Giles Watson's poetry and prose
The Moon
The Moon
Y Lleuad
God hinders us – being wise –
In a multitude of ways.
Lovers, lorn and benighted,
Limp on unrequited.
Longing for woman’s lightness,
Lust-struck, dazzled sightless,
Slave to Ovid’s muse, I stray
Where I dare not go by day:
Lunatic scheme! Sore my plight!
Lost by day and foiled by night!
Luck eludes me, though I swoon,
Love her! Thwarted by the moon!
Waiting in the woods, the murk
Would have aided amorous work
Were it not as bright as day.
Why! Cold moonlight will betray
What seemed a foolproof scheme! Grief
Will get me, like a doomed thief:
Waxen moon, maiden’s minder,
Winter-whitened man-blinder!
Baleful, glowering, candle-white,
Blooming Blodeuwedd of night!
Planet wan, a watery waste,
Parish of the ever-chaste!
Half a month, by her rhythm –
At home in her dark heaven –
Will make her wan, pale to wane:
One fortnight clear to wax again,
Then half and half she wavers –
The maid withdraws her favours –
Tide-stirring, bright and wide:
The ghost-sun, the starlit Bride.
No thief ever found a worse
Gift. Moonlit night: burglar’s curse.
Eiddig slips out of his bed
At the raising of her head:
She assists the churl to scare
This suitor in his twiggy lair.
Fine florin, Eiddig’s friend,
Finding star-strewn ways to wend,
Far too wide, her chalk-white face
Flowering for the wind’s embrace.
Faithless, to this lover’s cost,
Frigid scatterer of frost,
Faceless foe! My love must hide:
Fear will keep her locked inside.
Fickle circle, fair of flight,
Flawless in the moonlit night.
Candle of the world, she’ll know –
Canny creature – where I go,
Compassing the wind-wide world,
Casting light as men are hurled
Callously across the sky,
Careering onward as we die.
Caressed by lightning, bright rim,
Circle of the cauldron’s brim,
Cold lamp in an azure sphere,
Queen of gleaming atmosphere.
Day of a base-metal sun
Drives me out, and I must run,
Dart for shelter, ere the dawn
Draws me down for Eiddig’s scorn.
Darken but a little, moon –
Do but this – I’ll make her swoon
With love-words! Saints, angels, hark!
Would to God that it were dark!
Enough it is that light holds sway
Twelve hours every day.
Good God who made the light,
Grant a lover’s gift of night!
Source material: Poem by Dafydd ap Gwilym, paraphrased by Giles Watson. Of all Dafydd’s poems, this is the one which draws most heavily on the lore and language of the pagan Celts, but with characteristic brilliance, he subverts the tradition by transforming a riddling hymn into a diatribe, and transforms it again at the end into a wickedly wayward Christian prayer. The moon, which might in other circumstances be the subject of Dafydd’s praise, invites his scorn because it has cast its light on his hiding-place in the greenwood, where he had hoped to have his tryst with Eiddig’s wife. The entire poem is, of course, a witty and ironic meditation not only on the rhythmic nature of the phases of the moon, but on the changeability of womanhood, and his skill as a poet is evidenced by the deftness with which he alludes to the relationship between the lunar and menstrual cycles. Indeed, it could be argued that Eiddig himself is more or less superfluous as far as dramatic tension is concerned: there are plenty of hints here that, under the moon’s influence, Dafydd’s beloved is not in an amorous mood tonight in any case. The reference to Blodeuwedd – the miraculous maiden of the Mabinogion, conjured out of flowers and then transformed into an owl as a punishment for an adulterous and murderous affair – is more subtle in the original, where the line in question reads “Blodeuyn o dywyn dydd” (“Is the bloom of the day’s radiance”). In an attempt to echo the incantatory tone of the original, I have preserved the heavy alliteration of Dafydd’s line-openings, although not always with the same sounds. It is worth noting that the longing for darkness to cover one’s misdoings, combined with a similar incantatory tone, is a feature of the speeches Shakespeare attributed to Macbeth and his wife – although their transgressions were of a bloodier nature. This paraphrase was written on the night of the Full Wolf Moon – the brightest full moon of the year – at the end of January, 2010: a happy coincidence which certainly facilitated the work.
