Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/332

320 CELTIC LITERATURE be the work ot Llyivarch. The poems which are distinctly referred to him are marked by much power cf delineation and poetic feeling, of which his address to Llewelyn ab lorwerth affords a good instance. The Welsh poets, as we have said, went circuit like their Irish brethren, staying in each place according as hospitality was extended to them. When departing, a bard was expected to leave a sample of his versification behind him. In this way many manu scripts came to be written, as we find them, in different hands. The Irish manuscript known as the Book of Fermoy is just such a book kept in the house of David Roche of Fermoy in the 15th century. Llyivarch has left us one of those departing eulogies addressed to Rhys Gryg, prince of South Wales, which affords a favourable specimen of his style. Gwynvardd Brycheiniog s poem on St David, iu which he enumerates all the churches dedicated to the saint, is a typical example of a kind of topographical poem abounding in Irish. There is an early anonymous example of this kind of poem iu the Black Book, the Englynnionn y Bedeu, The Verses of the Graves, which is the exact counterpart of the Irish Lay of the Leachts, and some other poems of the same kind. Pods of The following are a few of the poets of the 13th century the 13th whose poems are still extant. Davydd Benvras was the century. au thor of a poem in praise of Llewelyn ab lorwerth; his works, though not so verbose or trite as bardic poems of this class usually are, do not rise much above the bardic level, and are full of alliteration. Elidyr Sais was, as his name implies, of Saxon origin, and wrote chiefly religious poetry. Einiawn ab Gwgawn is the author of an extant address to Llewelyn ab lomverlh of considerable merit. Phylip Brydi/dd, or Philip the poet, was household bard to JUiys Gry/j (Rhys the hoarse), lord of South Wales ; one of his pieces, An Apology to Rhys Gryg, is a striking example of the fulsome epithets a household bard was expected to bestow upon his patron, and of the privileged domesticity in which the bards lived, which as in Ireland must have been fatal to genius. Prydydd Bychan, the Little Poet, was a South Wales bard, whose extant works consist of short poems all addressed to his own princes. The chief feature of his Englynnionn is the use of a kind of assonance in which in some cases the final vowels agreed alternately in each quatrain, and in others each line ended in a different vowel, in both cases with alliteration and consonance of final consonants, or full rhyme. Llygad GUT is known by an ocle in five parts to Llewelyn ab Gruffyd written about the year 1270, which is a good type of the conven tional flattery of a family bard, llowel Voel, who was of Irish extraction, possessed some poetical merit ; his remonstrance to Llewelyn against the imprisonment of his brother Oicatn is a pleasing variety upon the conventional eulogy. It has many lines commencing with the same word, e.g., gwr, man. The poems of Bleddyn Vardd, or Bleddyn the Bard, which have come down to us are all short eulogies and elegies. One of the latter on Lleu dyn ab Gruffyd is a good example of the elaborate and artificial nature of the Welsh versification. There are seven quatrains, the first, second, and fourth of which all end in -af. With the exception of the first and last stanza the first three lines of each stanza begin with gwr, man, or a compound of it, " manly." The second, third, and fourth lines of the first stanza also begin in the same way; the fourth line is a kind of refrain, which in the first two stanzas begins like the other lines with gwr or a compound of it ; in the third and last it begins with yn, and in the fourth, fifth, and sixth with hyd. The best of all the poets of the century was Gruffyd ab yr Tnad Coch, whose elegy, notwithstanding its alliteration and conventional use of the same initial word, or of words having the same fore-sound, has the ring of true poetry. His religious poems, too, possess considerable merit. But of all the religious poems in early Welsh we have seen, that which best deserves the name is one written by Madawc ab Gwallter. The death of Llewelyn and the subjugation of all Wales, Poets of and especially the social and other internal changes which tlie 14tlx took place in the Principality, necessarily checked literary cen * UJ 7 efforts. A general revival took place, however, in the time of Owain Glyndwr and the Wars of the Hoses, with which the Welsh had much to do. In the meantime a con siderable improvement had taken place in the aesthetic feeling of the people. The bardic system, which had helped to raise the Celtic people in their tribal stage above other barbarous peoples, but which at a later period had fettered their intellectual and political development, was, at least so far as regards exclusive privileges, at an end ; inter-tribal wars had ceased, and great improvements in the houses, churches, dress, and food of the people had taken place. Love supplanted war as the theme of song, and much attention was paid to language and versification. Nature, too, was made a theme of poetry by several poets. We have already had occasion to notice some examples of this love of nature ; but at the period we are now considering, one cannot help being struck with tke power of observation of natural phenomena, and the keen sense of objective natural beauty, which many Welsh poets exhibit ; nor is there wanting the higher poetic feeling of subjective beauty. These high qualities are, it is true, often marred by artificial systems of versification. Among the poets who flourished in the 14th century, the following may be mentioned. Gu ilym Ddu is the author of two odes to the unfortunate Sir Gruflyd Lliryd, one of which, the Odes of the Months, written in 1322, was composed while the subject of it was in prison. Forty-three out of sixty-three begin with the word neud ; it is moreover strongly alliterated, and many of the lines end in -cd. He is also the author of an elegy on the poet Trahaearn,s,oi of Gromvy, a contemporary poet. This poem, which is a panegyric on Welsh poets past and present, is skilfully constructed. A considerable number of writers of love Engiynnioims flourished at this time, among whom may be specially mentioned lorwerth Yychan, Casnodyn, who is believed to be the same as the foregoing Trahaeam, and Gromry ab Davydd, who was probably the father of the latter. But the representative poets of this period are llliys Goch ab IlJucert and Davydd ab Gwiiym. The verses of the former to a Maiden s Hair, though strongly alliterated and rhymed, are smooth and less intricate and conventional than most poems of the period, and possess a good deal of the character of the love romants of the time, in Southern Europe, with which he undoubtedly was acquainted. Both liliys Goch and Davydd ab Gwilyni, the Cambrian Petrarch, as he has been called, were great lovers of nature, and no modern poets sing more sweetly of the woodland, wild- flowers, the voice of birds, and other charms of the country. It is amidst such scenes they place their lovers, who are real swains and maids, and not the mock ones of the pastoral poetry of the 18th century. Two hundred and sixty two poems, chiefly pastoral of Davydd ab Gwiiym . are said to exist, some of which, as for instance his exquisite Ode to Summer, would be worthy of any literature. The most distinguished poet of the 15th century was roets of Lewis Glynn Cothi, more than one hundred and fifty of the 15th whose poems are known. The period of the civil wars in centui Y- the 17th century had its poets, the best known of whom, Huw Morns, was on the Royalist side. Since then a new literature has grown up which, however, lies outside the scope of this article. We have already alluded to the probability of the tales Prose tales in verse, whether historical or romantic, being earlier than

those in prose. Most of the heroes of the earlier poems,