Becoming Melwas: Performance, Embodiment, and the Supernatural in Late Medieval Britain

A pair of Welsh poems, both now called Ymddiddan (or Ymryson) Gwenhwyfar a Melwas, “The Dialogue (or “Contention”) of Gwenhwyfar and Melwas,” foreground questions of performativity, gender, and the relationship between embodiment and adaptation. Both the late-16th-century “A” manuscript and the mid-17th-century “B” manuscript present characters who actively reshape their canonical roles from Arthurian legend.1 In doing so, they point towards the presence of a popular theatricality in Britain that was richly invested in exploring the past through performance. The Ymddiddanau Melwas a Gwenhwyfar evince a transgressive delight in reenacting, reverbalizing, and recharacterizing old stories, infusing both gendered critique and burlesque humor into the Arthurian mythos. Rather than assuming they are mystic relics of great antiquity, or bemoaning all that they cannot tell us about lost texts and tales, as numerous previous analyses have done, it is best to approach the Ymddiddanau of Gwenhwyfar and Melwas as rewarding literary specimens in their own right.In what follows, I begin by outlining the contents of the Ymddiddanau and reviewing extant scholarly perspectives on them. Emphasizing creative adaptation rather than adherence to postulated mythical narratives, I then analyze the broader corpus of Welsh literature on Melwas and Gwenhwyfar before returning to consider how the performative poetics of the Ymddiddanau alter, inflect, and respond to this background. The practices of voicing and embodiment which underlie these texts constitute active interventions in the depiction and interpretation of a legendary past, including ways in which gender dynamics and the presence of supernatural beings structure that past's relationship to the present. Collectively, these approaches necessitate a reconsideration of genre, one which situates the Ymddiddanau in a broader British theatrical history while suggesting new perspectives on the relationships between Welsh and English dramatic literature.Despite some undeniable obscurities, the overall gist of the poems is not especially hard to follow. The “A” text opens with a question about the man who sits “yn gyffredinrwydd gwledd”2 (in the common place of the feast), that is, not in the high seats of honor. This character responds, identifying himself as “y Melwas o Ynys Wydrin” (Melwas from the Glass Isle/Glastonbury). A few lines later, he identifies his interlocutor as “Gwenhwyvar olwg hyddgan” (Gwenhwyfar of the stag's gaze), famous as Arthur's queen. Gwenhwyfar refuses to serve Melwas wine, mocking him for his small size and unintimidating looks. Melwas insists that, appearances notwithstanding, he is fully capable of confronting (dala, “seizing, grappling with”) Arthur's great champion Cai (Jones and Lloyd-Morgan, pp. 45–46).In the ninth stanza, there is a shift from second-person singular address to second-person plural, implying a third speaker addressing both Gwenhwyfar and Melwas. This third speaker also introduces a twist: Gwenhwyfar and Melwas are not strangers, but have met previously (gynt) at another court, in Devon (Dyfnaint). It is unclear why this third character is needed to inform Gwenhwyfar and Melwas of their shared past; they may be unaware of their connection, or may be concealing it from the rest of the assembly (Jones and Lloyd-Morgan, p. 46).The penultimate verse contains pointed sexual mockery of lustful but impotent old men— “Cas gennyf wên gwrllwyd hen / ai gledde n waell dan i en / a chwenych eb allel amgen” (I hate a grey old man's grin, / With his sword like a needle beneath his chin, / Lusting, but he can't get it in). This is almost certainly Melwas directing an insult at Gwenhwyfar's husband, Arthur. The jibe is answered by another character, accusing Melwas of being “gwr balch llwrf ond geirie / ni thaw, ni thyn i gledde” (A proud man, a coward except when he yaps, / Who won't draw his blade or shut his trap). The most parsimonious identification is that this final verse is spoken by the same voice as the ninth: Evan D. Jones was the first to suggest that this is Cai himself,3 which would add a fitting payoff to the verbal sparring over the relative prowess of Cai and Melwas. The final line of the poem—“hwde di hwde dithe” (Take that! You take that!)—is clearly divided between two different speakers (Jones and Lloyd-Morgan, p. 46). It indicates the outbreak of a fight, presumably between Melwas and the third interlocutor. With its contextual referentiality and unpoetic simplicity, it strongly resembles an implied stage direction.The “B” text lacks this ending, though it largely concurs with the “A” text in staging banter between a skeptical ([g]wrthroch, “rough” or perhaps “scornful”) Gwenhwyfar and a small, self-confident Melwas. It also lacks an obvious third speaker, shifting the invocation of the characters’ shared past onto Melwas, while assigning the memory of their encounter in Devon more clearly to Gwenhwyfar. More distinctive, however, is “B”’s beginning, which contrasts descriptions of two horses—one black and brave, the other “glas . . . o liw y dail” (green . . . of the color of leaves) (Jones and Lloyd-Morgan, p. 60). The relation between these initial verses and what follows is unclear. A composer or performer may have