Two bardic themes: the Virgin and Child, and Ave-Eva.

Breeze, Andrew

In early Welsh poetry, two Marian themes are treated with remarkable originality: the Virgin and Child, in poems before c. 1300; and, in later poems, the play on Eva and the Ave of Gabriel's greeting to Mary at the Annunciation. Since Welsh poetry develops these themes in such an unusual way, an account of them should interest students of mediaeval spirituality, iconography, poetry (in English and other languages) and even literary theory, as well as Celticists.

The Virgin and Child

Friar Madog ap Gwallter's poem on Christ's Nativity, Mab a'n rhodded (|A Son was given'), has been widely admired.(1) Often called the |earliest Christmas carol' in Wel;sh (though it lacks the refrain of a true carol), its |freshness' and |atmosphere of the early Franciscan world' have led to the belief that Madog was an early Franciscan.(2) The fact that Madog's poem shares motifs with thirteenth-century English poems (written probably by friars) strengthens this case, even if the |Franciscan spirit' did not end in 1300, or lack precursors before 1200.(3)

The first friary in Wales was founded by 1242.(4) This gives a terminus a quo for Madog, since it is agreed that he was a friar. His terminus ad quem is given by Cardiff, Central Library, MS 2.611 (c.1275-1325), if he is the |Frater Walensis madocus edeirnianensis' whose Latin hexameters figure there; if not, by the Red Book of Hergest (c. 1400), the earliest manuscript containing his Welsh poems. Arguments for dating Madog to c. 1250, on the basis of a statement by Dr John Davies of Mallwyd (c. 1567-1644), and for considering him a Franciscan, are strengthened by this apparent knowledge of Sawles Warde, a text copied by Hereford Franciscans about then, but not circulating after 1300.(5)

The date of Madog's career has implications for English poetry. No Middle English poem (Franciscan or otherwise) on Christ's Nativity is known before 1372, when John of Grimestone compiled his preaching book.(6) It has thus been assumed that nativity lyric was a late form due to the influence of miracle plays, where the Nativity was detached from its liturgical season. But the danger of arguing from such negative evidence, and the possibility of a |find' from the thirteenth century transforming the picture, have been noted.(7) If Madog's poem was written before 1300, as seems to be the case, it is the |find' Anglicists have been waiting for. It suggests that vernacular Nativity lyric existed in Britain at an early date, that it had nothing to do with the drama, and that it was the work of the friars.

Madog's poem on the Nativity has unusual stylistic interest. Despite alleged simplicity and homeliness, it contains the ancient European paradox of God's humility, of the divine king born in a stable:(8)

 Ych ac assen, Arglwyd pressen, presseb pieu;
 A sopen weir yn lle kadeir y'n lliw kadeu.
 Pali ny mynn, nyt vryael gwynn y gynhynneu;
 Yn lle syndal ygkylch y wal gwelit carpeu.

(An ox and an ass, the Lord of this world, a manger is his; bundle of hay instead of a cradle for our Lord of hosts. No silk he wishes, no splendid fabrics are his for covers: instead of linen about his bedstead, one saw but tatters.)(9)

A Franciscan would naturally stress the pathos of the scene: significantly, it is absent from the earlier Welsh lyric on the Virgin and Child discussed below."(10) But in Latin poetry the theme itself is as old as the hymn Agnoscat omne saeculum by Venantius Fortunatus (c. 530-609).

Praesepe poni pertulit, Qui lucis auctor exstitit, Cum patre caelos condidit, Sub matre pannos induit.(11)

(He allowed himself to be laid in a manger, he who showed himself creator of the world, he who created the heavens with his Father is wrapped in swaddling in the arms of his mother.)

Smaragdus (fl. 809-19), of Saint-Mihiel-sur-Meuse near Verdun, expresses the idea more boldly:

Qui totum mundum vestit ornatu, pannis vilibus involvitur ... per quem omnia facta sunt, manus pedesque cunis astringitur ... cuius coelum sedes est, duri praesepis angustia continet.(12)

(He who adorned the whole universe, is wrapped in mean swaddling ... he through whom all things were made, is bound hand and foot in a cradle ... he whose throne is the heavens, is contained within the narrowness of a roughly made crib.)

A Middle English snatch puts the theme into three lines, laying less stress on the paradox, more on the pathos of an ox's stall as |royal throne', and on St Mary as all the servants this king has:

Of one stable was his halle, His kenestol on occe stalle, Sente Marie his burnes all.(13)

The verse, written down in the Worcester-Hereford region c. 1255-60 in a friars' preaching-book (now Cambridge, Trinity College, MS 323), can be linked with Madog's poem. Both dwell on the pathos of the Incarnation; both place delicate emphasis on the Virgin Mary. Madog's picture of an infant king without silks, splendid fabrics or linen is paralleled by another poem in Trinity MS 323, on the Three Kings, which declares that the Lord who made us all wore neither ermine nor grey fur:

Ne werede he nouther fou ne grey The loverd that us alle havet iwroust.(14)

The Virgin Mary's role in Madog's poem accords with the sophisticated simplicity of the above topoi. In the account of how the Magi found Jesus in the stable, the images of the royal hall lacking door and enclosure and of a divine king as a baby fed by his mother maintain the paradox of the Incarnation:

 Y'r ty yd ant, heb dor, heb gant, gwynnawc dryssev:
 Y Mab ydoed a anydoed dan y nodeu,
 A'e vam ar lawr a'e bronn werthuawr wth y eneu.(15)

(To the house they went, no rampart, no door, wind-battered doorways: the Son, there he was, the one who was born under its shelter, mother on the ground with her precious breast held next to his lips.)(16)

Stark insistence on the poverty of the birthplacc suggests the work of a Franciscan. But the allusion to the Virgin is no new thing, since devotion to the lactatio goes back to |Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the breasts which thou didst suck' of Luke xi.27. This theme recurs in poems by Bede, Hrabanus Maurus, Bernard of Cluny and Peter the Venerable, as also the Psatter of pseudo-Bonaventure, which speaks of the holy breast repeatedly.(17) Madog's |simplicity' here thus uses ancient literary motifs.

