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Brut Y Brenhinedd Cotton Cleopatra Version THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA PUBLICATION No. a7 BRUT Y BRENHINEDD COTTON CLEOPATRA VERSION BRUT Y BRENHINEDD COTTON CLEOPATRA VERSION EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY JOHN JAY PARRY Associate Professor of English University of Illinois THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 1937 The publication of this book was made possible by grants of funds to the Academy from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the American Council of Learned Societies COPYRIGHT BY THE MEDIAEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA «937 Printed in U. S. A. rtnnxD BY THZ WAVULI TRESS, INC. BALTIHOK, MA1YLAND PREFACE NDER the auspices of the Mediaeval Academy, a conference of persons inter- ested in the study of Geoffrey of Monmouth was held on i and i January U 1933, at the University of Chicago. Among the subjects discussed at this meeting was that of the Welsh versions of the Historia Regum Britanniae, and it was agreed that from the literary point of view, which is the one of most interest to scholars in the United States, the text most deserving of publication was that found in the Cotton Cleopatra manuscript and in the Book of Basingwerk, and the next in interest was that of Llanstephan I and Havod 2. The present volume has grown out of that discussion. The general form of it was determined by the conference, the only departure of any importance from the plans there outlined being in the matter of the publication of the Welsh text itself. The conference recommended that, since the manuscript is clearly and regularly written and is in a good state of preservation, the reproduction should be by a photographic process, giving to the users of the book the exact text of the original. Unfortunately this method of reproduction proved to be too costly, and it was necessary to substitute a text printed from type. It was the sentiment of the conference that any Welsh text published in the United States should be accompanied by a translation, and that this translation ought to follow the original closely if it were to be of any use to scholars. With this admonition in mind I have followed the original more closely than I might otherwise have done. Many of my sentences are bad because they are bad in the Welsh; others are awkward because I did not feel justified in recasting sufficiently to get away from the wearisome repetitions of the same word or the loose and ambiguous references of the pronouns, faults which seem to have troubled the mediaeval story-teller less than they do the modern stylist. In making my translation I met with a number of problems which I was unable to solve. That few of these remain is due to the kindness of Professor Mary Williams and Mr Stephen Williams of The University College of Swansea, who devoted much time and thought to answering my numerous questions. Neither one saw my transla- tion, however, so that neither is in any way responsible for any errors that remain. Professor F. N. Robinson of Harvard University also gave me a number of helpful suggestions. My work on the Welsh manuscripts of Geoffrey of Monmouth has been possible only because of the kindness of the Curator of Manuscripts at the British Museum and of two successive Librarians of the National Library of Wales who arranged to have photostatic copies made, and of the Librarian and the Dean of the Graduate School of the University of Illinois who authorized the purchase of these copies. Lastly I am indebted to the Carnegie Corporation of New York and to the American Council of Learned Societies, as well as to the Mediaeval Academy of America, for the grant of funds which made publication possible. Urbana, Illinois JOHN JAV PARRY 6 June /pj6 CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ix TEXT AND TRANSLATION 3 APPENDIX A Selections from MS Peniarth 21 109 APPENDIX B Prophetia Merlini Silvestris 115 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES {Cotton Cleopatra—Book of Basingwerk Version) 117 PLATES at end I. Cotton Cleopatra B v, fol. 15V II. Cotton Cleopatra B v, fol. III. Book of Basingwerk, p. 69 IV. Book of Basingwerk, p. 131 V. Peniarth 21, fol. 6r VI. Peniarth 21, fol. INTRODUCTION HE History of the Kings of Britain has often been called one of the most influ- ential books of the Middle Ages, and there is much justification for such a claim. Its popularity in its original form is attested by the fact that nearly T 1 two hundred manuscript copies are still extant, and in translations or extracts it reached into practically all countries of Western Europe. Of all