(xi) Agallamh Beirte II

Publication Instance Details #1854

Publication Overview

Translation	Is Multilingual	Explicit Irish Context?	Ekphrasis	Has Paratext?	Reference to News, Media or Technology
No	No	No	No	No	No

Details

Human Rights Issues	Gender-based violence
Languages	Irish
Genre	Part Of Lyric Sequence
Medium	Print Collection
Notes	This poem is part of the lyric sequence, 'An Fear sa Ghealach'. In this poem, the personification of the moon blames the narrator of the poem for the crimes of mankind, despite his protestations of innocence. The moon accuses him of not caring about women's plight, and about ignoring their pain and suffering up until the present moment. She even brings up his past lovers, his mother, etc. to make a point about his uncaring nature. The narrator argues back angrily, and says that he has a right to respond, like Medb's partner in the Táin. He mentions aspects of women's suffering that is self-inflicted, such as the wearing of high-heels. The narrator accuses women of having committed the mistake of looking for their life's meaning in the satisfaction of men. He seeks to appeal his 'conviction' to a higher court, but the personification of the moon announces that this is impossible, and that they must solve their problems between themselves.