When is repetition excessive in a poem? The Tasks in Culhwch and Olwen

 The Anoethau in Culhwch and Olwen[i]

This is the second problem sequence I’m working through.  (See previous post for the first.)

In Culhwch ac Olwen, the Giant Ysbaddaden gives Culhwch forty impossible tasks which are referred to by editors and within the text as Anoethau[ii]

After Ysbaddaden stipulates the first task, Culhwch replies:

Hawd yw gennyf gaffel hynny, yd tybyckych na bo hawd.
It is easy for me to get that, though you may think it is not easy.[iii]

 Ysbaddaden responds:

 Kyt Kkffych hynny, yssit ny cheffych.
Though you may get that, there is something you will not get.

 Each subsequent task is wrapped by these lines. So both phrases are repeated approximately forty times, which is repetition driven to excess. Would it be too much to ask of a modern reader?

If anyone knows of a poem that repeats the same 2 lines forty times or more, I’d like to read it.

I was tempted to cut the list of tasks down to only those which are actually performed in the story.

 However.

 Perhaps anachronistically, we can see the strange dialogue that develops in dramatic terms. It is a clash between two characters who have irreconcilable objectives. As a result of this exchange, one of them must die.  Culhwch knows he will never marry anyone except Olwen. He’s been told several times that most men who come on the quest to marry her have been killed.

During their brief meeting, Olwen had given him some advice. Ask for my hand in marriage. Whatever he asks in return, promise you’ll get it. But if he has cause to doubt you, me you won’t get and you’ll be lucky to escape with your life.

Both Culhwch and Ysbaddaden know the latter will die when his daughter gets married. He is understandably inhospitable to any suitor. For unstated reasons, he is compelled to enter into a contract with the suitor and offer him the opportunity to complete an impossible task. If the suitor flinches or fails, the giant can kill him.

So there is obvious conflict. It’s a ‘high stakes’ confrontation.

The dialogue begins with Ysbaddaden stating an obvious impossibility. He wants a field cleared, ploughed, sown and the resultant crop reaped all in one day. Instead of protesting, Culhwch, says: It is easy for me to get that, though you may think it is not easy.

Perhaps wondering if the boy has understood, the giant then explains why it is impossible: you need this man to prepare the field, he won’t do it of his own free will, and you can’t make him. Culhwch repeats his phrase. You also need this man to fix the plough and he won’t come and you can’t make him. And Culhwch, like a naked man in a hailstorm, refusing to flinch, repeats: It is easy for me….

And so on. Things needed for the wedding feast; things needed to shave his beard; dogs, people, horses and things needed to hunt the Twrch Trwyth.

Ysbadadden keeps going, waiting for the boy to crack, and Culhwch stands his ground and repeats the same response. He’s hiding behind it because, of course, he can’t do any of these things. 

As the boy refuses to crack, Ysbaddaden must see his own death coming towards him like a slow train on a very straight track over a very flat landscape

He plays his final card. It’s obvious the boy can’t do any of these things on his own.:

You need Arthur and his men to hunt the great boar. And he won’t come, because he’s my man. (The phrase he uses is ‘he’s in my hand’).

But Culhwch still refuses to flinch, still repeats his mantra. The giant, running out of ideas,  reaches for absurdity, a desperate explosion of nonsense. He’s been pounding away, and now he must realise that he’s been punching the side of a mountain.  

Though you get all that, there’s something you won’t get.
The Twrch Trwyth will never be hunted unless you obtain
Defective, Perfected and Completed,
sons of Broken Sword, grandsons of Perfect Sword
Three shining whites their shields
Three stabbing piercers their spears
Three keen carvers their swords
Their three dogs: Silver, Salmon and Smoky
Their three horses: Sharp, Speedy and Steed
Their three wives: Late Bearer, Ill Bearer and Full bearer
Their three crones: Alas, Scream and Shriek
Their three serving girls: Bad, Worse and Worst of all.
These three men will sound their horns,
And all the others will cry out,
so no one will care if the sky falls in.
I can get that easily enough, although you seem to think I can’t.

