:The Girls of Llanbadarn

File:Dafydd ap Gwilym - Frontispiece John Parry's The Welsh Harper.jpg

"The Girls of Llanbadarn", or "The Ladies of Llanbadarn" (Welsh: Merched Llanbadarn), is a short, wryly humorous poem{{sfn|Bromwich|1974|p=59}} by the 14th-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym, in which he mocks his own lack of success with the girls of his neighbourhood. Dafydd is widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets,{{cite book |last=Koch |first=John T. |author-link=John T. Koch |date=2006 |title=Celtic Culture: A Historical Encyclopedia. Volume 5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f899xH_quaMC&q=%22regarded+as+the+greatest+Welsh+poet%22&pg=PA1770 |location=Santa Barbara |publisher=ABC-CLIO |page=1770 |isbn=1851094407 |access-date=19 July 2015 }}{{cite book |last1=Bromwich |first1=Rachel |year=1979 |chapter=Dafydd ap Gwilym |editor1-last=Jarman |editor1-first=A. O. H. |editor2-last=Hughes |editor2-first=Gwilym Rees |title=A Guide to Welsh Literature. Volume 2 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uJRiAAAAMAAJ&q=%22greatest+that+Wales+has+known%22 |location=Swansea |publisher=Christopher Davies |page=112 |isbn=0715404571 |access-date=18 July 2015 }}{{cite book |year=2006 |editor1-last=Baswell |editor1-first=Christopher |editor2-last=Schotter |editor2-first=Anne Howland |title=The Longman Anthology of British Literature. Volume 1A: The Middle Ages |edition=3rd |location=New York |publisher=Pearson Longman |page=608 |isbn=0321333977 }}{{cite book |last=Kinney |first=Phyllis |date=2011 |title=Welsh Traditional Music |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SUyuBwAAQBAJ&q=%22gwilym+generally+considered%22&pg=PA6 |location=Cardiff |publisher=University of Wales Press |page=6 |isbn=9780708323571 |access-date=18 July 2015 }} and this is one of his best-known works.{{cite web |url=http://www.fofweb.com/History/HistRefMain.asp?iPin=EML0156&SID=2&DatabaseName=Ancient+and+Medieval+History+Online&InputText=%22Ovid%22&SearchStyle=&dTitle=Dafydd+ap+Gwilym&TabRecordType=Biography&BioCountPass=52&SubCountPass=94&DocCountPass=4&ImgCountPass=1&MapCountPass=1&FedCountPass=&MedCountPass=2&NewsCountPass=0&RecPosition=42&AmericanData=&WomenData=&AFHCData=&IndianData=&WorldData=&AncientData=Set&GovernmentData= |title=Dafydd ap Gwilym |last1=Ruud |first1=Jay |date=2000–2014 |website=Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature |access-date=21 June 2015 }}{{cite journal |last=Conran |first=Anthony |date=1992 |title=The redhead on the castle wall: Dafydd ap Gwilym's "Yr Wylan" ("The Seagull") |url=http://welshjournals.llgc.org.uk/browse/viewpage/llgc-id:1386666/llgc-id:1424133/llgc-id:1424156/get650 |journal=Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion |page=21 |access-date=22 June 2015}} The poem cannot be precisely dated, but was perhaps written in the 1340s.{{cite book |last1=Lloyd |first1=Thomas |last2=Orbach |first2=Julian |last3=Scourfield |first3=Robert |year=2006 |title=The Buildings of Wales: Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wEkcJb2lHx8C&q=%22dafydd+ap+gwilym%22+llanbadarn&pg=PA495 |location=New Haven |publisher=Yale University Press |page=495 |isbn=0300101791 |access-date=21 June 2015 }}

Summary

Dafydd curses the women of his parish, and complains that he has never had any luck with any of them. He wonders what is lacking in him or in them that none of them will agree to meet him in the woods. Comparing himself to Garwy he says that he has always been in love with some girl or other but never won her, and confesses that every Sunday he can be found in church, with his head turned over his shoulder and away from the body of Christ, gazing at some girl. Dafydd represents such a woman as exchanging with her friend gibes about his appearance and character. The poet concludes that he must give all this up and go off alone to be a hermit, since, though his ogling habits have literally turned his head, he still has no girl.

