Today’s Poem: The Woman of Three Cows
An Irish poem for the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day
Justin Blessinger is professor of English at Dakota State University and a long-time teacher of Irish and English literature: a man of words and a man of his hands, working in his spare time on computerized mechanical devices for the disabled. His thoughts moved recently to the relative invisibility of James Clarence Mangan, and Poems Ancient and Modern suggested he write up a note for our readers, since St. Patrick’s Day is this coming Sunday, March 17.
Justin Blessinger writes:
Harps, shamrocks, green clothes, swans, black roses, vulnerable young women . . . vulnerable old women: Every student who ever took a course in Irish Lit will tell you that it’s always about Ireland, always about the attempt to read Ireland as the object of art.
The Irish artistic imperative is ultimately what drove James Joyce out of Ireland (along with the moral guardrails enforced around what was publishable). William Butler Yeats similarly embraced the idea of Ireland, but he chose to stay, revitalizing older mythologies and tales to give new wind to the old tack. Even on their different paths, however, both Joyce and Yeats held another Irish writer — today’s poet, James Clarence Mangan (1803–1849) — in esteem.
In a culture as simultaneously influenced by and at odds with England as Ireland was, it’s small wonder that so much of their art, music, and poetry contains thinly veiled references to England. And England too often responded to these criticisms with desperate, violent, and often wholly unenforceable new rules. Banning wearing shamrocks (and later the sporting of green at all) could only provoke an art that didn’t require a literary formalist to interpret. Like the sibling in the backseat who is technically “not touching” her brother because she’s wearing gloves, the Irish hid their contempt in plain sight and not without a dose of humor.
Mangan’s “Woman of Three Cows” is perhaps the best example of this type. A talented poet who also collected and translated a great number of songs and poems from the Irish, his work had enormous influence on the Irish renaissance of the early 1900s, though he was barely recognized in his own lifetime.
Ostensibly translated from the Irish (Mangan even published the supposed original 17th-century version with his translation), the song is clearly not ancient but directed at Queen Victoria and her three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland — which again places the song in the company of rebellious schoolyard songs, often directed at the teacher.
The four-line stanzas rhyme aabb in iambic heptameter, although the poem quickly creates a burden from “woman of three cows” that caps nearly every stanza, inviting listeners to join in — as though the poem were a song. And, in fact, a 14-syllable line is surprisingly common in song, often used in ballads (“Barbara Allen”) and hymns (“Our God, Our Help in Ages Past”), as well as a great deal of modern music that invites one to join in, from “I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony” to the theme song to Gilligan’s Island. It is perhaps coincidence that the words to “The Woman of Three Cows” can be sung to a popular older Irish tune, “The Wearing of the Green.” Perhaps.
Mangan had good reason for his ire at England. The Great Famine began in 1840, and in the poorer counties of Ireland, the death toll was astonishing. One in eight starved and another one in eight fled the country, often for America. England had eagerly pushed the potato as a solution to Ireland’s woes, and in good years, it had worked well. But as the poorest regions came to rely heavily on the staple crop, they were vulnerable when a blight struck, with death following in short order. The regions of Ireland where the English kept their estates had more crop diversity and livestock, all of which fed England, and the English reported that the famine was greatly exaggerated. It’s in the face of that sort of English wealth and arrogance that Mangan directed his supposed translation.
The Woman of Three Cows
by James Clarence Mangan
O Woman of Three Cows, agragh! don’t let your tongue thus rattle! O don’t be saucy, don’t be stiff, because you may have cattle. I’ve seen (and here’s my hand to you, I only say what’s true!) A many a one with twice your stock not half so proud as you. Good luck to you, don’t scorn the poor, and don’t be their despiser, For worldly wealth soon melts away, and cheats the very miser. And death soon strips the proudest wreath from haughty human brows: Then don’t be stiff, and don’t be proud, good Woman of Three Cows! See where Momonia’s heroes lie, proud Owen More’s descendants! ’Tis they that won the glorious name and had the grand attendants! If they were forced to bow to fate, as every mortal bows, Can you be proud, can you be stiff, my Woman of Three Cows? The brave sons of the Lord of Clare, they left the land to mourning, Mavrone! for they were banished, with no hope of their returning: Who knows in what abodes of want those youths were driven to house? Yet you can give yourself these airs, O Woman of Three Cows! O think of Donnell of the Ships, the chief whom nothing daunted! See how he fell in distant Spain, unchronicled, unchanted! He sleeps, the great O’Sullivan, whom thunder cannot rouse: Then ask yourself, should you be proud, good Woman of Three Cows! O’Ruark, Maguire, those souls of fire whose names are shrined in story, Think how their high achievements once made Erin’s greatest glory; Yet now their bones lie mouldering under weeds and cypress boughs, And so, for all your pride, will yours, O Woman of Three Cows! The O’Carrolls, also, famed when fame was only for the boldest, Rest in forgotten sepulchres with Erin’s best and oldest; Yet who so great as they of yore in battle and carouse? Just think of that, and hide your head, good Woman of Three Cows. Your neighbour’s poor, and you, it seems, are big with vain ideas, Because, inagh, you’ve got three cows; one more, I see, than she has! That tongue of yours wags more, at times, than charity allows: But if you’re strong, be merciful, great Woman of Three Cows! Now there you go: you still, of course, keep up your scornful bearing; And I’m too poor to hinder you. But, by the cloak I’m wearing, If I had but four cows myself, even though you were my spouse, I’d thwack you well to cure your pride, my Woman of Three Cows!
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What a great poem, and a great introduction, Justin. I know just enough about Irish history to recognize some of the names and to understand why the criticism. I much prefer this to the darkness of Swift's satire -- it does the same job, but instead of feeling you should die of despair when you finish it, you want to go shout it out somewhere.
The world's literature has more than enough love poems, so a good hate poem is always welcome.
When addressing the Woman of Three Cows, the poet properly uses the vocative participle "O." But he also uses that word in lines 2 and 17, where the interjection "oh" is intended. The distinction between the two words is often lost nowadays, but was it lost even when Mangan wrote? Or perhaps he uses an Irish-English variant of usage? I don't know.