Soul, Death, and Necessity in the Poetry of Taliesin:
A New Translation from The Book of Taliesin
By Caitlín Matthews
Caitlín Matthews is the author of countless books on Celtic mythology, the Arthurian Legends, and Western Mystery Traditions. Along with her husband, John Matthews, Caitlín is a Mythic Journeys guest speaker.
Translation from medieval Welsh manuscripts is not a task to be undertaken frivolously. All bardic poems are stylistically difficult and allusive, but those attributed to the sixth century bard, Taliesin, are even more so. Working once again on the fourteenth century manuscript, Llyfr Taliesin, brought me to look more closely at two or three poems I had previously felt unequal to tackling, if only out of failure of stamina. But I've often found that if you leave whatever you are concentrating upon too hard and go and do something else, it invariably helps. In the interim, something mysterious happens, as if you have dialed and left a message, only to find an answer on return. Something of that kind happened here as I pondered upon the many metaphors within this difficult poem. The poem below is part of a much larger body of work attributed to Taliesin: some certainly has a genuine mythic dimension and other parts of it have certainly been 'worked up' by later poets anxious to pull the wondrous mantle of Taliesin about their own shoulders.
To gain some understanding of Taliesin's context and importance, let us refresh our memories concerning his myth. The ancient British myth of Taliesin relates how, in a previous existence as a young boy, Gwion, he was set to mind the cauldron of Ceridwen. This brew was to infuse for a year and day and so produce the three vital sparks of wisdom that would imbue Ceridwen's fiercesomely ugly son, Afagddu (Great Darkness) with all knowledge.
However, Gwion accidentally sucked his fingers when some of the cauldron's liquor leapt out and so received that knowledge himself. After a long shapeshifting pursuit in which Gwion turned into various creatures and was chased by Ceridwen, he became a grain of wheat and hid himself in a heap of grain. It was there that Ceridwen, in the shape of a red hen, scrabbled him up into her crop and swallowed him. The boy, Gwion, was absorbed into her womb, to be reborn of her nine months later. He was then cast by his mother into the sea and was discovered in a salmon weir by young prince Elphin who was astonished to see a baby in his fishing nets. Drawing the child into his arms, Elphin exclaimed, 'what a shining brow!' thus naming the baby tal iesin. The baby is gifted with speech and an omniscience that is remarkable.
The subsequent myth of Taliesin relates his upbringing by Elphin, his overcoming of the professional poets of Maelgwn Gwynedd and further associates him with the legend of the Dark Age war-leader, Arthur. The birth myth, as outlined above, may be viewed as an important statement about bardic initiation, especially as it enshrines the mythic theme of 'the theft of knowledge.' The other important initiatory theme is that of knowledge or wisdom being ingested through scorching liquor burning the fingers. Gwion sucks his fingers to cool the burning liquor of the cauldron: in Irish myth, it is Fionn mac Cumhail who cools his thumb when the burning fat from the salmon of wisdom flies out of the roasting fish.
The poetry attributed to Taliesin shows how he understands the macrocosm and its relationship to the microcosm. Throughout these poems, Taliesin reveals a professional obsession with Awen or Inspiration. For the poets of Britain and Ireland, inspiration was not the abstract quality we understand today, but rather the personification or spirit of inspiration itself, something far nearer akin to the muse or daimon. Awen was mistress, being, all. For Taliesin, the origins of Awen are closely associated with the initiatory cauldron and with Ceridwen herself. Ceridwen is one of the primordial figures of ancient British myth. According to a bardic triad, she is the bringer of grain and of bees - both grain and honey are used in the fermentation of alcohol in British tradition, making beer and mead. (See lines 57-8 below) This boiling up, fermentation, heat of inspiration seem inextricably connected in Taliesin's mind with Awen.
What is most interesting in the context of this new translation is the way that Taliesin sees the soul. In many of his poems, we hear how he has lived through or been present at different times of history in a way that reveals a close understanding of the druidic doctrine of metempsychosis - the process by which the soul passes from body to body. These boasts which begin 'I have been…' are lists of states of being, creatures, objects, personages from whose standpoint he has animistically experienced life.
The poem, The Youthful Words of Taliesin, seems to take its narrative stance from the moment one hour after the birth of Taliesin from Ceridwen. The major theme of the poem is the grip of Necessity upon human life, its origins, how it shapes life experience and expectancy and its close connection with Death.These may seem strange thoughts for even a prodigious baby such as Taliesin to think, but he is immediately engaged in a disquisition about the nature of life from the moment of his rebirth. Throughout, he seems aware of other arguments and theological opinions, notably those of book-learned clerics who dispute about the nature of the soul and rich monks who can afford not to consider the burden of necessity. This awareness of clerical thought immediately alerts us to the fact that this poem may be much later in origin than the 6th century. I do not think that this need worry the reader, for within this poem are certainly seeded much earlier elements of philosophical thought.
The most definite mythological allusion occurs in stanza ii, line 21, where Taliesin seems to associate himself with Dylan eil Ton, the divinity of the sea who threw himself into the ocean as a mere baby, taking to his own element with joy and gladness. The baby Taliesin was himself cast into the sea. This sea is a wider ocean of consciousness, of life's experience. For the Celtic peoples, the sea was the source from which life came; for poets, inspiration was found at the margins of the sea and shore, at the edge of water courses. Dylan is the inadvertent son of Arianrhod, a figure who seems to share a number of characteristics with Ceridwen: she is angry, hostile, tenacious of her gifts, behaving like an enchantress. In the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogion, when Arianrhod applies for the position of virgin foot-holder to King Math of Gwynedd, she is asked to step over his magical wand as a test of her qualifying virginity, only to be instantly beset with the pains of childbirth. Dylan is the child to whom she gives birth in a very public way. Taliesin himself in his myth, is one who seems bound to make what is secret very public, and to expose imposture and professional bull-shit wherever he meets it - whether in church or in court.
