GAWAIN GOES BERSERK

Howard Pyle, Sir Gawain, 1903

  
Then grimly Sir Gawaingripped his weapon,
And againstthat great force girded himself.
He rapidly set righthis rich sword-chains,
Shovedforward his shield, shunning nothing,
And spurredto the assault, berserk and reckless,
Striking withsavage strokes at the foe
So that theblood burst out where he battered past them.
Full of woe as he was,he wavered but little,
But wreakedArthur’s wrath to his rightful glory.
He speared stalwartknights and steeds in the battle
So that menstood stone-dead in their stirrups.
He severed strongsteel, slashed through mail,
Unstoppableby any, being out of his mind,
And fallen infrenzy out of fury of heart;
He fought andfelled whoever stood before him!
Such fortune in fightnever befell a fated man:
Headlong hehurtled at the whole host,
Dealing direwounds to the doughtiest dwellers on earth.
In exploit like a lionhe lanced them through,
Lords andleaders on that land drawn up.
And still he would notstop in his savage grief,
But withbloody blows battered the enemy
As if he werehankering for his own death,
His witsastray with woe and willfulness
As he wentlike a wild beast at the warriors nearest.
Whenever he went allwallowed in blood;
Each dreadfoe smelled danger from the death of one near
      Him.
    Then he moved toward Sir Mordred among all his
       Knights,
Met himmid-shield and smote him through.
But the shufflerslightly shrank from the sharp sword
And shearedhim on the short ribs a hand’s-breadth deep.
The shaft shuddered asit shot into the shining warrior
So that thegore gushed out, gleaming on his legs
And showingon the shinguard which shone with its
    burnish.

MORTE ARTHURE (CA. 1400) LINES 3812-3845 

NOTE:  

1.  Thepoem exists on a single manuscript, Lincoln Cathedral MS 91, which was writtenby a Yorkshire gentlemen called Robert Thornton, whose seat was at East Newton,a village about twenty miles northeast of York.  It is securely dated inthe fourth decade of the fifteenth century, and its linguistic features suggestthat though the scribe was a Yorkshireman, the copy he worked from was tworemoves from the original, which was in the language of the North and NortheastMidlands. 


2. FromBrian Stone (translation and introductions), King Arthur's Death(Morte Arthure; Le Morte Arthur), London, Penguin, 1988.

H.J. Ford, Sir Mordred, 1902