Madog's skill is more easily grasped when we turn to the opening lines of an anonymous religious poem (?twelfth-century) in Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales, MS Llanstephan 27 (c. 1400), the |Red Book of Talgarth' (on the translation of bru as |breast, bosom', see the discussion below):

Meckyt Meir mab yn y bru, Mat ganet y'r a'e kanvu, Llwybyr huan llydan y deulu.

Meckyt Meir mab yn y chynnes, Mat ganet y'r a'e gweles, Llwybyr huan llydan y drachwres.

Meckyt Meir mab aduwyndawt, Duw penn, perchen pob kiwdawt, Y that, y neirthyat, y brawt.

Meckyt Meir mab ac urdyn y arnaw, Ny threis neb y deruyn, Kein gyfreu, nyt ieu, nyt hyn.

Ny wyr ny bo kyfarwyd Ual y deiryt Meir y Gulwyd, Y mab, y that, y harglwyd.

Gwnn ual y deiryt Meir, kyt bwyf daerawl prud, Y'r Drindawt ysprydawl, I mab a'e brawt knawdawl, A'e that, arglwyd mat meidrawl.(18)

(Mary fosters a child at her breast, fortunate his birth to those who found him, his host wide-stretching as the course of the sun. Mary fosters a child in her bosom, fortunate his birth to those who saw him, his anger wide-stretching as the course of the sun. Mary fosters a child of beauty, the Lord God, who possesses every nation, her father, her strengthener, her brother. Mary fosters a child with glory upon him, none crosses his boundary; fair words, neither younger, nor older. Hc does not know who is no scholar how Mary is of kin to God, her son, her father, her lord. I know, though I am but a shamefaced mortal, how Mary is kin to the spiritual Trinity, to her son and her brother in the flesh, and her father, the Lord who blesses and controls.)

The lines are more archaic than those of Madog. They use the device of incremental repetition, found in the very earliest Welsh poetry of c. 600.(19) Though tenderness is not absent, the emphasis is on power and glory. The Llanstephan poem says nothing of the details of miscrable squalor at Bethlehem (hay for a bed, rags for linen, and an icy draught of night air blowing in with no door to stop it) which Madog provides. Far from dwelling on the humility of the Incarnation, it speaks rather of how extcnsive is the Christ Child's host (his teulu or |warband'), of his ineluctable anger, his legal possession of all nations, and his domain on which none trespasses; and, as regards the Virgin, on her power and status in having God as her kin. It well reflects a society where armed rctinues, rights over communities, trespass, and the standing of one's kindred were no small matter. The phrase none crosses his boundary' is a striking expression of this. Treisio, here translated cross', has a basic meaning of |vanquish, oppress, violate'. Trespass in the Middle Ages usually led to a brawl or worse, and attempts to sequestrate land were endemic; hence the poet's curious expression for tl.e might of the Christ Child, that he is one on whose domain no man encroaches. The Llanstephan poem presents Virgin and Child as quasi-feudal figures, with rights expressed in terms of kinship and legal possession.

Against this, Madog presents a picture of a red-cheeked baby helpless and poor, and now called our father and brother. The hymn Dulcis Iesu memoria (of English Cistercian origin, c. 1200) had declared that the memory of Jesus was sweet, giving unalloyed joys to the heart, but that his presence was sweeter than honey and all things. Madog echoes this language, saying it is honey to think of thc infant Emmanuel, lofty and lowly. Finally, Madog glories in describing a Christ Child found in winter poverty, the Virgin sitting on the floor, her precious breast close to her baby's lips. The contrast between the Llanstephan poem and Madog's mirrors the revolutionary religious changes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.(20)

The Llanstephan poem reflects the stiff, hierarchical qualities of a Virgin and Child in Romanesque art, with Jesus enthroned with symbols of power and wisdom on the knee of his mother. Though not lacking beauty or dignity, it is easily contrasted with Madog's poem. Yet in one respect it does look forward to Madog, in the lines |Meckyt Meir mab yn y bru' and |Meckyt Meir mab yn y chynnes'.

The word bru is here translated |breast, bosom' rather than |womb', since what is unusual in this context is the verb meckyt. The verb magu means 'rear, nurture, nourish; to nurse, hold (a baby, etc.) in the arms'. Though apparently not used in the sense |to suckle, to give the breast to', it nevertheless indicates the intimate bond of mother and child. The context of fortunate birth and analogies in art suggest that the Child has been born, and is being presented by his mother for adoration.

