In Praise of Lludd the Great
Book of Taliesin LII
The best song they will dispraise,
Eight numbers they will protect,
Monday, they will come,
Devastating they will go.
Tuesday, they will portion
Anger against the adversary.
Wednesday, they will reap.
Pomp in excess.
Thursday, they will part with
The undesired possessor.
Friday, a day of abundance
In the blood of men they will swim.
Saturday ... {lines left untranslated}
Sunday, certainly,
Assuredly there will come
Five ships and five hundred
That make supplication-
O Brithi, Brithi!
Co-occupancy or battle.
O Brithi, Brithanai!
Before battle, battle of spears in the field.
Son of the wood of Cogni,
There will be an adventuring of
Every one to Adonai
On the sward of Pwmpai.
An intimation they prophesy
A long cry against overwhelming,
Long the public harmony
Of Cadwaladyr and Cynan.
The world's profit (is) small,
The heat of the sun is lost.
The Druid will prophesy
What has been will be.
Sky of Geirionydd,
I would go with thee
Gloomy like the evening,
In the recesses of the mountain.
When should be the full length
The Brython in chasing.
To the Brython there will be
Blood of glorious strenuousness,
After gold and golden trinkets.
The devastation of Moni and Lleeni,
And Eryri, a dwelling in it.
It is a perfect prophecy,
With dwellings laid waste.
The Cymry of four languages
Shall change their speech.
Until shall come the cow, the
That shall cause a blessing
On a fine day lowing,
On a fine night being boiled,
On the land of the boiler,
In the ships of the consumer.
Let the song of woe be chanted
Around the encircling border of Prydain.
They will come, with one purpose,
To resist a maritime disgrace.
Be true the happiness
Of the sovereign of the world.
The worshippers adored together,
speckled cow
To the dale of greivous water it was gone.
A portion full of corn
Invites conflagration.
Without Eppa, without a cow-stall.
Without a luxury of the world.
The world will be desolate, useless.
The deceitful will be fated.
Activity through freshness.
Small men are almost deceived
By the white-bellied trotter.
A hawk upon baptism
The swords of warriors will not pierce Cyllellawr.
They had not what they wished for.
Violent is the grasp of the townman,
And to warriors there is a love of blood.
Cymry Welsh, Angles English, Gwyddyl Irish, of Prydyn southern Scotland.
The Cymry, swift in mischief,
Will launch their ships on the lake.
The North has been poisoned by rovers
Of a livid hateful hue and form.
Of the race of Adam the ancient.
The third will be brought to set out,
Ravens of the accurate retinue,
The sluggish animals of Seithin.
On sea, an anchor on the Christian.
A cry from the sea, a cry from the mountain,
A cry from the sea, they vigorously utter.
Wood, field, dale, and hill
Every speech without any one attending,
High minded from every place
There will be confusion.
A multitude enraged,
And distress diffused
Vengeances through ready belief abiding.
That the Creator afflicts, the powerful God of exalted state.
A long time before the day of doom.
There will come a day
And a reader will rise,
In the pleasant border of the land of Iwerdon,
To Prydain then will come exaltation,
Brython of the nobility of Rome.
There will be to me a judge unprejudiced, void of guile;
The astrologers {or diviners} prophesy,
In the land of the lost ones.
Druids prophesy
Beyond the sea, beyond the Brython.
The summer will not be serene weather,
The noblemen shall be broken,
It will come to them from treachery
Beyond the effusion of the father of Ked.
A thousand in the judgment of exalted Prydain,
And within its united boundary.
May I not fall into the embrace of the swamp,
Into the mob that peoples the depths of Uffern.
I greatly fear the flinty covering
With the Guledig of the boundless country. |
