Gwerful Mechain

Because I absolutely refuse to engage with preposterous and horrible politics across the world, which seems to be the only story right now; that and the death of a man no-one mourns. It is quite an achievement to have one's demise regretted only for the lost possibility of revealing similar grotesques to oneself. And as to the likelihood of suicide or murder... well, it's very hard not to speculate. Jeffrey Epstein seems to have been as convenient for the monstrous in death as in life.

Anyway, from the sexually unhealthy to the very opposite. I'm delighted to have discovered the 15th century Welsh poet Gwerful Mechain. Who knew that female writers could be so frank, so warm, so up for it in the 1400s? Here is her Ode to a Vagina (the breaks are mine, for ease of reading to the 21st century eye.)

Every foolish drunken poet,
boorish vanity without ceasing,
(never may I warrant it,
I of great noble stock,)
has always declaimed fruitless praise
in song of the girls of the lands
all day long, certain gift,
most incompletely, by God the Father:
praising the hair, gown of fine love,
and every such living girl,
and lower down praising merrily
the brows above the eyes;
praising also, lovely shape,
the smoothness of the soft breasts,
and the beauty’s arms, bright drape,
she deserved honour, and the girl’s hands.

Then with his finest wizardry
before night he did sing,
he pays homage to God’s greatness,
fruitless eulogy with his tongue:
leaving the middle without praise
and the place where children are conceived,
and the warm quim, clear excellence,
tender and fat, bright fervent broken circle,
where I loved, in perfect health,
the quim below the smock.

You are a body of boundless strength,
a faultless court of fat’s plumage.
I declare, the quim is fair,
circle of broad-edged lips,
it is a valley longer than a spoon or a hand,
a ditch to hold a penis two hands long;
cunt there by the swelling arse,
song’s table with its double in red.
And the bright saints, men of the church,
when they get the chance, perfect gift,
don’t fail, highest blessing,
by Beuno, to give it a good feel.

For this reason, thorough rebuke,
all you proud poets,
let songs to the quim circulate
without fail to gain reward.
Sultan of an ode, it is silk,
little seam, curtain on a fine bright cunt,
flaps in a place of greeting,
the sour grove, it is full of love,
very proud forest, faultless gift,
tender frieze, fur of a fine pair of testicles,
a girl’s thick grove, circle of precious greeting,
lovely bush, God save it