Now, the representation in art of the Virgin suckling her Child has been described by R. W. Southern as unknown in Western Europe before the twelfth century, when it appears in a Tree of Jesse in Dijon, Bibliotheque municipale, MS 641, produced at Citeaux c. 1110-20. The appeal to the emotions by this Cistercian manuscript is echoed in meditations on the Madonna and her baby by Eadmer and other disciples of St Anselm (1033-1109).(21) It is thus possible to link this detail in the Llanstephan poem with the warmer devotion to thc Virgin spread by Cistercians and others during the twelfth century; if so, an eleventh-century date for the poem could be ruled out. It could well bc dated after 1140, when a colony from Clairvaux (daughter house of Citeaux) reached Trefgarn, near Haverfordwest, moving in 1151 to Whitland, and leading to the foundation of further monasteries at Cwm-hir (1143), Ystrad-fflur (1164), Cymer (1176) and Aberconwy (1186). The Red Book of Talgarth verses could even be the work of a Cistercian at one of these houses in the wilder, remoter parts of pura Walia, where they gained the confidence of the native Welsh in the way other monasteries in Wales, recruiting non-Welsh monks, did not.(22) Hence, perhaps, a Welsh poem due to their influence. Such a reference to the Virgin might also exclude a provenance in an older Welsh religious community like St Davids, which clung to older forms of devotion. In one of his poems, Master John of St Davids (fl. before 1148 - after 1176) describes the Virgin as a rose amongst thorns, an epithet more reverent than novel, as it goes back to Caelius Sedulius in the fifth century. Even though intimate representations of Virgin and Child figuring amongst the relics of St Cuthbert ([dagger] 687) and the Hiberno-Saxon Book of Kells (later eighth century) have been related to Coptic influences on Irish and Northumbrian Christianity, the expression 'Meckyt Meir mab yn y bru' is more easily seen as reflecting not the old devotion of the seventh or eighth century, but the new one of the twelfth.(23)

When we return to Madog's poem, we find his second reference to the Blessed Virgin in the last lines of the poem, which speak of her power to assist mankind. Madog calls Christmas a blessed time when a son, 'each Pope's Sovereign', was born 'of a Lady who fashions our good, guards us from torments, and prepares our place in the fairest land as our recompense':(24)

 O Arglwydes a wna yn lies, a'n llud poenau,
 Ac a'n gwna lle yn tecca bre yg gobrwyeu.(25)

The Virgin is able to help us, save us from damnation, and prepare us a place in heaven. Her power in doing so reminds us of the Llanstephan poem, but there are fundamental differences between the two. The power of the Virgin in the earlier poem is entirely implicit. The poet does not ask for her help; she is quite passive; emphasis is rather on the might and glory of her Son, Brother and Father. The honour that the Virgin has comes solely from her illustrious kinship.

But in the closing lines of Madog's poem attention turns from the Christ Child to his mother, who now has an active and explicit role as our intercessor now and at the Last judgement. Madog's poem can be compared in this with Irish evidence from the eighth century onwards. The Hiberno-Latin hymn Cantemus in omni die by Cu Chuimne of lona ([dagger]747) declares:

Amen, Amen, adiuramus

merita puerperae,

Ut non possit flamma pyrae

nos dirae decerpere.(26)

(Amen, Amen, we invoke the merits of the mother, so that the blaze of fearful hell may not be able to gather us in.)

The eleventh-century Irish poem A Maire min, maithingen provides a whole litany of invocation to the Blessed Virgin:

Gentle Mary, good maiden, give us help, thou casket of the Lord's body and shrine of all mysteries. Queen of all who reign, thou chaste holy maiden, pray for us that, through thee, our wretched transgression be forgiven. Merciful, forgiving one who hast the grace of the pure Spirit, join us in entreating the just-judging King on behalf of his fair fragrant children. O branch of Jesse's tree from the fair hazel-grove, pray for me that I have forgiveness of my wrongful sin.

The poet goes on to address Mary as one who has |saved our race', asking her to pray to her Firstborn |that he save me at Judgement', calling her |safeguard to glorious Heaven', and so on.(27)

In Eastern Christianity the cult of the Blessed Virgin as advocate, helper and mediatrix developed relatively early. Ephraem the Syrian ([dagger]373), Gregory of Nazianzus ([dagger]389), John Chrysostom ([dagger]407), Cyril of Alexandria ([dagger]444), and John of Damascus ([dagger]c. 750) defended various aspects of it; but in the West we have no more than brief remarks of Irenaeus ([dagger]c. 202), Ambrose and Augustine. Only in the eighth century did a devotion to the Virgin as |door of heaven and hope of all Christians' become widespread in the Latin Church, with the writings of Ambrose of Autpert ([dagger]784) and Paul the Deacon ([dagger]799). These two had strong links with Benevento, near Naples, and their Marian zeal may have been quickened by Greek influences in southern Italy. In expounding a case for the Virgin as intercessor, Ambrose and Paul made possible the work of St Bernard of Clairvaux ([dagger]1153) who, above all, gave impetus to the cause of Maria advocata nostra.(28)

The Llanstephan poet does not here invoke the assistance of the Virgin; Madog does. Yet the texts from Ireland, Scotland and the east Mediterranean show Madog was doing nothing new in asking the Virgin to help save men from hell and grant them a place in heaven. Even his vocative Arglwyddes |Lady' indicates no innovation. The translation of the antiphon O mundi Domina in the Exeter Book poem Christ I calls the Virgin |hlaefdige halgum meahtum / wuldorweorudes, ond worldcundra' (|lady by holy powers of the glorious host and of this world'), and the title domina had long been familiar in patristic sources and hymns.(29)

Analysis of Marian elements in the Llanstephan poem on the Virgin and Child, and that by Madog on the Nativity, thus reveals a complex picture. The Llanstephan poem, perhaps of the later twelfth century, stresses the power and glory of the Child Jesus, and of the honour accruing to his mother through kinship with him. It does not mention God's humiliation in becoming man; on the contrary, it talks of Mary's elevation as theotokos, Mother of God. Although this last is a concept familiar to Latin and Greek Christianity alike, the working-out of its implications and stress on the Virgin's multiple kinship with God would have been readily understood. in Celtic society. Emphasizing the Child, in no way invoking the Virgin's aid, its reference to her as nursing Jesus in her bosom may be an aspect of the twelfth-century humanizing by Cistercians and others of Marian devotion.

