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Updated: May 12, 2025
In the period of the princes and nobles, you can trace the rise and decline of a great literature; watch how it gathers strength and beauty from Cynddelw to Dafydd ap Gwilym, and how the strength begins to fail and the beauty to wane, from Dafydd ap Gwilym to Tudur Aled.
In the same way, when he has told a man called Dafydd Tibbot, that he is a Frenchman "Dearie me, sir, am I indeed?" says the man, very pleased he supposes the man a descendant of a proud, cruel, violent Norman, for the descendants of proud, cruel and violent men "are doomed by God to come to the dogs."
"How!" said Peter; "hast thou translated the works of the mighty Dafydd?" "With notes critical, historical and explanatory." "Come with us, friend," said Peter. "I cannot promise such a dinner as thou wishest, but neither pipe nor fiddle shall be wanting." "Come with us, young man," said Winifred, "even as thou art, and the daughters of Wales shall bid thee welcome."
After praising Dafydd as the Welsh Ovid and Horace and Martial, he says: "Finally, he was something more; he was what not one of the great Latin poets was, a Christian; that is, in his latter days, when he began to feel the vanity of all human pursuits, when his nerves began to be unstrung, his hair to fall off, and his teeth to drop out, and he then composed sacred pieces entitling him to rank with we were going to say Caedmon had we done so we should have done wrong; no uninspired poet ever handled sacred subjects like the grand Saxon Skald but which entitle him to be called a great religious poet, inferior to none but the protege of Hilda."
I'll bet a guinea that however clever a fellow you may be you never sang anything in praise of your landlord's housekeeping equal to what Dafydd Nanmor sang in praise of that of Ryce of Twyn four hundred years ago: 'For Ryce if hundred thousands plough'd The lands around his fair abode; Did vines of thousand vineyards bleed, Still corn and wine great Ryce would need; If all the earth had bread's sweet savour, And water all had cyder's flavour, Three roaring feasts in Ryce's hall Would swallow earth and ocean all.
But though I had lost my oral instructor I had still my silent ones, namely, the Welsh books, and of these I made such use that before the expiration of my clerkship I was able to read not only Welsh prose, but, what was infinitely more difficult, Welsh poetry in any of the four-and-twenty measures, and was well versed in the compositions of various of the old Welsh bards, especially those of Dafydd ab Gwilym, whom, since the time when I first became acquainted with his works, I have always considered as the greatest poetical genius that has appeared in Europe since the revival of literature.
Dafydd remained confined till the fall of Glendower, shortly after which event he followed Henry the Fifth to France, where he achieved that glory which will for ever bloom, dying, covered with wounds, on the field of Agincourt after saving the life of the king, to whom in the dreadest and most critical moment of the fight he stuck closer than a brother, not from any abstract feeling of loyalty, but from the consideration that King Henry the Fifth was the son of King Henry the Fourth, who was the son of the man who received and comforted him in his house, after his own countrymen had hunted him from house and land.
The insurrection of Glendower against Henry was quite sufficient to kindle against him the deadly hatred of Dafydd, who swore "by the nails of God" that he would stab his countryman for daring to rebel against his friend King Henry, the son of the man who had received him in his house and comforted him when his own countrymen were threatening his destruction.
‘How!’ said Peter, ‘hast thou translated the works of the mighty Dafydd?’ ‘With notes critical, historical, and explanatory.’ ‘Come with us, friend,’ said Peter. ‘I cannot promise such a dinner as thou wishest, but neither pipe nor fiddle shall be wanting.’ ‘Come with us, young man,’ said Winifred, ‘even as thou art, and the daughters of Wales shall bid thee welcome.’
'How! said Peter, 'hast thou translated the works of the mighty Dafydd? 'With notes critical, historical, and explanatory. 'Come with us, friend, said Peter. 'I cannot promise such a dinner as thou wishest, but neither pipe nor fiddle shall be wanting. 'Come with us, young man, said Winifred, 'even as thou art, and the daughters of Wales shall bid thee welcome.
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