Samuel Puopolo

Because in my online travels, I have found that translations of medieval Welsh poetry take a great deal of liberty and betray for the most part of lack of understanding on the part of the so-called “translators,” I hope to remedy this by sharing my own strictly literal translations of Welsh poems. Indeed, though I am an amateur enthusiast of both Welsh poetry and translation, I hope that my selections will fill a great void in the world of the internet and perhaps spark one more knowledgeable than myself to do an even greater service by sharing their superior understanding with the greater public.

For this first installment, I have here selections from the poem Y Gododdin, attributed to Anierin. The poem is a lament for the 300 men of the Gododdin who spent a year drinking mead with their lord Mynyddawg in Eiddyn (perhaps modern day Edinburgh) before going to attack Catraeth where despite a valiant effort they were apparently slaughtered to a man by the Saxon invaders. C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre. It seems that Anierin knew the warriors personally and felt the loss of his companions on a personal level. The poem is not so much a narrative as a mass obituary, occasionally singling out specific warriors to eulogize. The poem likely existed in an oral form where generations of bards created their own additions to the original text to demonstrate their own prowesses. Ultimately, two different versions of different provenances wound up in the same manuscript where they were jumbled as A and B. The poem has since drawn comparisons with such Indo-European warrior texts as Beowulf, the Iliad, or the Tain Bo Cuailnge. My translations use the text of the Oxford Book of Welsh Verse with its modernized Welsh spelling.


Men went to Gatraeth spirited their host
Fresh mead their livery, it was poison.
Three hundred under command to fight
And after “Huzzah” was silence.
Although they went to church to shrive
An ineluctable meeting came to them.

A man when to Catraeth by day
Indeed, he devoured a mead-feast in the middle of the night.
It was bitter, a lament of the army,
His purpose, a fierce slayer.
      No great warrior so generous
      Rushed on Catraeth
            His intent under mead.
      No one so complete
      From Eiddyn fortress
            Who scattered the enemy.
Tudfwlch Hir, from his home and towns
Killed a Saxon once a week.
His courage shall endure long-lasting
And memories of him by his fair comrades.
When Tudfwlch Sustainer of the People came
The place of spears became a field of blood, he the son of Cilydd.

It is from the battle of Catraeth that it is told,
Blood-letting hosts; their time was long.
Sovereigns no longer sovereigns defend the land
With the sons of Godebog, wicked folk.
Long biers carry the blood-stained men.
It was a wretchedness of fate, true destiny,
That was ordained for Tudfwlch and Cyfwlch Hir.
Although we drank sparkling mead by lighted candle
Although its taste was good, its bitterness was long.

From the winefeast and the meadfeast men rushed
In celebrated battle, reckless souls
Sparkling ranks around cups they nurtured together;
Wine and mead and malt they took
From the retinue of Mynyddawg I am sorrowful in my mind,
That too, too many of my true kinsmen I lost.
From three hundred champions that rushed to Catraeth,
Bitter, except one man they did not return.