The Moon
The Moon
Y Lleuad
God hinders us – being wise –
In a multitude of ways.
Lovers, lorn and benighted,
Limp on unrequited.
Longing for woman’s lightness,
Lust-struck, dazzled sightless,
Slave to Ovid’s muse, I stray
Where I dare not go by day:
Lunatic scheme! Sore my plight!
Lost by day and foiled by night!
Luck eludes me, though I swoon,
Love her! Thwarted by the moon!
Waiting in the woods, the murk
Would have aided amorous work
Were it not as bright as day.
Why! Cold moonlight will betray
What seemed a foolproof scheme! Grief
Will get me, like a doomed thief:
Waxen moon, maiden’s minder,
Winter-whitened man-blinder!
Baleful, glowering, candle-white,
Blooming Blodeuwedd of night!
Planet wan, a watery waste,
Parish of the ever-chaste!
Half a month, by her rhythm –
At home in her dark heaven –
Will make her wan, pale to wane:
One fortnight clear to wax again,
Then half and half she wavers –
The maid withdraws her favours –
Tide-stirring, bright and wide:
The ghost-sun, the starlit Bride.
No thief ever found a worse
Gift. Moonlit night: burglar’s curse.
Eiddig slips out of his bed
At the raising of her head:
She assists the churl to scare
This suitor in his twiggy lair.
Fine florin, Eiddig’s friend,
Finding star-strewn ways to wend,
Far too wide, her chalk-white face
Flowering for the wind’s embrace.
Faithless, to this lover’s cost,
Frigid scatterer of frost,
Faceless foe! My love must hide:
Fear will keep her locked inside.
Fickle circle, fair of flight,
Flawless in the moonlit night.
Candle of the world, she’ll know –
Canny creature – where I go,
Compassing the wind-wide world,
Casting light as men are hurled
Callously across the sky,
Careering onward as we die.
Caressed by lightning, bright rim,
Circle of the cauldron’s brim,
Cold lamp in an azure sphere,
Queen of gleaming atmosphere.
Day of a base-metal sun
Drives me out, and I must run,
Dart for shelter, ere the dawn
Draws me down for Eiddig’s scorn.
Darken but a little, moon –
Do but this – I’ll make her swoon
With love-words! Saints, angels, hark!
Would to God that it were dark!
Enough it is that light holds sway
Twelve hours every day.
Good God who made the light,
Grant a lover’s gift of night!
Source material: Poem by Dafydd ap Gwilym, paraphrased by Giles Watson. Of all Dafydd’s poems, this is the one which draws most heavily on the lore and language of the pagan Celts, but with characteristic brilliance, he subverts the tradition by transforming a riddling hymn into a diatribe, and transforms it again at the end into a wickedly wayward Christian prayer. The moon, which might in other circumstances be the subject of Dafydd’s praise, invites his scorn because it has cast its light on his hiding-place in the greenwood, where he had hoped to have his tryst with Eiddig’s wife. The entire poem is, of course, a witty and ironic meditation not only on the rhythmic nature of the phases of the moon, but on the changeability of womanhood, and his skill as a poet is evidenced by the deftness with which he alludes to the relationship between the lunar and menstrual cycles. Indeed, it could be argued that Eiddig himself is more or less superfluous as far as dramatic tension is concerned: there are plenty of hints here that, under the moon’s influence, Dafydd’s beloved is not in an amorous mood tonight in any case. The reference to Blodeuwedd – the miraculous maiden of the Mabinogion, conjured out of flowers and then transformed into an owl as a punishment for an adulterous and murderous affair – is more subtle in the original, where the line in question reads “Blodeuyn o dywyn dydd” (“Is the bloom of the day’s radiance”). In an attempt to echo the incantatory tone of the original, I have preserved the heavy alliteration of Dafydd’s line-openings, although not always with the same sounds. It is worth noting that the longing for darkness to cover one’s misdoings, combined with a similar incantatory tone, is a feature of the speeches Shakespeare attributed to Macbeth and his wife – although their transgressions were of a bloodier nature. This paraphrase was written on the night of the Full Wolf Moon – the brightest full moon of the year – at the end of January, 2010: a happy coincidence which certainly facilitated the work.