I June! The fields are beautiful, The sea smooth, and the fish sportive; The genial day is long, and women full of activity; God ever loves tranquillity, But the devil is the cause of all the mischief; All men desire to he honoured, But every potentate will be powerless at last. The hay is scattered, and all are bustling; August! Foam whitens the seashore, Bees are merry, and the hives are full; More useful is the reaping-hook than the (warrior's) bow, Whoever this month is idle, Will suffer poverty in the depth of winter ; For it was truth that St. Breda (Brenda, in the Llyfr Hir) declared, "Evil comes not less frequently than good." September! The planets are wayward, And enjoyment pervades both sea and township; 1 Mis Mehefin hardd tiredd; Llyfn mor, llawen maranedd, Duw a gar bob Tangnefedd; Diawl a bar bob Cynddrygedd; Pawb a chwennych anrhydedd; Pob cadarn gwan ei ddiwedd. Mis Gorphenaf teilwng chwys; Segur milgwn ymhob llys; Llwm yw grudd dyn eiddigus; Gwyn ei fyd o fo cariadus; Ni bydd byth ddihelbulus. Mis Awst molwynog morfa; A ddwg eisiau drymder gauaf; Men and horses know fatigue ; Every species of fruit becomes ripe ; A royal daughter was born, Who will deliver us from our grievous captivity; Truly did Saint Bernard say, "God sleeps not when he relieves." As this verse affords cogent reasons for rejecting the assertion of the antiquity of the poem, it may be well here to attempt assigning to it its true date. Mr. Humphreys Parry was the first to question its parentage. He said, “This poem obviously wants those innate evidences of genuineness, which belong to the Gododin. The popular voice, however, has for centuries ascribed both productions to the same author, and it is now too late to dispute the decree." The language, which is modern, and the allusions to historical facts scattered throughout, abundantly prove the correctness of his conclusion; and therefore we have here to do, what he declined to undertake. In the first verse, the poet terms the class of bards, described in the first section of this chapter, Clerwyr, or wanderers; but as this distinction was not known to the laws of Howel, and first appears in the time of Gruffydd ab Kynan (1080 to 1137,) we may doubt its being known in the sixth century. The customs incidentally alluded to, were principally prevalent during the middle and subsequent ages; and the mention of Saints Breda and Bernard must set the question at rest. There is no saint of the name of Breda; this must therefore be either Brenda, or Beda; the first was three generations removed from Gwgan ab Caradoc Vreichvras, a man who was at the battle of Bangor Iscoed in 607, being Brenda ab Helig Voel ab Glanog ab Gwgan Gleddyv Rhudd ;2 and the second died, according to the best authorities, A.D. 735; but Gnawd gwyr a meirch yn lludded 1 Cambrian Plutarch, page 39. 2 Rees's Welsh Saints, page 298. whichever it was, neither of them was sainted in the time of Aneurin. Saint Bernard was born in 1091, died in 1153, and was canonised by Pope Alexander III. in 1174. This brings us down to the twelfth century, and the internal evidence of the verses, takes us still lower. It will be observed that the poem, unlike those which we have recently perused, not only does not breathe the spirit of war, but condemns it. We shall presently see, that this was a characteristic of nearly all the Welsh poetry, from the fall of Llywelyn to the revolt of Owain Glyndwr; and therefore must we refer this poem to the beginning of the fourteenth century. The above verse speaks of grievous captivity; but as the Welsh experienced no captivity, except the submission to Edward the First and his successors, the poem could not have been written much prior to 1300. The "royal daughter" was probably Gwenllian,1 the offspring of Llywelyn and Eleanor de Montford. The last lines of the next verse would scarcely be written by one of the Bardic Order; and the author of all these verses was probably a monk. 2October! Men seek sheltering places, The birch leaves turn yellow, and the summer seat is widowed, Birds and fish are plump and fat, The milk of cow and goat becomes less and less, Woe be to him who lays in sin the root of discreditable eruptions, For death is better than frequent disgrace; Three things will melt every sin, Fast, prayer, and alms. November! Swine become greatly fat, Shepherds go and minstrels come, 1 Hanes Cymru, p. 707. "Mis Hydref hydraid hydod Butcher's blades are bloody, and the barns full; The sea is joyous, and marrowy the contents of every cauldron; Three men who are not often satisfied, Are the sorrowful, the angry, and the miserly. December! -garments get soiled, The land is heavy, and the sun drowsy; The vicious is poor, and the muscle quiet, The cock is happy, and the feathered owl; Because of the birth of the destroyer of Satan; It was truth that Scolan said, "God is better than wicked predictions." The last line is probably a sneer, at the partiality shown by the people for the predictions of Merddin and Taliesin. We have already seen it stated, that Guttyn Owain, a bard who lived about 1450, composed four verses instead of the last four of the preceding. The structure of Guttyn's sentences is superior to that of these; but in all other respects, the merit of both is about equal. However, as some persons may wish to institute a comparison, and judge for themselves, we will quote the last, 1 December! days are short, and nights are long ; Crows seek the germinating corn, and rushes are on the moors, Gwaedlyd llafn llawn escubawr Mis Rhagfyr tomlyd archan, 1 Mis Rhagfyr byrddydd, hirnos, Silent are the bees and the nightingale, There is bustling at feasts at the close of night, The reckless is unfortunate through his own fault, Will end in day and night. There is another set of a dozen verses, attributed to Aneurin in the MS. of Mr. Davies of Bangor, and also in another old MS., though Mr. Rhys Jones, the collector of the specimens of British bards, called Gorchestion y Beirdd, ascribes them to Llywarch the aged, without however giving his authority; but, it is probable, judging from the smoothness of the language, and the nature of the sentiments, that they were composed by neither, and that they were the products of the same age, as that which gave birth to the Verses of the Months. In poetic merit the last set is decidedly superior, the sentences are more compact, the language more fluent, and the aphorisms seem to spring more naturally from the subject. Some lines in the last verse, are finely descriptive of many a youthful career, "The youth who heeds not counsel, I have already expressed a doubt as to the antiquity of the Gorchanau attributed to Aneurin. Some verses in the Myvyrian Archaiology, p. 541, taken from the MS. of Mr. William Maurice, are also ascribed to him, as appears from a note to the lyric poems of Mr. Edward Williams; but a moment's consideration would have suggested, that Aneurin could not have written in the language of the fifteenth century, or known much about divisions of the Tawel gwenyn, ac eos Trin ynghyfedd diweddnos |