ever after, have had their tails so fine and thin. They bound him with chains, and suspended the serpent Skada over his head, whose venom falls upon his face drop by drop. His wife Siguna sits by his side, catches the drops as they fall from his face in a basin, which she empties as often as it is filled. He will remain in chains till the end of the world, or as the Icelanders call it, the Twilight of the Gods. To this the prophetess alludes in the last stanza. See Butler. Hor. Bibl. ii. 194. V. 76. This and the following verse are not in the Latin translation. V. 82. "Great Love! I know thee now, Eldest of the Gods, art thou." Dryden. K. Arth. Rogers. V. 86. In the Latin, "mater trium gigantum :" probably Angerbode, who from her name seems to be "no prophetess of good;" and who bore to Loke, as the Edda says, three children, the wolf Fenris, the great serpent of Midgard, and Hela, all of them called giants in that system of mythology. Mason. Sams. Agon. 1247, "I dread him not, nor all his giant brood." Luke. V. 88. In the original, this and the three following lines are represented by this couplet : Never Has Till w Sinks Var. t has published a translation of the introductory s poem, and also much curious information illuseral passages in the text. See his Select Iceland. 43. He mentions some little amplifications in ing to convey notions of the Icelandic mythology, ted by the original, as "Coal-black steed;" Ravenrice he trac'd the Runic rhyme;" "The portals ," "Foam and human gore." Xáλкεoç Üπvоs," Hom. "Ferreus somnus," xii. 309. "Iron sleep," Dryden. And "An iron uts my sleeping eyes," Dryden. Georg. iv. 717. ok is the evil being, who continues in chains ight of the gods approaches: when he shall break the human race, the stars, and sun, shall disaparth sink in the seas, and fire consume the skies: himself and his kindred deities shall perish. er explanation of this mythology, see Introd. à Dannemarc par Mallet,' 1755, quarto; or rather 1 of it published in 1770, and entitled "Northern ;" in which some mistakes in the original are jurrected. Mason. Bi Squa This THE TRIUMPHS OF OWEN.* A FRAGMENT. FROM THE WELSH. [From Evans. Spec. of the Welsh Poetry, 1764, quarto, p 25, where is a Prose version of this Poem, and p. 127. Owen succeeded his father Griffith app Cynan in the principality of N. Wales, A. D. 1137. This battle was fought in the year 1157. Jones, Relics, vol. ii. p. 36.] 5 The The said th Liberal hand, and open heart. Compare with this poem, "Hermode's Journey to Hell," in Dr. Percy's Translation of Mallet's Northern Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 149. See Beronii Diss. de Eddis Island. p. 153. Mundi credita кπúρwσiç in qua solem nigrescere, tellurem in mari submersam iri, stellas de cœlo lapsuras, ignem in vetustam orbis molem et fabricam disævituram, v. Sibyll. Velusp. Stroph. liii. *The original Welsh of the above poem was the composition of Gwalchmai the son of Melir, immediately after Prince Owen Gwynedd had defeated the combined fleets of Iceland, Denmark, and Norway, which had invaded his territory on the coast of Anglesea. There is likewise another poem which describes this famous battle, written by Prince Howel, the son of Owen Gwynedd ; a literal translation of which may be seen in Jones. Relics, vol. ii. p. 36. In Mason's edition, and in all the subsequent editions, it is date I A.D. V. 4 V.8 V. Fairfa V. Talymalfra's rocky shore Echoing to the battle's roar. Check'd by the torrent-tide of blood, A owing to its being low-water, and that they could not sail. Jones. V. 27. This and the three following lines are not in the former editions, but are now added from the author's MS. Mason. V. 31. From this line, to the conclusion, the translation is indebted to the genius of Gray, very little of it being in the original, which closes with a sentiment omitted by the translator: "And the glory of our Prince's wide-wasting sword shall be celebrated in a hundred languages, to give him his merited praise." ther t dawg choci hund Aneu Catt |