 Ysbaddaden makes one final attempt, saying what they both know: 

Sleeplessness without rest you will get in seeking these things,
and you won’t get them, and you won’t get my daughter. 

 But Culhwch, who has already shown he’s not the most tactful or polite of young men, now sticks the boot in:

Horses and hounds I will get.
And Arthur,
my Lord and Kinsman,
will get everything for me.
And I will have your daughter,
and you shall lose your life. 

I’m becoming very pro-giant. 

I think the dialogue has a structural coherence and a dramatic context, but whether that underlying drama is strong enough to carry a reader through the repetition remains to be seen. 

[i] (When I started working through the Tasks I read this  essay, which seems to suggest a similar approach. Dehghani, Fiona. “The Anoetheu Dialogue in Culhwch Ac Olwen.” Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, vol. 26/27, 2006, pp. 291–305. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40732062.)

[ii] GPC offers: wonderful thing, wonder, jewel, treasure; something difficult to obtain or achieve, feat, exploit; wondrous, wonderful, strange, unusual, ?difficult. 

[iii] This is Sioned Davies’ translation.  Other translations are my work in progress.

Is this how Genre works? The tale of the Oldest Animals in Culhwch and Olwen

Does genre work by setting up a tacit bargain with the reader: Some questions are inappropriate? If for general example, you're reading the Grimm's version of Snow White you should not stop and ask what the prince is going to do with the dead girl in the glass coffin when he gets them home. Nor should you try and imagine his arrival at the palace and his parents' reaction. Doing either will kill the story.
Someone who objects to the prince kissing Sleeping Beauty because ‘it’s non consensual’ is making the same mistake.

In Culhwch and Olwen there's the 'Tale of the Oldest Animals' which I've just finished drafting. You have to accept animals can talk and people will understand them. But....the story itself:

Arthur and his men need to find Mabon mab Modron. To do this, they have been told that first they have to find his cousin, Eiddoel mab Eri. They find Eiddoel easily enough, he's being kept prisoner in a place called Gliui by someone with the same name.

Gliui is identified by the editors as Gloucester. Fair enough. Later, after a trek from one 'Oldest animal' to an 'Even older animal' our heroes discover Mabon is being held prisoner in Kaer Loyw, which the editors also identify as Gloucester. 
So they free Eiddoel from the same place they free Mabon, though they go round the Wrekin to achieve this.  I admit I’ve ever noticed this before when reading the story in translation.

Inappropriate, unanswerable questions here?

How can they both be prisoners in the same place? Who is keeping Mabon prisoner? Presumably it’s not Gliui because he's offered Arthur his help and support when he released Eiddoel? Was he lying? Is Arthur at fault for not asking if Gliui knows where Mabon is? Why do they assume that 'No one knows where Mabon is' means, 'Don't ask anyone except an animal'? Why does no-one else on the river hear Mabon lamenting?  Why have they been told they needed Eiddoel to find Mabon when he is sent on the search but contributes nothing to it? 

Why is the episode so satisfying and enjoyable until you start asking these questions? And this is true of so much of Culhwch ac Olwen and medieval literature in general.

Are we back with a specific version of Culler's 'Literary Competence'. The idea that you have to learn to read a literary text as a literary text on its own terms? And with this story, that means trying to learn what those terms are?

Translating Culhwch ac Olwen. Giants, ants and perplexing verbs

 These3 poems were first published in The Brazen Head

https://brazen-head.org/2024/08/19/three-translations-from-culhwch-ac-owen/

Translating Culhwch ac Olwen.
(I.m Michael Alexander)  

In popular films the sexy treasure hunter/archaeologist
(they conflate the two, much to my trowel wielding friends’ dismay)
who’s fluent in every lost forgotten ancient language,
confronting the inscription on the recently uncovered wall,
or gazing at the long lost rediscovered legendary text,
looks, then translates, without a pause, the symbols 
into fluent, idiomatic, contemporary American. 

