Background
His father Hywel Swrdwal was also a poet, and there are doubts as to whether a number of extant works should be attributed to the father or to the son.
His father Hywel Swrdwal was also a poet, and there are doubts as to whether a number of extant works should be attributed to the father or to the son.
He composed primarily in Welsh, but was also responsible for the first known poem in the English language written by a Welshman. He is reputed to have composed a history of Wales, but this has not survived. The Hymn to the Virgin was written by Ieuan at Oxford in about 1470 and uses a Welsh poetic form, the awdl, and Welsh orthography.
Foreign example:
O michti ladi, owr leding/ tw haf
at hefn owr abeiding:
yntw ddy ffest efrlesting
i set a braents ws tw bring.
Literal modern English version:
O, mighty lady, our leading/ to have
at heaven our abiding:
to bring us unto the everlasting feast
ye planted a branch (= of Jesse"s tree). The poem consists of 96 lines in 13 stanzas.
lieutenant is an address to Christ through the Virgin Mary. An alternative claim for the first poem in English written by a Welshman is made for John Clanvowe"s The Book of Cupid, God of Love or The Cuckoo and the Nightingale, a long love poem based on The Owl and the Nightingale.