While I was in the hospital, Jennifer sent me via Twitter two bits of media that became very important to me. I wish to share them with you now. The first was the viral impromptu speech on the Sky Sports television show, A League of Their Own by Michael Sheen, wherein he exhorts the national football team to beat England in the upcoming World Cup in Qatar. He makes allusions to the famous Welsh footballer and coach, the late Gary Speed and to the 1958 Welsh side led by coach Jimmy Murphy, the first and until 2022 only Welsh team to qualify for the FIFA World Cup. He also speaks of how Wales, led by manager Rob Page has waited sixty-four years to return to the World Cup, and that they will not be troubled by England, their “neighbor back home.” Here is video of the speech:
I hope that you watched (preferably) or will read the speech below—it is quite moving. Even if you, like me, know vanishingly little of Welsh football or history, Sheen’s passion, erudition, and eloquence will still give you chills and goosebumps. I’ve watched or listened to it easily one hundred times and I still get them. It’s a great speech, and that it was impromptu is almost unbelievable. Sheen is a classically trained Shakespearean actor; I suppose that it is not so surprising that he knows his way around delivering beautiful oratory. My guess is that he likely has the St. Crispin’s Day speech from Henry V and other noteworthy orations from the Bard memorized and ready to recite at any given time. If one is so steeped in these traditions (and a brilliant actor) it is not that far of a leap to create an off the cuff speech in a classical mode. Could someone do it as well as Michael Sheen does?
Not bloody likely.
It is a brilliant piece of extemporaneous speaking. I will quit gushing about my man crush now, but I want to leave you with this transcription:
Yma o hyd, yma o hyd,
I hear the voices singing,
Speed your journey, bois bach,
One nation, singing with one voice,
A song of hope, a song of courage,
A victory song that floats through the valleys, like a red mist,
Rolls over the mountain tops, like crimson thunder,
A red storm is coming to the gates of Qatar,
It crackles, with the spirit of ’58 and Jimmy Murphy’s boys,
It turns the pages of the history books,
And finds Rob’s page, waiting, still to be written,
What would you write in there, boys?
Dare you write your names on that page?
We haven’t waited 64 years and come half way around the world,
To be troubled by a neighbour from back home,
When the English coming knock on our door,
Let’s give them some sugar, boys, let’s give them some Welsh sugar,
They’ve always said we are too small, we are too slow, we are too weak, too full of fear,
But yma o hyd, you sons of Speed,
And they fall around us,
We are still here!
Sheen uses a couple of Welsh phrases, “bois bach [good heavens] and yma o hyd. Yma o hyd is the one that I wish to talk about. This phrase, well known throughout Wales as a slogan of resistance to outside rule, especially that of England, yma o hyd means “still here”. Yma o hyd is the title of a famous protest song written and sung by Welsh folksinger Daffydd Iwan. Written and recorded in 1983 and sung entirely in Welsh, Iwan tells the story of how Wales, or Cymru [ˈkəm.rɨ] as it known in Welsh first became a nation when Roman governor Magnum Maximus (Macsen in Welsh) withdrew his legions from Britannia to successfully vie for the imperial crown of Rome in 383 C.E. That the song was written on the sixteen hundredth anniversary of this event cannot be coincidence. The early 1980s were a nadir for Welsh pride. Wales suffered greatly under the rule of the supremely vile Margaret Thatcher. Thatcher seemed to have a personal animus toward Wales—especially the Welsh language which she tried to suppress in schools and on the BBC. She did not succeed. One of the six extant Celtic languages, Welsh (Cymraeg [kəmˈraːiɡ]) is a beautiful and challenging tongue. While only 538,300 (17.8%) of the population speak Welsh fluently, it is considered a living and vibrant language and the only Celtic language that is not endangered. The Welsh national anthem is in Cymraeg and the Senned (the Welsh Parliament) recognizes both Welsh and English as de jure tongues. In literal spite of Thatcher’s attempts at suppression, the Welsh culture and language have experienced something of a Renaissance in the last forty years. Some say that the song “Yma o Hyd” played a large role in that resurgence. Daffydd Iwan even calls out “Maggie and her crew” in the song. And he reminds us that against all odds the Welsh language has survived and will survive as long as there is a Wales. Please give it a watch/listen:
While Michael Sheen’s speech gives me the chills and goosebumps, this song does even more. It also makes me cry. Not out of sadness—this is a song full of hope and defiance after all. You have to have a heart of stone not to cry when an entire football stadium comes in and sings the chorus in unison. It’s not right to stereotype an entire people, but dammit the Welsh can sing! My tears are the tears shed when a piece of music is so moving that I become overwhelmed. I think that I am experiencing the feeling of hiraeth [hɪraɨ̯θ, hiːrai̯θ] when I listen to “Yma O Hyd”. Hiraeth is a word I first learned from my friend Bronwyn, who learned it from her Welsh father. Here is her definition:
“It’s something more than nostalgia and homesickness, a longing for what is no longer and sometimes never was, especially in relations specifically to Wales and being Welsh.”
