ODE TO THE SUN, by Davydd ab Gwilym3, Tranflated into English, by Mr. David Samwell. This Ode was written by the Bard, to teftify his gratitude to the inhabitants of the county of Glamorgan, who had (it would feem) by a general subscription, raised a sum of money to liberate him from confinement, into which he had been thrown, on account of a fine laid upon him, for an illicit amour with the wife of a perfon of the name of Cynvrig Cynin; whom he had fatirized in feveral parts of his work, under the name of Bwabách, or the little Hunchback. "Yr Haul dêg ar vy neges While Summer reigns, delightful Sun! For me with happy tidings run, 4 O'er Gwynedh's * tow'ring hills fublime, To fair Morganwg's diftant clime. The fairest planet thou, that flies O thou! with radiant glory crown'd, gem, in the empyrean fet, Fountain of light, and source of heat. Before all planets thee I prize, 1 From Gwent, for valiant men renown'd, *Milton, finely calls the Sun, "The eye and foul of this world." See the Welsh of this poem, in the works of Davydd ab Gwilym, p. 180. But o'er her green vales through the day, Th' effulgence of thy light difplay; With gentler beams at even-tide. Great Sun! how wide thy glory streams! Through æther dart thy genial beams; Make industry with wealth be crown'd, Let honey and the vine abound, Through all Morganwg's happy vales, Fann'd by the health inspiring gales; Those vales, for ancient chieftains fam'd, And commons, virtuous, and untam'd; Thofe vales fo eminently bleft, Whose fons are brave, whose daughters chaste; Displays th' induftrious housewife's care, A name immortal fhall belong Were hofpitality denied 44 RELICKS OF THE WELSH BARDS. ODE TO MORVYDH, by Davydd ab Gwilym". Dear Morvydh claims My ardent vows of endless love. Her voice I know the groves among, Ab nt from her, I find no reft, At her approach my forrows fly, My heart exults with ecstasy ; The faithful Mufe renews her ftrain, Poetic visions fire my brain; Sound judgement leads my steps along, And flowing language crowns my fong; But not one happy hour have I, If lovely Morvydh be not nigh. A Monody on Sión Eos, or John the Nightingale, fo called from his celebrity on the Harp, for which he had no equal. He was sentenced to die for man-slaughter: his weight in gold was offered for his ransom ; but the law required life for life! This pathetic Elegy was fung by Davydd ab Edmwnt, a celebrated Bard, who obtained the regalia of the British Olympics, about A. D. 1450. Drug i neb a drig yn 61, Gweft am un, gwas dymunol : O'r drwg lleiav o'r drygwaith, Y gorau, medd y gwyr maith. O wyr! ban na bai orau, Ymryfon am yr oefau, Y corph, dros y corph os caid A man punished for an action in his own defence! Let misfortune attend fuch that faileth. Of evils, the leffer the better. O then had it not been better, fince one fell, not to facrifice the other through mere revenge? Avenged for fhedding the crimson gore of an inve terate foe; one flain, the other punished; two en. mities! An enormous failing, that fentence of death fhould be the iffue of a chance-medley. Life for life they laid; the death of one was the dire effect; and that avenged; then, both fell. Is the foul of the flain made happier, or his ghoft appeafed, by having life for life as an atonement? * See the original of this poem in Davydd ab Gwilym's Works, 8vo, p. 498. Davydd ab Gwilym informs us, in one of his poems, that he addreffed his beloved Morvydd with no lefs than a hundred and forty-feven Cywyddau, which is more extraordinary than that of Petrarch to Laura; becaufe each of Davydd ab Gwilym's Odes are as long as five or fix of Petrarch's Sonnets. The works of this Bard, ftill extant, confift of near 300 poems. He died about the year 1400, and was buried at Ystrad Fflur, in Cardiganfhire. 