Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym/To Dyddgu
TO DYDDGU.
It would appear from some of the allusions in this poem that Dyddgu was of humble origin.
Thou dear perfect Dyddgu—thou lamp of my heart!
That rulest my thoughts with thy wiles and thy art;
I am none of your lovers who gravely revere
Every nobly-born damsel, as stiff as a spear.
I leave the mad squirrel to clamber and climb,
’Mid brushwood, and brambles, and branches sublime:
The squirrel may scramble so high up the tree
That he cannot come down—but no climbing for me!
I leave the rash sailor the ocean to sweep,
With a puny inch plank between him and the deep:
Let him rove till he tires o’er his perilous track,
A proverb of luck if he ever comes back.
The archer who aims at the target his blow,
Flings the dust from his arrow, the dust from his bow;
And rarely he poises his arrow in vain,
If he aim but aright—if he shoot but with pain.
But, poor bard! if one maiden but fall to his lot
In a thousand—alas, ’tis a mere random shot!
Thou girl with the eye-brow so auburn and thin,
Thrice happy the man who thy beauty shall win;
Thou wilt not be mine for abundance of song—
I know that thou wilt not, while thou art yet young;
But still I despair not, enchantress divine!
When nobody’ll have thee, thou then shalt be mine!
In the next poem he asks the roebuck to be his love-envoy to Dyddgu, telling him that he has nothing to fear from the hounds of the “tall baron;” that if they pursue him he may hide himself in the fern. He adds, that if he carries the love-letter safe to Dyddgu he will be rewarded.
No hand shall flay thee; thou shalt live in health and joy;
Thy skin shall not be possessed by an old Saxon;