by W. S. Merwin
So Morgan the Goddess
Became her name;
There is no power one can possess
That she cannot tame—
She sent me off in that form to your noble hall
To put its pride to the proof and see whether they were true,
The great things that were told of the Round Table.
She put that shape on me to deprive you of your wits
And to grieve Guenever and frighten her to death With dread of the ghostly way that creature spoke With his head in his hand before the high table.
That is who the ancient lady is at the castle.
She is your own aunt, Arthur's half-sister,
The daughter of the Duchess of Tintagel, who bore Arthur
To belovèd King Uther, and to such honor now.
And so I beg you, Knight, to come visit your aunt.
Celebrate in my house. My men are fond of you,
And like you as well, Knight, upon my word,
As any man under God, for the way you keep your word.”
But Gawain said no, by no means would he come.
They embraced and kissed and commended each other
To the Prince of Paradise, and there they parted on the cold ground.
On his fine horse Gawain
Set off for the castle of the King,
And the knight in bright green
Wherever he was going.
Wylde wayez in þe worlde Wowen now rydez
On Gryngolet, þat þe grace hade geten of his lyue; 2480
Ofte he herbered in house and ofte al þeroute,
And mony aventure in vale, and venquyst ofte,
Þat I ne tyзt at þis tyme in tale to remene. Þe hurt watz hole þat he hade hent in his nek,
And þe blykkande belt he bere þeraboute 2485
Abelef as a bauderyk bounden bi his syde,
Loken vnder his lyfte arme, þe lace, with a knot,
In tokenyng he watz tane in tech of a faute.
And þus he commes to þe court, knyзt al in sounde.
Þer wakned wele in þat wone when wyst þe grete 2490
Þat gode Gawayn watz commen; gayn hit hym þoзt. Þe
kyng kyssez þe knyзt, and þe whene alce,
And syþen mony syker knyзt þat soзt hym to haylce,
Of his fare þat hym frayned; and ferlyly he telles,
Biknowez alle þe costes of care þat he hade, 2495
Þe chaunce of þe chapel, þe chere of þe knyзt,
Þe luf of þe ladi, þe lace at þe last.
Þe nirt in þe nek he naked hem
schewed Þat he laзt for his vnleuté at þe leudes hondes for blame. 2500
He tened quen he schulde telle,
He groned for gref and grame;
Þe blod in his face con melle,
When he hit schulde schewe, for schame.
‘Lo! lorde,’ quoþ þe leude, þe lace hondeled, 2505
‘Þis is þe bende of þis blame I bere in my nek,
Þis is þe laþe and þe losse þat I laзt haue
Of couardise and couetyse þat I haf caзt þare;
Þis is þe token of vntrawþe þat I am tan inne,
Now Gawain rides the wild ways of the world
On Gryngolet, when his life had been granted him by grace.
Often he put up in houses and often in the open,
Had many adventures on the way, overcame many,
Which I do not intend to tell you about at this time.
The wound he had in his neck was all healed,
And he wore the shining belt around him
Slanting down to the side like a baldric
With the thong knotted under his left arm
In token of his fault and the stain of it.
And so he comes to the court, whole and unharmed.
Joy woke in that household when the King heard
That good Gawain had come. They were happy to hear it.
The King kisses the knight, and the Queen too,
And many other knights are eager to welcome him,
Asking how he had fared, and he told them the strange story,
Admitting all the hardships he had endured,
What had happened at the Chapel, how the knight acted there,
The love of the lady, and the belt last.
He showed the scar of the wound on his neck
That he had from the knight's hand as a mark of blame for his bad faith.
He suffered at having to tell it.
Grief and remorse made him groan.
The blood made his face hot
At the shame of making it known.
“Look, sire,” he said, and held up the belt,
“This ribbon belongs with the blame branded around my neck,
This is the harm and loss that I endured
For the cowardice and coveting that I was caught in there.
This is the token of the untruth I was taken in
And I mot nedez hit were wyle I may last; 2510
For mon may hyden his harme, bot vnhap ne may hit,
For þer hit onez is tachched twynne wil hit neuer.’
Þe kyng comfortez þe knyзt, and alle þe court als
Laзen loude þerat, and luflyly acorden Þat lordes and ladis
þat longed to þe Table, 2515
Vche burne of þe broþerhede, a bauderyk schulde haue,
A bende abelef hym aboute of a bryзt grene,
And þat, for sake of þat segge, in swete to were.
For þat watz acorded þe renoun of þe Rounde Table,
And he honoured þat hit hade euermore after, 2520
As hit is breued in þe best boke of romaunce.
Þus in Arthurus day þis aunter bitidde,
Þe Brutus bokez þerof beres wyttenesse;
Syþen Brutus, þe bolde burne, boзed hider fyrst,
After þe segge and þe asaute watz sesed at Troye, iwysse, 2525
Mony aunterez here-biforne
Haf fallen suche er þis.
Now þat bere þe croun of þorne,
He bryng vus to his blysse! Amen. 2530
And I must wear it as long as I live,
For no one can hide the wrong he does, nor be free of it,
For if ever it takes hold, nothing can cut it away.”
The king comforts the knight, and all the court also,
And they laughed loudly about it, and agreed, out of friendship,
That the lords and ladies who belonged to the Table,
Each knight of the brotherhood, should have a baldric,
A bright green sash at a slant around him
Worn for the sake of the knight, the way he did.
So it became part of the fame of the Round Table,
And was an honor forever after to whoever wore it,
And is written in the best book of romance.
Thus in the days of Arthur this adventure came to pass.
The books about Brutus bear witness to this
After Brutus, the bold knight, came here at the beginning
When the siege and the assault on Troy were finished indeed.
Many adventures like this one
Happened in the days before us.
May he who bore the crown of thorn
Bring us to his bliss.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
W. S. Merwin was born in New York City and grew up in Union City, New Jersey, and Scranton, Pennsylvania. From 1949 to 1951 he worked as a tutor in France, Portugal, and Majorca. He has since lived in many parts of the world, most recently on Maui in the Hawaiian Islands, where he cultivates rare and endangered palm trees. His many works of poetry, prose, and translation are listed at the beginning of this volume. He has been awarded a Fellowship of the Academy of American Poets (of which he is a former chancellor), the Pulitzer Prize, and the Bollingen Prize. Most recently, he has received the Governor's Award for Literature of the State of Hawaii, the Tanning Prize for mastery in the art of poetry,
a Lila Wallace–Reader's Digest Writers' Award, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.
A NOTE ON THE TYPE
This book was set in Junius, a revival of a “Saxon” typeface used by the Clarendon Press and named for Franciscus Junius the younger (1589–1677). Junius was a German philologist and librarian who donated a collection of Gothic, Runic, Icelandic, and Saxon characters to Oxford University. This version of Junius was adapted by Peter S. Baker of the University of Virginia.
Composed by Creative Graphics, Allentown, Pennsylvania
Printed and bound by R. R. Donnelley & Sons,
Harrisonburg, Virginia
Designed by Peter A. Andersen
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2002 by W. S. Merwin
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York.
www.randomhouse.com/poetry
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Portions of this work were originally published in The New York Review of Books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gawain and the Grene Knight. English & English (Middle English) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight : a new verse translation / by W. S. Merwin.—1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN 978-0-307-54609-8
1. Gawain (Legendary character)—Romances. 2. Arthurian
romances. I. Merwin, W. S. (William Stanley), 1927– II. Title.
PR2065.G3 A35 2002
821'.1—dc21 20020202815
Published October 15, 2002
v3.0