And he is mightier than men on middle-earth living,
And bigger in body than the bést fòur
That are in Arthur’s house, Hector or other.
And this chance he achieves at the Green Chapel,
None passes that place so proud in his arms
But he dings him to death by dint of his hand;
’Tis a man without measure,164 no mercy he uses,
Be it churl or chaplain by the chapel that rides,
Monk or mass-priest or any man else,
He’d as lief him kill as alive be himself.
So I say you as surely as in saddle ye sit,
“Hither come and ye’re kill’d,” if the knight have his will,
Trust ye my troth, though lives ye had twenty
to spend.
He has wonèd here full yore,
Made sorrow without end,
Against his onset sore
Ye may not you defend.
LXXXV
“Therefore, good Sir Gawain, give him good-bye,
And go you some other gate, in God’s name I pray you;
Choose some other country, where Christ may you speed,
And I shall hie home; and eke will I promise
That I shall swear by God and his good Hallows
(So help me the halidom) and oaths a many,
That I’ll keep your secret and slip not a word
That ye e’er flinchèd or fled for foe that I wist.”
“Gramercy,” he said, and he searchèd his soul,
“Well worth thee, good wight, that wishest me well;
I am in sooth full sure my secret thou’lt guard,
But wert thou never so true, if this tryst I kept not,
But flinchèd for fear, in the form that thou sayst,
I were a craven coward beyond all excuse.
For any check that may chance, to the chapel I’ll go,
And talk with that tyrant the tale that me list,
Come weal or come woe, as my weird shall ordain me
to have.
Though cruellest knave alive
He be, and stand with stave,
Full well can God contrive
His servants for to save.”
LXXXVI
“Marry,” said his man, “if so minded thou be,
That on thy ówn dear head such harm thou wilt set
As to lose thine own life, I let not nor stay thee.
Have thy helm on thy head, and thy spear in thy hand,
And ride me down this rake165 by the rock-side yonder
Till it bring thee to the bottom of the bare valley;
Then loók a líttle on the láund on thy left hand,
And thou shalt see in that slade the chapel thou seekest
And the burly man on bent that bides in the place.
Now good-bye, in God’s name, Gawain the noble!
Not for all gold above ground would I go with thee still,
Or be thy fellow through the frith, but a foot further.”
Then his bridle he tugg’d, and homeward he turn’d,
Set heels to his horse as hard as he might,
Leapt o’er the laund and left the Knight standing
alone.
“By God’s self,” quoth Gawain,
“I’ll neither greet nor groan,
To God’s will am I fain
My own will to atone.”
LXXXVII
Then goads he Gringolet and gets to the track,
Shapes him by a shore166 at the edge of a shaw,
And rides down the hillside right to the valley;
He look’d o’er the waste and full wild he ween’d it,
No sign of a shelter saw he aywhere,
But bare hills and brent167 upon bóth hànds,
Rough-knuckled knars with gnarlèd stones,
And clustering cliffs that grazèd the clouds.
F ull often he hoved, and halted his horse,
And oft his way changed that chapel to seek,
But on no síde could it see, and strange he thought it.
Soon, a little on a laund, a low as it were,
A barrow by a bank at the búrn sìde,
Fast by a fall of that foaming water,
Wherein bubbled the burn, as if it had boil’d.
He urges his horse and hies to the knoll
And lightly by a linden leaps down and ties
The rein of his rouncy to a ruggèd branch.
Then he bouns to the barrow and about it he strides,
Busily debating what thing it might be;
It had a hole at the end and at either side,
And was graithly o’ergrown with grass all in patches,
And all hollow within—only an old cavern
Or a crevice of a crag; he could not it read
or spell.
“Ah, Lord!” said the good knight,
“Is this the Green Chapel?
Here might about mid-night
The dule168 his matins tell.”
LXXXVIII
“Now, I wis,” said the wight, “ ’tis wildsome here,
An evil orat’ry, with herbs grown over!
Well beseems it that sire in his suit of green
Here to deal his devotions in the devil’s wise.
I feel ’tis the fiend, in my five wits,
That has stablisht this tryst, to destroy me herein;
’Tis a chapel unchancy, (ill-cheer it betide!)
The cursedest kirk I cáme ever into!”
With high helm on his head and lance in his hand
He roams up anon to that rough rocky dwelling,
When he hears, up the hill, in a hígh cràg
On a bank o’er the brook, a boisteous noise;
How it clatter’d in the cliff as though it should cleave it,
Like one on a grindlestone grinding a scythe!
How it hiss’d and whirr’d like water at a mill!
How it rush’d and rung! ’twas ruth to hear it!
“By God,” said the gallant, “this gear, as I trow,
As a greeting is meant for the good Sir Gawain
by way.
If God so work, alas!
It daunts me not nor may.
Though out of life I pass,
No noise shall me affray.”
LXXXIX
Then he lift up his voice and loudly he called:
“Who is master in this mound, to meet me at the tryst?
For now the good Gawain is going right here;
If any wight ought will, let him win hither quick
(’Tis either now or never) that his needs he may speed.”
“Abide!” cried one, on the bank high above,
“Thou shalt have full promptly all that I promised.”
Yet came he not down, but kept up his clatter
And went on a-whetting, for a while longer;
Then clamb’ring by a crag, where a crevice there was,
The wight out-whirl’d him, with weapon in hand,
A Dane’s axe new-dight, to deal him the dint.
It had a blade right keen that curv’d by the haft,
Well sharpen’d and filed, full four foot in breadth—
’Twas no less,
