The Wounded Thorn

The Wounded Thorn

Y Draenllwyn

 

Hawthorn tree, lush and stately,

Gentle llatai, lorn, laudatory,

Wrapped in bark and greenly clad,

Armed with spears, my Covert Lad,

Ever-changing in your guise,

Loved of God, of manly size!

In May, a fleeting wonder grows:

Wearing precious summer snows,

Your branches bow, each serried

With an army thorned, then berried.

 

From your foe a warlike blow

Has wedged deep: a cleft of woe:

Not half of you – not a third –

Remains to shelter beast or bird.

Star-Cherry, my living charm,

He cleaved your legs, meaning harm

To heartwood, bole, branch and leaf.

Say, Foam-Flower, who brought you grief?

 

“I am weak. I creak and sigh.

He came to me – I don’t know why –

A wretched churl, axe-wielding fool,

Just yesterday. The blade cruel:

An axe with shaft of apple-wood.

He came to wound me where I stood

And spill my gems, shake my top,

In hopes my very crown to drop.”

 

Such coral beads I have seen:

Jewels to crown an English queen!

Stand still, Soldier. By my verse

I’ll win justice. Mortal curse:

The churl shall hang, a grave his bed;

By this song he’ll swing, dog-dead.

 

Source material: Attributed to Dafydd ap Gwilym, paraphrased by Giles Watson. Whilst it has been acknowledged that the poem is in a fourteenth century style, modern critics have suggested that it is not skilful enough to retain a definite place in the Dafydd ap Gwilym canon. The theme of the churlish love-rival (usually named Eiddig) who is also an over-enthusiastic hedge-cutter is, however, a favourite of Dafydd’s, and is further evidence of the eternal relevance of his concerns. The choice of a tree as a llatai is also intriguing, since for obvious reasons, most of Dafydd’s love messengers are highly mobile. Perhaps the tree was an appointed place for leaving hidden letters. A particularly charming feature of the poem is the gradual accumulation of the poet’s affectionate nicknames for the tree, emphasising the fact that he knew it as an individual. The Hawthorn tree has snow-white blossoms in May, which are succeeded in the autumn by coral-coloured berries. In the right light, these are indeed jewel-like in appearance, and Dafydd’s original makes an ironic comparison between the beauty of the berries and the jewels available – to those who could afford them – in an Englishman’s shop. There is a bitterness to this line which is lost on modern audiences (Dafydd is thinking of the fact that after the Edwardian settlement of 1284, English settlers had the monopoly on urban trade), so I have replaced it with the more obvious, and equally ironic reference to “an English queen”. Poets were more highly respected in mediaeval Celtic cultures than they are in our own, and it was believed that a poet’s satires literally had the power to kill. As a result, the final lines of the poem can be seen as rather more than a mere expression of impotent rage. By coincidence, on the day I paraphrased this poem, I walked to a favourite patch of woodland, thick with gigantic ash trees and poplars, only to discover that every tree had been chain-sawed to the ground. My own rage may indeed be impotent, but I must confess that I shared Dafydd’s feelings exactly.

 

Done