Description THE MIRROR
Y Drych
I never knew -- O! Whoreson! --
That I was aught but handsome
But holding glass in hand --
O vile! I take it hard!
It tells the truth, I fear:
My face is far from fair.
Grown pale from Enid's peer
My cheek shows white, like poor
Glass, each facet flawed,
With livid weals defaced.
My nose is a prosthetic,
Razor long -- pathetic!
A gimlet gouged the holes
That hold my eyes. My hairs
Fall in handfuls, mocking
This hell of my own making.
Villainous my fate,
I'm staring at defeat.
A wayward arrow flies
Or else the mirror lies.
The flaw is mine indeed --
Then let me be dead! --
No warp within the glaze:
A pox upon this glass!
Enchanted, pale round moon,
An orb for men who mourn,
Magician's pearly perjurer,
A dream of palsied pallor
Reflecting only dolour,
Ice-brother, cold deceiver,
Queasy-coloured masquer --
To hell with you, warped mirror!
If glass can tell the truth,
These wrinkles, by my troth,
Were got from a Gwynedd lass
Who laughs and spoils men's looks.
- Dafydd ap Gwilym, paraphrased by Giles Watson. A fourteenth century bad-hair day.
