O’Neill (ed.), Ériu 3 (1907) pp. 92–115 — Irish verse, rendered into English. The editor’s introduction and notes, already English, are retained in cleaned form.

Editor’s introduction #

…As lobair, cobair in v. 2, duini : fuli in v. 3, demon : slemon in v. 13, etc. Owing, however, to the heterogeneous nature of the text, which is built up of material drawn from many sources, the Rule, both in metre and matter, is a curious medley. Not content with interrupting and continuing a poem the metre of which was 7 + 7 by additions from another of which the metre was 7 + 5, the scribe from whom both the A and B recensions come enlarged his already full matter by quotations from other Rules. Of the fifty-seven stanzas common to both groups only thirty-one are in the normal 7 + 7 metre, twenty-one of the remainder being in the 7 + 5 system, four in a 7 + 6 metre, and one seemingly in Rinnard; while of the twelve additional stanzas found in the A group only five are in the 7 + 7 metre, three being in the 7 + 5, three in the 7 + 6, and one probably in Sétnad Már. The stanzas of the 7 + 5 system seem to have crept into the body of the original poem as illustrative quotations from another Rule which the scribe had before him, and which he finally tacked on in part to the end as a continuation of his own Rule. These 7 + 5 stanzas are, almost without exception, practical regulations, some of which show a fine directness, while one or two contain vivid human touches.

The 7 + 7 system, on the other hand, consists for the most part of commonplace general maxims, and, although after v. 17 these maxims become more direct and practical, one can understand why the scribe’s eyes turned continually from his own text to other more vivid Rules. In the 7 + 5 system the final word of the first half of the line is usually either monosyllabic or trisyllabic (but a disyllabic ending is not uncommon); and in one or two instances it rhymes in the second line of the stanza with a word in the second half of the same line.

The remaining intruded stanzas, whose metre betrays them, are all quotations of practical regulations; but they are so scattered, and their metrical system is so doubtful, that it is impossible to say whether they were taken from a common source or not; two of them at least — vv. 31a and 39 — seem to stand apart, both from the rest and from each other. Indeed, the whole question of interpolation in the poem is so obscure that it seems to me, with our present material, practically insoluble.

The Rule — rendered into English #

¹ Speak for me with the son of Sarden: heavy is the charge he takes. Let his conscience be diligent, let it be keen — without false speech, without deceit.

² Let his work be a lesson without display; let few be the great words he speaks. Let him make burial of every feeble person, with succour for every sick man.

³ Let him be steadfast, without a share in folly; let him be zealous toward every good work; let him make the burial of every person, and answer the wounds of every soul.

⁴ Without pride, without fleshly crookedness; abiding without laughter, without mirth; without staring upon any person; without a smirk of pride, without vain display.

⁵ Without wailing, without sighing of the breast; let him never go without sandals; without a purple-bordered mantle; without blue, without red, without finery.

⁶ Without guile, without decrying anyone; without any blaming of the charge laid on him; without avenging evil in the heart; without hatred of anyone whom he loves.

⁷ Let him be steadfast and not restless; let him be wise, sensible, devout; watchful and not sharp-tongued; a servant, humble, of good behaviour.

⁸ Let him be strict, rigorous, fervent; modest, generous, gracious; toward the brood of this world let him be watchful; toward the generation of this world let him be warlike.

^8a Let him be a serpent in his boldness, a dove in his gentleness; kindly, without evil in his charge; let his word be his bond therein.

⁹ Though he take up the bitter world, let him not give over his… to his wealth; let him till and divide without harshness — let it not carry him past heaven’s…

¹⁰ The path of baptism and of fellowship — the precept which he shall undertake; the confession of each which he makes — let him be a true and strict…

¹¹ Though each confess his sins — if shame gather them up — the poor man, the needy, the greatness of his power ennobles them.

¹² Without reproach, without reviling, without harsh rebuke; without converse with a savage man; without a voice of high-flown pride.

¹³ Let not Satan follow the track of the lowly toward the high; this is what the demon counts ill — that the gentle should face the harsh.