The reality goes more like this:

 Kilyd son of Kledon Wledic
Wanted a wife as noble as himself.
Here is the woman he wanted.
Goleudyt daughter of Anlawd Wledic. 

So far so good. 

 After they stayed together What? Gwest Ah, see note.
They spent the night together. Is that too direct?
The verb’s related to the one for copulation. 
They came together. After they were married
….bland. After they had slept together,
no, the story teller could have used kysgu gan.
The cruder options? No. Not here. What follows? 

The country went to pray they ?might have? offspring
And they got a child/boy through the prayers of the country.
And from the hour she captured, caught? 
The next word’s definitely ‘pregnant’. Another note. 
‘Became pregnant’ though literally ‘caught pregnancy’.
As though it were an illness, perhaps better than ‘fell pregnant’
which evokes abrupt decline, or woman, falling?
Then she went wild/feral. Another note.
‘She went mad’. Mad or wild is somewhere you go to
in this case beyond the civilised boundaries.
She’s gone mad and won’t come near a building.
Wouldn’t enter a building? 

 And from the time that she was pregnant, 
She went wild and wouldn’t enter any building.
And when her time came, she came to her good sense.
You go mad but come to your senses. The payoff’s here,  
the sudden twist estranging your own language.
You go out of your mind as though it were a car, 
and you could leave it in the car park to return to 
when finished being mad and needed it again. Anyway, 
what’s next? Pigs!? What? We’re up to line 7, only 
one thousand two hundred and thirty eight to go.

May I marry your daughter?

(The giant Ysbaddaden Pencawr knows he will die when Olwen, his beautiful daughter, marries. Understandably, he doesn’t welcome her suitors. But Culhwch has been told that if he doesn’t marry Olwen, he will never marry anyone. He and his six companions set out to ask the giant for her hand in marriage.What isn’t stated but becomes obvious is that the giant can’t be killed until his daughter is married. )

 They killed the nine gatekeepers, 
and not a man cried out.
They killed their nine huge mastiffs;
not one so much as squealed.
And so they came into the hall. 

‘Ysbaddaden Pencawr! Greetings
in the name of God and man!’

 ‘You, where are you going?’

 ‘We seek your daughter, Olwen,
for Culhwch son of Kilyd.’

 ‘Where are those rascal servants?
Where are those ruffians of mine?
Raise up the forks under my eyelids
so I can see my future son in law.’ 

This they did. ‘Come back tomorrow 
I’ll have an answer for you then.’

He had three stone spears beside him,
each tipped with poison.
As they turned to go he seized one 
and flung it after them.
Bedwyr caught it and hurled it back,
piercing the giant through his knee cap. 

‘Cursed savage son in law! 
It will be worse for me when I go downhill.
Like the sting of a gadfly, 
the poisoned iron has hurt me.
Cursed be the smith who made it 
and the anvil on which it was forged.‘                   

They stayed that night at Custennin’s house.
And on the second day, they set out to the hall, 
in majesty, with fine combs in their hair.

 ‘Ysbaddaden Pencawr, 
give us your daughter.
In return for her dowry and marriage fee 
to you and her two kinswomen.
And if we don’t get her from you;
you’ll get your death from us.’ 

‘Her four great-grandmothers 
and her four great-grandfathers 
are still alive. I must consult them.’  

‘You do that. We’ll go eat.’

 He took the second spear 
and hurled it after them.
Menw mab Teirgwaedd 
caught it and threw it back. 
It pierced the centre of his chest 
and sprung out the small of his back. 

‘Cursed savage son in law.
The pain of this hard iron
is like the sting of a horse-leech. 
Cursed be the forge wherein it was heated.
Now, when I go uphill, 
there will be a tightness in my chest,
stomach aches and frequent nausea.’   

