Pangur Bán

"Pangur Bán" is an Old Irish poem, written in the 8th century in the area of the Reichenau abbey by an Irish monk about his cat. Although the poem is anonymous, it bears similarities to the poetry of Sedulius Scottus, leading to speculation that he might have been the author (Greene and O'Connor 1967). "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 poem is preserved in the "Reichenau Primer" (Stift St. Paul Cod. 86b/1 fol 1v) and now kept in St. Paul's Abbey in the Lavanttal. A critical edition of the poem was published in 1903 by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan in the second volume of the "Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus".

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).

ee also

*Early Irish literature

References

*cite book| last=Greene| first=David| coauthors=Frank O'Connor| year=1967| title=A Golden Treasury of Irish Poetry, AD 600–1200| location=London| publisher=Macmillan. Reprinted 1990, Dingle: Brandon| id=ISBN 0-86322-113-0
*cite book| last=Stokes| first=Whitley| authorlink=Whitley Stokes| coauthors=John Strachan| year=1904| title=Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus: A Collection of Old-Irish Glosses, Scholia, Prose and Verse| edition=Volume II| publisher=Cambridge University Press. Reprinted 1975, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies| id=ISBN 1-85500-087-3
*cite book| last=Tristram| first=Hildegard L. C.| year=1999| chapter=Die irischen Gedichte im Reichenauer Schulheft| editor=Peter Anreiter and Erzsebet Jerem (eds.)| title=Studia Celtica et Indogermanica: Festschrift für Wolfgang Meid zum 70. Geburtstag| location=Budapest| publisher=Archaeolingua| pages=503–29| id=ISBN 963-8046-28-7

External links

* Robin Flower's [http://www.sky-net.org.uk/canals/pangurban/name/ translation]
* W. H. Auden's [http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/pangur.html translation]
* [http://www.rz.uni-potsdam.de/u/lingtri/schulheft/ "Reichenau Primer" facsimile]