Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
translated by
SIMON ARMITAGE
Contents
- Title Page
- Introduction
- FITT I
- FITT II
- FITT III
- FITT IV
- About the Author
- Copyright
Introduction
We know next to nothing about the author of the poem which has come to be called Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It was probably written around 1400. In the early seventeenth century the manuscript was recorded as belonging to a Yorkshireman, Henry Saville of Bank. It was later acquired by Sir Robert Cotton, whose collection also included the Lindisfarne Gospels and the only surviving manuscript of Beowulf. The poem then lay dormant for over two hundred years, not coming to light until Queen Victoria was on the throne, thus leapfrogging the attentions of some of our greatest writers and critics. The manuscript, a small, unprepossessing thing, would fit comfortably into an average-size hand, were anyone actually allowed to touch it. Now referred to as Cotton Nero A.x., it is considered not only a most brilliant example of Middle English poetry but one of the jewels in the crown of English Literature, and sits in the British Library under conditions of high security and controlled humidity.
To cast eyes on the manuscript, or even to shuffle the unbound pages of the Early English Text Society’s facsimile edition, is to be intrigued by the handwriting: stern, stylish letters, like crusading chess pieces, fall into orderly ranks along faintly ruled lines. But the man whose calligraphy we ponder, a jobbing scribe probably, was not the author. The person who has become known as the Gawain poet remains as shadowy as the pages themselves. Among many other reasons, it is partly this anonymity which has made the poem so attractive to latter-day translators. The lack of authorship seems to serve as an invitation, opening up a space within the poem for a new writer to occupy. Its comparatively recent rediscovery acts as a further draw; if Milton or Pope had put their stamp on it, or if Dr Johnson had offered an opinion, or if Keats or Coleridge or Wordsworth had drawn it into their orbit, such an invitation might now appear less forthcoming.
The diction of the original tells us that its author was, broadly speaking, a northerner. Or we could say a midlander. The linguistic epicentre of the poem has been located in the area of the Cheshire-Staffordshire-Derbyshire border. Some researchers claim to have identified Swythamley Grange as the Castle of Hautdesert, or the jagged peaks of The Roaches as those ‘rogh knokled knarres with knorned stones’ (2166). Lud’s Church, a natural fissure in the rocks near the village of Flash, in Derbyshire, has been proposed as the site of the Green Chapel. ‘Hit had a hole on the ende and on ayther syde,/ And overgrowen with gres in glodes aywhere,/ And all was holw inwith, nobot an olde cave/ Or a crevisse of an olde cragge’ (2180–4). It may or may not be the place, but to stand in that mossy cleft which cannot have changed much over the centuries is to believe that the author had an actual landscape in mind when he conceived the poem, and lured his young protagonist into a northern region to legitimize his vocabulary and to make good use of his surrounding geography. A similar strategy has informed this translation; although my own part of northern England is separated from Lud’s Church by the swollen uplands of the Peak District, coaxing Gawain and his poem back into the Pennines was always part of the plan.
Of course to the trained medievalist the poem is perfectly readable in its original form; no translation necessary. And even for the non-specialist, certain lines, such as, ‘Bot Arthure wolde not ete til all were served’ (85), especially when placed within the context of the narrative, present little problem. Conversely, lines such as ‘Forthy, iwis, bi your wille, wende me behoves’ (1065) are incomprehensible to the general reader. But it is the lines which fall somewhere between those extremes – the majority of lines, in fact – which fascinate the most. They seem to make sense, though not quite. To the untrained eye, it is as if the poem is lying beneath a thin coat of ice, tantalizingly near yet frustratingly blurred. To a contemporary poet, one interested in narrative and form, and to a northerner who not only recognizes plenty of the poem’s dialect but who detects an echo of his own speech rhythms within the original, the urge to blow a little warm breath across that layer of frosting eventually proved irresistible.
