Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/336

324 CELTIC LITERATU R E mentioned ; others in stanzas of six, in which the third rhymes with the sixth, and the others together or in pairs. Occasionally there are eight-lined stanzas, in which the first, second, and third lines, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh lines form triplets rhyming together or separately, and the fourth and eighth lines rhyming together. In lyric and declamatory passages, the lines are occasionally only tetrasyllabic. There are many other varieties of metre, but those here described make up more than three- fourths of the whole. The late Mr Edwin Norris published the Ordinalia with a translation under the title of the " Ancient Cornish Drama." The third relic of the Cornish language is a miracle play founded upon the life of St Meriasek, son of a duke of Brittany, and called in Breton St Meriadec. This piece, which was written in 1504, was found a few years ago by Mr Whitley Stokes among the Hengwrt manuscripts at Peniarth. The language is newer than that of the Ordinalia, the admixture of English being also greater ; the metre employed is, however, much the same. The fourth work is also a miracle play, The Creation of the World, with Noah s Flood, written in 1611 by one William Jordan. It is written in a more corrupt language than those above mentioned, is full of English words, and imitates, in some instances almost copying, passages in the Ordinalia. The remaining literature consists of two versions of the Lord s Prayer, the Commandments, and the Creed, and two indifferent versions of the first chapter of Genesis, a few songs, a short tale, and a few proverbs, and lastly a Cornish Glossary, explanatory of Latin words. The oldest copies of the poem on the Passion is a vellum manuscript in the British Museum of the 15th century; the age of the principal manuscript of the dramatic trilogy is about the same. The Glossary is the most ancient monument of the Cornish language, for the manuscript which contains it belongs probably to the end of the 12th or beginning of the 13th century; and it was copied into this from a more ancient MS. The miracle plays, as we learn form Carew s Survey of Cornwall, printed in 1G02, were played down to the beginning of the 17th century, in earthen amphitheatres in the open fields as in France and Germany, which in the 18th century, when Borlase wrote, were popularly known as " Rounds." ARMOUIO Armoric like Welsh is a living language, but uo monu- 01 BRKTON men t O f the old form of the language exists, and the TCRE A " relics of Middle-Breton literature consist of two miracle plays, a prayer-book or " Hours," a dictionary, and the chartularies of two monasteries. Of this small list only one of the plays and the dictionary are known to exist in early manuscript originals or copies. The play, which is founded on the life of St Nonna or Nonita, is in a paper manuscript, which has been purchased by the National Library at Paris, and is believed by Zeuss to belong to the Uth century. This piece which, with the chartu laries of Rhedon and Landevin, was the principal source whence Zeuss drew the materials for the Armoric part of the Grammatica Cdtica, was published together with a translation in 1837, under the title of Buhez Santez Nonn. The second play, the Burznd braz Jezuz, the Great Mystery or Miracle of Jesus, is also referred to the 14th cen tury, but no manuscript of it is known to exist. M. Hersart de la Villemarque" has reprinted it from copies, probably unique, of two editions printed in Paris in the years 1530 and 1622. It consists of two parts the Passion and the Resurrection, and is treated somewhat differently from the corresponding parts of the Cornish trilogy. It possesses some literary merit, which the ele gant translation of the editor does ample justice to. Only two copies of the "Hours," printed apparently in 1524, are known. From these Mr Whitley Stokes has recently reprinted it, adding extracts from a missal printed in 1526, and a catechism printed in 1576. One of the most valu able of the Middle-Breton documents is the Breton-French and Latin Dictionary of Jean Lagadeuc or Lagadec, cure of Ploegonen, a manuscript of which, extending to the middle of the letter P, dated 1464, is in the National Lib rary of Paris. Under the title of Le Catholicon it has been printed several times, the earliest edition being that of 1499. Miracle-plays died out in France and England in the 16th century, but in Cornwall, as we have seen, they continued to be played down to the beginning of the 17th century, and in Brittany almost down to our own time. The Great Mystery of Jesus, modernized and otherwise altered, was in great repute in the 18th century. One of the widest known and most popular mysteries which have come down to modern times is that of St Tryphine and King Arthur, which M. Luzel has pub lished. The language is more modern than in the two plays above mentioned, and is largely mixed with French expressions, hence we did not include it among Middle- Breton documents. The Breton miracle-plays, as well as the Cornish ones, are free to a great extent from the dis gusting realism, coarse expressions, and indecent buffoon eries of the English and French plays of the 15th century. Although modern Breton literature, like modern Welsh literature, is outside the scope of this article, we should except from this category popular poems and tales, for, though modern in form, they contain materials for com parative mythology and linguistic studies, and exhibit the whole intellectual life, belief, and customs of the people, and the impressions which the events of their history have left on the popular mind. Of such collections the most important is M. de la YillemarqufS s Barzaz Breiz, the fruit of many years labour in every part of Lower Brittany. This collection consists of gwers, or short heroic, historical, or mythological ballads ; sons, or love and festive songs ; and religions poems. The language is, of course, modern, but is full of archaisms, showing very well how old poetic material becomes modified in the current of popular tradi tion. The Breton text is accompanied by an elegant trans lation into French, an introduction and notes, and in the sixth edition all the pieces have the original airs noted. Mr Tom Taylor published in 1865 a translation of the Barzaz Breiz. M. M. F. Luzel, already well known as the author of a volume of excellent Breton poetry (Bepred Breizad, Morlaix, 1865), and by his edition of Sainte Tryphine et le roi Arthur, published in 1868 a volume of gwers or popular ballads collected in a part of the ancient diocese of Treguier, under the name of Gwerzion Breiz- tzel. Similar collections have been made in other parts of Brittany, especially by MAI. Penguern, G. Milin, Goulven- Denis, &c., which have not, so far as we know, been yet published. M. Luzel has also published some popular tales in the Treguier dialect, and Colonel A. Troude and G. Milin an interesting collection of seven in the Leon dialect. In concluding what we have had to say on the litera ture of the respective dialects, it may be well to add a few words on a subject which belongs to all alike, upon which M. de la Villemarque has given a short essay by way of introduction to his edition of Le Grand Mystere de Jesus, and upon which M. Luzel has also some remarks in his Sainte Tryphine et le roi Arthur, namely, the theatre of the Celts. M. de la Yillemarque assumes that there is no evidence of a drama among the Goidelic branch of the Celts, but he thinks that it existed among the British branch, at least in an embryonic state, and refers to the Welsh poems in dialogue as evidence. Mr Stephens had already 1 drawn attention to these poetic dialogues,

1 Literature of the Kymry, p. 82.