Cymry

“ The last line, however, seems only to apply to the applauding sound of the wings, and not to intimate that any music was produced by them.
C. I. R.
Cimmerii (Vol. v., p. 188.) .
—The belief that the Cymry are descended from Gomer can prove very little as to the restlessness of those who hold it; and if it is making progress, the opinion must be supported by probability: consequently a mere denial will not dispel the illusion. ”

“ Before the Scythians came a swarm of Cimmerians, sweeping over Asia Minor in the time of the predecessors of Croesus. Their name is still retained in the Crimea and Krim Tartary. They reappear as Cimbri in the latter days of the Roman republic, to which they were very near giving the finishing stroke. Then they are heard of in Schleswick and Jutland, and in Wales it is just possible that at the present day they call themselves Cymry. Before their coming a horde of Celts or Gauls had fallen on Borne, and another invaded Greece later on, leaving permanent settlements in Lombardy and Asia Minor. ”

“ When they landed in England, they found the Britons generally worshippers of the True Divinity. Christianity had become grafted and grown, and overpowered and bore down the remains of druidism, on which it was first planted. The idolatry that existed had assumed a more classic form; and instead of the grim wicker idols of the druids, the sightly forms of the heathen gods, which the Romans worshipped, had usurped their places. Among the ancient Cymry who had not come into such close contact with the Roman conquerors, the old druidical forms of idolatry still lingered ”

“ In his absence a usurper laid hold of his empire in Rome, but with the aid of his British friends he reconquered his dominions, and many of them settled there with him, while others went home to Britain. The latter took with them foreign wives, but, it is said, cut out their tongues, lest they should corrupt the speech of the Britons. Thus early and thus powerful was the devotion to their tongue of the Cymry, of whom the mythical bard Taliesin prophesied:
“Their God they will praise,
Their speech they will keep,
Their land they will lose,
Except wild Walia.” ”

“ Under the former of these appellations we include the inhabitants of Ireland, the Highlands of Scotland, and the Isle of Man; under the latter, the people of Wales and Brittany. It is, not, however, by any means meant to be asserted that there is in any of these places to be found a purely Celtic or Cymric population. The more powerful Gotho-German race has, every where that they have encountered them, beaten the Celts and Cymry, and intermingled with them, influencing their manners, language, and religion. ”

“ The hatred became more bitter than ever, and the Welsh would not even enter the same church with the Saxons, nor eat of a meal of which they had partaken.
Cadwallader, the last of the Pendragons, was a terrible enemy to the kings of Mercia and Northumbria, and with him the Cymry consider that their glory ended. Looking on themselves for generation after generation as the lawful owners of the soil, and on the Saxons as robbers, they showed no mercy in their forays, and inflicted frightful cruelties on their neighbors on the Marches. ”

“ Picts from Scotland invaded the north, and Scots from Ireland plundered the west; worst of all, the heathen Angles and Saxons, pouring across the seas from their homes in the Elbe country, wasted the land with fire and sword. Many of the Britons were slain; those who escaped sought refuge in the mountainous parts of the west from Cornwall to the Firth of Clyde. There, forgetting, to some extent, their quarrels, they took the name of the Cymry, which means the "Brethren," though the English, unable to understand their language, spoke of them contemptuously as the "Welsh," or the "Strangers." ”

“ The Crimea was the Gwlad yr Haf (summer land) of the Cymry.
Alps is derived from al, grand, sublime, and pen, head,—a sublime head.
Armorica comes from ar-y-môr, upon the sea.
Danube finds its derivation from dan, under, below, and uf (pronounced uv or ub) , spreading or diffused. Some of the Cymric bands or colonies, in their migrations westward, halted along the banks of the Danube; others settled on the Elbe, and were called the Wendi, and their descendants speak at the present time a slightly-corrupted Welsh language. Bautzen, in Bavaria, and Glogau, in Prussia, are old Cymric towns ”

“ The 'Men of the North' were almost certainly for the most part Britons both by race and language, but all who were free amongst them called themselves at a later period, even if not already, by the name Cymry, that is, compatriots.
Cunedda is one of the very few to whom Welsh literature assigns the rare title of gwledig, [50] a term which denotes the ruler of a territory, apparently as distinct from that of a community of persons, which is a very important distinction in view of ' tribal ' custom. ”

