Matheson Collection > Gleanings from Irish manuscripts

GLEANINGS FROM IRISH MANUSCRIPTS
31. Her hunting woods are streets, her people
are but vassals,^4 her chieftains hold not
their ancestors* soil, the heroes wounds are
the reason of it.
32. Her defenders, her poets and her churches
have a cause of grief, it is clear accordingly
that prosperity ^5 precedes ^^ every downfall.
^2' The day of Niall Garbh's fettering called
forth a sea [of tears] in many a country,
many a pang which is no unheeded sting in
every part of Eire where he visited.^?
34. The day of the death of the Hector of
Seaghais's ^^ fiana in England in that iron
bond, the hopes of every prince of the
Gaedhil, however mighty, fell.
25. As the death of brave Hector brought
defeat 69 to the hosts of Troy, in the death
of the fair-handed hero of Beannchor 7° it
was the Irish were overpowered.
26. The fight of the Gaedhil with the foreigners
and the heroes of Troy alike resisting for a
while the armies of the Greeks we have
heard of, 'twas a matter in which the
defence was similar.
37. Whoever caused the war, many a Greek
came about Troy, hosts hard to resist and
to number, a storm fierce in blood-spilling.
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