associated these initially unrelated lines with Melwas and Gwenhwyfar,4 perhaps to highlight a supernatural quality they believed the characters possessed but found insufficiently expressed in the dialogue itself. That said, it is worth wondering if the repeated references to Melwas's size, his claims to be more than he seems to be, and—in the B text—his apparently altered appearance, all indicate an otherworldly nature.While these texts have received a fair amount of scholarly attention,5 most interpretative approaches have wrestled with their vexing condition in the manuscripts. Of “A,” one of the poems’ most recent editors, Nerys Ann Jones, writes that it “has been very badly modernized . . . with little regard for the . . . metre or even for rhyme in places. There are also signs that the poem has been redacted from faulty memory at some point. There are missing lines, lines which have clearly been reworked, verses that appear to be later additions, and words which have been corrupted beyond recognition.”6 As for the “B” manuscript, it is “written in Modern Welsh orthography, clumsily reworked in places and with extremely irregular line lengths and a number of missing words and phrases, the text is obscure but can be tentatively interpreted in the light of the earlier version.”7 Regarding the relationship between the two texts, Jones asserts that “some of the stanzas clearly derive from the same source, but there are also major differences between the two versions, possibly due to a long period of oral and written transmission.”8 However, “Late rhymes, modern endings and expressions appear along with medieval forms and meanings, and four-line stanzas are mixed with englynion milwr, making dating very difficult.”9Modern scholarly approaches to these dialogues begin with Evan D. Jones, who pointed out in 1936 that the title Arthur a Gwenhwyfar, appended to the “B” text, was an error. Arthur in fact does not seem to appear in person in Jones that as the be it to This how a Arthur's and how the of and the of Jones is also that there is an oral these the of the Ymddiddanau has to the same of their the to which they derive from other in Welsh or other and of their does not on a of than that as it is not but a number of if some of this from a to the poems than they seem to out of Melwas with an earlier of Arthurian or a of in the of Gwenhwyfar. claims that the poems both be as as the their and though he does the stanzas of A as the fact that while may have the the englynion . . . they may have the for their own is from the of to a but of the the creative at in the of while the even the a and that the poems history of oral and from faulty is more on the of the cannot if this dialogue of Melwas and Gwenhwyfar, in its to the even if it a very or The is that the text, its is to the extant a of the Modern even if it some more lines, or The that these poems are of the same lost the on in to the and embodiment of legendary how these poems approach of it is to the of the of Melwas and Gwenhwyfar. Melwas's first literary is in of of as an who and Arthur's to his at the of is to Arthur and The Arthurian on the for in medieval texts, that the Melwas as of and he this character of the the is certainly the is from though medieval may have the first as of Melwas's has more with this the more as an otherworldly who the sexual of Arthur's have a that this of the to the of Arthurian this but cannot fully obscure the of the this on as as There is supernatural in the of Melwas, with the of a in to of the of this as an otherworldly from or but this is an on the from in which it to a very very in himself is and to the of is the of the of and but sexual between them. The is one of from Arthur's in of a new in the character of In the later he would the of and Melwas as a of the a that questions of relationship and to of through a would in a from he in as and in the as in the black of the modern in however, from the canonical of and he associated with Arthur's his and that of their with the of Gwenhwyfar's from the of the This corpus of has been and by other In reviewing it I to of and the of supernatural or Melwas and Gwenhwyfar, I interventions in canonical the Melwas's first appearances in texts not in but in are first is with in an the which in this period was for a and more The of the is the verses and the own in his poems, himself the of legendary In en to a himself like y the of the a both himself and his in the roles of the legendary in he himself to to his hen o o o y old if through another like this at him he the long I take out in the a from Melwas, I of the is Gwenhwyfar. is the rather than Melwas, with that is in the even if its unclear. seems to to a in which Melwas, with for Gwenhwyfar, at of Arthur's a his Melwas an a or perhaps the that earlier in the poem to be his seems to to the in its as two the The of in this line while also a the of the It is the of two perhaps it and a or This best with a like the of and that references in Who are the of this Gwenhwyfar, or both of ni not of the the The has a of or as as a later in the . . . / y i not . . . / two that the their at There is of or of an all his for the that this an of the onto the that a is the two from out their The of and the legendary all a of to Lloyd-Morgan, that a in which there was a between Melwas and the in which the into as in the and the en