“ If that thy gentry, Britain, go before
This lout as he exceeds our lords, the odds
Is that we scarce are men, and you are gods.
[Exit.]
The battle continues; the Britons fly; Cymbeline is taken. Then enter to his rescue Belarius, Guiderius and Arviragus.
BELARIUS.
Stand, stand! We have th’ advantage of the ground;
The lane is guarded; nothing routs us but
The villainy of our fears.
GUIDERIUS and ARVIRAGUS.
Stand, stand, and fight!
Enter Posthumus and seconds the Britons; they rescue Cymbeline and exeunt. Then re-enter Lucius and Iachimo with Imogen. ”

“ In place of greater state. I’ll meet you in the valleys.
[Exeunt Guiderius and Arviragus.]
How hard it is to hide the sparks of nature!
These boys know little they are sons to th’ King,
Nor Cymbeline dreams that they are alive.
They think they are mine; and though train’d up thus meanly
I’ th’ cave wherein they bow, their thoughts do hit
The roofs of palaces, and nature prompts them
In simple and low things to prince it much
Beyond the trick of others. This Polydore,
The heir of Cymbeline and Britain, who
The King his father call’d Guiderius—Jove! ”

“ Imogen, before she reached Milford-Haven, fell into the hands of the Roman army; and her presence and deportment recommending her, she was made a page to Lucius, the Roman general.
Cymbeline's army now advanced to meet the enemy, and when they entered this forest, Polydore and Cadwal joined the king's army. The young men were eager to engage in acts of valour, though they little thought they were going to fight for their own royal father: and old Belarius went with them to the battle. He had long since repented of the injury he had done to Cymbeline in carrying away his sons ”

“ If Cymlin was in the hall, she came down the stairway—flooded with coloured lights from its painted windows—lute in hand, singing—singing of young Adonis or cruel Cupid; her rich garments trailing, her white hands flashing, her face bent to her adorer, her voice filling the space with melody. Or she sat in the window, with the summer scents and sun around her, musically mocking Love, as if he never had or never could touch her. Cymlin knew all her entrancing ways, and followed her in them with wonderful prudence. No word of his great affection passed his lips ”

“ Cymbeline was seated in his tent, and at his side stood his three preservers—the aged warrior, with white flowing beard, and the two gallant striplings. A fourth was missing, and Cymbeline lamented for him—a poor soldier, he said, who fought so nobly that his rags shamed gilded arms. Anyone who found him should receive the highest favour from the King. No one could give tidings of this hero, but Cymbeline proceeded to confer the honour of knighthood on the three other champions, and to appoint them companions to his own person, with dignities becoming their estate. ”

“ In the same winding tract of Germany live the Cimbrians, close to the ocean; a community now very small, but great in fame. Nay, of their ancient renown, many and extensive are the traces and monuments still remaining; even their entrenchments upon either shore, so vast in compass that from thence you may even now measure the greatness and numerous bands of that people, and assent to the account of an army so mighty. It was on the six hundred and fortieth year of Rome, when of the arms of the Cimbrians the first mention was made, during the Consulship of Caecilius Metellus and Papirius Carbo. ”

“ Come, arm him. Boy, he is preferr'd By thee to us; and he shall be interr'd As soldiers can. Be cheerful; wipe thine eyes. Some falls are means the happier to arise. Exeunt
SCENE III. Britain. CYMBELINE'S palace Enter CYMBELINE, LORDS, PISANIO, and attendants
CYMBELINE. Again! and bring me word how 'tis with her. Exit an attendant A fever with the absence of her son; A madness, of which her life's in danger. Heavens, How deeply you at once do touch me! Imogen, The great part of my comfort, gone; my queen Upon a desperate bed, and in a time When fearful wars point at me ”

“ How Cymbeline's wicked queen, through despair of bringing her projects to pass, and touched with remorse of conscience, sickened and died, having first lived to see her foolish son Cloten slain in a quarrel which he had provoked, are events too tragical to interrupt this happy conclusion by more than merely touching upon. It is sufficient that all were made happy who were deserving; and even the treacherous Iachimo, in consideration of his villainy having missed its final aim, was dismissed without punishment. ”

