St. David's Day

[dragonlady7]

Happy St. David's Day! St. David is the patron saint of Wales.
I know next to nothing about the country's language or history after about 1500, but I have to say that the medieval Marwnad Llywelyn, The Lament For Llywelyn, is probably the most beautiful thing I've ever read. It was composed after the death of Llywelyn the last prince of Aberffraw at the hands of the Saxons, and is just the most moving tribute to a vanishing way of life I've ever read. I've no doubt the history of the country is a troubled and long one. The poetry is fabulous. And in the original Welsh, this all alliterates and rhymes. (Pony welwch chwi hynt y gwynt ar glaw? / Pony welwch chi'r derw yn ymdaraw?)

(vii)
Do you not see the course of the wind and the rain?
Do you not see the oaktrees lashing each other?
Do you not see the sea injuring the land?
Do you not see the Truth arming itself?
Do you not see the sun sailing the air?
Do you not see the stars having fallen?
Do you not believe in God, you mad men?
Do you not see the world having fallen into peril?
Ah, God! towards You: that the sea would drench the land!
What is left us that we should linger?
There is no place to hide from the prison of fear.
There is no place to stay-- alas the staying!
There is neither counsel nor lock nor opening
Nor one way to be rid of fear's sad counsel.

(viii)
All households were faithful to him.
All warriors defended him.
All the brave swore by his hand.
All lords, all lands were his.
All counties, all towns are violated.
All families, all clans are collapsing.
All the weak, all the strong were kept safe in his hand.
All children howl in their cradles.

(Stanzas 7 and 8 of a ten-stanza poem. Orig. text composed by Gruffydd ab yr Ynad Coch, preserved in the Red Book of Hergest ca. 1425. Translation by Sarah Lynn Higley, published 1988 in volume 19 of Viator, a journal of medieval and renaissance studies under the auspices of the University of California, Los Angeles.)