This is one of two monorhyme cywyddau by Dafydd ap Gwilym. The other is 'Yr Haf' (poem 34), and both celebrate summer as the ideal season for lovemaking. The opening of this poem focuses specifically on Mayday, the beginning of summer, and the celebrations and sexual licence which are traditionally associated with it are certainly very relevant to the poem. This may belong to a tradition of poems celebrating the coming of summer of th ekind found later in free-metre verse, see DGIA 81–3 and note the references to poets in lines 7 and 21. For a detailed analysis if this poem, with particular attention to ambiguity, see Eurys Rowlands, 'Cywydd Dafydd ap Gwilym i Fis Mai', LlC 5 (1958), 1–25. The most prominent ambiguous word in the poem is mwyn, which can be an adjective, 'gentle' or 'noble', and also a noun, 'riches' or 'ore'.

13. ffloringod   See Dewi Stephen Jones, ' "Fflwring aur" Dafydd ap Gwilym', B xix (1960), 29–34. The gold florin was minted in England for a short period from January 1344. It was supposed to be worth six shillings, but in fact contained gold worth only five shillings and one penny, and it was therefore generally rejected, and production ceased in August 1344. The reference to iawn fwnai in line 11 above and ni'm digiai in this line set up a contrast between the genuine wealth of the natural world and the false coinage of the state, and Jones therefore proposed to date the poem to 1344, or possibly the following year, when the scandal would have been fresh in people's minds. But as Bromwich noted (SPDG 19; see further D. C Baker, 'Gold Coins in Medieval English Literature', Speculum 36 (1961), 282–4), the Italian florin, first mintd in Florence in 1252, was the most common coinage in medieval Europe, and it is perfectly possible that that is the type referred to here. Note that Iolo Goch mentions receiving three florins in the 1370s (GIG XIV.82). In any case, the fleur-de-lis referred to in the next line was a promient device on all florins. Compare 156.20–1 where the fleur-de-lis is again associated with the florin. On the obverse of the English florin was a verse from the Bible, Luke 4, 30: IHC TRANSIENS PER MEDIUM ILLORUM IBAT (But he passing through the midst of them, went his way), a motto commonly used as a charm to ward off evil. Line 15 below may well be an oblique reference to that verse.