Select Poems Of Thomas Gray Part 21

7. _Nightly_. Nocturnal, as often in poetry. Cf. _Il Pens._ 84, etc.

9. _The crested pride_. Gray quotes Dryden, _Indian Queen_: "The crested adder's pride."

11. "Snowdon was a name given by the Saxons to that mountainous tract which the Welsh themselves call _Craigian-eryri_: it included all the highlands of Caernarvons.h.i.+re and Merioneths.h.i.+re, as far east as the river Conway. R. Hygden, speaking of the castle of Conway, built by King Edward the First, says: 'Ad ortum amnis Conway ad clivum montis Erery;' and Matthew of Westminster (ad ann. 1283), 'Apud Aberconway ad pedes montis Snowdoniae fecit erigi castrum forte'" (Gray).

It was in the spring of 1283 that English troops at last forced their way among the defiles of Snowdon. Llewellyn had preserved those pa.s.ses and heights intact until his death in the preceding December.

The surrender of Dolbadern in the April following that dispiriting event opened a way for the invader; and William de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, at once advanced by it (Hales).

The epithet _s.h.a.ggy_ is highly appropriate, as Leland (_Itin._) says that great woods clothed the mountain in his time. Cf. Dyer, _Ruins of Rome_:

"as Britannia's oaks On Merlin's mount, or Snowdon's rugged sides, Stand in the clouds."

See also _Lycidas_, 54: "Nor on the s.h.a.ggy top of Mona high;" and _P.

L._ vi. 645: "the s.h.a.ggy tops."

13. _Stout Gloster_. "Gilbert de Clare, surnamed the Red, Earl of Gloucester and Hereford, son-in-law to King Edward" (Gray). He had, in 1282, conducted the war in South Wales; and after overthrowing the enemy near Llandeilo Fawr, had reinforced the king in the northwest.

14. _Mortimer_. "Edmond de Mortimer, Lord of Wigmore" (Gray). It was by one of his knights, named Adam de Francton, that Llewellyn, not at first known to be he, was slain near Pont Orewyn (Hales).

On _quivering lance_, cf. Virgil, _aen._ xii. 94: "hastam qua.s.satque trementem."

15. _On a rock whose haughty brow_. Cf. Daniel, _Civil Wars_: "A huge aspiring rock, whose surly brow."

The _rock_ is probably meant for Penmaen-mawr, the northern termination of the Snowdon range. It is a ma.s.s of rock, 1545 feet high, a few miles from the mouth of the Conway, the valley of which it overlooks. Towards the sea it presents a rugged and almost perpendicular front. On its summit is Braich-y-Dinas, an ancient fortified post, regarded as the strongest hold of the Britons in the district of Snowdon. Here the reduced bands of the Welsh army were stationed during the negotiation between their prince Llewellyn and Edward I. Within the inner enclosure is a never-failing well of pure water. The rock is now pierced with a tunnel 1890 feet long for the Chester and Holyhead railway.

17. _Rob'd in the sable garb of woe_. It would appear that Wharton had criticised this line, for in a letter to him, dated Aug. 21, 1757, Gray writes: "You may alter that '_Robed in_ the sable,' etc., almost in your own words, thus,

'With fury pale, and pale with woe, Secure of Fate, the Poet stood,' etc.

Though _haggard_, which conveys to you the idea of a _witch_, is indeed only a metaphor taken from an unreclaimed hawk, which is called a _haggard_, and looks wild and _farouche_, and jealous of its liberty." Gray seems to have afterwards returned to his first (and we think better) reading.

19. "The image was taken from a well-known picture of Raphael, representing the Supreme Being in the vision of Ezekiel. There are two of these paintings (both believed originals), one at Florence, the other in the Duke of Orleans's collection at Paris" (Gray).

20. _Like a meteor_. Gray quotes _P. L._ i. 537: "Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind."

21, 22. Wakefield remarks: "This is poetical language in perfection; and breathes the sublime spirit of Hebrew poetry, which delights in this grand rhetorical subst.i.tution."

23. _Desert caves_. Cf. _Lycidas_, 39: "The woods and desert caves."

26. _Hoa.r.s.er murmurs_. That is, perhaps, with continually increasing hoa.r.s.eness, hoa.r.s.er and hoa.r.s.er; or it may mean with unwonted hoa.r.s.eness, like the comparative sometimes in Latin (Hales).

28. Hoel is called _high-born_, being the son of Owen Gwynedd, prince of North Wales, by Finnog, an Irish damsel. He was one of his father's generals in his wars against the English, Flemings, and Normans, in South Wales; and was a famous bard, as his poems that are extant testify.

