Translations into English Verse from the Poems of Davyth ap Gwilym/Satire
SATIRE
ON THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK, OR EITHIG.
Hunchback was a rich but deformed person, whom Morvyth had been forced to marry by her relations. He was the chief object of the poet’s satire.
Grief is every day my lot,
For her who regards me not;
Essyllt’s[1] mien, but Eithig’s treasure,
I have spent firm love’s full measure
On cheeks whence I cannot wile,
Fickle beauty! one sweet smile.
‘Jaoler’ will not let me win
Her of eyebrow fine and thin.
If she seeks the social throng,
The abortion comes along;
Oh! that such a sordid elf
Should possess her to himself!
Old—too old for mirth and joys,
All delight the churl destroys!
Cuckoo, nightingale, he mocks,
Hates the linnet as the fox;
Never honours with his love
Rhymes and nuts and glimm’ring grove;
May’s dwarf warblers’ notes to hear,
Would his very bosom sear,
And the thrush’s conversation
Is his very detestation!
Wretch—decrepid—harp or hound,
Love from Eithig never found!
Eithig, with the livid face,
Like a man of Irish race.
Him I will remember well,
Hate him more than I can tell;
Never will I pay my vows
But to her he calls his spouse.
When she dies—upon the maid
Earth and stones and withes be laid;
Sods—eight oxen load I’ll pour
(Borrowed oxen) on the boor;
In my own paternal field,
Him his length of earth I’d yield.
‘Beauty’ then shall be my mate,
While Siluria’s churl in state,
In his ditch and hempen clothes,
On his steed of alder goes[2].
Oh! if I had but my way,
Would the ruffian live a day?
If he were in earth array’d,
Should I sorrow—would the maid?