Life
[var. O’Keeffe]; edited Buile Suibhne as The Adventures of Suibhne Geilt (1913), bilingual trans. with introduction. and notes, for Irish Texts Soc. IF
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Works
Buile Suibhne (The frenzy of Suibhne): being the adventures of Subhne Geilt, a Middle-Irish romance / edited with translation, introduction, notes, and glossary by J.G. O'Keeffe, [Irish Texts Soc., Vol. 12] (London: Irish Texts Society 1913), 198pp. [bibl. & indexes 31-32pp. [Parallel Middle Irish text with English translation; introduction and notes in English], & Do., with a new introduction by Joseph Falaky Nagy (ITS 1996).
The Adventures of Suibhne Geilt (1913): ‘[A]nd darkness,and fury, and giddiness, and frenzy, and flight, unsteadiness, restlessnessand unquiet filled him, likewise disgust with every place in which heused to be and desire for every place which he had not reached. His fingerswere palsied, his feet trembled, his heart beat quick, his senses wereovercome, his sight was distorted, his weapons fell naked from his hands,so that through Ronan's curse he went, like any bird of the air, in madnessand imbecility [ … rolion nemhain & dobhar & dasacht & faoinnel & fualang & folumain & udmhaille, anbsaidhe & anflhaoistine, miosgais gach ionaidh ina mbiodh & searc gach ionaidh noco roichedh; romheirblighset a meoir, rocriothnaighsiot a chosa, roluathadh a chroidhe, roclodhadh a chedfadha, rosaobadh a radharc, rotuitset a airm urnocht asa lamhuibh co ndeachaidh la breithir Ronain ar gealtacht & ar geinidecht amail gach n-ethaid n-aerdha.]’ (quotd in by Ciaran Carson in ‘Sweeney Astray: Escaping from Limbo’ [1982], The Art of Seamus Heaney, ed. & intro. Tony Curtis, Brigend: Poetry Wales Press; Chester Springs: Dufour Edns.198), pp.139-48.)
Note: Carson also makes comparison with the version by Flann O’Brien: ‘nearly a parody which nevertheless reflects the implicit playfulness of the original’ as compared with Heaney’s emphasis on the ‘psychological seriousness’. (Idem.)
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