the versions in the vernacular the most numerous but least studied are those in Welsh. Upwards of fifty manuscripts, representing at least three independent translations, are still in existence,2 and although many of these are very late they may preserve material that is centuries older, and they certainly attest to a popularity that lasted through the period of the Tudors. The Welsh people looked upon Geoffrey's fiction as preserving the true history of their race, so that Henry the Seventh found it to his advantage to claim descent from Brutus, the first king of the island, and to trace his descent through the heroes of Geoffrey's book. The Welsh seem to have first become acquainted with these stories through the cyfarwydd or native story teller. Except in a few special cases such a man did not trouble himself to memorize the exact words of a story. He learned the names of the characters and a rather detailed summary of what they did, but he himself supplied the words in which the story was told, and he might not tell the story a second time in exactly the same way. Thus the standard version was early contaminated by ma- terial drawn from other sources, native and foreign, and, on the other hand, bits of Geoffrey's narrative passed into local tradition. Corwen, for example, was named for "the famous Corwenna," and on a hill near by are the stones she collected for its forti- fication but never used. In the neighborhood also is Moel Athrywyn, the "Bare Hill of Reconciliation," so called because it was here that she brought about a peace be- tween her two warring sons. A little further up the Alwen are Llys Dinmael, where Bran, marching from Dinas Bran, and Y Maes Mawr, where Beli, marching from Bala, first drew up their armies for battle.? To assume that these stories were current before the time of Geoffrey seems to me to be beyond the bounds of reasonable prob- ability. It appears that the first written translation of the Historia into Welsh was made about the year 1200; the oldest known manuscript, which seems to contain the earliest version, is the so-called Dingestow Court Manuscript now in the National Library of Wales with the number Addit. 5266 B.* Dr J. Gwenogvryn Evans in his introduc- 1 Acton Griscom, The Historia Regum Britannia 0/Geoffrey of Monmouth (New York, 1929), pp. 550-584. A few additional manuscripts have come to light since Griscom's census was taken. 1 Ibid., pp. 585-599. * Cofnodion a Chyfansoddiadau Buddugol Eisteddfod Blaenau Ffestiniog, 1898 (London, 1900), pp. 86, 89. 4 An edition of this manuscript has been prepared by a Welsh scholar and is now awaiting publication. ix x INTRODUCTION tion to the Red Book Bruts calls this "early XHIth century," and Mr Griscom (T Cymmrodor, XXXV, 57) expresses the opinion that it is a copy of a still earlier manu- script, since on folio 2v (i.e., page 4) a whole sentence was written too soon and was expuncted and then written again in the proper place. Precisely the same thing happened on page 181, and on page 222 three words are written twice, but I can- not see that any of these examples precludes the possibility that the scribe was work- ing from a Latin text and translating as he went along. On the other hand, on page 161 (which corresponds to folio 62V of the present edition) the scribe wrote "E cala- mistreit" which has been changed to "E pengrychion," but the numerous corrections in this part of the manuscript are very probably by another hand. I cannot see that the evidence is conclusive either way. Evans lists a number of later manuscripts which he believes belong to the same group as the Dingestow Court Manuscript, but he notes, "From the concluding words of Merlin's prophecy to the end of the BRUT the text of Nos. 5 and 6 [B. M. Addit. ig, yog and the Red Book] differs from that of Nos. 1-4 [Dingestow Court, Peniarth 45, Peniarth 46, and Peniarth 22] and yet we have not even here independent trans- lations. Certain agreements and differences in the wording of the six MSS. point to the probability of their being independent transcripts of a lost original."1 In my opinion the kinship of this latter part of the Red Book is with the version of Llan- stephan 1 rather than with that of Dingestow Court. Additional Manuscript ig, yog I have not seen, but I believe that it agrees with the Red Book in changing from one version to another, since Kuno Meyer says in his introduction to John Strachan's Introduction to Early Welsh (page ix), "He had brought back from Peniarth, from MSS. No. 22, 44, 45, and 46, a large number of variants to the Story of Lear, and that of Arthur, which he would no doubt have used for his notes.
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