Gwerful Mechain

Gwerful Mechain

Gwerful Mechain (fl. 1462-1500), who lived in Mechain in Powys, is perhaps the most famous female Welsh-language poet. Little is known of her life.

Her work, composed in the traditional strict metres, including cywyddau and englynion, is often a celebration of religion and sex, sometimes within the same poem. Probably the most famous part of her work today is her erotic poetry, especially "Cywydd y Cedor" ("Ode to the Pubic Hair"), a poem praising the vulva. It is a work in which she upbraids male poets for celebrating so many parts of a woman's body, but not the genitals. "Let songs about the quim circulate," she adjures her readers. As to the pubic hair: " Lovely bush, God save it."

References

Howells, Nerys Ann (ed.) "Gwaith Gwerful Mechain ac Eraill", University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh and Celtic Studies, 2001, ISBN 0947531262

External links

* [http://www.webexcel.ndirect.co.uk/gwarnant/beirdd/cywyddwyr/gwerful.htm A short biography]
*
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20030307185238/http://www.webexcel.ndirect.co.uk/gwarnant/beirdd/cywyddwyr/gwerfulcedore.htm English translation] ; [http://www.resurgencecymru.org/cedor.html another English translation]


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