Thoughts on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
I’ve been slow to pass on some interesting passages of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in the original Middle English. Here’s are the opening lines (part of the “Troy Frame”):
Siþen þe sege and þe assaut watz sesed at Troye,
Þe borȝ brittened and brent to brondez and askez,
Þe tulk þat þe trammes of tresoun þer wroȝt
Watz tried for his tricherie, þe trewest on erthe.
Hit watz Ennias þe athel and his highe kynde,
Þat siþen depreced prouinces, and patrounes bicome
Welneȝe of al þe wele in þe west iles. (1-7)Since the siege and assault were ceased at Troy, the city broken and burned to embers and ashes, since the soldier who there wrought the instrument of treason was tried for his treachery, the most “loyal” on earth. It was prince Aeneas and his great family, who then conquered many lands, and became patrons of almost the whole West.
Note the difficulty, to which I alluded on the first day of our discussion, in lines 3-5. It’s not at all clear which Trojan tulk betrayed the city, at least in this account. The close proximity of “Hit watz Ennias þe athel” suggests to me that the Gawain-poet might share the same dim view of Aeneas that Ovid, Chaucer, and others hold. More important than my own opinion about that textual conundrum, though, is the frame’s interest in tricherie: an important aspect of this poem!
We ended Thursday’s class at the poem’s “climax.” Gawain has arrived at the Green Chapel and notices the apparent wickedness of the place. As he approaches, he hears the sound of an axe being sharpened:
Þene herde he of þat hyȝe hil, in a harde roche
Biȝonde þe broke, in a bonk, a wonder breme noyse.
Quat! hit clatered in þe clyff as hit cleue schulde,
As one vpon a gryndelston hade grounded a syþe.
What! hit wharred and whette as water at a mulne;
What! hit rusched and ronge, rawþe to here. (2199-2204)Then he heard from that high hill—from a hard hillside, on a bank beyond the brook—a terrifying, cruel noise. Listen! it sounded as if the cliff were split in two, as if a grindstone had sharpened a scythe. Listen! it whirred and ground as water through a mill; listen! it rushed and rang, wicked to hear.
Gawain recognizes that the sound is for him—a sign of his imminent doom. The poet does some incredible things with sounds, here. Note the repeated onomatopoeia in “Quat/what” (2201, 2203-04): the qu or wh here would be sounded like a harsh hw. (If you can’t hear the mimicry of grinding here, I’ll demonstrate near the beginning of class on Tuesday.) Gawain isn’t “just” going to die when he meets the Green Knight: he’s going to die horribly.