The Wind

"The Wind" (Welsh: Y Gwynt) is a 64-line love poem in the form of a cywydd by the 14th-century Welsh poet Dafydd ap Gwilym. Dafydd is widely seen as the greatest of the Welsh poets, and this is one of his most highly praised works. Rachel Bromwich called it "one of the greatest of all his poems", while the academic critic Andrew Breeze has hailed it as "a masterpiece" and "a work of genius", noting especially its "rhetorical splendour". Summary The poet opens by addressing the wind, calling it a strange being, going where it wills, and subject to none of the physical or legal restraints of ordinary human life. After praising it for its power the poet goes on to compare it to an author, a sower of leaves, and a jester. Then he asks the wind to visit Uwch Aeron [the northern part of Ceredigion, from where Parth came], and, paying no heed to her husband Bwa Bach to visit the poet's lover Morfudd, on whose account he is an exile from his native land. The wind is to send the poet's sighs to Morfudd, to assure her of his continued love, and to return safely. Poetic art "The Wind" shows great inventiveness in its choice of metaphors and similes, while employing extreme metrical complexity. It is one of the classic examples of the use of what has been called "a guessing game technique" or "riddling", a technique known in Welsh as dyfalu, comprising the stringing together of imaginative and hyperbolic similes and metaphors. Sometimes Dafydd used dyfalu pejoratively; less often, as in this poem, to express his wonder at one of the great forces of nature. The display of Dafydd's virtuosity in this technique has been seen as his prime motivation for writing the poem.