Read Ebook: The Welsh and Their Literature from The London Quarterly Review January 1861 American Edition by Borrow George

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The sixth and last grand prose work of the Welsh is the 'Sleeping Bard,' a moral allegory, written about the beginning of the last century by Elis Wyn, a High-Church Welsh clergyman, a translation of which, by George Borrow, is now before us:--

'The following translation of the Sleeping Bard,' says Mr. Borrow, in his preface, 'has long existed in manuscript. It was made by the writer of these lines in the year 1830, at the request of a little Welsh bookseller of his acquaintance, who resided in the rather unfashionable neighbourhood of Smithfield, and who entertained an opinion that a translation of the work of Elis Wyn would enjoy a great sale, both in England and Wales. On the eve of committing it to the press, however, the Cambrian Briton felt his small heart give way within him: "Were I to print it," said he, "I should be ruined. The terrible descriptions of vice and torment would frighten the genteel part of the English public out of its wits, and I should to a certainty be prosecuted by Sir James Scarlett. I am much obliged to you for the trouble you have given yourself on my account--but myn Diawl! I had no idea, till I had read him in English, that Elis Wyn had been such a terrible fellow."

'Yet there is no harm in the book. It is true that the author is anything but mincing in his expressions and descriptions, but there is nothing in the Sleeping Bard which can give offence to any but the over fastidious. There is a great deal of squeamish nonsense in the world; let us hope, however, that there is not so much as there was. Indeed, can we doubt that such folly is on the decline, when we find Albemarle Street in '60 willing to publish a harmless but plain-speaking book which Smithfield shrank from in '80?'

The work is divided into three parts, devoted to three separate and distinct visions, which the Bard pretends to have seen at three different times in his sleep. In assuming the title of 'Sleeping Bard' Elis Wyn committed a kind of plagiarism, as it originated with a certain poet who flourished in the time of the Welsh princes, some nine hundred years before he himself was born, and to this plagiarism he humorously alludes in one of his visions. The visions are described in prose, but each is followed by a piece of poetry containing a short gloss or comment. The prose is graphic and vigorous, almost beyond conception; the poetry wild and singular, each piece composed in a particular measure. Of the measures, two are quite original, to be found nowhere else. The first vision is the Vision of the World. The object of the Bard is to describe the follies, vices, and crimes of the human race, more especially those of the natives of the British Isles. In his sleep he imagines that he is carried away by fairies, and is in danger of perishing owing to their malice, but is rescued by an angel, who informs him that he has been sent by the Almighty with orders to give him a distinct view of the world. The angel, after a little time, presents him with a telescope, through which he sees a city of a monstrous size, with thousands of cities and kingdoms within it; and the great ocean, like a moat, around it; and other seas, like rivers, intersecting it.

This city is, of course, the world. It is divided into three magnificent streets. These streets are called respectively the streets of Pride, Pleasure, and Lucre. In the distance is a cross street, little and mean in comparison with the others, but clean and neat, and on a higher foundation than the other streets, running upwards towards the east, whilst they all sink downwards towards the north. This street is the street of True Religion. The angel conducts him down the three principal streets, and procures him glances into the inside of various houses. The following scene in a cellar of what is called the street of Pleasure, goes far to show that the pen of Elis Wyn, at low description, was not inferior to the pencil of Hogarth:--

'O where are there seven beneath the sky Who with these seven for thirst can vie? But the best for good ale these seven among Are the jolly divine and the son of song.'

After showing the Bard what is going on in the interior of the houses of the various streets, and in the streets themselves, the angel conducts him to the various churches of the City of Perdition: to the temple of Paganism, to the mosque of the Turk, and to the synagogue of the Jews; showing and explaining to him what is going on within them. He then takes him to the church of the Papists, which the angel calls, very properly, 'the church which deceiveth nations.' Some frightful examples are given of the depravity and cruelty of monks and friars. The dialogue between the confessor and the portly female who had murdered her husband, who was a member of the Church of England, is horrible, but quite in keeping with the principles of Popery; also the discourse which the same confessor holds with the young girl who had killed her child, whose father was a member of the monastery to which the monk belonged. From the Church of Rome they go to the Church of England. It is lamentable to observe what an attached minister of the Church of England describes as going on within the walls of a Church of England temple a hundred and fifty years ago. Would that the description could be called wholly inapplicable at the present time!

"Whereupon he carried me to the gallery of one of the churches in Wales, the people being in the midst of the service, and lo! some were whispering, talking, and laughing, some were looking upon the pretty women, others were examining the dress of their neighbours from top to toe; some were pushing themselves forward and snarling at one another about rank, some were dozing, others were busily engaged in their devotions, but many of these were playing a hypocritical part."

The angel finally conducts the Bard to the small cross street, that of True Religion, where, of course, everything is widely different from what is found in any of the other streets. In that street there was no fear but of incensing the King, who was ever more ready to forgive than be angry with his subjects, and no sound but that of psalms of praise to the Almighty.

