The Golden Rule

Mu dheireadh thall tha mi air toiseachdainn air an dàn fad’ agam mu dheidhinn fàilte,
aoigheachd, lagh naomh nan Gàidheal, a chuireadh dleastanas ort fasgadh
a thoirt do duine sam bith, caraid no nàmhaid, mar gum b’e dluth-dàimheach a bh’unnta
agus a dhearbhas gur iad nan Caimbeulaich ann an Gleann Comhainn
an gràisg as miosa a bh’ann riamh, dàn a bha mi an dòchas a dhèanadh fèill

air gach inimrich a dh’Alba, agus feum againn orra (aig a’ char as lugha)
gus comhar a thoirt seachad nar taighean-cùraim, nar taighean-osta, ospadalan,
B&Ban, gun cus feart a thoirt ris an eachdraidh fhada againn de ghràin-chinneadh
agus colonachd – ach tha mi a-nis gam lorg ann an staing
leis gur e seo seachdainn anns an robh Dòmhnall Iain Trump a’ cèilidh

air an tìr seo, tìr a tha e gu math toilichte aithneachadh airson abhdharan
prothaid ’s poileataigs, agus tha mi a-nis a’ meòrachadh
air crìochan ‘fàilte’ agus le sin mu dheidhinn an ‘gouden rule’
anns an sgeulachd aig Samuel Scrape, Cameronian à Penpunt,
anns na Private Memoirs and Confessions aig James Hogg,

riaghailt òr air an tug Lucky Shaw iomradh dha, gun fhuasgladh a thoirt dhuinn
dè dìreach tha i a’ ciallachadh – ‘gach uile ni bu mhiann leibh
daoine a dheanamh dhuibhse, deanaibhse a leithid dhoibhsan mar an ceudna’
neo rudeigin mar sin, ’s dòcha – cuir earbsa nad shùilean agus chan e briathran faoin
mar ‘choltas’, gu h-àraidh nuair a tha thu a’ faicinn crodhan fo chasag,

agus le sin a-rithist a’ smaoineachadh air cuairt nan dealbh anns a qhuiz san Golden Rule,
an ‘local’ agam ma tha fear ann, leis an fhàilte neònach a bhiodh ri fhaighinn sa leithid,
far a bheil feum agad aithneachadh an còmhnaidh an actair agus chan e an caracatar.
Cò tha nochdadh ann an riochd aoigh neo òstair? Cò a chluich Dracula ann an Gremlins 2?
Lord Summerisle anns an Wicker Man? Ciamar agus carson a fhuair sinn chun a seo?

The Golden Rule

Having finally started work on my long poem about welcome,
about hospitality, that great inviolable rule of the Gàidheal
which would have you shelter anyone, friend or foe,
beneath your roof as if they were your dearest kin,
and which casts the Campbells at Glencoe as the worst of all beings,

a poem I hoped would celebrate all immigrants to Scotland,
who we need (at the very least) to provide succour
in our care homes, hospitals, hotels and butt and bens,
while also being generous about our only slowly unfurled
histories of racism and colonial exploitation – I found myself stuck,

having foolishly begun in a week that Dòmhnall Iain Trump was visiting
if not his homeland then at least a land he would happily claim as his own
for financial and political gain, and took to wondering
about the limits of welcome, and about the ‘gouden rule’
in the story told by Samuel Scrape, the Cameronian from Penpunt

in James Hogg’s Private Memoirs and Confessions, a rule that is mentioned
but never explained by Lucky Shaw as a way of knowing the devil:
‘do unto others as you would have done to you’, I suppose
we’re meant to take it, or ‘trust your eyes’ not malleable words
like ‘likeness’, especially when you see a cloven hoof under a minister’s smock,

and with that again wondering about the picture round in the quiz in The Golden Rule
(my local, if a local I have one, with the peculiar sort of welcome that entails)
in which you have to always identify the actor and not the character played.
Who goes there in the role of guest and host? Which jobbing actor played Dracula
in Gremlins 2? Who was Lord Summerisle in the Wicker Man? How did we end up here?

Peter Mackay