Notes

GDG 136

Comparison with poems 148–50 suggests that it is a member of one of the mendicant orders who advises Dafydd in this poem. As in 'The Poet and the Grey Friar' — 148.5–6 Mi a euthum at y Brawd / I gyffesu fy mhechawd — the context may be confession, and the accusation of lying in lines 9–10 may be compared with the words of the Franciscan friar in 148.29–32:

Nid oes o'ch cerdd chwi, y glêr,

Ond truth a lleisiau ofer,

Ac annog gwŷr a gwragedd

I bechod ac anwiredd.

However, the poem's emphasis on the fickleness and transience of this world is reminiscent of the Dominican friars' warnings in 'The Black Friar's Warning' (149) and 'Morfudd Grown Old' (150). Lines 5–6 call to mind 149.13–14 Llyma fal y cynghores / Y brawd â'r prudd dafawd pres. Compare also disciple of the Son of Mary with 150.14 Mary's wizard, which D.J. Bowen (1982, 103) associates with the friars' adherence to the cult of the Virgin. See further David L. Jeffrey, The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality (Lincoln, 1977), 60–4.

For a discussion of the poem see Morgan Thomas Davies, 'Dafydd ap Gwilym and the Friars: The Poetics of Antimendicancy', SC xxix (1995), 237–55, especially pp. 239–41.

1–4.   Lines which call to mind Dafydd's words to the Grey Friar in 148.57–60 Pand englynion ac odlau / Yw'r hymner a'r segwensiau, / A chywyddau i Dduw lwyd / Yw sallwyr Dafydd Broffwyd?

17–20.   These lines also appear in 'Repentance' (119.3–6). R. Geraint Gruffydd (1987, 52) suggests that there they are an ironic echo of an earlier poem composed when Dafydd still felt able to stand up to the Grey Friar and challenge him.