“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. + 