translation – ’Sgwennu Sue

One hundred and eighty degrees

… glissement de langage …
… language slips …

One hundred and eighty degrees

Succumbing to the west
those rails carry you
beyond the hour of meeting
of arrival

You timeshift to a place of remembrance
where actions become metaphor
and your language slips to
silent

And through waiting eyes
you rediscover the mountain
you look out from the Tessala place
vision dizzying

You discourse with the past
with what remains to be healed
of the mutilated oak

Hobbled movements
stuttering actions polish
its surface
to live

Fingers’ ridges
caress each wound
slowdive into
unmended
memory

The sun’s last resting place
in the shadow of the wall
sees its morning appointment

Obsessively go back to the source
“worrying the carcase of an old song”
for what’s to come

Those same fingers
that claw their way
the rails that hurtle towards
the cornered earth
the line of fire
the wait that is too long

You neither cry nor cry out
you’re disciplined
doubt re-emerges

You don’t celebrate
that which happens
that which is coming
at the hour of destiny
it’s one hundred and eighty degrees
worked at together.

À cent quatre vingt degrés

Succomber à l’appel de l’ouest
à ces rails qui te portent
débordent l’heure
de la rencontre

Tu arrives dans le lieu du souvenir
où l’acte devient métaphore
glissement de langage
silence

Par les yeux qui t’ont attendu
redécouvrir la montagne
par de-là le Tessala point
de vue détourné

Tu parles au passé
de ce qu’il reste à colmater
sur le chêne que l’on maltraite

Gestes ancrés répétés
balbutiements de notes crochetées
sur la surface à polir
à vivre

Centres digitaux –
blessures
tu articules chaque courbure
et plonges lentement
dans la mémoire
qui ne se raccommode pas

À l’ombre du mur
dernière demeure du soleil
rendez-vous matinal

Poursuite rituel
de l’histoire à venir
de la matrice retournée

Ce sont ces mêmes doigts
qui étreignent le chemin
les rails qui s’enflamment
le carré de terre
l’angle de tir
l’attente époumonée

Tu ne dis pas
l’ordre des choses
la résurgence du doute

Tu ne célèbres pas
ce qui passe
ce qui vient
tu entres dans le silence
à heure nommée
c’est à cent quatre vingt degrés
que tu te conjugues.

Sidi Bel Abbès – Alger, le 8 février 2010 In « Six arbres de fortune autour de ma baignoire »

Original poem, ‘À cent quatre vingt degrés’, ©Samira Negrouche 2010, reproduced with the author’s permission
English adaptation ©Susan Walton 2019

In advance of International Translation Day, which is 30 September, Wales Literature Exchange, Literature Across Frontiers and Wales PEN Cymru held a public talk in Aberystwyth by Syrian-Kurdish poet and translator Golan Haji and the Francophone Algerian writer and poet Samira Negrouche. I attended, and worked on this poem with Samira and tutor Zoë Skoulding in the translation workshop that followed the talk.

The quote within my version is from ‘Welsh Landscape’ by R. S. Thomas; you can hear R. S. himself reading ‘Welsh Landscape’ here.

Samira’s explanation of the idea behind ‘One hundred and eighty degrees’ sparked this, another ‘poem after poem’ like the ones I’d written on the Tŷ Newydd course.

Image by Jori Samonen from Pixabay.

The Strike

Ffarwél i’r llwch ac i’r llechi …
Farewell to the dust and the rockface …

The Strike

There’s danger ’tween Padarn and Peris,
Y Gilfach is misted in sleet,
the men in the caban complain that
their children have nothing to eat.
“It’s time for us to down tools, lads,
and challenge the taskmaster’s rules!”

Farewell to the dust and the rockface,
farewell to the slate-cutting knife,
farewell to the foundry and smithy,
the noise and machinery and strife –
“Our union it stands strong and sure,
in our house we’ll shelter no bradwr!”

In Pencarnisiog the strike starts to bite;
when my husband hasn’t even a crust,
it’s back to the quarry he creeps, then,
before the big wheel starts to rust.
“Some day we’ll be rid of your slate dust,
some day that old Hwch will be flushed!”

