“In the Most Common and Familiar Speech among the Welsh”

Abstract

This paper presents and analyses the approach of the Welsh recusant author and translator Robert Gwyn (c.1545–c.1600) to the translation of quotations from the Bible and the Church Fathers as it is reflected in both his paratextual comments on translating and in regularities of his translational practice. Gwyn locates his literary work in the larger context of Counter-Reformation activities in Wales for an “unlearned” audience and therefore forcefully argues for the primacy of comprehensibility over strict adherence to the words of the source text. A brief detour for the purpose of contextualization looks at the paratexts of other contemporaneous Catholic and Protestant Welsh translators and at their aims in relation to their projected audiences. Since English loanwords were a feature of spoken Welsh and their use in translations was explicitly vindicated by Gwyn, lexical choices in a range of his versions of Biblical verses are compared with the translation of the same verses in the Protestant Welsh translations of the New Testament dating between 1567 and 1588.

1 Background

In this paper, we will focus on one of the Welsh translators of the sixteenth century whose work is explored in our project “The Welsh contribution to the Early Modern cultures of translation: Sixteenth-century strategies of translating into Welsh”. The project investigates interlingual translation within a conceptual framework which insists on the pragmatic and functional character of processes of translating. Following Toury,¹ we proceed from the premise that “[t]ranslations are facts of target cultures; on occasion facts of a peculiar status, sometimes constituting identifiable (sub)systems of their own, but of the target culture in any event.” We conduct fine-grained linguistic analyses of texts and complement these with the study of relevant paratexts, for example in dedications and prefaces, which can provide valuable information on translators’ approaches, intentions, and motivations.

The historical, cultural, and religious context of our project is Wales in the sixteenth century. The specific background of our case study here is the second half of the sixteenth century and the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603), during which the Reformation became firmly established in England and Wales. This period witnessed translation enterprises which were decisive in steering the development of the Welsh language, ensuring its survival, and providing it with a standard form. In 1563, an act was passed by Parliament, and subsequently approved by the Queen, for “the translating of the Bible and the Divine Service into the Welsh Tongue” – because, as the act stated,

[...] the English Tongue [...] is not understanded of the most and greatest Number of all her Majesty’s most loving and obedient Subjects inhabiting within her Highness Dominion and Country of WALES, being no small Part of this Realm, who therefore are utterly destituted of God’s Holy Word, and do remain in the like or rather more Darkness and Ignorance then they were, in the Time of Papistry.²

The act recognized the importance of the Welsh language in spreading the reformed faith and marked a change in language policy in the religious domain, since previous legislation had provided for the reading in English of the Epistles and Gospels and, authorized by the Act of Uniformity in 1549, for the exclusive use of Cranmer’s English Book of Common Prayer in church services.³ The Welsh New Testament and the Welsh Book of Common Prayer were published in 1567 and are associated with the name of William Salesbury; the first complete Welsh Bible – containing a revised version of the New Testament of 1567 as well as the Old Testament and the Apocrypha – appeared in 1588 and is associated with the name of William Morgan; a further revised version, which Thomas⁴ described as the “final form of the Welsh Bible”, was published in 1620 and is associated with the name of John Davies of Mallwyd.⁵ Williams has succinctly highlighted their achievements: “The services that they [i.e. the translators of the Welsh Bibles] rendered in laying the modern foundations of religion, language, literature, and national awareness in Wales were epoch-making.”⁶ Besides the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer, some further Anglican religious, devotional, and doctrinal works were translated into Welsh. For the period before 1600, most notable are perhaps Deffynniad Ffydd Eglwys Loegr, Maurice Kyffin’s translation of Bishop John Jewel’s Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae, and Perl mewn Adfyd (‘A Perl in Adversity’), Huw Lewys’s translation of the English translation (by Miles Coverdale) of Otto Werdmüller’s Kleinot von Trost und Hilff in allerley Trübsalen. The two Welsh translations were both printed in 1595.⁷ Catholic efforts to regain lost ground were suppressed; the printing of Catholic books was banned in 1559, and in the second part of Elizabeth’s reign several Catholic priests and laymen were executed.⁸ Nevertheless, Catholic authors produced original works in Welsh and Catholic writings were translated into Welsh; these circulated secretly, mostly in manuscript form, in Wales.⁹

2 Robert Gwyn, Recusant Author and Translator

The author and translator we will concentrate on in this chapter is Robert Gwyn (c.1545–c.1600); the specific angle we will take on his work is his approach to the translation of quotations from the Bible and the Church Fathers as it is reflected in both his paratextual comments on translating and in his translational practice. As with many, if not most, translators and authors of the period, his confessional background is vital for understanding his life and work. His family belonged to the gentry on the Llŷn peninsula in northern Wales and appears to have conformed to the Established Church. Robert Gwyn graduated from Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1568, but then converted to the Catholic faith and became a student in 1571 in the English College in Douai (in the Spanish Netherlands, now northern France), which had been founded in 1568 for Catholic refugee students who intended to become missionary priests in Britain. He was ordained as a priest there in 1575 and from 1576 onwards was actively engaged in furthering the Catholic cause in Wales. He produced six original works, of which four are extant today, and two translations, from Latin and English respectively, of selections of Cardinal Francisco Toledo’s Summa Casuum Conscientiae, a treatise on moral theology, and of A Manuall or Meditation and most necessary Prayers with a Memorial of Instructions right requisite. Also a Summary of Catholike Religion, a book of private daily devotions.¹⁰ Both are still unedited.

