Main Menu - Misc. - Clothing/Textiles - Medieval Wales - Names - Other Medieval - Publications - Harpy Publications
(Background: this article concerns matters related to the Society for Creative Anachronism. It won't make a great deal of sense outside of that context.)
Many years ago, I started working on a loose but metrical translation of the West Kingdom's standard oath of fealty (the one cribbed very closely from Tolkien) into Medieval Welsh. At the time, I realized that I didn't have enough skill with the language yet to finish it and set the project aside. And then, as I came to realize that I no longer consider myself to be in fealty, I lost the impetus to return to the project. But a bit over a year ago, a friend in Caid with a Welsh persona was asked to join the Order of the Laurel and asked me if I could supply a Medieval Welsh version of the oath for her to use in her ceremony. Since the Caidan version of the oath is similar enough to the West's that I could use my pre-existing work, and since I again had a motivation to finish the project, I pulled it out and worked my way through.
This article includes not simply my translation, but a detailed commentary on why I chose particular wordings and structures.
Caid uses slightly different versions of the oath for each peerage order. The one I began with is the Laurel's oath, since that was the ceremony I was translating it for. Following that, there is a discussion regarding the substitute line for the Knight's oath. I haven't done an equivalent substitution for the Pelican's oath because I've never been asked (and don't know what the original line is).
Note that while about 90% of the oath is the same as the standard Western oath, there are some additional lines in the Western version and the order of some lines is different, and in addition there are not distinct versions for the different orders in the West. In the future I will be adding an analysis for the Western oath.
I am not at all familliar with the form of fealty oaths in other kingdoms, so I can't say anything about how easily this translation would adapt there.
There is a rather mysogynistic aphorism about translation -- that it is like a mistress: if she is beautiful, she is not faithful, and if she is faithful, she is not beautiful. My goal here was to balance the two and convey the underlying intent of the original words while adapting the specifics to the desire to create a piece of poetry. The result does not follow the rules for any particular type of historic Welsh verse, but it uses various of the techniques used to structure and ornament Medieval Welsh verse. The one least likely to be familiar is cynghanedd, a general term for a collection of "building blocks" including alliteration, repetition of sequences of consonants (regardless of the intervening vowels), and both line-internal and cross-line rhyme. In formal Welsh verse these are combined in a number of specific patterns (often with their own names). I have used various of these techniques a bit more loosely, as described below.
The language of this translation is that of the 13-14th century texts that are the first flowering of (surviving) vernacular literature in Wales. The spelling has been modernized to assist with pronunciation. If there is a desire for written versions in a spelling more appropriate to the date of the language, that could be developed at a future date.
It is difficult to convey the proper pronunciation of Medieval Welsh in text without using very technical language or phonetic symbols. At some future point, I will try to add sound files to this article. (Listen to Medieval Welsh read with a Modern Californian accent!) I will not attempt to provide a pronunciation guide at this time, for fear of offering what is worth less than nothing. If you want to use one of these oaths in a ceremony, you are advised, at a minimum, to get some coaching from someone familiar with a relatively formal pronunciation of modern Welsh. (The sort of pronunciation you would use when singing hymns, for example.)
Original text:
Here do I swear by mouth and hand,
Fealty and service to the Crown and the Kingdom of Caid.
To speak and to be silent,
To do and to let be,
To come and to go,
To serve and teach,
In such matters that concern this realm;
In need or in plenty,
In peace or in war,
In living or in dying,
Until the King depart his throne,
Death take me,
Or the world end.
So say I, [name]
Translated text:
A llais, a llaw, addaw a wnaf
Gwrogaeth a gwasanaeth
I deyrn a theyrnas Caid
Af a doaf
Llafaru a thewi,
Caffael a gadael
Gweini a dysgu
Wrth pethau y deyrnas
Gan angen, gan ancwyn,
Trwy tangnef a thwrwf,
O fyw ac o farw,
Ae hyd ymadael o'r brenin a'i orsedd,
Ae hyd gafael o angau arnaf,
Ae hyd darffo y byd i gyd.
Felly y tyngaf: [name]
Annotated text:
In addition to the target meaning, I've had two guiding principles in this translation: there should be a clear stress-meter, and there should be as much internal rhyme and or alliteration as the translation will bear. That is, the idea was to write something that falls just barely short of being a poem. (I tried doing it in a formal meter, but the changes in rhythm kept getting in the way.) So first I'll go through and explain the literal meanings and the reason behind my word choices, then I'll give the intended reading rhythm.
