Not just the summer but human life is transitory. Bromwich p. 20
Not just the summer but human life is transitory. Bromwich p. 20
“natural beauty and growth is equated with emotional serenity and physical contentment.” Fulton p. 168
Fulton pp. 168-170
“Dafydd once more assumes the persona of a praise-poet, but the object of praise is no longer a courtly maiden but the summer itself.” Fulton p. 169
“In fact, such is his hatred of winter and his love of summer and, especially, the first month of summer, namely May, that he gives the whole thing a theological aspect. [lines 1-2] Humanity is the race of the fall from grace, the descendants of Adam, the inheritors of the results of the Fall in Eden, but it comes to its part ‘cheap ford’, which is a sea of God’s grace, every summer, which is a glimpse at a time before the Fall, a vision of Paradise in the morning of the world, as it were. But when all this ends, snow and ice come to drive the summer away, and Dafydd turns to ask – to Christ, mind you – ‘Is there summer?’ [line 52] But he also knows that the summer will come back in its turn.” Wrth p. 9
“In fact, such is his hatred of winter and his love of summer and, especially, the first month of summer, namely May, that he gives the whole thing a theological aspect. [lines 1-2] Humanity is the race of the fall from grace, the descendants of Adam, the inheritors of the results of the Fall in Eden, but it comes to its part ‘cheap ford’, which is a sea of God’s grace, every summer, which is a glimpse at a time before the Fall, a vision of Paradise in the morning of the world, as it were. But when all this ends, snow and ice come to drive the summer away, and Dafydd turns to ask – to Christ, mind you – ‘Is there summer?’ [line 52] But he also knows that the summer will come back in its turn.” Wrth p. 9
“Summer”
Summary
The coming of summer is vexatious because summer is so short-lived. The weather is fine, the crops grown, trees are covered in green leaves. It is beautiful, Paradise! The birds will sing for the poet and his girl. Eiddig, the Jealous One, doesn’t care for summer, but that is because it was made for lovers. The poet will go to the greenwood to meet his girl. But summer will turn to the cold of autumn and winter, and so
“Alas, Christ,” I ask,
“if it makes off so soon, where is summer?”[1]
Manuscripts
The poem survives in 28 manuscripts,[2] including the National Library of Wales’s MS Cwrtmawr 5, dating from c. 1600, and MS 560B (mid 17th century); Cardiff Central Library MS 1.2 (1600–1604); and Bodleian Library MS Welsh e 1 (c. 1612–1623).[3] It is also known to have been copied, in the 1470s or 1480s, into the White Book of Hergest, a manuscript which was destroyed by fire in 1810. It was transcribed from there into two manuscripts now in the National Library of Wales: MS Peniarth 49 (1595–1617), and MS Wynnstay 2 (mid 17th-century).[4]
Poetic technique
This is one of only two poems by Dafydd – the other is May – in which, in addition to the normal exigencies of cywydd form he confines himself to a monorhyme through its entire length. In every other line the rhyme-word is haf ‘summer’.[5] Cywyddau always rhyme stressed syllables, such as haf, with unstressed ones,[6] and this gives Dafydd the opportunity to use as rhyme-words verbs in the first person and adjectives in the superlative degree,[5] such as “best”.[7] The use of monorhyme, though rare in Dafydd’s cywyddau, was common in the awdlau of the early 14th-century Welsh court poets.[8]
Themes
Ford p. 268
Not just the summer but human life is transitory. Bromwich p. 20
“natural beauty and growth is equated with emotional serenity and physical contentment.” Fulton p. 168
“Dafydd once more assumes the persona of a praise-poet, but the object of praise is no longer a courtly maiden but the summer itself.” Fulton p. 169
“In fact, such is his hatred of winter and his love of summer and, especially, the first month of summer, namely May, that he gives the whole thing a theological aspect. [lines 1-2] Humanity is the race of the fall from grace, the descendants of Adam, the inheritors of the results of the Fall in Eden, but it comes to its part ‘cheap ford’, which is a sea of God’s grace, every summer, which is a glimpse at a time before the Fall, a vision of Paradise in the morning of the world, as it were. But when all this ends, snow and ice come to drive the summer away, and Dafydd turns to ask – to Christ, mind you – ‘Is there summer?’ [line 52] But he also knows that the summer will come back in its turn.” Wrth p. 9
“I assume that Dafydd is telling us something about his muse, about the nature of his inspiration in one of his poems to the summer. Having spoken of his joy in the summer, Dafydd turns and faces the fact that it is not going to continue (this is typical of him, by the way: he is poignantly aware that all summer and all joy are temporary things), and he says [lines 43-44]. The winter is sure to come, there will be no success in singing, there will be a ban on the lively summer poet.” Wrth pp. 22-23
“Dafydd Elis Thomas has described Yr Haf (GDG 24) as a concrete expression of the basic metaphysical question: ‘Pam y mae pethau’n darfod yn hytroch nag aros?’ [Why do things fade rather than remain?]”. https://www.persee.fr/doc/ecelt_0373-1928_1998_num_34_1_2138 p. 199
