Tudur Aled - Clod Tir Iâl

Hi everyone, 

As you've noticed, I love Celts and I love poetry. This year we had to translate middle welsh poems, which I loved. The rhyme and stilistic thingies in these welsh poems are extraordinary, and that really impressed me. I'm not even impressed by poetry anymore because it is simple if it 'merely' rhymes. 

So here is a poem by Tudur Aled. He lived from 1465 until 1525 (probably) and was a master in 'cynghanedd'

                                               Clod Tir Iâl

1.                 Af i'r ty, fyth, a'r fort fawr

I dir Iâl, hyd yr elawr

At yr haelaf yn treuliaw

Tudur Llwyd, da Duw i'r llaw

5.                 Dy dad a wnaeth dy dai'n wych

Dyma nhwy, da mwynheÿch

Muroedd calch Moreiddig cynt

Mur Sanddef a'r Mars ynddynt

Etifedd wyt Dafydd dda

10.               Llwyd, dewrder llew, at wrda

Tudur, ŵyr Tudur arall,

Tudur Llwyd, tydi yw'r llall

Byw Ifan gynt, bu fan gwyn

Bwyall Iâl, fab Llywelyn

15.               Bron Ynyr bro Anianus

Bryn yn ŷd, heb ronyn us.

As I don't assume everybody understands Welsh I'll post my translation beneath. But this poem is not about what it's about (you gettit?) but about how it sounds, the so-called cynghanedd.
If we just take one line as an example:  Tudur Llwyd, da Duw i'r llaw
Now, ignore all the vowels:                   t   d  r ll     d,d     d      r  ll  w
Now you can split the verse in two:       t   d  r ll   |  t        d      r ll 
And now you see that the consonants match in the two parts of the verse. Now, some of you are really watching closely: why are the two d's a t, and is the last w eliminated?
Well, those are the rules of the cynghanedd. If there's a word that ends with a d, and next is a word that begins with a d, you'll notice that if you pronounce it, the words kind of stick together and form a t- sound.
And the w at the end is not always a consonant in welsh. Really myserious.
Because of this, every sentence is a piece of art. And really, in évery sentence you'll find a kind of cynghanedd. You try this in your language. You'll fail.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynghanedd)

So here's my translation! I originally translated into dutch and made it real poetic, but a simple english translation will do here. I won't come close to Tudur, poetically speaking.

The fame of the country of Iâl

I'll go to the land, fast, and the big fort
In the land of Iâl, until the deathbed
To the most generous of spilling
Tudur Llwyd, to the hand of Good God

Your father made great houses
Watch them, may you enjoy them
Chalk walls of Moreiddig in old times
The walls of Sanddef and the March

You are the heir of Dafydd Llwyd the Good
Brave as a lion, and a nobleman
Tudur, the grandson of another Tudur
Tudur Llwyd, you were the other Tudur

In Ifan's life in old days it was a sacred place
At Iâl, son of Llywelyn
The hill of Ynyr, land of Anianus
A hill full of corn, without a grain of chaff

There are many interpretations possible of this poem, and this was my interpretation. So it's not necessarily the right one. As you see, it's a poem about the mecenas of Tudur Aled, Tudur Llwyd. He praises his lord and his country, and he was probably well paid doing so.

Coming week I'll start school again, after two weeks of doing nothing, so I'll be more busy with learning Irish (hell yeah!) than with other stuff. So then I'll teach you some Irish! ^^