Callino Casturame (Colleen Og a Store; Cailin O Chois tSiure; Happy 'Tis, Thou Blind, for Thee)

DESCRIPTION: Gaelic, verses telling the blind to be happy because they cannot be dazzled by the beauty of the girl he loves, apparently in vain
AUTHOR: English words by Douglas Hyde
EARLIEST DATE: 1893 (Hyde, Abhráin grádh chúige Connacht) (title known to and music arranged by William Byrd, died 1623)
KEYWORDS: love beauty foreignlanguage
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Henry/Huntingdon/Herrmann-SamHenrysSongsOfThePeople H491, p. 225, "Happy 'Tis, Thou Blind, for Thee" (1 text, 1 tune -- the Hyde translation set to music by Sam Henry, with very unhappy results. The various components may be traditional; the result is not)
Chappell-PopularMusicOfTheOldenTime, p. 793, "Callino Casturame" (1 tune, presumed to be this based on Chappell/Woodridge)
Chappell/Wooldridge-OldEnglishPopularMusic I, pp. 84-85, "Calino Casturame, or Colleen Oge Astore" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Douglas Hyde, _Abhráin grádh chúige Connacht, or, Love songs of Connacht_, T. F. Unwin, 1893 (available on Google Books), p. 131, "Happy It Is" (1 text, apparently with an Irish original)
Kathleen Hoagland, editor, One Thousand Years of Irish Poetry (New York, 1947), pp. 267-259, "Colleen Oge Asthore" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Lady Franklin's Lament (The Sailor's Dream)" [Laws K9] (tune?)
cf. "The Croppy Boy (I)" [Laws J14] (tune?)
cf. "McCaffery (McCassery)" (tune)
NOTES [255 words]: For background on the work of Douglas Hyde, see the notes to "My Own Dark Maiden."
According to Hoagland, this is the tune used for "The Croppy Boy," though she doesn't say which "Croppy Boy" poem she means. John Faulkner says that "The Croppy Boy," "Lord Franklin," and "McCaffery" use the tune, so it's presumably "The Croppy Boy (I)" [Laws J14], but I'm not sure how far to trust Faulkner.
Hoagland also claims that Shakespeare refers to this in Henry V, act IV, scene iv (line 4, I believe, though she doesn't say so). I don't buy it, though. The text of the First Folio is corrupt here, and the claim rests on a conjectural emendation. Editors don't even agree on the emendation. It's hard to accept a claim of dependence based on a text that isn't even secure!
In the First Folio, it isn't even in Act IV; it's in Act III, and no scene divisions are marked. The actual line is:
Pist[ol:] Qualtitie calmie cutture me.
Art thou a Gentleman? What is thy Name? discusse.
The Riverside Shakespeare emends the relevant words to (the suggestion being Malone's):
Qualtitie! [Calen o] custure me!
The SIgnet emends:
Qualttie calmie custure me!
and glosses "possibly a corruption of an Irish refrain to a popular song: 'Calen o custore me,' for 'the girl from the (river) Suir.'" This is also the approximate reading (and explanation) of the Orgel/Braunmuller Penguin edition, except that it has "Qualitie," not "Qualtitie," but still says it is gibberish.
The only part I'm sure of is the last three words of the above statement. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.6
File: HHH491

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