Rise and depart that tide,
Ye shall be set on way,
A bare two mile to ride.”
XLIV
Then was Gawain full glad and gaily he laugh’d;
“I thank you for this, before all other things;
Since my goal I have gain’d, I agree at your will
To dwell here, and do what else ye may deem.”
Then drew him that sire to a seat at his side,
And let fetch the ladies to like them the better.
Much jollity they enjoy’d, those gentles twain,
And the lord for his love spoke the leal man so fond
As he wist not of his words, like a wight unwitted.
Then cried he aloud, as he call’d to the Knight:
“Ye have deem’d ye will do the deed that I bid;
Will ye promise keep at this present time?”
“By my troth, sir, yes,” said the trusty Gawain,
“While I bide in your burg, I obey all your bidding.”
“Since ye have travell’d,” quoth he, “and toil’d from afar,
And have wakèd me wíth, your wants are uncared
Both of sleep and of sustenance; soothly I know it.
Ye shall lodge in your loft and lie at your ease
Tomorrow till mass, and to meat ye shall wend
When ye will, with my wife, who with you shall sit
And with company comfort, till to court I return;
Rest so;—
And I shall early rise,
A-hunting will I go.”
Sir Gawain grants him this,
And louts to him full low.
XLV
“Yet further,” quoth he, “a foreward we’ll make;
What I win in the woodland to you shall I waive,
And what here ye achieve, ye shall change it therefor.
A bargain, I beg ye! We’ll abide by it fair,
Whether worthless our wins or aught worth shall befall.”
“In God’s name,” said Gawain, “I grant it you fain;
The laik that ye list, it likes me full well.”
“Who brings us the beverage this bargain to seal?”
Said the lord of the land; they laugh’d everyone,
They drank and made dalliance, both dainty and free,
These lords and ladies, so long as they pleas’d;
Then with Frankish99 fare and with fashion of court
Stay’d they and stood, and stilly they whisper’d,
Comelily kiss’d, and cravèd their leave.
By lieges full lief, and with learning torches,
These bearns to their beds are brought at the last
well fain,
But to bed ere they repair,
Covenants record again;
That old lord debonair
His laik could well maintain.
Fit III
XLVI
Full early before day the folks were afoot;
Guests that would go, their grooms they summon’d,
Who hied them in haste the horses to saddle,
Gather’d the gear and girded the mails;100
Those of rank were ready to ride all array’d,
Leapt up lightly, and lay to their bridles,
Each wight on his way, where it well liked them.
The dear lord of the land was not last either,
Array’d for the riding, with retinue gay;
A morsel he ate, when his mass he had heard,
And with bugle to bentfield he busk’d him anon;
Soon as any daylight dawn’d upon earth
He and his athels on horse were mounted.
Then lads of that craft coupled their hounds,
Unclosèd the kennels and call’d them thereout,
And blew bigly on bugles thrée báre móots,101
While the bratches102 bayed—and a brave noise made they;
Hounds that went chasing103 they chastied with whips,
A hundred of hunters, as I have heard tell,
of the best.
Beaters to station hied,
Huntsmen their hounds104 releas’d,
And horns made, far and wide,
Great noise in that forèst.
XLVII
At first cry of the quest quakèd the deer
And doting for dread went away up the dale,
Hied to the heights, but angerly there
Were stay’d at the stations, that stoutly ascried.
The high-headed harts they let háve a passage,
And the brave bucks too, with the broad antlers;
For in fermison105 months the master had bidden
That no man should meddle with the mále dèer.
But the hinds they held in, with a Hey! and a Ware!
And with din drove the does, down to the valleys.
Then sharp was the shooting of wingèd shafts!
At each woodland glade whistled an arrow
That on brown hide bit, with its broád bàrb;
How they bray’d and bled, on bank as they died!
And running on a race, hounds rush’d in pursuit,
Hunters with horns hasten’d them after,
With a cracking cry as if cliffs had bursten!
And any that scaped the shafts of the shooters
With a stour106 were stay’d and torn at the stations,107
By the time they had been turn’d and teas’d to the waters;
So wary were the wights that watch’d in the vale,
And the greyhounds so great, that gripp’d them anon
And fell’d them to ground, fast as e’er look
ye might.
The lord, like happy boy,
Rode and did oft alight;
He drove that day with joy
A-hunting till the night.
XLVIII
So this lord is laiking by linden-wood eaves,
And the good man, Gawain, in gay bed sleeping
Lies snug till any gleam glimmers on wall,
Under coverlet clean, curtain’d about.
As on slumber he slid, a sly noise heard he,
A little din at his door, which daintily open’d;
He heav’d up his head out of the clothes,
A corner of the curtain he caught up a little,
And watched full warily what it might be.
’Twas the lady herself, lovely to look on,
Who drew the door after, so stealthy and still,
And boun’d108 toward the bed; and he blush’d and shamed him,
Slipt him down slyly, and look’d as if sleeping.
Then stepped she stilly, and stole to the bed,
Cast up the curtain, and creeping within it
Sat her full softly on the béd-sìde,
And waited a while to watch when he waken’d.
Long time did Gawain lie there lurking,
Cast in his conscience what such a case
Might mean or amount to: marvel him thought it!
Yet he said to himself more seemly it were
By speech or by spell to aspy her intent.
Then he waken’d, and wroth109 him, and toward her turn’d,
And opening his eye-lids with an air of surprise
For his safety him sain’d, and in secret a prayer
he said.
Winsome of chin and cheek,
With blent hues