“ Then he remembered Cymon and his friends, whom he detained as his prisoners, and persuaded himself that he could not have a more faithful friend in such a business than Cymon was. Hereupon, the night following, he sent for him into his chamber, and being alone by themselves, thus he began: "Cymon," quoth he, "as the gods are very bountiful in bestowing their blessings on men, so do they therein most wisely make proof of their virtues, and such as they find firm and constant in all occurrences which may happen, them they make worthy, as valiant spirits, of the very best and highest merit. ”

“ Away! Thou'rt poison to my blood. POSTHUMUS. The gods protect you, And bless the good remainders of the court! I am gone. Exit
IMOGEN. There cannot be a pinch in death More sharp than this is. CYMBELINE. O disloyal thing, That shouldst repair my youth, thou heap'st A year's age on me! IMOGEN. I beseech you, sir, Harm not yourself with your vexation. I am senseless of your wrath; a touch more rare Subdues all pangs, all fears. CYMBELINE. Past grace? obedience? IMOGEN. Past hope, and in despair; that way past grace. CYMBELINE. That mightst have had the sole son of my queen! ”

“ Cimbri, a barbarian horde who, with the Teutons, invaded Gaul in the 2nd century B.C.; gave the Romans no small trouble, and were all but exterminated by Marius in 101 B.C.; believed to have been a Celtic race, who descended on Southern Europe from the N.
Cimerians, an ancient people N. of the shores of the Black Sea, fabled to inhabit a region unvisited by a single ray of the sun.
Cimon, an Athenian general, son of Miltiades; distinguished himself in the struggle of Athens against Persia in 466 B.C. ”

“ Bellarius, who stole them away, was a lord in the court of Cymbeline, and having been falsely accused to the king of treason, and banished from the court, in revenge he stole away the two sons of Cymbeline, and brought them up in a forest, where he lived concealed in a cave. He stole them through revenge, but he soon loved them as tenderly as if they had been his own children, educated them carefully, and they grew up fine youths, their princely spirits leading them to bold and daring actions ”

“ Thou dragon of Arfon [37b] of resistless fury, with thy beautiful well-made steeds, no Englishman shall get one foot of thy country. There is no Cymro thy equal.
II.
There is none equal to my prince with his numerous troops in the conflict of war. He is a generous Cymro descended from Beli Hir, [37c] if you enquire about his lineage. He generously distributeth gold and riches. An heroic wolf from Eryri. [37d] An eagle among his nobles of matchless prowess; it is our duty to extol him. He is clad in a golden vest in the army, and setteth castles on fire. ”

“ A clear, strong wind came down from the north, sent by the favour of the mighty enchantress Circe, and over the trackless sea they sped, where never furrow of mortal ship was seen before. After a long day's sail they came to the farther shore of the ocean stream, which surrounds the earth as with a girdle. There is the abode of the people called the Cimmerians, wrapped in shadow and mist; for never doth the sun look down upon them with his rays, neither when he climbs the starry sky, nor yet when he goeth down unto the place of his rest. ”

“ This dream was hard to interpret, yet Astyphilus of Posidonia, a man skilled in divinations, and intimate with Cimon, told him that his death was presaged by this vision, which he thus explained. A dog is enemy to him be barks at; and one is always most a pleasure to one's enemies, when one is dead; the mixture of human voice with barking signifies the Medes, for the army of the Medes is mixed up of Greeks and barbarians. ”

“ Those qualities which caused the Cymri to reverence their bards and esteem learning are the qualities at work in their lives now. The passionate admiration which in olden times made them follow a leader like Llewelyn the Great or a lost cause, is what makes them shout by the tens of thousands for Lloyd George to-day and a winning cause. ”

“ For the rest, the starting-point of Cymbeline vaguely resembles that of Lear. Cymbeline is causelessly estranged from Imogen, as Lear is from Cordelia; there is something in Cymbeline's weakness and folly that recalls the unreason of Lear. But in the older play everything is tragically designed and in the great manner, whereas here the whole action is devised with a happy end in view.
The consort of this pitiful king is a crafty and ambitious [Pg 623] woman, who, by alternately flattering and defying him, has got him entirely under her thumb. ”