The Dialogue of Melwas and Gwenhyfer
Version Two
Wynnstay I
Cei:
Who is the man who sits in the common part of the feast,
Without for him either its beginning or its end,
Seated down there below the hall?
Melwas:
Melwas from the Isle of Glass1
Thou with the golden, gilded caskets [of wine]
I have drunk non of thy wine.
Cei:
Wait a little ??
I do not pour out my wine
For a man who cannot bide, cannot hold out in the fray.
Gwenhyfer:
... [lines missing]
... ["]
He would not stand up to Cei in his wine.
Melwas:
I would wade a ford
Even if it were a fathom deep
With a coat of mail (on the shore) of the ebb tide
I am the man who wold stand up to Cei.
Gwenhyfer:
Silence, lad, silence to thy idle talk
If thou (art) not better than thy apperance
Thou wouldst not stand up to Cei, if thou wert one of eight.
Melwas:
Gwenhyfer of the deer's glance
Do not despise me although I am young
I ouwld stand up to Cei alone.
Gwenhyfer:
Though lad (?) above a number
With thy head red like lungs
Thou art unlike Cei in size.
Melwas:
It is a drunken man's nature to be weak
We will therefore keep to what is right (?)
I am Melwas, let us leave it at that.
Cei:
Since you have begun
Go on with your conversation
A lad knows who fondles him.
Gwenhyfer:
Where before have you seen me?
Melwas:
In a court of honor and privilege
Drinking wine to (?with) his companions
??? in the land of Dyfneint.2
I hate the smile of an old gray-haired man
With his sword like a skewer beneath his chin
Who desires but cannot achieve.
Cei:
Still more hateful to me
A proud man, timid except in words
Who will not be silent nor draw his sword.
Melwas:
Take that!
Cei:
You take that!
NOTES:
1. Isle of Glass: lit. Ynys Witrin. Tentatively identified with Glastonbury.
2. Dyfneint: identified by Williams with Devon. (Devon: Dyfneint: Dumnonia.)
Source:
Williams, Mary. "An Early Ritual Poem in Welsh." Speculum vol. 13 no. 1. January 1938. pp 38-51.