Pangur Bán
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- This article is about the poem by an 8th-century Irish monk about his cat. For the Irish rebel band, see Pangur Bán (band).
Pangur Bán is an Old Irish poem , written around AD 800 by an anonymous Irish monk about his cat. Pangur Bán "white waulker" is the cat's name. In 8 verses of four lines, the author compares the cat's activities with his own scholarly pursuits.
The author was supposedly a student of the monastery of Carinthia and wrote his poem on a copy of St Paul's Epistles. However with the poem preserved in the Reichenau Primer (Stift St. Paul Cod. 86b/1 fol 1v) and now kept in St. Paul Kärnten, it may have been written in the Reichenau abbey.[citation needed]
The most famous of the many English translations is that by Robin Flower. In W. H. Auden's translation, the poem was set by Samuel Barber as the eighth of his ten Hermit Songs (1952-3).
[edit] References
- Hildegard L.C. Tristram, 'Die irischen Gedichte im Reichenauer Schulheft', in: Anreiter & Jerem (eds.), Studia Celtica et Indogermanica. Festschrift für Wolfgang Meid zum 70. Geburtstag, Budapest: Archaeolingua 503–529 (1999).
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Original Old Irish text at Wikisource
- Robin Flower's translation
- W. H. Auden's translation
- Reichenau Primer facsimile
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