Commentary

Dafydd often refers to Llanbadarn in his poems, reflecting the fact that he was born at Brogynin, in the parish of Llanbadarn Fawr, and lived there for many years.{{sfn|Bromwich|1985|pp=xiii, 157}} He shows his knowledge of Welsh legend with his reference to Garwy Hir, who was renowned as a lover, and whose daughter, Indeg, was herself loved by King Arthur.{{sfn|Bromwich|1985|p=158}}{{cite book |year=1978 |orig-year=1961 |editor1-last=Bromwich |editor1-first=Rachel |title=Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Welsh Triads |location=Cardiff |publisher=University of Wales Press |page=354 |isbn=070830690X }} The line in which the poet is said to be "Pale and with his sister's hair"{{sfn|Jones|1977|p=38}} are consistent with a third-hand description of Dafydd given in a 16th-century document: "tall and slender, with long curly yellow hair, full of silver clasps and rings".{{cite book |year=1969 |editor1-last=Gurney |editor1-first=Robert |title=Bardic Heritage |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pIhiAAAAMAAJ&q=%22conversed+with+Dafydd%22 |location=London |publisher=Chatto & Windus |page=76 |isbn=0701113286 |access-date=21 June 2015 }} It has been suggested that the first of Dafydd's two disparagers is the woman whom in many other poems he calls Morfudd, the object of his often rejected devotion.{{sfn|Bromwich|1974|pp=36–48, 59}}{{cite journal |last=Bowen |first=D. J. |date=1982 |title=Cywydd Dafydd ap Gwilym i ferched Llanbadarn a'i gefndir |journal=Ysgrifau Beirniadol |volume=12 |pages=78–79 }}

Theme and analogues

File:Peniarth_MS_54.gif

The poem's theme, Dafydd's habitual failure in love, is a very common one in his work. As the novelist and scholar Gwyn Jones wrote:

No lover in any language, and certainly no poet, has confessed to missing the mark more often than Dafydd ap Gwilym. Uncooperative husbands, quick-triggered alarms, crones and walls, strong locks, floods and fogs and bogs and dogs are for ever interposing themselves between him and golden-haired Morfudd, black-browed Dyddgu, or Gwen the infinitely fair. But a great trier, even in church.{{sfn|Jones|1977|p=289}}

Parallels to Dafydd's amused and ironic reportage of his own inadequacies can be found in Chaucer's works, and elsewhere in medieval literature; also in the poems of Dafydd's avowed model Ovid.{{sfn|Bromwich|1974|pp=2, 59}} But Dafydd is also, more seriously, pointing up the superficiality of the girls' criticism of his appearance as compared with an implied judgement of his true worth.{{cite book |last1=Fulton |first1=Helen |year=1989 |title=Dafydd ap Gwilym and the European Context |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v-0rAAAAMAAJ&q=%22making+a+serious%22 |location=Cardiff |publisher=University of Wales Press |page=196 |isbn=0708310303 |access-date=21 June 2015 }}

Poetic art

In common with other Middle Welsh poems of the form called cywyddau "The Girls of Llanbadarn" follows complex rules of construction. It uses the system of alliteration and internal rhyme known as cynghanedd, except in the lines recording the comments of the two girls, where, in contrast with the rest of the poem, the diction is plain and conversational.{{cite journal |last=Parry |first=Thomas |date=Spring 1973 |title=Dafydd ap Gwilym's poetic craft |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DBAaAAAAIAAJ&q=%22diction+is+that+of+unadorned%22 |journal=Poetry Wales |volume=8 |issue=4 |page=38 |access-date=4 July 2015}} Sangiad, the breaking-up of the syntactical structure of the sentence, is used in most of the poem. The scholar Joseph Clancy illustrated this with a literal translation of the last lines, in which the second half of each line interrupts the narrative flow with the poet's commentary on it:

