Whoever doubts its
capability for the purpose of narration, let him peruse the Welsh
Historical Triads, in which are told the most remarkable events
which befell the early Cumry; and whosoever doubts its power for
the purpose of abstruse reasoning, let him study a work called
Rhetorick, by Master William Salisbury, written about the year
1570, and I think he will admit that there is no hyperbole, or, as
a Welshman would call it, GORWIREB, in what I have said with
respect to the capabilities of the Welsh language.
As to its sounds - I have to observe that at the will of a master
it can be sublimely sonorous, terribly sharp, diabolically guttural
and sibilant, and sweet and harmonious to a remarkable degree.
What more sublimely sonorous than certain hymns of Taliesin; more
sharp and clashing than certain lines of Gwalchmai and Dafydd
Benfras, describing battles; more diabolically grating than the
Drunkard's Choke-pear by Rhys Goch, and more sweet than the lines
of poor Gronwy Owen to the Muse? Ah, those lines of his to the
Muse are sweeter even than the verses of Horace, of which they
profess to be an imitation. What lines in Horace's ode can vie in
sweetness with
"Tydi roit a diwair wen
Lais eos i lysowen!"
"Thou couldst endow, with thy dear smile,
With voice of lark the lizard vile!"
Eos signifies a nightingale, and Lysowen an eel.
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