Y Streic

Mae’n beryg rhwng Padarn a Pheris,
mae’n aeaf y Gilfach Ddu,
Mae’r hogia’n cwyno’n y caban
a’r gegin yn wag yn y ty:
“Mae’n bryd i ni roi’n harfau i lawr,
a herio’r mistar yn y plasdy mawr!”

Ffarwél i’r llwch ac i’r llechi,
ffarwél i’r hen gyllell fach,
Ffarwél i’r ffowndri a’r efail
a’r holl beiriannau a’u strach –
“Mae’n hundeb ni yn ddigon cry’,
ac ni fydd bradwr yn y ty!”

Ond mae’n gafael ym Mhencarnisiog
a’r un geiniog ym mhoced y gwr,
mae’n llusgo yn ôl am y chwarel
cyn bod rhwd ar yr olwyn ddwr:
“rhyw ddydd cawn wared ar dy lwch
a rhydd fydd cân yr hen afon Hwch!”

English adaptation ©Susan Walton 2019
The poem was written in 2005 by schoolchildren from years 3, 4, 5, and 6 at Ysgol Pencarnisiog with the help of poets Gwyneth Glyn and Iwan Llwyd. I came across the original poem on a BBC Cymru web page, which is no longer available, about the National Slate Museum at Llanberis.

While at college, the artist Anya Wigdel-Bowcott used the poem in a piece she produced as part of a project on Penrhyn Castle. Penrhyn Castle was the home of the owner of the Penrhyn Slate Quarry in Bethesda, scene in 1900–03 of one of the bitterest and, at the time, longest lock-outs in Britain. Striking quarrymen would place a card in their window saying Nid oes BRADWR yn y tŷ hwn (There is no TRAITOR in this house.)

Anya says: ‘With this piece, I firstly created an outline of a mountain using ink and then wrote the poem … over and over again to resemble the veins of a piece of slate.’ The photograph used on this page is by Anya, and you can see more photographs of this piece here .

Part of the Canu Llywarch Hen saga

… ni chiliodd
… he stood firm

Gwên, with legs like steel, kept watch last night
Beside Rhyd Forlas:
As he is a son to me, he stood firm.

This is an adaptation into English of a paraphrasing of the original old Welsh into modern Welsh:

Gwên, bras ei forddwyd, a wyliodd neithiwr
Ar ochor Rhyd Forlas:
Gan ei fod yn fab i mi, ni chiliodd.

Modern Welsh adaptation ©Gwyn Thomas, reproduced with the permission of the author’s estate
English adaptation ©Susan Walton 2018

And here is the old Welsh:

Gwen vordwyt tylluras a wylyas neithwyr
Ygoror Ryt Uorlas.
Kan bu mab ymi ny thechas.

This is one, tiny part of Canu Llywarch Hen (the Songs of Llywarch Hen). The core of this collection is thought to have been written in the 9th or 10th centuries.

Rhyd Forlas means ‘the ford on the Morlas [brook]’. In this part of the saga, Llywarch Hen sends his son, Gwên, to guard the ford, a vulnerable point on Wales’ border with England. Gwên dies in the subsequent battle, the last of Llywarch Hen’s twenty-five sons to die fighting.

The ford can still be seen today (Ordnance Survey grid reference SJ311383), and it is still on the border. Visiting it brings to mind R. S. Thomas’ lines: ‘To live in Wales is to be conscious / At dusk of the spilled blood’.

Image ©Susan Walton 2018.

Behold Creation

A choed y maes sydd eto, oll fel yn curo dwylo
And trees extend their branches, invite us to their dances

Behold Creation

Sweet turtle dove is singing and all the world rejoicing
In jubilation
And trees extend their branches, invite us to their dances
In exultation
Pure kin – all blooming fur and fin.

The host sings praises, earth harmonises
Exulted chorus, all glowing from within
Their brilliant anthem to him wakes hills and valleys green.

In time, great saviour of the world
Took his dominion, to show compassion
To tainted children born from her hidden sin
Long live the grace of Jesus, his whole dominion cries.

Gwêl yr Adeilad

Mae’r dirtir bêr yn canu a’r byd yn gorfoleddu
Mewn gwir fyw lwyddiant
A choed y maes sydd eto, oll fel yn curo dwylo
Mewn clôd a moliant
Câr gwyn a gwridog fawl am hyn.

