16 THE POEMS CONTAINED IN THE FOUK BOOKS.
production of a later age, I do not believe that they contain any such system of Druidism, or Neo-Druidism, as Davies, Herbert^ and others, attempt to find in them; nor do I think that their authors wrote, and the com- pilers of these ancient MSS. took the pains to tran- scribe, century after century, what was a mere farrago of nonsense, and of no historical or literary value. I think that these poems have a meaning, and that, both in connection with the history and the literature of Wales, that meaning is worth finding out; and I think, further, that if they were subjected to a just and candid criticism, we ought to be able to ascertain their true place and value in the literature of Wales. The criticism to which they have hitherto been subjected is equally unsatisfactory, whether they are maintained to be genuine or to be spurious, mainly because the basis of the criticism is an uncertain and untrustworthy text, and any criticism on the existing texts, in the shape in which they arc presented in the Myvyrian Archaeology, is, comparatively speaking, valueless; and because the translatioiis by which their meaning is attempted to be expressed, are either loose and inaccurate, or coloured by the views of the translators. Those who deal with the poems as the genuine works of the bards whose names tiiey bear, and view them as containing a recondite sjrstem of Druidism, or semi-pagan philo- sophy, present us with a translation which is, to say the least of it^ mysterious enough in all conscience. Those, again, who consider them to be the work of a later age, and to contain nothing but a mere farrago i / THE POEMS CONTAINED IN THE FOUR B00K8. 17 of nonsense, have no difficulty in producing a transla- tion which amply bears out that character.
The work of the editor must, however, precede that of the critic. An essential preliminary is to give the text of these poems in the oldest form in which it is to be found, and in the precise orthography of the oldest MSS., and to present a translation which shall give as accurate and faithful a representation of the meaning of the poems as is now possible as the baab of the work of the critic The object of the present work is to accomplish this. The contents of the four MSS., here called the Four Ancient Books of Wales, are printed as accurately as possible, — ^those of the first three completely, and as much of the last as contains^any of these poems. It is in these four MSS« that the oldest known texts are to be found; and in order to secure a faithful and impartial trans- lation, I resolved, in order to avoid any risk of its being coloured by my own views, to refrain from attempting the translation myself, and to obtain it, if possible, frx)m the most eminent Uving Welsh scholars. With this view, I applied to the Reverend- D. Silvan Evans of Llan3miawddwy, the author of the English and Welsh Dictionary and other works, and the Reverend Robert Williams of Rhydycroesau, author of the Biography of Eminent Welshmen and the Cornish Dictionary, both distinguished Welsh scholars^ who most kindly acceded to my request Mr. Evans has translated for me the poems in the Black Book of Caermarthen, the Book of Aneurin, and the Red Book VOL. L VOL. L 18 THE POEMS CONTAINED IN THE FOUR BOOKS.
of Hergest, and accompanied them with valuable notes. Mr. Williams has translated for me the poems in the Book of Taliessin; and I beg to record my sense of the deep obligation under which they have laid me by the valuable assistance thus afforded. But while these eminent scholars are so far answerable for the trans- lationSy it is due to them to add that they are not responsible for any opinions expressed in this work except those contained in their own notes; and that, by permitting their names to be connected with this work, they must not be held as sanctioning the views entertained by myself^ and to which I have given expression in the following chapters, or in the notes I have added.* * The Welflh text has been printed for some years. It was put in type as soon as the collation of the manuscript copy of the poems with the original MSS. was completed, and again collated in proof, and then thrown off, in order to fificilitate the work of translation. The only request made to the translators was to moke their version as literal and aocnnte as possible, eren though the meaning might be obscured thereby; and the care and time requisite to prepare such a translation deliberately has delayed the appearance of the work since then. While engaged in the preliminary investigations, I from time to time com- mmiicated fngments of what was intended to appear in the Introduo- tion and Notea in occasional papers to the Arekaolc^ia Camhreiuii, THE LITERATURE OF WAUE8. 19 CHAPTER II.
