The Poet and the Grey Friar

	Woe is me that the celebrated

	maiden, whose court is in the grove,

	does not know about the conversation

4	with the mouse–coloured friar about her today.

	I went to the Friar

	to confess my sin.

	I did admit to him, indeed,

8	that I was a sort of poet,

	and that I had long loved

	a white–faced black–browed girl,

	and that for the life of me

12	I could get no favour or satisfaction from the lady,

	but only loving her constantly

	and pining greatly for her love,

	and carrying her praise throughout Wales

16	and being without her for all that,

	and longing to feel her

	in my bed between me and the wall.

	The Friar said to me,

20	'I will give you good council.

	If you have loved the foam–hued one,

	colour of paper, for a long time until now,

	reduce the pain of the day to come,

24	it is good for your soul to stop,

	and leave your cywyddau

	and start saying your prayers.

	God did not redeem man's soul

28	for the sake of a cywydd or an englyn.

	Your songs, you minstrels,

	are nothing but nonsense and vain voices,

	and inciting men and women

32	to sin and falsehood.

	Praise of the flesh which carries the soul

	to the devil is no good thing'.

	I did answer the Friar

36	for every word that he said.

	'God is not as cruel

	as old men say.

	God will not let a gentle man's soul

40	be lost for loving a woman or a maiden.

	Three things are loved throughout the world:

	woman and fine weather and health.

	A girl is the fairest flower

44	in heaven besides God himself.

	Every man was born of woman

	of all the peoples except three men.

	And for that reason it is no wonder

48	that girls and women are loved.

	All gaiety comes from heaven

	and all sadness from hell.

	Song gladdens the hearts

52	of old and young, sick and healthy.

	It is just as fitting for me to sing poems

	as it is for you to preach sermons,

	and just as right for me to live by minstrelsy

56	as it is for you to live by begging.

	What are the hymns and sequences

	but englynion and odes,

	and are not the psalms of the Prophet David

60	cywyddau to holy God?

	God does not feed every man

	with the same food and delicacies.

	There is a time for food

64	and a time for prayer,

	and a time for preaching

	and a time for making merry.

	Song is sung in every feast

68	to entertain young girls,

	and a pater noster in church

	to seek the land of Paradise.

	It is true what Ystudfach said

72	when carousing with his poets,

	'The joyful man will have a full house,

	and misfortune will come to the sad man'.

	Though some love holiness

76	others love merriment.

	Very few know a sweet cywydd

	and everyone knows his pater.

	And therefore, you dogmatic Friar,

80	song is not the greatest sin.

	When everyone is as glad

	to hear a pater to harp accompaniment

	as the young girls of Gwynedd are

84	to hear a merry cywydd

	I will sing, by my hand,

	the pater without end.

	Until then shame on Dafydd

88	if he sings a pater rather than a cywydd.