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Gawain’s Prayer in the Wilderness

…the wildrenesse of Wyrale; wonde ther bot lyte
That auther God other gome with gode hert louied.

(…the wilderness of Wirral; few wandered there
Who loved with good heart either God or man.)

—Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 701-702

Here, where the Wirral watches like a wolf
Each man or beast that comes within his reach,
I wait and pray, all weary and war-worn.
I feel the night hang, heavy as drawbridge chains.
The dawn drifts open, like a dreamer’s eye,
And all the woe and waste of this wild wood
Move to new malice against man and his Maker.
Blest Virgin, sustain me in this mischanced earth!

Through the demon-haunted Wirral’s waste
Enchantment draws me to an unknown end;
I ride the way that wyrd would have me wend:
A faery faring to a plighted axe
That keeps my coming as the carrion-crow
Waits for the fall of the wounded doe,
Then wheels and drops, descending to the prey.
Christ’s Rood, redeem this ruthless pledge of mine!

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Poet’s Note: This poem was written as an exercise in alliteration, which appears in nearly all the lines. I did this because the brilliant Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight makes extensive use of alliteration, having been composed during the Alliterative Revival of late 14th century northern England. The original dialect of the poem is that of Lancashire or Cheshire. The Wirral is the name of what was a wild and heavily forested area in those parts. Wyrd is a Middle English word for fate or the supernatural, and is where the modern word weird originates.

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Joseph S. Salemi has published five books of poetry, and his poems, translations and scholarly articles have appeared in over one hundred publications world-wide.  He is the editor of the literary magazine TRINACRIA and writes for Expansive Poetry On-line. He teaches in the Department of Humanities at New York University and in the Department of Classical Languages at Hunter College.

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22 Responses

  1. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Your alliteration is indeed exquisite and enhanced with Middle English style writing and dancing meter. I always read the end words of an entire poem first and found two pair that rhymed in the second verse. In my mind that saved it from being blank verse on which I rarely comment. Thank you for the Poet Note on the Knights and the terms “Wirral” and “Wyrd.” That added much to my understanding. There is no doubt of your superior knowledge and use. of the English language

    Reply
  2. The Society

    Thank you for this piece, Joe! Poets writing today in the formal tradition often forget that English poetry, going back to Beowulf (which dates to as early as the 7th century AD), was originally alliterative, not rhyming. Other Latin-based languages naturally have an easier time rhyming, which makes alliteration a more pliable option for English poets trying to tell a good story. The SCP’s tagline highlights rhyming which has the unintended side effect of putting her beautiful cousin alliteration in the shadows.

    For poets thinking of using alliteration, something worth noting is that you can use the first letter or the first accented letter. For instance, in line 15 above “drops, descending” the d sound is repeated, but you could also use the s sound from deSCENDing. And of course it is the sound that matters, so “the King is careful” is alliterative.

    -Evan Mantyk

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Many thanks, Evan, and I’m very glad you liked the poem. It was done many years ago.

      Before the coming of rhyme into English verse, alliteration was not just a decorative option but also a way to organize the poetic line, which had a strong caesura. Alliteration on both sides of that caesura provided balance.

      Reply
      • Julian D. Woodruff

        An exemplary way to engage with old practices, Joseph, and a pleasure to read.
        I’m wondering: was it Dante’s influence that turned English poetry more toward rhyme? And did poetry in other European languages–the Germanic languages, for instance–follow a similar course?

      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Dear Julian, many thanks for your comment. To answer your question, the coming of rhyme to English poetry was most likely due to the collapse of the intricate inflectional system of Anglo-Saxon. The many inflectional endings that were possible in an Anglo-Saxon noun made alliteration very natural and easy. When the inflections died out and were replaced by prepositions in Middle English, a different way had to be found to give a recognizable structure to the poetic line. The new way was rhyme, which was borrowed from Latin-derived continental poetry like French and Italian, where rhyme had always been easy.

        Other Germanic languages followed suit to some degree, but I think that in their case it came a bit later.

        By the way, not all writers in the 14th century were in favor of the Alliterative Revival. Chaucer made fun of it, calling it the “rum, ram, ruff” method. Rhyme was the newer and more fashionable style.

        I can’t say if Dante was widely known in England back then, but French and Anglo-Norman poetry was certainly familiar to educated persons like the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

  3. Norma Pain

    I enjoyed this poem very much Joseph. Lots to think about and learn from your clever use of alliteration.

    Reply
  4. C.B. Anderson

    I find no fault in phrases from the foregoing,
    Nor wonder wither hither worthy writing went.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      What, without asking, hither hurried whence?
      And, without asking, whither hurried hence?
      Another and another cup to drown
      The memory of this impertinence!