THE LITERATURE OF WALES SUBSEQUENT TO THX TWELFTH CENTURY.
Prior to the twelfth century there are not many poems which claim to belong to the literature of that ^ period, besides those attributed to Taliessin, Aneurin, Uywarch Hen, and M3rrddin. The Black Book of Caeiw marthen contains a few attributed to Cuhdyn, £laetli» and Meigant; and the Red Book of Hergest^ one to Tyssilio, son of Brochwael Yscjrthrog; but the number of such poems is so small, that, if the poems attributed to the bards of the sixth century really belong to that period, there is an interval of several centuries, during which such a literature either never existed or has I>erished, till the twelfth century, from which period a mass of poetic literature existed in Wales, and has been preserved to us. Of the genuine character of that poetry there seems to be no doubt.
In order, then, to estimate rightly the place which the poems attributed to the bards of the sixth century ought truly to occupy in the literature of Walea^ it will be necessary to form a just conception of the char- acter of her later literature subsequent to the twelfth century, as well as to grasp the leading facts of her < / 20 THE LITERATURE OF WALES.
history during the previous centuries in their true aspect In the eleventh century two events happened which seem to have had a material influence on the literature of Wales. The one was the return of Rhys ap Tewdwr, the true heir to the throne of South Wales, in 1077, and the other was the landing of Gruffyd ap C3man, the true heir to the throne of North Wales, in 1080.
On the death of Edwal, the last of the direct line of the Welsh kings, in 994, leaving an only son in minority; and of Meredith, Prince of South Wales, in 994, leaving an only daughter, the government of both provinces of Wales fell into the hands of usurpers. C3man, who represented the North Wales line, fled to Ireland in 1041, where he married a daughter of the Danish king of Dublin, and after two fruitless at- tempts to recover his inheritance by the assistance of the Irish, died in Ireknd, leaving a son Gruffyd. Khys ap Tewdwr, the representative of the South Wales line, took refuge in Armorica, whence he returned in 1077; and, lapng claim to the throne of South Wales, was unanimously elected by the people-, Gruffyd ap Cynan invaded Anglesea with a body of troops obtained in Ireland, and having been joined by Bhys ap Tewdwr, their combined forces defeated the army of Trahaeam, then King of Wales, their opponent, at the battle of Camo in 1080, where that prince was slain, and Rhys ap Tewdwr and Gruffyd ap Cynan were confirmed on the thrones of their ancestors. The return of these two princes to Wales — the one THE LITEtlATURE OF WALES. 21 from Ireland, where he had been bom and must have been familiar with the Irish school of poetry, and tho other from Armorica, where he probably became ac- quainted with Armoric traditions, created a new era in Welsh Uterature, and a great outburst of litenuy energy took place, which in North Wales manifested itself in a very rem;krkable revival of poetry, while in South Wales it took more the shape of prose literature. Between 1080 and 1400, Stephens enumerates no fewer than seventy-nine bards^ many of whose waiks are preserved, and the Red Book of Hergest, concludes with a body of poetry transcribed apparently by Lewis Gljm Cothi, and attributed to bards, forty-five in number, who Uved in a period ranging firom 1100 to 1450. One of the earliest of these bards was Cynddelw, commonly called Prydydd Mawr, or the great bard. He was bard to Madog ap Meredy th, Prince of Powis, who died in 1159, and two elegies on his death, by C3mddelw, are contained in the Black Book of Cacrmarthen. There is every reason to believe that the latter part at least of this MS. was transcribed by him.
The influence produced upon Welsh Uterature by the return of Rhys ap Tewdwr to South Wales was of a difierent description; and it is probably from this period that the introduction into Wales of Armoric traditions may be dated. The appearance of the History of the Britons, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, was the first open manifestation of it. This work, which is written in Latin, at once attained great popularity.
i.