Two of Gwyn’s original works will be relevant in the context of our discussion of reflections on, and his practice of, translating quotations from authoritative religious works, the Bible and the Church Fathers. The first of these is Na all fod un Ffydd ond yr Hen Ffydd (‘There can be no faith but the old faith’), dated to 1574 and extant in only one manuscript of 1604 (Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales 15542B), written by William Dafydd Llywelyn.¹¹ It is a lengthy treatise on Christian doctrine in the form of a letter; the writing of letters by students on doctrinal and devotional matters to families and relatives at home was promoted at Douai College.¹² The second work is Y Drych Kristnogawl (‘The Christian Mirror’), written c.1583/84. Its first part was printed secretly in 1586/87 on an illegal press in North Wales, in a cave near the modern town of Llandudno; an acephalous text of the complete treatise is transmitted in a manuscript dated to 1600 (Cardiff, Central Library 3.240), written by the recusant scribe and poet Llywelyn Siôn (1540–1615?).¹³ Copying by scribes was an important way of distributing recusant works after the ban on printing Catholic books.¹⁴ Y Drych is concerned with the Roman Church’s teachings on the Four Last Things: Death, the Day of Judgement, Hell, and Heaven.

3 Robert Gwyn on Translating Quotations from Authoritative Religious Texts

Y Drych opens with the author’s preface addressed to his countrymen, and in one of its sections Gwyn defends himself against criticism that he foresees could be levelled against his work. Two issues pertaining to its language are relevant in our context, namely his use of loanwords and what may be considered to be imprecise translations of quotations from the Bible and the Church Fathers.¹⁵

Gwyn’s vindication of foreign words is intimately linked to his assessment of the linguistic register he considers appropriate for his purposes in Y Drych, and these – as we will see – affect his views on the translation of Biblical quotations as well.

Yn gyntaf, ef a rhyfeddir paam yn y llyfr hynn ir wyf yn arfer o eirieu anghyfieith, megis o eirieu Saisnic ag o ereill ny phertynant i’r iaith Gymraec, heblaw bagad o’r sawl nyd ydynt Gymraeg rywiog, gan fy mod o’r blaen yn beio ar Gymbry am nad oeddent yn ymgleddu’r Gymbraeg. I atteb, hyn yw’r achos. Nyd oes bai ar y Gymraeg, ond ar y dynion yn y pwngc yma. Canys fy nghyngyd a’m meddwl yn bennaf yn y llyfr hynn yw rhoi cynghor sprydol i’r annysgedig. Ag er mwyn cael gann y cyphredin ddeall y llyfr er daioni iddynt, mi a ddodais fy meddwl i lawr a cheir eu bronneu hwy yn yr iaith gyphredinaf a sathrediccaf ymhlith y Cymry yr owron. Canys pei bysswn i yn dethol allan hen eirieu Cymraeg nyd ydynt arferedig, ny byssei vn ym mysg cant yn dyall hanner a ddywedasswn, cyn byssei yn Gymraeg dda, am fod yr iaith gyphredin wedy ei chymyscu a llawer o eirieu anghyfieith, sathredig ymhlith y bobl, a bod yr hen eirieu a’r wir Gymraeg wedy myned ar gyfyrgoll a’i habergofi. Amherthynas wrth hynn a fuassei ymarfer o araith heb nemor yn ei ddeallt.¹⁶

First, one may wonder why I use foreign words in this book, such as English words and others that do not belong to the Welsh language, in addition to a number of those which are not good Welsh, having before blamed the Welsh for not cherishing the Welsh language. To answer, this is the reason. The blame is not on the Welsh language, but on the people in this matter. For in the first place my intention and purpose in this book is to give spiritual advice to the unlearned. And in order that the book can be understood by the ordinary people for their good, I set my thoughts down and before them in the most common and familiar speech among the Welsh these days. For if I had selected old Welsh words that are not used, there would not be one out of a hundred who understood half of what I say, even though it would be in good Welsh, since the common language has been mixed much with foreign words, familiar among the people, and the old words and the correct Welsh are lost and forgotten. Therefore it would be inappropriate to practice eloquence with only the few understanding it.¹⁷

Gwyn here highlights that his overarching concern is “to give spiritual advice to the unlearned”; in order to achieve this, he has to express himself comprehensibly, “in the most common and familiar speech among the Welsh these days”. Since the language used by his intended audience, the ordinary and unlearned people, contains a large number of English loanwords, he needs to employ these rather than rare and seldom used native words. The resulting frequency of English loanwords is a characteristic feature of Gwyn’s works which has already been noted in the scholarly literature.¹⁸ The fact that Gwyn himself observed the frequency of English loanwords in the contemporaneous language of everyday use and the existence of different registers available in Welsh indicates his competence and sensibility in linguistic matters, and allows him to consciously choose a register that he considered appropriate for his specific purpose. He furthermore implies that his translation is driven by the intention and function of the text, and it is to these parameters that he gives priority here, over the assumed purity of the language which he supposes to be valued by his hypothetical critics.¹⁹

