"Múin Aithrighe Dhamh, A Dhé" Revised

Abstract:This essay consists of a new edition of the poem 'Múin aithrighe dhamh, a Dhé', together with a translation, commentary and notes. Lambert McKenna's edition of the poem, which was published in Dánta do chum Aonghus Fionn Ó Dálaigh (1919), was based on a single eighteenth-century manuscript, in which the poem was attributed to 'Ó Dálaigh Fionn' and which provided an incomplete and corrupt text. Further manuscripts containing the poem have since come to light. They provide a better text and suggest that Tadhg Óg Ó hUiginn was the author. The commentary pays particular attention to the apologue of the blood-spotted hand contained in the poem. A version of this apologue is contained in the late medieval collection Gesta Romanorum and seems to have provided the inspiration for Shakespeare's characterization of Lady Macbeth in the sleep-walking scene in Macbeth.