      Reply
  5. Jeff Eardley

    Joseph, we are lucky to live a stone’s throw from Lud’s Church, the suggested site of the Green Chapel. This heavily mossed fissure in the gritstone upland is a wildly mysterious place. I often sense the ghosts of the Lollards who worshipped there. On our next visit, I will be reading your poem to my friends, if that’s ok. A splendid piece of writing. Thank you.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      I’m honored that you would like to share it with friends. I taught Sir Gawain and the Green Knight for many years, and it was invariably liked by the students. Exciting, magical, scary, comical, and very sexy! Students were always on the edge of their seats as they wondered how Gawain was going to react to the lady’s advances.

      Reply
  6. Margaret Coats

    Good creation of an uneasy prayer reflecting Gawain’s situation of unknown peril. The wilderness appears in all its eerie weirdness. Multiple meanings appear in the word “ruthless.” Gawain’s pledge feels regrettable at this point, however bold it might have been when someone needed to answer the Green Knight’s challenge with pitiless ruthlessness like that of the word’s common meaning at present.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Thank you, Margaret. I always think of the Gawain tale as a combination of several things: martial courage, chivalric duty, punctilious courtesy to all (but to women especially), a profound sense of honor to one’s pledged word, sexual temptation, and deep religious faith. The poet’s triumph is putting all of this together to create a seemingly insoluble problem that must lead to decapitation, and then solving that problem in a totally unexpected manner.

      Whether one calls it a pledge or an oath or a vow or a promise, the medieval belief that it must be fulfilled “ruthlessly” (literally, without pity) is at the core of this masterpiece of literary creation.

      Reply
  7. Brian A. Yapko

    Joe, while you might consider this “an exercise” but I would characterize it more as amazing poetry written in a deliberately 14th Century style. I don’t want to call it a mere pastiche because it’s too beautiful and heartfelt. But it certainly transports us back into time in a way that bears so much verisimilitude that it’s almost frightening. What is interesting here from that “period” standpoint is that when Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was written (an anonymous contemporary of Chaucer, if I’m correct) this was itself written many centuries after the events depicted. It began life as a period piece. That seems to be the way of all Arthurian stories – they never truly hearken back to post-Roman Britain. Rather, they inhabit a mythical, legendary place which is timeless in the way it speaks to the people of each century. This is, I believe, as true of Sir Gawain in the 1300s as it is of T.H. White in the 1950s and everything in between. This romantic view of Camelot seems to be far more informed by Medieval Romanticism than the actual history. In some ways, it seems to have developed a place in fantasy literature with conventions, subjection matter and attitudes which inform the best fantasy stories of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. What do Middle Earth and Narnia owe to Camelot?

    As for the specifics of your poem, your use of alliteration is not only beautiful but exciting. There’s nothing about it that feels forced or shoehorned in. You bring the reader confidently into a world which you seem to know intimately. There are subtleties here that bear mentioning. Your language is, indeed, highly alliterative but you are also very careful in archaic word-choice and even overall tone. It’s not so much that you completely eschew Latinate words, but you use them extremely sparingly so that the overall impression is one of Anglo-Saxon derived vocabulary. That is perfect for this piece which historically falls well after the Norman Conquest but where poetry on an archaic theme might well hearken back to pre-Conquest language. This feels deeply informed by Middle English. You make mention of “wheels and drops.” My memory is shaky. Isn’t that a metrical technique of poetry from the period?

    But for me one other choice you make is particularly memorable: In a poem so rich in alliteration, you could so easily have said “Christ’s Cross” and added another example. Instead, you chose “Rood” which is right for the poem and the speaker here. You chose the right vocabulary rather than an easy alliteration. And, in so doing, you also subtly remind us of “The Dream of the Rood.” There is nothing showy though about your application of scholarly knowledge of the period. It simply is. It’s as if you had written this in another century.

    And, unexpectedly, in a poem which is so rife with alliteration and period features, I find it deeply moving. You have truly found the voice of a knight of exceptional chivalry and bravery moving forward towards his doom. I think this poem is just about perfect. An emotional response may not be what you intended, but I love it.

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Brian, thanks for this detailed response and appreciation. The scholarly consensus is that the Arthurian legends (what were sometimes called “The Matter of Britain”) are Celtic in origin. Whether there was a Romano-Celtic ruler named “Arcturius” whose acts provide a real historical basis for the tales can’t be proved now, but it is possible, just as some persons locate “Camelot” in the western part of England.

      What is certain is that after the Roman withdrawal of their legions from Britain in the fifth century, the subsequent invasion of the island by Germanic tribes led to protracted warfare between the mixed Romano-Celtic population and these Anglo-Saxon newcomers. Eventually the Celtic speakers were driven westward into Wales, Cornwall, Devon, and across the channel to Brittany.

