Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

full keen,
To Arthur’s house did go,
And the knight in the bright green
To his own hold also.

C

Wild ways in the world now wanders Sir Gawain,
For the gift of his life he had gotten again;
Oft he harbour’d in house, and out-of-doors often,
Had adventures in vale and victories many,
That I intend not today to tell you in story.
He was heal’d of the hurt that he had on his neck;
And the gleaming belt he bore thereabout,
Like a baldric, slantwise, bound by his side,
Loop’d in a knot, his left arm beneath,
As a symbol of the sin that he was seiz’d in.
Thus came the good Knight, all sound, to the Court;
There was weal in that wone when wist it the King,
Wist that Gawain was come; goód news he thought it.
First kiss’d him of all the King and the Queen,
Then many a sickar knight sought to salute him,
And of his wayfare would weet: all the wonders he told them,
The haps and the hardships he had on his way,
The chance of the chapel, the cheer of the knight,
The love of the lady, and the lace at the last.
The cut ’neath his collar discover’d he then,
That the lord of the land for unlealty him gave,
for blame.
In anguish did he speak,
He groan’d for grief and shame,
The blood blent in his cheek,
For the blot upon his name.

CI

“Look! my lord!” said the liege, and the lovelace he handled,
“This is the band of blame that I bear round my neck,
This is the dole and the damage that there was dealt me,
For the cowardice and covetise wherein I was caught;
This is the token of the untruth that I was ta’en in,
And I must needs it wear the while that I live;
A man may hide his harm but úndo he cannot,
If the knot is once knit, it may never be loos’d.”
The King him comforts; and all of the court
With laughter agreed, for love of the liege,
That lords and ladies that ’long’d to the Table,
Each one of the brotherhood, a baldric should bear,
A band worn slantwise of a bríght grèen,
After Gawain’s suit, for the sake of Gawain.
’Twas a glorious token of the’ Table Round,
And hé that hád it was hónour’d for evermore after,
As ’tis breved in the best of the books of romance.
Thus in Arthur’s time this adventure betid,
The Books of Britain180 bear of it witness.⁠—
Since Brutus, the bold knight, boun’d hither first,
When the siege and the assault were ceasèd at Troy,
I wis,
Many marvels here-before
Have fallen such as this.
The crown of thorns Who bore
Now bring us to His bliss. Amen.

Hony soyt qui mal pence.

Glossary

Accoll

Embrace.

Adree

Apart.

Athel

Of noble birth.

Splendid.

Beam

Child, man.

Boun

Adj., ready, setting out.

Verb, make ready, start.

Brawden

Made of links.

Burd

Maid (as in “burd Helen”).

Capados

Short tunic (from Cappadocia).

Carol

A ring-dance.

Disport

Entertainment.

Dree

Verb, to endure.

Adj., persistent, steadfast.

Druery

Love or love-token.

Ettle

Intend, aim.

Fey

Doomed.

Foreward

Covenant.

Fraunchise

Noble disposition.

Free

Knight or lady.

Gersom

Treasure.

Gisarm

Battle-axe.

Glede

Live coal.

Grame

Mortification.

Graith

Ready.

Graithe

Make ready, array.

Graithly

Readily, properly.

Halch

Embrace, entwine.

Handsel

Lucky omen, New Year’s gift.

Hap

Cover, wrap up.

Haulm

Handle.

Kind

Natural character (out of kind = degenerate).

Laik

Play.

Launce

Utter: intr., gallop.

Laund

Clearing in forest.

Learn

Gleam.

Leer

Face.

Lout

Bow.

Meiny

Household, retainers.

Moot

Noun, note on horn.

Verb, speak, discuss.

Nick

Say “No” (lit. not I).

O’erwalted

Upset (dial, waut).

Price

Excellence of price, noble.

Prick

Go fast (prick and prance).

Prize

Blast announcing capture.

Quarry

The kill, set out after the hunt is over.

Raught

Offered (p.t. of reach)

Roan

Brake, thicket.

Rouncy

Riding horse.

Sain

Cross, bless.

Sendal

Fine silk.

Sickar

Trusty.

Slot

Dip of the breast.

Spirr

To question.

Stale

Handle.

Stoor

Stern, severe.

Stour

Commotion.

Tent

P.p., stretched.

To pay attention to.

Thro

Fierce.

Tressure

Wire network on which headdress was built up.

Unlace

Cut up.

Villainy

Discourtesy, lack of courtly manners.

Ware

Spend, esp. with economy.

Weird

Fate.

Wight

Doughty (so “Wallace wight” in Scott).

Wone

Dwell.

Yern

Pass by (same word as “run”).

Endnotes

1. Those who are interested in literary sources will find much entertaining matter in Kittredge’s Study of Gawain and the Green Knight or Miss Weston’s Legend of Gawain. ↩

2. Gaston Paris. ↩

3. Truest on earth: qualifies Aeneas, and not treachery, in spite of the curious parallel in the alliterative Destruction of Troy, 11, 350:

   “The trayn of the traytours that truly were fals,”

   where the reference is quite different, viz. to the surrender of Troy. D. T., however, probably got the phrase from Sir Gawain. ↩

4. Éneas: having betrayed Troy to the Greeks, he was (according to the medieval story) tried by the Greeks for not surrendering Polyxena. The immediate source of the story is Guido della Colonna’s Historia. ↩

5. Noble by birth. ↩

6. Ticius: the eponymous founder of Tuscany, as Langobard and Brutus (grandson of Aeneas) are of Lombardy and Britain. The Brutus-story in medieval writers derives, sometimes directly, but more often through a vernacular Brut like Layamon’s, from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae, Bk. I. ↩

7. Turmoil. ↩

8. Linked: this and the following line point to the Old English alliterative poetry having been a living and continuous tradition in the district where Sir Gawain was written. Other