There would not, I think, and I am sure that the author intended that there should not, be any more suspicion in the minds of genuine first-time readers or hearers of his story5 than in the mind of Sir Gawain himself (as is clearly shown) that the temptations were all a ‘put-up job’, just part of the perils and trials that he had been inveigled from Arthur’s court to undergo and so be destroyed or utterly disgraced. In fact it is possible to wonder whether the author has not gone too far. Has not his contrivance a grave weakness? All – apart perhaps from unusual but not incredible magnificence – all is so normal in the castle that on reflexion the question must soon arise: ‘What would have happened, if Gawain had not passed the test?’ For we learn in the end that the lord and lady were conniving; yet the test was meant to be real, to procure if possible Gawain’s downfall and the disgrace of his ‘high order’. The lady was in fact his ‘enemy keen’. How then was she protected, if her lord was far away, hallooing and hunting in the forest? It is no answer to this question to point to ancient and barbaric customs or to tales in which memory of them is still enshrined. For we are not in that world, and if indeed the author knew anything about it he has wholly rejected it. But he has not wholly rejected ‘magic’. And the answer may be that ‘fairy-story’, though concealed, or taken for granted as part of the machinery of events, is really as integral to this part of the narrative as to those where it is more obvious and unaltered, such as the incursion of the Green Knight. Only fayryze (240) will suffice to make the plot of the lord and lady intelligible and workable in the imagined world that the author has contrived. We must suppose that just as Sir Bertilak could go green again and change shape for the tryst at the Chapel, so the lady could have protected herself by some sudden change, or destroying power, to which Sir Gawain would have become exposed by falling to temptation, even in will only.6 If we have this in mind, then perhaps the ‘weakness’ becomes strength. The temptation is real and perilous in the extreme on the moral plane (for Gawain’s own view of the circumstances is all that matters on that plane7); yet hanging in the background, for those able to receive the air of ‘faerie’ in a romance, is a terrible threat of disaster and destruction. The struggle becomes intense to a degree which a merely realistic story of how a pious knight resisted a temptation to adultery (when a guest) could hardly attain.8 It is one of the properties of Fairy Story thus to enlarge the scene and the actors; or rather it is one of the properties that are distilled by literary alchemy when old deep-rooted stories are rehandled by a real poet with an imagination of his own.

  In my view, then, the temptations of Sir Gawain, his behaviour under them, and criticism of his code, were for our author his story, to which all else was subservient. I will not argue this. The weight, length, and detailed elaboration of the Third Fit (and of the end of the Second Fit which defines the situation) are, as I have said, sufficient evidence to show where at least the prime attention of the poet was concentrated.

  I will turn then now to the temptation scenes, especially to those points in them that are most significant, as I believe, of the author’s views and purpose: the keys to the question ‘what is this poem really about?’ as it is by him presented. For this purpose it is necessary to have fresh in mind the conversations of Gawain and the Lady of the Castle.

  (Here the temptation-scenes were read aloud in translation).9

  From these scenes I will select some points for comment. On December the 29th the lady comes to Gawain’s room before he is fully awake, sits upon his bed-side, and when he arouses puts her arms about him (49.1224–5). She tells him that all is quite safe, and makes her all-out assault. It is, I think, here important to say that though some critics have held this to be a mistake on her part (which can in reality mean only a mistake on the part of the poet), they themselves are certainly mistaken. The lady is very beautiful indeed, Gawain was from the first, as we have seen, greatly attracted by her, and not only is he severely tempted on this occasion, but by the lady’s declaration (49.1235–40) that temptation remains in force throughout his dealings with her. All their converse and talk slips perpetually towards adultery thereafter.

  After the first temptation no private conversation between Gawain and the lady (except in his room) is reported – he is either with at least both the ladies together, or after the lord’s homecomings in company – save only in the evening after the second temptation. And we may well consider the change that has occurred, contrasting the scene after supper on December the 30th with the untroubled air at dinner on Christmas Day (which I have already recited, here):

  Much gladness and gaiety began then to spring

  round the fire on the hearth, and freely and oft

  at supper and later: many songs of delight,

  such as canticles of Christmas, and new carol-dances,

  amid all the mannerly mirth that men can tell of;

  and ever our noble knight was next to the lady.

  Such glances she gave him of her gracious favour,

  secretly stealing sweet looks that strong man to charm,

  that he was passing perplexed, and ill-pleased at heart.

  Yet he would fain not of his courtesy coldly refuse her,

  but graciously engaged her, however against the grain the play.