Lit. "with voice, with hand, promising I do." The periphrastic verb construction is pretty common in Medieval Welsh. I've only used it this once, since it's more common in prose than poetry, and I couldn't resist starting off with a sort of cynghanedd (although not one of the specific traditional ones), i.e., the alliteration of llais and llaw, combined with the rhyme of llaw and addaw.
"fealty/homage and service" Here the regular words give me a rhyme without any tweaking.
"To ruler and realm [of] Caid" The terms "teyrn" and "teyrnas" not only preserve the sense of gender-neutrality and provide a strict parallelism in sound, but they avoid some of the awkward polysyllablism of "brenhiniaeth" (kingdom).
In the next section, the rhythm changes to shorter lines with the contrasted actions.
"I will go and I will come." Mostly I use the verbal-noun form of the verb (which is the best parallel for the English infinitive), but I started off with an inflected pair because the verbal-nouns aren't parallel for "come" and "go", although the inflected forms are. I took the liberty of moving "come and go" to the front of the series because that's the only way the grammar works for the contrast in inflected and uninflected verbs. I also swapped "go" to first position to avoid the awkwardness of "a af".
"Speaking and being-silent" The verb "tewi" covers the meaning "be silent" in a single word.
"Getting and leaving [alone]" The verb "caffael" covers a range of meanings including "get, acquire, accomplish, experience". It isn't strictly a parallel for "do", but makes a very nice pair with "gadael", which covers the senses "to leave, leave alone, allow, let".
"Serving and teaching/learning" Having used one of the standard words for "serve" in the first stanza, I went for the other standard one here, not only to avoid repetition, but to match the syllable structure of "dysgu". "Dysgu", like the German verb "lehren", can mean both "to teach" and "to learn", depending on context.
"With things [of] the realm" Ok, "with" is hardly the best translation -- this is a preposition thing. Suffice it to say that "wrth" is the preposition normally used to mark the neutral but relevant context in which an event occurs, and can have flavors of both cause or purpose. "Peth" (thing) can have the same sort of flavor as Latin "res". Notice that this line breaks the rhythm just slightly, which helps transition to the next stanza.
Here I got the best set of alliterative pairs, with only a small amount of tweaking of the vocabulary. The variation in the prepositions is partly idiomatic and partly that, because I couldn't use the same preposition throughout the set, I didn't want to do two-and-one.
"With want, with livery" "Angen " is a bit of an archaic word even in a medieval context. It covers a range of meanings including "need, want, exigency, extremity" with slight hints of mortality. "Ancwyn" can mean "livery" in the sense of "the regular supply of food and drink given to a retainer", although it also came to mean "dinner, a feast".
"Through peace and tumult" Rather than pick one of the usual words for "battle" or "war", I've let the alliteration lead me to "twrwf" which covers a range of meanings including "tumult, noise, clamor, uproar, quarrel, trouble; esp. the noise of an army or host". In medieval Welsh literature, the word often carries a sense of the supernatural.
"In life and in death" (Literally "of living and of dying" -- I've taken the idiom from a phrase in a medieval Welsh law tract.) "Byw" and "marw" are the basic words for these meanings, and by prefixing a preposition that causes lenition, I can get the alliteration as well.
The final stanza changes meter drastically. The construction "ae X ae Y ae Z" means "either X or Y or Z", but doesn't translate very precisely word for word.
"Either until departing of the king from his throne"
"Or until grabbing of death on me" (i.e., until death grabs onto me) I think I may have invented an idiom here, but it feels right. ("Gafael ar" is an existing construction, it's adding death as an agent that I don't think I have a precedent for.)
"Or until would-perish the world entirely" In the two preceding lines I've used a construction with a verbal-noun followed by an agent marked with the preposition "o" -- in order to get the parallelism between the two verbal-nouns. Here I've used the subjunctive, which is what you'd normally expect in this type of hypothetical statement, if you have an inflected verb. Here "i gyd" could mean either "all [the world]" or "[perished] entirely" -- it's ambiguous. I stuck it in for the rhyme and to complete the stress pattern.
Felly y tyngaf: [name]
"Thus I swear: [name]" The swearer's name would appear in its ordinary grammatical form. No mutations or anthing.
While I can't give a complete pronunciation guide, it's fairly easy to give a guide to the overall stress-pattern. I've added suggested pauses to aid in a smooth reading.
