This week, I was tasked with reading the story of ‘Pwyll Pen Annwfn’ from the collection of tales known as the The Mabinogi, as well as the section within the Philokalia on St. Gregory of Sinai, specifically, the Texts on Commandments and Dogmas. Within the Philokalia section that I had to read, I learned about certain concepts and how they relate to Orthodox Christianity. The text warned about over-embracing of promises, thoughts, passion, and virtues, as well as the stillness of prayer.
One can compare how thoughts and passion, and the combination of those two things thereof, can be seen in the tale of Pwyll. Commandment 78 states “Some passions are of the body, others are passions of the soul: some are passions of lust, others are passions of the excitable part, yet others are passions of thought. Of the latter some are passions of the mind and others of reasoning. All of them combine with one another in various ways and affect one another–and thus change,”. Pwyll is, undoubtedly, a symbol of passion in many ways. Near the beginning of the story, he switches roles with Arawn and Pwyll engages in single combat against Hafgan, Arawn’s rival, and mortally wounds him with one blow, earning Arawn overlordship of all of Annwn. “At the first onslaught the king who was in the place of Arawn struck Hafgan in the middle of the boss of his shield, so it split in two halves and all his armour was broken and Hafgan was a spear-and-arms length over the back of his horse and onto the ground, with a mortal wound upon him.” This quote, and the text surrounding it reveals the bloody passion that connects Welsh warriors and Greek Orthodox Christian ideals. One can also see the lustful passion is the words of Pwyll when he courts Rhiannon.
The concept of the four virtues can be seen in the tale (courage, good sense, chastity, and righteousness). Pwyll espouses all of these qualities because “among the virtues some result from action, others from natural, the third category are Divine. The virtues resulting from action are the outcome of a will for good, the natural come from a man’s constitution, and the Divine–from grace.” Pwyll has courage, good sense, chastity, and righteousness on the battlefield, but also, through his connections with people, and sometimes, I think it is his own virtue that becomes his vice. As is said in Philokalia, “Just as the virtues are born in the soul, so are the passions. But the first are born in the soul in accordance with its nature, and the latter contrary to its nature. The starting point in the birth or evil in the soul is the inclination of its desire.” Pwyll’s innate desire for the things he sets his heart for (the things he is passionate about), is affected by his virtues towards those he communicates with. One of the dogmas spelled out in Philokalia is how humans are a mixture of flesh and and serve sensuality and vanity. However, we are consumed by malice and sadness by the “success of our neighbor”. I think this perfectly sums up Pwyll and his tale. Inherently, Pwyll is an inherently Christian man who espouses the ideals of a good Christian, as is well-known in early Welsh literature. However, the people around him bring out his “malice” and make his passion for success overrule his own virtuous inhibition. Though this is only a tale, a conversation such as this could go into depth on the character development of Pwyll, but this generalizes it overall, using the texts from Philokalia.
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