Llu’r nêf a’i moliant, a’r llawr cyd-ganant
Hwy’n un enynant, pob un a’i dant yn dynn
A’i tanllyd anthem iddo nes deffro bro a bryn.

Mewn pryd, iachawdwr mawr y byd
Daeth ar ei orsedd, i rhoi drugaredd
I blant y llygredd, fu mhwll ei camwell cudd
Teirnasa dirion Iesu, yw gwaedd ei deulu gyd.

English adaptaion ©Susan Walton 2018

My adaptation of this traditional plygain carol, ‘Gwêl yr Adeilad’, was commissioned by the harpist Bethan Nia. You can hear the original Welsh version on YouTube. A more lively version is included on her 2021 album, Ffiniau.

These extracts from Welsh Folk Customs* explain the plygain:

“In many parts of Wales … Christmas meant rising early (or staying up overnight) to attend the plygain service at the parish church.
…
Plygain, and its earlier forms pylgain and pylgaint, are derived from the Latin pulli cantus: ‘cock’s crow’
…
Seen against its historical background the plygain is a survival of a pre-reformation Christmas service modified to suit the new Protestant conditions
…
The carols sung at the plygain were written in the traditional metres and set to old airs ”.

*Owen, Trefor M., Welsh Folk Customs (Cardiff, 1978)

Image ©Susan Walton 2018.

The grave of Hedd Wyn, under snow

Mor frau dros yr erwau hyn – yw’r heddwch …
So frail over lonely leys – lies the peace …

The grave of Hedd Wyn, under snow

So frail over lonely leys – lies the peace
Descending down this day,
Even so, snow fell slowly,
Peace held sway… it was holy.

Bedd Hedd Wyn, o dan eira

Mor frau dros yr erwau hyn – yw’r heddwch
Sydd ar heddiw’n disgyn,
Er hynny, fesul gronyn,
Roedd yno hedd… roedd yn wyn.

©Tudur Dylan Jones, reproduced with the author’s permission
English adaptation ©Susan Walton 2014

Visiting the Yr Ysgwrn, the home of Ellis Evans (Hedd Wyn), I was moved by this poem. Before Yr Ysgwrn’s re-vamp, this poem was displayed above the fireplace in the same room as his famous Black Chair. A chair is the most prestigious prize for poetry at Wales’ eisteddfodau, and the so-called Black Chair was awarded posthumously to Ellis Evans at the 1917 National Eisteddfod. Hedd Wyn was the bardic name of Ellis Evans, who had been killed at Passchendaele some weeks before the Eisteddfod. His grave is in the Artillery Wood Cemetery, Boezinge, Belgium. If you are eligible to use the BBC’s iPlayer app, you can listen to a half-hour Radio Four programme about Hedd Wyn here.

This poem appears in a volume of poetry (Canrif yn Cofio – Hedd Wyn 1917–2017, edited by Ifor ap Glyn) that collects together poems that are responses to the Hedd Wyn story. It appears under the title ‘I deulu’r Ysgwrn’ in the book.

Hedd Wyn’s name means ‘blessed peace’ (hedd = peace; [g]wyn = blessed/holy/white). Tudur Dylan Jones’ poem in the original Welsh contains a pun on the words ‘hedd’ and ‘wyn’, and so in one way the poem can be about no one else. However, to me it is about all the World War I soldiers who lie under blanketing snow, far from their homes. The photograph accompanying the poem is of my Great Uncle Jack who, like Ellis Evans, never came back.

The Man on the Horizon

… keep looking to
The man on the horizon.

The Man on the Horizon

Not all that’s fragile is feeble,
As man exists, not every mote is dust.
And for this, Wales, behold
The man on the horizon;
Incisive his mind,
Infinite his idiot faith.

On his face the print of a dream,
In his voice a holy depth.
But for his learning and modest coming
He would be ignored,
Like that earlier Supreme Being
Who was crucified for them.

He bravely loves a land
And a people cast aside.
He shaped his heart to them
And a cell was their thanks.
For a genuine Welsh act
Persecution came, not praise.

Indifferent Wales, the day will come
When you will see your shame.
A parliament’s not won with words
A sacrifice is vital;
And for that, Wales, keep looking to
The man on the horizon.