22 THE LITERATURE OF WALES.
and made the fabulous history which it contained^ with the romantic tales of Uthyr Pendragon, and Arthur with his Round Table, familiar to the whole world. There is prefixed to this history an epistle-dedica- tory to Robert, Earl of Gloucester, son of Henry L It must therefore have been compiled prior to his death in 1147. In this epistle he states that Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, a man of great eloquence and learned in foreign histories^ gave him a very ancient book in the British tongue {quondam Britannici ser- monts librum vetustissimum), giving an account of the Kings of Britain from Brutus to Cadwaladyr, and that he had, at the Archdeacon's request^ translated it into Latin; and he concludes his history by committing to his contemporary, Caradoc of Llancarvan, the history of the subsequent Kings in Wales, as he does that of the Kings of the Saxons to William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, whom he advises to be silent concerning the Kings of the Britons^ since they have not the book written in the British tongue (librum Britannici semumis), which Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, brought out of Britanny (j?rt tonnui), and which being a true history, he has thus taken care to trans- late. William of Malmesbury's history is likewise dedicated to Robert^ Earl of Gloucester, and is brought down to the 28th year of Henry L, or 1125, in which year it appears to have been written. Henry of Hunt- ingdon's history of the English is dedicated to Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln, and the first part terminates with the death of Henry I. in 1135, in which year it THE LrrERATURE OF WALES, 23 appears to have been written. Geofiey must there- fore have finished his translation, if his account be true, or compiled his work, if it is original, before these dates; but as in his epistle-dedicatory he invites his patron to correct his work, so as to make it more polished, it is possible that there may have been editions prior to the one finally given forth as the completed work, which this epistle and postscript accompanied.
That there was such a person as Walter, Arch- deacon of Oxford, seems now admitted; but whether the tale of the Welsh book, brought from Britanny and translated into Latin, is a reality or one of those fictions occasionally prefixed to original works, is a question of very great difficulty; and it will be neces- sary to inquire whether any light is thrown upon it by the Welsh versions termed Brut y Brenhinoeddf or the History of the Kings. Two of these versions are printed in the Myvyrian Archceology. The second is obviously a translation from the Latin edition, as we now have it, to which it closely adheres, and is there termed Brut Geoffrey ap Arthur. The first is said to be taken from the Red Book of Hergest; the nar- ^ rative is shorter and simpler; the epistle-dedicatory is not prefixed to it, and it contains at the end of it this postscript, " I, Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, did turn this book out of Welsh {Cymraeg) into Latin; and in my old age I turned it a second time out of Latin into Welsh.'' The editor considers tins version to be the ori- ginal Welsh book brought by Walter the Archdeacon from Britanny; and conjecturing that it. belongs to an 24 THE LITERATURE OF WALES.
earlier period, and may have been written by Tjrssilio, 8on of Broehwael, who is said to have written a history and to have lived in the seventh century, he has without any authority termed it Brut Tyssilio. It is the text from which the Rev. Peter Roberts translated his English version termed Tlie Chronicle of the Kings of Britain, translated from the Welsh copy attributed to Tyssilio, and published in 1811.
Now, though the text of the so-called Brut Tyssilio is distinctly stated both by the editor of the Myvyrian Archaeology and by Roberts to be taken from the Red Book of Hergest, no such text is to be found there. The text of the Birut y Brenhinoedd in the Red Book is the same as the second version termed Brut G. ap Arthur. There are two later MSS. in the library of Jesus College, containing a text similar to that of the Brut Tyssilio, and from which it was probably taken. They are exactly alike, but the one bears to have belonged to David Powell of Aberystwith in 1610, and is a MS. of that period, and the other to have been written by Hugh Jones, keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, in 1695, and seems to be a copy of it Another copy is said to be preserved in the library at Downing in North Wales, having this note attached to it: — " Walter, Archdeacon of Oxford, translated this part of the Chronicle from Latin into Welsh, and Edward KyflSn copied it for John Trevor of Trevalin, A.D. 1577 '/* and a copy is likewise contained in the Booh of Basingwerh, the property of Thomas T. Griffith, Esq., Wrexham, which appears to be in the THE LTTEBATURB OF WALES. 25 handwriting of Gutiyn Owwi, and to have been written in 1461. This iB the oldest known transcript of this version of the Brut.
