Thanks for the Gloves

Thanks for the Gloves

Diolch am Fenig

 

Ifor’s generous with gold:

There’s no hand he does not gild

Ere it leaves his court. I dined

There yesterday, and was wined

Well enough to loose my tongue

In praise. Night leaves a lorn twinge

Of longing, for no wedding

Could coax a bride more willing

Than I am, though I travel

Afar. Praise is kind travail.

 

I came from his court with gloves

Money-filled to the gussets.

Ifor, patron of poets,

Gives his good gloves like a priest

Signing blessings, thick and fine,

Stuffed with coins, colour of fawn.

Oh, that I had penned a poem

Each time gold has crossed his palm,

Or coined cywyddau whenever

My finger touched his silver!

 

Fine girls always want – on loan –

My gloves. I’ve rehearsed my line:

“No.” I’m never letting go

Of Ifor’s gift, though they blow

Their pink cheeks out in disgust:

I am his devoted guest.

No ram-skin mitten will scour

My finger and leave a scar:

I wear deer-skin on each hand

From a benefactor’s herd:

Gentle leather. I’ll not let

Any weather get them wet.

 

By Rheged, I’ll give him praise:

Great Ifor, who dwarfs his peers.

A second Taliesin,

Dafydd hones his lord’s blessing

Out of words. I wish him health

As I stand before his hearth -

A place where men are brave, and maids

Chaste, possessed of noble minds,

Where even lords bend to bless

A mere bard with fond largesse,

Where every babe is well-borne,

Where hawks, hounds and wine abound,

Where garments are all scarlet

And no good poem stays secret.

 

In the Wennallt, not one tree

Has a head that is not green

In the wind alive and waving

With its neighbours interwoven.

So, a joyful throng is knit

At Basaleg: bard and knight

Bound to their Duke together -

And I shall serve no other.

 

No gloves for a Saxon fool -

No mere English gloves of wool:

Gloves of Ifor, perfect gift!

They fit my hand like a graft

Ingrowing. I wave: “All hail!”

In salute of Ifor Hael.

 

Poem by Dafydd ap Gwilym, paraphrased by Giles Watson, 2012. Like all mediaeval bards, Dafydd was not above unleashing a gush of fawning praise on a promising patron, but in the case of Ifor ap Llywelyn, who lived at Gwernyclepa, near to the village of Basaleg, the affection seems to have been quite genuine. It was Dafydd himself who gave Ifor his nickname: “Hael” (the Generous), and the poet was equally generous, composing no less than six poems in his praise. This is, in fact, the earliest surviving poem of thanks in the cywydd metre, and it seems likely that Dafydd’s slightly younger contemporary, Iolo Goch – a still more effusive flatterer – was influenced by it. The hall of Rheged was the place where the sixth century poet Taliesin – the archetypal bard – sang the praises of his master Urien, and Dafydd is, of course, being quite as flattering to himself as he is to his patron in making the comparison. Craig y Wennallt was a woodland three miles to the north-west of Ifor’s court.

 

The picture shows a pair of gloves from the mid-1500s, in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Rumour has it that they were given to Elizabeth I on her first royal visit to Oxford in 1566, and that she left them behind because they were "unflatteringly large". Apologies for the anachronism.

Done