twincityhacker

Hot Welsh translation action!

http://www.maryjones.us/index.html
http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/celtic/ctexts/home.html

Mostly here so I can later find this stuff. It's surprisingly hard to find side by side translations on the internet, so being able to see "Englynion y Misoedd" in it's orginal form and it's English form of "Odes to the Monthes" is absolutely fantastic. For example, here's January:

Mis Jonawr, myglyd dyffryn,
blin trulliad, trallawd klerddyn,
kul bran, anaml llais gwenyn,
gwac buches, diwres odyn;
gwael gwr anwiw i ofyn;
gwae a garo i dri gelyn;
gwir a ddyvod Kynvelyn
"gorev kannwyll pwyll i ddyn."

Month of January--smoky is the vale;
Weary the wine-bearer; strolling the minstrel;
Lean the cow; seldom the hum of the bee;
Empty the milk fold; void of meat the kiln;
Slender the horse; very silent the bird;
Long to the early dawn; short the afternoon;
Justly spoke Cynfelyn,
"Prudence is the best guide for man."

Poetry was srs bsns! In the legal codes it was proscribed how many poems a poet was obligated to create for his patron.

I just had the weirdest dream.

I was in a high school class - actually, I think it was my 7th grade English classroom but with random people in it and I think my second World History teacher - and we had to improve poems on the spot based on a random object and incorporate the previous random topics given out. Then, for the final topic, were random historical events. The first one was on Francis Scott Key, and the guy did the entire thing in Spanish, then I had to create a poem on the Constitution - and randomly decided that I could write a sonnet in three minutes on the subject.

I got only to the last quatrain, but my brain spat out when I was waking up:

"so Articles of Confederation that came out of the revolution
was abandoned in favor of our Constitution"

So I'm guessing the rest of the poem was also quite bad, and in no way was in iambic pentameter. = )

Nicking this from hangingfire.

Technically, it's about the Great War.

Not so technically, it's about doing horrible things in the name of religion because you think God told you to do something that when you think of it, that it's not particularly in character for a loving God. Does God have nothing better to do in with His time than give a flying fuck about polyester blends? Is the leisure suit such a sin that you can be stoned to death for wearing one?

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young
Wilfred Owen

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and strops,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.