At the end of Gawain and the Green Knight, Gawain seems to be the only one making a fuss over his wound. Granted, this is a translation, but the author and translator must have been sensitive to the original language and patterns, so it seems safe that Marie Borroff has been faithful to the intent of the text. The language leading into the passage where he discusses this, as well as the discussion itself, bears a beautiful and rhythmic pattern which heightens the important of the moment. First the narrator begins the speech, with the lines:
The nick on his neck, he naked displayed/
That he got in his disgrace at the Green Knight’s hands, alone. /
With rage in his heart he speaks, /
And grieves with many a groan; /
The blood burns in his cheeks/
For shame at what must be shown. / (Ln. 2499-2504).
The alliteration of “nick,” “neck” and “naked” draws emphasis to the words, and in this particular order, instead of describing a nick on his naked neck, suggests something different, that the nick on his neck is a sign of weakness, making him appear naked and vulnerable (Ln. 2499). The lines have him displaying the wound to the others, but the implication is that the wound would be impossible not to notice due to what it represents to Gawain. The representation is made clearer with the assonance that occurs between the long “a” sounds in the words “displayed” and “disgrace,” equating the one with the other (Ln. 2499-2500). This assonance continues though the next lines to include the words “rage” and “shame,” so that we now are certain of Gawain’s restrained feelings, that he displays his disgrace with rage and shame (Ln. 2501, 2504).
There is more assonance that leads us through these lines of text, namely the links between the words “speaks,” “grieves,” and “cheeks,” so that it is clear that as Gawain chooses to discuss his feelings, he is mourning what he believes he has lost, and by the connection to his cheeks, we are left to imagine him blushing with humiliation and fury (Ln. 2501-2503). The words “speaks” and “cheeks” are at the end of their lines, structuring the four-line rhyming pattern of this smaller, off-set stanza. These words progress from his actions to his reactions, from his choosing to speak and publicly grieve and then the repercussions which affect him. The next pattern goes in the same way, with the assonance between “groan” and “shown,” words which are also at the end of their lines adding to the rhyming pattern, with Gawain’s actions of groaning and sharing his distress to the result that doing so shows his feelings to all (Ln. 2502,2504).
Then Gawain speaks, and the patterns continue to evolve, revealing more and more. Gawain says:
This is the blazon of the blemish that I bear on my neck; /
This is the sign of sore loss that I have suffered there /
For the cowardice and coveting that I came to there; /
This is the badge of false faith that I was found in there, /
And I must bear it on my body till I breathe my last. /
For one may keep a deed dark, but undo it no whit, /
For where a fault is made fast, it is fixed evermore. (Ln. 2506-2512).
Gawain began by calling his wound a nick, minimizing its size and its physical effect upon his body, yet now it becomes a symbol for something greater. He tells one and all that it is a “blazon,” “blemish,” sign,” and a “badge,” all words that are used less with wounds of honorable battle and more with ostentatious proclamations, flaws and imperfections, something that represents something else, and emblems (Ln. 2506-2507, 2509). This nick is much more than a scar to Gawain, it is no longer external, it has become a part of his identity, and who he has become as a result of his actions. Each line has its alliteration, so that the first of these lines is linked by “b” sounds, then “s,” “c,” “f,” “b,” “d,” and then “f.” This connects these words internally, so that the long string of these words together, blazon, blemish, bear, sign, sore, suffer, cowardice, coveting, false, faith, found, bear, body, breathe, deed, dark, fault, fast, fixed, summarize Gawain’s point effectively, listing causes, actions, choices, and results.
The poet is not done with creating intricacy, however, as seen in the three lines that all end with the word “there.” This is not done to accomplish any rhyming pattern, and it does not indicate a distinct metric pattern any more than we have seen throughout the text as a whole, but the repetition of there, there, there, has significance. The “theres” are all directed at the same place, the Green Chapel, the place where the battle occurred and where Gawain lost an essential part of himself. Gawain uses it to mean the place, but it also means the point at which he found himself in that location, as well as an interjection used to express strong feelings. While the text only uses it as a locator, the rest of these meanings are implied with the repetition. Gawain has found distance from there, but those moments remain a distinct and troubling memory. Finally, there is another internal structure which again tells the story in a more succinct manner, a series of two monosyllabic words found in the center of some lines which rhythmically force themselves to be accented and emphasized. These are “sore loss,” “false faith,” “deed dark,” and “made fast,” which serve to, much as the alliteration did before, to stress the important parts of Gawain’s speech, the lessons he has learned that his audience is meant to understand (Ln. 2507, 2509, 2511-2512).
Even though both Gawain and the poet take their time and use the language to make their points as clear as possible, to heighten and illustrate the significance of this life-altering encounter, the audience does not seem to notice. Reading closely, we learn that Gawain, a knight of a certain reputation and fame, is no longer the Gawain with whom we are familiar. He is changed permanently. To mark this change, however, instead of honoring the wound and its symbolic meaning, they honor the thing which made the wound, the change, possible. Without the girdle, Gawain would have died, and not learned anything or have been able to express and live out the new him, so the court takes to wearing green sashes. Does this appropriately honor Gawain’s transformation or does it make a mockery of the moment where he made what he seems to think was a decision based on “false faith?” We know exactly what Gawain is saying, but what is the court saying by their actions?
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