¹⁴ Ever let him not refuse offerings on behalf of each one who is afflicted; with due portion and with special care for every one who is troubled.

¹⁵ In fellowship without any contention, without quarrelling, without lust; humble, patient, with silence; let his countenance be meek.

¹⁶ Let him be diligent in grace at prayer; let him not forget its hours; let his mind sustain it without slackness or…

¹⁷ A hundred genuflections for him at the beginning of the day before the hours; thrice fifty besides at first; and a hundred genuflections every evening.

¹⁸ A hundred genuflections every morning in the church of devotion is due, from the feast of John until they come to the solemn three-day Easter.

¹⁹ Stirring up to the prayer of the Mass, for devotion and for praise; thirty psalms every morning-hour of the twelve… until midnight.

²⁰ Reading and celebration — “Deus in adiutorium” with calling on the Son of God — at the end of every psalm.

²¹ Silence and watchfulness, that your devotion may be profitable; “…”, at the beginning a portion, a measured measure.

²² Let him keep the hours diligently by the rules…; a right morning-hour with the elders, at end of night and beginning of day.

²³ Only the ruler and the prior to the…; but if there be penance, each in his place to the north.

²⁴ Let “Hymnum dicat” be sung at the striking of the bell at the hours; let him wash his hands thoroughly, the brothers standing round.

²⁵ Let him prostrate himself earnestly on the ground after passing eastward over the boundary, without pride and without boastfulness, when going to meet the King of angels.

^25a After vigil with prayer let him hear the rule of the Gospel; entreaty at the church door, praying and blessing, with confessions without delay, and the fair rule of the monks.

^25b …is due in the house of diligence; let each succour the other.

^25c After the head monk to the cross in fair companies, with swift streams of tears, from the proper ranks of…

²⁶ Let the brother arise and go until the hour of terce; upon each one’s conscience in its place — let prayer strengthen them.

²⁷ Let the striking of the little bell be long, a step toward complete washing; let each stand about it in humility diligently.

^27a Noble God is his father; let not obedience be in word only; holy Church is his mother; let each forgive his brother.

^27b When they come to the washing to work together — heavy is that charge, O brother; let me do it.

^27c Let his heart be holy, let it be pure with the brothers; when the small portion is divided, give you to the brother there in sincerity, that they may be true in helping their work — to each according to his due; the greater is the need he reaches.

²⁸ A step to none; a cry with psalms for vigil; genuflections are counted; let them sing at the refectory bell before the altar.

²⁹ At the cross before the head monk — where many demons have contended — in humility without contention let each there confess his faults.

³⁰ The charge of water-work at the river, with washing into good vessels; oblations and ale for the elders; a full measure for… [Colgan, in his Acta Sanctorum under 13 February, quotes this verse as verse 37 of Ailbe’s Rule in Latin: “When they sit at table let herbs or roots be brought, washed in clean dishes; likewise apples, cherries, and honeycomb the width of a thumb.”]

³¹ The ringing of the bell in thanksgiving to the King who sends the hours; from fair John’s feast until the Easter of the conjoined Lord.

^31a A loaf of thirty ounces’ measure over twelve thumb-widths is fitting; but if you take scarcity of it, the brothers are entitled to it at none.

³² If the superior be wise, his rule will not be harsh; as the work is, so will the order be.

³³ Let it be neither too rigid nor too slack, that each may bear his portion; a rule without knowledge is no rule; leave its enclosure.

³⁴ As long as they are in the place of prayer, though there be five…; whether salt or flesh be used, whether ale, whether…, whether new milk.

³⁵ Though it be a lord’s luxury, though it be a bare man’s desire — it is dry bread, it is watercress that is pure for the elders.

³⁶ After grace and washing, if anyone be disobedient, let him wash who is appointed; let none be reproached.

³⁷ Whoever accepts not his reproof — let the soul-friend press him; and whoever refuses correction, let him go to some other place.

^37a Let no layman or woman — it is harsh, it is unfitting — be in the little place where they are, the order with which they minister.

³⁸ Patience and due obedience, whether it be good or hard or poor; it is no fault for the ordained clergy; two-thirds of devotion is strictness.

