Notes

GDG 74

This poem celebrates the unconditional and carefree love that Dafydd and his lover enjoyed in the woodland far from prying eyes and, when the secret was still safe, even as they mingled with others. Their bliss was disturbed when their secret was betrayed by an evil tongue. The repetition of the prefix cyd– 'co–' (i.e. together) in lines 25–42 serves to emphasise the lovers' union and the poem's sense of harmony, and there may be a deliberate ambiguity since one of the other meanings of cyd is sexual intercourse.

We find the same idea of stealing love and keeping it hidden in the poem 'Secret Love' (78). Dafydd's contemporary, Gruffudd ab Adda ap Dafydd, also describes himself as a girl–thief, claiming to be overcome with furtive love (DGG LXVI). Secrecy is of course a central theme in the medieval literature of courtly love, and as Chotzen has remarked, Recherches, 285, the unnamed accuser referred to in lines 15–20 calls to mind the slanderers who feature in troubadour and trouvère poetry. However, both here and in the poem 'A Fortress Against Envy' (122) — see note and DGIA 224 — it is a theme which might have occurred independently of the wider European tradition.

The poem is discussed briefly by Helen Fulton, DGEC 161–2, 163, and by Saunders Lewis, BHLlG 80–1.

15–18. In his second debate poem (25.21–4) Gruffudd Gryg is possibly echoing these lines; he accuses Dafydd, amongst other things, of backbiting (ib. 5–6).