From too much looking, strange lesson,
Backwards, sight of weakness,
It happened to me, strong song's friend,
To bow my head without one companion.{{cite book |last1=Clancy |first1=Joseph P. |year=1965 |title=Medieval Welsh Lyrics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2YdiAAAAMAAJ&q=%22lesson+backwards+sight%22 |location=London |publisher=Macmillan |page=11 |access-date=4 July 2015 }}

Influence

The 20th-century Welsh poet Raymond Garlick wrote a poem, "Llanbadarn Etc.", inspired by "The Girls of Llanbadarn" and addressed to a contemporary who, though displaying behaviour similar to that depicted in Dafydd ap Gwilym's poem, has

no words now to crown it with
or turn it to a cywydd.{{cite book |last1=Dale-Jones |first1=Don |year=1996 |title=Raymond Garlick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZUYqAQAAIAAJ&q=%22llanbadarn+etc%22 |location=Cardiff |publisher=University of Wales Press |page=74 |isbn=0708313221 |access-date=18 February 2020 }}{{cite journal |last1=Garlick |first1=Raymond |author-link1=Raymond Garlick |date=Spring 1973 |title=Llanbadarn etc. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DBAaAAAAIAAJ&q=%22llanbadarn+etc%22 |journal=Poetry Wales |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=79–80 |access-date=18 February 2020 }}