³⁹ From the eighth of the Kalends of April [25 March] it is none — in the house of diligence.

^39a Whoever goes to concealment…

⁴⁰ Without asking and without refrainment, in silence as though he were not asked; these rules spoken until October, with God’s servants — let that be the study; without denying anything that is, it is a thing heard.

^40a A humble, obedient…, blessing and welcome to the gathering that comes, to everyone who comes.

⁴¹ A clean house for the guests and a great fire; provisions and washing for them, with welcome without sorrow.

^41a A pure, devout, kindly prior in every dealing; fair division to his monks; let him not take beyond his portion.

^41b Let it be neither too much nor too little; proclaim to each his due; let him speak no evil; let not his office be barren.

⁴² A smooth-tempered guest-master, a smooth, thrifty sub-prior, five fit and well-provided men under the abbot’s rule there.

⁴³ A devout ordained priest, a sure and observant keeper of the rule; at the offices always; let him be washed of hands.

⁴⁴ A gentle messenger, honey-tongued, who reports no evil, who speaks no falsehood, without private gain-seeking; in heaven above let him be — welcome to him! Great would be the joy of his state, without reproach till death.

⁴⁵ A humble, obedient household; a quiet, watchful prior.

⁴⁶ Obedience to the prior, who speaks as an archangel.

⁴⁷ May companionship be beloved, without restraint, under the yoke of obedience; great would be the joy of its aspect.

⁴⁸ An injunction to you from Ailbe: let your body be without adornment; let it be for your soul’s good you do it — not for your body’s.

⁴⁹ The strictness of the cleric’s rule — be at vigil and in prayer; ever let him be swift to it, without entanglement with lay folk.

⁵⁰ Without begging in the community’s name to the disturbance of prayer; it is evil in old Satan’s eyes — it bears you not to heaven.

⁵¹ What was gathered here long has been scattered at last; though I cast off my clerkly state with my life’s breath…

⁵² An injunction to you: go not to pleading nor to counter-pleading.

⁵³ Your zeal — let it strike home — the constant work of Mass with prayer.

⁵⁴ If you do all these things, your dwelling here shall be most royal;… from your enclosure until your death.

⁵⁵ If you do all these things, be at mercy and at…, abiding in steadfastness till death, a body enduring…; go you with blessing — it shall be monkhood to heaven; it shall be better than the better; your cell shall be held.

⁵⁶ Narrate it, write it down; in Cluain Coillin hide it not; O son, for the sake of the plea you shall give it to Eoghan.

Editor’s notes #

v. 1. Gébes I take to be a Middle Irish present; gaibes would be the Old Irish present, gébas the Old Irish future. Feig is glossed grinn in A². Over the first half of the first line A² has the gloss tait nemhchainteach a abair. Ba, the reading of A, may here be correct: cf. Ériu 1.206, note on v. 22. I think, however, that the d of bad has simply fallen out before the following initial dental. Adlaicc is glossed fonn no mian in A². Labair is a predicative genitive.

v. 3. For indéin cf. Sg. 110. If anmae be the genitive of anim ‘a soul’, the masculine form of the genitive cech is very peculiar; on the other hand, the elision of the final a of cecha would not be in accordance with the usual rules of Irish metre. Fuli means literally “bleeding, wounds”; it is glossed peccad in A²; cf. also O’Dav. 1003. Fossud is glossed ciúin in A².

v. 4. Thurneysen suggests cen gen faitbiud, “without a smile of derision”. Áne is a derivative noun from án ‘splendid’; it is glossed dímhaoines in A². I do not know its gender, nor that of gáire, but have supposed them to be feminine.

v. 5. Ní téi dogrés cen assu seems to mean that he should always wear sandals, and not shoes. The accusative plural form assu occurs in the Book of Armagh. Its rhyming with maissi here seems to indicate some corruption in the original text. Carthair is glossed fadluing tui brat in A². For partaing cf. Stokes, Ir. Texte iii; it is indeclinable here.

