Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, page 10
and changed oft his front the Chapel to find.
Such on no side he saw, as seemed to him strange,
save a mound as it might be near the marge of a green,
a worn barrow on a brae by the brink of a water,
beside falls in a flood that was flowing down;
the burn bubbled therein, as if boiling it were.
He urged on his horse then, and came up to the mound,
there lightly alit, and lashed to a tree
his reins, with a rough branch rightly secured them.
Then he went to the barrow and about it he walked,
debating in his mind what might the thing be.
It had a hole at the end and at either side,
and with grass in green patches was grown all over,
and was all hollow within: nought but an old cavern,
or a cleft in an old crag; he could not it name
aright.
‘Can this be the Chapel Green,
O Lord?’ said the gentle knight.
‘Here the Devil might say, I ween,
his matins about midnight!’
88‘On my word,’ quoth Wawain, ‘’tis a wilderness here!
This oratory looks evil. With herbs overgrown
it fits well that fellow transformed into green
to follow here his devotions in the Devil’s fashion.
Now I feel in my five wits the Fiend ’tis himself
that has trapped me with this tryst to destroy me here.
This is a chapel of mischance, the church most accursed
that ever I entered. Evil betide it!’
With high helm on his head, his lance in his hand,
he roams up to the roof of that rough dwelling.
Then he heard from the high hill, in a hard rock-wall
beyond the stream on a steep, a sudden startling noise.
How it clattered in the cliff, as if to cleave it asunder,
as if one upon a grindstone were grinding a scythe!
How it whirred and it rasped as water in a mill-race!
How it rushed, and it rang, rueful to harken!
Then ‘By God,’ quoth Gawain, ‘I guess this ado
is meant for my honour, meetly to hail me
as knight!
As God wills! Waylaway!
That helps me not a mite.
My life though down I lay,
no noise can me affright.’
89Then clearly the knight there called out aloud:
‘Who is master in this place to meet me at tryst?
For now ’tis good Gawain on ground that here walks.
If any aught hath to ask, let him hasten to me,
either now or else never, his needs to further!’
‘Stay!’ said one standing above on the steep o’er his head,
‘and thou shalt get in good time what to give thee I vowed.’
Still with that rasping and racket he rushed on a while,
and went back to his whetting, till he wished to descend.
And then he climbed past a crag, and came from a hole,
hurtling out of a hid nook with a horrible weapon:
a Danish axe newly dressed the dint to return,
with cruel cutting-edge curved along the handle –
filed on a whetstone, and four feet in width,
’twas no less – along its lace of luminous hue;
and the great man in green still guised as before,
his locks and long beard, his legs and his face,
save that firm on his feet he fared on the ground,
steadied the haft on the stones and stalked beside it.
When he walked to the water, where he wade would not,
he hopped over on his axe and haughtily strode,
fierce and fell on a field where far all about
lay snow.
Sir Gawain the man met there,
neither bent nor bowed he low.
The other said: ‘Now, sirrah fair,
I true at tryst thee know!’
90‘Gawain,’ said that green man, ‘may God keep thee!
On my word, sir, I welcome thee with a will to my place,
and thou hast timed thy travels as trusty man should,
and thou hast forgot not the engagement agreed on between us:
at this time gone a twelvemonth thou took’st thy allowance,
and I should now this New Year nimbly repay thee.
And we are in this valley now verily on our own,
there are no people to part us – we can play as we like.
Have thy helm off thy head, and have here thy pay!
Bandy me no more debate than I brought before thee
when thou didst sweep off my head with one swipe only!’
‘Nay’, quoth Gawain, ‘by God that gave me my soul,
I shall grudge thee not a grain any grief that follows.
Only restrain thee to one stroke, and still shall I stand
and offer thee no hindrance to act as thou likest
right here.’
With a nod of his neck he bowed,
let bare the flesh appear;
he would not by dread be cowed,
no sign he gave of fear.
91Then the great man in green gladly prepared him,
gathered up his grim tool there Gawain to smite;
with all the lust in his limbs aloft he heaved it,
shaped as mighty a stroke as if he meant to destroy him.
Had it driving come down as dour as he aimed it,
under his dint would have died the most doughty man ever.
But Gawain on that guisarm then glanced to one side,
as down it came gliding on the green there to end him,
and he shrank a little with his shoulders at the sharp iron.
With a jolt the other man jerked back the blade,
and reproved then the prince, proudly him taunting.
‘Thou’rt not Gawain,’ said the green man, ‘who is so good reported,
who never flinched from any foes on fell or in dale;
and now thou fleest in fear, ere thou feelest a hurt!
Of such cowardice that knight I ne’er heard accused.
