for the hunting grounds with his hunting horn.

So as morning was lifting its lamp to the land

his lordship and his huntsmen were high on horseback,

and the canny kennel-men had coupled the hounds

and opened the cages and called them out. 1140

On the bugles they blew three bellowing notes

to a din of baying and barking, and the dogs

which chased or wandered were chastened by whip.

As I heard it, we’re talking a hundred top hunters

at least.

The handlers hold their hounds,

the huntsmen’s hounds run free.

Each bugle blast rebounds

between the trunks of trees.

As the cry went up the wild creatures quaked. 1150

The deer in the dale, quivering with dread,

hurtled to high ground, but were headed off

by the ring of beaters who bawled and roared.

The stags of the herd with their high-branched heads

and the broad-horned bucks were allowed to pass by,

for the lord of the land had laid down a law

that man should not maim the male in close season.

But the hinds were halted with hollers and whoops

and the din drove the does to sprint for the dells.

Then the eye can see that the air is all arrows: 1160

all across the forest they flashed and flickered,

biting through hides with their broad heads.

What! They bleat as they bleed and they die on the banks,

and always the hounds are hard on their heels,

and the hunters on horseback come hammering behind

with stone-splitting cries, as if cliffs had collapsed.

And those animals which escaped the aim of the archers

were steered from the slopes down to rivers and streams

and set upon and seized at the stations below.

So perfect and practised were the men at their posts 1170

and so great were the greyhounds which grappled with the deer

that prey was pounced on and dispatched with speed

and force.

The lord’s heart leaps with life.

Now on, now off his horse

all day he hacks and drives.

And dusk comes in due course.

So through a lime-leaf border the lord led the hunt,

while snug in his sheets lay slumbering Gawain,

dozing as the daylight dappled the walls, 1180

under a splendid cover, enclosed by curtains.

And while snoozing he heard a slyly made sound,

the sigh of a door swinging slowly aside.

From below the bedding he brings up his head

and lifts the corner of the curtain a little,

wondering warily what it might be.

It was she, the lady, looking her loveliest,

most quietly and craftily closing the door,

nearing the bed. The knight felt nervous;

lying back he assumed the shape of sleep 1190

as she stole towards him with silent steps,

then clasped the curtain and crept inside,

then sat down softly at the side of his bed.

And awaited him wakening for a good long while.

Gawain lay still, in his state of false sleep,

turning over in his mind what this matter might mean,