Chei di ddim byw mewn tre
Feb. 12th, 2005 09:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rymenhildThanks to BBC News by way of Bookslut for this one:
As part of an annual Eistedfodd (literary and musical competition) in Cardiff, Wales, the poem "Chei di ddim odli" ("There shall be no rhymers"), by Myrddin ap Dafydd*, has been chosen for schoolchildren to recite. In the process of describing fourteenth-century English oppression of the Welsh people, "Chei di ddim odli" apparently uses a naughty word or two. Teachers are scandalized that they have to translate the Welsh word for "bum" to their nine- and ten-year-old students.
The full text of the poem is here.
Damn, I wish I could read Welsh.
*Myrddin ap Dafydd either picked a really vainglorious pseudonym or had rather psychotically nationalist parents. "Myrddin" is the original name of the figure we know as Merlin. In the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth decided to Latinize his name as "Merlinus" instead of "Merdinus" because, really, who would respect a wizard with merde in his name?
As part of an annual Eistedfodd (literary and musical competition) in Cardiff, Wales, the poem "Chei di ddim odli" ("There shall be no rhymers"), by Myrddin ap Dafydd*, has been chosen for schoolchildren to recite. In the process of describing fourteenth-century English oppression of the Welsh people, "Chei di ddim odli" apparently uses a naughty word or two. Teachers are scandalized that they have to translate the Welsh word for "bum" to their nine- and ten-year-old students.
The full text of the poem is here.
Damn, I wish I could read Welsh.
*Myrddin ap Dafydd either picked a really vainglorious pseudonym or had rather psychotically nationalist parents. "Myrddin" is the original name of the figure we know as Merlin. In the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth decided to Latinize his name as "Merlinus" instead of "Merdinus" because, really, who would respect a wizard with merde in his name?
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Date: 2005-02-13 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-13 07:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-14 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-16 01:17 am (UTC)quoting from the liner:
"BY GWERFUL MECHAIN 1460-1500 APPROX. TRANS., FROM MEDIAEVAL WELSH EROTIC POETRY BY D.JOHNSTON. DUE TO THE FACT THAT THIS POEM IS A CELEBRATION OF THE FEMALE GENITALIA IT HAS BEEN BANNED FROM MANY ANTHOLOGIES OF WELSH VERSE ON THE GROUNDS THAT IT IS SALACIOUS. IT IS A REACTION TO SOME MALE POETS WHO PRAISED THE FEMALE FORM BUT WHO DID NOT GO AS FAR AS GWERFUL WOULD HAVE LIKED."
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Date: 2005-02-18 07:17 am (UTC)