At this point, we will take a brief detour and consider the approach to loanwords taken by another Catholic author, Gruffydd Robert (c.1527–98). He, however, belongs to a different strand in the Catholic Welsh literary and learned tradition, namely Humanism.²⁰ He went into exile after the accession of Queen Elizabeth and was ordained as a priest in Rome in 1563; from 1565 onwards he worked as a priest in the archdiocese of Milan, where he began to publish a grammar of Welsh in six booklets between 1567 and before 1594. He was later appointed to the theological prebendary of Milan cathedral and, in 1571, canon of the cathedral chapter.²¹ Robert’s grammar was aimed at a Welsh audience, as was Gwyn’s Y Drych (otherwise he would not have written it in Welsh), but it was directed at a learned readership, as can be gathered from his advice to Welsh prose authors. They, he suggests, should first look for suitable words already used in Welsh; if such cannot be found, they should borrow words, preferably from Latin, if this is easily possible, otherwise from Italian, French, or Spanish²² – and as a kind of last resort they could fall back on established English loanwords:²³

rhaid benthygio yn gyntaf gen y ḷadin, os geḷḷir yn ḍiụrthnyssig i gụneuthur yn gymreigaiḍ: os byḍ caledi yma, rhaid ḍụyn i nechụyn, gan yr eidalụyr, phrancod, ysphaenụyr, ag od oes geiriau saesneg ụedi i breinio ynghymru ni ụasnaetha moi gụrthod nhụy.²⁴

It is necessary to borrow first from the Latin language, if it can be easily turned into a Welsh idiom; if there are difficulties here, it is necessary to proceed to borrowing, from the Italians, the French, the Spanish, and if there are English words granted a right in Welsh, it will not avail to reject them.

Gruffydd Robert had a Counter-Reformation agenda, but at the same time he sought to enrich the Welsh language and make it a flexible medium for disseminating the new Humanist learning. Robert Gwyn, on the other hand, had predominantly practical concerns. Given his wish to spread the tenets of Catholicism and “give spiritual advice to the unlearned”, he needed to “be understood by the ordinary people for their good”.²⁵ This communicative purpose and the requirement for easy comprehensibility thus conditioned his lexical choices. These concerns are also brought out in Gwyn’s second comment relevant in our context, which specifically addresses his approach to translations of quotations from authoritative religious texts, the Bible, and the Church Fathers:

Atfydd hefyd y beient arnaf rhyw rai o’r Cymbry dyscedigion am nad wyf yn y llyfr yma yn troi’r Scrythur Laan a doydiadeu’r saint a’i haraith yn gymhwys i’r iaith Gymraec wrth ddodi gair tra gair, ag i bob gair rhoddi ei enw anianol, megys y bydd rhaid wrth gyfieithu a throi peth o vn iaith i’r llall. Ag yn enwedig wrth gyfieithu’r Scrythur Lan a geirieu’r saint, rhaid yw bod yn bryderus i geisio geiriau cyfaddas, cynhwynawl i henw pob peth. Gwir iawn yw hynn oll. Pan fytho dyn yn cyfieithu ag yn trossi’r Scrythur Lan i iaith arall, ag yn ei dodi a’i gossod allan i ddynion y’w darllain yn enw Scrythur Laan, yna, y bydd rhaid ymchwel bob geir yn gymhwys ag yn ei briawd anian, cyd bo tywyll i lawer. Ond pan fytho vn yn pregethu i ddynion cyphredin ag ychydig deallt ganthynt, yna y dychon gyfieithu’r geirieu yn y modd goreu ag y gallo’r cyphredin bobl y ddyallt, drwy ei fod ef yn cadw’r vn meddwl a’r synnwyr yn y geirieu ag y mae’r Yspryt Glaan yn ei feddwl a’r Eglwys Laan Gatholig yn ei ddangos. Ag am fy mod i yma yn ceisio dyscu’r cyphredin Gymry, rhaid i mi droi’r geirieu yn egluraf a goleuaf y gallwyf i gaphel ohonynt eu deallt hwy yn ddibetrus, heb ymwrthod nag ymadel ohonof ddim a meddwl yr Yspryd Glan na’r Eglwys wrth droi’r geirieu i’r Gymraeg.²⁶

Perhaps some of the learned Welshmen will also blame me because in this book I do not exactly translate Holy Scripture and the sayings of the Saints and their oration into Welsh, by putting word for word, and by giving each word its natural meaning, as it is necessary when translating something from one language into the other. And especially, when translating Holy Scripture and the word of the saints, it is necessary to be careful to seek appropriate, proper words to denote everything. All this is very true. When a man translates Holy Scripture into another language and publishes it for men to read it as Holy Scripture, then it is necessary to translate each word exactly and in its proper nature, although it may be opaque for many. But when one preaches to ordinary people who have little understanding, then one can translate the words in the best way for ordinary people to understand, by keeping the same sense and meaning in the words as the Holy Ghost intends it and the Holy Catholic Church discloses it. And since I here intend to teach the ordinary Welshmen, I have to translate the words as clearly and evidently as I can, in order that they can understand them unambiguously, without me rejecting or leaving out anything of the meaning of the Holy Ghost and the Church when translating the words into Welsh.²⁷

As in the passage about his employment of loanwords from English, Gwyn insists that it is his first priority to reach and teach his intended audience, the ordinary and unlearned people of Wales; translation is just one aspect of a larger act of communication.²⁸ He therefore subordinates absolute fidelity to the wording of even authoritative religious sources in favour of his overriding communicative purpose, whenever he fears that the sense may otherwise remain opaque. He realizes that he has options for translation – either an exact rendition that many would find opaque, or what ordinary people can best understand – and he positions his argument firmly in relation to genre and intention: the contexts in which his translations need to function are didactic and popular, not theological and scholarly. He therefore aims for a format which translates the source into comprehensible language and is at the same time theologically reliable.