If the Llanstephan poem is of the twelfth century, Madog's is probably of the thirteenth. Though containing themes characteristic of that century, such as emphasis on the absolute poverty of the Holy Family, it tends rather to present traditional themes in a new way. Madog explores the wonder of the Incarnation, like Fortunatus and Smaragdus before him and others since; but Madog dwells on the weakness of the newborn baby, frail, tiny and redcheeked. Madog places the lactatio of Bede and Peter the Venerable not in a setting of glory, but in the context of a pauper mother and her baby. Even if his closing plea for the Virgin's intercession shows awareness of her power, it has implications different from those of the Llanstephan poem. There the Virgin is revered as one with power, the Mother of God; but in Madog's poem she is seen as a loving mother who cares for us.

|Ave', Eva and the Blessed Virgin

A common feature of mediaeval texts is wordplay on the Ave of Gabriel's greeting to the Virgin Mary, and the name Eva. Eva brought sorrow to mankind, but Ave at the Annunciation brought joy. This palindrome, variously developed throughout Europe, received special attention in Wales, where Ave became part of a rationale for poetry.

The contrast of Eve and Mary, dating from St Justin Martyr and St Irenaeus of Lyon in the second century, is standard in the Fathers.(30) However, the anonymous hymn Ave maris stella is the first text known as playing on Ave and Eva:

Sumens illud Ave

Gabrielis ore,

Funda nos in pace,

Mutans nomen Evae.

(Receiving that |Ave' from the lips of Gabriel, establish us in peace, changing

Eva's name.)(31)

Ave maris stella was known in England early: it appears in London, British Library, MS Add. 37517, the |Bosworth Psalter' written in the late tenth century, probably at Christ Church, Canterbury, or perhaps Westminster Abbey. The hymn figured later in the Sarum Rite and Little Hours of the Virgin, becoming familiar to millions of mediaeval Christians. It first occurs in a manuscript of the ninth century from Sankt Gallen, Switzerland, and may be no older than that.(32) Of the verse quoted above there are many Latin imitations.(33)

When we turn from Latin texts with Ave-Eva wordplay to English ones, we find the oldest verse instance in the thirteenth-century song Of on that is so fayr and bright, where a Latin context remains strong:

Al this world was forlore

Eva peccatrice

Tyl our lord was ybore

De te genitrice;

With Ave it went away,

Thuster nyth, and com the day

Salutis.(34)

The poem, in North Midland or Northern dialect, is found in a thirteenth-century hand in London, British Library, MS Egerton 613, and in Cambridge, Trinity College, MS 323, a collection of preaching material compiled (probably by friars) in the Worcester-Hereford area c. 1255-60.

A determined effort to bring the topos fully into English occurs in Heyl, leuedy, se stoerre bryht, a translation of Ave maris stella:

Thylk |aue' that thou vonge in spel

Of the aungeles mouth kald Gabriel

In gryht ous sette and shyld vrom shome

That turnst abakward Eues nome.(35)

This was written by WiLliam Herebert ([dagger]1333), Franciscan of Hereford. His translation can be compared with another in a preaching-book (now Oxford, Merton College, MS 248) of Bishop Sheppey of Rochester ([dagger]1360):

taket an that ilke gretyn vncowthe

that the was sayd of Gabriel mowthe,

settand man in pes ful fane,

tornand the name of heue a-gayne.(36)

A later fourteenth-century instance occurs in an ambitious acrostic poem on the Ave Maria in Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg.4.32 (probably once the possession of a cleric), where implications of the topos are drawn out:

Wymmen weren alle ischente,

In thraldom helde and onworthlie,

Thorgh eue that the deuel blente,

What iesu crist with his maistrie

Tho lettres of hire name wente,

And made of eua aue marie,

And clansing sente

To wymmen of ech vileinie.(37)

At the other extreme, the refrain of a fifteenth-century carol puts the idea in a nutshell:

Nova, nova:

|Aue' fit ex |Eua'.(38)

A variant version of the theme appears in fifteenth-century English drama, in the N-town cycle (in East Anglian dialect), where Gabriel, etymologizing Ave as |A vae', greets the Virgin with the words:

Heyl fful of grace, God is with the,

Amonge all women blyssyd art thu.

Here this name Eva is turnyd Aue:

That is to say withowte sorwe ar ye now.(39)

An even more elaborate working-out of the theme occurs in The Myroure of Oure Ladye, an anonymous devotional tract written in the earlier fifteenth century for the Bridgettine nuns of Syon, near Isleworth, Middlesex.(40) Finally, the ghost of the Ave-Eva locution lurks in Paradise Lost, v.385-7, in reference to Eve:

on whom the angel |Hail'

Bestowed, the holy salutation used

Long after to blest Mary, second Eve.(41)

When we turn from English to continental languages, we find that whereas English often uses the topos clumsily, French elaborates it with finesse. An early example is used by Gautier de Coinci (1177-1236), monk at Saint-Medard de Soissons, later Prior of Vic-sur-Aisne.(42) By the time we reach Huon le Roi of Cambrai (c. 1250), in his Li |Ave Maria' en Roumans, the theme is being used with elan:

Pour EVA fu li mons plains d'ire,

Mais AVE joie nous raporte:

Pour AVE ovri Dius la porte

De paradis, qui fourbatue

Fu lonc tans, par coi fu batue

Mainte ame par devens enfer.(43)

With this we can compare lines in Dame des Cius by Guillaume le Vinier ([dagger]1245), one of a circle of writers at Arras in Artois, which read Ave as a vae |from woe':

Mout nous troubla

Cele que Diex forma,

Nom ot Eva,

Par li estiens dampne.