They went to their food.

On the third day they came to the court.
‘Ysbaddaden Pencawr, 
stop throwing spears at us.
Do not wish hurt and harm 
and death upon yourself.’ 

‘My eyelids have fallen over my eyeballs-
Where are my servants, raise up the forks
so I may look on my future son in law.’

 They arose, and as they rose,
he took the third spear
and hurled it at them. This time, 
Culhwch caught it and threw it back,
and as he wished, it pierced the eyeball 
went through and out the back of his neck. 

‘Cursed savage son in law.
As long as I live the sight in one eye 
will be worse than the other.
Whenever I walk in the wind it will water.
I’ll have headaches and giddiness 
at the start of each moon.
Cursed be the forge that heated it. 
Worse than the bite of a mad dog 
is the sting of its poisoned iron.’

 Next day they came to the court.
‘Don’t attack us anymore.
You’ll bring hurt and harm 
and martyrdom to yourself.
Give us your daughter.’

 ‘Which one of you was told to seek her?’
‘Me, Culhwch, son of Kilyd.’
‘Come here so I can see you.’ 
A chair was placed under him, 
so they could be face to face.

 ‘Is it you who seeks my daughter?’
‘I do.’ ‘Give me your word 
that you’ll be just?’ ‘I give it.’
‘When you give me what I name, 
then you will have my daughter.’ 

‘Name what you want.’

-------------- 

(Ysbaddaden gives Culhwch forty impossible tasks. This next poem tells how one of them is achieved. Gwythyr is one of Culhwch’s companions.)

The Lame Ant

 As Gwythyr mab Greidawl 
was crossing a mountain, 
he heard lamentations:
a most bitter wailing. 

Dreadful this noise.
He rushed towards it
drawing his sword, 
cutting the anthill 
off at the ground
saving the ants from
the blistering flames.

 ‘God’s blessing and ours upon you,’
they said to him.
‘And that which no man can recover
we will recover for thee.’ 

These were the ants 
who collected the flax,
all the nine hestors
Ysbaddaden demanded. 

But one seed was missing.
Until just before sunset.
it was finally brought in
by the last, limping ant. 

The Court List in Culhwch ac Olwen. What is relevance?

Translating the Court List in Culhwch ac Olwen.

(Quotations from the story are from Will Parker’s annotated translation: http://www.culhwch.info/index.html)

When I began translating Culhwch and Olwen into verse, I knew that my three biggest challenges would be the Court List, the List of Tasks, and the Great Boar Hunt. My problem is to find a way to overcome the challenges they will present to my ‘Model Reader’ who doesn’t read Medieval or Modern Welsh. 
My initial idea was to shorten the tasks to only those which occur in the story, cut the list altogether and keep the hunt to a minimum.
I’m changing my mind about all three. 

The Court List: 

Reasons to cut it.

The temptation to cut the list is strong. It’s essentially a list of names, with attributes attached to some of them. It runs for four pages or two hundred lines of continuous prose in the Bromwich and Evans edition I’m using. The editors count ‘about 260’ names. It begins like this:

he invoked his boon [in the name of] Cai and Bedwyr and Greidol Gallddofyd and Gwythyr son of Greidol and Graid son of Eri and Cynddylig Gyfarwydd and Tathal Twyll Golau and Maelwys son of Baeddan and Cnychwr son of Nes and Cubert son of Daere and Ffercos map Poch and Lluber Beuthach and Corfill Berfach.

If you can’t read Welsh, the obvious problem is pronunciation. 260+/- names that look as though someone spilt alphabet spaghetti on the page. But not only might the pronunciation of Sucgyn mab Sucnedut trip you up, unless you know it means Suck son of Sucker, the humour of the list is lost. 

