Yr Hen Iaith part 60: Anchoring Visions in a Welsh Present: The Sleeping Bard (1)

Jerry Hunter

Ar ryw brydnhawngwaith têg o hâ hir felyn tesog, cymmerais hynt i ben un o Fynyddoedd Cymru, a chydami Spienddrych i helpu `ngolwg egwan, i weled pell yn agos, a phetheu bychain yn fawr . . . .

‘On one fair afternoon during a long warm golden summer, I made my way to the top of one of the Mountains of Wales, taking a Telescope with me to help my week sight to see far things closely, and small things big . . . .’

Thus begins Gweledigaetheu y Bardd Cwsc, ‘The Visions of the Sleeping Bard’, published by Ellis Wynne in 1703.  It is based loosely on two different English translations of a Spanish work, Los Sueños, by Don Francisco de Quevedo.

It would be wrong to call this Welsh book a translation; Ellis Wynne reworked his source material substantially, making it thoroughly Welsh in nature as well as language.

The name used for the protagonist, y Bardd Cwsg, is associated with medieval Welsh prophetic poetry. Similarly, the ‘long warm golden summer’ in this opening sentence is a phrase taken from older Welsh prophetic texts. And, if earlier Welsh tradition presented the bard as a ‘seer’ who could predict future events, this ‘Sleeping Bard’ takes a very modern device to the top of a Welsh mountain in order to see things better.

Hapless

Although a hapless, frightened character, this Bardd Cwsg does manage to see quite a lot. At the start of each of the book’s three ‘Visions’ (Gweledigaethau), the bard falls asleep and is then whisked away to a strange realm.

The first is an allegorical city in which he sees various people lost in the various sins to which they are devoted. In the second he witnesses the fate of sinners in the realm of Angau, ‘Death’, and in the third he sees them in ‘Hell’ (Uffern).

Given the book’s concern with sin, it perhaps comes as no surprise to learn that Ellis Wynne was a conservative Anglican clergyman. However, his prose is lavishly grotesque, strikingly original and wonderfully funny: there has never been a book about sin which is so enjoyable to read.

And, as already stressed, each of these visions is anchored in a very Welsh world.

At the start of the first part, he falls asleep after climbing ‘one of the mountains of Wales’, awakening to witness creatures whom he finally realises are y tylwyth teg or ‘faeries’. His description of them is steeped in layers of Welsh tradition; see episode fourteen in this series for a discussion of the way in which Ellis Wynne lampoons the heroic Arthurian tradition here.

It is only after an angel saves him from the tylwyth teg that the bard is whisked away to an allegorical city where sinners go about their business on streets devoted to pride, pleaser and profit (balchder, pleser ac elw).

Glyn Cywarch

The introduction to the second vision begins by having us imagine a comfortable corner Glyn Cywarch, the house in Ardudwy where Ellis Wynne was born:

Pan oedd Phoebus un-llygeidiog ar gyrraedd ei eithaf bennod yn y deheu, ac yn dàl gŵg o hirbell ar Brydain fawr a’r holl Ogledd-dir; ryw hirnos Gaia dduoer, pan oedd hi’n llawer twymnach yn nghegin Glynn-cywarch ac ar ben Cadair Idris, ac yn well mewn ystafell glŷd gydâ chywely cynnes, nac mewn amdo ymhorth y fonwent; myfyrio’r oeddwn i ar ryw ymddiddanion a fasei wrth tân rhygno’i a Chymydog, am fyrdra hoedl Dyn, a siccred yw i bawb farw, ac ansiccred yr amser; a hyn newydd roi ‘mhen i lawr ac yn llêd-effro, mi glywn bwys mawr yn dyfod arnai’n lledradaidd . . . .