13 Oedd Dedd wedi addewidion Ei bwys o Aur, er byw Sion. Noethi crair, na thòri croes! Ygwr oedd dâd y gerdd dant, Yn oefwr a farnafant! Da 'ny gerdd, na dyn a'i gwyr. Tores braich, twr oes, a brig, Qes mwy rhwng Euas a Môn, Ti fydd yn tewi a főn, Bu'n dwyn dan bob ewin dant, Na phroviad neu ganiad gwr, To avert the fate of Sión, his weight in gold was offered as a ranfom. How am I enraged! Indignation fires my breaft, that the fevere laws of Chirk fhould deprive music of its Nightingale! O thou revengeful tribunal!-thou bribed court! why hadft thou not tried the warbling chorifter, by the impartial laws of Howel? When the court of Westminster adopted the rigid fentence, penance, nor any other punishment could molify, nor interfere with thy refractory verdict. The jury, with one united voice (O Hea›vens !) confented his death. Thou wert worthily called the father of mufic; and during life, honoured with that appellation. After thee, charming Nightingale, there is no harmony in mufic, nor any mortal that is capable of restoring it. Mufic is torn up, root and branch; its pedestals and ornaments ruined: genuine skill is diffolved in an inftant, and harmony discorded like the breaking of a ftring. Is there any from Euas to diftant Mona, that are worthy of being called his difciples? Reinallt, though his inferior in excellency of skill, yet he prefumed to be his competitor for the laurel. O, Reinallt! thy rival is dumb, the turtle of the triple-stringed harp. Alas! thou haft configned to filence the golden harp of harpers. As each of thy fingers ftruck the concordant ftring, O! how far the fonorous melody furpaffed human defcription! After the delightful Nightingale, is there any that dares pretend to fuch universal skill, and know. ledge in the elements of mufical concord? Or who can effay, proceed, and conclude his piece of mufic with fuch judgement and taste as he did, in the presence of his fuperiors? Who is his rival in harmony? who can attempt his performances? I find at present no union in mufic, for want of the fublime theme which the Nightingale of genius warbled, which caused transporting raptures in the feelings of his furrounding admirers. Neither the paffions of man, nor the virtue of an angel could escape being affected by the melodious harmony of his harp, which whirled the foul upon wings of extafy. * Euas, is a district in Herefordshire, on the borders of Brecknockshire.. P OF THE SESSIONS OF THE BARDS. Alas! beware, ye harpers, touch not the mournful ftrings! O! how difagreeable the found to my grieved ears, whilst the remembrance of Nightingale's unparelleled performance is ftill in my perplexed memory !-What have I faid?-They deprived him of life-he has life; their verdict only changed the scene of mortality, for that of immortality.-O, the jury of Chirkland! despisers of genius! their wilful judgement will have no efficacy in that court of equity which is held at the gates of heaven.-The fatal fentence that he underwent, let them undergo the fame. He fung-he excelled; he now after. death fings before the throne of Mercy, with an incorruptible harp. His mortal life has funk into eternal night; but may he enjoy an everlasting one with God! The acceflion of a Tudor to the throne was the happy æra deftined to recall the exiled arts of Wales; and Henry VII. was reserved to be the patron, and restorer of the Cambro British Muses. If during the former inaufpicious reigns the Eifteddvods had been discontinued, they were now re-established; and the Bards were employed in the honourable commission of making out from their authentic records the pedigree of their king. Henry VIII. the stern and cruel fon of a mild father, did not, however, refuse to the Bards his aid, and favour. I infert, as an instance, the following summons to an Eisteddvod by his authority. "Be it known to all perfons, both gentry and commonalty, that an Eisteddvod of the profeffors of Poetry and Mufic will be held in the town of Caerwys, in the county of Flint, the 20th day of July, 1523, and the 15th year of the reign of Henry the VIIIth, king of England, under the commiffion of the faid king, before Richard ab Howel ab Ivan Vaughan, Efq. by the confent of Sir William Griffith, Knight, and Chamberlain for