Bromwich and Evans , discussing the list, suggest. ’But if the whole series of names between lines 175-373 is excised, the tale runs on with greater clarity and smoothness: line 174 being followed immediately by line 374.’ They are right,  of course:

"[The boon] I name is for you to get me Olwen, daughter of Yspaddaden Bencawr, and I invoke it [in the name of] your warriors."

[Delete 200 lines of text]

‘Arthur said "O Chieftain, I have never heard about the maiden of whom you speak, nor her parents. I will send out messengers to search for her gladly." 

Reasons to Include the List:

 Plot isn’t everything. Deciding on what is relevant to a story is not a straight forward process regardless of what your editor claims. Relevant to your reading or mine or to a possible reading neither of us have made? James Joyce and Umberto Eco would have loved it. So what might it do?

 The court list demonstrates the extent of Arthur’s power. It contain men from France, Ireland, Brittany and the Uplands of Hell, as well as bishops, kings and the sons of kings. It contains historical figures, euhemerised characters from earlier myth,  and figures from other story cycles. 

Arthur’s court might be impressive, but we know it falls and the list forcibly reminds us of this by referring to the battle of Camlan. We meet one of the nine men who planned the battle,  and the three men who escaped and Arthur isn’t one of them. Even the mention of Gwyhenever and her sister alludes to the fact that, according to the Triad, Camlan was the result of her sister hitting the queen. There is also the man who will kill Kei, who Arthur will kill in revenge.

 The absurd qualities of some of the heroes are exaggerated exaggerations: the kind I‘d heard growing up: he could eat you out of house and home; he drinks so much his legs must be hollow; he can talk the hind legs off a donkey. So they don’t feel as alien as they might and I enjoy them. But the fact that so many of these names have special skills or qualities, even when the skills and qualities are absurd, emphasises the fact that Culhwch has nothing going for him other than his fine horse, his shiny weapons, and his bad manners. He is out of his depth even before Ysbaddaden stipulates 40 Impossible Tasks. 

The list also reinforces the fact that neither Culhwch nor reader, nor the original audience, are in familiar territory anymore. Once Culhwch has been greeted by the porter we’ve entered a very strange version of the world. There will be giants and witches and talking animals, as well as people who God transformed into animals for their sins. Kei and Bedwyr will hitch a ride on the the shoulders of a talking salmon. By the time you get to the end of the court list, the relative sanity of the opening of the story with its folk tale style familiarity is easily forgotten. The list acts as a portal that normalises the rest of the story. Once we've passed through it, nothing that follows seems strange. 

 You can also feel the story teller working the audience. As he launches into the list, the audience would tense. How long will this go on for? But they will never know what comes next, if it’s serious or ludicrous, and the variation carries them through the surging rhythms of the list. It’s an essential part of the performance that is this story.  

The ‘silly names’ in the list also remind of us of two things. Firstly, there was a time when names did mean something. In this context, making up names has a currency. Secondly, real people had names that to us sound strange. To take a random example from a book on Medieval Hunting by John Cummings:  Jehan Corneprise’ (John blow the death), Jehan Ievre (John Hallo-the-hare) and Huelguillot le Mastiner (Guillot the mastiff man.) (The translations are Cumming’s)

 A similar list of names in Apollonius of Tyre’s poem on the Argonauts is a dull catalogue. The list in Culhwch is varied, entertaining and if not laugh out loud funny often amusingly demented

 Given it does so much according to my reading, it seems worth the risk that is might alienate my non Welsh speaking Model Reader. The Court List stays. Whether in slightly abbreviated form or in full remains to be seen. 

Translating 'Culhwch and Olwen'

Culhwch arrives at Arthur’s court, though this scene should be taking place inside the hall….

I’m ‘translating’ the medieval Welsh prose of Culhwch and Olwen into a modern English verse sequence. First attempts are now published on David Cooke’s The High Window.

You can read them by clicking on this link:

Seven Extracts from Culhwch ac Olwen

Second group is published at The Brazen Head:
https://brazen-head.org/2024/08/19/three-translations-from-culhwch-ac-owen/