The hardness of the bed, or the upper one to suffer from cold, they
immediately leap up, and go to the fire, which soon relieves them
from both inconveniences; and then returning to their couch, they
expose alternately their sides to the cold, and to the hardness of
the bed.
CHAPTER XI
Concerning their cutting of their hair, their care of their teeth,
and shaving of their beard
The men and women cut their hair close round to the ears and eyes.
The women, after the manner of the Parthians, cover their heads
with a large white veil, folded together in the form of a crown.
Both sexes exceed any other nation in attention to their teeth,
which they render like ivory, by constantly rubbing them with green
hazel and wiping with a woollen cloth. For their better
preservation, they abstain from hot meats, and eat only such as are
cold, warm, or temperate. The men shave all their beard except the
moustaches (GERNOBODA). This custom is not recent, but was
observed in ancient and remote ages, as we find in the works of
Julius Caesar, who says, (21) "The Britons shave every part of
their body except their head and upper lip;" and to render
themselves more active, and avoid the fate of Absalon in their
excursions through the woods, they are accustomed to cut even the
hair from their heads; so that this nation more than any other
shaves off all pilosity. Julius also adds, that the Britons,
previous to an engagement, anointed their faces with a nitrous
ointment, which gave them so ghastly and shining an appearance,
that the enemy could scarcely bear to look at them, particularly if
the rays of the sun were reflected on them.
CHAPTER XII
Of their quickness and sharpness of understanding
These people being of a sharp and acute intellect, and gifted with
a rich and powerful understanding, excel in whatever studies they
pursue, and are more quick and cunning than the other inhabitants
of a western clime.
Their musical instruments charm and delight the ear with their
sweetness, are borne along by such celerity and delicacy of
modulation, producing such a consonance from the rapidity of
seemingly discordant touches, that I shall briefly repeat what is
set forth in our Irish Topography on the subject of the musical
instruments of the three nations. It is astonishing that in so
complex and rapid a movement of the fingers, the musical
proportions can be preserved, and that throughout the difficult
modulations on their various instruments, the harmony is completed
with such a sweet velocity, so unequal an equality, so discordant a
concord, as if the chords sounded together fourths or fifths. They
always begin from B flat, and return to the same, that the whole
may be completed under the sweetness of a pleasing sound. They
enter into a movement, and conclude it in so delicate a manner, and
play the little notes so sportively under the blunter sounds of the
base strings, enlivening with wanton levity, or communicating a
deeper internal sensation of pleasure, so that the perfection of
their art appears in the concealment of it:
"Si lateat, prosit;
- - ferat ars deprensa pudorem."
"Art profits when concealed,
Disgraces when revealed."
From this cause, those very strains which afford deep and
unspeakable mental delight to those who have skilfully penetrated
into the mysteries of the art, fatigue rather than gratify the ears
of others, who seeing, do not perceive, and hearing, do not
understand; and by whom the finest music is esteemed no better than
a confused and disorderly noise, and will be heard with
unwillingness and disgust.
They make use of three instruments, the harp, the pipe, and the
crwth or crowd (CHORUS). (22)
They omit no part of natural rhetoric in the management of civil
actions, in quickness of invention, disposition, refutation, and
confirmation. In their rhymed songs and set speeches they are so
subtle and ingenious, that they produce, in their native tongue,
ornaments of wonderful and exquisite invention both in the words
and sentences. Hence arise those poets whom they call Bards, of
whom you will find many in this nation, endowed with the above
faculty, according to the poet's observation:
"Plurima concreti fuderunt carmina Bardi."
But they make use of alliteration (ANOMINATIONE) in preference to
all other ornaments of rhetoric, and that particular kind which
joins by consonancy the first letters or syllables of words. So
much do the English and Welsh nations employ this ornament of words
in all exquisite composition, that no sentence is esteemed to be
elegantly spoken, no oration to be otherwise than uncouth and
unrefined, unless it be fully polished with the file of this
figure. Thus in the British tongue:
"Digawn Duw da i unic."
"Wrth bob crybwyll rhaid pwyll parawd." (23)
And in English,
"God is together gammen and wisedom."
The same ornament of speech is also frequent in the Latin language.
Virgil says,
"Tales casus Cassandra canebat."
And again, in his address to Augustus,
"Dum dubitet natura marem, faceretve puellam,
Natus es, o pulcher, pene puella, puer."
This ornament occurs not in any language we know so frequently as
in the two first; it is, indeed, surprising that the French, in
other respects so ornamented, should be entirely ignorant of this
verbal elegance so much adopted in other languages. Nor can I
believe that the English and Welsh, so different and adverse to
each other, could designedly have agreed in the usage of this
figure; but I should rather suppose that it had grown habitual to
both by long custom, as it pleases the ear by a transition from
similar to similar sounds. Cicero, in his book "On Elocution,"
observes of such who know the practice, not the art, "Other persons
when they read good orations or poems, approve of the orators or
poets, not understanding the reason why, being affected, they
approve; because they cannot know in what place, of what nature,
nor how that effect is caused which so highly delights them."
CHAPTER XIII
Of their symphonies and songs
In their musical concerts they do not sing in unison like the
inhabitants of other countries, but in many different parts; so
that in a company of singers, which one very frequently meets with
in Wales, you will hear as many different parts and voices as there
are performers, who all at length unite, with organic melody, in
one consonance and the soft sweetness of B flat.