Gwyn’s reflections on his strategies of translating quotations from the Bible and the Church Fathers connect to insights in modern translation studies, for example on the tensions between adequacy (vis-à-vis the source text) and acceptability (vis-à-vis the target language and the target culture) discussed by Toury²⁹ within the framework of Descriptive Translation Studies. Gwyn’s stated intention of adopting a specific register in his translation results in a range of regularities in his translational behaviour, a fragment of which will be analysed in the fourth section of this chapter. The discovery of such regularities is an important requirement in Toury’s programme for the analysis of translations – but Gwyn has kindly enough already supplied significant clues in his introductory paratext. What we are looking at here is, of course, Gwyn’s individual translational practice, but we will see below that other contemporaneous translators applied a similar norm and privileged acceptability and successful communication.

When Gwyn suggests that a translation of the Bible for theological and scholarly purposes, “for men to read it as Holy Scripture”, may not be able to avoid opaqueness, he may perhaps refer to the translation into English of the Reims-Douai Catholic New Testament, printed in 1582. Its translator, Gregory Martin, commented on the necessity to use “wordes also and phrases [in his translation] which may seeme to the vulgar Reader & to common English eares not yet acquainted therewith, rudenesse or ignorance”.³⁰

Gwyn was not the only Welsh translator in the sixteenth century, or later, who insisted on the importance of comprehensibility and the employment of geirieu sathredig, namely ‘familiar words’. For the purpose of contextualization, at the end of this section we will take another brief detour and look at some other translators’ paratexts and at comments on their aims in relation to their projected audience.³¹ As Glanmore Williams observed, both “Protestants and Catholics expressed their intention of writing in a plain, unadorned style”.³² The Anglican writer Maurice Kyffin (c.1555–98), for example, stated in his preface to Deffynniad Ffydd Eglwyd Loegr (‘A Defence of the Faith of the Church of England’, 1595), the translation of Bishop John Jewel’s defence of the Anglican Church, that he chose

[...] y geiriau howssaf, rhwyddaf, a sathredicca ’g allwn, i wneuthyr fordd yr ymadrodd yn rhydd ag yn ddirwystrus i’r sawl ni wyddant ond y gymraeg arferedig.³³

[...] the easiest, most accessible and well-used words that I could in order to make the run of the expressions used clear and free of stumbling blocks for those who know only habitually-used Welsh³⁴

Kyffin also translated Terence’s comedy Andria from Latin into English, and it is noteworthy that in his ‘Preface to the courteous reader’, he explained his strategies for translation with words echoing those in Deffynniad Ffydd Eglwyd Loegr: “I have used, as near as I could, the most known, usual, and familiar phrases in common speech to express the author’s meaning.”³⁵ Kyffin’s references to “familiar words” in both Welsh (y geiriau […] sathredicca ‘the most familiar words’) and English recalls Gwyn’s phrase yr iaith gyphredinaf a sathrediccaf ymhlith y Cymry yr owron, namely ‘the most common and familiar speech among the Welsh these days’. A similar sentiment, again employing the collocation [g]eiriau sathredig, or ‘familiar words’, was voiced by the Puritan translator Robert Llwyd (1565–before 1660), in the introduction to Llwybr hyffordd yn cyfarwyddo yr anghyfarwydd i’r nefoedd (‘An Easy Footpath Leading the Ignorant to Heaven’, 1630), his translation of Arthur Dent’s Plain Man’s Pathway to Heaven:³⁶

Am dull yr ymadrodd, mi a wneuthum fyngoreu ar ei osod ar lawr yn wastad, yn ddigeingciog, ac yn rhwydd i w ddeall, [...] geiriau an-arferedig a ochelais yn oreu ac y medrais, gan ymfodloni a r cyfryw eiriau sathredig, ac y mae cyffredin y wlâd yn gydnabyddus â hwynt, ac yn yspys ynddynt.³⁷

Concerning the form of the discourse, I did my best to set it down always smoothly and easy to understand, [...] I avoided, as best as I could, unusual words, being content with such familiar words as the ordinary people of the country are acquainted with and are plain to them.

The issue of reaching the intended audience was a translator’s perennial concern – and at the same time offered the opportunity for a rhetorical declaration of his good will towards the audience. Nearly a hundred years after Robert Gwyn, another Catholic author and translator called John Hughes (1615–1686) published a compilation of devotional texts under the title Allwydd neu Agoriad Paradwys i’r Cymrv (‘Key of Paradise for the Welsh’, 1670), based on a range of foreign-language sources.³⁸ In his introduction he comments on his approach and his intention to accommodate his audience in terms of comprehensible language:

Mi [...] a gyfieithais y cwbl mewn geiriau ac adroddion plaen, syml, hawdd i’w ddyall: [...] fy amcan yn vnic yw, ennynnu o’r Devotionau hyn Dduwioldeb yn eich calonnau chwi. Ac amhynny cyn nessed ac yr oedd Cymraeg gywir yn caniadu, mi ddodais ymmhob man y geiriau cynnefinaf a mwyaf arferedic: ac ysgatfydd weithiau (er mwyn gwneuthur yr ymadrodd yn rhwyddach, ac yn haws i chiw i’w ddyall,) fe a ddiengodd oddiwrth fy mhin i beth llediaith, ac adrodd anaddas, lle y gallaswn arfer geiriau priodol a Chymraeg gywir.³⁹

I translated everything in plain, simple, and easy-to-understand words and phrases: [...] this is my purpose alone, to kindle piety in your hearts with these Devotions. Therefore, as closely as correct Welsh allows, I have given everywhere the most familiar and most frequently used words, but sometimes perhaps (for the sake of making the expression less literal [literally ‘freer’] and easier for you to understand) some barbarism and an improper phrase escaped me where I could have used appropriate words and correct Welsh.

In these translators’ paratexts, their emphasis on the availability of different registers, on comprehensibility, and on successful communication with their audiences cuts across confessional loyalties, and highlights the importance of ‘intention’ as a functional parameter for analysing the translational regularities that can be observed in their works.