Par la bonte

La Virgene od saintee

Diex ot pite,

La lettre retorna,

Avant mist A,

Et au daerrain ve,

Pour Eva dist Ave,

Par quoi somes sauve.(44)

Watriquet de Couvin, a Liegeois writing near Namur in the early fourteenth century, used the theme with sophisticated rhyming:

Eve nous empetra l'ave

qui le pechie d'Adam lava

et nous geta d'enfer la bas

qui n'en est purgiez ne lave.(45)

In Provencal, Lanfranc Cigala ([dagger] 1257 or 1258), a Genoese who was an unlikely combination of magistrate, ambassador, merchant and poet, contrasted Eve (who assented to the word of Satan) with the Virgin Mary (who assented to the word of God):

Eva ac nom l'enemia;

el contradig

segon l'escrig

ditz hom: |Ave' Maria.

Tot so qu'Eva desvia,

Maire de Dieu,

ave' torn' en la Via.(46)

In Spain the motif appears in Portuguese-Galician dialect in the Cantigas de Santa Maria of Alfonso the Wise, king of Castile and Leon 1252-84. Between Ave and Eva there is great contrast, because Eva deprived us of Paradise and God, but Ave gave them back:

Entre Av'e Eva

gran departiment' a.

Ca Eva nos tolleu

o Parays', e Deus Ave nos y meteu; porend', amigos meus, Entre Ave Eva.(47)

The theme even occurs in recent Catalan poetry, in the sonnet El Seny de Mon, on how the ancient word of the angelic greeting renewed Eve's hopes:

Del mot antic l'adverament angelic rejoveneix les esperances d'Eva.(48)

When we move from Spain to Wales, we find the first Welsh bard to use the topos was Gruffudd ap Maredudd (fl-1352-82).(49) He had an interesting cultural background. An Anglesey landowncr, he wrote praise-poems to ancestors of the Tudor dynasty, as well as a fine poem to the Chester Rood.(50) He uses the Ave-Eva topos in the opening lines of a Marian poem:

Merch mam veir o diweir waet chwaer yth dat o rat eiryoet eva wyr y aue wyt regina anroes eneit.(51)

(Virgin and mother in pure blood, ever sister to your Father in grace, you are an Eva bent back to Ave, queen who gave us life.)

More remarkable is Gruffudd's use of the theme for a complete poem:

Teir llythyren wenn windut an duc ynghyvyrgoll gollet a their veir o vawr garyat an duc nef on dygyn ovit Teir veir oleugreir a vawrlygrawd - byt o lythyr bryt wyt wahawd A their o nef uthur y nawd oe gwiw rat an gwaredawd E.v.a. bu pla ym pob plas yn bwrw y berigyl gyweithyas A.v.e. urdedic urdas an duc yn veith o geith gas Goleu vyd veir vam geli golwc ratlawn heb gelu gofwy nef oed dec ave goual vu aual eua Da y gwnaeth ryd o gaeth drwy goeth gannwyll wyry wirion heul y doeth bwyll o ual amyl aual amhwyll aue dec rac eua dwyll."

(Three fair letters in paradise brought us total loss in perdition; and three, Mary, out of great love brought us heaven from our sore affliction. Three, Mary, light's holy treasure, that made great spoil of the world, through a letter that invited the mind to sin; and three ftom heaven of awesome protection out of its excellent grace saved us. E.v.a. was plague in every place, casting mankind into peril; a.v.e., noble honour, brought us at length from a hateful bond. A light is Mary, mother of the Lord, a sight full of grace without concealment; a visitation from heaven was fair ave, but sorrow was Eva's apple. Well did the sun of her wise discretion make bondmen frec, through the fair candle of a pure Virgin, from the great tax of folly's apple: a fair Ave against deceitful Eva.)

The theme is used by another Anglesey poet and household bard to the Tudurs of Penmynydd, Gruffudd Fychan ap Gruffudd ab Ednyfed Fychan. It now seems accepted that Gruffudd Fychan wrote c. 1370-90 rather than c. 1320.(53) He uses the topos in a metrical expansion of the Ave Maria beginning |Anrec wladeid nys treid traet', which tells how man, despite condemnation by Eve's folly, was redeemed by the Annunciation. The Ave-Eva topos occurs in the lines:

Aue rac mawrdrwc aual Maria eua ovul Geireu gobrwyeu gabriel Gracia Iles awna yn ol.(54)

(Ave, against the great misfortune, Maria, of foolish Eve's apple, Words, the gifts of Gabriel, Gracia, benefited us after.) But the most remarkable use of the motif comes in a poem by Rhys Goch Eryri (fl. c. 1385 - c. 1448), a native of Snowdonia who was buried at Beddgelert. In c. 1425-30 Rhys engaged in mild literary skirmishing with Llywelyn ap Moel y Pantri ([dagger] 1440) Of Llanwnnog, north of Caersws on the upper Severn." In one poem from the controversy (which has the air of a Christmas game), Rhys defends awen (poetic gift, genius or inspiration, muse) by identifying the first three letters of the Welsh word with the Ave of Gabriel's salutation, and the last letter with the n of nef |heaven'. For Rhys, the muse thus has the same nature as the Holy Spirit, and the inspiration of the bards in praising the great ones of the world therefore comes from heaven - and not, as the bard Si6n Cent discordandy riposted, from hell.(56) In a poem beginning |Dewrddrud Lywelyn daerddraig', Rhys says in reply to Llywelyn:

Pond a ac u, gu gywir, O gun wawd, ac e yn wir A roes Duw, o'i ras y del, Er gobr yng ngenau Gabriel? A Gabriel yn air gobraff, Da gwn gred, a'i dug yn graff O'r nef gatholig ar naid, Fawr gynnydd, ar Fair gannaid. Ysbryd, Tad urddad eurddellt, Glan, a Mab goleuni mellt, O'r tair Ilythyren, air teg, Byw fireinryw fu'r anrheg. Drwy unrhyw lythr, dro iawnrodd, A'n balch gelfyddyd o'n bodd, Yr ysgrifennir, wir wen, Da pyrth Duw, deuparth d'awen; A rhan o henw, Fenw faenol, A nef gyda hynny'n ol, Gwrdd ennill, gerddau anian; Ac am hyn, Lywelyn lan, Doedaist, y diau wawdydd, Yn eglur, ffyrf fesur ffydd, Mur uchder mydr mawr, echdoe, Ym iawn ddysg am awen ddoe, Enaid y beirdd, onid bod, Gorau Beibl, gair heb wybod. Gwrdd yr atebaist deg iach A huawdl ymy haeach, Daith ddifagl y doeth Efa O nef ddoe am na fai dda. Felly doeth awen gennym, Gwrdd ras, yn fam y gerdd rym.(57)

(My friend, are not a and e fine poetry, that God gave truly (may it come ftom his grace) for recompense in the mouth of Gabriel? And well do I know the doctrine that in an instant Gabriel, as the mighty Word, brought it, great blessing, steadfastly ftom faithful heaven in an instant to radiant Mary. The Father, exalted, gold-rodded, the Son, light of thunderbolts, and Holy Spirit: from the three letters of fair greeting the gift was beautiful and alive. Through the same letters at the moment of a just gift and our proud art with our assent, there is written down fit and true (well does God give help) the two portions of your awen, and a share of the name, O landed Menw, with heaven after that, mighty gains, songs of nature. And on this, my dear Llywelyn, you said the day before yesterday as a true poet and clearly, as a sure measure of faith and high bulwark of great verse, fitting teaching concerning the awen yesterday, that the soul of poets, until it is a word without knowledge, is the best Bible. You have answered me fairly, well, eloquently and almost completely. A perfect message came from heaven yesterday because Eva' sinned; and so the awen came to us, a fine grace, as mother of mighty song.)

Although the theory of poetry set out here is well known to Celticists, it deserves attention ftom others as a unique defence of poetic inspiration.

58

The Ave-Eva topos remained popular in fifteenth-century Wales, as is shown by an anonymous Marian poem of the school of Hywel Swrdwal, perhaps the bailiff of Newtown, Powys, in 1454-6:

Gabriel, drwy loywdeg wybren, Anfones i santes wen Afe, am bechod Efa; A Mair a'i dug, mawr ei da."

Gabriel, through bright heavens, addressed to this holy saint Ave, for sinful Eva; Mary bore that, great her grace.)(60) Association of Ave the Virgin was so familiar to the bards that Guto'r Glyn (fl. c. 1440 - c. 1493), in a poem of after c. 1980 thanking Dean Fichard Kyffin of Bangor for a rosary, alludes to the word as her 'three letters':

Mae Mair, a'i thair Ilythyren, Mae'r Mab Rhad mawr ymhob pren."

(There is Mary and her three letters, there is the great Son of Grace in every bead.)

It is curious that |three letters' for Gabriel's Ave is paralleled in Middle High German, and still survives in a modern German proverb, Drei Buchstaben machen uns eigen und frei'.(62)

Expert use of the topos is made by Dafydd ab Edmwnd (fl. 1450-90), poet and gendeman of Hanmer, Flintshire, in the opening lines of a Marian poem:

Mair em ddiwair mam dduw ion mawr enw wyd ir morynion yth ovyn i dauth avi yn gennad duw tad i ti Eva an dyg i ovyn avi o honod ti an tynn di ryvedd wedyr avi duw vab duw yw dy vab di"

(Mary, immaculate gem, mother of the Lord God, a great name are you amongst virgins. To ask you there came Ave as a message from God the Father to you. Eva led us into fear; but your Ave rescues us. Small wonder that, after Ave, God the Son of God is your son.)

The above survey suggests certain conclusions. First, it indicates how widespread Ave-Eva wordplay was in mediaeval poetry. The above list of examples can no doubt be added to. Secondly, it reveals misunderstandings in standard works. It has been claimed that thc wordplay is found in the writings of many Latin fathers' and that its later mediaeval popularity probably arose through its occurrence in the Latin writings of St Bernard of Clairvaux'.(64) Yet both statements are unfounded. The topos is not patristic; and its popularity is due to Ave maris stella, as translations indicate.

Finally, the material above modifies one editor's condemnation of such Latin clichds, |subject to sfight variations in wording which in no way hft them out of the class of pious commonplace', occurring in mediaeval English carols. Declaring it would be as useless as it would be dull to reproduce here the catalogue of these Latin expressions', described as uninspired' and showing lack of distinction', he cites Ave fit ex Eva as first of them."

But the use of the expression by Gruffudd ap Maredudd and Rhys Goch Eryri shows that what in English is dull, is in Welsh the opposite. Rhys Goch Eryri uses the topos in debate for a crucial purpose: to justify his role as professional poet. His use of the Ave-Eva topos thus does more than show mediaeval Latin influence on the vernacular. It shows the bards able to extract powerful arguments from unpromising material, producing a nimble, serious verse debate on poetry and the role of the poet, which would be famous if it had not been written in a minority language such as Welsh.