  (66.1652–63)

  This I believe to be a fair translation of a passage that contains some verbal, and possibly textual, difficulties; but neither this version nor the original must be misunderstood. Gawain’s mood is not that of one who has been ‘put off’ or disgusted, but of a man who does not know what to do. He is in the throes of temptation. All his breeding constrains him to go on playing the game, but the lady has already exposed the weakness of such ‘nurture’, that it is a perilous weapon in such a situation, as dangerous as a handful of pretty rockets near a real gunpowder-plot. Immediately afterwards fear or prudence suggests flight, and Gawain tries to get out of his promise to do the lord’s bidding and stay three nights longer. But he is caught again by his own courtesy. He has no better excuse to offer than to say that it is very near the time for his appointment, and he had better start in the morning. This the lord easily counters by pretending to think that his own good faith is doubted, and he repeats that he gives his word that Sir Gawain shall reach the Green Chapel in good time. That this attempt at flight on Gawain’s part is due to moral wisdom (to fear of himself, that is) and not to disgust is made clear by the sequel.

  Apart from this hint, however, in the first two scenes the author has been content to report events and sayings without revealing Gawain’s feelings (or his own views). But as soon as we come to the third scene the tone changes. So far Gawain has been engaged mainly in a problem of ‘courtesy’, and we see him using the wits and good manners for which he was renowned with great skill, and still (until the evening of December the 30th) with a certain confidence. But with stanzas 70 and 71 (lines 1750 ff.) we come to the ‘nub’ of the affair. Gawain is now in great peril. Wise flight has proved impossible without breaking his word and the rules of courtesy to his host.10 His sleep has been dark and troubled with the fear of death. And when the lady appears again he welcomes her with sheer pleasure and delight in her beauty. On the last morning of the old year she came again to his room:

  in a gay mantle that to the ground was measured

  and was fur-lined most fairly with fells well trimmed,

  with no comely coif on her head, only the clear jewels

  that were twined in her tressure by twenties in clusters;

  her noble face and her neck all naked were laid,

  her breast bare in front and at the back also.

  She came through the chamber-door and closed it behind her,

  wide set a window, and to wake him she called,

  thus greeting him gaily with her gracious words of cheer:

  ‘Ah! man, how canst thou sleep,

  the morning is so clear!’

  He lay in darkness deep,

  but her call he then could hear.

  In heavy darkness drowsing he dream-words muttered,

  as a man whose mind was bemused with many mournful thoughts,

  how destiny should his doom on that day bring him

  when he at the Green Chapel the great man would meet,

  and be obliged his blow to abide without debate at all.

  But when so comely she came, he recalled then his wits,

  swept aside his slumbers, and swiftly made answer.

  The lady in lovely guise came laughing sweetly,

  bent down o’er his dear face, and deftly kissed him.

  He greeted her graciously with a glad welcome,

  seeing her so glorious and gaily attired,

  so faultless in her features and so fine in her hues

  that at once joy up-welling went warm to his heart.

  With smiles sweet and soft they turned swiftly to mirth,

  and only brightness and bliss was broached there between them so gay.

  They spoke then speeches good,

  much pleasure was in that play;

  great peril between them stood,

  unless Mary for her knight should pray.

  (69–70.1736–69)

  And with that we have the re-entry, for the first time since the pentangle and the shield of Gawain (that is here indeed alluded to), of religion, of something higher than and beyond a code of polite or polished manners which have proved, and are going again and finally to prove, not only an ineffectual weapon in the last resort, but an actual danger, playing into the hands of the enemy.

  Immediately afterwards the word synne is introduced, for the first and only time in this highly moral poem, and so all the more emphatically; and what is more, a distinction is drawn, Gawain himself is forced to draw, a distinction between ‘sin’ (the moral law) and ‘courtesy’:

  For she, queenly and peerless, pressed him so closely,

  led him so near the line, that at last he must needs

  either refuse her with offence or her favours there take.

  He cared for his courtesy, lest a caitiff11 he proved,

  yet more for his sad case, if he should sin commit

  and to the owner of the house, to his host, be a traitor.

  ‘God help me!’ said he. ‘Happen that shall not!’

  (71.1770–6)

  The end of the last temptation-scene, with the lady’s complete shift of ground after her final defeat on the major (or higher, or only real) issue, is, of course, an added complexity in this complex poem, which must be considered in its place. But we must from this point move at once to the scene that follows the temptation: Gawain’s confession (75.1874–84).

  Gollancz at least deserves credit for noting the confession,12 which had previously received little or no attention. But he totally missed the point, or points, involved. These I wish now specially to consider. It is not too much to say that the whole interpretation and valuation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight depends on what one thinks of the thirtieth stanza of the Third Fit [stanza 75]. Either the poet knew what he was about, meant what he said, and placed this stanza where he wished it to be – in which case we must think about it seriously and consider his intentions; or else he did not, and was just a muddler, stringing conventional scenes together, and his work is not worth long consideration at all, except, perhaps, as a lumber-room of old half-forgotten and less than half-understood stories and motives, just a fairy-story for adults, and not a very good one.

