Giles Watson's poetry and prose
The Goose Shed
THE GOOSE SHED
Y Cwt Gwyddau
I came once, upon a night
- Ghastly jaunt with no delight –
After wandering wide astray,
Upon a fine girl, fresh as may.
“Have you sought me long?” said she,
“A keen lover you must be!”
“Of course I am! Expectation’s
Driving me to desperation!”
Suddenly a savage chap
Leapt, like stag or lightning clap,
Roared like a lion giving chase,
Wrathful grimace on his face,
With jealous ire. “Touch not my wife!”
By God! I feared for my life!
I have a brain, and so I ran:
Pale youth flies from cuckold-man.
“Have you a spur, spiked and cruel
Fit to fight me in a duel?
Else I’ll spear you through the liver
With only cywyddau in your quiver!”
I found a goose-shed, safe haven
- Call me chicken, call me craven –
I said, immune to disgrace,
“There is no better hiding place.”
A hollow-nostrilled mother goose
With cape of feathers hanging loose
Came upon me – O! Alack!
Pinions bristling for attack!
Brindle bully, grey-lag goose,
Heron-sister, scorns a truce,
Comes upon me hard, pell-mell,
Her grizzled wings the doors of hell!
Next day my love said with tact,
Pursed of lip, words exact,
That indeed she thought it worse
Than her husband’s hateful curse
To see an ancient goose molesting
Me! Horrid wails: my protesting
Rent her heart: it distressed her
More than if the men of Chester
Had defrayed me with their jibes.
And now I mutter diatribes:
Mother goose, to save my face
I long to bring you some disgrace:
Crack your wishbone, pluck you bare.
Brazen goose, you’d best beware!
-Dafydd ap Gwilym, paraphrased by Giles Watson. In contrast to his more literary efforts, Dafydd wrote a number of poems which owed more to the fabileaux tradition of Reynard the Fox than to courtly notions of unrequited love. The opening line is a standard beginning for such poems. Even here, however, Dafydd was an innovator, invariably making himself the figure of fun, with a self-irony which is endearing to this day. Given the frivolity of the original, I have abandoned the pararhymes of some of my more measured paraphrases. The reference to the “men of Chester” is present in the original, and is, alas, quite obscure. It seems that in this case the jilted husband had no fear of the bard’s devastating recourse to satire, since he taunts the poet that his cywyddau (consonant rhyming poems with seven-syllable lines) are useless in a fight. It certainly seems that they were of little use in combat with a goose. The final couplet has affinities with the horrid promise at the end of Dafydd’s poem about the truthful magpie, but it is safe to assume that the gentle poet never carries out his threats.
The Goose Shed
THE GOOSE SHED
Y Cwt Gwyddau
I came once, upon a night
- Ghastly jaunt with no delight –
After wandering wide astray,
Upon a fine girl, fresh as may.
“Have you sought me long?” said she,
“A keen lover you must be!”
“Of course I am! Expectation’s
Driving me to desperation!”
Suddenly a savage chap
Leapt, like stag or lightning clap,
Roared like a lion giving chase,
Wrathful grimace on his face,
With jealous ire. “Touch not my wife!”
By God! I feared for my life!
I have a brain, and so I ran:
Pale youth flies from cuckold-man.
“Have you a spur, spiked and cruel
Fit to fight me in a duel?
Else I’ll spear you through the liver
With only cywyddau in your quiver!”
I found a goose-shed, safe haven
- Call me chicken, call me craven –
I said, immune to disgrace,
“There is no better hiding place.”
A hollow-nostrilled mother goose
With cape of feathers hanging loose
Came upon me – O! Alack!
Pinions bristling for attack!
Brindle bully, grey-lag goose,
Heron-sister, scorns a truce,
Comes upon me hard, pell-mell,
Her grizzled wings the doors of hell!
Next day my love said with tact,
Pursed of lip, words exact,
That indeed she thought it worse
Than her husband’s hateful curse
To see an ancient goose molesting
Me! Horrid wails: my protesting
Rent her heart: it distressed her
More than if the men of Chester
Had defrayed me with their jibes.
And now I mutter diatribes:
Mother goose, to save my face
I long to bring you some disgrace:
Crack your wishbone, pluck you bare.
Brazen goose, you’d best beware!
-Dafydd ap Gwilym, paraphrased by Giles Watson. In contrast to his more literary efforts, Dafydd wrote a number of poems which owed more to the fabileaux tradition of Reynard the Fox than to courtly notions of unrequited love. The opening line is a standard beginning for such poems. Even here, however, Dafydd was an innovator, invariably making himself the figure of fun, with a self-irony which is endearing to this day. Given the frivolity of the original, I have abandoned the pararhymes of some of my more measured paraphrases. The reference to the “men of Chester” is present in the original, and is, alas, quite obscure. It seems that in this case the jilted husband had no fear of the bard’s devastating recourse to satire, since he taunts the poet that his cywyddau (consonant rhyming poems with seven-syllable lines) are useless in a fight. It certainly seems that they were of little use in combat with a goose. The final couplet has affinities with the horrid promise at the end of Dafydd’s poem about the truthful magpie, but it is safe to assume that the gentle poet never carries out his threats.