Yr Wylan (The Seagull) by Dafydd ap Gwilym

A fine gull on the tideflow,
All white with moon or snow,
Your beauty’s immaculate,
Shard like the sun, brine’s gauntlet.
Buoyant you’re on the deep flood,
A proud swift bird of fishfood.
You’d ride at anchor with me,
Hand in hand there, sea lily.
Like a letter, a bright earnest,
A nun you’re on the tide’s crest.

Right fame and far my dear has –
Oh, fly around tower and fortress,
Look if you can’t see, seagull,
One bright as Eigr on that wall.
Say all my words together.
Let her choose me. Go to her.
If she’s alone – though profit
With so rare a girl needs wit –
Greet her then: her servant, say,
Must, without her, die straightway.

She guards my life so wholly –
Ah friends, none prettier than she
Taliesin or the flattering lip
Or Merlin loved in courtship:
Cypris courted ‘neath copper,
Loveliness too perfect-fair.

Seagull, if that cheek you see,
Christendom’s purest beauty,
Bring to me back fair welcome
Or that girl must be my doom.

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By Dafydd ap Gwilym
(fl. 1340-70)
translated by Tony Conran

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Additional information: This love poem by the 14th century poet Dafydd ap Gwilym was probably written in or around the 1340s. Dafydd is widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets and this is one of his best-known and best loved works. The poem references Eigr (the Welsh name for King Arthur’s mother Igraine), Myrddin (the figure who eventually becomes Merlin the wizard in Arthurian stories) and Taliesin (a renowned, and somewhat mythologised, bard who is believed to have sung at the courts of at least three kings and in some accounts is associated with King Arthur and Bran the Blessed).

An alchemical pun is also present in the poem. ‘Siprys’ translates from Welsh into ‘Cypris’, the Cyprian, one of the names for Venus the Roman goddess of love. The poet compares his lover to the goddess due to her copper hair. Copper is a metal often associated with the goddess due to her copper coloured hair, which most will recognise from Botticelli‘s The Birth of Venus, indicating the alchemical relationship between the planet Venus and copper.

The Welsh version of the pome set to music. Sung by Jeremy Huw Williams accompanied on piano by Nigel Foster

Beneath is the original Welsh language version of the poem.

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Yr Wylan

Yr wylan deg ar lanw, dioer,
Unlliw ag eiry neu wenlloer,
Dilwch yw dy degwch di,
Darn fal haul, dyrnfol heli.
Ysgafn ar don eigion wyd,
Esgudfalch edn bysgodfwyd.
Yngo’r aud wrth yr angor
Lawlaw â mi, lili môr.
Llythr unwaith lle’th ariannwyd,
Lleian ym mrig llanw môr wyd.

Cyweirglod bun, cai’r glod bell,
Cyrch ystum caer a chastell.
Edrych a welych, wylan,
Eigr o liw ar y gaer lân.
Dywaid fy ngeiriau dyun,
Dewised fi, dos hyd fun.
Byddai’i hun, beiddia’i hannerch,
Bydd fedrus wrth fwythus ferch
Er budd; dywaid na byddaf,
Fwynwas coeth, fyw onis caf.
Ei charu’r wyf, gwbl nwyf nawdd,
Och wŷr, erioed ni charawdd
Na Merddin wenithfin iach,
Na Thaliesin ei thlysach.
Siprys dyn giprys dan gopr,
Rhagorbryd rhy gyweirbropr.

Och wylan, o chai weled
Grudd y ddyn lanaf o Gred,
Oni chaf fwynaf annerch,
Fy nihenydd fydd y ferch.