‘My knightly person has never suffered such rude correction. It is the mob of good-for-nothings, incapable of giving a manly account of themselves, who should be thus thrashed – hitherto I have gone free of such punishment. But if you and my lady wish to offer me insults, it is you alone who will have to enjoy what you would rightly call my anger. However frightful your appearance I can easily dispense with your threats.’
Gawan then seized him by the hair and flung him from his nag to the ground, from where the estimable, sapient squire looked up at him most timidly. Yet his hedgehog’s bristles avenged him, cutting Gawan’s hand so deeply that it was red with blood all over.
The lady laughed to see it. ‘I love to see you two quarrelling like this,’ she said.
They set out with the squire’s mount trotting beside them till they reached the place where the wounded knight was lying. Gawan loyally bound the herb on to the wound.
‘How did you fare since leaving me here?’ asked the wounded man. ‘You have brought a lady with you who is bent on harming you. It is all her doing that I am so badly hurt. In Av’estroit mavoie she involved me in a sharp joust at the risk of my life and property. If you wish to stay alive, let this deceitful woman ride away and have nothing more to do with her. Judge from my condition where her counsels lead! But I could recover completely if I could find a place to rest. Help me to that, good man.’
‘Ask any help of mine you care to name,’ replied my lord Gawan.
‘Not far from here there is a hospital,’ said the wounded knight. ‘If I could get there soon I could rest for quite a while. We have my companion’s sturdy little horse standing here all this time – hand her up and set me behind her.’
The well-born stranger untethered the lady’s palfrey from its branch and was in the act of leading it to her when the wounded man shouted ‘Keep away! – Why are you in such haste to have me trampled?’ Thus Gawan brought it to her a longer way round. At a hint from her man, die lady followed Gawan at a slow and gentle pace. Gawan hoisted her on to her palfrey – and in that instant the wounded knight leapt on to Gawan’s castilian. It was ill-done, if you ask me. Profiting from their sinful deed, that knight and his lady rode away.
Gawan gave vent to his annoyance, but the lady found more to laugh at in this prank than any pleasure he had from it. Now that he had been robbed of his horse her sweet lips uttered these words: ‘I took you for a knight. Soon after, you turned surgeon. And now you are reduced to footman. If anyone can make a living by his skill you can certainly trust your wits! Do you still desire my love?’
‘Yes, my lady,’ answered Gawan. ‘If I could have your love it would be dearer to me than all else. There are none that dwell on earth – crowned heads, all who wear a crown and win honour and joy! – but that if I were to be offered die choice between all their possessions and you, my discerning heart would bid me leave their wealth to them! It is your love that I wish to have. If I cannot win it, may I be seen to die a bitter death I You are laying waste your own. If I was ever free, you must now have me as your bondsman: I judge this your indisputable right. Now whether you call me knight or squire, peasant or footman, with the mockery you have subjected me to and the scorn you pour on my service, you burden yourself with sin. Were I to profit from my service you would have done with your jibes. Though they never vexed me, they nevertheless lower your worth.’
The wounded man rode back to them. ‘Are you Gawan?’ he asked. ‘If you ever borrowed anything of me it has now been paid back in full! Remember when you overpowered me and took me prisoner in a tough encounter and led me home to your uncle King Arthur? He saw to it that I ate with the hounds for a month on end!’
‘Are you Urjans?’ Gawan countered. ‘I do not deserve any harm you wish me now, for I won the King’s pardon for you. They were ignoble thoughts that moved you, with the outcome that you were excluded from the Order of Knighthood and declared an outlaw for denying a maiden her inviolability and the protection of the law. King Arthur would have punished you with the gallows had I not spoken up for you.’
‘Whatever happened diere, here you are now. You have heard the saying from before your time that if a man saved another from death that other would be his enemy ever after. I act as one who has his wits about him. It is more fitting that a babe should cry than a man whose beard has grown. I intend to keep this horse for myself.’ And he spurred hard and rode away from him, much to Gawan’s annoyance.
