The year passes, and Gawayne, despite the fears of the court, sets out in quest of the Green Chapel. On Christmas Eve he arrives at a splendid castle, and finding that the Green Chapel is close at hand, accepts an invitation to stay and rest until New Year's Day. On each of three days the knight of the castle goes hunting, and persuades Gawayne to rest at home. They make an agreement that each shall give the other whatever he gets. The lady of the castle makes love to Gawayne, and kisses him once on the first day, twice on the second day, thrice on the third day; and on the third day she gives him her girdle, which he accepts because it has the magic power of preserving the wearer from wounds. Each evening he duly gives the kisses to the knight, and receives in return the spoils of the hunting of deer and boar and fox. But he conceals the girdle.
The extract begins with Gawayne preparing on New Year's morning to stand the return blow at the Green Chapel.
The poem ends by the Green Knight revealing that he is himself the lord of the castle; that he went to Arthur's court at the suggestion of Morgan la Fay; that he had urged his wife to make love to Gawayne and try his virtue; and that he would not have harmed him at all, if he had not committed the slight fault of concealing the girdle. Gawayne returns to the court, bearing the girdle as a sign of his shame, and tells his story. The knights of the court agree in future to wear a bright green belt for Gawayne's sake.
Sir Gawayne is admittedly the best of the alliterative romances. It must have come down to us practically as it was written by the poet, for it is free from the flatness and conventional phrasing which is characteristic of romances that have passed through many popular recensions. The descriptions of nature, of armour and dresses, the hunting scenes, and the love making, are all excellently done; and the poet shows the same richness of imagination and skill in producing pictorial effects that are so noticeable in Pearl. He has too a quiet humour that recalls Chaucer in some of his moods.
THE TESTING OF SIR GAWAYNE. British Museum MS. Nero A X (about 1400); ed. R. Morris, ll. 2069 ff.
The brygge watȝ brayde doun, and þe brode ȝateȝ
Vnbarred and born open vpon boþe halue.
Þe burne blessed hym bilyue, and þe bredeȝ passed;