Not all poems are stories, but Sir Gawain and the Green Knight most certainly is. After briefly anchoring its historical credentials in the siege of Troy, the poem quickly delivers us into Arthurian Britain, at Christmas time, with the knights of the Round Table in good humour and full voice. But the festivities at Camelot are to be disrupted by the astonishing appearance of a green knight. Not just a knight wearing green clothes, but a weird being whose skin and hair is green, and whose horse is green as well. The gatecrasher lays down a seemingly absurd challenge, involving beheading and revenge. Alert to the opportunity, a young knight, Gawain, Arthur’s nephew, rises from the table. What follows is a test of courage and a test of his heart, and during the ensuing episodes, which span an entire calendar year, Gawain must steel himself against fear and temptation. The poem is also a ghost story, a thriller, a romance, an adventure story and a morality tale. For want of a better word, it is also a myth, and like all great myths of the past its meanings seem to have adapted and evolved, proving itself eerily relevant six hundred years later. As one example, certain aspects Gawain’s situation seem oddly redolent of a more contemporary predicament, namely our complex and delicate relationship with the natural world. The Gawain poet had never heard of climate change and was not a prophet anticipating the onset of global warming. But medieval society lived hand in hand with nature, and nature was as much an enemy as a friend. It is not just for decoration that the poem includes passages relating to the turning of the seasons, or detailed accounts of the landscape, or graphic descriptions of our dealings with the animal kingdom. The knight who throws down the challenge at Camelot is both ghostly and real. Supernatural, yes, but also flesh and blood. He is something in the likeness of ourselves, and he is not purple or orange or blue with yellow stripes. Gawain must negotiate a deal with a man who wears the colours of the leaves and the fields. He must strike an honest bargain with this manifestation of nature, and his future depends on it.
Over the years there have been dozens, possibly hundreds of translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ranging from important scholarly restorations, to free-handed poetic or prose versions, to exercises in form and technique by students of Middle English, many of them posted on the internet. Some translators, for perfectly valid reasons and with great success, have chosen not to imitate its highly alliterative form. But to me, alliteration is the warp and weft of the poem, without which it is just so many fine threads. In some very elemental way, the story and the sense of the poem is directly located within its sound. The percussive patterning of the words serves to reinforce their meaning and to countersink them within the memory. So in trying to harmonize with the original rather than transcribe every last word of it, certain liberties have been taken. This is not an exercise in linguistic forensics or medieval history; the intention has always been to produce a living, inclusive and readable piece of work in its own right. In other words, the amibtion has been poetry.
On the subject of alliteration, it should be mentioned that within each line it is the stressed syllables which count. A line like ‘and retrieves the intestines in time-honoured style’ (1612) might appear not to alliterate at first glance. But read it out loud, and the repetition of that ‘t’ sound – the tut-tutting, the spit of revulsion, the squirming of the warm, wet tongue as it makes contacts the roof of the mouth – seems to suggest a physical relationship with the action being described. If the technique is effective, as well as understanding what we are being told we take a step closer to actually experiencing it. It is an attempt to combine meaning with feeling. This is a translation not only for the eye, but for the ear and the voice as well.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a poem which succeeds through a series of vivid contrasts: standard English contrasting with colloquial speech; the devotion and virtue of the young knight contrasting with the growling blood-lust of his green foe; exchanges of courtly love contrasting with none-too-subtle sexual innuendo; exquisite robes and priceless crowns contrasting with spurting blood and the steaming organs of butchered deer; polite, indoor society contrasting with the untamed, unpredictable outdoors … and so on. Those contrasts stretch the imaginative universe of the poem and make it three-dimensional. Without the space they open up, there would be no poem to speak of. The same contrasts can be observed in the form of the poem as well as its tone, with elements of order and disorder at work throughout, often operating simultaneously. On the side of order we have the four-beat pulse of each line, the very particular number of verses, and the rhyme and rhythm of the ‘bob and wheel’ sections. On the side of disorder we have the unequal line lengths, the variable verse lengths, and the wildly fluctuating pace of the story. Even the alliteration, constant and insistent for the most part, occasionally fades from view altogether. So within the strictures and confines of this very formal piece we detect a human presence, the Gawain poet, a disciplined craftsman who also liked to run risks and take liberties. He would appear to have set himself a series of rules, then consciously and conspicuously gone about bending them. As his translator, I hope to have been guided by his example.
Simon Armitage
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
FITT I
Once the siege and assault of Troy had ceased,
with the city a smoke-heap of cinders and ash,
the turncoat whose tongue had tricked his own men
was tried for his treason – the truest crime on earth.
Then noble Aeneas and his noble lords
went conquering abroad, laying claim to the crowns
of the wealthiest kingdoms in the western world.
Mighty Romulus quickly careered towards Rome
and conceived a city in magnificent style
which from then until now has been known by his name. 10
Ticius constructed townships in Tuscany
and Langobard did likewise, building homes in Lombardy.
