"Where is the root of poetry in a person; in the body or in the soul? They
say it is in the soul, for the body does nothing without the soul. Others
say it is in the body where the arts are learned, passed through the bodies
of our ancestors. It is said this is the seat of what remains over the root
of poetry; and the good knowledge in every person's ancestry comes not into
everyone, but comes into every other person."
Amergin - 7C translated Eryn Rowan Laurie.
This is part of the poetic wisdom text i discovered three yrs ago and which
is the least known of the three or four attributed to the mythical Milesian
bard.
Using a triple-cauldron approach it describes how each person is born with
three *cauldrons* within them and asks:
"What then is the root of poetry and every other wisdom? Not hard; three
cauldrons are born in every person, i.e., the Cauldron of Incubation, the
Cauldron of Motion and the Cauldron of Wisdom."
It lays out the PoV of what poetry is from the perspective of the earliest
Filidh poets, and was the touchstone text of the bardic schools and as a
text on which to base one's poetic, is as valid as any other theories,
particularly when one takes into account its provenance. It basically offers
the reader a series of questions and answers, but not hard and fast
definitive ones, more it is like a 50/50 spinner, as it asks a questions and
gives the thinking of each side. Like a lawyer weighing up the pros and cons
of each side of an argument and in the process, allows us to grasp some
deeper poetic thruths. But not in one reading, it is more like a companion
text for life.
I will post the full text up in its original form in another post. But
essentially it says that poetry is activated by a mixture of sorrow and joy
and the farther extremes we experience of sorrow and joy, the greater chance
we have of reaching the "higher streams".
Essentially it chimes in with the Yeats notion that we travel to go nowehere..
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