The second section is a Vision of Death in his palace below. The author's aim in this vision is less apparent than in the preceding one. Perhaps, however, he wished to impress upon people's minds the awfulness of dying in an unrepentant state, from the certainty, in that event, of the human soul being forthwith cast headlong down the precipice of destruction. The Bard is carried away by sleep to chambers where some people are crying, others screaming, some talking deliriously, some uttering blasphemies in a feeble tone, others lying in great agony with all the signs of dying men, and some yielding up the ghost after uttering 'a mighty shout.' He is then conducted to a kind of limbo or Hades, where he meets with his prototype the Sleeping Bard of old and two other Welsh poets, one of whom is Taliesin, who is represented as watching the caldron of the witch Cridwen, even as he watched it in his boyhood. From thence he is hurried to the palace of Death, where he sees the King of Terrors swallowing flesh and blood, who, after a time, places himself on a terrific throne, and proceeds to pass judgment on various prisoners newly arrived. They are dealt with in an awful but very summary manner. It is to be remarked that all the souls introduced in this vision are those of bad people, with the exception of those of the poets which the Bard meets in limbo. A dark intimation, however, is given that there is another court or palace, where Death presides under a far different form, and where he pronounces judgment over the souls of the good. There is much in this vision which it is very difficult to understand. The gloss, or commentary, called 'Death the Great,' abounds with very fine poetry.

Then comes the finale:--

The above is an outline of the work of Elis Wyn--an extraordinary work it is. In it there is a singular mixture of the sublime and the coarse, of the terrible and ludicrous, of religion and levity, of the styles of Milton, of Bunyan, and of Quevedo. There is also much in it that is Welsh, and much that may be said emphatically to belong to Elis Wyn alone. The book is written in the purest Cambrian, and from the time of its publication has enjoyed extensive popularity in Wales. It is, however, said that the perusal of it has not unfrequently driven people mad, especially those of a serious and religious turn. The same thing is said in Spain of the 'Life of Ignatius Loyola.' Peter Williams, in 'Lavengro,' the Welsh preacher who was haunted with the idea that he had committed the sin against the Holy Ghost, is frequently mentioning the work of Elis Wyn. Amongst other things, he says that he took particular delight in its descriptions of the torments of hell. We have no doubt that many an Englishman, of honest Welsh Peter's gloomy temperament, when he reads the work in its present dress will experience the same kind of fearful joy.

The translation is accompanied by notes explanatory of certain passages of the original beyond the comprehension of the common reader. These notes are good, as far as they go, but they are not sufficiently numerous, as many passages relating to ancient manners and customs--perfectly intelligible, no doubt, to the translator--must, for want of proper notes, remain dark and mysterious to his readers. In the Vision of Hell, a devil, who returns from the world to which he has been despatched, and who gives an account of his mission, says that he had visited two young maidens in Wales who were engaged in turning the shift. Not a few people--ladies, amongst the rest--will be disposed to ask what is meant by turning the shift. Mr. Borrow gives elsewhere the following explanation: 'It was the custom in Britain in ancient times for the young maiden who wished to see her future lover to sit up by herself at Hallowmass Eve, wash out her smock, shift, or chemise, call it which of the three you please, place it on a linen-horse before the fire, and watch it whilst drying, leaving the door of the room open, in the belief that exactly as the clock began to strike twelve the future bridegroom would look in at the door, and remain visible till the twelfth stroke had ceased to sound.'

Of the notes which Mr. Borrow has given, the most important is certainly that which relates to Taliesin, who, in the Vision of Death, is described as sitting in Hades, watching a caldron which is hanging over a fire, and is continually going bubble, bubble. We give it nearly entire:--

'Taliesin lived in the sixth century. He was a foundling, discovered in his infancy lying in a coracle on a salmon weir, in the domain of Elphin, a prince of North Wales, who became his patron. During his life he arrogated to himself a supernatural descent and understanding, and for at least a thousand years after his death he was regarded by the descendants of the ancient Britons as a prophet or something more. The poems which he produced procured for him the title of "Bardic King." They display much that is vigorous and original, but are disfigured by mysticism and extravagant metaphor. When Elis Wyn represents him as sitting by a cauldron in Hades, he alludes to a wild legend concerning him, to the effect that he imbibed awen or poetical genius whilst employed in watching "the seething pot" of the sorceress Cridwen, which legend has much in common with one of the Irish legends about Fin Macoul, which is itself nearly identical with one in the Edda describing the manner in which Sigurd Fafnisbane became possessed of supernatural wisdom.'

Here, in his note on Taliesin, he shows that the same thing in substance is said of the ancient Welsh bard. Of the three versions of the legend, the one of which Sigurd Fafnisbane is the hero is probably the most original, and is decidedly the most poetical.

