A primer of Irish metrics : with a glossary, and an appendix ...

vi PREFACE
for further minute investigation, the value of which is not confined
to metrics ; for it will incidentally add to our knowledge of
pronunciation and the history of the language. The part played
in rhyme and alliteration by actual pronunciation on the one hand,
by tradition on the other ; the change in the pronunciation of
consonants and vowels, such as th, dh, gh, initial m before conso-
nants, oi and at; the effect of sandhi ; the division of syllables in
pronunciation, &c.—all this and much else it should be possible
to establish from a close observation of the laws of rhyme and
alliteration. On some of these points Whitley Stokes, in the intro-
duction to his edition of Gorman's Martyrology, pp. xxx-xxxviii,
has collected valuable material, and established certain laws. As
to the part played by sandhi, I may add an observation, which so
far as I know has not been made before, though it is a common-
place in Welsh metrics. If dh and d come together, they have
between them the value of /, as in the following couplet from
Goffraidh Fionn ua Clérigh's poem entitled ' Marbnad Dé '
t
marbhnadk Dc, nl trebhadh tnúidh, garmhac duinjé dleghar din.
The same rule would naturally apply in the case of gh + g, bh + b.
One word of advice to the beginner will not be out of place. He
must accustom himself to read Irish poetry entirely by ordinary word-
stress, discarding altogether the fanciful theories as to any regular
interchange between stressed and unstressed syllables, 1
:
or as to any
secondary stress enabling certain syllables to carry a rhythmical
accent. 2 At no period can unstressed, half-stressed, or even the
fully-stressed final syllables of Munster pronunciation carry such an
accent. Unless the ordinary accentuation is followed, neither the
laws of rhyme nor alliteration can be properly understood ; while
attention paid to rhyme and alliteration often teaches us to correctly
accent words as to whose stress there may have been any doubt.
Thus, some scholars would not have wrongly placed the stress in
didiu and dochum on the final syllable if they had known that these
words rhyme with ligiu and toffund respectively.
1 Such as the theory put forward by me in the Metrical Excursus at the end
of my edition of Cath Fionntragha.
-As assumed by Zimmer in his KeUische Studien, II, p. 160.