Saturday 17 December 2016

Gawain 2069 - 2017, My new favorite character: Nameless Doomsayer.



The bridge was brought down, and the broad gates
Unbarred and borne open upon both halves.
The knight crossed himself quickly and came over the planks-
Praises the porter who before the prince kneeled,
Gave him God and good day, that Gawain he save-
And went on his way with his wise one,
That should teach him the turns to that place
where the rueful wound he would receive.
They rode by hill-banks where boughs were bare,
They climbed by cliffs where clings the cold.
The heavens were upheld, but ugly thereunder;
Mist murks on the moor, melts in the mountains,
Each hill had a hat, a mist-helmet huge.
Brooks boiled and broke down the hill banks,
Sheer shattering on shores where the doomed path showed.
Well wild was the way that through the wood wound,
Till it was soon season that the sun rises
          that tide.
They were on a hill full high,
The white snow lay beside;
The man that rode him by
Bade his master abide.


"For I have won you here, wanderer, at this time,
And now you are not far from that notorious place
That you have spied and spurred so specially after.
But I shall say you for certain, since I you know,
And you are a lad upon life that I well love,
Would you work by my wit, its worth to you more.
The place you set path to full perilous is held;
There walks a one in that waste, the worst upon earth,
For he is stark and stern, and to strike loves,
There's more to him any man upon middle earth,
And his body bigger than the best four
That are in Arthur's house, Hector, Hercules, any.
He chops down chevaliers at the chapel green,
There pass none by that place so proud in his arms
That he not drive them to death with a dent from his hand;
For he is a man mirthless, and mercy = none uses,
For it be churl or chaplain that by the chapel rides,
Monk or mass-priest, or any man else,
He thinks as fun to fuck them up as laughter is to us.
Therefore I say you, as certain as you in saddle sit,
Come you there, you'll be killed, as the knight collects,
Know you that truly, if you had twenty lives,
          to spend.
He has lived here since yore,
And wrecked much the land;
Against his blows sore
You may not defend.




Despite the above image I kind of imagine the Nameless Doomsayer more as a Dave Chapelle figure.

Also get ready for me to shovel more fucks into this Middle English text. From this point on they come thick and fucking fast.

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