And further afield, over the Sea of France,
on Britain’s broad hill-tops, Felix Brutus made
his stand.
And wonder, dread and war
have lingered in that land
where loss and love in turn
have held the upper hand.
After Britain was built by this founding father 20
a bold race bred there, battle-happy men
causing trouble and torment in turbulent times,
and through history more strangeness has happened here
than anywhere else I know of on Earth.
But most regal of rulers in the royal line
was Arthur, who I heard is honoured above all,
and the inspiring story I intend to spin
has moved the hearts and minds of many –
an awesome episode in the legends of Arthur.
So listen a little while to my tale if you will 30
and I’ll tell it as it’s told in the town where it trips from
the tongue;
and as it has been inked
in stories bold and strong,
through letters which, once linked,
have lasted loud and long.
It was Christmas at Camelot – King Arthur’s court,
where the great and the good of the land had gathered,
all the righteous lords of the ranks of the Round Table
quite properly carousing and revelling in pleasure. 40
Time after time, in tournaments of joust,
they had lunged at each other with levelled lances
then returned to the castle to carry on their carolling,
for the feasting lasted a full fortnight and one day,
with more food and drink than a fellow could dream of.
The hubbub of their humour was heavenly to hear:
pleasant dialogue by day and dancing after dusk,
so the house and its hall were lit with happiness
and lords and ladies were luminous with joy.
Such a coming together of the gracious and the glad: 50
the most chivalrous and courteous knights known in Christendom;
the most wonderful women to have walked in this world;
the handsomest king to be crowned at court.
Fine folk with their futures before them, there in
that hall.
Their highly honoured king
was happiest of all:
no nobler knights had come
within a castle’s wall.
With New Year so young it still yawned and stretched 60
helpings were doubled on the dais that day.
And as king and company were coming to the hall
the choir in the chapel fell suddenly quiet,
then a chorus erupted from the courtiers and clerks:
‘Noel‚’ they cheered, then ‘Noel, Noel.’
‘New Year Gifts!’ the knights cried next
as they pressed forward to offer their presents,
teasing with frivolous favours and forfeits,
till those ladies who lost couldn’t help but laugh,
and the undefeated were far from forlorn. 70
Their merrymaking rolled on in this manner until mealtime,
when, washed and worthy, they went to the table,
and were seated in order of honour, as was apt,
with Guinevere in their gathering, gloriously framed
at her place on the platform, pricelessly curtained
by silk to each side, and canopied across
with French weave and fine tapestry from the far east
studded with stones and stunning gems.
Pearls beyond pocket. Pearls beyond purchase
or price. 80
But not one stone outshone
the quartz of the queen’s eyes;
with hand on heart, no one
could argue otherwise.
But Arthur would not eat until all were served.
He brimmed with ebullience, being almost boyish
in his love of life, and what he liked the least
was to sit still watching the seasons slip by.
His blood was busy and he buzzed with thoughts,
and the matter which played on his mind at that moment 90
was his pledge to take no portion from his plate
on such a special day until a story was told:
some far-fetched yarn or outrageous fable,
the tallest of tales, yet one ringing with truth,
like the action-packed epics of men-at-arms.
Or till some chancer had challenged his chosen knight,
dared him, with a lance, to lay life on the line,
to stare death face to face and accept defeat
should fortune or fate smile more favourably on his foe.
Within Camelot’s castle this was the custom, 100
at feasts and festivals when the fellowship
would meet.
With features proud and fine
he stood there tall and straight,
a king at Christmas time
amid great merriment.
And still he stands there just being himself,
chatting away charmingly, exchanging views.
Good Sir Gawain is seated by Guinevere,
and at Arthur’s other side sits Agravain the Hard Hand,110
both nephews of the king and notable knights.
At the head sat Bishop Baldwin as Arthur’s guest of honour,
with Ywain, son of Urien, to eat beside him.
And as soon as the nobles had sampled the spread
the stalwarts on the benches to both sides were served.
The first course comes in to the fanfare and clamour
of blasting trumpets hung with trembling banners,
then pounding double-drums and dinning pipes,
weird sounds and wails of such warbled wildness
that to hear and feel them made the heart float free.120
Flavoursome delicacies of flesh were fetched in
and the freshest of foods, so many in fact
there was scarcely space to present the stews
or to set the soups in the silver bowls on
the cloth.
Each guest received his share
of bread or meat or broth;
a dozen plates per pair –
plus beer or wine, or both!