English translations and paraphrases

Bell, H. Idris, in {{cite book |last1=Bell |first1=H. Idris |last2=Bell |first2=David |author-link2=David Bell (artist) |year=1942 |title=Fifty Poems |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EygrAAAAIAAJ&q=%22would+this+many+a+year%22 |series=Y Cymmrodor, vol. 48 |location=London |publisher=Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion |pages=197, 199 |access-date=2 July 2015 }} With the Middle Welsh original in parallel text.
{{cite book |year=2019 |editor1-last=Bollard |editor1-first=John K. |title=Cymru Dafydd ap Gwilym/Dafydd ap Gwilym's Wales: Cerddi a Lleoedd/Poems and Places |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o7JyxQEACAAJ |location=Dyffryn Conwy |publisher=Gwasg Carreg Gwalch |pages=52–53 |isbn=9781845277192 |access-date=15 February 2020 }} With the Middle Welsh original in parallel text.
{{cite book |year=1985 |orig-year=1982 |editor1-last=Bromwich |editor1-first=Rachel |editor1-link=Rachel Bromwich |title=Dafydd ap Gwilym: A Selection of Poems |url=http://omoopart5.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/daffydd-ap-gwilym.html |location=Harmondsworth |publisher=Penguin |pages=136, 138 |isbn=0140076131 |ref=none |access-date=15 June 2015 }} With the Middle Welsh original in parallel text.
{{cite book |last1=Clancy |first1=Joseph P. |year=1965 |title=Medieval Welsh Lyrics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2YdiAAAAMAAJ&q=%22passion+doubles+me+over%22 |location=London |publisher=Macmillan |pages=29–30 |access-date=15 June 2015 }}
Rev. repr. in his {{cite book |year=2016 |title=The Poems of Dafydd ap Gwilym |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ItIuDwAAQBAJ&q=%22passion+doubles%22 |location=Bath |publisher=Brown Dog |pages=39–40 |isbn=9781785450891 |access-date=24 February 2020 }}
{{cite book |year=1967 |editor1-last=Conran |editor1-first=Anthony |editor1-link=Tony Conran |editor2-last=Williams |editor2-first=J. E. Caerwyn |editor2-link=J. E. Caerwyn Williams |title=The Penguin Book of Welsh Verse |location=Harmondsworth |publisher=Penguin |pages=141–142 }}
Edwards, Huw Meirion. At {{cite web |url=http://www.dafyddapgwilym.net/AnaServer?dafydd+253098+compareSimpleEng.anv+edEl=252861&localEl=253098&titleEl=252849 |title=137 - Merched Llanbadarn |website=Gwaith Dafydd ap Gwilym |publisher=Welsh Department, Swansea University |access-date=21 June 2015 }} With the Middle Welsh original.
{{cite book |year=1999 |editor1-last=Ford |editor1-first=Patrick K. |title=The Celtic Poets: Songs and Tales from Early Ireland and Wales |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nsIZAAAACAAJ |location=Belmont, Mass. |publisher=Ford & Bailie |pages=292–293 |isbn=9780926689053 |access-date=21 November 2020 }}
{{cite book |last1=Green |first1=Martin |year=1993 |title=Homage to Dafydd ap Gwilym |location=Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter |publisher=The Edwin Mellen Press |pages=22–23 |isbn=0773493182 }}
{{cite book |year=1969 |editor1-last=Gurney |editor1-first=Robert |title=Bardic Heritage |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pIhiAAAAMAAJ&q=%22i%27m+racked+with+fury%22 |location=London |publisher=Chatto & Windus |pages=74–75 |isbn=0701113286 |access-date=15 June 2015 }}
{{cite book |year=1968 |orig-year=1944 |editor1-last=Heseltine |editor1-first=Nigel |editor1-link=Nigel Heseltine |title=Twenty-Five Poems by Dafydd ap Gwilym |location=Banbury |publisher=Piers Press |pages=31–32 }}
{{cite book |last1=Humphreys |first1=Nigel |year=2015 |editor1-last=Edmunds |editor1-first=Catherine |title=The Love Song of Daphnis & Chloe and 5 Dafydd ap Gwilym Poems (c1320 to c1370) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sa49jgEACAAJ |location=Hastings |publisher=Circaidy Gregory Press |pages=128–129 |isbn=9781906451882 |access-date=15 February 2020 }}
Humphries, Rolfe. {{cite journal |date=Summer 1958 |title=Dafydd ap Gwilym gives up on the girls from Llanbadarn|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jOkSAAAAIAAJ&q=%22plague+on%22 |journal=The Colorado Quarterly |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=33–34 |access-date=17 June 2015}}
Repr. in his {{cite book |year=1965 |title=Collected Poems |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=t8UOAAAAMAAJ |location=Bloomington |publisher=Indiana University Press |pages=256–257 |access-date=17 June 2015 }}
{{cite book |year=1971 |orig-year=1951 |editor1-last=Jackson |editor1-first=Kenneth Hurlstone |editor1-link=Kenneth H. Jackson |title=A Celtic Miscellany |location=Harmondsworth |publisher=Penguin |pages=[https://archive.org/details/celticmiscellany00jack/page/209 209–210] |isbn=0140442472 |url=https://archive.org/details/celticmiscellany00jack/page/209 }}
{{cite book |last1=Jones |first1=Glyn |author-link1=Glyn Jones (Welsh writer) |year=1996 |editor1-last=Stephens |editor1-first=Meic |editor1-link=Meic Stephens |title=The Collected Poems of Glyn Jones |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3JcgAQAAIAAJ |location=Cardiff |publisher=University of Wales Press |pages=225–226 |isbn=0708313884 |access-date=15 February 2020 }}
{{cite book |last1=Lofmark |first1=Carl |year=1989 |title=Bards and Heroes |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PJZiAAAAMAAJ&q=%22i+am+twisted+with+passion%22 |location=Felinferch |publisher=Llanerch |pages=97–98 |isbn=0947992340 |access-date=15 June 2015 }}
{{cite book |year=1982 |editor1-last=Loomis |editor1-first=Richard Morgan |title=Dafydd ap Gwilym: The Poems |url=https://archive.org/stream/dafyddapgwilympo00dafyuoft#page/124/mode/2up |location=Binghamton |publisher=Center for Medieval & Early Renaissance Studies |pages=125–126 |isbn=0866980156 |access-date=21 June 2015 }}
Rev repr. in {{cite book | last1=Loomis |first1=Richard |last2=Johnston |first2=Dafydd |year=1992 |title=Medieval Welsh Poems |location=Binghamton |publisher=Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies |pages=64–66 |isbn=0866981020 }}
{{cite book |last1=Merchant |first1=Paul |year=2006 |title=Some Business of Affinity |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=745lAAAAMAAJ |location=Hereford |publisher=Five Seasons Press |pages=111–112 |isbn=0947960392 |access-date=15 February 2020 }}
Rev. repr. in {{cite book |translator-last1=Merchant |translator-first1=Paul |translator-last2=Faletra |translator-first2=Michael |year=2018 |title=Unless She Beckons: Poems of Dafydd ap Gwilym |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hNayswEACAAJ |location=La Grande, Oregon |publisher=Redbat |pages=25, 27 |isbn=9780997154993 |access-date=15 February 2020 }} With the Middle Welsh original in parallel text.
{{cite book |last1=Norris |first1=Leslie |author-link1=Leslie Norris |year=1996 |title=Collected Poems |location=Bridgend |publisher=Seren |pages=159–160 |isbn=1854111329 }}
{{cite book |year=2001 |editor1-last=Thomas |editor1-first=Gwyn |editor1-link= Gwyn Thomas (poet) |title=Dafydd ap Gwilym: His Poems |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XYxiAAAAMAAJ&q=%22a+plague+on+all+maids%22 |location=Cardiff |publisher=University of Wales Press |pages=101–102 |isbn=0708316646 |access-date=17 June 2015 }}
{{cite book |last=Walters |first=Bryan |date=1977 |title=From the Welsh |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R3jJPgAACAAJ |location=Aberystwyth |publisher=Celtion |pages=10, 12 |isbn=0860530086 |access-date=3 January 2021 }}
{{cite book |last1=Watson |first1=Giles |year=2016 |title=Rivals of Dafydd ap Gwilym: A Treasury of Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century Welsh Verse |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SFRODwAAQBAJ&pg=PA8 |location=npp |publisher=pp |pages=8–9 |isbn=9781326900458 |access-date=15 February 2020 }}
{{cite book |last1=Webb |first1=Harri |author-link1=Harri Webb |year=1995 |editor1-last=Stephens |editor1-first=Meic |editor1-link=Meic Stephens |title=Collected Poems |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OpAoAQAAIAAJ |location=Llandysul |publisher=Gomer |pages=178–179 |isbn=1859022995 |access-date=21 November 2020 }}
{{cite book |year=1956 |editor1-last=Williams |editor1-first=Gwyn |editor1-link=David Gwyn Williams |title=The Burning Tree |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UzUqAAAAYAAJ&q=%22i+bow+before+this+passion%22 |location=London |publisher=Faber and Faber |pages=93–95 |access-date=16 June 2015 }}
{{cite book |last=Wood |first=John |author-link=John Wood (poet) |date=1997 |title=The Gates of the Elect Kingdom |url=https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=uipress_ipp |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100629025824/http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=uipress_ipp |url-status=dead |archive-date=29 June 2010 |location=Iowa City |publisher=University of Iowa Press |pages=40–41 |isbn=0877455813 |access-date=28 June 2021 }}

