Gwion, an unlucky dwarf, destroyed by Ceridwen, seems to have left his name behind him, whether it be as M. Pitre Chevalier explains it, esprit, sense, or be connected with the Welsh gwyth, and Cornish gwg, anger.
Aneurin mentions a knight named Gwiawn as having been slain in the battle of Cattraeth; and Gwion is a knight of Arthur’s court, figuring as Sir Guy among the knights of the Round Table, and furnishing Spenser with his Sir Guyon, the hero of the second ‘Book of Courtesie’ in his Faerie Queen.
Guy has since been a favourite name, but it has become so entangled with the Latin Vitus that it is almost impossible to distinguish the Keltic from the Roman name. It appears to have prevailed in France very early as Guy, Guies, Guyon, in the feminine Guiette; and besides the Sicilian infant martyr, Vitus, obtained two patrons, St. Guy, the Poor Man of Anderlecht, a pilgrim to Jerusalem, who died in 1014; and the Italian, St. Guido, abbot of Pomposa, in Ferrara, who died in 1042. Both lived long after their name had become so popular, that it could not have depended upon them. Queen Matilda, in her Bayeux tapestry, labels as Wido, the Count Guy of Ponthieu, who captured Harold on his ill-starred expedition to Normandy, and thus she evidently does not consider him as Vitus.
Guy and Guido were both fairly frequent with us, until ‘Gunpowder Treason’ gave a sinister association to the sound of Guido Fawkes, and the perpetual celebrations of the 5th of November, with the burning of Guy Fawkes in effigy, have given a meaning to the term of Guy, that will probably continue long after the last tar-barrel has flamed and the last cracker exploded over his doom.
Guido and Guidone were the proper Italian forms, much used in the whole Peninsula, and appearing in Ariosto’s poem in the person of Guidon Selvaggio, a rustic, uncivilized knight. From the sound it was long imagined that the names came either from guide or from guidon, a banner or ensign; but there can be no doubt that either the Keltic Gwion or the Latin Vitus was their true origin.
Section II.—Lear and his Daughters.
Geoffrey of Monmouth made the eleventh of his kings, descended from Brute, to be called Leir, and live at Leircester, or Leicester, on the river Sore, somewhere about the time of the prophet Elisha.
He is one of the earliest authorities for the story of Lear and the ungrateful daughters, whom he calls Gonorilla and Regan. He gives the name of Cordeilla to the reserved but faithful daughter who could not pay lip service, but redeemed her father’s kingdom when he was exiled and misused by her flattering sisters. It was a very remarkable conception of character, even thus barely narrated, without the lovely endowments with which we have since learnt to invest the good daughter. The sequel in Geoffrey’s chronicle related, that after his kingdom was restored, old Leir died in peace at Leicester, and was buried by Cordeilla “in a certain vault which she ordered to be made for him under the river Sore, at Leicester, and which had been built originally under the ground to the honour of the god Janus; and here all the workmen of the city, upon the anniversary solemnity of that festival, used to begin their yearly labours.”
He further narrates that Cordeilla was dethroned by her nephews, and committed suicide in despair. To this story adhered both the old ballad-monger and Spenser, in the history studied by Sir Guyon; but Shakespeare loved his sweet Cordelia too well to stain her with self-murder, and, though omitting all allusion to Christianity, made her in all her ways and actions a true Christian, and never perhaps showed more consummate art than in producing so perfect an effect with a person so chary of her words.
Whence did Geoffrey get the story which has produced such fruits?