Stressed syllables are in upper case, and pauses in the line are indicated by a hyphen.
a LLAIS, a LLAW, - ADDaw a WNAF
gwrOGaeth a gwaSANaeth
i DEYRN a THEYRNAS CAID
AF - a DOaf
llaFARu - a THEwi,
CAFFael - a GADael
GWEINi - a DYSGu
wrth PETHau y DEYRNas
gan ANGen, - gan ANCwyn,
trwy TANGnef - a THWRwf,
o FYW - ac o FARw,
ae hyd ymADael o'r BRENin a'i ORsedd,
-
ae hyd GAFael o ANGau ARnaf,
-
ae hyd DARffo y BYD i GYD.
FELLy y TYNGaf: - [name]
The Caidan Knight's oath substitutes the line "to strike and to spare" for the line "to serve and to teach" in the above oath. (Technically, "strike and spare" is the original -- or at least the older version.) After I provided the above text for the Laurel's oath, my friend wanted a Knight's variant to use as part of a 12th Night gift, so I offered the following analysis and suggestion.
Although I'm not entirely happy with it, the simplest substitution (for a value of "simple" that takes about an hour to decide on) is to replace "Gweini a dysgu" with "Taro a sbario". Both are verbal nouns (following the pattern for that stanza). "Taro" has a range of meanings covering "strike, hit, kill" while "(y)sbario" is a borrowing of English "spare" with pretty much the same range of meanings as in English. The borrowing first starts showing up in the mid 16th century, which is why I'm not entirely happy with it. I'd rather come up with something that has longer temporal legs.
Stretching the sense of the passage a little further, we could try "Taro a thrigo" with "trigo" bringing the sense of refraining from acting with meanings like "to remain, stay, dwell". But it doesn't have the specific sense of "to hold one's hand, to show mercy, to allow to live". A more literal, if narrower, reading could be supplied by "Taro a thrugarhau" (from "trugarhau", to show mercy), but this really messes up the rhyme and scansion and I'd rather go with a looser translation and better poetry.
Another stretch in a different direction would be "Dial ac (ym)atal". "Dial" is one of the possible verbal nouns for the root "dial" = "vengeance, retribution, punishment" while "atal" and "ymatal" are both based on the root "atal" = "to keep, hold, withhold, prevent, stop", with the second having the reflexive/mutual prefix giving it more of a sense of "to restrain oneself, to hold back, to resist, to prevent oneself". I'd tend to go with "ymatal" over "atal". Keep in mind that the concept of "revenge" in medieval Welsh society isn't as inherently negative as in our modern society. There's much more of a judicial sense to it. Another possibility in this rhyme scheme would be "Dal ac ymatal". "Dal" has a wide range of senses including "to capture, seize, take, hold (fast)", so it would still make a good contrastive pair with "ymatal" (and, in fact, "dal" is an underlying root of "atal"), but although the sense of "to take and to hold back" seems appropriate in context, it loses the direct connection with physical hitting.
That's about all I can do with it at the moment. I think of the range of possibilities, I'd go with "Taro a sbario" for a late-period persona, and "Dial ac ymatal" for an earlier one.
Using the earlier suggestion, this would result in the following text (and stress-pattern for reading):
A llais, a llaw, addaw a wnaf
Gwrogaeth a gwasanaeth
I deyrn a theyrnas Caid
Af a doaf
Llafaru a thewi,
Caffael a gadael
Dial ac ymatal
Wrth pethau y deyrnas
Gan angen, gan ancwyn,
Trwy tangnef a thwrwf,
O fyw ac o farw,
Ae hyd ymadael o'r brenin a'i orsedd,
Ae hyd gafael o angau arnaf,
Ae hyd darffo y byd i gyd.
Felly y tyngaf: [name]
Stressed syllables are in upper case, and pauses in the line are indicated by a hyphen.
a LLAIS, a LLAW, - ADDaw a WNAF
gwrOGaeth a gwaSANaeth
i DEYRN a THEYRNAS CAID
AF - a DOaf
llaFARu - a THEwi,
CAFFael - a GADael
DIal - ac ym-AT-al
wrth PETHau y DEYRNas
gan ANGen, - gan ANCwyn,
trwy TANGnef - a THWRwf,
o FYW - ac o FARw,
ae hyd ymADael o'r BRENin a'i ORsedd,
-
ae hyd GAFael o ANGau ARnaf,
-
ae hyd DARffo y BYD i GYD.