Footnotes

Yehen banog: humped or bunched oxen, probably buffaloes. Banog is derived from ban--a prominence, protuberance, or peak.

Above we have given what we believe to be a plain and fair history of Hu Gadarn; but it is necessary to state, that after his death he was deified, and was confounded with the Creator, the vivifying power and the sun, and mixed up with all kinds of myths and legends. Many of the professedly Christian Welsh bards when speaking of the Deity have called Him Hu, and ascribed to the Creator the actions of the creature. Their doing so, however, can cause us but little surprise when we reflect that the bards down to a very late period cherished a great many druidical and heathen notions, and frequently comported themselves in a manner more becoming heathens than Christian men. Of the confounding of what is heavenly with what is earthly we have a remarkable instance in the ode of Iolo Goch to the ploughman, four lines of which, slightly modified, we have given above. In that ode the ploughman is confounded with the Eternal, and the plough with the rainbow:--

'The Mighty Hu who reigns for ever, Of mead and song to men the giver, The emperor of land and sea And of all things which living be, Did hold a plough with his good hand, Soon as the deluge left the land, To show to men, both strong and weak, The haughty hearted and the meek, There is no trade the heaven below So noble as to guide the plough.'

To the Deity under the name of Hu there are some lines by one Rhys, a Welsh bard of the time of Queen Elizabeth, though they are perhaps more applicable to the Universal Pan or Nature than to the God of the Christians:--

'If with small things we Hu compare, No smaller thing than Hu is there, Yet greatest of the great is He, Our Lord, our God of Mystery; How swift he moves! a lucid ray, A sunbeam wafts him on his way; He's great on land, and great on ocean, Of one more great I have no notion; I dread lest I should underrate This being, infinitely great.'

The poetical translations in this notice are taken from Borrow's 'Songs of Europe.'

'Oedd balch gwalch golchiad ei lain, Oedd beilch gweilch gweled ei werin.'

In this couplet there is three-fold rhyme. We have the alliteration of lch in the first line:--

secondly, we have the rhymes of balch and gwalch; and thirdly, the rhyming at the lines' ends.

Of this celebrated place we are permitted to extract the following account from Mr. Borrow's unpublished work, 'Celtic Bards, Chiefs, and Kings':--

'After wandering for many miles towards the south, over a bleak moory country, you come to a place called Ffair Rhos, or something similar, a miserable village consisting of a few half-ruined cottages, situated on the top of a hill. From the hill you look down on a wide valley of a russet colour, along which a river runs towards the south. The whole scene is cheerless; sullen hills are all around. Descending the hill you enter a large village divided into two by the river, which here runs from east to west, but presently takes a turn. There is much mire in the street; immense swine lie in the mire, who turn up their snouts at you as you pass. Women in Welsh hats stand in the mire, along with men without any hats at all, but with short pipes in their mouths. They are talking together; as you pass, however, they hold their tongues, the women leering contemptuously at you, the men glaring sullenly at you, and causing tobacco-smoke to curl in your face. On your taking off your hat, however, and inquiring the way to the Monachlog, everybody is civil enough, and twenty voices tell you the way to the monastery. You ask the name of the river: "The Teivi, Sir, the Teivi." The name of the bridge: "Pont y Rhyd Fendigaid--the Bridge of the Blessed Ford, Sir!" You cross the bridge of the Blessed Ford, and presently leaving the main road you turn to the east, by a dunghill, up a narrow lane, parallel with the river. After proceeding a mile up the lane amidst trees and copses, and crossing a little brook which runs into the Teivi, out of which you drink, you see before you in the midst of a field, in which are tombstones and broken ruins, a rustic-looking church; a farmhouse is near it, in the garden of which stands the framework of a large gateway. You cross over into the churchyard, stand on a green mound and look about you. You are now in the very midst of the Monachlog Ystrad Flur, the celebrated monastery of Strata Florida, to which in old times popish pilgrims from all parts of the world repaired. The scene is solemn and impressive. On the north side of the river a large bulky hill, called Bunk Pen Bannedd, looks down upon the ruins and the church; and on the south side, some way behind the farmhouse, is another hill which does the same. Rugged mountains form the background of the valley to the east, down from which comes murmuring the fleet but shallow Teivi. Such is the scenery which surrounds what remains of Strata Florida; those scanty broken ruins compose all that remains of that celebrated monastery in which kings, saints, and mitred abbots were buried, and in which, or in whose precincts, was buried Dafydd ab Gwilym, the greatest genius of the Cimbric race, and one of the first poets of the world.'

It must be mentioned, however, in justice to Douglas, that in the autobiography of Dr. Carlyle, lately published, we find that 'John Douglas, who has for some time been Bishop of Salisbury, and who is one of the most able and learned men on that bench, had at this time but small preferment.'

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