Gruffydd Gryg's Fourth Debate Poem
Gweirful, a lady of wise intention,
woe that, beautiful wisdom,
I have to, for some time,
4 delay in writing poetry to you; you are a lady.
Plenty of poems came to you from my tongue,
and how I loved you, by Mary!
But there came a twist, there's a bad angel
8 preventing poetry, hidden looseness:
Weak Dafydd ap Gwilym,
he prevents me, because of enmity,
from singing satire to anyone who deserves it,
12 or singing at all, more than the flow of the sea.
Don't sulk, the hue of the fair moonlight,
Gweirful, for your faithful poet.
Whilst I'm satirizing full time,
16 farewell to you, I'm unworthy of mention.
Tudur Goch, leprous badger of the worthless poets,
son of Iorwerth, stringy wax stomach,
I complain that I can't, because of distress,
20 you dunghill dog, sing to you.
A plague on your sour stroppy poem,
you're a worthless one, farewell, Tudur.
I must take revenge on Dafydd, the weaver of verse,
24 for what he said.
The harmony of a nightingale in a grove,
he accompanies the one great his stride.
He commits himself to attempting to get a grade
28 by having a bardic debate against me in Anglesey.
Nobody sees him as a fair son of his mother,
he's not straight, by the Pope's hand.
I am not of the same father, I'm lively and beautiful,
32 nor the same mother as the satirical poet.
I have seven companions
at Aberffraw in Anglesey,
I have plenty of proven gift-makers,
36 for every one which Dafydd has, and more.
Every useless poet has great need of a poem,
like Dafydd, the jealous bard.
He challenges open fighting
40 before his tongue's poetry.
He expected to have, wise grip,
a crutch on a weak and foolish man.
But I will be free of fear of the poet from the south,
44 and will not cease if he ceases.
I pitch my body against my enemy
because I never was feeble,
and my entertaining song under bright green birches,
48 and my cunning, and my brave liveliness.
Speaking of nobility, he expressed to me,
with comfort, and the support of a woman,
it should be asked, a fair, distant gentle one,
52 to Ardudful, whether she knows any better.
She knows how to avoid lies,
I'm a husband to her from Anglesey.
If he was my own son, common knowledge,
56 if any part of me is in him,
the petitioner respects so badly,
the poet Dafydd, his own father.