v. 6. Dul seems to be a loan-word from the Latin dolus; I have not met the word elsewhere. Diupairt is glossed meall-chonrad in A². I do not know what in aire means; in form it might be a late masculine dative; aire “watchfulness” is feminine.

v. 7. With uailbech, cf. uailbe CZ iii. 452.1, uailbelu Ml. 63b8, ind uailli Wb. 18b22; as Bergin has pointed out above, §155, the adjective means not ‘proud’ but ‘restless’. Serb is evidently the Latin servus; it is glossed tmog in A¹. I have not met áilgech elsewhere; it may be derived from aílaig “good behaviour” (see Meyer, Contributions, p. x). In the second line ba of A² may be the correct reading.

v. 8. Docht is perhaps the Latin doctus (see Amra Coluimcille, Rev. Celt. ii.168). Caithmech I take to have been written for cathmar under the influence of the preceding fethmech; the emendation is, however, doubtful, as all the MSS have caithmech (“liberal”). For fethmech cf. Modern Irish feitheamh “a watching”; I have not met the word elsewhere. Srab may be cognate with Welsh ffraw.

v. 8a. This verse is not found in A¹. The second airi seems to be a masculine genitive; it can hardly be the genitive of the word for “vigilance”, which is feminine and would not be repeated so soon. Have we here, and in v. 6, an unknown masculine word aire?

v. 9. Tepad (“let him carve”?) may be right; but it is probably a corruption due to the influence of fodlad. As far as form goes, trebad might be the verbal noun…

v. 26. The end-rhymes are here correct, as -ae had already fallen together with -a in the Ml. and Sg. glosses; r cannot be palatalised.

vv. 27a–d. Here again we get 7 + 5 interpolations; and it is worth noting that in both verses the auditor is addressed directly in the second person. The copula with which both MSS begin the second line is unnecessary for the meaning, and gives the line too many syllables. The fact that each of the MSS supplies a different form of the copula seems to show that it was not in the original text, and I have therefore omitted it. Trummae I take to be the adjectival genitive of the abstract noun. If the word ord could bear the meaning “order, command”, the second line would probably mean “Heavy is the command, O brother — let me do it”. I have, however, never met ord in this sense.

v. 27c. A n-amairse is a peculiar-looking dative; it may, however, be the plural of an adjective anaimiris “not unfaithful”, or it may be i n-aimsir fír “in time of faith”. Professor Strachan suggests amainsi ‘subtlety’: cf. KZ xix.96.

v. 28. Sruitib, although found in only one MS, may be the correct reading. It would quite naturally be changed to salmaib for the sake of the rhyme with alltair. The second nuall of the MSS evidently crept from the first into the second line of the verse through the carelessness of the original scribe. Air ceill cloccáin of B seems to mean “upon the belfry”; there is, however, a Middle Irish word aircheall = timchell (see Ir. Texte i). For alltair cf. Meyer’s Contributions.

v. 30. Colgan, in his Acta Sanctorum under the date 13 February, quotes this verse as “verse 37 of Ailbe’s Rule” in Latin as follows: Cum sident ad mensam adferantur herbae sive radices, aquâ lotae in mundis scutellis; item poma, cerisia et ex alveario mellis ad latitudinem pollicis id est aliquod… In the Old Irish word for ‘river’ there are two stems — (1) abann with genitive abne (cf. gaibne), dative and accusative abinn, and (2) aba with genitive abann. Professor Thurneysen thinks that this latter may have been a later formation on the analogy of the n-stems: cf. persa (with genitive persann) for the older nominative parsan (genitive persine), and that it may have been originally a u-stem with nominative aub, genitive aba. Oirdne cannot be the genitive of the ordinary nominative form ordit; is it an analogical genitive to a supposed feminine nominative form ordan? Suithib is glossed crithir nais in A². See page 3 of the Leabhar Breac for a curious Rule dealing with monastic fare.

v. 31. For con-ualaí see Hy. ii.65.