In light of Gwyn’s comments on translation we will now take a closer look at some features of his practice of translating quotations from the Bible which he included in Na all fod and Y Drych respectively.⁴⁰

4 Robert Gwyn’s Practice of Translating Quotations from Authoritative Religious Texts

As part of our analysis, we will compare Gwyn’s translation of Biblical passages with the Protestant translations of the Bible that are roughly contemporary with this work.⁴¹ The Welsh New Testament translation (referenced in examples as TN 1567), produced mainly by William Salesbury in cooperation with Richard Davies and Thomas Huet, appeared in 1567, so it is theoretically possible that Gwyn was acquainted with it. The full Welsh Bible of 1588 (referenced in examples as Beibl 1588), completed by William Morgan, postdates Gwyn’s texts, but is relevant in a comparative perspective for its attitude towards the vocabulary employed. The differences between Salesbury and Morgan in this area are nicely summarized by Marion Löffler:

Where Salesbury had followed early church traditions and borrowed from Latin, used old Celtic roots and created calques from Greek, Morgan utilised the resources of the classical Welsh of the medieval poets. He kept long-established English and Latin loans, but filled gaps less by borrowing, but by coining new words, continuing the medieval bardic pattern of word formation. […] The standard language codified in the Bible and used in the religious domain for the next four hundred years thus not only avoided wholesale borrowing from English and other languages, but, compared to English, borrowed astonishingly little in order to achieve the ample vocabulary so desirable at the time.⁴²

Robert Gwyn’s comments on English loanwords quoted above invite the hypothesis that his attitude, and thus also his practice, will differ from that of both Salesbury and Morgan, and that he will use English loanwords more generously. This is indeed what we find in the quotation from 1 Cor. 2:9, attested in both Y Drych and in Na all fod, with little – and possibly scribal variation:

(1) 1 Cor 2:9

Ny welodd llygad ag ny chlywodd klüst, nid entrodd i galon dyn, y pethav a ddarfv i Ddüw ordaino i’r sawl sy’n y garv ef (Y Drych, Gwyn 1996), p. 60

Ny welodd llygad, ny chlywodd klyst, ag nyd entroedd mywn kalon dyn y pethe ar y ddarfy y Dduw y ordinio y’r rheini ag y caro ef. (Na all fod, Gwyn 2016, l. pp. 415–417)

y petheu ny welas llygat, ac ny chlywoð clust, ac ny’s daeth y mewn calon dyn, ynt, a baratoawð Duw ir ei y carant ef. (TN 1567)

y pethau ni welodd llygad, ac ni chlywodd clust, ac ni ddaeth i galon dŷn: yr hyn a ddarparodd Duw i’r rhai a’i carant ef. (Beibl 1588)

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. (KJV)⁴³

sed sicut scriptum est quod oculus non vidit nec auris audivit nec in cor hominis ascendit quae praeparavit Deus his qui diligunt illum (Vulgate)

The verb entro, of which entrodd is a third person singular preterite form, is based on the English enter and is attested since the fifteenth century (GPC,⁴⁴ s.v. entriaf). The use of a loanword of English origin for a basic concept such as ‘to enter’ instead of a native word or phrase is most likely related to Gwyn’s own bilingualism (see also (2)). The Protestant Bibles employ an analytic collocation of the native verb dyfod (‘to come’) with a preposition ‘in(to)’. Ordaino (‘to provide’) is based on English ordein(e), itself derived from French ordiner, and attested since c.1400 (GPC, s.v. ordeiniaf, also attested in the 1567 New Testament). The Welsh Bibles prefer different verbs for the same concept, namely paratoi and darparu respectively. The periphrastic construction seen in Gwyn’s y pethav a darfu i Ddüw ordaino (‘the things which God provided’), with darfu as a (perfective) auxiliary verb,⁴⁵ instead of the Bibles’ synthetic preterites paratoawdd and darparodd respectively, may well represent more informal, colloquial syntax.⁴⁶

In the next example, a basic verb of English origin is similarly used, although a well-established Welsh equivalent exists in the contemporary language:

(2) John 16:12-13

May gen i etto lawer y ddywedyd wrthych, ond ny ellwch gario dim o honyn y rwan (Na all fod, Gwyn 2016, l. 4693)

Y mae i mi etwa lawer o bethae y’w dywedyt wrthych, eithyr ny ellwch ei dwyn yr awrhon. (TN 1567)

Y mae gennyf eto lawer o bethau i’w dywedyd i chwi, ond ni ellwch eu dwyn yr awron. (Beibl 1588)

adhuc multa habeo vobis dicere sed non potestis portare modo (Vulgate)

I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. (KJV)

I have yet many thinges to saye vnto you: but ye canot beare them awaye now. (Tyndale)

The verb cariaf is a borrowing from English carry and is attested from the middle of the fifteenth century onwards (GPC, s.v. cariaf); the native verb dygaf (verbal noun dwyn), used by the two Bible translators, belongs to the basic Welsh vocabulary – interestingly, their frequency in the modern 1,000,000-word corpus is roughly similar: 218 for cario and 230 for dwyn.⁴⁷

In the case of ffaylio versus defficiai in (3), Gwyn’s choice of the English loan can easily be explained by a preference for using simpler vocabulary and avoiding a Latin loanword, which Salesbury, characteristically, adapted orthographically to make it look closer to its Latin equivalent (compare GPC, s.vv. ffaelaf, diffygiaf). The negative marker mo employed by Gwyn is probably another indicator of more informal language.⁴⁸

