The Poems Of The Pearl Manuscript In Modern English Prose Translation: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain And The Green Knight

The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript in modern English prose translation For students of Middle English, Andrew and Waldron’s The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript has been the standard edition of the four Pearl poems for over thirty years. With the changing needs of today’s students in mind, the editors produced a complete prose translation of the four poems – the best-known of which is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The near-literal prose translations are intended to facilitate understanding of the four poems – to lead readers to, rather than away from, the original texts. The translations are based faithfully on Andrew and Waldron’s fifth edition of The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript. This paperback edition is new to the Exeter Medieval Texts and Studies series. Malcolm Andrew was previously Professor of English Language and Literature at Queen’s University Belfast. Ronald Waldron was previously a lecturer and Emeritus Reader in English Language and Medieval Literature at King’s College, University of London EXETER MEDIEVAL TEXTS AND STUDIES Series Editors: Vincent Gillespie and Richard Dance Founded by M.J. Swanton and later co-edited by Marion Glasscoe The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript in modern English prose translation Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS First published in 2007 in CD-ROM format as part of The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript fifth edition. This edition published 2013 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2013 Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron The rights of Malcolm Andrew and Ronald Waldron to be identified as the authors of this book has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available ISBN 978-1-84631-949-5 Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY Contents Preface vii Introduction ix Translations: Pearl Cleanness 29 Patience 71 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 85 1 Preface Our intention in this volume has been to provide close, accurate prose translations of Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – four superb, but linguistically difficult, medieval English poems. The translations are based on our edition, The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, fifth edition with translation on CD-ROM, 2007). We are acutely aware that the experience of reading a translation is a poor and feeble substitute for that of reading an original text. These translations a