NOTES

(1) Hen Gerddi Crefyddol, ed. Henry Lewis (Cardiff, 1931), PP. 105-7. (2) Ibid., p. xiv; The Dictionag of Wlelsh Biography (London, 1959), p. 607; The Oxford Book of irlelsh Verse, ed. Thomas Parry (Oxford, 1962), p. 43; J. E. C. Williams, |Beirdd y Tywysogion: Arolwg', Llen Cymru, II (1970-1), 3-94 (p.93), and Canu Crefyddol y Gogynfeirdd (Abertawe, 1977), PP. 35, 39 n. 52; The Early English Carols, ed. R. L. Greene, znd edn (Oxford, 1977), pp. xxxii-xxxiii. (3) On pre-Franciscan affective devotion, see Early Itish Lyrics, ed. Gerard Murphy (Oxford, 1956), pp. 26-9; Yrjo Hirn, The Sacred Shrine (London, 19 58), p. 261; The Life of Christina of Markyate, ed. C. H. Talbot (Oxford, 1959), p. 118; Rosemary Woolf, The English) Religious Lyric in the Middle Ages (Oxford, i 96 8), pp. I 44- 5; and Douglas Gray, Themes and Images in the Medieval English Religious Lyric (London, 1972), pp. 22-3. (4) Glanmor Williams, The Welsh Churchfrom Conquest to Reformation Cardiff, i 962), P. 21. (5) Early Middle English Verse and Prose, ed. J. A. W. Bennett and G. V. Smithers Oxford, 1966), p. 420; E. J. Dobson, The Origins of |Ancrene Wisse' (Oxford, 1976), pp. 293-9, 421; N. R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, II (Oxford, 1977), pp. 357-8. (6) Edward Wilson, A Descriptive Index of the English Lyrics in John of Grimestone's Preaching Book (Oxford, 1973). (7) Woolf, The English Religious Lyric, p. 148; Gray, Themes and Images, p. 263 n. 60. (8) Woolf, The English Religious Lyric, p. 153; Gray, Themes and Images, pp. 107-9, 262-3; A Selection of Religious Lyrics, ed. Douglas Gray (Oxford, 1975), pp. 103-4. (9) Hen Gerddi Crefyddol, ed. Lewis, p. 105; The Earliest Welsh Poetry, trans. J. P. Clancy (London, 1970), p. 163. (10) Hen Gerddi Crefyddol, ed. Lewis, pp. 17-18; and cf. Llyfr Du Caerfyrddin, ed. A. O. H. Jarman (Cardiff, 1982), pp. Ivi-lvii. (11) Poisie latine chritienne du moyen dge, ed. Henry Spitzmuller (Bruges, 1971), p. 200. (12) PL, CII, col. 25. (13) Gray, Themes and Images, p. 107; Religious Lyrics, ed. Gray, p. 7. (14) Gray, Themes and Images, p. 107. In Religious Lyrics, ed. Gray, p. 103, Gray links Trinity MS 323 with the Franciscans; but in Secular Lyrics of the XIVth and XVth Centuries, ed. R. H. Robbins (Oxford, 1952), P. xvii, it is called |Dominican'. (15) Hen Gerddi Cre(yddol, ed. Lewis, p. 106. (16) The Earliest Welsh Poetly, trans. Clancy, p. 165. (17) Hirn, The Sacred Shrine, pp. 255-9, 385-6. On the last, sees S. Bonaventurae opera omnia, ed. A. C. Peltier (Paris, 1864-71), XIV, pp. 199-226; The Mirror ofthe Blessed Virgin Mary and the Psalter of Our Lady, trans. Sister Mary Emmanuel (London, 1932). (18) Hen Gerddi Crefyddol, ed. Lewis, pp. 17-18. For the date, see Llyfr Du Caerfyrddin, ed. Jarman, p. lvi. (19) K. H. Jackson, |Incremental repetition in the early Welsh englyn', Speculum, 16 (1941), 314-21. (20) R. W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (London, 1953), pp. 233-4. (21.) Ibid., pp. 238-40. (22) Williams, The Welsh Church, pp. 19-20. (23) H. M. Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England (London, 1972), pp. 189-90. (24) The Earliest Welsh Poetg, trans. Clancy, p. 166. (25) Hen Gerddi Crefiddol, ed. Lewis, p. 107. (26) Ein Jahrtausend lateinischer Hymnendichtung, ed. G. M. Dreves and Clemens Blume, II (Leipzig, 1909), P. 267; Peter O'Dwyer, Mag: A History of Devotion in Ireland (Dublin, 1988), pp. 54-6, 61-73. (27) Early Irish Lyrics, ed. Murphy, pp. 46-51; O'Dwyer, Mag, pp. 67-8. (28) Luis Obregon Barreda, Maria en losbadres de la Iglesia (Madrid, 1988), pp. 189-99. (29) The Old English Advent, ed. R. B. Burlin (New Haven, Conn., 1968), pp. 140-1, 145. (30) Woolf, The English Religious Lyric, pp. 115-16. (31) Ein Jahrtausend lateinischer Hymnendichtung, ed. Dreves and Blume, II, 238. (32) N. R. Ker, Catalogue of Manuscripts containing Anglo-Saxon (Oxford, 1957), PP- 161-2; P. M. Korhammer, |The origin of the Bosworth Psalter', Anglo-Saxon England, 2 (1973), 173-87; Helmut Gneuss, |Latin hymns in medieval England', in Chaucer and Middle English Studies, ed. Beryl Rowland (London, I974), pp. 407-24 (p. 420); Marienlexikon, ed. Remigius Biumer and Leo Scheffczyk, I (St. Ottilien, 1988), p. 317. (33) Anselm Salzer, Die Sinnhilder und Beiwb'rte Mariens Linz, i 8 86-94), PP- 476-87; F. J. E. Raby, Christian Latin Poetry, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1953), p. 368. (34) Gray, Themes and Images, pp. 83-4, 86; cf. The Early English Carols, ed. Greene, p. 126. (35) Medieval English Lyrics, ed. Theodore Silverstein (London, 1971), p. 44; Gray, Themes and Images, p. 83 (36) Religious Lyrics of the Fourteenth Century, ed. Carleton Brown, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1952), p. 55. (37) Ibid., p. 233. (38) The Early English Carols, ed. Greene, p. 151. (39) Gray, Themes and Images, p. 84; cf. The Mag Play from the N-Town Manuscript, ed. Peter Meredith (London, 1987), 9-12 (on provenance); and The N-Town Play, ed. Stephen Spector, EETS, [sections] 11-12 (London, 1991). (40) The Myroure of Oure Ladye, ed. J. H. Blunt, EETS, Es 19 (London, 1873), quoted in T. E. Bridgett, Our Lady's Dowry, 3rd edn (London, 1894), p. 49. The first part of a Syon copy of this is now Aberdeen, University Library, MS 134, the second part is Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawl. C. 941. (41) Cf. Gray, Themes and Images, p. 8 3 (42) Gautier de Coincy: Les Miracles de la Sainte Vier e ed. A. E. Poquet (Paris, 1857), pp. 737ff.; Heinrich Becker, Die Auffassung der Junfrau Maria in der altfranzosischen Literatur (Gottingen, 1905), p. 51; Hirn, The Sacred Shrine, p. 373. (43) Huon le Roide Cambrai: Oeuvres, ed. Artur Langfors, I (Paris, 1913), p. 17. Note devens = |in'. (44) Early English Lyrics, ed. E. K. Chambers and Frank Sidgwick (London, 1917), p. 347. (45) Affonso X: Cantigas de Santa Maria, ed. Jose Filgueira Valverde (Madrid, 985), p. III; citing Dits de Wattiquet de Couvin, ed. J. A. U. Scheler (Brussels, 1868). (46) La lirica religiosa en la literatura provenzal antigua, ed. F.J. Oroz Arizcuren (Pamplona, 1972), p. 314. (47) Alfonso X: Cantigas, ed. Jesus Montoya (Madrid, 1988), p. 137; see L.M. Herran, Mariologia poetica espanola (Madrid, 1988), p. 103. (48) J. M. Lopez-Pico, Obres completes (Barcelona, 948), p. 719; quoted in Herran, Mariologia poetica espasiola, p. 478. For mediaeval Dutch and German versions of the theme, see Early English Lyrics, ed. Chambers and Sidl,,wick, p. 3 5 0; and Biumer and Schcffczyk, Marienlexiken, pp. S17-18. (49) D. Myrddin Lloyd, Rhai Agweddau ar Ddysg ar Ddysg y Gogynfeirdd (Cardiff, 1977), p. 22. (50) Dictionag of Welsh Biography, pp. 312-13. On the Chester Rood, cf. Piers the Plowman, ed. W. W. Skeat, II (Oxford, 1886), p. 88. (51) Poety in the Red Book of Hergest, ed. J. G. Evans (Llanbedrog, 1911), col. 1200 (with |vair' supplied in the first line). (52) Ibid., col. 1329. On readings in lines 1 and 12 here, sec John Lloyd-Jones, Geirfa Barddoniaeth Gynnar Gymraeg (Cardiff, 1931-63), pp. 681, 97. In Gwaith Lewys Mon, ed. E. I. Rowlands (Cardiff, 1975), p. 377, |teir Veif' is wrongly taken to mean |Ave'. (53) Lloyd-Jones, Geirfa Barddoniaeth Gynnar Gymraeg, pp. 289, 571, 593; Blodeugerdd Barddas o'r Bedwaredd Ganrif ar Ddeg, ed. Dafydd johnston Swansea, I 989), P. 8.

