Gruffudd Gryg's Second Debate Poem
He is wild, I don't know whether it is better for me
to see Dafydd ap Gwilym,
a terrifying way to gains, riches from lies and cheating,
4 Dafydd is a second Gwenwlydd.
He is kind to my face, a ready shoulder,
and nasty and cruel in my absence.
Dafydd said in his false cywydd
8 to the men of the south,
that I had nothing in my poetry
apart from his learning: he was a teacher.
By St. David, he lied,
12 and let me be tested whenever it is wished.
He swore that I do nothing with my tongue,
the best man, but deform poetry.
It is clear that I would never wish, I argue,
16 to deform a single word of praise.
A simple man, his claims are numerous,
Dafydd is very fond of his own voice.
Every uncouth bird takes pleasure,
20 in cosy birches, in the beauty of its own voice.
Let there be a sad fate, through a knot of words,
for either one of us,
and may his tongue be destroyed,
24 wherever he be, who would barter poems.
Although my tongue stutters, the energy of compulsions,
in the growth of anger,
it is not the same, but it is a talent,
28 there is not a stuttering word in my song, by Mary.
A hobby horse in every gathering
which was popular, there was nothing wrong with its appearance,
but draw nearer, its two thighs are stakes,
32 it's unpleasant, throwing straight.
Truly now, there was never any worse
delusion of weak wood.
The second is the organ at Bangor,
36 some play it to make the choir roar.
The year, to follow a woeful sound,
pointless sad journey, it came to the town,
everyone from the parish would give an offering from their
coffers
40 because of the noise made by the leads.
The chirping of his earnest wrath in commotion,
the third is Dafydd fat-beard;
his cywyddwas loved in Gwynedd, they
say,
44 when it was new then.
By now, his cywyddis withered,
his work has run wild in the woods.
Let there be a sad fate, through a knot of words,
48 for either one of us,
and may his tongue be destroyed,
wherever he be, who would barter poems.
Although my tongue stutters, the energy of compulsions,
52 in the growth of anger,
it is not the same, but it is a talent,
there is not a stuttering word in my song, by Mary.
To get me in a knot of anger,
56 secretly, as hundreds were had,
he attacked me, he hated seeing me gain anything,
poetry's briber, without warning.
No one would give, if I didn't give,
60 a silly trinket for his sulking.