View source for Ieuan ap Hywel Swrdwal

{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
'''Ieuan ap Hywel Swrdwal''' (?1430 – ?1480) was a [[Wales|Welsh]] [[poet]], from [[Cambro-Norman|Norman]] stock. He composed primarily in [[Welsh language|Welsh]], but was also responsible for the first known poem in the [[English language]] written by a Welshman.<ref name=WalesCompanion>{{cite book|last=Stephens|first=Meic|title=The New Companion to the Literature of Wales|year=1998|publisher=University of Wales Press|isbn=0708313833|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/newcompaniontoli0000unse}}</ref> His father [[Hywel Swrdwal]] was also a poet, and there are doubts as to whether a number of extant works should be attributed to the father or to the son. He is reputed to have composed a history of Wales, but this has not survived.

The ''Hymn to the Virgin'' was written by Ieuan at [[Oxford, England|Oxford]] in about 1470 and uses a Welsh poetic form, the ''[[awdl]]'', and [[Welsh orthography]]; for example:
{{Verse translation|
{{lang|cy|O michti ladi, owr leding/ tw haf
at hefn owr abeiding:
yntw ddy ffest efrlesting
i set a braents ws tw bring.}}<ref>Garlick, Raymond, and Roland Mathias, ''Anglo-Welsh Poetry 1480–1990''. Bridgend: Seren, 1995, p. 45</ref>
|
O, mighty lady, our leading/ to have
at heaven our abiding:
to bring us unto the everlasting feast
ye planted a branch ({{=}} of Jesse's tree).<ref>Garlick & Mathias, p. 47.</ref>}}

The poem consists of 96 lines in 13 stanzas. It is an address to Christ through the Virgin Mary.

An alternative claim for the first poem in English written by a Welshman is made for [[John Clanvowe]]'s ''The Book of Cupid, God of Love'' or ''The Cuckoo and the Nightingale'', a long love poem based on ''[[The Owl and the Nightingale]]''.<ref name=WalesCompanion />

==References==
{{Reflist}}

Garlick, Raymond, and Roland Mathias. ''Anglo-Welsh Poetry 1480–1990'' (Bridgend: Seren, 1995).

==External links==
* [https://archive.org/details/archivfrdasstudium140/page/34/mode/2up Full text of the hymn]

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[[Category:Welsh-language poets]]
[[Category:Anglo-Welsh poets]]
[[Category:Year of birth unknown]]
[[Category:Year of death unknown]]
[[Category:15th-century Welsh poets]]