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PAGE 91

The four pieces of rhetoric, at the beginning of this text are translated by Thurneysen, Sagen aus dem alten Irland, pp. 11 and 12. In the first, third, and fourth of those, the only difference of any importance between the text adopted and Thurneysen's versions is the third line of the third piece, which perhaps should run: "With stately eyes with blue pupils," segdaib suilib sellglassaib, taking the text of the Yellow Book of Lecan.

The second piece appears to run as follows:


Let Cathbad hear, the fair one, with face that all love, the prince, the royal diadem, let he who is extolled be increased by druid arts of the Druid:
because I have no words of wisdom
to oppose (?) to Feidlimid,
the light of knowledge;
for the nature of woman knows not
what is under her body,
(or) what in the hollow of my womb cries out.


These rhetorics are remarkable for the great number of the alliterations in the original.



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