GDG 139; SPDG 17; HGDG pp. 88–92, 111–15.
This poem takes as its starting point a sermon by a Dominican friar (or possibly a Franciscan, see note to line 24 below) about the transience of a girl's beauty, and that of Morfudd in particular. The friar prophesies her swift decline, but the second half of the poem seems to jump abruptly to a time when Morfudd has already grown old. There are two ways of making sense of this. If one insists on reading the poem literally then it can be assumed that the poet is recalling a sermon he heard years before, and that Morfudd was old when the poem was composed. But it is also possible that the poet is foreseeing her old age, inspired by the disturbing (but probably imaginary) sermon. Bearing in mind the evidence of Iolo Goch's elegy that Dafydd died young (see Introduction), the second interpretation is the most plausible, as Gwynn ap Gwilym argued in HGDG 111. And if that was the case, then the poem would have been a means for Dafydd to proclaim to Morfudd the strength of his love for her, and it would also have been a means of urging her to make the most of her beauty before she grew old (cf. Andrew Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress'). The use of a sermon to express the carpe diem theme would be entirely typical of Dafydd ap Gwilym's subtle irony.
Gwyn Thomas suggested in HGDG 88–92 that the insulting comments about the friar in the opening paragraph of the poem were spoken as asides to the audience only, and thus separated from the overt praise of the main sentences (cf. the conversation with the magpie in poem 36). These phrases are printed in italics in the translation. Possible references to signs of the Zodiac are discussed by D. J. Bowen, 'Morfudd yn Hen', LlC 8 (1965), 231–4.
11. The Dominican order had five houses in Wales, at Cardiff, Haverfordwest, Brecon, Bangor and Rhuddlan, all established in the 13th century. The two in Gwynedd were established by Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, which may explain the respect expressed here.
12. The image of the ram probably represents the friar's agressive nature, but o nen y nef also suggests the Zodiac sign Aries.
21. Dirdri Deirdre, heroine of the Irish tale Longes mac nUislenn, She is referred to as a standard of beauty by Guffudd ap Maredudd (R 1321.21), and by Lewys Glyn Cothi and Ieuan Du'r Bilwg as one who feared crossing water, see GLGC 51.52 and note p. 549, and Patrick Sims-Williams, 'Fionn and Deirdre in Wales', Éigse, xxiii (1989), 1–15. It is not clear why she is referred to here in the context of losing beauty, since Deirdre died young, but Sims-Williams suggests (p.8) that Dafydd may have been familiar with a version of the tale in which Deirdre languished because of her grief. It may be significant, as D. J. Bowen pointed out (1965, 233), that Deirdre, like Morfudd, was married to an old man and had a young lover.
24. y brawd du It is natural to take this as a description of the friar's robe, and therefore of his order, the Dominicans or Black Friars. But Bromwich took llwyd ('grey') in the previous line as an indication that the friar was a Franciscan, and therefore translated du as 'gloomy'. But the friar in poem 149 is certainly a Dominican.
41. The image is of the bent beam of a siege engine used for hurling stones, representing the crooked back of an old woman.
42. hafod an upland farmstead occupied only during the summer months.