‘It happened thus,’ he told the lady. ‘At that time Arthur was in the town of Dianazdrun, attended by many Britons. A lady had been sent to his country on an embassy. As to this outsider, he had come out for adventure. He was a guest there, so was she. Yet his low thoughts prompted him to struggle with the lady against her will but at his pleasure. Her cries reached the court, the King raised a hue and cry at the top of his voice. It happened at the skirt of a forest, and thither we all hastened. I rode far ahead of the others and picked up the villain’s tracks. It was as my prisoner that I led this man back into the King’s presence. The maiden rode back with us in a piteous state because one who had never been her Servitor had taken her chaste maidenhead. Nor had he added anything to his fame as a knight by attacking her, defenceless. She had found my lord, true-hearted Arthur, beside himself.
‘“This damnable outrage should move us all to pity! Alas that the day ever dawned by whose light this violence was done and, moreover, within the jurisdiction proclaimed as mine, and where I am still judge today! You would be well advised to take an advocate and bring a plaint,” he said, turning to the lady, who did not hesitate to follow his suggestion.
‘By now a great company of knights were assembled there. Urjans, the prince from Punturteis, stood before Arthur of Britain with his life and honour at stake. The fair plaintiff advanced to where rich and poor alike could hear her and with accusing words petitioned the King in the name of all womankind and of maidenly honour to take her shame to heart. She further entreated him by the traditions of die Table Round and her having been sent to him as an envoy, that if he were the acknowledged judge there he should judge of the wrong she had suffered with due process of law. She begged die entire Company of the Table Round to apprise themselves of her rights, since she had been robbed of what could never be restored to her – her pure, chaste virginity – and that they should all join in asking the King for his judgment and speak on her behalf.
‘The guilty man (to whom I accord small honour) took an advocate who defended him as best he could; but his defence was vain. Urjans. was condemned to die with loss of honour, they were to twist a withy for him to die in without shedding his blood. In his dire need he appealed to me and reminded me that to save his life he had surrendered to me. I feared that, were he to lose his life diere, all my honour would be gone. Urging that the plaintiff herself had witnessed die manly vengeance I had exacted for her, I asked her as a good-hearted woman to calm her angry feelings, since she had to put down what he had done to her, to her radiant, seductive beauty. “For if ever a man grew desperate from serving a lady,” I told her, “and she helped him in the sequel, honour that help now and let yourself be turned aside from anger.” I begged the King and his vassals that if I had ever done him any service he should bear it in mind and merely by letting the knight live, ward off the disgrace that would dog me. I entreated his consort die Queen to help me by the love that binds blood-relations; for the King had reared me since childhood and in my attachment I had always sought refuge with her. And this she did. She had a private word with die young lady, and his life was saved, thanks to die Queen. Nevertheless, he had to suffer torment. He was cleared in die following way, such was the atonement he was faced with. He ate out of one trough with the hounds, leader or lymer, for four weeks. In that way the lady was avenged. And this, madam, is his revenge on me!’
‘His vengeance will go awry,’ said Orgeluse. ‘I am unlikely ever to show you favour, but he will be so rewarded for it before he quits my domain that he will account it a di
sgrace, seeing that the King did not avenge the deed in the land where the lady suffered it, and it has come into my jurisdiction! You are both subject to my command, yet I do not know who you are. He will be brought to battle – for the lady’s sake alone, and not at all for yours I Gross misdemeanours should be punished with thrusts and blows.’
Gawan went along to Malcreatiure’s nag and caught it with only a light leap. The squire now came up with them, and the lady told him in die heathen tongue all she wanted done up diere in die Castle. Now indeed Gawan’s peril is approaching.
Malcreatiure went off on foot. Gawan then took a closer look at the young gentleman’s jade and concluded that it was too frail for fighting. The squire had taken it from a peasant before coming down the slope, and now Gawan had to make do with it as charger – he had no alternative but to accept this quid pro quo.
