JEROME STONE,
who was the first to direct public attention to Ossianic ballads. He was born at Scoonie, Fifeshire, in 1727. His father was a seafaring man. As a mere lad, Jerome became a packman; but dealing in buckles, garters, and such small articles not suiting his “superior genius,” he sold his stock, bought books, and finally struggled into St. Andrews University, where he graduated in 1750. He soon received the appointment of assistant in Dunkeld Grammar School, of which he became Rector two or three years afterwards. In this position, acquiring knowledge of the Gaelic language and of the people, along with his other duties, he remained until struck down of fever, as already stated, in 1756. At that time Dunkeld, an ancient home of Celtic activity, learning, and enterprise, was more of a Gaelic district than it is now and Stone found himself in social and intellectual surroundings which were new to him. He had probably more racial kinship, with the people than he himself knew or acknowledged, or than even Professor Mackinnon, who has edited his collection, has thought of. For centuries Gaidel and Brython lived and fought in his native Fifeshire, and their fervid life-blood has never ceased to run in the veins of Fife men. Probably the eloquent Thomas Chalmers received much of the inspiration of his genius from this Celtic source. Stone left a collection of Gaelic ballads which was for some time regarded as lost. The MS., after passing through various hands, passed two years ago into the possession of Edinburgh University on the death of Dr Clerk, to whom it was given when preparing his edition of Ossian, by David Laing. Professor Mackinnon has published the collection of ballads in the Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, 1887-88, occupying fifty pages of the volume, and accompanied with an interesting biographical note, to which the writer is indebted for some of the particulars given above. These ballads are of exactly the same character as those of the Feinne already considered. They are merely other versions of the same poems dealing with the same themes of the Finnic environment of the old Gaelic national life.
The first translator of Gaelic poetry deserves a memorial cairn in any book devoted to the interests of our Anglo-Gaelic literature. Jerome Stone gave the first translation of the old Gaelic Lays to the world in 1756 four years before the appearance of Macpherson’s Fragments. It appears that a St. Andrews Professor was the first to interest young Stone in Gaelic poetry, and the best of his efforts at translation was his free rendering of “Fraoch’s Death,” or as he entitles it, “Albin and the Daughter of Mey”:—
A thousand graces did the maid adorn:
Her looks were charming, and her heart was kind;
Her eyes were like the windows of the morn,
And Wisdom’s habitation was her mind.
A hundred heroes try’d her love to gain;
She pity’d them, yet did their suits deny;
Young Albyn only courted not in vain,
Albyn alone was lovely in her eye:
Love filled their bosoms with a mutual flame;
Their birth was equal, and their age the same.
Her mother Mey, a woman void of truth,
In practice of deceit and guile grown old,
Conceived a guilty passion for the youth,
And in his ear the shameful story told;
But o’er his mind she never could prevail,
For in his life no wickedness was found;
With shame and rage he heard the horrid tale,
And shook with indignation at the sound;
He fled to shun her; while with burning wrath
The monster, in revenge, decreed her death.
Amidst Lochmey, a distance from the shore,
On a green island, grew a stately tree,
With precious fruit each season cover’d o’er,
Delightful to the taste and fair to see.
This fruit more sweet than virgin honey found,
Serv’d both alike for physic and for food:
It cured diseases, heal’d the bleeding wound,
And hunger’s rage for three long days withstood,
And precious things are purchas’d still with pain,
And thousands try’d to pluck it, but in vain.
For at the root of this delightful tree,
A venomous and awful dragon lay,
With watchful eyes, all horrible to see.
Who drove th’ affrighted passengers away;
Worse than the viper’s sting its teeth did wound
The wretch who felt it soon behov’d to die;
Nor could physicians ever yet be found
Who might a certain antidote apply:
Even they whose skill had sav’d a mighty host,
Against its bite no remedy could boast.
Revengeful Mey, her fury to appease,
And him destroy who durst her passion slight,
Feign’d to be stricken with a dire disease,
And call’d the hopeless Albin to her sight:
“Arise, young hero! skill’d in feats of war,
On yonder lake your dauntless courage prove,
To pull me of the fruit, now bravely dare,
And save the mother of the maid you love;
I die without its influence divine,
Nor will I taste it from a hand but thine.”
