English Lands, Letters and Kings, vol. 1: From Celt to Tudor

by Donald Grant Mitchell

From the golden cup they drink

Nectar that the bees produce,

Or the grape’s ecstatic juice,

Flush’d with mirth and hope they burn,

But none from Cattraeth’s vale return

Save Aëron brave, and Conan strong

(Bursting through the bloody throng),

And I, the meanest of them all

That live to weep and sing their fall.”

[4] Lady Charlotte Elizabeth Schreiber (née Guest) made the first translations which brought these Welsh romances into vogue. Among them is Geraint, the son of Erbin, which in our day has developed into the delightful Geraint and Enid. Mr. W. F. Skene has published the texts of various poems (from original MSS.) attributed to Taliesin, Aneurin, and others, with translations by D. Sylvan Evans and Robert Williams.