In the British Museum (MS. Cott, Cleop. K v.) there is a copy of the Brut which differs fixun this, but approaches more nearly to it than to the Brut 0. ap Arthur. It has been written about the end of tho thirteenth century, and it has the epistle-dedicatoiy, in which the book given by Walter is termed Uyvyr Cymraec, but in the postscript it is stated that the Cymraec book which Walter gave him had been translated by him from Latin into CymraeCf and again by Geoffrey from Cymraec into Latin. The text in the Bed Book is, as I mentioned, closely allied to Geoffrey's Latin version, but there is no epistle- , dedicatory, and the postscript here again varies from the others. It states that the book Walter had was I a Breton book {llfjfr Brvtvn) which he translated from Breton into Cymraeg (o Brytanec yg Kymraec)^ and which Geoffrey translated into Latin. The only j other MSS. which have been accessible to me are those at Hengwrt There are several copies, some complete and some imperfect, but only one that has the postscript It is the same text, or nearly so, as that in the Red Book, but varies in the postscript It states Walter's book to have been a Cymraec book, which he translated from Cymraec to Latin, and which Geoffiey likewise translated from Cymraec to Latin, and again I from Latin to Cymraec There are thus three different Welsh texts— one t i 26 THE LITERATURE OF WALES.
represented by the first text in the Myvyrian Archaeology, by the two late copies in Jesus College, the Downing MS., and the Book of Basingwerk; a second by the Cottonian MS. in the British Museum; and a third by the second text in the Myvyrian Archae- ology, by the text in the Red Book of Hergest and the Hengwrt MS.; but all differ in the account given of the original MS. By one it is said to have been Latin, by another Cymraec, and by a third Breton. So far we may extricate some facts: — ^AU the MSS. of the first text agree that it was a translation by Walter the Archdeacon fiK)m Latin to Welsh; on the authority of the Hengwrt MS., we may pronounce the third to be a translation into Welsh, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, of his Latin edition; the second text probably represents an intermediate stage of the work; all seem to imply that Walter^s book was at all events in Latin before it reached Geoffrey; but whether the original was in Breton, in Cymraec, or in Latin, or whether there ever N was an original, there is certainly no text, either in Welsh or in Latin, which now represents it; and all of these texts must be placed in the first part of the twelfth century.
The MSS. containing the Welsh versions usually v^ have a translation into Welsh of the history of Troy, by Dares Phrygius, prefixed to it Those which re- present the first and second texts have a chronicle termed BnU y Sanson annejLcd to it, which is expressly said by the Cotton MS. to be the work of Caradauc of Llancarvan, and gives a chronicle of events in THE LITERATURE OF WALES. 27 the history of Wales, interspersed with notices of the Saxon history; but the text in the Red Book is fol- lowed by a chronicle containing the Welsh events only, and to which, in a later hand, the title Brut y Tywy- sogion has been attached.
The Bed Book of Hergest likewise contains the text of several prose tales and romances connected with the early history of Wales. They are eleven in number, and have been published, with an English translation, by Lady Charlotte Guest, in 1849, under the title of The Mabinogion^ from the Llyfr Coch o Hergest, and other ancient Welsh manuscripts^ wUh an English translation and notes. It is justly remarked in the preface of this collection that ** some have the character of chivalric romances, and others bear tho impress of a far higher antiquity, both as regards the manners they depict and the style of language in which they are composed." So greatiy do these Mabinogion differ in character, that they may be considered as forming two distinct classes; one of which generally celebrates heroes of the Arthurian cycle, while the other refers to persons and events of an earlier period, and it is not difficult to assign each tale to one or other of these two classes: — To the older class belong — The Tale of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed.
