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''Bewnans Ke'' ((英語:''The Life of Saint Ke'')) is a Middle Cornish play on the life of Saint Kea or Ke, who was venerated in Cornwall, Brittany and elsewhere. It was written around 1500 but survives only in an incomplete manuscript from the second half of the 16th century. The play was entirely unknown until 2000, when it was identified among the private collection of J. E. Caerwyn Williams, which had been donated to the National Library of Wales after his death the previous year. The discovery proved one of the most significant finds in the study of Cornish literature and language. ''Bewnans Ke'' is one of only two known Cornish plays based on a saint's life; this and other evidence suggests some relationship with the other such work, ''Beunans Meriasek''. The story has much correspondence with a French text, a translation of a lost medieval Latin hagiography of Kea, allowing gaps in the narrative to be tentatively filled. The play is divided into two distinct sections, which may indicate that it was intended for a two-day performance. The first section deals with the deeds and miracles of Kea, including his conflicts with the tyrannical king Teudar. The second is a long Arthurian episode, describing King Arthur's wars with the Romans and with his nephew Mordred; it does not mention Kea in its current form. ==History== ''Bewnans Ke'' survives in one manuscript, NLW MS 23849D, now held at the National Library of Wales. The play has no title in the text; the National Library gave it its modern name after consulting scholars of Cornish.〔 The manuscript had been in the personal collection of J. E. Caerwyn Williams, chair of Irish at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. After Williams' death in 1999, his widow Gwen Williams donated his papers to the National Library in 2000, and the previously unknown play was identified by Graham Thomas during the cataloging process.〔Lloyd-Morgan, pp. 5–6; Koch, p. 203.〕 Thomas publicized his discovery in the ''National Library of Wales Journal'' in 2002, and the manuscript was subsequently repaired and studied.〔(Koch, p. 203 ).〕 The manuscript was evidently created in the second half of the 16th century by a scribe copying a document dating perhaps to around 1500.〔 Several leaves are missing, including the entire beginning and ending and, in two places, the copyist complains about the poor quality of the original.〔〔 The provenance is entirely unknown, but the language is Middle Cornish akin to that of ''Beunans Meriasek'', the only other surviving Cornish play concerning a saint's life.〔Koch, pp. 204–205.〕 This and other similarities between the plays suggest that both were composed around the same time and in the same milieu, most probably at Glasney College in Penryn.〔Koch, p. 204.〕 If this is correct, ''Bewnans Ke'' may have been performed in the still-extant "Playing Place" in the nearby village of that name, where ''Beunans Meriasek'' is known to have been performed.〔 The play clearly relies on traditional material about Kea, which is known to have been circulated in a Latin hagiography written as early as the 12th century. This work is lost, but a French translation published in Albert le Grand's ''Lives of the Saints of Brittany'' in 1633 survives.〔 This French ''Life of Kea'' has much correspondence with the Cornish text, and has been used to fill in gaps in the action. ''Bewnans Ke'' was initially thought to represent two plays, as in its incomplete state it appears to consist of two distinct sections: one on the deeds of Kea and the other on the doings of King Arthur, in which Kea is not mentioned.〔 However, comparison with the ''Life'' shows that Arthurian material had been added to the saint's story at an early period. This occurs in places that would be missing in the play, leading some scholars to regard it as a single work.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bewnans Ke」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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