‘When one-eyed Phoebus [the sun] was reaching its furthest point in the south and frowning from afar on Great Britain and all of the northern land, one long night during a cold black winter, when it was much warmer in the kitchen of Glyn Cywarch than atop Cadair Idris, and better in a cosy room with a warm bedfellow than in a shroud at the cemetery’s gate, I was meditating on some conversations which I’d had by the fire with a neighbour about the shortness of man’s life, and how certain it is that everybody will die, and how uncertain the time, and I had just put my head down and was partly awake when I felt a great weight coming upon me stealthily . . . .’

This great weight is his ‘master’ (meistr), ‘sleep’ (cwsg), come to bind him so that he may once again be whisked away and experience an otherworldly vision. Scholars often linger over the details of the visions themselves, but the introduction to each vision, set in a version of Wales which is in some way knowable to the contemporary reader, is an artfully crafted piece of prose in its own.

The experience here is localized, naming Wynne’s family also as well as a nearby mountain. The description of neighbours discussing how quickly life passes is also an experience grounded in our common humanity. And like those works of art which spin the memento mori theme through the ‘death and the maiden’ image, this meditation on mortality sets a chilling glimpse of a dead body against an invitation to consider a sexualized manifestation of life being lived. The warm bedfellow is set against the cold body in its shroud, and what better way to introduce the picaresque journey to the grotesque land of death which is about to take place?

Hell

Before travelling to Hell in the third vision, the bard describes his activities on ‘a fair morning during fine April’ (Ar foreu têg o Ebrill rywiog). He notes that ‘the Earth [was] freshly fecund’ ([y] Ddaiar yn lâs feichiog), making Britain ‘like a paradise’ ([p]aradwysedd), the land ‘wearing the brilliant uniform’ of spring (yn gwisco lifrai gwychion) and displaying ‘the signs of Summer Sunshine’ (arwyddion Heulwen Hâ). Like the introductions to the first two visions, this one is set in a very Welsh location; the bard tells us that he was ‘strolling’ (rhodio) along ‘the banks of the Severn’ (ynglann Hafren).

While his surroundings are thoroughly enjoyable, his mind is torn. He is enjoying the singing of the birds – described as ‘the sweet tunes of the Forrest’s little musicians’ (melys-byncieu cerddorion bâch y Goedwig) – and drawn to ‘sing along’ ([c]yd-bynci[o]) with the ‘tender winged Choir’ (Côr ascellog mwynion), but he is also trying to read a religious book. These two very different pursuits competing for his attention, the bard’s mind is also drawn in a third direction, for he cannot forget the two visions which he’s had. Concluding that these Gweledigaethau have come from God above, he decides to do something with them:  

. . . ac wrth hynny fod arnai ddlêd i’w scrifennu hwy i lawr er rhybudd i eraill hefyd. Ac ar ganol hynny o waith, â mi ‘n bendrist yn ceisio casclu rhai o’r cofion ofnadwy, daeth arnai heppian uchben fy mhapur, a hynny a roes le i’m Meistr Cwsc lithro ar fy ngwartha.

‘ . . . and because of that [their divine origin], there was an obligation to write them down in order to warn others as well. And in the middle of that task, and me melancholy while trying to collect some of the awful memories, I came to snooze over my paper, and that allowed my Master Sleep to come upon me.’ 

In the next episode we’ll explore some of the details of these ‘awful’ visions, as well as aspects connected to the very essence of the bard’s own profession.

 Further Reading:

Gwyn Thomas, Ellis Wynne (1984).

Patrick J. Donovan a Gwyn Thomas (goln.) Gweledigaethau y Bardd Cwsg: y rhan Gyntaf (1998).

Gwyn Thomas, Y Bardd Cwsg a’i gefndir (1971).

Part fourteen in this series (‘From Arthurian Apocaplypse to Fashion Casualties –

A Brief History of the Battle of Camlan’): https://nation.cymru/culture/yr-hen-iaith-part-fourteen-from-arthurian-apocalypse-to-fashion-casualties-a-brief-history-of-the-battle-of-camlan/