Stanza iii uncompromisingly speaks of the onset of death. Whether we die in battle under the enemy's spear or whether we die under the lancet of the surgeon, death is sharp as a thorn. However, it is death that removes humanity from suffering.
Stanzas iv and v of this poem speak beautifully of the druidic concept of the soul. When we sleep, are we a body, a soul or a hidden light? This question is juxtaposed with a series of questions about where things originate and inability of 'experts' to answer these queries. In stanze vii, Taliesin asks who imprinted matter with its specific characteristics? How does the vehicle of the body keep operational?
In stanza viii, the answers to some of the questions he has asked are revealed. Death rules in every country: it is both below and above us. The image of death as a veil that covers the kneading trough of heaven is a very interesting one. The kneading of dough is such a primal image of creation. Like Ceridwen's cauldron in which ingredients stew together to create the sum of wisdom, the kneading trough is the place where the components of life are mixed together.
Stanza ix leads back to the providence of God and the lack of consideration that we should have for our garment of flesh, our wealth and our achievements - they none of them matter much in the grave. This may seem to be a very conventional Christian response to death and suffering, but if we look closer, something interesting is revealed. Necessity and Death have long been paired elsewhere in Celtic literature, notably in the Breton poems collected in the nineteenth century by Villemarque where a number chant begins with:
'Beautiful child of the Druid, answer me truly.
- What would you have me sing?
Sing to me the series of number one, so that I may learn it this day.
- There is no series for one, for One is Necessity alone, the father of death, there is nothing before and nothing after.'
The Breton god of death is known as Ankou. In Welsh, the word for 'necessity' is Angen, while angau is the Welsh for 'death.' As with many Welsh words that have direct correlatives with the Greek, angen or necessity is paralleled by the Greek ananke, which not only describes want and distress, but is also, when personified in Greek myth, Ananke, Nyx or Night - of whom even Zeus is afraid.
Ananke or Necessity is the mother of the Moirae or Fates whose task, according to Plato's account of the Myth of Er in his Republic, is to spin the lots which souls choose when they come to be reborn.
Classical accounts tell us of considerable interchange and dialogue between continental druids and Greek philosophers. When Caesar tells us that druids 'consider it improper to commit their studies to writing, although they use the Greek alphabet for almost everything else,' he is describing the system of oral transmission which the druids thought proper for the preservation of their deepest wisdom.
Within Taliesin's own story, there are significant scintillations and resonances of the Orphic cosmology and of far-reaching debates about the nature of soul which seem to have been common both to druidic lore and to Classical philosophy. The nature of death as the instrument of necessity concerns us all, but perhaps we bear in mind the druidic lore that Taliesin reveals:
'Man is oldest when he is born;
Growing younger all the time.'
Like the youthening that Merlin experiences in T.H.White's Once and Future King, perhaps we have all forgotten more than we have yet to experience in this present life?
THE YOUTHFUL WORDS OF TALIESIN (Kyfarchaf ym reu) trans. Caitlín Matthews
From the 14th century Welsh manuscript, Llyfr Taliesin
[i] I will ask the Lord
To be mindful of the Awen.
What brought necessity
Before the time of Ceridwen?
Originally in my life
I knew need.
Powerful monks,
Why will they not tell me?
Why will they not relieve my need,
One hour since my pursuit? 10
[ii] Why does smoke rise?
Why is evil spoken?
Why does the fountain rise
Above the secret darkness?
When the reed is bright,
When the moon lights night,
When there was no other candle,
It was shaken out.
When anger grips
The crashing waves upon the shore, 20
The vengeance of Dylan.
[iii] A day will dawn for them
When a stone will be so heavy,
When a thorn will be so sharp.
Do you know what is best -
A spear or a lancet?
Who caused the separation
Between man and misfortune?
Who has the sharpest death -
The young or the old? 30
[iv] Do you know what you are
When you are sleeping?
A body or a soul,
Or a hidden light?
The lying singer,
Why does he not tell me?
Do you know the hiding place
Of night before day's end?
Do you know the sign?
How many leaves are there? 40
Who raised the mountains
Before the elements froze?
Who supports the enclosure
Of the earth's dwelling?
[v] Who can speak for the soul?
Who has seen it, who knows it?
I wonder in books
That the learned doubt
What the soul is, where it lives,
What shape are its limbs, 50
Through what part it issues,
What air it breathes?
[vi] A vexatious war,
An endangered sinner,
A wonder suitable for a satire,
These were the [soul's] dregs.
What is the best intoxicant -
Mead or braggart? [malted beer]
Who accomplishes their fate best
[Is the one who] seizes the God of the Trinity. 60
[vii] Why do I discourse in treatises,
Except in your praise?
Who coined the likeness
Upon silver's gift?
Whence does it keep running,
This tenacious vehicle?
[viii] The foundation of death
Underlies every country.
Death hangs over our head:
Broad is its veil, 70
Over the vault of heaven's kneading trough.
Man is oldest when he is born;
Growing younger all the time.
[ix] Why then be anxious
About the state of things?
After our [life's] wealth
Why is our robe not short-lived?
Banish our laurels
[In] the respose of the grave
The Lord has care of us, 80
From the supreme country.
May he be our God and bring us
To him at the end.
© Copyright Caitlín Matthews 2003
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