No Knight of the Round Table has been so highly honoured by the old
Romance-writers as Sir Gawayne, the son of Loth, and nephew to the renowned
Arthur. They delighted to describe him as Gawayne the good, a man matchless
on mould, the most gracious that under God lived, the hardiest of hand, the
most fortunate in arms, and the most polite in hall, whose knowledge,
knighthood, kindly works, doings, doughtiness, and deeds of arms were known
in all lands.
When Arthur beheld the dead body of his kinsman lying on the ground bathed
in blood, he is said to have exclaimed, "O righteous God, this blood were
worthy to be preserved and enshrined in gold!" Our author, too, loves to
speak of his hero in similar terms of praise, calling him the knight
faultless in his five wits, void of every offence, and adorned with every
earthly virtue. He represents him as one whose trust was in the five
wounds, and in whom the five virtues which distinguished the true knight
were more firmly established than in any other on earth.
The author of the present story, who, as we know from his religious poems,
had an utter horror of moral impurity, could have chosen no better subject
for a romance in which amusement and moral instruction were to be combined.
In the following tale he shows how the true knight, though tempted sorely
not once alone, but twice, nay thrice, breaks not his vow of chastity, but
turns aside the tempter's shafts with the shield of purity and arm of
faith, and so passes scatheless through the perilous defile of trial and
opportunity seeming safe.
But while our author has borrowed many of the details of his story from the
"Roman de Perceval" by Chrestien de Troyes, he has made the narrative more
attractive by the introduction of several original and highly interesting
passages which throw light on the manners and amusements of our ancestors.
The following elaborate descriptions are well deserving of especial
notice:--