Medieval Welsh Erotic Poetry

No really-

Circa 1480
‘Ode to the Pubic Hair’
The Welsh poet Gwerful Mechain wrote the “Ode to the Pubic Hair” (” Cywydd y Cedor”), a work in which she upbraids male poets for celebrating so many parts of a woman’s body, but not the vagina. “Let songs about the quim circulate,” she adjures her readers. As to the pubic hair: ” Lovely bush, God save it.”

Welsh & English versions here, an excerpt-

There is high wizardry,
singing before the night,
praising God’s greatness,
impotent chants ring forth:
omitting the centre without  praise
the place of children’s conception,
and the sheltered pussy, sheer bounty,
tender-plump, eager-worn circle,
where I love robustly,
the pussy under the skirt.

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3 Responses to “Medieval Welsh Erotic Poetry”

  1. robin d gill Says:

    i need to see more of the original+translation to see if it is the real thing. i googled here because i was curious about that pubic hair and would like to see the whole stanza with it! My latest book (The Woman Without a Hole OR (it has two names) Octopussy, Dry Liver & Blue Spots, with 1,300 dirty japanese poems (i have not calculated the percent that are erotic, obscene, just gross or funny, etc.) has a whole chapter for pubic hair, but that is only 200 year old pubes, yours is 600 years old! My hat is off!

  2. RickB Says:

    Well thank you, careful not to catch a head cold.
    If you click the link in the post (links are the greyish looking text) it shows both, yes it is totally legit, quite a famous Welsh poetess wrote it. I’ll check out your book as it is not unknown for me to be interested in Japanese rudeness.

  3. jayne Says:

    great to see some of gwerful’s work recognised. The translation is a bit modern though – medieval english didn’t have the word ‘pussy’. The closest trans. to ‘cedor’ is quim. And it isn’t skirt, it’s smock (cadach) I know, I’m splitting (pubic) hairs but ‘pussy’ is just so juvenile!


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