Beginning of the 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'

Beginning of the ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ in both Audio and text versions.

Middle English

Sişen şe sege and şe assaut watz sesed at troye
Şe bor3 brittened and brent to brondez and askez
Şe tulk şat şe trammes of tresoun şer wro3t
Qatz tried for his tricherie şe trewest on erşe
Hit watz ennias şe athel and his highe kynde
Şat sişen depreced prouinces and patrounes bicome
Welne3e of al şe wele in şe west iles
Fro riche romulus to rome ricchis hym swyşe
With gret bobbaunce şat bur3e he biges vpon fyrst
And neuenes hit his aune nome as hit now hat
Ticius to tuskan and teldes bigynnes
Langaberde in lumbardie lyftes vp homes
And fer ouer şe french flod felix brutus
On mony bonkkes ful brode bretayn he settez
Wyth wynne
Where werre and wrake and wonder
Bi syşez hatz wont şerinne
And oft boşe blysse and blunder
Ful skete hatz skyfted synne

Modern English

The siege and assault having ceased at Troy
as its blazing battlements blackened to ash,
the man who had planned and plotted that treason
had trial enough for the truest traitor!
Then Aeneas the prince and his honored line
plundered provinces and held in their power
nearly all the wealth of the western isles.
Thus Romulus swiftly arriving at Rome
sets up that city and in swelling pride
gives it his name, the name it now bears;
and in Tuscany Tirius raises up towns,
and in Lombardy Langoberde settles the land,
and far past the French coast Felix Brutus
founds Britain on broad hills, and so bright hopes
begin,
where wonders, wars, misfortune
and troubled times have been,
where bliss and blind confusion
have come and gone again.

Beginning of the “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” (late 14th Century) (61 sec) (from Norton Anthology of English Literature).