Hi everyone!

I was wondering if anyone could help me with the differences of the following two translations for the phrase "two for joy" (from the magpie nursery rhyme):

My tattoo currently reads: "dhá le háthas," which was the translation my then boyfriend who is Irish and speaks Irish gave me, but I recently came across a very different looking translation on the website http://www.focloir.ie. The entry there actually gives a complete translation of the "one for sorrow, two for joy" phrase - "snag roimh bhrón, péire roimh shó."


I already have the tattoo in question so I am mostly just looking for clarity on whether it is totally wrong, if it's more of a direct translation, or if just reads in a different way. Any help is appreciated!

I'm not familiar with the saying, whether in Irish or English, but the latter Irish version you found does not really say what you were told, except perhaps in a figurative sense in the intended context (and, as I said, I don't know what the context is). The word roimh can have a number of meanings, but I read the expression as saying something like "a sob in anticipation of sorrow, a pair [of sobs?] in anticipation of comfort". I'm not a native speaker, though, so I could be missing something.

What your Irish-speaking friend gave you is arguably correct, even if its stand-alone meaning is a bit vague (as is the English version), except that dhá is normally followed by a noun, so péire would probably sound better (although it's also usually followed by a noun). However, if you're speaking about two people, then beirt should have been used.

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I'm not a native (or entirely fluent) speaker, so be sure to wait for confirmations/corrections, especially for tattoos.

The original English rhyme was about magpies.
So, snag (snag breac) means magpie here.

"One for Sorrow" is a traditional children's nursery rhyme about magpies. According to an old superstition, the number of magpies one sees determines if one will have bad luck." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_for_Sorrow_(nursery_rhyme))

So, "snag roimh bhrón, péire roimh shó" is a quite literal translation. (a magpie before sorrow, a pair (of magpies) before comfort, enjoyment)



dhá le ... is grammatically impossible. Dhá (two) must be followed by a noun, péire (a pair) can but needn’t.

I agree "dhá le háthas" doesn't make sense -
I think you could save it by adding an -at- between "le" and "áthas" to make one compound:
dhá leatháthas.

"Leath-" with nouns means either half- (leath-thon srl.) or "one of two" (leathchos "one foot [of two]", leathlámh "one hand [of a pair]").
This could make "leatháthas" mean "a half-happiness" or "one happiness [of two]", .i. one half of a greater happiness (implying happiness is made of two parts - people maybe? ).

The "dhá leatháthas" then would mean "two half-happinesses" - which isn't saying a full happiness, but rather, two separate halves of two full happinesses (.i. two people having half of each others happiness, making their union a completion of one another).

(note: áthas doesn't retain a plural form today, but it used to e.g. do cumhnaigh Oisín a áithesa móra [Cath Finntrágha edited from MS. Rawlinson B 487])

Just an idea. I wasn't sure what your tattoo actually refers to, but this solution is vague enough, I should think, regardless. But yeah, no, "dhá le háthas" isn't on I'm afraid .

Emma, I think your ex-boyfriend may have exaggerated (or just plain fibbed) about his Irish. 'Le háthas' is sometimes translated as 'for joy' but only in expressions such as 'jump/dance for joy'. Literally it means 'with joy/happiness', so it doesn't work here. He just looked up 'for joy' in the dictionary without understanding the context.