Notes

GDG 71

This is one of a group of poems in which Dafydd vents his frustration at being impeded by some natural phenomenon as he travels to meet a girl. Upon his return, perhaps from a bardic circuit, from north Wales to the parish of Llanbadarn Fawr where he hopes to be welcomed home by Morfudd, he finds that the Dyfi estuary is in spate, and summons all his powers of rhetoric and flattery to plead with the wave to hasten his journey. He is only a short distance from home, the river Dyfi being the dividing line between Ceredigion and the old kingdom of Gwynedd.

Rachel Bromwich (1964, 26–7; cf. APDG 72–3) has argued that the poem is influenced by Ovid, since the Latin poet, in Amores iii.6, addresses an unnamed Italian river which prevents him from crossing to meet his beloved. Compare Gerald Morgan's remarks in 'The Landscape of Dafydd ap Gwilym', Welsh and Breton Studies in Memory of Th.M.Th. Chotzen, ed. R.H.F. Hofman et al. (Utrecht, 1995), 32. The two poets' treatment of the theme is compared by Barry Lewis, 'Bardd Natur yn darllen Bardd y Ddinas? Dafydd ap Gwilym, " Y Don ar Afon Dyfi", ac Ofydd, Amores III.6', LlC 31 (2008), 1–22. See also Bromwich's discussion in SPDG 124–5 which cites parallels from the Iliad and from Irish literature.

However, as D.J. Bowen (1972–4, 24–5) and Edwards, DGIA 176, have noted, crossing a river is a common theme in early cywydd poetry. In 'A Girl's Pilgrimage' (129) the girl must cross twelve rivers between Anglesey and St. David's, including the deep waves of the river Dyfi. As in the present poem, Dafydd praises the rivers and implores them not to impede her journey. In the poem 'Journey for Love' (96) he speaks of crossing daily the river Masaleg near his home in order to visit Morfudd. Dafydd's contemporary, Llywelyn Goch ap Meurig Hen, is similarly prevented from travelling to Ceredigion by the swollen river Dyfi (GLlGMH 8.32–4). See further Gruffydd Aled Williams, 'Cywydd Gwilym ap Sefnyn i Afon Ogwen ac Afon Menai', Dwned 3 (1997), 83–95. It is a theme which is as likely to have been inspired by the practicalities of travel in medieval Wales as by any external literary influence. Dafydd's poem may also be compared with a poem by Gruffudd Gryg in which he pleads with a wave to bring him home safely to Anglesey on his voyage from Santiago di Compostella in northern Spain.

13. prifwynt planedsygn   'Great zodiac–wind'. The same belief is reflected in 'The Wind', 47.55 Deuy o'r sygnau diwael 'You come from the splendid stars'.

24. Nyf   Possibly the legendary Irish heroine Niamh, see 69.8n.

41. Indeg   See 9.9n.