CatholicaPlummer, Bethada Náem nÉrenn I (1922) — Irish text, unedited
1 The Twelve Apostles of Ireland
2 The twelve apostles of Ireland were at Clonard studying under Finnian. Finnian made a feast for the apostles and for the saints of Ireland besides. As they were drinking the feast together they saw coming towards them a great unanswerable flower from the land of promise. Then contention and counsel arose among them about going to seek the land of the flower. None of them would take another’s hand to go there; so lots were cast between them — between every pair of them; and it fell then to the two Brendans to go. Then the two Brendans cast lots between themselves, whichever of them should go to seek the land of promise. And it fell to Brendan of Birr to go.
3 Then all the saints of Ireland were put into grief and anxiety because it was hard for them to reach the elder — the senior of the saints of Ireland and the sage of prophecy — who was to go into the hollow of the sea and the great ocean. Whereupon Brendan mac Finnlogha said: “I am the least; it is I who will go upon the sea.” Therefore he sang this lay:
4 They were studying a strong while,
5 They sang their lessons clearly,
6 With Finden of the many churches,
7 The twelve apostles of Ireland.
8 They saw coming to them the flower
9 From the true good fellowship,
10 From the fair land of promise,
11 From the King of kings, the royal sovereign.
12 They all said together,
13 It was from their good counsels,
14 That they should come to a hidden tryst of it,
15 To seek the land of the flower.
16 God parted each pair of them
17 From the labour of the old saints,
18 According to the wonder of the great lot,
19 So that it fell to the two Brendans.
20 That God might bless the colours
21 With their vessels of ale-liquor,
22 Brendan of Birr, victory of sovereignty,
23 And Brendan mac Finnlogha.
24 They cast a fair pure lot
25 In the presence of the apostles;
26 Brendan of Birr to the fame,
27 It was to him that the journey fell.
28 Then the company of fitting companions
29 With fair horns of feast-drinking,
30 His portion for lying on the great sea,
31 His sage safe and his elder.
32 “Though I be here until now”,
33 Said Brendan up in the air,
34 “Let it be mine to take what comes of it”,
35 “I will go upon the sea”.
36 Then a company of champions was made ready by Brendan — that is, their number and their load — forty-five and seventy-three: that was the number that went in the coracle.
37 Then Brendan mac Finnlogha sailed over the crested waves of the red-maned sea, and over the flood of the green-sided waves and the billows of the long-blue brine, and into the mouth of the wondrous, many-monstered ocean — the place where they found a multitude of sea-monsters. And then they would find beautiful wondrous islands, but they would not stay in them.
38 Now they were a full year on that voyage. Then Easter drew near; his people were saying to Brendan that they should go on land to celebrate Easter. “God is able,” said Brendan, “to give us land in every place that pleases him.” When Easter came, then the great beast lifted its back upward out of the sea, so that it was a level, firm, fair, equally broad and even, equally
39 beautiful land. Then they went upon that land and celebrated Easter there. They were one day and two nights in that place, until they had finished the office of Easter. Then they went into their coracle. The great beast plunged under the sea after that. Every time Easter drew near each year the great beast would lift its back above the sea, so that it was a dry serviceable land.
40 Once moreover they were on the ocean, and they saw the huge whirlpools. Then the current drew them against their will to the edge of the maelstrom. Then great fear seized them at the greatness of the tempest. Every one of them was looking at Brendan, for the peril in which they were was enormous. Then Brendan raised his voice on high, and said: “It is enough for you, O great sea,” said he, “to drown me alone, and let this people go from you.” Then the sea calmed at once, and the edges of the maelstrom subsided from then on, and it hurt no one else.
41 While they were one day on the sea, the devil came to them in the shape of an old foul man of hell, and sat upon the mast of the coracle in the presence of Brendan alone. Now none of them saw him save Brendan only. Brendan asked the devil why he had come from hell before his proper time — that is, before the time of the great resurrection. “It is for this I have come,” said the devil, “to seek my pains in the deep depths of this black sea.” Brendan asked him: “Why, where is that hellish place?” “Wretched,” said the devil; “no one can see it and live after.”
42 Then the devil revealed the door of hell to Brendan; and Brendan looked then at that rough, blue prison, full of stench, full of flame, full of filth, full of the camps of the venomous demons; full of weeping and screaming and hurt; and the wretched cries and great lamentations, the weeping and hand-clapping of the sinful folk, and a sad sorrowful life in the heart of pain, in fiery prisons, in streams of
43 the ever-burning fire, in the fog of eternal sorrow and death without end or limit, in dark places, in heavy-flaming cities; in a multitude of griefs and deaths, and howls, and bonds, and heavy helpless conflicts, with the horrible shouting of the venomous demons, in ever-dark, ever-cold, ever-foul, ever-filthy, ever-gloomy, ever-rough, ever-long, ever-smoky, deadly, murky night of sooty fire of the dark depths of hideous hell; in the sides of the mountains of eternal fire, without rest, without respite, but hosts of demons dragging the sinners into heavy, hard, hot, fiery, dark, deep, hidden, vain, enslaving, black, direful, filthy, sedgy, ancient, ever-stinking, ever-quarrelsome, ever-contentious, ever-wearisome, ever-dead-yet-alive prisons.
