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The Gododdin
The Gododdin | Gillian Clarke
3 posts | 1 read | 3 to read
The first English translation by a poet of one of Britain's oldest cultural treasures, which captures its compelling 'word-music' The Gododdin charts the rise and fall of 363 warriors in the battle of Catraeth, around the year 600AD. The men of the Brittonic kingdom of Gododdin rose to unite the Welsh and the Picts against the English, only to meet a devastating fate. Composed by the poet Aneirin, the poem was originally orally transmitted as a sung elegy, passed down for seven centuries before being written down by two medieval scribes. It is comprised of one hundred laments to the named characters who fell, and follows a sophisticated alliterative poetics. Former National Poet of Wales Gillian Clarke is the first poet to create a translation. She animates this historical epic with a modern musicality, making it live in the language of today.
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Bookwomble
Bookwomble
The Gododdin | Gillian Clarke
post image

"He fed ravens on the fortress wall
though he was no Arthur.”

- from the Lament for Gwawrddur in "The Gododdin", the earliest known reference to King Arthur.

19 likes
blurb
Bookwomble
Bookwomble
The Gododdin | Gillian Clarke
post image

Early medieval Welsh poet Aneirin's lament for the Brittonic warriors of the kingdom of Gododdin, slain around 600 CE by the invading Angles at the Battle of Catraeth.
Translated by former National Poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke, who I've belated discovered in the last couple of years.
I let out a little yelp of delight when I saw this on the bookshop shelf! 😃
Photo of me nervously ensuring the book didn't need a lament due to falling in the lake!

Graywacke Wow. When was it written? Also nice picture. 3y
Bookwomble @Graywacke Aneirin's original was composed for oral recitation around 600CE, it was written down by two anonymous scribes some time between 700-1100 CE (Wikipedia says academic opinion varies), and this translation by Clarke is as recent as this month 😊 The photo is of the Marine Lake in my home town, Southport, Merseyside (though it was in Lancashire when I was born!). 3y
Graywacke @Bookwomble thanks - and thoroughly fascinating. (I had to look up Southport. My UK geography and pretty limited.) 3y
Bookwomble @Graywacke People in the UK have to look up Southport 🤣 3y
Graywacke @Bookwomble based on the location... I‘m not surprised. 🙂 3y
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quote
cyarwood
cyarwood
The Gododdin | Desmond O'Grady, Aneirin

In might a man, a youth in years,
Of boisterous valour...
Quicker to a field of blood
Than to a wedding
Quicker to a ravens' feast
Than to a burial.

1 like