_Sir Gawayne_ has been admirably edited by Sir F. Madden for the
Bannatyne Club, 1839, and later by R. Morris for the Early English Text
Society. It is found in British Museum MS. Nero A X, together with three
other alliterative poems, named from their first words _Pearl_,
_Patience_, and _Cleanness_. _Pearl_ supplies the next specimen;
_Patience_ exemplifies the virtue by the trials of Jonah; _Cleanness_
teaches purity of life from Scriptural stories. All these poems are in
the same handwriting; all are in a West-Midland dialect; all appear to
be of the same age; and none is without literary merit. For these
reasons, which are good but not conclusive, they are assumed to be by
the same author. Attempts to identify this author have been
unsuccessful.
The story runs as follows:
King Arthur is making his Christmas feast with his court at Camelot. On
New Year's Day he declares that he will not eat until he has seen or
heard some marvel. The first course of the feast is barely served when a
tall knight, clad all in green, with green hair, and a green horse to
match, rides into the hall. He carries a holly bough and a huge axe, and
tauntingly invites any knight to strike him a blow with the axe, on
condition that he will stand a return blow on the same day a year hence.
Gawayne accepts the challenge and strikes off the Green Knight's head.
The Green Knight gathers up his head, gives Gawayne an appointment for
next New Year's Day at the Green Chapel, and rides off.
The year passes, and Gawayne, despite the fears of the court, sets out
in quest of the Green Chapel. On Christmas Eve he arrives at a splendid
castle, and finding that the Green Chapel is close at hand, accepts an
invitation to stay and rest until New Year's Day. On each of three days
the knight of the castle goes hunting, and persuades Gawayne to rest at
home. They make an agreement that each shall give the other whatever he
gets. The lady of the castle makes love to Gawayne, and kisses him once
on the first day, twice on the second day, thrice on the third day; and
on the third day she gives him her girdle, which he accepts because it
has the magic power of preserving the wearer from wounds. Each evening
he duly gives the kisses to the knight, and receives in return the
spoils of the hunting of deer and boar and fox. But he conceals the
girdle.
The extract begins with Gawayne preparing on New Year's morning to stand
the return blow at the Green Chapel.
The poem ends by the Green Knight revealing that he is himself the lord
of the castle; that he went to Arthur's court at the suggestion of
Morgan la Fay; that he had urged his wife to make love to Gawayne and
try his virtue; and that he would not have harmed him at all, if he had
not committed the slight fault of concealing the girdle. Gawayne returns
to the court, bearing the girdle as a sign of his shame, and tells his
story. The knights of the court agree in future to wear a bright green
belt for Gawayne's sake.
_Sir Gawayne_ is admittedly the best of the alliterative romances. It
must have come down to us practically as it was written by the poet, for
it is free from the flatness and conventional phrasing which is
characteristic of romances that have passed through many popular
recensions. The descriptions of nature, of armour and dresses, the
hunting scenes, and the love making, are all excellently done; and the
poet shows the same richness of imagination and skill in producing
pictorial effects that are so noticeable in _Pearl_. He has too a quiet
humour that recalls Chaucer in some of his moods.