North Wales, and Sir Roger Salsbri, Sheriff for the county of Denbigh, and the advice of Grffith ab Ivan ab Llywelyn Vychan, and the Chair-Bard, Tudur Aled, and several other gentlemen and scholars, for the purpose of instituting order, and government among the professors of Poetry, and Music, and regulating their art and profeffion, according to the old Aatute of Gruffydd ab Cynan, Prince of Aberffraw 3." After a long interval of anarchy among the Bards, commiffioners were appointed by Queen Elizabeth to affemble another Eifteddvod at Caerwys in 15684. They were inftructed to advance the ingenious and skilful to the accustomed degrees, and restore to the graduates their ancient exclufive privilege of exercising their profeffion." The rest, not worthy" were by this commiffion commanded to betake themselves to some honest labour and livelihood, on pain of being apprehended and punished as vagabonds 3. In a private collection of MSS. I fortunately met with the following beautiful extempore verses on the Nightingale, which were the fruit of the poetical conteft of the Bards of North Wales, and South Wales, for the chair, in a posterior Eisteddvod at Caerwys, in the fame reign. They are a curious relick; they fhow the poetry of our country in its utmost extent of alliterative and musical refinement; and are the only specimens of the kind that have ever been exhibited from the press. Wynne's Hiftory of Wales, p. 325. edit. 1774. * See Mr. Evans's addrefs At y Cymry. Specimens of Welsh Poetry, p. 107. 3 Rhydderch's Welfh Grammar, p. 186. "This Commiffion," fays Mr. Pennant, (Tour, p. 433.) "is the last of the kind which was granted.' If he underftands that this was the laft Eisteddvod, he is mifinformed. For the commiffioners here mentioned, having in 1568 conftituted Symmwnt Vychan Chief Bard,appointed another Eifleddvod to be held in 1569, the tenth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign. See Evans's Specimens of Welsh Poetry, p. viii, before the preface. Rhydderch's Welsh Grammar, p. 187. Evans's Specimens. of Welth Poetry, p. v. before the preface. And Pennant's Tour in Wales, p. 434. At this Eifleddvod the number of the poetical Bards was 17, and of their musical brethren 38. As in the reigns of the Princes of Aberffraw, Dinevawr, and Mathraval, had been the feats of Eifteddvods; Caerwys, a town in Flintshire, received in later times that honourable diftinction. It was chofen for this purpose, in compliance with the ancient cuftom of the Wellh, because it had been the princely refidence of Llywelyn the last. Pennant's Tour, p. 427. See alfo p. 33, note 1. ENGLYNION BY THE POETS OF NORTH WALES, AND SOUTH WALES. ENGLYNION I'R EOS'. O waith amravael Brydyddion o Wynedd a'r Deheudir, yn yr Eisteddvod yn Nhre Gaerwys. "There ev'ry bufb with Nature's music rings, "There ev'ry breeze bears health upon its wings."Dr. Johnson. Clywais deg eurllais wedi gorllwyn-nôs, I'maros a moṛwyn: Ar lawes maes irlaes mwyn, Eos glwyflais is glaslwyn. Jâch lawen ydwyv o chlywais-ar vedw, Eda llwyd adwaen y llais, Eos gevnllwyd yfgavnllais. Miwfig mîn coedwig mewn ceudawd-llwyn; O, mewn gwŷdd yn mân wau gwawd. Mwynlan gloyw chwiban cloch aberth-y llwyn, Mefurol garol dan geurydd-glasberth, Miwfig mwyn ymmyfg manwydd, Eos vwyn o'r llwyn darlleiniais-y man Mynych i rhyveddais; Lleied hön greulon groywlais, Mewn tor llwyn a maint yw'r llais ! Er llais tra hoffais trafferth-mân adar, A'u mwyn wawdydd dierth; Mwyndlos main Eos mwyn awydd-nwyvus Mewn nevawl leverydd : Mwyn odiaeth yw mân wawdydd, Miniwn gwawd a mwynen gwŷdd! Cynwal, and Huw Llyn, commenced Dyfgyblion Penceirddiaid, or Masters of the art of Poetry. • Richard Davis, D. D. Bilhop of St. David's, one of the tranflators of the New Teftament into Welth, 4to. London, 1567. See an Hiftorical Account of the Welsh Translations of the Bible. By Thomas Llewelyn, LL.D. 8vo. London, 1768. We fee that the Eifteddood was ftill very refpectable, when bishops did not difdain to be enrolled among the Bards. Cnithiad |