  Gollancz evidently thought the latter; for in his notes he makes the astonishing remark that though the poet does not notice it (!), Gawain makes a sacrilegious confession. For he conceals the fact that he has accepted the girdle with the intention of retaining it. This is arrant nonsense. It will not even endure reference to the text, as we shall see. But, first of all, it is quite incredible that a poet of high seriousness13 who has already with explicit moral purpose inserted a long digression on the Pentangle and the shield of Sir Gawain, should put in a passage about confession and absolution (matters which he regarded with the greatest solemnity, whatever critics may now feel) quite casually, and without ‘noticing’ such a minor point as ‘sacrilege’. If he was such a fool, one wonders why editors trouble to edit his works.

  Let us look then at the text. First: since the author does not specify what Gawain confessed, we cannot say what he omitted, and it is therefore gratuitously silly to assert that he concealed anything. We are told, however, that he schewed his mysdedez, of þe more and þe mynne, that is, that he confessed all his sins (sc. all that it was necessary to confess) both great and small. If that is not definite enough, it is made still plainer that Gawain’s confession was a good one, and not ‘sacrilegious’, and the absolution effective,14 by the statement that this was so:

  There he cleanly confessed him and declared his misdeeds,

  both the more and the less, and for mercy he begged,

  to absolve him of them all he besought the good man;

  and he assoiled him and made him as safe and as clean

  as for Doom’s Day indeed, were it due on the morrow.

  (75.1880–4)

  And if even this is not enough the poet goes on to describe the consequent lightness of Gawain’s heart.

  Thereafter more merry he made among the fair ladies,

  with carol-dances gentle and all kinds of rejoicing,

  than ever he did ere that day, till the darkness of night, in bliss.

  Each man there said: ‘I vow

  a delight to all he is!

  Since hither he came till now,

  he was ne’er so gay as this.’

  (75.1885–92)

  Need I say that a light heart is certainly not the mood induced by a bad confession and the wilful concealment of sin?

  Gawain’s confession is represented as a good one, then. Yet the girdle is retained. This cannot be accidental or inadvertent. We are obliged therefore to come to terms with the situation deliberately contrived by the author; we are driven to consider the relation of all these rules of behaviour, these games and courtesies, to sin, morals, the saving of souls, to what the author would have held to be eternal and universal values. And that, surely, is precisely why the confession is introduced, and at this point. Gawain in his last perilous extremity was obliged to tear his ‘code’ in two, and distinguish its components of good manners and good morals. We are now compelled to consider these matters further.

  The first implication of the confession is seen thus to be that retention of the girdle was not a misdeed or a sin on the moral plane in the author’s view. For there are only two alternatives: either (a) Gawain did not mention the girdle at all, being sufficiently instructed to distinguish between such pastimes and serious matters; or (b) if he did mention it, his confessor lerned hym better. The former is perhaps the less likely, since Gawain’s education in this direction had, we might say, only just begun; whereas we are told that before he went to confession Gawain asked the advice of the priest.15

  We have in fact reached the point of intersection of two different planes: of a real and permanent, and an unreal and passing world of values: morals on the one hand, and on the other a code of honour, or a game with rules. The personal code of most people was, and of many still is, like that of Sir Gawain made up of a close blend of the two; and breaches at any point in that personal code have a very similar emotional flavour. Only a crisis, or serious thought without a crisis (which is rare) will serve to disentangle the elements; and the process may be painful, as Gawain discovered.

  A ‘game with rules’ may deal, of course, with trivial matters or with ones more serious in an ascending scale, as, say, from games with pieces of cardboard upwards. The more they deal with or become involved with real affairs and duties, the more moral bearings they will have; the things ‘done’ or ‘not done’ will have two sides, the ritual or rules of the game, and the eternal rules; and therefore the more occasions there will be for a dilemma, a conflict of rules. And the more seriously you take your games, the severer and more painful the dilemma. Sir Gawain belonged (as he is depicted) by class, tradition, and training to the kind that take their games with great seriousness. His suffering was acute. He was, one might say, selected for that reason – by an author who belonged to the same class and tradition and knew what it felt like from the inside; but who was interested also in problems of conduct, and have given some thought to them.

  It might be felt a fair question to interject at this moment: ‘Is it not a fault of art, a poetic blunder, to allow so serious a matter as a real confession and absolution to intrude at this point? To force into the open, and compel the attention of a reader to this divergence of values (in which he may not be much interested)? Indeed to intrude such matters at all at any point into a fairy-story, to subject such absurdities as exchanging venison for a kiss to a serious examination?’