The Tale of Branwen, daughter of Llyr.
The Tale of Manawyddan, the son of Llyr* The Tale of Math, son of Mathonwy.
The Contention of Llud and Llevdys.
28 THE LFTERATURE OF WALES.
The Story of Kilhwch and Olwen.
The Dream of Rhonabwy. To the second class belong — The Tale of the Lady of the Fountain.
The Story of Peredur, son of Evrawc.
The Story of Geraint, son of Erbin.
The Dream of Macsen Guledig. Though the whole of these tales have been pub- lished under the title of Mabinogion, that name is applied in the Ked Book solely to the first four, which form, in fact^ one romance. The name of Arthur only ^ occurs in the last two of this class, and it is in his ear- liest aspect They are probably older than the Bruts as the substance of the tale called the Contention of Llud and lievelys occurs in the earliest form of the Brut, and is omitted in the later.
The tales included in the second class certainly belong to the full-blown Arthurian Romance. j^^M-Mt^ As early as the date of the Black Book of Caer- marthen, some of the Welsh traditions appear under the form of short triads, and that MS. contains a fragment of what were probably the earliest — the Triads of the Horses. A MS. in the Hengwrt col- lection, which has apparently been written as far back as the year 1300, contains two sets of triads, one termed Trioedd arbenic — Chief or excellent Triads which are religious; and another, called Trioedd Arthur ae gwyr — ^Triads of Arthur and his warriors. And in the Red Book of Hergest are two sets of triads, one called Trioedd ynys Brydain, or Triads of the THE LITERATUBE OF WALES. 29 Island of Britain, which contain these Triads of Arthur, with many others; and the other an enlarged edition of the Triads of the Horses. They are both published in the Myvyrian Archaeology (voL iL p. 1); and to these may be added the Bonhed y Seini, or (Gene- alogies of the Saints, which are usually found along with them.
Such is a sketch of the literature of Wales subse- quent to the twelfth century, of which we know some- thing of the history; but a branch of its literature still remains to be noticed which has exercised a powerful influence upon the history of the country, the true source and history of which, however, is wrapped in obscurity and encompassed with doubt i One of the editors of the Myvyrian Archaeology, and a chief contributor of its contents, was Edward Williams, of Flimstone in Glamorgan. He maintained* that there had existed at an early period, when bard- ism flourished as an institution of the country, four chairs or schools of bards, and that one of these chairs still remained — the chair of Glamorgan — of which he was himself the bardic president, and he adopted the bardic title of loh Morganwg. He declared that the succession of bards and bardic presidents could be traced back to 1300; that the traditions of bardism had been handed down by them in the chair of I Glamorgan; that Llyweljni Sion, who was bardic i president in 1580, and died in 1616, had reduced I this system to writing under the title of the ** Book of I Bardism, or the Druidism of the Bards of the Isle of ) 30 THE LITERATURE OF WALES.
Britain/ which he professed to have compiled from old books in the collection of MSS. at Raglan Castle. lolo Morganwg published, in 1794, his Poems^ Lyric and Pastoral, in which he gave to the world some account of this sjrstem, and a work which he had prepared for the press^ termed Cyfrinack Beirdd ynys Prydain, in the Welsh language and from the MS. of Llywelyn Sion, was published after his death by his son in 1829. A further instalment, termed Barddas, was printed, with a translation, for the Welsh MS. Society in 1862.
Among the contributions made by him to the documents printed in the Myvyrian Archaeology, were the Bo-called Historical Triads (voL iL p. 57) which have been so much founded upon in writing Welsh history, and the Triads called the Wisdom of Catoc (voL uL p. 1), and the Triads of the Bards of Britain and Institutes of the Bards of Dyfriwal Moelmud (vol. iiL pp. 199 and 283). A volume of documents pre- pared by him as an additional volume of the M3rvy- rian Archaeology, was printed after his death, with a translation, for the Welsh MS. Society, in 1848, termed The lolo Manuscripts.