Neither blenched I nor backed, when thy blow, sir, thou aimedst,
nor uttered any cavil in the court of King Arthur.
My head flew to my feet, and yet fled I never;
but thou, ere thou hast any hurt, in thy heart quailest,
and so the nobler knight to be named I deserve
therefore.’
‘I blenched once,’ Gawain said,
‘and I will do so no more.
But if on floor now falls my head,
I cannot it restore.
92But get busy, I beg, sir, and bring me to the point.
Deal me my destiny, and do it out of hand!
For I shall stand from thee a stroke and stir not again
till thine axe hath hit me, have here my word on’t!’
‘Have at thee then!’ said the other, and heaved it aloft,
and wratched him as wrathfully as if he were wild with rage.
He made at him a mighty aim, but the man he touched
not,
holding back hastily his hand, ere hurt it might do.
Gawain warily awaited it, and winced with no limb,
but stood as still as a stone or the stump of a tree
that with a hundred ravelled roots in rocks is embedded.
This time merrily remarked then the man in the green:
‘So, now thou hast thy heart whole, a hit I must make.
May the high order now keep thee that Arthur gave thee,
and guard thy gullet at this go, if it can gain thee that.’
Angrily with ire then answered Sir Gawain:
‘Why! lash away, thou lusty man! Too long dost thou threaten.
’Tis thy heart methinks in thee that now quaileth!’
‘In faith,’ said the fellow, ‘so fiercely thou speakest,
I no longer will linger delaying thy errand
right now.’
Then to strike he took his stance
and grimaced with lip and brow.
He that of rescue saw no chance
was little pleased, I trow.
93Lightly his weapon he lifted, and let it down neatly
with the bent horn of the blade towards the neck that was bare;
though he hewed with a hammer-swing, he hurt him no more
than to snick him on one side and sever the skin.
Through the fair fat sank the edge, and the flesh entered,
so that the shining blood o’er his shoulders was shed on the earth;
and when the good knight saw the gore that gleamed on the snow,
he sprang out with spurning feet a spear’s length and more,
in haste caught his helm and on his head cast it,
under his fair shield he shot with a shake of his shoulders,
brandished his bright sword, and boldly he spake –
never since he as manchild of his mother was born
was he ever on this earth half so happy a man:
‘Have done, sir, with thy dints! Now deal me no more!
I have stood from thee a stroke without strife on this spot,
and if thou offerest me others, I shall answer thee promptly,
and give as good again, and as grim, be assured,
shall pay.
But one stroke here’s my due,
as the covenant clear did say
that in Arthur’s halls we drew.
And so, good sir, now stay!’
94From him the other stood off, and on his axe rested,
held the haft to the ground, and on the head leaning,
gazed at the good knight as on the green he there strode.
To see him standing so stout, so stern there and fearless,
armed and unafraid, his heart it well pleased.
Then merrily he spoke with a mighty voice,
and loudly it rang, as to that lord he said:
‘Fearless knight on this field, so fierce do not be!
No man here unmannerly hath thee maltreated,
nor aught given thee not granted by agreement at court.
A hack I thee vowed, and thou’st had it, so hold thee content;
I remit thee the remnant of all rights I might claim.
If I brisker had been, a buffet, it may be,
I could have handed thee more harshly, and harm could have done thee.
First I menaced thee in play with no more than a trial,
and clove thee with no cleft: I had a claim to the feint,
for the fast pact we affirmed on the first evening,
and thou fairly and unfailing didst faith with me keep,
all thy gains thou me gavest, as good man ought.
The other trial for the morning, man, I thee tendered
when thou kissedst my comely wife, and the kisses didst render.
For the two here I offered only two harmless feints
to make.
The true shall truly repay,
for no peril then need he quake.
Thou didst fail on the third day,
and so that tap now take!
95For it is my weed that thou wearest, that very woven girdle:
my own wife it awarded thee, I wot well indeed.
Now I am aware of thy kisses, and thy courteous ways,
and of thy wooing by my wife: I worked that myself!
I sent her to test thee, and thou seem’st to me truly
the fair knight most faultless that e’er foot set on earth!
As a pearl than white pease is prized more highly,
so is Gawain, in good faith, than other gallant knights.
But in this you lacked, sir, a little, and of loyalty came short.
But that was for no artful wickedness, nor for wooing either,
but because you loved your own life: the less do I blame you.’
The other stern knight in a study then stood a long while,
in such grief and disgust he had a grue in his heart;
all the blood from his breast in his blush mingled,
and he shrank into himself with shame at that speech.
The first words on that field that he found then to say
were: ‘Cursed be ye, Coveting, and Cowardice also!
In you is vileness, and vice that virtue destroyeth.’