44 Sharp, harsh, windy, tearful, wailing, complaining, gusty, bitter, shrill-cried, mournful weeping. Bent worms, hard, strong, big-headed. Yellow, pale, great-mouthed beasts. Fierce, swift, snorting lions. Rough, red, lofty hawks. Red, black, huge-backed, violent dragons. Strong northern-bent … ; blue gaping scorpions; rough griffins, sharp-beaked; bitter, taloned hounds; bent crows, hard-beaked. Strong, heavy iron fetters; ancient, old-rough flails; sharp swords; red spears; black demons; stinking fires; venomous streams; stinking waterfalls.
45 Cats scratching, dogs tearing, hounds barking; demons shrieking; stinking pools, great sloughs, dark pits, deep glens, high mountains, hard rocks. Hosts of demons, a filthy camp, pain without rest; a greedy set, frequent torment, strife without delay; demons torturing, a multitude of shrieks, a sorrowful life.
46 A place where there are dark, bitter, ancient, ever-stinking, putrid, molten, burning, bare, swift, hot, broad streams; hard rocky narrows, long, cold, deep, small great horrible, ever-hot, stretched-out, hateful, most sorrowful; bare burning moors. Rocky
47 gaping hills; bent wormy glens; rough thorny bogs; black fiery woods. Filthy beastly paths. Surging seas, wave-stench; huge iron nails. Black unpalatable waters. Many various kinds of horror. Filthy ever-rotten dust; bitter wintry winds. Dark ever-dropping snows; red fiery blades; enslaved black faces; swift snorting demons; huge various pains.
48 When Brendan had seen those pains, he heard the huge insufferable unbearable lamentation, and the gloomy pitiful wailing, and the helpless cry in the depths of the bottom of hell. Then fear seized the cleric at the horror of that suffering. And then Brendan saw the huge rock; it was upon it that what he heard was; and the hellish sea came from every quarter over the huge rock — a wave of dark-red fire from the east over it, and a cold icy wave from the west in turn.
49 Then there was a wretched man standing upon the rock. Brendan asked him who he was. “I am Judas Iscariot,” said he; “and it is I who sold my Lord for vain silver and worthless worldly goods — Jesus Christ the son of the living God. And enormous,” said he, “is the greatness of my various torments; and I shall be as you see today until the judgement.” Then Brendan wept for the greatness of the misery he saw Judas in. And thereupon Judas spoke these little verses in thanks to Brendan:
50 I am Judas Iscariot today
51 Upon the waves of the strong sea;
52 Wretched my dangerous blue life,
53 Being tortured in hell.
54 From a wave of fire to a cold wave,
55 From a cold wave to every strong wave,
56 I am tortured in every place,
57 Wretched is the cry of my being in pain.
58 Woe to me that I betrayed my King,
59 Evil was the deed I took in hand; It will be for ever eternally
60 Without peace and without pleasant ease.
61 The depths of hell every while,
62 Wretched the griffon that is at my side;
63 Black demons are around me,
64 Alas, O law, it is not fair.
65 Woe to him who did, woe to him who does,
66 Woe to the journey that is everlasting;
67 He who is greedy beyond measure,
68 Woe that he is, and woe his God.
69 Woe to me that my greed destroyed me,
70 Harsh demons I see every while;
71 Woe is my journey, O God, to them,
72 Woe that my hard conscience said it.
73 Alas, O Brendan, look at me;
74 Everything I do is the worse,
75 Hell hateful, enslaved, black, blind,
76 Alas, it is there I am alive.
77 Alas, alas the price of betraying my King,
78 For ever and ever I get its evil,
79 Thirty circles of white silver,
80 It is that which torments my body.
81 For treasure I sold my King,
82 Alas, it is through it my plight is evil;
83 The treasure lasts not for me,
84 I remain in pain for ever eternally.
85 Alas, why am I not dead, O Son of my God,
86 Alas, roughly do I get battle;
87 Alas, I burning with a hundred,
88 I cannot die, but I live.
89 Bent worms are under my side,
90 Black, brown, wretched the struggle; A cry of barking there every while,
91 Wretched the taloned thing that is about me.
92 Alas, O silver, woe to him who does it,
93 Alas, it spared me not under my God;
94 Alas, O treasure of white lies,
95 Alas, it is a plague that itself contended.
96 With demons am I;
97 Alas, my aspect gladdened me to evil,
98 It is heard through my pride of countenance;
99 It is I, Judas Iscariot.
100 JUDAS ISCARIOT