_Soft Llewellyn's lay_. "The lay celebrating the mild Llewellyn,"

says Hales, though he afterwards remarks that, "looking at the context, it would be better to take _Llewellyn_ here for a bard."

Many bards celebrated the warlike prowess and princely qualities of Llewellyn. A poem by Einion the son of Guigan calls him "a tender-hearted prince;" and another, by Llywarch Brydydd y Moch, says: "Llewellyn, though in battle he killed with fury, though he burned like an outrageous fire, yet was a mild prince when the mead-horns were distributed." In an ode by Llygard Gwr he is also called "Llewellyn the mild."

29. Cadwallo and Urien were bards of whose songs nothing has been preserved. Taliessin (see 121 below) dedicated many poems to the latter, and wrote an elegy on his death: he was slain by treachery in the year 560.

30. _That hush'd the stormy main_. Cf. Shakes. _M. N. D._ ii. 2:

"Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song."

33. _Modred_. This name is not found in the lists of the old bards.

It may have been borrowed from the Arthurian legends; or, as Mitford suggests, it may refer to "the famous Myrddin ab Morvyn, called Merlyn the Wild, a disciple of Taliessin, the form of the name being changed for the sake of euphony."

34. _Plinlimmon_. One of the loftiest of the Welsh mountains, being 2463 feet in height. It is really a group of mountains, three of which tower high above the others, and on each of these is a _carnedd_, or pile of stones. The highest of the three is further divided into two peaks, and on these, as well as on another prominent part of the same height, are other piles of stones. These five piles, according to the common tradition, mark the graves of slain warriors, and serve as memorials of their exploits; but some believe that they were intended as landmarks or military signals, and that from them the mountain was called _Pump-lumon_ or _Pum-lumon_, "the five beacons"--a name somehow corrupted into _Plinlimmon_. Five rivers take their rise in the recesses of Plinlimmon--the Wye, the Severn, the Rheidol, the Llyfnant, and the Clywedog.

35. _Arvon's sh.o.r.e_. "The sh.o.r.es of Caernarvons.h.i.+re, opposite the isle of Anglesey" (Gray). _Caernarvon_, or _Caer yn Arvon_, means the camp in Arvon.

38. "Camden and others observe that eagles used annually to build their aerie among the rocks of Snowdon, which from thence (as some think) were named by the Welsh _Craigian-eryri_, or the crags of the eagles. At this day (I am told) the highest point of Snowdon is called _the Eagle's Nest_. That bird is certainly no stranger to this island, as the Scots, and the people of c.u.mberland, Westmoreland, etc., can testify; it even has built its nest in the peak of Derbys.h.i.+re [see Willoughby's Ornithology, published by Ray]" (Gray).

40. _Dear as the light_. Cf. Virgil, _aen._ iv. 31: "O luce magis dilecta sorori."

41. _Dear as the ruddy drops_. Gray quotes Shakes. _J. C._ ii. 1:

"As dear to me as are the ruddy drops That visit my sad heart."

Cf. also Otway, _Venice Preserved_:

"Dear as the vital warmth that feeds my life, Dear as these eyes that weep in fondness o'er thee."

42. Wakefield quotes Pope: "And greatly falling with a fallen state;"

and Dryden: "And couldst not fall but with thy country's fate."

44. _Grisly_. See on _Eton Coll._ 82. Cf. _Lycidas_, 52:

"the steep Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie."

48. "See the Norwegian ode that follows" (Gray). This ode (_The Fatal Sisters_, translated from the Norse) describes the _Valkyriur_, "the choosers of the slain," or warlike Fates of the Gothic mythology, as weaving the destinies of those who were doomed to perish in battle.

It begins thus:

"Now the storm begins to lower (Haste, the loom of h.e.l.l prepare), Iron sleet of arrowy shower Hurtles in the darken'd air.

"Glittering lances are the loom, Where the dusky warp we strain, Weaving many a soldier's doom, Orkney's woe, and Randver's bane.

"Shafts for shuttles, dipt in gore, Shoot the trembling cords along; Swords, that once a monarch bore, Keep the tissue close and strong.

"(Weave the crimson web of war) Let us go, and let us fly, Where our friends the conflict share, Where they triumph, where they die."

51. Cf. Dryden, _Sebastian_, i. 1:

"I have a soul that, like an ample s.h.i.+eld, Can take in all, and verge enough for more."