Notes

References

{{cite book |last1=Bromwich |first1=Rachel |year=1974 |title=Dafydd ap Gwilym |location=Cardiff |publisher=University of Wales Press |isbn=0708305725 }}
{{cite book |year=1985 |orig-year=1982 |editor1-last=Bromwich |editor1-first=Rachel |title=Dafydd ap Gwilym: A Selection of Poems |location=Harmondsworth |publisher=Penguin |isbn=0140076131 }}
{{cite book |year=1977 |editor1-last=Jones |editor1-first=Gwyn |editor1-link=Gwyn Jones (author) |title=The Oxford Book of Welsh Verse in English |location=Oxford |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=0192118587 |url=https://archive.org/details/oxfordbookofwels00jonerich }}

External links

[https://cy.wikisource.org/wiki/Merched_Llanbadarn Full text in Middle Welsh at Welsh Wikisource]
[http://verbalarmor.blogspot.co.uk/2006/06/girls-of-llanbadarn.html The Joseph Clancy translation]
[https://books.google.com/books?id=rHyMl8ILoHIC&dq=%22i+am+twisted+with+passion%22&pg=PA175 The Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson translation].

Category:Aberystwyth

Category:Humorous poems

Category:Poetry by Dafydd ap Gwilym

Category:14th-century Welsh women

Category:14th-century Welsh people