(3) Luke 22:32

ond my fi a weddiais drosot ti, fel na ffaylio mo’th ffudd di (Na all fod, Gwyn 2016, l. 4762)

An’d mi a weddiais trosot, na dðefficiai [sic] dy ffydd. (TN 1567)

Eithr mi a weddïais drosot, na ddiffygiai dy ffydd di (Beibl 1588)

ego autem rogavi pro te ut non deficiat fides tua (Vulgate)

But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not (KJV)

In (4), two words of English origin correspond to Welsh compounds in the Bible translations:

(4) 2 Cor 7:4

Rwyf j yn llawn kynffwrt. Rwyf j’n lawn o lawenydd yn vy holl drwbleth. (Y Drych, Gwyn 1996), p. 257

im cyflawnir o ddiddanwch, ac ydū wyf yn dra llawen yn ein oll ’orthrymder. (TN 1567)

yr wyf yn llawn o ddiddanwch, ac yn dra-llawen yn ein holl orthrymder (Beibl 1588)

repletus sum consolatione superabundo gaudio in omni tribulatione nostra (Vulgate)

I am filled with comfort, I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation (KJV)

The source of kynffwrt is the English comfort; the Welsh noun is attested (in various forms) since the mid-fifteenth century (GPC, s.v. comffordd). Trwbleth is a hybrid formation, based on the loanword trwbl, from English trouble, itself attested since the fourteenth century, to which the Welsh abstract suffix-aeth has been added. It is not an old word, and interestingly, the earliest attestations of trwbleth occur in 1567 according to GPC, in Salesbury’s Book of Common Prayer and his New Testament, in the latter in the margins of a different passage as an explanatory alternative for the loanword trafael, meaning ‘travail, trouble’ (GPC, s.vv. trwbl, trwblaeth). Diddanwch and gorthrymder, on the other hand, are both long-established abstract nouns derived from adjectives with the suffixes-wch and – der respectively (GPC, s.vv. diddanwch, gorthrymder).

In the following two examples of vocabulary from the socio-political domain, Gwyn is seen to prefer the loanwords prins and (plural) nasione over the native terms tywysog and cenedl. Prins occurs another three times in Na all fod, once in collocation with the name of a Roman emperor, y prins Iusinianus (Gwyn 2016, l. 6420), and tywysog not at all (at least in this spelling). He employs nasione⁴⁹ more or less consistently in his text, more than seventy times, while cenedl is used only six times. Note further that Salesbury gives plural nasiwne as a marginal gloss for plural Cenetloedd in his translation of the New Testament and that Robert (1939), p. 204 accepts nasiwn as an established loanword from English of ultimate Latin origin (GPC, s.vv. prins, nasiwn).

(5) John 12:31

Fo fwrir allan brins y byd yma (Na all fod, Gwyn 2016, l. 6479)

yr owrhō y tevlir allan tywysoc y byt hwn. (TN 1567)

yn awr y bwrir allan dywysog y byd hwn. (Beibl 1588)

nunc princeps huius mundi eicietur foras (Vulgate)

now shall the prince of this world be cast out. (KJV)

(6) John 11:50

May well y chwi adel y vn dyn farw dros y bobol, ag nyd gadel y’r holl nasione golli. (Na all fod, Gwyn 2016, l. 5058)

ac nyd ych yn ystyried y llesa i ni, bot marw vn dyn tros y popul ac na hyfergoller yr oll genetl. [with marginal gloss nasion] (TN 1567)

Nac yn ystyried, mai buddiol yw i ni farw o vn dŷn dros y bobl: ac na chyfyrgoller y genedl oll. (Beibl 1588)

nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat (Vulgate)

Nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not. (KJV)

More surprising at first sight is perhaps Gwyn’s use of the hybrid happys in the context of Christ’s words addressed to Peter:

(7) Matt. 16:17

Happys wyti Simon fab Sion (Na all fod, Gwyn 2016, l. 8949)

Gwyn dy vyt ti Simon vap Ionas (TN 1567)

Gwyn dy fŷd di, Simon mâb Jonas (Beibl 1588)

beatus es Simon Bar Iona (Vulgate)

Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona (KJV)

The root of happys is borrowed from English hap to which the Welsh suffix – us has been added – it is now the established and almost automatic equivalent for English happy. The phrase gwyn dy fyd in the Protestant translations, on the other hand, has a respectable old Celtic pedigree, literally meaning ‘white (>blessed) your world’, with the possessive pronoun changing according to context. It has exact parallels in Cornish, Breton, and Irish⁵⁰ and was a standard way to translate beatus into Welsh in the Middle Ages. It is still used in the new Welsh translation of the Bible published in 1988, Y Beibl Cymraeg Newydd: Gwyn dy fyd, Simon fab Jona. It should be noted, however, that happus is not a word stigmatized by Salesbury; he employed it in his 1567 translation of the New Testament, glossing it in the margin with native dedwydd and gwynfydic, the latter an adjective derived from the compound noun for ‘happiness’, gwynfyd (gwyn + byd), which is formally and semantically closely related to the phrase gwyn + possessive + byd.

In other instances we see Robert Gwyn simplifying the text for his assumed unlearned audience by avoiding highly specialized technical terms. In (8), the Latin Bible employs the phrase ethnicus et publicanus (‘heathen and publican/tax-collector’); in both cases where he quotes this passage, Gwyn substitutes ethnicus with dyn anffyddlon (‘unfaithful / heathen man’) and publicanus with pechadyr (‘sinner’) – anffyddlon and pechadyr being both less specific, but common and well-established in the Welsh lexicon.

