Beheading of the Green Knight, Cotton Nero A.x, f. 94b
Genre: verse romance, part of the Alliterative Revival
Medium: contained in single illustrated manuscript Cotton Nero A.x.(c. 1400)
Author: unknown, also wrote Pearl, contemporary of Chaucer
Language: Northwest Midlands dialect of Middle English
Subject: adventures of Sir Gawain at court of Arthur at Camelot and Sir Bercilak's Castle of Hautdesert
Form: 101 stanzas; 2530 line total; each stanza consists of variable number of 4-stress alliterative lines plus an also alliterative "bob-and-wheel" (1-line 1-stress "bob" and 4-line, 3-stress "wheel" with rhyme scheme ABABA). Example (first stanza):
1 siþen þe sege and þe assaut watz sesed at
troye
2 þe bor3 brittened and brent to brondez and askez
3 þe tulk þat þe trammes of tresoun þer wro3t
4 watz tried for his tricherie þe trewest on erþe
5 hit watz ennias þe athel and his highe kynde
6 þat siþen depreced prouinces and patrounes bicome
7 welne3e of al þe wele in þe west iles
8 fro riche romulus to rome ricchis hym swyþe
9 with gret bobbaunce þat bur3e he biges vpon fyrst
10 and neuenes hit his aune nome as hit now hat
11 ticius to tuskan and teldes bigynnes
12 langaberde in lumbardie lyftes vp homes
13 and fer ouer þe french flod felix brutus
14 on mony bonkkes ful brode bretayn he settez
[bob]
15 wyth wynne
[wheel]
16 where werre and wrake and wonder
17 bi syþez hatz wont þerinne
18 and oft boþe blysse and blunder
19 ful skete hatz skyfted synne
Translation: After the siege and the assault of Troy, when the city was burned to ashes, the knight who therein wrought treason was tried for his treachery and was found to be the truest on earth. Aeneas the noble it was, and his high kindred, who vanquished great nations and became the rulers of wellnigh all the western world. Noble Romulus went to Rome with great show of strength, and built that city at the first, and gave it his own name, as it is called to this day. Ticius went into Tuscany and began to set up habitations, and Langobard made his home in Lombardy; whilst Brutus, far over the French sea by many a full broad hill-side, the fair land of Britain [bob] did win, [wheel] Where war and wrack and wonder/Often were seen therein,/And oft both bliss and blunder/Have come about through sin.
Temptation of Sir Gawain by Lady Bercilak: Cotton Nero A. x, f. 129
Links