Nírba crúaid ar ná ba áertha...

Nírba crúaid arná ba áertha.
Nírba timm arná ba máelchend.

(I was not * hard * so that not * I might be * satirized.
I was not * soft * so that not * I might be * shorn-headed)

I wasn’t hard, lest I be jeered.
I wasn’t soft, lest I be fleeced.

This balanced pair of lines is found in “Tecosca Cormaic” (§7.16-17), where Cormac is counseling the middle path between being a harsh ruler and a push-over. The full implications of the last word are hard to convey briefly in English, but the jist is that having one’s hair shaved off implied either submission in a religious calling, servant status in the lay world, or a punishment or humiliation. In the latter aspect, I’m grateful to Patrick Brown for calling my attention to the Etarcomal episode in the Táin, in which Cú Chulainn tries to discourage an unwanted challenger by making him look successively bad, then worse, then ridiculous, by first literally cutting the ground out from under him with one sword stroke, then stripping his clothes off with another, and finally by shearing off his hair with the third! And I’m equally grateful to Neil McLeod for suggesting the translation “fleeced”, and to David Stifter for pointing out the reverse parallel between getting shorn and ending up weak in the story of Samson in the Old Testament.

Topics: Maxims & Wise Counsel