A Satire on Rhys Meigen
There is a half-witted bungler full of faults,
whose work is very different to that of Gwalchmai;
the dogs of every region would bark at him,
4 he'd get neither respect nor reward.
Rhys Meigen the blockhead, false black lad,
he'd cause indignation wherever he ventured;
gangly yob, wandering dog,
8 corrodian of May's whey-drink song.
False, destitute and bestial, he'd boast with his tongue
from the River Teifi to the River Menai;
aged dwarf, no one would trust him,
12 like the edge of a wing, without grandmother or nephew.
He would never gain the love of lords,
he could be of no benefit, it's as true as a confession;
he'd recite a song as bitter as wormwood,
16 cheekbone of a knavish ape, he'd imitate what I do.
Shameless mouth, lifeless words which would not excel,
the flatter would declaim them;
he'd pronounce blatant indecency,
20 ugly shirt, fervent minstrel begging flour in houses.
Cunning nasty sod, although he sought to lay hand
on a swift one he could not;
frequent contention, halfpenny saddle,
24 he numbers every kind of fault.
Sickest and randiest procurer of leprous women,
no hero in arms;
the nasty corn-beggar is a shitty dog,
28 leg of a rock gull, paddler in the ebb-tide.
Patchwork of coracle hides, his trousers are in a hundred
strips,
dirty old thief;
he didn't know the rules of metrical language,
32 he wouldn't go to skirmish or fierce battle.
Rotting-fleshed hackney of impoverished song, filthy
minstrel with greasy protruding lips;
the false surly lad would scatter
36 a hundred thousand beetles between everyone.
Quarrelsome song of a dog with emaciated jaws, a curd-stained
mouth and an ensnaring arse,
long-wandering chest, slow to depart;
lattice trough of a flour-beggar's mother,
40 back like bark which stands without a holy vestment.
Nasty lad with blotchy legs, uncouth, crooked and weak with
bulging breeches,
blessed would be the one who hanged him;
pressing task which wears out the soup-beggar's curd bowl,
44 nape of a wiry swift prying tomcat.
Fierce quick-lipped man, he'd get drunk on beer,
like a raucous piglet when he puked;
ragged coat sifting mallows, meat-beggar's cockles,
48 wild amazingly ugly clothes, coarse, piss-stained and full of
holes.
Vagabond and inconstant beggar, he'd throw
a lice-ridden [thing] with his dirty hand;
devil's shears, woe wherever he came,
52 cowardly pourer of lukewarm clayish water.
Emaciated body like a rafter, no mighty Cai Hir,
he's not likely to stand his ground in battle;
he sucked a cake of soggy fat,
56 nape like an old hide, piece of grey leather.
A drink of dregs would suit the worm,
as feeble as a cold new lamb in battle,
stature of a fat-bellied beggar,
60 coarse hair, no male ape was ever smaller.
He sang a composition of cantakerous words to everyone
without any idea what it was;
vein of a shithouse mouse,
64 filthiest calf, wherever he is he's the worst.
Rhys Meigen, a noose beneath a strong gallows
will be your fate, wrists of an old man.
Your teeth gnash wildly and savagely,
68 excess of a feast of fat, harsh-featured with maggoty
feet,
mouldy chopsy mouth used to a pile of dinner,
stuffing himself on boar's meat, not on meadhorns.
You'd gobble grease and marrow of great cavity bones,
72 swollen flesh before drink, by Cyndeyrn.
The crooked salmon is weird, flesh-tipped spit,
red-arsed bell of minstrels, greasy lime-white glans,
cowardly soldier, dreadful in combat,
76 ardent-mannered gesture, no second Dinbyrn,
guilty one with lice-ridden back, foxy face like a pile of
wizened wood,
uncomely sluggish face, meat dishes,
loose coarse breeches, ignoble constipated flesh,
80 withered phantom, skin and bones,
movement of a pair of dull searching eyes,
vain-scurrying meat-chewing Rhys, kitten's claws,
noise of sucking of the dregs of empty crab-apples, belly like a
big chisel,
84 grown fat on the muck of roads, no princely stock.
Although you cannot make either awdl or englyn,
thrust of sticky shit-filled breeches, leather-fisted thief,
bitter lad babbling madly, most swiftly
88 can you drink the dregs of taverns.