Poetg in the Red Book of Hergest, ed. Evans, col. 1294-

G.E.Ruddock,'Si6nCent',inAG#idetoWelshLiteratureed.A.O.H.Jarmanand G. R. Hughcs, II Swinsea, 1979). PP- t69-88 PP- 183-4)-

Williams, 7'he Welsb Cbvrrb, p. 237-

Iolo Goch " Eraill, ed. Henry Lewis el a4, ind edn Cardiff, I 937), P- 171

On Menw,

King Arthur's magician in thc tcnth-ccntury Cxlbwch " Olwen, sce Rachel Bromwich, Trioedd Ymys Pgdein, znd cdn Clrdiff, I978), pp- 457-8, and Aspects of tbe Poetg of

D, dd C-diff, i 986). pp. I 3 3-4-
 9 P Gdb

Ifor Wittiams, Cywydd Cyfrinich Rhys Coch Eryri', 2"be Bulletin of lbe Board of CellicSt"kel, 1 1911-3),43-SO pp. 47-8); GwusamaectsbMeir, ed. B. F. Robcrts Cardiff, ig6i), p. 78- 9 Iolo Goeb ae Eraill, ed. Lewis, p. 93; cf Wilhams, Tbe Welsb Cburcb, p. 482.

J. P. Clancy, Medieval Welsb Lyrics (London, i 96 5), p. i 6 z.

Gwailb CArto'r G#m, ed. J. Ll. Williams and Ifor Williams Cardiff, 1939), P-

249-

61 I for Williams, Avc, Eva', 7he Bjvllefin of the Board of Cellic Studies, i i 9 z I 3), 3 3 4; and cf. Rowlands, Gwaith Lemys Mdn, PP- 345, 5 3 3 61 Gwaitb Da dd ab Edmwnd, ed. Thomas Roberts (Bangor, 1914), P- I 7-

 9
14 N. F. Blakc, Tbe En sb nguage in Modieval Literature -London, 1977),
 P- i o6.
 gh LA

61 Tbe Early En lisb Ca Is, ed. Grecnc, p. lxxxv. Even other examples of ingenuity

g m quoted in Gray, Tbemes andima es, p. 4, are jejune compared with Welsh use of the

g 8 topos.