v. 31a. If the MSS reading be kept, this verse is in Sétnad metre 8 + 7. If this be the correct reading, we may have here the same form which occurs in v. 21. Here, however, it can hardly be the adjectival genitive of mestar “moderation”, which seems to point to the fact of its being in the former case also a peculiar s-subjunctive of midithir. For the use of dlegait, cf. Cormac’s Rule.

vv. 32, 33. Here, again, we get a 7 + 5 system.

v. 34. Cf. airbert biid ‘a meal’, Laws Gl. Meyer (Aislinge Meic Conglinne) translates crath ‘cream’. Lemnacht (“new milk”), the reading of B, may be correct; but it would hardly be corrupted into the much less usual limlacht. The reading of B is a curiously unintelligent corruption of the A text.

v. 35. The different corruptions of the A and B groups both point directly to the right reading.

v. 41a. For as a richt cf. assa richt cóir, Ériu i.218; the sense is evidently that the prior should not work his church-tenants beyond their power. For the precise meaning of manach see Ériu i.207, note on v. 21a.

v. 42. Slémon has evidently crept from the second half of the first line into the first half, where it has displaced some monosyllabic adjective which probably began with a c, perhaps cert. I have taken suichlech to be an adjectival formation from suile “a store-house”; sochuilech would regularly give suichlech. It may, however, be a second later adjectival form, from so-chiall, and mean ‘prudent’. For the transferred n before and see Thurneysen, CZ v.14.

v. 43. For the deponent forms of con-ói see Strachan, Deponent Verb. As condairclech of B suits the metre, the A reading is probably due to a clumsy attempt at alliteration. What the exact office of the riaglóir was I have not been able to find out; the word comes from the Latin regularius.

v. 44. The proceedings of the various scribes in this verse are interesting: mléith had become bláith in the spoken language at the period of the copying, and so A¹ and B¹ simply write it bláith, while A², considering it a case of eclipsis, writes mbláith; then to preserve the alliteration A² changed mil to bil; B, more faithful, kept mil; A¹, with his eclipsis theory, wrote mbiltengthach. For taisci cf. taiscim, Laws Gl.

v. 45. Óg, the older form, suits the rhyme better. The eclipsing t before sain-techtad in A is a Middle Irish corruption of the scribe’s. The reading “he tells without a special law” (?) is not very intelligible. For feb “material good” cf. feba in Breton, CZ iv.243.1.

v. 46. Etsecht cannot here mean “to listen”, since in Old Irish in this sense it is followed by fri, never by la. The use of ap here as a term for God helps to date the poem; it shows that it was composed at a time prior to the formation of dioceses, and when in the Irish Church organisation the abbot was the highest.

v. 47. I have chosen comitecht of A¹, because the reading comimthicht, although it would suit the sense better, would not be possible in Old Irish, in which it would be contracted to the disyllabic coimthecht, thus making only six syllables in the first part of the line. It may, however, be a new momentary formation. For ba mór meld a gnés cf. ba mór meld a accaldam Ml. Catm. I.

v. 48. Timarnad may be a perfect passive; but in that case one would rather expect in Old Irish doimarnad. Cf., however, tucad : dollicad.

v. 49. The readings in the second half of the first line of this verse are so corrupt that emendation seems hopeless; I have no instance of luad ‘mention’ written with a th. Windisch gives ernaigde as feminine; but ernaigdiu is probably the correct Old Irish form; a plural emagda occurs in the Patrician notes.

v. 50. Fognam of A² is probably the clumsy emendation of a scribe who did not understand his text. Foigde (fo-guide) ‘begging’ may be the reading; but the construction of the whole verse leaves the sense somewhat obscure, and the use of the dative réir for the nominative riar seems unlikely in this early Irish.

v. 51 ff. Dr Strachan has pointed out to me the following passage in the Tega Cormaic (“Cormac’s Choice”), §3, N.10, p. 18, in which the verb srengim evidently means “cast off, deny”: Cia ro-t-srengustar ar tlás, dorolgis do demin scél iar no gach drúis, ceithri a der tar a gnáis — “Although he (Peter) denied you through weakness”, etc. If this be the meaning of srengam here, the phrase “what has been collected” probably refers to the monastic…

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