Similies Samhlaidhean

Similies

I’m going to do a strange thing in the Litir this week. The entire Litir will be in verse. Not normal verse but verse made of Gaelic similes. What’s a “samhladh”? It’s a simile. “As cold as the poison” and things like that. We have a tremendous number of similes in Gaelic.

This verse appeared in print in eighteen hundred and seventy six (1876). Here it is. I hope you enjoy it. Remember it is written in the Litir Bheag, number one hundred and sixty four (164) on the BBC’s Gaelic website.

As wet as a fish, as dry as a hide,

As live as a bird, as dead as a stone;

As brittle as glass, as enduring as a [harp] string,

As slow as a snail, as fast as a steed;

As strong as a horse, as weak as St John’s wort,

As sweet as sugar, as ill-tasting as skate;

As white as a lily, as black as soot,

As playful as a kitten, as sick as a dog;

As bulky as a storm petrel(or puffin?), as unbulky (easily packed) as a herring,

As fat as a pig, as poor as a rat;

As straight as an arrow, as curved as a bow,

As white as a shirt, as black as a smith;

As rocky as a crag, as bare as a table,

As sharp as a knife, as blunt as a hammer;

As hard as flint, as soft as butter,

As fluctuating as weather, as certain as time;

As true as the gospel, as mendacious as [the] man

As fickle as a wife, as certain as a gun;

As hot as an oven, as cold as snow,

As weak as a fly, as strong as seven [people];

As light as a feather, as heavy as lead,

As green as grass, as russet as dust;

As slow as an ass, as fast as a torrent

As bright as day, as red as blood;

As coarse as a rook, as melodious as a poet

With a thousand other similes related to these