hat shone like the pearly dew on Eryri. {28b} I make my humble
petition to the great Creator of heaven and earth, and my petition will
not be denied, that he grant, that this beautiful maid, who glittered
like pearls, may, through the intercession of Holy Dewi, {28c} be
received to his mercy, that she may converse with the prophets, that she
may come into the inheritance of the All-wise God, with Mary and the
Martyrs. And in her behalf I will profer my prayer, which will fly to
the throne of Heaven. My love and affection knew no bounds. May she
never suffer. Saint Peter be her protector. God himself will not suffer
her to be an exile from the mansions of bliss. Heaven be her lot.

A POEM

_To Llewelyn-ap-Iorwerth_, _or Llewelyn the Great_; _in which many of his
victories are celebrated_.

_Composed by Llywarch Brydydd y Moch_, _a Bard_, _who_, _according to Mr.
Edward Llwyd of the Museum's Catalogue of the British writers_,
_flourished about the year_ 1240; _but this poem is certainly of more
ancient date_, _for prince Llewelyn died in the year_ 1240. _However
that be_, _the original was taken from Llyfr Coch o Hergest_, _or the Red
book of Hergest_, _kept in the Archives of Jesus College_, _Oxon_. _I
have no apology to make for the Bards' method of beginning or concluding
their poems_, _but that it was their general custom ever since the
introduction of Christianity to this island_, _which was very early_.
_We have no poems that I know of before that period_, _but some few
remains of the Druids in that kind of verse called Englyn Milwr_. _It
was the custom of the heathen poets themselves to begin their poems with
an invocation of the Supreme Being_. _As for instance_, _Theocritus in
the beginning of his Idyllium in praise of Ptolemoeus Philadelphus_,

[Greek text].

_But I shall not here enter into a critical dissertation of their merits
or defects_; _my business_, _as a translator_, _being to give as faithful
a version from the original as I possibly could at this distance of
time_; _when many of the matters of fact_, _the manners of the age_, _and
other circumstances_, _alluded to in their poems_, _must remain obscure
to those that are best versed in the records of antiquity_.

May Christ, the Creator and Governor of the hosts of heaven and earth,
defend me from all disasters; may I, through his assistance, be prudent
and discreet ere I come to my narrow habitation in the grave. Christ,
th