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Qitian — Gift Exchange
Published: 2007-12-24 12:53:40 +0000 UTC; Views: 2957; Favourites: 16; Downloads: 16
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Okay, okay, up front: I apologise for the lousy quality of this one. I drew this picture for Christmas cards and meant to post it here for Christmas, too. And then I forgot to take the scan along when I left for Japan. So what you have here is a photograph of the print-out of the scan, and the quality is accordingly. I shall upload a higher-quality scan when I'm back home, but that'll be around easter and this is a Christmas poem, so this will have to do as a wild card until then...Enough meta; towards the contents. For those who do not know the story of the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (go and read it! seriously! in an edition that has the original Middle English too, preferably!), a fun piece of alliterative poetry full of kisses, shapeshifters, beheadings and other Christmas jollities, this is a scene from said poem. To make it quick: Sir Gawain (that's the guy in red) is a guest at Sir Bertilak's (that's the guy with the beard) castle. Because Bertilak is a jolly old guy who likes jests and games (which should make one stop and think if one knows the rest of the poem), he suggested that he'll go out and hunt every day, and at the end of the day he'll give Gawain everything he's won. Meanwhile Gawain gets to relax in the castle and at the end of the day he'll give Bertilak whatever he's won. Now while Bertilak was out all day hunting stags, his pretty wife (that's the lady in yellow) went to Gawain's room and tried to talk him into doing naughty things, but all that came out of it was a kiss. So by the end of the first day Gawain gets a lot of dead stag while he has to surrender the kiss to Bertilak. So no, I'm not slashing anyone (in this particular picture anyway
), this is really in the text.Speaking of which, here's the portion of the poem I tried to calligraph on the top left and bottom right side, for the curious:
And al godly in gomen Gawayn he called,
Techez hym to þe tayles of ful tayt bestes,
Schewez hym þe schyree grece schorne vpon rybbes:
"How payez yow þis play? haf I prys wonnen?
Haue I þryuandely þonk þurӡ my craft serued?"
"Ӡe iwysse," quoþ þat oþer wyӡe, "here is wayth fayrest
þat I sey þis seuen ӡere in sesoun of wynter."
"And al I gif yow, Gawayn," quoþ þe gome þenne,
"for by acorde of couenaunt ӡe craue hit as your awen."
"Þis is soth," quoþ þe segge, "I say yow þat ilke:
Þat I haf worthyly wonnen þis wythinne
Iwysse with as god wylle hit worþez to ӡourez."
He hasppez his fayre hals his armez wythinne
And kysses hym as comlyly as he couþe awyse:
"Tas yow þere my cheuicaunce; I cheued no more
I wowche hit saf fynly þaӡ feler hit were."
"Hit is god," quoþ þe godmon, "grant mercy þerfore.
Hit may be such hit is þe better, and ӡe me breue wolde
Where ӡe wan þis ilk wele bi wytte of yorseluen."
"Þat watz not forward," quoþ he, "frayst me no more,
For ӡe haf tan þat yow tydez; trawe ӡe non oþer
Ӡe mowe."
Þay laӡed and made hem blyþe
Wyth lotez þat were to lowe.
To soper þay ӡede asswyþe
Wyth dayntes nwe innowe.
(Lines 1376 - 1401, from Malcolm Andrew's and Ronald Waldron's edition)
So. Um. Merry Christmas?
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Comments: 15
*roll* Great story, good illustration! Now I must add this tale to my repertoire. What a shame Candlemas is come and gone!
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Well, it'll roll by again in a year
Thank you! (For the fave, too!) ^_^
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Who's the (I'm assuming?) lady in green by the woman in yellow? I wish I could read it in Middel English, though I could pick out a few things.
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That's Morgan le Fay, the evil fairy godmother (so to say). Middle English isn't too bad to understand if you know English, French and German, but this poem is written in a very Northern accent so it's more difficult than some other Middle English stuff...
Thank you, and the same to you!
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You are welcome! Now, what sound does that symbol make, the one English no longer has and it kind of looks like a "P" but the rounded part is at the middle of the stick part. That'sa terrible description. 
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The one that looks like someone sticking their tongue out? It's called thorn and pronounced as the English th. The weird thing that kind of looks like a 3 is a yogh, and can be pronounced like a w, y (consonant) or ch (as in Scottish loch).
I fully intend to learn Greek at some point. Alas, so many plans, so little time
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i was actually reading through it (with that new bit of information about the pronunciation) and it amazes me how very foreign it looks but how familiar it sounds when read out loud!
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The one that looks like someone sticking their tongue out? It's called thorn and pronounced as the English th. The weird thing that kind of looks like a 3 is a yogh, and can be pronounced like a w, y (consonant) or ch (as in Scottish loch).
I fully intend to learn Greek at some point. Alas, so many plans, so little time
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I didn't see yogh on there. (At least I don't think I did) is it the one that appears as a box in the text in the author's comments?
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Yeah, that's probably it. I don't see any boxes there, but if your computer doesn't recognise the yoghs, it probably replaces them with boxes. Woe...
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It is really like a miniature from an old book, and the colors are shining! Sometimes photos look better than scans, because they seem as lighted from within...
And I remember that I have read this story exactly at Christmas time, when I was ten or eleven ( not the poem in Old English, but a retelling by R.L.Green, translated in Russian).
Merry Christmas!
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Thank you very much!
I guess I would be happier with the photograph if it weren't so vaguely distorted. Eh well.
A very merry Christmas to you, too!
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