Читать книгу Lyra Celtica: An Anthology of Representative Celtic Poetry онлайн

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It would seem reserved for this coming century, says Dr Hyde, unless a vigorous, sustained, and national effort at once be made, to catch the last tones of “that beautiful, unmixed Aryan language which, with the exception of that glorious Greek which has now renewed its youth like the eagle, has left the longest, most luminous, and most consecutive literary track behind it of any of the vernacular tongues of Europe.” But, alas, a stronger law than that which man can make or unmake, or nations can resolve, is slowly disintegrating the subsoil wherefrom the roots of the Celtic speech draw the sole nurture which can give it the beauty and fragrance of life.

Some idea of the vastness of the mass of the as yet untranslated Celtic literature may be had from the notes in books by Dr Douglas Hyde, J. F. Campbell, Alfred Nutt, and other specialists. In the National Libraries in Great Britain alone it is estimated that, if all the inedited MSS. were printed, they would fill at least twelve hundred or fourteen hundred octavo volumes. Those who would realise more adequately the extent and importance of this early literature should, besides the authorities already mentioned, consult Eugene O’Curry’s invaluable “Manners and Customs,” and in particular the section of 130 pp. devoted to Education and Literature in Ancient Erinn, which deals with the most important Irish-Gaelic poets from the earliest times down to the eleventh century: the likewise invaluable “Myvyrian Archaiology,” which sets forth an imposing list of Cymric poets, with much information concerning life in Ancient Wales: and books such as Campbell’s “Leabhar na Féinne,” and “Tales of the West Highlands,” MacNeill’s “Literature of the Highlanders,” and (though for students rather than the general reader) the writings of Skene, Anderson, Whitley Stokes, Nutt, and many others.