SOURCE: ''Ad 'Cúirt an Mheadhoin Oidhche' ll. 597-8," in Eigse: A Journal of Irish Studies, Vol. VIII, No. 2, 1956, pp. 140-43.

In the following essay, Breatnach demonstrates that traditional English translations of two lines of Merriman's "The Midnight Court" lead to misunderstandings about the poem's theme.

The lines in question have been seriously misunderstood.¹ In Stern's edition, CZ v. 220, they are as follows:—

Ó d'aibig an tadhbhar do bhronn mac Dé
 Gan sagart ar domhan dá dtabhairt dá chéile.

The lines are metrically correct, because unstressed Gan may be read with Dé to rhyme with chéile; compare ndiaig followed by A in the next line rhyming with fiadhaile, l. 79, and there are several other cases of the same thing in the poem. Some MSS. have dá r for dá in the second line, but dá is the reading of the majority, and I see no reason to...