IV.
The originality of "Cúirt an Ṁeaḋon Oiḋċe" is a quality on which too much stress cannot be laid. The eighteenth century GaeHc poets were addicted to copying one another. The same current stock of ideas did duty for all, the same attitude towards life is, in general, depicted in their work.
In Brian we find every kind of originality.
(a) Originality of metre. Brian conformed to the general rules of Gaelic assonantal metre, but nothing exactly like the metre of the "Cúirt "had previously been written. About 25 years before Donnchadh Ruadh had written a comic narrative poem in a metre which may have suggested that of the "Cúirt." But he used the same assonances at the end of each line throughout the poem, the result being a wearisome monotony for the ear.
Brian in the "Cúirt" varies the assonance in every two lines. But he does more than that. The stresses are the same, but the rhythm keeps changing constantly, in perfect accordance with the thought or sentiment. Some lines, packed with short syllables, run with a clattering gallop, some move with slow dignity. The music in the lines is not a bit like the work of any other Gaelic poet. There is none of the cloying sweetness, the melancholy cadences of his contemporary lyrists. He never sacrifices vigour to sweetness. His verse runs along splendidly, flawlessly, without a false note in its music, without a sign of halting or hesitation. The metre is not a very easy one, but he uses it with an amazing freedom. His language never seems forced. Nowhere does the expression of an idea seem to yield to the exigencies of metre.
It is a natural music, with the splashing of streams and the mountain echoes sounding in it. The lyre of