(8) Matt. 18:17

Ony wryndy ef y’r Eglwys kymer ef yn lle dyn anffyddlon a ffechadyr (Na all fod, Gwyn 2016, l. 4630, 4862–4863)

ac a’s ef ny vynn wrandaw ’r Eccleis chwaith, bit ef y‐ty megis Cenedlic a Phublican. (TN 1567)

ac os efe ni wrendy ar yr eglwys chwaith, bydded ef i ti megis yr ethnig a'r publican. (Beibl 1588)

quod si non audierit eos dic ecclesiae si autem et ecclesiam non audierit sit tibi sicut ethnicus et publicanus (Vulgate)

but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. (KJV)

Salesbury, on the other hand, uses a rare word cenedlic (derived from cenedl in its Biblical meaning of ‘gentile’, corresponding to the relation between gens and gentilis) and the more or less unassimilated loan publican, the former first attested in his New Testament and the latter first in a thirteenth-century legal manuscript and then again in his New Testament (GPC s.vv. cenhedlig, pyblican). Significantly, however, Salesbury provides a gloss here: anffyddlon a’ thollwr, with the common word that Gwyn will later employ and a derived noun meaning ‘toll-collector’, based on an old loanword toll (‘toll, duty’). He coined tollwr in 1551 in Kynniver Llith a Ban, his translation of the Epistles and Gospels of the Book of Common Prayer of 1549. Morgan preferred the more or less unassimilated loan ethnic over Salesbury’s cenedlic, perhaps because of the latter’s complex semantic relation to cenedl with its basic meaning of ‘nation, kindred’, and he was followed by Davies in his version of 1620. In the twentieth century, Y Beibl Cymraeg Newydd settled on the loanword pagan and on the transparent collocation casglwr trethi (‘collector of tax’).

A similar simplification is probably seen in (9): The Latin verb sperno denotes a complex emotion, ‘to despise, reject’, but Gwyn prefers a verb denoting a more basic emotion, namely casáu (‘to hate’), derived from cas (‘hatred, enmity’). Salesbury translates it with the verb gommedd (‘to refuse, scorn’) and Morgan, followed by Davies, with dirmygu (‘ to despise, scorn’).

(9) Luke 10:16

Pwy bynnag a’ch gwryndy chwi, may ef yny gwrando i, pwy bynnag a’ch kasa chwi, may ef yn kasay i. (Na all fod, Gwyn 2016, l. 6055)

Y nep a’ch clyw chvvi, a’m clyw i: a’r nep a’ch gommedd chvvi, a’m gommedd i (TN 1567)

Y neb sydd yn eich gwrando chwi, sydd yn fy ngwrando i; a’r neb sydd yn eich dirmygu chwi, sydd yn fy nirmygu i (Beibl 1588)

qui vos audit me audit et qui vos spernit me spernit (Vulgate)

He that heareth you heareth me; and he that despiseth you despiseth me (KJV)

On the syntactic level, Gwyn is here seen to employ an indefinite relative with pwy bynnag (‘whoever’), instead of the headless relative clause in Latin, and this may reflect his intention to produce a sentence with easier and more transparent syntax for his projected unlearned audience. The pwy-bynnag clause is structurally left dislocated and taken up by the pronominal subject of the clause (literally ‘whoever hears you, he hears me’), whereas the Latin headless relative clause is the subject, as is the indefinite pronoun y nep which Salesbury and Morgan employ as a head. Their solution results in stylistically attractive parallel structures in the verbal phrase, e.g. a’ch clyw chvvi (‘who hears you’) and a’m clyw i (‘who hears me’); these may, however, be more difficult to process.

A similar indefinite relative with (pa) peth bynnag (‘whatever’), corresponding to Latin quodcumque, is used by Gwyn, Salesbury, and Morgan in (10). The left-dislocated structure is explicit in Gwyn’s version, whereas both Salesbury and Morgan appear to treat the pa-beth-bynac clause as the grammatical subject. Another notable syntactic feature is Gwyn’s rendering of the two Latin past participles ligatum (‘bound’) and solutum (‘loosened’) with analytic constructions, with the adjective rhwyn (‘bound’) and the collocation wedy ddattod (literally ‘after loosening’), which combines the preposition wedy (‘after’) with a verbal noun and is conventionally described as forming a past participle. Salesbury, on the other hand, prefers two verbal adjectives formed with the suffix – edic, namely rwymedic and gellyngedic. This form has now been identified as a feature of a learned and elevated register.⁵¹ Morgan follows Salesbury with rhwymedig, but resorts to the analytic format wedi ei ryddhau for solutum.⁵²

(10) Matt. 16:18-19

a ffeth bynnag a rhwymych di ar y ddayar fo fydd yn rhwym yny nef, a ffeth bynnag a ddytodych di ar y ddayar fo fydd wedy ddattod yny nef. (Na all fod, Gwyn 2016, l. 4756–4758)

a’ pha beth bynac a rwymych ar y ddaear, a vydd rwymedic yn y nefoedd: a pha beth bynac a ellyngych ar y daear, a vydd gellyngedic yn y nefoedd. (TN 1567)

a pha beth bynnag a rwymech ar y ddaear, a fydd rhwymedig yn y nefoedd; a pha beth bynnag a ryddhaech ar y ddaear, a fydd wedi ei ryddhau yn y nefoedd. (Beibl 1588)

et quodcumque ligaveris super terram erit ligatum in caelis et quodcumque solveris super terram erit solutum in caelis (Vulgate)

and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (KJV)

