Personal anthology: The Pearl-poet
This passage on the turning of the seasons and the progress of time from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has been on my mind of late. (Someone in my corner of the blogosphere posted it a while back, but I can’t remember who.) It’s quite long, so I’m ellipsizing a bit:
A year soon runs its length and never returns the same,
And the end seldom seems to belong to the beginning.
So this Christmas was over then, and the last of the year followed it,
And the seasons went in by turn one after the other.
After Christmas came crabbèd Lent
That chastises the flesh with fish and plainer food.
But then the weather of the world makes war on winter,
Cold cringes downward, clouds lift,
The shining rain comes down in warm showers,
Falls on the fair meadow, flowers appear there,
Both the open land and the groves are in green garments …
Then comes the season of summer with the soft winds,
When Zephyrus breathes gently on the seeds and grasses.
Happy is the green leaf that grows out of that time
When the wet of the dew drips from the leaves
Before the blissful radiance of the bright sun.
But then comes harvest time to hearten them,
Warning them to ripen well before winter.
It brings drought until the dust rises,
Flying up high off the face of the field,
A fierce wind wrestles with the sun in the heavens,
The leaves fly from the lime tree and light on the ground,
And the grass is all withered that before was green.
Then all that was growing at first ripens and decays,
And thus in many yesterdays the year passes
And winter comes back again as the world would have it,
in the way of things,
Until the Michaelmas moon
When first the days feel wintry
And Gawain is reminded then
Of his dread journey.(Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, trans. W.S. Merwin [Knopf, 2002], Part 2)
I’m liking this translation so far; I think it’ll be my weekend reading. If you want to see the original Middle English, UVa has the text edited by J.R.R. Tolkien.
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