Sir Gawain & the Green Knight (first and second stanzas)

Modern English prose translation

When the siege and the assault were ended at Troy,

The city battered and burnt to brands and ashes,

The man that the plots of treason there wrought

Was tried for his treachery, the veriest on earth.

It was Aeneas the prince and his noble kin                     5

Who then subdued provinces, and lords became

Of well nigh all the wealth in the western isles.

Afterwards noble Romulus hastened to Rome,

With great pride that city he founds first,

And names it with his own name, as it now has;               10

Tirius to Tuscany goes and establishes houses,

Langaberde in Lombardy sets up homes,

And far over the French flood Felix Brutus

On many banks full broad Britain he settles

                  with joy;                                            15

          Where war and distress and wonder

          By turns has dwelt therein,

          And often both bliss and blunder

          Full rapidly has shifted since.

And when this Britain had been founded by this noble lord, 20

Bold men were bred therein, who loved warfare,

In many a past time trouble that wrought.

More wonders in this land have occurred here often

Than in any other that I know, since that same time.

But of all who here dwelt, of Britain’s kings,                  25

Ever was Arthur the noblest, as I have heard tell.

Therefore an adventure in the land I mean to show,

That a marvel in sight some men hold it,

And a prodigious adventure of Arthur’s wonders.

If you will listen to this lay but a little while                    30

I shall tell it at once, as I heard it in town,

                  with tongue,

          As it is fixed and set down

          In story bold and strong,

          With loyal letters locked,                                   35

          In land as it has been long.