O Peter, His apostle, have you seen my true love?
[...]
I saw that [his] enemy was here."
The naming of Peter the Apostle conveys the mythos we are summoned into. The second half of the first line combines the spheres of maternal and matrimonial love, weaving these two emotional registers together, so that we feel the suffering of Jesus' mother with a slightly overloaded ardor that would be amazingly strange except for the object of this affection. He is her Son, the child of her womb; he is also the Lord for whom she as ecclesiae Mater has the love of Bride for Husband (Eph. 5). The propriety of the sentiment in theological terms notwithstanding, it is still a little bit of an overloaded phrase when compared with the kinds of things we usually say with words. It is a surprise of charged emotion, followed by a wail whose sound says more in its untranslated state than could be communicated by translation. The third line, then, presents just a devastatingly understated sentiment: "I saw that [his] enemy was here." What a strange line to follow such a wail. But it is just here that the mythos works its magic, for what an audience gets out of this line is the tension between the quotidian phrase and the horror we know it refers to.
To my mind, this beats the etherized patient six ways from Sunday.
Click to listen (Coaineadh Na dTri Muire)
A Pheadair, a aspail, an bhfaca tú mo ghrá geal?
Ochóne is ochóne ó
Chonaic mé ar ball é i láthair a namhad
Ochóne is ochóne ó
Gabhaigi i leith, a dha Mhuire, go gcaoine sibh mo ghrá geal
Ochóne is ochóne ó
Ceard atá le caoineadh ágainn mura gcaoinimid a chriámha?
Ochóne is ochóne ó
An é sin an maicin a hoileadh in ucht Mháire?
Ochóne is ochóne ó
Éist, a mháithrin, is na bí cráite
Ochóne is ochóne ó
A Leinbh, is mór é tualach is léig cuid de ar do Mháthair
Ochóne is ochóne ó
Iompruíodh gach éinne a chrosa, a Mháithrin
Ochóne is ochóne ó
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