In the foregoing extract Borrow makes a few obvious errors. For instance, he turns the Welsh word “dyfeiswr” into “inventor,” whereas the sense here implies a schemer, or intriguer (the last is the rendering adopted by Mr. Gwyneddon Davies), and the translation suffers a corresponding lapse in the same clause. But on the whole Borrow’s rendering is good of its kind, and it gains by its freedom at times, as in the page where he turns “dwylla o’th arian a’th hoedl hefyd,” into “chouses you of your money and your life.”
The fact is, Borrow was vital in prose, while the shackles of verse often weighed on him. It was only in mid-career that he learnt to move at all easily in them—how much more easily we should not have known had not Mr. Wise, with his bibliographical intrepidity, set about printing for his own library some of the unpublished matter. In the light of those green quartos, Borrow is seen to be a translator of more force than grace, who generally contrived to give a flavour of his own to whatever he touched. Because of the subtleties of the prosody, he was rather less effective in dealing with Welsh and Celtic than with Norse and Gothic verse. But he managed to create an English that was undoubtedly rare in his day, and is now unique because the Borrovian accent is in it, and the masculine voice of Borrow—like the cry of Vidrik in the ballad—is unmistakable. He knew the art of giving a name to things; and, again like Vidrik, who called his sword “mimmering,” and his shield “skrepping,” this Cornish East Anglian, who dabbled in gipsy lore and learnt Welsh, made his weapons part of himself, whether they consisted of his pen, his portentous umbrella, or his father’s silver-handled blade:—
“Thou’st decked old chiefs of Cornwall’s land
To face the fiend with thee they dared;
Thou prov’dst a Tirfing in their hand,
Which victory gave whene’er ’twas bared.“Though Cornwall’s moors ’twas ne’er my lot
To view, in Eastern Anglia born,
Yet I her sons’ rude strength have got,
And feel of death their fearless scorn.”
Little need be added about the various sources of the following text. The first three poems are from a quarto MS. owned by Mr. Gurney of Norwich, who has kindly lent it to the publishers. Its title runs:
poems.
By IOLO GOCH;
With a Metrical English Translation.
Some former owner has pencilled below, “By Mr. Borrer of Norwich” (sic). From Mr. Wise’s green quartos, already referred to, or from MSS. in his library, come the two Goronwy Owen poems, “The Pedigree of the Muse,” and “The Harp.” Also Lewis Morris the Elder’s lines, “The Cuckoo’s Song in Meirion,” or Merion, according to Borrow. The Epigrams by Carolan and “Song of Deirdra” are Irish items from the same source; while “Pwll Cheres, the Vortex of Menai,” and “The Mountain Snow,” are two Welsh ones, which have not, I believe, been printed in any other form. The familiar pages of “Wild Wales,” and the less-known volume, “Targum,” account for the bulk of the remaining poems and fragments; while Borrow’s “Quarterly Review” article on Welsh Poetry (January, 1861) provides us with four more translations. The versions are printed with all their faults on their head; and if he put a whiting into a fresh-water fish-pond (in the Ode on Sycharth, original text), or mistook a saint for a secular detail, the collector of his works will be glad to have the plain evidence under his hand, and will not wonder a bit the less at the boyish achievement of this East-country Celt. It remains to be said that, being Borrow, he was duly astonished at himself, and under the Sycharth poem wrote in Welsh a footnote which runs in effect: “The English translation is the work of George Borrow, an English lad of the City of Norwich, who has never been in Wales, and has never in all his life heard a word of Welsh from man or woman.”
GLENDOWER’S MANSION.
Iolo Goch was a celebrated Bard of North Wales, and flourished about the end of the fourteenth and commencement of the fifteenth century. He was the contemporary of the celebrated Owain Glendower, and one of the most devoted and not the least effectual of his partisans; for by his songs he kindled the spirit of his countrymen against the English, and by his praises of Glendower increased their pre-existing enthusiasm for that chieftain. The present poem was composed some years previous to the insurrection of Glendower against Henry the Fourth, and describes with the utmost possible minuteness his place of residence at Sycharth, to which place Iolo, after receiving frequent invitations from its owner, repaired to reside in his old age.
A PROMISE has been made by me
Twice of a journey unto thee;
His promises let every man
Perform, as far as e’er he can.
Easy is done the thing that’s sweet,
And sweet this journey is and meet;
I’ve vow’d to Owain’s court to go,
To keep that vow no harm will do;
And thither straight I’ll take the way,
A happy thought, and there I’ll stay,
Respect and honor whilst I live
With him united to receive.
My Chief of long-lin’d ancestry,
Can harbour sons of poesy.
To hear the sweet Muse singing bold
A fine thing is when one is old;
And to the Castle I will hie,
There’s none to match it ’neath the sky;
It is a Baron’s stately court,
Where bards for sumptuous fare resort.
The Lord and star of powis land,
He granteth every just demand.
Its likeness now I will draw out:
Water surrounds it in a moat;
Stately’s the palace with wide door,
Reach’d by a bridge the blue lake o’er;
It is of buildings coupled fair,
Coupled is every couple there;
A quadrate structure tall it is,
A cloister of festivities.
Conjointly are the angles bound;
In the whole place no flaw is found.
Structures in contact meet the eye
Grottoways, on the hill on high.
Into each other fasten’d, they
The form of a hard knot display.
There dwells the Chief, we all extoll,
In fair wood house on a light knoll.
Upon four wooden columns proud
Mounteth his mansion to the cloud.
Each column’s thick, and firmly bas’d,
And upon each a loft is plac’d.
In these four lofts, which coupled stand,
Repose at night the minstrel band:
These four lofts, nests of luxury
Partition’d, form eight prettily.
Tiled is the roof, on each house top
Chimneys, where smoke is bred, tower up.
Nine halls in form consimilar,
And wardrobes nine to each there are,
Wardrobes well stock’d with linen white
Equal to shops of London quite.
A church there is, a cross which has,
And chapels neatly paned with glass.
All houses are contained in this,
An orchard, vineyard ’tis of bliss.
Beside the Castle, ’bove all praise,
Within a park the red deer graze.
A coney park the Chief can boast,
Of ploughs and noble steeds a host;
Meads, where for hay the fresh grass grows,
Cornfields which hedges trim enclose;
Mill a perennial stream upon,
And pigeon tower fram’d of stone;
A fish pond deep and dark to see,
To cast nets in when need there be;
And in that pond there is no lack
Of noble whitings and of jack.
Three boards he keeps, his birds abound,
Peacocks and cranes are seen around.
All that his household-wants demand
Is order’d straight by his command:
Ale he imports from Shrewsbury far,
Glorious his beer and bragget are.
All drinks he keeps, bread white of look,
And in his kitchen toils his cook.
His castle is the minstrels’ home,
You’ll find them there whene’er you come.
Of all her sex his wife’s the best,
Her wine and mead make life thrice blest.
She’s scion of a knightly tree,
She’s dignified, she’s kind and free;
His bairns come to me pair by pair,
O what a nest of chieftains fair!
There difficult it is to catch
A sight of either bolt or latch;
The porter’s place there none will fill—
There handsels shall be given still,
And ne’er shall thirst and hunger rude
In Sycharth venture to intrude.
The noblest Welshman, lion for might,
The Lake possesses, his by right,
And ’midst of that fair water plac’d,
The Castle, by each pleasure grac’d.