“In fact, the poem is full of true joy. Despite the bouts of bitterness, of disappointment, of cynicism, of a living awareness of the deception of human systems, and of disillusionment found in Dafydd’s singing, what remains more evident than anything else in it is joy…And it’s not just the sensual, charming delight of its sound that conveys that joy, but a kind of theology as well…./…In this hungry world, says Dafydd, there are periods in the history of humanity that restore some of the innocent delight of the morning of the world. For him, summer was a time like this. At the beginning of the poem he talks about men, including himself, as Adam’s ‘frail race’, because summer is a time of ‘fordwy rhad’, of a flurry of grace, which is God’s grace, but a grace that does not last long. In the line: ‘Paradwys, iddo prydaf’ [Paradise, to it I’ll sing], he notes the word for a perfect world, namely ‘Paradwys’. For Dafydd, the summer is to restore the lost paradise. There will be a cry, which cannot be stopped, of pure joy soon after, a cry – as I have said elsewhere – which is the most similar to Bob Tai’r Felyn’s cry of joy in his performance of his song about the coming of spring. At the end of the summer, which ends too soon, ‘it is not surprising that Dafydd asks – to Christ, mind you – ‘Where is the summer?’. Part of the beauty of summer is growth, green trees – and through Dafydd’s poems his wonder when looking at summer trees is beautifully evident. And that is for us, then, a bird’s song: the cuckoo is like a bell, the bell that would call believers to evening service, something completely appropriate in a poem that has a foundation of belief like this…/…For Dafydd, too, the season of love, love in the woods, in the house of leaves, is the summer: that is an important part of its delight. And there is nothing to be ashamed of in this, it is from the church’s point of view.” Sydd pp. 60-62
“There are three main parts to this poem. In the first part (lines 1–18) we have a memorable description of the summer’s natural wealth, but from the outset the emphasis is on the ephemeral nature of that wealth. Then (lines 19–42) we have an introduction to summer as a season that allows the poet to keep up with his love and love her in the comfort of the forest. But there is a sudden change of direction in line 43, as the poet’s attention suddenly turns to winter. The season has changed without notice, and in closing the poet can only ask Christ ‘Is it summer?’ Religious themes play an important role in this poem, especially bearing in mind the references to Adam (lines 1 and 31) and to Paradise (line 15)…The cywydd contains a number of metaphors that refer to the forest and its leaves as if they were material or clothing, for example mentyll (line 36), gwe (line 37) and cwnsallt (line 38). But it is not impossible that in Dafydd’s Wales there were folk customs which meant that the leaves of the trees were put on and then taken off, especially at the beginning of summer, see D. J. Bowen, ‘Notes on the Work of the Copyists’, B xxv (1972–4), 20–1. When discussing lines 35–42 in particular Bowen quotes from a sermon delivered by John Stockwood in 1578: ‘There be not many places where ye word is preached besides the Lords day (I woulde to God there were) yet euen that day the better parte of it is horribly prophaned by diuellishe inuentions, as with Lords of Misserule, Morice dauncers, Maygames, insomuch that in some places, they shame not in ye time of diuine seruice, to come and daunce aboute the Church, and without to haue men naked dauncing in nettes, which is most filthie’, ib. 21 (quoting from E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, iv [Oxford, 1923], 200). Bowen suggests that a hint of this exposure can be found in an expression such as Eiddew ddail a ddadeilaf (see line 39n below). But since Dafydd so often personifies objects from the natural world, these references should probably be understood as metaphorical rather than literal.” https://dafyddapgwilym.net/AnaServer?dafydd+76934+compareNotes.anv+edEl=76567&localEl=76934&titleEl=76555
Analogues
Thomas p. xxii
Watson p. 165
Edwards pp. 77-78, 112-113
Fulton p. 168
Bromwich p. 352
“In the summer, Dafydd has his hour – every now and then – with girlfriends.” Wrth p. 8
“What he does here is give personality to trees: and that’s what he does, too, in this famous couplet [lines 13-14]. This is not a normal birch but a ‘summer birch’ (maypole) and the hair is the ribbons that hang from its top.” Wrth pp. 14-15
“Dafydd himself seems to be clothed by May and the summer [23.49] [24.37-8]. He wears light clothes, a lively cloak of leaves in the summer. But notice how his attitude changes as winter comes: one of the misfortunes of winter is the compulsion to wear heavy clothes, which seem to limit the poet’s freedom [24.45] [69.36].” Wrth p. 16
He mentions Eiddig in multiple poems. Wrth p. 39
His description of the summer scene as a Paradise and his introduction of the character of the jealous husband Eiddig may both derive from the Roman de la Rose. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MtnpEAAAQBAJ&newbks=0&printsec=frontcover&pg=PA76
“31-34. D. J. Bowen (art. cit., 21–2) has suggested that there is an echo of the legend about Trystan and Esyllt: ‘… Arthur judged about Esyllt between Trystan and March Amheirchion, her husband, giving them the choice of having her either while there were leaves on the trees or while the trees were without leaves, and March took the second choice, causing Esyllt to sing: Three trees that are good sex, holly and ivy and it’s the leaves that live them – Trystan piau I live it.’ See further DGIA 77–8.” https://dafyddapgwilym.net/AnaServer?dafydd+76934+compareNotes.anv+edEl=76567&localEl=76934&titleEl=76555
Modern editions
Translations and paraphrases
Bromwich pp. 6, 8
Lyrics pp. 69-70
Poems pp. 212-213
https://dafyddapgwilym.net/AnaServer?dafydd+76812+viewEngCym.anv+titleEl=76555
Ford pp. 268-270
Gurney pp. 97-98
Arthur James Johnes’ “An Address to the Summer” is a translation of a different poem
Loomis pp. 91-92
Johnston pp. 49-50
Pelican pp. 542-543
Thomas pp. 53-54
Watson pp. 164-165
