The Two Pages of the 'Marwnat Vthyr Pen' from The Book of Taliesin
Having settled on identifying Arthur's father Uther Pendragon with Sawyl Benisel of Ribchester, I thought it best to reexamine some ambiguous, but very important lines from the Elegy of Uther Pen. I had treated of them in some detail in the past, but my interpretation had differed according to what stage I happened to be in my researches. For the relevant lines and Haycock's notes on them, please see below.
Given that lines 3-7 are neatly bracketed in a repeated phrase that informs us Uther is fighting between two forces, the emendation 'yn adwy', "in the breach" for line 6, which also fulfills the syllable count requirement, makes the most sense. The breach or gap in question would be, of course, the space between the two forces in which Uther's finds himself during the battle. It is unnecessary to put 'our God' here, as pen kawell (for pen kauell/kafell) means 'Chief of the Sanctuary', a nice poetic title for God. Cawell and cafell are both from Latin cauella.
But then comes line 7 - the most troublesome of all. Line 6 has just told us that Uther is transformed in some way. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, the hero is transformed into Gorlois - a name taken from the gorlassar descriptor in line 3. But Geoffrey also tells us that the star/comet Uther seems in the sky represents himself, and kawyl of line 7 could be for ka[n]wyl[l], a word meaning candle or lamp or luminary, but also star. Cannwyll is from OW. cannuill, MW. can(n)wyll, cannwyll (see http://elibrary.bsu.az/books_400/N_229.pdf).
The fact that cannwyll can also mean 'leader' may point back to line 5's leader in the darkness. The luminary or star would, figuratively speaking, be a leader in the gloom.
This would appear to be a good reading for this section of the elegy. However, in the words of Dr. Simon Rodway (personal communication):
"I think this [cannwyll for kawyl] is possible, but three things make me uneasy.
1) This requires positing an n-suspension. These do occur occasionally in medieval Welsh MSS, but they are very rare.
2) The single l would mean suggesting an Old Welsh exemplar, for which there is no other clear evidence in the poem. Elsewhere the scribe has ll where needed, so if he was copying from an examplar with l for ll, then this would be the only occasion on which he didn’t correctly modernize.
3) Supposing an n-suspension would only allow us to restore one n. In an OW form, one would expect nt, nh or perhaps nn, but not n.
Overall, emendation to Sawyl, while totally speculative, involves less issues (eye-skip to kawell), and eil Sawyl, ‘a second Samuel’ gives plausible sense."
Earlier, Dr. Rodway had explained how an eye-skip could have occurred in this instance:
"It can’t be a case of miscopying a letter, but it could be eye-skip - when a copyist’s eye skips inadvertently to another nearby word resulting in an error. In this case, he would have eye-skipped to the preceding line's 'kawell' to get the /k-/ fronting what should have been 'sawyl'. Was not an uncommon error, so quite plausible. Also, kawell and kawyl are unlikely to be the same word. The poets avoided repeating words in consecutive lines. In cases where this does occur (v rare) it could be scribal error."
eil in line 7 can mean either 'second' or 'like'. But as Uther in Line 6 is said to be transformed, 'second' would make more sense in this context. For if you are in transformed, you become something or someone. You don't become like something or someone.
An argument in favor of Sawyl would involve seeing line 6's pen kawell or 'chief of the sanctuary' as a Biblical reference. Welsh cafell was not only used in a general sense for temple or sanctuary, but more specifically for God's inner sanctuary or holy of holies. It is well known that Samuel ( = Welsh Sawyl) received his calling while sleeping at night inside the Shiloh sanctuary, where the lamp was still burning (1 Samuel 3). He went on to become a great military leader who freed Israel from the Philistines (1 Samuel 7).
The emendation of Sawyl for kawyl was made in Geirfa Barddoniaeth Gynnar Gymraeg by John Lloyd-Jones. Cited several times by Marged Haycock in her edition of the Uther poem, his emendations are at least provisionally adopted by that scholar. When I asked Dr. Simon Rodway about Lloyd-Jones' work, he responded:
"It’s a very good piece of work, which I often use. It’s much more comprehensive than GPC [Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, 'Dictionary of the Welsh Language']."
"I think this [cannwyll for kawyl] is possible, but three things make me uneasy.
1) This requires positing an n-suspension. These do occur occasionally in medieval Welsh MSS, but they are very rare.
2) The single l would mean suggesting an Old Welsh exemplar, for which there is no other clear evidence in the poem. Elsewhere the scribe has ll where needed, so if he was copying from an examplar with l for ll, then this would be the only occasion on which he didn’t correctly modernize.
3) Supposing an n-suspension would only allow us to restore one n. In an OW form, one would expect nt, nh or perhaps nn, but not n.
Overall, emendation to Sawyl, while totally speculative, involves less issues (eye-skip to kawell), and eil Sawyl, ‘a second Samuel’ gives plausible sense."
