Some lines from this poem came into my head just now, so I've decided to include it in my series.
James Clarence Mangan is fairly well-known in Ireland, but I would be surprised if anybody (other than people interested in Ireland) know him abroad. He died in 1849. He was the archetypal romantic poet, known for his cloak, poverty, doomed love affair, and addictions.
Mangan wrote some very moving and lyrical poems, but this isn't one of them. This is a sparkling piece of satire or social commentary, translated from an Irish original.
The main thing I love about this poem is simply its virtuosity. It hops, skips, leaps, and jumps. Mangan is in complete command of the format. He comes up with rhyme after rhyme for the refrain "woman of three cows", with an impression of sheer effortlessness. Its emphatic metre is a pleasure in itself.
I also like the gusto of the poem. Somehow I imagine Mangan greatly enjoyed writing it. He was truly a Byronic figure in both senses; he had Byron's romantic melancholy, but also Byron's mordant comic glee, when the mood took him.
The Woman of Three Cows is the sort of person who, until recently, had a stock description in the Irish vernacular: "Tuppence-ha'penny looking down on tuppence."
Mangan was an Irish nationalist, and it's wonderful how he's stitched allusions to Irish history through the whole length of the poem. You'd expect this in a patriotic lyric, but somehow it's even more powerful in a piece of invective like this, where the Irish historical references (many of which are lost on me) simply form the background, the world of the poem. I'm constantly sad and ashamed that Irish writers just dropped the Gaelic Revival, or the Celtic Dawn, or whatever you want to call it, a few decades after independence. It had room for infinite variation.
I've said above that this isn't a moving and lyrical poem. That's not quite true. Although it's basically a satire, there are some loftier strains in it, such as this one:
O, think of Donnell of the Ships, the Chief whom nothing daunted --See how he fell in distant Spain, unchronicled, unchanted!
It had never occurred to me before, but this poem is quite reminiscent of Tennyson's "Lady Clara Vere de Vere" (the poem from which the film Kind Hearts and Coronets takes its title), although Tennyson's poem is not comical.
Mangan throws Irish dialect words in liberally enough. "Agraw" means "my dear"; "Movrone" means "alas!", and "inagh"...to be honest, I don't know what that one means.
Trigger warning: the last verse contains an endorsement of violence towards women. We must remember Mangan never attended a sensitivity training course.
The Woman of Three Cows by James Clarence Mangan
O, Woman of Three Cows, agraw, don't let your tongue thus rattle!O, don't be saucy, don't be stiff, because you may have cattle.
I've seen -- and, here's my hand to you, I only say what's true --
A many a one with twice your stock not half so proud as you.
Good luck to you, don't scorn the poor, and don't be their despiser,
For worldly wealth soon melts away, and cheats the very miser,
And Death soon strips the proudest wreath from haughty human brows;
Then don't be stiff, and don't be proud, good Woman of Three Cows!
See where Momonia's heroes lie, proud Owen More's descendants,
'Tis they that won the glorious name, and had the grand attendants!
If they were forced to bow to Fate, as every mortal bows,
Can you be proud, can you be stiff, my Woman of Three Cows!
The brave sons of the Lord of Clare, they left the land to mourning;
Movrone! for they were banished, with no hope of their returning --
Who knows in what abodes of want those youths were driven to house?
Yet you can give yourself these airs, O, Woman of Three Cows!
O, think of Donnell of the Ships, the Chief whom nothing daunted --
See how he fell in distant Spain, unchronicled, unchanted!
He sleeps, the great O'Sullivan, where thunder cannot rouse --
Then, ask yourself, should you be proud, good Woman of Three Cows!
O'Ruark, Maguire, those souls of fire, whose names are shrined in story --
Think how their high achievements once made Erin's greatest glory--
Yet now their bones lie mouldering under weeds and cypress boughs,
And so, for all your pride, will yours, O, Woman of Three Cows!
The O'Carrolls also, famed when Fame was only for the boldest,
Rest in forgotten sepulchres with Erin's best and oldest;
Yet who so great as they of yore in battle or carouse?
Just think of that, and hide your head, good Woman of Three Cows!
Your neighbour's poor, and you, it seems, are big with vain ideas,
Because, inagh! you've got three cows, one more, I see, than she has.
That tongue of yours wags more at times than Charity allows,
But, if you're strong, be merciful, great Woman of Three Cows!
And I'm too poor to hinder you; but, by the cloak I'm wearing,
If I had but four cows myself, even though you were my spouse,
I'd thwack you well to cure your pride, my Woman of Three Cows!
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