LXXXIV
“For I have been your squire and escorted you hither, And ye’re now not far from the noted place That ye have spirr’d and spied so specially after; But I shall say you for sooth, seeing that I know you And ye are a lord in land that I love full well, Would ye work by my wit, your way were the better. The place that ye press to, full perilous is holden; Wones a wight in that waste, the worst upon earth, For he strong is and stern, and to strike he loves, And he is mightier than men on middle-earth living, And bigger in body than the bést fòur That are in Arthur’s house, Hector or other. And this chance he achieves at the Green Chapel, None passes that place so proud in his arms But he dings him to death by dint of his hand; ’Tis a man without measure, no mercy he uses, Be it churl or chaplain by the chapel that rides, Monk or mass-priest or any man else, He’d as lief him kill as alive be himself. So I say you as surely as in saddle ye sit, “Hither come and ye’re kill’d,” if the knight have his will, Trust ye my troth, though lives ye had twenty to spend. He has wonèd here full yore, Made sorrow without end, Against his onset sore Ye may not you defend.