these are the best then perhaps Melwas the character from by it does not appear that is to be like character is he A like from A like the of the more and a like it is, the between the legendary and his own performance. This him this is than its Arthurian Melwas's of Gwenhwyfar by the of the as an for supernatural beings in Modern English or The is a or of would be to by the and is on this as this and the of there is about of from the his with this Melwas more resembles the from the popular and to a of the broader in which Gwenhwyfar is or be to the of to is his as man, with it is perhaps his most over his numerous As his his sexual his and his to beyond the As the famous legendary character this Melwas was perhaps a for and his In the o a a i a o a a to Melwas's with and a to the into the the of to like he what I of all is Melwas as a with supernatural a and are to his and of the otherworldly However, the are called suggesting that these may be rather than Melwas as or the of his though this was also a of the or from this does not Melwas a for the speaker, it the to Gwenhwyfar's to being is unclear in another a that / a it Melwas / who get The implied which the his own seems to be one of a and a and by a to in a that the man has on the writes that in both poems, and to what the is that the man in the both as who and the legendary are to the of the as humor if not as not their they over the to Arthurian fact that both poems while may suggest that the they to This is by a pair of one in Welsh by from a manuscript, the other a in English in the of in but not Both to the same place on a in a poem to but from the modern of and that of the of poem Melwas dan y of Melwas the Melwas a Gwenhwyfar Arthur ai i i i a o o or a . . . was in a the same color as the Gwenhwyfar the of Arthur and on they to the The that he with for a was a man of one of the and a . . . this for Melwas's it for his and it is hard to a into the of Melwas. of the same an for Arthur at and a with Melwas, a of they it that with of to the Melwas was to in for the with a of on him of of the and to the place Melwas and the in his to his and all the of in a him to be a or man of the the with him to and for a English how a little take by the of a as Arthur is to but the when it is that the was and the to be by an old does not seem to be on some very verbal The on all with the of both suggest a common source, though this may have in oral is on the of the but an active in a the same his of the is a of the of and from Melwas as a a man of along the modern This is an from the implied in other of in or the of and The was a in the medieval Welsh and these texts to its as a for into the Modern other Welsh texts also Arthur to with In the medieval and Arthur to the to in a between and over the In the Modern the and from into the and Arthur is to a on In both tales, the a that the of the and for the to one man while the are on the and the other when they are The old the the would be in that but is when in an that and their all through the and be with like these may for and shifting of Melwas from the to the also is of the Melwas an otherworldly being as of his and Gwenhwyfar's but there is of The is on of burlesque theatricality for the same the of Melwas with in both texts a to the at the of the “B” overall however, is clearly different from that in the poems of the the is a different of the or the at a different point in this of two the as of the to which the of the two poems and two Melwas as an his perhaps by relationship with Gwenhwyfar is but rather an is a his to both and The by and is on his With the of the or in there is of the or In that, at by the Modern Welsh to canonical of Arthurian endings to at some the of all of these and the of Gwenhwyfar, or of the or In the by Gwenhwyfar's voice and with and if it is the who how to words as The a of for the as is capable of both the of and as a In gendered the Arthurian the Ymddiddanau Melwas a Gwenhwyfar draw in Welsh The corpus of Welsh numerous as In an recent questions the and of the as a genre, out that a medieval poem is this in its manuscript and that the of the as a title by modern the of a and and does that a number of a between two characters who are or previous who not one take the of an of verses between the two encounter is the for the of The characters are legendary there is a of dramatic and beyond the or in the of these poems to manuscript Ymddiddan Arthur “The Dialogue of Arthur and the Arthur by wondering why an is and at The himself as the Arthur's while a of In most of these poems there is little of character or The speakers as for the There is also as to how these have been The of address at the of stanzas in the seems to a performer to at like this may have been as for this in the of the of the in two manuscripts. a who is also y best in the in to the of his a y y a a a was and they to they and about and p. This may that the with in as and of the in a earlier a dialogues and p. and seems to the verbal of the previous suggest be, they and dialogues and This would then indicate a by a man and a on legendary that the may dramatic by two though there are in which it seems to be a more or In have some the of in medieval . . . very little is of the of the of theatrical if not dramatic and are in most of the tales, it is not these would have been in However, reviewing the of the