| 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. |