And now she addressed him thus (I fancy with malicious intent): ‘Tell me, won’t you ride on?’
‘I shall set out from this place in full accord with your advice,’* replied my lord Gawan.
‘You will wait a long time for that!’ she retorted.
‘But I am serving you just to win it!’ he countered.
‘I think you a fool to do so! Unless you give it up you will have to avoid jolly people and turn moper. You will always have fresh troubles.’
‘I am engaged in your service, whether I have joy or trouble of it, for your love told me to wait on you, riding or walking.’
Standing beside the lady he looked his war-horse up and down. Its stirrups of bast were of poorest quality for a fast joust, and there were times when the stranger had had a better saddle. He did not mount because he feared his foot might rip the whole saddle-harness apart. The nag had a hollow back, so that if he had leapt up on to it, it would have caved in altogether, a thing he had to avoid at all costs. In times past he would have jibbed at such a procedure; but now he led the beast and carried his shield and lance!
The lady who was the source of so much pain to him laughed heartily at his cruel ordeal, and when he tied his shield to the horse, she asked ‘Have you brought some merchandize to sell in my country? Whom do I have to thank for a doctor and a marketeer? Look out for the customs along the road – some of my tax-gatherers will strip you of your good humour!’
He found her well-salted jibes so acceptable that he did not mind what she said, since whenever he looked at her he was quit of any pain she caused him. In his eyes she was May-time in person, a blossoming that outshone all things bright -sweetness to his eye, yet also bitterness to his heart. Since a man could both lose and find his joy in her and a remedy for happiness that languished, it made him at all times free and closely tied.
Many of my authorities assert that Amor and Cupid and also Venus, mother of those two, inspire love in people with arrows and with fire. Such love is malign. But if true fidelity dwells within one’s heart, one will never be free of love, one will know joy and sometimes sorrow. Benign love is true fidelity. Cupid, your dart misses me always, as does Lord Amor’s spear. If you two have power over love, and Venus, too, with her searing torch, the pangs you inflict are unknown to me. If I am to say I know true love, it can come to me only through fidelity.
If I had the wit to help anyone against Love, I am so fond of Gawan that I would help him without payment. When all is said, it is no disgrace to him that he now lies fettered by Love, or that Love, destroyer of stout defences, has him in a turmoil. He was always so well able to defend himself, his defence so much that of a man of worth, that it ought to be given to no woman to harass his warlike person.
Ride nearer, Lord Love-tyranny! You tear at Joy with such might that her place is pitted with holes, and Sorrow beats herself a path there! Indeed, Sorrow’s tracks grow so broad that had her march gone elsewhere than straight into Heart’s Zest, I should have deemed it Joy’s advantage!
If Love is set on misbehaving, I judge her too old to do so. Or, when she inflicts pain on a lover’s heart, does she blame it on her tender years? I could condone wantonness in her youth more readily than if she misbehaved in old age. She has been the source of much trouble: to which of her two aspects shall I set it down? If, thanks to youthful promptings, she intends to lapse from her old and settled ways, she will soon lose her reputation. The matter should be explained to her more clearly. The love I prize is pure and limpid, and all men and women of discernment will agree. Where tender feeling responds to its like, transparent and untroubled, and neither demurs when Love locks their hearts with ever-faithful love,’ such love is high above all other.*
Glad though I should be to fetch him away, Gawan cannot escape Love’s making him unhappy. So of what use is it if I interpose, however much I say? A man of worth should not fend off Love, if only because Love must help to save him. Gawan had to toil because of Love: his lady rode, he trudged on foot.
Orgeluse and the brave knight were entering a great forest, and still he had to walk. He led the nag towards a tree-stump, took the shield he had laid on the beast and which he carried in pursuance of his chivalric calling, slung it round his neck, and mounted. The nag barely managed to take him forward to the ploughland on the far side. There he made out a castle, and his heart and eyes confessed they had never known or seen this castle’s like. Its whole circuit was magnificent – towers and palaces abounded in that fortress! Nor could he help seeing many ladies at its windows, four hundred of them or more, among them four of illustrious race.