is skeptical that the medieval can on the of dialogue fitting the Ymddiddanau of Melwas and Gwenhwyfar into Welsh literary have to to the other legendary dialogue Lloyd-Morgan, both the “A” and “B” dialogues to the same as other verse dialogues in like that of Arthur and the there are Ymddiddan Arthur like the Gwenhwyfar and Melwas texts, the encounter of two one of is initially but There are even some verbal Arthur to the as of to which can the “B” of Emphasizing these the more of the Gwenhwyfar and Melwas approach contrasts Modern as and with a to which the dialogues are In doing so, claims a and even a for the of Melwas and the in these two the Welsh dialogue . . . a more not the this these dialogues us to an of Gwenhwyfar's and the perhaps in with the as Nerys Ann Jones “The light mocking of the dialogue . . . may point to a different to the relationship between the two characters in these of between the two characters especially on the of Melwas . . . of can be between the characters at the even this with a over the of the he it is to to of a text in these There is as in the of the . . . It is not that have in this dialogue a recent poem about the between Melwas and Gwenhwyfar, by one of the a to which certainly to the Ymddiddanau Melwas a in its of the of an old man's that the other legendary that is that of that its of most of the is through the in one manuscript a text as Welsh is a performative It or to an of Arthurian and towards a than more canonical in Melwas a Gwenhwyfar to one of the the who the for the quality of the the of oral and the and sexual of the in assuming a singular Gwenhwyfar a to this an is in as the dialogue of the and who in the the the corpus by a medieval Welsh is perhaps most famous for his poems, almost first and then as the the of to British and found his when and the English in was to another or of englynion is a for with a relationship expressed through this the of on with questions poems, however, may suggest the relationship was more than In this voice the first and most of the y y o y and are is a a long this can is the of as than an for a get a place to in as as the pp. two verses in the same with the brave, with the long A final which be in (or of the insists that is than best of some have these to that is that was capable of in this most famous poem is y to the a to verse on his the of the embodiment at the of and of that very from an encounter of strangers, to a and of the to to his a a is to the initially and first verse to The third of the but in the Melwas and Gwenhwyfar “A” it an to rather than In both however, the stage or is hwde the verbal between the in both a to the while the from which Gwenhwyfar in a different of The “A” waell dan i sword beneath his is more than though these the of the Melwas a Gwenhwyfar poems, and in versions, of oral and performative than a and is as of a broader There is for verse in Modern In an English are as and dialogue in and a of to suggest that these at in and as as an to on and of the best in The of of The first of this is from though himself about the to the of the at an of the Both on and then to of to but insists on I with for is can . . . then have at The they is not as as and but it is and by and and at in on the of a rhyme and The of is and may for the present in of both the and and between Gwenhwyfar and there are dialogue poems, including Modern English and which seem to have been at by as the there is to that be by a pair (or of not characters but the relationship between and add or verses to or the of the or the of and characters and stage as by the and In doing so, they not the legendary past as a and of but as a for and a of and voicing legendary I have to the of the and over the and In doing so, I have ways in which British by the of legendary to with of and I with two from the that a supernatural or otherworldly an of are in light of the medieval and Modern at as as their earlier not more a character as There is that Melwas, or other supernatural when by later they so, perhaps their with legendary the that and their It was is clearly and like was more with the though these be or in different otherworldly beings in are and the supernatural over the by a to than an critique of and the of with the same and that it claims to of British theatricality have to the of oral both to and the of and as and rather than these have the to and of how the Modern the of and Welsh literature a long history of and forms in and with English The between and with are of these there is more which I can towards In a a Welsh dramatic adaptation of and and The of There is also the Welsh dialogue and that indicates but does not in this to the and The its a and theatrical of of Arthur's The clearly Welsh This it to that the of the to of like Ymddiddan Melwas a Gwenhwyfar. Collectively, these texts that there and in medieval and Modern a in to relationships to the past, how gender, and other actively the past into the and through theatrical can as both a and a both the and the of the canonical text, its to the and its to be in of that legendary characters have a to into the the who these characters can and their with and they can the of Gwenhwyfar can own relationship with Melwas, not by legendary or gendered Melwas can as or he the Ymddiddan the question of who The of these the of the text a but also a the of and insists on