‘Y Gŵr Sydd ar y Gorwel’ ©Gerallt Lloyd Owen 1972 from Cerddi’r Cywilydd, Gwasg Gwynedd
English adaptation ©Susan Walton 2011, published online with the permission of Gerallt Lloyd Owen

Translating ‘Y Gŵr Sydd ar y Gorwel’ by Gerallt Lloyd Owen was sparked by a conversation about the arrest of a pub landlord in a village near mine for brandishing a gun after he had told customers to order their drinks in English, not Welsh.

The following day I was taken aback to hear that a young, Welsh (and Welsh-speaking) acquaintance had declared that locals shouldn’t get so het-up about the use of Welsh. It was apparent that he was too young to be aware of the civil-rights struggles of the ’60s and ’70s that resulted in the Wales of today, where Welsh has an equal legal status with English. If a young man in one of the Welshest parts of Wales is blissfully ignorant of the battles others had fought for rights he enjoys, how many other, non-Welsh speakers are?

Gerallt Lloyd Owen died in 2014. His obituary in the Telegraph is here, and in the Independent here.

On a quarry footpath

Ar eu pedwar, pwy ydynt …
Who are they, crawling crabwise …

On a quarry footpath

When the Llithfaen workers walked to work at the Nant quarries in winter, they had to claw their way along the path through the pass on all fours in very stormy weather.

Who are they, crawling crabwise
to their work in the teeth of a gale?

Men tied to this rock for bread
And their fingernails there like chisels,
Summer or winter, the same yoke
Of rock around their shoulders.

But they, on a path in the sky,
Bent, stumbling to the mountain
Top, they are the cornerstones
Of our walls – and we,
So far from the cutting wind,
Are off-cuts of what they were.

Ar lwybr chwarel

Pan gerddai gweithwyr Llithfaen i’w gwaith yn chwareli’r Nant yn y gaeaf, byddai’n rhaid iddynt grafangu ar hyd llwybr y bwlch ar eu pedwar pan fyddai’n stormus iawn.

Ar eu pedwar, pwy ydynt
’ddaw i’w gwaith drwy ddannedd y gwynt?

Gwŷr caeth i fara’r graig hon
A’u gwinedd ynddi’n gynion,
Haf neu aeaf, yr un iau
O gerrig ar eu gwarrau.

Ond hwy, ar lwybr yr wybren,
Yn plygu, baglu i ben
Y mynydd, hwy yw meini
Conglau ein waliau – a ni,
Mor bell o gyllell y gwynt,
Yw’r naddion o’r hyn oeddynt.

©Myrddin ap Dafydd 2008 from Bore Newydd, Gwasg Carreg Gwalch, reproduced with the author’s permission
English adaptation ©Susan Walton 2011
The original, Welsh poem can be seen carved into the sculpture sited between the village of Llithfaen and the precipitous descent to Nant Gwrtheyrn (formerly Porth y Nant). The poem refers to the nearby Nant granite quarries. Porth y Nant was derelict for many years, but was resurrected in the 1980s as the Welsh language teaching centre of Nant Gwrtheyrn.

More of my adaptations of Myrddin ap Dafydd’s verses (and those of other poets) accompany Martin Turtle’s photographs of Llŷn in the bilingual book Hud a Lledrith Llŷn / Llŷn a Magical Place.

After leaving

Maen nhw’n dy alw drwy’r dydd
i nôl mawn neu hel mynydd …
It’s you they call, all day long
to fetch peat or gather sheep …

After leaving

In time past, a farm hand called ‘W.H.’ carved pictures of ships on the slate stones of a cowshed at Lasynys Fawr.

It’s you they call, all day long
to fetch peat or gather sheep,
to harvest oats for the stall,
lure a calf or thatch the rick,
to feed farmyards full of beasts,
cut rushes, pull lambs, clean arses
of horses before the fair,
to rush up to rough pasture
and pursue meadow cattle
at a trot, running all day.

It’s you they call, all day long – to jump to
your never-ending tasks:
wanting you yet faster,
it’s that or get a new place.

They call you, they call time and again
but for all they call a hundred times,
they cannot reach the damp white sail of
your mind’s eye – your soul’s roving long since,
every evening you’re further out to sea,
your term at an end, anchor aweigh.

Wedi gadael

Rhyw dro, cerfiodd gwas ffarm o’r enw ‘W.H.’ luniau llongau ar lechfeini beudy’r Lasynys Fawr.