With downcast look the lovely youth reply’d,
“Though yet my feats of valour have been few,
My might [in this adventure] shall be try’d;
I go to pull the healing fruit for you.”
With stately steps approaching to the deep
The hardy hero swims the liquid tide:
With joy he finds the dragon fast asleep,
Then pulls the fruit, and comes in safety back;
Then with a cheerful countenance, and gay,
He gives the present to the hands of Mey.
“Well have you done to bring me of this fruit;
But greater signs of prowess must you give:
Go pull the tree entirely by the root,
And bring it hither, or I cease to live.”
Though hard the task, like lightning fast he flew,
And nimbly glided o’er the yielding tide;
Then to the tree with manly steps he drew,
And pull’d it hard from side to side:
Its bursting roots his strength could not withstand;
He tears it up, and bears it in his hand.
But long, alas! ere he could reach the shore,
Or fix his footsteps on the solid sand,
The monster follow’d with a hideous roar,
And like a fury grasped him by the hand.
Then, gracious God! what dreadful struggling rose:
He grasps the dragon by th’ invenom’d jaws,
In vain; for round the bloody current flows,
While his fierce teeth his tender body gnaws.
He groans through anguish of the grievous wound,
And cries for help; but, ah! no help was found!
The hero’s death is a tragic one; and the life of the “helpless maid!” vanishes in the usual tender regrets of bards. Our great interest in the production, apart from the early death of the gifted and sympathetic Stone, lies in the fact that he [was the first] English-speaking man of letters who attempted to deal fairly with the products of the Gaelic muse. To students of Macpherson’s Ossian and Ossianic ballads it will be apparent that the Badenoch tutor merely imitated Stone in the English productions; he gave the spirit, not the letter of Gaelic poetry. Macpherson’s trouble lay in the originally unexpected necessity of providing Gaelic originals which would be fair equivalents for his published English versions. The bitter assaults made on his works naturally led to his manner of self-defence. As an illustration of how poetical translators deal with the original materials placed in their hands, nothing better could be found than this Gaelic ballad which Stone published in English dress in the “Scots Magazine.” In “Mackenzie’s Report,” the original Gaelic, Stone’s rendering, and a literal version are supplied. The second is described as a “Translation of the foregoing,” as published by Stone in the “Scots Magazine” for 1756. In order to show how a “translation” was regarded in the age of Macpherson, it may be well to give the last three verses of “Fraoch’s Death” in the original, then the “Report’s” literal version, and lastly Stone’s poetic translation. Here are the last three verses of the Gaelic ballad:—
Thogamar anois an cluin Fhraoich,
Corp an laoich an Caiseal Chrò.
On Bhas ud a fhuair am fear,
Mairg is mairion na dheigh beo.
Gu mhi sud an tuabhar Mna,
Is mo chonairceas air mo dha Roisg,
Fraoch a chur a bhuain a Chrainn,
An deis an Caoran a bhi bhos.
Air a cluain thughte an t’ainm,
Loch meidhe raite ris an Loch,
Am biodh a Bheist anns gach uair,
Is a Craos a suas an Dos.
This is the “Report’s,” literal translation of these verses:
We bore to the grove of Fraoch,
The body of the hero to its circular pale;
After the worthy has died,
To be alive is our regret.
Cruelest of woman was she,
That ever was seen by eyes,
Who sent Fraoch to tear the branch,
After the fruit had been torn away.
The grove bears his name,
Loch Meyo is the name of the lake,
Where the monster kept watch,
And its open jaw to the tree.
This is the original material out of which Jerome Stone wrought his translation as follows:—
But now he’s gone and nought remains but woe
For wretched me; with him my joys are fled;
Around his tomb my tears shall ever flow,
The rock my dwelling, and the clay my bed!
Ye maids and matrons, from your hills descend,
To join my moan and answer tear for tear;
With me the hero to the grave attend,
And sing the songs of mourning round his bier,
Through his own grove his praise we will proclaim,
And bid the place forever bear his name.
The idea may come to many readers as a surprise that if Jerome Stone had been spared to perform the part of translator of the Gaelic ballads and small epics of the Finnic mythus, he would probably furnish the world with “translations” which would not be nearer the “originals” than Macpherson’s have been. The reference here is not to Macpherson’s Gaelic published subsequently, but to the Ossianic compositions which became such a source of general Celtic inspiration during the latter half of the eighteenth century.