A causeway with very heavy going led to a broad, fast-flowing, navigable river, and he and his lady rode towards it. Beside the quay there was a meadow where much jousting was done. The fortress loomed above the river.
Gawan, brave warrior, espied a knight who had never been one to spare either shield or lance. ‘If you will bear me out,’ said puissant Orgeluse haughtily, ‘I do not break my word. I told you so often that you would reap great dishonour here. Now defend yourself if you can – nothing else will save you! The man advancing there will throw you down with his strong right arm to such effect that if your breeches get torn somewhere or other you will be embarrassed because of the ladies sitting up above and looking on. Supposing they were to glimpse your shame…?’
The master of the ship crossed over at Orgeluse’s bidding and, to Gawan’s sorrow, she went aboard. ‘You will not be joining me here on board!’ the well-born puissant lady shouted back at him angrily. ‘You stay out there as a pledge to fortune!’
‘Why are you in such a hurry to leave me, my lady?’ he called after her despondently. ‘Shall I never see you again?’
‘The honour of my letting you see me again may yet befall you, but I fancy not so very soon.’ Such were her parting words.
And now Lischois Gwelljus rode up. If I were to tell you that he flew, I should be deceiving you with such an expression. But short of that he moved at such a pace over the green meadow as did credit to his charger, which showed a great turn of speed.
‘How shall I await this man?’ Gawan asked himself. ‘Which of the two would be the more advisable: on foot, or on this little nag? If he plans to come at me full tilt, not checking his charge, he will ride me down. Then what can his horse expect but to take a tumble over my nag? If he then offers me battle with the two of us on foot, such being his wish I will give it him, even though the lady who has involved me in this fight should never smile on me!’
Nothing could avert it now, the man coming on was as gallant as die man awaiting him. Gawan prepared for the joust and set his lance forward on the wretched saddle-cloth of felt. Their two thrusts were delivered so accurately that the impact shattered both lances, and the warriors lay on their backs, just as Gawan had planned it – the man with the better mount had come a cropper, with the result that both he and my lord Gawan were couched upon die flowers I You ask what they did next? They leapt up, sword in hand, each athirst for battle. There was no sparing of shields, for these were so carved up that little remained above die grips – shields always bear the brunt of bat
tle! – and you could see sparks and flames leap up from their helmets I Whichever God allows to gain the victory, you can account him a lucky man, since he will first have to cover himself in glory. They stuck it out so long on the broad expanse of that meadow that two smiths, however strong their limbs, would have tired from dealing so many mighty blows, so hard did they strive to win renown. Yet who should praise them for fighting for no cause, other than that Fame should smile on them, rash men? They had no issue to decide, no grounds for holding their lives so cheap. Each could protest to die other that he had seen no wrong.
Gawan had learnt to wrestle and pin down his man after throwing him. When he went in under his opponent’s sword and grappled with him, he could force him to do what he wanted. Since he had been forced to defend himself, he gave a formidable account of himself. The noble, spirited man seized die gallant young knight, who was also endowed with manly strength, and quickly threw him beneath him.
‘Now surrender, knight, if you wish to live!’
Lischois lying diere beneath him was ill-prepared to meet his demand, since he had never been accustomed to surrender. It seemed very strange to him that any should have the strength to wrest from him what had never been exacted before, namely an oath extorted in defeat such as he himself had often wrung from others. However die affair had turned out here, in the past he had received many surrenders which he was not inclined to trade further, in lieu of which he offered his life, declaring that whatever should come of him he would never give his parole under duress, but rather treat with death.
‘Does victory rest with you, now?’ asked the supine warrior. ‘She was mine as long as God willed it and I was vouchsafed the glory. Now let your noble hand make an end of it! When knights and ladies learn that I whose renown soared so high have been defeated – before this news bereaves my friends it would be better I should die!’
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