FELLy y TYNGaf: - [name]
Here are the differences between the Caidan Knight's oath and the Western general oath. Lines present in the Western version and not in the Caidan version are given in bold. Lines that are present in different variants in both are in bold italics. Note that one major change is a re-ordering of lines 3-6. Caid has "speak, do, come, strike" while the West has "speak, come, strike, do". I've already played fast and loose with the order of these lines in the Caidan oath in order to make the flow smoother, and there are metrical reasons to retain the order I used there. Naturally the oath uses "the West" rather than "Caid", and while the latter is a proper name and was retained intact, the former can be translated and will provide a new challenge. The alternation between "this realm" and "the kingdom" is irrelevant to the translation, and the insertion of an additional "or" in the line "or death take me" actually follows my translation more closely. So the major difference will be the addition of three more lines and their incorporation into the existing metrical structure.
Original text:
Here do I swear by mouth and hand,
Fealty and service to the Crown and the Kingdom of the West.
To speak and to be silent,
To come and to go,
To strike and to spare
To do and to let be,
In such matters as concern the kingdom;
On my honor,
And the lawful command of the Crown,
In need or in plenty,
In peace or in war,
In living or in dying,
From this hour henceforth,
Until the King depart his throne,
Or death take me,
Or the world end.
So say I, [name]
Just to sketch out the project, here's the oath as developed above, with the Western differences indicated in bold.
A llais, a llaw, addaw a wnaf
Gwrogaeth a gwasanaeth
I deyrn a theyrnas THE WEST
Af a doaf
Llafaru a thewi,
Caffael a gadael
Dial ac ymatal
Wrth pethau y deyrnas
ON MY HONOR
AND THE LAWFUL COMMAND OF THE CROWN
Gan angen, gan ancwyn,
Trwy tangnef a thwrwf,
O fyw ac o farw,
FROM THIS HOUR HENCEFORTH
Ae hyd ymadael o'r brenin a'i orsedd,
Ae hyd gafael o angau arnaf,
Ae hyd darffo y byd i gyd.
Felly y tyngaf: [name]
I suspect I'm going to separate out wrth pethau y deyrnas from its existing stanza and create a new set of parallel lines, patterning "on my honor and the lawful command of the crown" to match it.
There's an existing idiom for "from now on" that appears in the proper context in the tale of Pwyll as o hyn allan, literally "from this [time] outward" (allan is the standard expression for "forward indefinitely in time"). But this tends to be used when the event or state in question is completely unbounded in the future (except, regularly, by "the day of judgement"). Since the conditions bounding the oath follow, we need an expression that allows for a following bound. Several possibilities occur in literature, including (from the tale of Branwen) o'r gyfawr hon "from this same hour", from the same tale simply o hyn "from this [moment]", (from the Dream of Rhonabwy, also in Culhwch & Olwen) (byth) o heddiw "(forever) from today", (from Culhwch & Olwen) o'r dydd hwn "from this day", or paralleling the use of oddyna (in many texts) for a temporal sense of "thenceforth" we can suggest oddyma for "henceforth".
So to summarize:
Because the last line of the previous stanza uses the preposition o, I'm unhappy about repeating it for this line, which starts a new grouping and a new formula, on the other hand, the language indicating the start of the covered period will necessarily be different from the following "endpoint" formulas. So we need something transitional and clearly not parallel with the "until" phrases. I'm leaning towards cutting and pasting byth o hyn. Byth actually leans semantically towards the preceding phrase -- it indicates that the preceding state or event continues "(for)ever", but can be found followed by a more explicit starting point (as in byth o heddiw above). The other thing influencing my choice is the way that the preceding stanza gradually shortens while retaining two equal stresses. Byth o hyn continues this shortening while showing the transition in breaking the pattern of two parallel phrases. And since the following lines are rather longer and more complex, it's a sort of pause for breath before the conclusion.
For that matter, the general feeling of the passage might be served simply by byth. I plan to do further research on the nuances involved.
I'll come back and finish this at some point (probably when somebody comes to me begging me to finish it so they can use it) but I'm going to post the existing version for now.
This site belongs to Heather Rose Jones. Contact me regarding anything beyond personal, individual use of this material.
Unless otherwise noted, all contents are copyright by Heather Rose Jones, all rights reserved.