Liz Gabay wrote:
> Here's the transcription as I understand it; I hope I've included all your
> comments:
>
> BB
> corobris u.i.i.i. catha cona
It is more conventional to separate out the parts of the first 'word';
e.g. 'coro bris; co ro-bris'.
For 'roman numerals', there is a dot at the front and a dot at the end
only (they indicate that the word 'seacht' has not been written out in
full): .uii. There are no dots in the middle of the word being
abbreviated as a numeral. Where several words are involved, there is a
dot after the numerals standing for each word: e.g. in stanza 2 '.u.l.'
in BB = 'coic caecaid' in Lec.
The last word in line (a) is 'conna' (not 'cona'). The initial
back-to-front 'c' stands for 'con' and it is followed by a second 'n'
and an 'a'.
> forsna fatha finda
> i n-enlo cono na
> im caith croda crinda
'cath' not 'caith'.
> Lec
>
> Corobris u.i.i.i. catha conna
> forsna flatha finda
> i n-aenlo conona
> imchath chroda chrinda.
For line (a) see the comments for BB above.
In line (d), separate the preposition 'im' from the noun 'chath'.
> I can’t think of any way to make sense of ‘cona forsna’ because it looks like
> two prepositions combined with articles one after the other.
Bear in mind that 'conna' consonates with 'crinda' and 'finda'; so what
we have is the adjective 'conda' ('ferocious'). [See DIL under
'condae'.] Earlier 'nd' and 'nn' fell together.
> I would
> like ‘conna/cona’ to be an adjective
Your instincts were right on the money.
> I can’t
> think of any ideas for ‘conona’ in line 3 either.
As I explained in my earlier post, line (c) is clearly defective,
because it is two syllables short. Interestingly, line (c) is defective
in BB in stanzas 1 and 5 as well, though there Lec supplies the deficiency:
[1] (c)
BB isa tir ar druing [...] tosaich
Lec. isa tir ar druing ar tosaig
[5] (c)
BB cath atha cro cru [...] sligid
Lec. cath atha cro cru for sligid
In my earlier post I argued that we can reconstruct line line (c) here:
'i n-aenlo co n-o[...]na '
as
'i n-aenlo co n-ó[ga lonn]a'
‘in a single day, with fierce perfection’.
For lonna, see DIL under 'lonnda'.
Neil
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