Maen nhw’n dy alw drwy’r dydd
i nôl mawn neu hel mynydd,
i gael y ceirch i’r gowlas,
i lithio’r lloi neu doi’r das,
i borthi llond buarthau,
lladd brwyn, tynnu ŵyn, glanhau
tinau’r ceffylau cyn ffair,
dy frysio i fyd y rhoswair
a dilyn gwartheg dolydd
ar duth, ar redeg drwy’r dydd.

Maen nhw’n dy alw drwy’r dydd – dy ysgwyd
i’th dasgau byth beunydd:
isio ’ti brysuro sydd,
hynny neu gael lle newydd.

Maen nhw’n galw, dy alw eilwaith
ond dy alw a gân nhw ganwaith,
ni alwan nhw lun o hwyl wen laith
o’th lygaid – mae dy enaid ar daith
eisoes, rwyt bob un noswaith ar y môr,
ym mhen dy dymor, yn mynd ymaith.

This is one of two poems I chose to enter for The Times Stephen Spender Prize for poetry translation in 2010. It is from an award-winning collection by Myrddin ap Dafydd. This collection won the most prestigious prize for poetry – the Chair – at Wales’ National Eisteddfod in 2002.

I chose ‘Wedi gadael’ partly because I too have seen carvings of ships on old farm buildings. The other reason is that I understand the feeling of the farm hand. His carving expresses a dream he’s holding like a talisman while he’s at others’ beck and call throughout the day. Without expressing his dream materially, it might slip away under exhaustion and slurry. He’d glimpse the carving during the course of his daily grind, and it would secretly lift his heart.

Lynx in a zoo

‘Mae ’di’i cholli hi’, yw pitïo
llawer o gylch ei gell loerig o …
‘He’s lost it’, we sympathise as he
madly circles his lunatic cell …

Lynx in a zoo

‘He’s lost it’, we sympathise as he
madly circles his lunatic cell
but we’re drawn back later to watch him:

six paces southwards,
turns like a tramcar
with flinty eyes sparking holocaust;
a sulky march, mute
in his angled world,
backwards, forwards, onward for ever …

We’ll pass the stagnant python – the sleepy
sheepish bears, slothful goats
and the half-hearted tiger, – a lizard
like a statue drowsing
and lions in endless, endless meetings,
run without a chairman,

and we will come back later to watch his
paws grasping, pulsing a constant beat,
tirelessly running through matted grass,

with head held high, stately Mandela,
entitled still, hunting forever his
domain in Combe d’Ire under deep snow,
his night heavy with hunger,
moon-whitened shivering lake,
he’s there on the hills and through the ford
free to follow the trails of his world
going, still going, always alive.

Lynx mewn sw

‘Mae ’di’i cholli hi’, yw pitïo
llawer o gylch ei gell loerig o
ond down yn ôl wedyn i’w wylio:

mynd i’r dde chwe cham,
yno troi fel tram
gyda fflam yn ei lygadau fflint;
martsh anniddig, mud
o fewn conglau’i fyd,
’nôl , ’mlaen o hyd, o hyd ar ei hynt …

Awn heibio’r beithon lonydd – yr eirth swrth
a swil, y geifr mynydd
diog a’r teigr diawydd, – madfall pren
â’i ben ar obennydd
a llewod mewn cyfarfodydd hirion,
hirion, heb gadeirydd,

a down yn ôl wedyn i wylio’i
bawennau’n dal, dal i bendilio,
yn rhedeg y ffèg heb ddiffygio,

yn benuchel, yn hen Fandela,
yn dal at hawl, dal ati i hela
a’i dir yn Combe d’Ire tan gnwd eira,
ei nos yn dew gan newyn,
golau lloer ar sigl y llyn,
yntau ar y rhiwiau a thrwy’r rhyd
yn rhydd i fynd ar drywydd ei fyd
yn mynd, dal i fynd, yn fyw o hyd.

I chose to adapt ‘Lynx mewn sw’ because it parallels my late father’s situation towards the end of his life. He was confined to a hospital bed with a panoramic view of northern Snowdonia. He’d been to nearly every peak he could see, but knew he’d never walk in the countryside again. His illness sometimes tricked his mind into thinking he was elsewhere. Sometimes he was back in the mountains.