Welsh song translation please
Scott Brim
that is, except the refrain. There's a note saying it has "many
possible translations". Could someone give me an idea of what the
words might mean? Even a word-by-word list of possibilities would be
greatly appreciated. Here's the first verse (the line in question is
the last one). Thanks, very much. --Scott Brim
Now strike the harp gladly, let music resound,
To cheer all the true hearts here gather'd around,
No word of contention shall sully our joy.
No thought of dull care our contentment destroy.
Here patriots may loudly rejoice to be free,
And Cambrians to Cambria vow faithful to be,
Mewn Awen fwyn lawen byw byth y bo hi.
--
Scott Brim s...@devvax.tn.cornell.edu
Cornell University Theory Center {decvax,ihnp4,cmcl2,vax135}!cornell!swb
607-256-8686 s...@cornella.bitnet
chmorris
>It's always dangerous when an idiot gets hold of a dictionary and tries to
>translate from a language he knows little about, BUT that's never stopped me
>before, so:
I sent a mail message to the originator of this topic a while back,
but since someone else seems to be interested:
>
>Awen = Muse (the root -awen- appears in several words meaning
> "poet," "poetry," and the like, so maybe the Muse referred to
> is the Muse of Poetry);
Yes, Awen is the 'muse' of poetry/prophecy; but it refers to the amorphous
type of spirit, rather than a personified Goddess like the Greek
muses.
>y = the (pronounced like the English word "a" in the phrase "a book.")
>po = a particle used to indicate the superlative (the "p" mutates into
> a "b" here);
>
>It may be (a wild guess on my part) that "byth y bo" is some sort of Welsh
>idiom meaning "for ever and ever."
y bo : bo is a contracted form of bod (to be); I don't know the linguistic
name for the tense but it corresponds to 'may it be so' or 'let it
be such-&-such' in English. 'y' doesn't actually mean 'the' here -
it is used as a sort of connector for the clauses.
>"May she [i.e., Cambria] live forever and ever in mild, joyful Poetry!"
That's the gist of it. The words given are an approximate translation
of Ceiriog's Welsh verses; in those, the 'she' actually refers to the whole
Isle of Britain and the context is a sort of Welsh may-Britannia-rule-the-waves-forever.
Tina Coulson
> To cheer all the true hearts here gather'd around,
> No word of contention shall sully our joy.
> No thought of dull care our contentment destroy.
> Here patriots may loudly rejoice to be free,
> And Cambrians to Cambria vow faithful to be,
> Mewn Awen fwyn lawen byw byth y bo hi.
> --
> Scott Brim s...@devvax.tn.cornell.edu
I have a translation of the last line done by a friend
who is Welsh. He says that it looks as if it came from
North (he is from the south - its a slightly different
dialect there). But he has done as much as he can.
Mewn Awen fwyn lawen byw byth y bo hi.
= = ==== == = = =======
In ?? I am joyful live ever the ? ?
'live within her'
'live with her'
The last phrase is a difficult one to explain in
english it is very nationalistic and sort of says
'this is the place for me'
Awen is probably a name but he cant be sure.
Thats the easy bit done. Now to dissapoint you.
We found the song in a book of Welsh songs dating
back to about the 1930's and though the welsh was
all there there was an English version (NOT translation)
printed alongside. Neither the English version nor the
Welsh had the same meaning as your 'translation'.
We are guessing but think that your words too are
an English version written to fit to the music.
They also rhyme !! Which a true translation probably
would not.
I have a photo-copy of the song on its way to me
and could get a translation of all of it done if
you would like it.
Now just to give you a little more information-
I cant remember the name exactly but was somthing
to do with a minstrel. The Welsh words were by
Ceiriog.
--
Tina Coulson. (tina@stc)
{root44,ukc,datlog,idec,stl,creed,iclbra,iclkid}!stc!tina
[ When a ball sleeps it dreams its a disc ]
der Mouse
[ translation requested / provided. ]
[ for net.nlang readers: originally from net.music.folk ]
> We are guessing but think that your words too are
> an English version written to fit to the music.
> They also rhyme!! Which a true translation probably
> would not.
Hate to disappoint you on this point but I must disagree. For
example, I saw (Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach) something called the
English French German Suite, which was a translation of Jabberwocky
(from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass) into French and German.
For those who do not know, this is a mostly nonsense poem with many
invented words. The translation is (to me, who knows little French and
next to no German) very good, especially considering the magnitude of
the task.
To get to the point, both the French and German versions scan and
rhyme; which is of course the point of a real translation (as opposed to
a transliteration) -- create the same effect in the other language.
I've tried to redirect followups to net.nlang, since this is
getting inappropriate for net.music.folk.
--
der Mouse
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