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This is a collection of hen benillion (lit. old verses), written by anonymous versifiers between the 16th and 19th centuries and meant to be sung or recited to harp accompaniment.
Performed at social gatherings such as weddings and festivals, they mixed proverbs, humour, satire and commentary on local events or people. A man called upon to entertain a gathering would have hundreds of these verses in his repertoire and they would be handed down as part of traditional rural culture from father to son.
Often consisting of a single verse or, at most, a short sequence of inter-related stanzas, they relied for their effect on their pithiness and vivid imagery. Some had a philosophical quality, but the best are about the pleasures and tribulations of courtship and marriage. A few deal with death and longing but the form, not unlike that of the englyn, is more suited to the light-hearted than to the gloomy or numinous.
Because they rely on rhythm and rhyme, often internal rhyme, and because they are so lapidary, the verses are notoriously difficult to translate into English without losing much of the charm and folk-poetry of the originals.
This difficulty has not prevented poets like Glyn Jones from attempting the well-nigh impossible. For more than fifty years he tried his hand at giving the hen benillion an English dress, often failing and putting the work aside until another day. At last, just before his death in 1995 at the age of 90, he proudly told me he had enough, well over three hundred, to make a book and asked me, as his literary executor, to ensure that it saw the light of day.
Glyn Jones was the first to admit that the original Welsh verses are far superior to his versions, and that is an inevitable conclusion for someone who can read both sides of this bilingual text. Sometimes the meaning has been stretched so much that the English is far removed from the Welsh, and sometimes the rhyme is forced and the rhythm clunking.
But when he succeeds, he manages to make a memorable image that has all the power of the original, as in:
When a man turns forty, though
His outward show is brave,
One sound will wipe his smile away –
The digging of a grave.
Or this:
A happy husband will be wise
From time to time to close his eyes;
And a wife, instead of swearing,
Sometimes pretend she’s hard of hearing.
Meic Stephens
It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgement should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.
Gellir defnyddio’r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatâd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.
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