"The Dream" (Y Breuddwyd)

[celticjack]

Hiya, Bairnies...a wee thing, translated from th' work of 14th Century Welsh poet, Dafydd ap Gwilym...ye Scotland.com caileen are suckers f' romance...and this promotes a bit o' "Pan-Celticity"!

Translated this meself as an innocent schoolboy (back in '06, I think)

As I dozed deep in my den
Fast asleep and fast hidden
There came a dream with the dawn
A daybreak dream, dawn's vision.
I was hunting, in my hands
The leashes of lithe greyhounds,
When I found at the forest-side
A lord's mansion, a man's pride.
Straight way I slipped them loose,
My silk hounds, my sweet chasers,
And I heard from the hiding trees
The hunt's cries, their hot voices.

A white hind out of hiding
Cantered into the clearing.
As one hunting animal
My tall hounds were on her trail.
They coursed her, they took her track,
Hunted her on the hill's back,
Harried her on the on the bare height,
Turned her, and formed her flight,
Until, tamed by her terror,
She asked me to protect her.
I felt her white breath ask it--
Then woke, hungry, in my hut.

Beneath a brisk morning sun
I searched for the wise woman.
I told her as I knew it
The narrative of my night.
"Old woman, so much I saw.
Unless you can tell me more
I'll carry a hundred wounds,
Without hope, until the world ends"

"Young man, prove you are a man
And I'll cure you of your pain.
The candid hounds at your hand
Are sweet words at your command,
Your runners of the right course,
Your lissom love-messengers;
The white doe--sing her praises--
A girl dazzling as heat-haze.
The Good Lord's your guardian.
She will come to your keeping."

Dafydd ap Gwilym, c. 1340

(Translated from the Gaelige by CelticJack, c. 1906...or thereabouts!)



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celticjack
Ar do slainte!

[Willy]

....Nice translation CJ....( ....1906...eh?)

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Di (aka ^..^ ~ Willy)

Oh Willy, tell Jack very nice for me.
If I weren't so ~~scared~~ of him, I would tell him meself. Plus, I don't want his eye to start twitching.....

[This message has been edited by Becca (edited 08 November 1999).]

[celticjack]

Yare, Becca...ahm sae "scary"! And Willy...it might have been 2006, maybe 1806...wi' me eye twitchin' like this, ahm distracted...and ya know how tha' years run together...

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celticjack
Ar do slainte!

[ScottishLassie2]

Jack what does Mo Chroi mean?

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Stefanie

[celticjack]

Stefanie, Mo chroi:

It's Gaeliege for "my heart"

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celticjack
Ar do slainte!


[This message has been edited by celticjack (edited 08 November 1999).]

[eve1102]

you have a way with words celticjack.
eve