Dr. Bronwyn K. Jones Phd.
That is the feeling that I get when I listen to this song or watch the video of it. Let me stress that as far as I know I haven’t a drop of Welsh blood in me. Yet here I am wistfully blubbering about a country I have never been to and that until very recently I knew very little about. The arts to me, especially music, are amazing that way. That I can feel a peculiar and very particular emotion strongly enough to cry when listening to a song sung in a language that I know perhaps ten words of will never not make me astonished. What sublime creatures humans are when they set out to make something beautiful to share with the world. Below is a graphic with the lyrics of “Yma o Hyd” in Welsh and English:
While lying for several days in my hospital bed I had a lot of time to kill. I watched nature documentaries and shows about the recently deceased queen on PBS at night, but during the day—especially on the days when I had no visitors or physical or occupational therapy I watched these videos over and over again on my phone. Yma o hyd really resonated with me. After all:
I’m still here!
Unsure of whether I was going to make a full recovery, I was nonetheless grateful to be alive period. Having 99% recovered, I remain grateful to still be here. My life, imperfect as it may be is still precious and as far as I know, the only one that I will ever have. I’m glad to have it and all of the people that I love and care for that love and care for me in turn. I love y’all.
After I got out of the hospital I went a little Wales crazy. In the run-up to the World Cup, I bought a Welsh flag, scarf, and three Wales-related shirts. Two of them are official Welsh Football Association shirts and one is a very unofficial t-shirt printed with the lyrics to the chorus of “Yma o Hyd”:
Unfortunately Wales did not have a great showing at the World Cup. They fought the United States to an unexpected draw, but the wheels fell off soon after and the Welsh were pretty soundly whipped by Iran and sent back to Wales in defeat by England. Cymru’s World Cup dreams became a nightmare. I hope that another sixty-four years does not go by before they secure a World Cup berth. Here is me in happier days with my Wales swag just before the match against the United States:
Earlier I said that all of Wales can sing, and that may be an exaggeration, but when those folks sing their national anthem it is electrifying. Some really get caught up in the emotion. Like this crying woman whose image went viral during the match against the United States:
After returning home I listened to or watched Michael Sheen’s speech and “Yma o Hyd” at least once every morning as I made breakfast. Poor Jennifer was probably woken up to these pieces every day for months. Sorry, Bebe. I think because she knows me better than almost anyone, Jennifer knew that these would really energize me at a time where I needed just that. Probably more than I have ever needed to be invigorated in my life. She also knows that when I love something I consume it until it makes me sick. I have yet to get sick of either of these bits of media, but I don’t listen to them every day any longer. I don’t have nostalgia for the time in the hospital, and definitely not hireath, but I did spend many lovely hours with my new friends Michael Sheen and Dafydd Iwan. Thank you friends for letting me share them with you.
Thank you, as always, for reading.
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My grandparents were born in Llantrisant and spoke Welsh. Thank you for this.