But the most important document which issued from him, and which has exercised the greatest influence on the popular views of Welsh literature, was the prose tale or Mabinogi, termed ffanes Taliessin, and con- taining the so-called personal history of that bard. A fragment of the Welsh text was given in the first volume of the Mjrvyrian Archaeology; but the whole tale, with a translation, was published by Dr. Owen Pughe, THE LITERATURE OF WALES.
I i in 1833, in the Cambrian Quarterly Magazine (voL y^ p. 1 98). In his introductory remarks he states that the compiler, Hopkin Thomas Philip, wrote this piece about the year 1370. He lived in Morganwg or Glamor- gan. The same tale was published by Lady Charlotte Guest in 1 849, in the third volume of her Mabinogion; and she states that her copy was made up from two fragments — the one contained in a MS. of the library of the Welsh school in London, written in a modem hand, and dated in 1758; the other from a MS. belong- ing to lolo Morganwg. The fragment in the Welsh school library was probably that printed in the Myvyrian Archaeology; and the MS. belonging to lolo Morganwg, that used by Dr. Owen Pughe, as the latter states in his introductory remarks, ''Of the narrative part but one version exists.** lolo Morganwg himself states that the romance tmtitled Hanes Taliessin — i.e. the history of Taliessin — ^was '* written so late at least as the fourteenth, or rather the fifteenth, century/' and that he used the expression fifteenth century in the loose sense of the century from 1500 to 1600 is plain, as he likewise states that Hopkin Thomas Philip flourished about 1560. This is the same Hopkin Thomas Philip who. Dr. Owen Pughe Bays, wrote it about 1370; but there is no real differ- ence between them as to his true age, for in his Cambrian Biography^ published in 1803, thirty years before, Dr. Owen Pughe, then Mr. William Owen, has the following: " Hopcin Thomas Phylip, a poet who flourished between a.d. 1590 and 1630." At that 32 THE LITERATUBE OP WALES.
time, therefore, the compilation of the ffanes Taliessin was not phiced further back than the end of the six- teenth or beginning of the seventeenth century. The prose narrative contains a number of poems stated to have been composed by TaUessin m connection with the events of his life, but these will be noticed when we come to deal with the poetry attributed to that bard.
It is a peculiarity attaching to almost all of the documents which have emanated from the chair of Glamorgan, in other words, from lolo Morganwg^ that they are not to be found in any of the Welsh MSS. eontained in other collections, and that they must be ac- cepted on his authority alone. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to say that they must be viewed with some suspicion, and that very careful discrimination is required in the use of them.
sonaoBS or the barlt bistort. 3d f / CHAPTER III.
SOURCES OF THE EARLY HISTORY OP WALES.
In order to discnminate between what is true and what is fabulous in the early history of Wales as presented to us in the historic literature subsequent to the twelfth century, and to disentangle the fragments of real history contained in them, so as to enable us to form something like a tarue conception of its leading ^ features, it is necessary to test it by comparing it with the statements in contemporary authorities of other countries, and by referring to such earlier native documents as have come down to us. Of the latter class there are only three, and it is requisite that we should form a right conception of their authority. The first are the works of Gildas, who wrote in Latin. They are usually considered as consisting of two pieces^ the Historta and the Epistola, but they may be viewed as forming one treatise. Questions have been raised upon the lives of Gildas, as to whether there was one or two persons of the name — an earlier and a later; but^ viewing the question in its literary aspect, it is of little consequence, for the treatise is evidently the work of one man, and there is evidence in the work itself of his date. The writer states that he was V0L.L D 34 SOURCES OF THE EARLY HISTORY.