He took then the treacherous thing, and untying the knot
fiercely flung he the belt at the feet of the knight:
‘See there the falsifier, and foul be its fate!
Through care for thy blow Cowardice brought me
to consent to Coveting, my true kind to forsake,
which is free-hand and faithful word that are fitting to knights.
Now I am faulty and false, who afraid have been ever
of treachery and troth-breach: the two now my curse
may bear!
I confess, sir, here to you
all faulty has been my fare.
Let me gain your grace anew,
and after I will beware.’
96Then the other man laughed and lightly answered:
‘I hold it healed beyond doubt, the harm that I had.
Thou hast confessed thee so clean and acknowledged thine errors,
and hast the penance plain to see from the point of my blade,
that I hold thee purged of that debt, made as pure and as clean
as hadst thou done no ill deed since the day thou wert born.
And I give thee, sir, the girdle with gold at its hems,
for it is green like my gown. So, Sir Gawain, you may
think of this our contest when in the throng thou walkest
among princes of high praise; ’twill be a plain reminder
of the chance of the Green Chapel between chivalrous knights.
And now you shall in this New Year come anon to my house,
and in our revels the rest of this rich season
shall go.’
The lord pressed him hard to wend,
and said, ‘my wife, I know,
we soon shall make your friend,
who was your bitter foe.’
97‘Nay forsooth!’ the knight said, and seized then his helm,
and duly it doffed, and the doughty man thanked:
‘I have lingered too long! May your life now be blest,
and He promptly repay you Who apportions all honours!
And give my regards to her grace, your goodly consort,
both to her and to the other, to mine honoured ladies,
who thus their servant with their designs have subtly beguiled.
But no marvel it is if mad be a fool,
and by the wiles of woman to woe be brought.
For even so Adam by one on earth was beguiled,
and Solomon by several, and to Samson moreover
his doom by Delilah was dealt; and David was after
blinded by Bathsheba, and he bitterly suffered.
Now if these came to grief through their guile, a gain ’twould be vast
to love them well and believe them not, if it lay in man’s power!
Since these were aforetime the fairest, by fortune most blest,
eminent among all the others who under heaven bemused
were too,
and all of them were betrayed
by women that they knew,
though a fool I now am made,
some excuse I think my due.’
98‘But for your girdle,’ quoth Gawain, ‘may God you repay!
That I will gain with good will, not for the gold so joyous
of the cincture, nor the silk, nor the swinging pendants,
nor for wealth, nor for worth, nor for workmanship fine;
but as a token of my trespass I shall turn to it often
when I ride in renown, ruefully recalling
the failure and the frailty of the flesh so perverse,
so tender, so ready to take taints of defilement.
And thus, when pride my heart pricks for prowess in arms,
one look at this love-lace shall lowlier make it.
But one thing I would pray you, if it displeaseth you not,
since you are the lord of yonder land, where I lodged for a while
in your house and in honour – may He you reward
Who upholdeth the heavens and on high sitteth! –
how do you announce your true name? And then nothing further.’
‘That I will tell thee truly,’ then returned the other.
‘Bertilak de Hautdesert hereabouts I am called,
[who thus have been enchanted and changed in my hue]
by the might of Morgan le Fay that in my mansion dwelleth,
and by cunning of lore and crafts well learned.
The magic arts of Merlin she many hath mastered;
for deeply in dear love she dealt on a time
with that accomplished clerk, as at Camelot runs
the fame;
and Morgan the Goddess
is therefore now her name.
None power and pride possess
too high for her to tame.
99She made me go in this guise to your goodly court
to put its pride to the proof, if the report were true
that runs of the great renown of the Round Table.
She put this magic upon me to deprive you of your wits,
in hope Guinevere to hurt, that she in horror might die
aghast at that glamoury that gruesomely spake
with its head in its hand before the high table.
She it is that is at home, that ancient lady;
she is indeed thine own aunt, Arthur’s half-sister,
daughter of the Duchess of Tintagel on whom doughty Sir Uther
after begat Arthur, who in honour is now.
Therefore I urge thee in earnest, sir, to thine aunt return!
In my hall make merry! My household thee loveth,
and I wish thee as well, upon my word, sir knight,
as any that go under God, for thy great loyalty.’
But he denied him with a ‘Nay! by no means I will!’
They clasp then and kiss and to the care give each other
of the Prince of Paradise; and they part on that field
so cold,
To the king’s court on courser keen
then hastened Gawain the bold,
and the knight in the glittering green
to ways of his own did hold.
100Wild ways in the world Wawain now rideth
on Gringolet: by the grace of God he still lived.
Oft in house he was harboured and lay oft in the open,
oft vanquished his foe in adventures as he fared