      So yes — there is some historical basis for the Arthurian legends, but mostly they were transfigured into idealized tales of chivalry, knighthood, religious devotion, courtesy, martial courage, magic, and mystery. And above all, hanging like a cloud over a brilliant world of love and intricacy and adventure, is the terrible failure of one’s pledged word and honor and loyalty that is seen in the adulterous love of Queen Guinevere and Sir Lancelot. This breaking of faith is the blight that causes the fall of Camelot, and the death of Arthur. The wicked Sir Mordred ignites it, but the sinful relationship of Guinevere and Lancelot make his evil actions possible, just Mordred’s existence itself is the result of a sin (Mordred is Arthur’s illegitimate son with the temptress and witch Morgan Le Fay). Sin brings about the universal catastrophe.

      I did try to make the poem as “medieval” as I could, and you are quite correct about “Rood” — it was a deliberate choice because I was studying “The Dream of the Rood” at that time, along with the Gawain romance. As for “wheels and drops,” you are probably thinking of the metrical device called the “wheel and bob,” a small half-line attached at the end of a long stanza and then repeated in somewhat varied wording in all subsequent stanzas. This device is used in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

      Thanks again for such a kind appreciation of my work.

      Reply
  8. Daniel Kemper

    What a tasty, tasty poem! And posh on pastiche! Employing forms and techniques is different from mere imitation, as this extension of a traditional tale shows. Stories are not born so perfectly formed out of the forehead as might be supposed, but develop over time, a conversation across the generations. And conversations happen because we work in the traditions that leave us in a position to be comprehensible to each other.

    I loved the selection of topic and selection of method. The topic so fits our times — who among us hasn’t said a similar prayer in the dark wood of modernism and redefined terms? (E.g. such that verse which is free of all verse is considered a form of verse.) The prayer to The Virgin could almost be a prayer to the muse.

    Alliteration is a great structural technique. The formalists I’ve read seem to have all dabbled in it at some point, at least acknowledging its validity even if this were not the specific direction in which they were called to develop their craft.

    One fascinating thing to ponder is how our grammar, punctuation and spelling standards have grown since that time and out of that time, the irony being that the better the standard, the more clearly the meaning of a piece can be apprehended and the more fully the experience can be felt. And the more tools that the masters had for deliberate variation, only one example of which is iconic theory.

    As Gawain gathers himself, having come thus far on his journey, and seeing the distance yet to go, this poem not only shows the space created in his heart and mind for the journey, but it creates that space in the reader’s mind, I think.

    I love Evan’s comment, too. It points us to the idea that the tradition(s) wasn’t (weren’t) born all at once, either. That the keystone of tradition is development. It’s almost a meta-thing — the tradition is the development of tradition. (NOT, btw, the general environment that has spewed everywhere since modernism and been counterfeitly called development in some circles.)

    Joe, another thing I’d point out, is that generally people who have facility with verse do not typically have that same level with essay/critical papers. To my eye at least. Most gifted poets write questionable academic papers and most academicians generally just can’t write good poetry. You can do both very fluidly; you are in rare air.

    Reply
  9. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Joe, this is a beautiful poem that, for me, is a masterclass in alliteration. Every alliterative line runs smoothly and melodiously, serving only to enhance the points the poem makes. As you have probably noted, I am a huge fan of this poetic device. When its employed correctly, it elevates language to a heavenly level that sings of exactly why the art of fine poetry will never fade into oblivion. Thank you!

    Reply
    • Joseph S. Salemi

      Your kind words are deeply appreciated, Susan. One thing about alliteration — I have noticed that younger untrained poets who have never even heard of it, nevertheless naturally (and probably unconsciously) use it!

      This means that it is more than just a device. It’s also part of the DNA of English poetry. When I wrote my first poem at the age of eight, I knew nothing about meter, but I wrote it in a four-stress line with a strong caesura. Exactly what an Anglo-Saxon poet would have done back in King Alfred’s day. Some things are simply hard-wired in us.

      Reply
  10. ABB

    Love this. After six hundred years, it is high time for another revival of alliterative verse. I read a recentish review that Glynn Young did about a narrative poem called ‘Seren of the Wildwood’ where the author employs the bob and wheel. Old techniques making a bit of a comeback, though the mainstream Po Biz takes no notice.

    Reply
  11. Joseph S. Salemi

    Many thanks, ABB.

    Sometimes things last a lot longer than we would imagine. Years ago I read an essay by a Cheshire poet in the U.K., who said that when he was at university he studied Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and brought home his edition of the poem to read aloud to his father back in Cheshire.

    The man understood ninety percent of the poem perfectly, laughed at its wordplay, and had no trouble with most of the vocabulary and no trouble at all with the pronunciation of the vowels. And this working-class man had never heard of the medieval romance of Sir Gawain.

    Reply

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