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The surviving poetry of the period is represented by about thirty poets with the majority belonging to two: Cyndelw Brydydd Mawr (Cyndelw the Great Poet) and Llywarch ap Llywelyn, who was the bard of Llywelyn the Great. Recited to the harp, and using an archaic diction, the highly ornate poems made much use of the ornamentation of sound, continuing the process of alliteration and rhyme that was so marked in earlier Welsh poetry. The Awdl, a short monorhymed piece, was the main poetic form, using one or more of a number of intricate meters. Cyndelw's career seems to have begun in the ll50's. He traveled all over Wales, serving many courts, including those in the three major kingdoms. His songs of praise, religion, and love covered all the topics and genres of medieval Welsh poetry, but he concentrated on eulogy and elegy. His moving elegy on the death of his own son Dygennelw set a standard that was closely followed by many later poets. In one of his love poems there occurs the earliest reference in Welsh literature to the stock figure of the jealous husband. His praise poem to the huntsman of Llywelyn son of Madoc, Dau Englyn (Two stanzas) is given below:
Some idea of the alliterative patterns of the original is given by the translator Gwyn Williams in his translation:
There were two other outstanding poets of the period: Gwalchmai ap Meilyr and Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd. Gwalchmai (ll30-80) was a court poet to Owain ap Gruffudd. His poems show originality in content and simplicity of diction in which his gift for narrative description is best shown in such poems as an awdl to his lord which describes a sea-battle off the coast of Anglesey. He also composed a dream poems, but his most famous work is the Gorhoffedd (Exultation), named by Meic Stephens as one of the great poems of the Welsh language. Stephens briefly describes it as a long boast containing the poet's exuberance in the beauty of the world of nature, his allegiance to Owain, and his great love of women. Some of the images he conjures up are those of a morning in May, the songs of the birds, seagulls playing on the surface of the sea, the colors of the waves as they strike the beach, and the names of favorite Welsh rivers. A few lines translated by Gwyn Williams can only give a hint of the lyricism and descriptive powers of the original:
The second great poet of the period, perhaps the greatest, is Hywel ab Owain Gwynedd (d. ll70). An illegitimate son of Owain Gwynedd, Hywel in no need of a patron, was able to break from the traditions of the court poets. He is thought to have written the first love poetry extant in the Welsh language, though many historians believe that he was the heir to a long tradition of love poetry now lost. His poems show a masculine delight in the love of women, praise of nature, and prowess in battle; all show a sense of unfulfilled desire and a strong sensuality. Despite his amateur standing, Hywel's work was mainly composed of sophisticated entertainment for a courtly audience. According to Meic Stephens, his poems are marked by "sensitivity, tenderness, warmth and a sense of humour." Characteristic of Hywel's verse is that rapid association of images shown in the following translation:
Active in military campaigns, Hywel was killed in battle against his half-brothers. This was at the time that Henry II of England, in a letter to the Emperor of Byzantium) wrote of the Welsh:
It was perhaps such character that prevented the Welsh from uniting in a single political entity, yet out of all the in-fighting that took place among the Welsh royal families, by the time of Owain Gwynedd's grandson, Llywelyn the Great, the kingdom of Gwynedd had become pre-eminent in Wales. It was at the court of Llywelyn that a flowering of poetry took place which, if not as exuberant as that of Cyndelw did show a heightened political awareness and maturity of theme. Llewarch ap Llywelyn, (ll73-l220) whose nickname was the poet of the pigs, composed a series of majestic awdlau to celebrate the achievements of his lord. He was succeeded by Llygad Gwr, but the death of his lord Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, in l282 at Cilmeri, after trying to unite Wales, marked the end of his country's political independence. It was followed by a decline in the long continuity of the Welsh bardic order. A contemporary of Llywelyn ab yr Ynad Coch was Bleddyn Fardd, whose most well-known awdl lamented the fall of the princes of Gwynedd in a stoical statement of human tragedy One of the last, great poets who wrote in the elegaic tradition was Gruffudd ab yr Ynad Coch (fl. l280) whose poem on the death of Llywelyn remains one of the most moving and powerful laments in the language. The poet's use of monorhyme and the repetition of certain sounds for cumulative effect imparts his feeling of utter dismay. A few lines of the original will show the dread induced by the repetition of the final aw sound in each line, pronounced as in the English word how:
An English translation can give only a hint of the sheer power of the Welsh original:
Of the effect of the death of Llywelyn upon the poet, John Davies has written "the cosmos itself could not but be part of the torrent of grief." His lord had been "the keystone where the Welsh congregated." Llywelyn's death was the end of the dream of Welsh independence--it was, according to Davies, the uprooting of a polity which has yet had no successor. No wonder the modern poet Dafydd Iwan expresses, in his Balad Cilmeri:, "Colli Llywelyn, colli'r cyfan" ("Losing Llywelyn, losing everything"). As far as literature is concerned, the end of Welsh political independence marked by the death of Lywelyn ap Gruffudd in l282 and the consequent decline of the kingdom of Gwynedd meant a radical shift in both the status of the poet and in the form of poetry. Previous • Intro • 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • Next |
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he general
growth of European court culture in the twelfth century also
found its counterpart in Wales, where resentment against the
Anglo-Normans, followed by military success, led to a new
flourishing of Welsh poetry. The three independent kingdoms
of Wales, Gwynedd, Powys, and Deheubarth were all served by
the poets of the Princes, a closely knit bardic order
of highly trained professionals who enjoyed special
statusand whose exuberance was matched by high standards.
The awarding of the bardic chair at today's National
Eisteddfod of Wales has a direct link with these poets, for
the highest rank was that of pencerdd (head or chief
of song) who occupied a special chair (eistedd) in
the royal court. His duties, strictly defined by the law
codes, included the singing of one song to God and the other
to his temporal lord, the prince. There were also
twenty-four officers of the court, including the bardd
teulu (poet of the retinue or family) who sang to
the warriors before battle as well as to the Queen or
princess in private.