The Four Ancient Books of Wales (Cymric Poems of the Sixth Century)

NOTE REGARDING THE WELSH TEXT

The Welsh text was printed in 1863 after comparing original: collating the text of the poems with the original manuscripts original: MSS, first in manuscript form and again in the final printed proofs. This comparison, however, was largely a mechanical process. The editor had very limited opportunities to consult the original manuscripts, which were kept in three different libraries far from where he lived and distant from each other. Consequently, the work had to be done very quickly, and he was unable to pause during his task to consider the actual meaning of the text.

Instead of keeping the text as it is usually transcribed in such manuscripts—written continuously without breaks for sentences or poetic lines—he has arranged it into lines, guided by the rhymes where possible. However, he has preserved the original punctuation and made no speculative corrections original: conjectural emendations to the text. He has printed it exactly as he found it, even in cases where the scribe had obviously either mistaken a word or written the wrong letter. Where words in this text differ from those in the Myvyrian Archaiology A significant collection of medieval Welsh literature published in the early 19th century. or other versions, and this version is clearly a mistake, the error belongs to the writer of the original manuscript rather than the editor's comparison. This is the case, for example, in Poem Number 22 of the Black Book of Carmarthen original: Black Book of Caer-