Earlier, Dr. Rodway had explained how an eye-skip could have occurred in this instance:
"It can’t be a case of miscopying a letter, but it could be eye-skip - when a copyist’s eye skips inadvertently to another nearby word resulting in an error. In this case, he would have eye-skipped to the preceding line's 'kawell' to get the /k-/ fronting what should have been 'sawyl'. Was not an uncommon error, so quite plausible. Also, kawell and kawyl are unlikely to be the same word. The poets avoided repeating words in consecutive lines. In cases where this does occur (v rare) it could be scribal error."
eil in line 7 can mean either 'second' or 'like'. But as Uther in Line 6 is said to be transformed, 'second' would make more sense in this context. For if you are in transformed, you become something or someone. You don't become like something or someone.
An argument in favor of Sawyl would involve seeing line 6's pen kawell or 'chief of the sanctuary' as a Biblical reference. Welsh cafell was not only used in a general sense for temple or sanctuary, but more specifically for God's inner sanctuary or holy of holies. It is well known that Samuel ( = Welsh Sawyl) received his calling while sleeping at night inside the Shiloh sanctuary, where the lamp was still burning (1 Samuel 3). He went on to become a great military leader who freed Israel from the Philistines (1 Samuel 7).
The emendation of Sawyl for kawyl was made in Geirfa Barddoniaeth Gynnar Gymraeg by John Lloyd-Jones. Cited several times by Marged Haycock in her edition of the Uther poem, his emendations are at least provisionally adopted by that scholar. When I asked Dr. Simon Rodway about Lloyd-Jones' work, he responded:
"It’s a very good piece of work, which I often use. It’s much more comprehensive than GPC [Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru, 'Dictionary of the Welsh Language']."
It is not unreasonable, then, to suggest that Uther was a second Samuel/Sawyl, this being a play, of course, on his real name, Sawyl. Yet if we opt for this reading for kawyl in line 7, we lose the reference to the star. And then we are left wondering where Geoffrey of Monmouth might have found his comet motif. Although a comet of 442 A.D. is mentioned in an Irish annal, Geoffrey's ascribing its significance to Uther without inspiration from Welsh tradition seems unlikely. On the other hand, Geoffrey consistently shows himself to be a creative genius. He may well have associated a draco standard with a record of a comet all on his own.
***
Marwnat Vthyr Pen (tr. and ed. by Marged Haycock)
1 Neu vi luossawc yn trydar:
It is I who commands hosts in battle:
2 ny pheidwn rwg deu lu heb wyar.
I’d not give up between two forces without bloodshed.
3 Neu vi a elwir gorlassar:
It’s I who’s styled ‘Armed in Blue’:
4 vy gwrys bu enuys y’m hescar.
my ferocity snared my enemy.
5 Neu vi tywyssawc yn tywyll:
It is I who’s a leader in darkness:
6 a’m rithwy am dwy pen kawell.
. . . . .
7 Neu vi eil Sawyl yn ardu:
It’s I who’s a second Sawyl in the gloom:
8 ny pheidwn heb wyar rwg deu lu.
I’d not give up without bloodshed [the fight] between two forces.
6 a’m rithwy am dwy pen kawell G emends am dwy > an Dwy(w) ‘our Lord’, understood as the subject of 3sg. subjunct. rithwy ‘transform’ etc., but yn adwy ‘in the breach’ or yn ardwy ‘as a defence’ would give a more regular three syllables in the central section. Kawell ‘basket, pannier; cradle; fish-trap; creel, cage; quiver; belly, breast’ (GPC) seems unlikely, as do cowyll ‘maidenhood-fee; clothing, covering’ (with G s.v. coŵyll), sawell ‘chimney, kiln’ (see on §4.246), or nawell ‘nine times better’. Cannwyll is sometimes a rhyme partner for tywyll (e.g. AP line 88 cannwyll yn tywyll; CC 18.13; R1056.15), and would yield full rhyme. ‘May our Lord, the guiding/chief light, transform me’ is a possibility; or (with yn adwy) ‘May the guiding/chief light (i.e. God) transform me in the
breach’. Or is pen kawell a basket to collect up the heads he cuts off (line 18)? If Uthr is the speaker, is vb rithaw to be connected with his transformation through disguise (see introduction)? Obscure.
7 eil kawyl yn ardu G emends kawyl > Sawyl, the personal name (from Samuelis via *Safwyl). Sawyl Ben Uchel is named with Pasgen and Rhun as one of the Three Arrogant Men, Triad 23, as a combative tyrant in Vita Cadoci (VSB 58); and in CO 344-5. Samuil Pennissel in genealogies, EWGT 12 (later Benuchel), Irish sources, and in Geoffrey of Monmouth. Other Sawyls include a son of Llywarch, and the saint commemorated in Llansawel: see further TYP3 496, WCD 581 and CO 104. Ardu ‘darkness, gloom; dark, dreadful (GPC), sometimes collocated with afyrdwl ‘sad; sadness’ (see G, GPC).
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