5 Some Results

Our admittedly preliminary analysis of Robert Gwyn’s practice of translating quotations from authoritative religious texts in two of his original works was intended to identify individual regularities in his translational practice, mainly with regard to his lexical choices, set against the background of his vindication of the use of loanwords derived from English in the introduction to Y Drych Kristnogawl. Here he stressed their necessity in translations from the Bible for practical and didactic purposes, so that these can “be understood by the ordinary [Welsh] people for their good”. This intention clearly distinguishes his translations from those of the same passages in the two roughly contemporary Protestant Bibles, by William Salesbury (1567) and William Morgan (1588), which we quote for comparative purposes. In Gwyn’s words, these are translations “for men to read [them] as Holy Scripture”, and thus scholarly translations which claim high theological reliability by remaining faithful to their sources. Their translators were furthermore concerned with preserving and furthering the dignity of the Welsh language, and their effort has always been acknowledged in Wales, as indicated by statements such as: “In England, the year 1588 is associated with the Spanish Armada, but in Wales it is inescapably associated with William Morgan’s literary classic. Had not this work been completed, it is unlikely that the Welsh language could have survived”.⁵³ Gwyn, on the other hand, was concerned with comprehensibility and theological reliability, but privileged the former over fidelity to the sources. He often opted for English loanwords which had entered the language due to Welsh speakers having ever more contact with English. Salesbury and Morgan, as we have seen, typically prefer native words – even if some of the lexemes chosen by Gwyn are not shunned by Salesbury, at least as explanatory marginal glosses. We also noted instances of lexical and syntactic simplification in Gwyn’s versions of Biblical passages.

Our case study of Gwyn’s practice of translating quotations from the Bible identified some of the ways in which he attempted to realize his stated intention to provide a version which was suited “for the ordinary people to understand” and to “give spiritual advice to the unlearned”, as part of a larger programme of Counter-Reformation missionary activities.⁵⁴ His paratextual reflections about two possibly problematic features of his translation – too many loanwords from English and imprecise translations of Biblical passages – set out to vindicate these in terms of functional considerations, concerning the benefit of sustained greater accessibility to his didactic and devotional works for the projected audience. This tenor of Gwyn’s reflections was shown to connect with comments by other Welsh translators of roughly the same period who, in their paratexts, similarly foreground the functional issue of easy comprehensibility and successful communication with the intended audience – as expressed in the topos of their use of familiar and easy words – rather than, for example, focusing on the linguistic problems of correctly translating their source texts.

6 Epilogue

As a preliminary but significant by-product of our research into the format of translations of quotations from the Bible, we found that their analysis permits an insight not only into different concepts and principles of translation, but also into actual procedures of translation. Once the authoritative Protestant Welsh Bible translations were available in the sixteenth century, it became possible for Welsh translators to refer to them, rather than to translate Biblical quotations directly from their immediate sources. A methodologically instructive case are the Biblical passages translated into Welsh in Perl mewn Adfyd, published in 1595, which was Huw Lewys’ translation of Miles Coverdale’s A spyrytuall and most precyouse pearle (first edition 1550), itself the English version of Otto Werdmüller’s Ein Kleinot Von Trost und Hilf in allerley Trübsalen. While Lewys sometimes undoubtedly translates directly from English, at other times Biblical quotations, which are clearly marked in the text, cannot be derived from the English source, but rather show acquaintance with printed Welsh translations – in the unpaginated introduction to his work he refers to the recent Bible translation “drwy boen a dyfal ddiwydrwydd, y gwir ardderchawg, ddyscedicaf Wr, D. Morgan” (Lewys 1595, n.p., ‘by care and constant diligence of the truly illustrious and most learned man, Dr [William] Morganʼ) and as an Anglican writer with the same Oxford background as Salesbury he could have been familiar with Salesbury’s earlier New Testament.⁵⁵

(12) Hebr. 12:11

No maner of chastenyng for the presente tyme semeth to be ioyous, but heauye and greuous, but afterwarde it bryngeth a quyete frute of ryghtuous∣nes vnto those that are exercysed therein. (Pearle 1550), p. xxxvij

Ni welir chwaith yn hyfryd, vn cospedigaeth, tros ’r amser presennol, eythr yn anhyfryd: etto wedi hynny, heddychol ffrwyth cyfiawnder a rydd hi, i ’rr rhai a fyddant wedi eu cynefino a hi. (Perl 1595, p. 91)

Nid chwaith hyfrydwch y gedir pob rryw cospedigaeth tros yr amser cydrychol, eithr anhyfrydwch: etto wedi hynny, heddychol ffrwyth cyfiownder a ddyry, ir rrai a font yn arferol a hi. (TN 1567)

Eto ni welir un cerydd dros yr amser presennol yn hyfryd, eithr yn anhyfryd: ond gwedi hynny y mae yn rhoi heddychol ffrwyth cyfiawnder i’r rhai sydd wedi eu cynefino ag ef. (Beibl 1588)

Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. (KJV)

Lewys’s Welsh version is not derived directly from Coverdale’s English text, as can be seen in the substitution of the doublet heavy and grievous by anhyfryd ‘unpleasant’ and of quiet by heddychol ‘peacefulʼ, used in both Welsh Bible translations (maeroris and pacatissimus in the Vulgate). The parallels with the Welsh Bible translations are obvious, but Lewys does not reproduce either of them word-for-word. This poses the theoretically interesting question of what textual transmission in the vernacular means in the sixteenth century. The differences between the Welsh versions invite us to think about procedures of translation which appear to be non-linear, but include reference to, and usage of, several sources, in both source and target languages.