In "Gawain and the Green Knight," Arthur's friend displays great courage, courtesy, tact, and chastity under severe temptations, while, if he falls for a moment short of heroic virtue, he redeems his character by frank confession. The story is too good to be spoiled by a brief summary: grotesque as is the figure of the gigantic Green Knight, who suffers no inconvenience from the loss of his head, the trials of Gawain are most ingeniously invented, and he overcomes them like the Flower of Chivalry. He is rewarded by the magical "green lace" which may, it has been suggested, symbolize the Order of the Garter (about 1345), though the ribbon of the Garter is now dark blue. Pearl. In the manuscript volume containing "Gawain and the Green Knight," is the singular poem, "Pearl," which has been described as the "In Memoriam" of the fourteenth century. It is, indeed, an elegy by one who has lost a "Pearl," probably a Margaret, who dies before she is two years old. The poet bewails his loss, and speaks, in a vision, with his Pearl, concerning religion and the future life. The poem (edited, paraphrased, and annotated by Mr. Gollancz) was praised by Tennyson as "True pearl of our poetic prime". "Pearl" is written in stanzas of twelve lines, with some resemblance to the form of the Italian sonnet (in fourteen lines), with which the author may have been familiar. The system of rhyming may be roughly illustrated thus, Pearl that for princes' pleasure may Be cleanly closed in gold so clear, Out of the Orient dare I say, Never I proved her precious peer; So round, so rich, and in such array, So small, so smooth the sides of her were, Whenever I judged of jewels gay Shapeliest still was the sight of her. Alas, in an arbour I lost her here, Through grass to ground she passed, I wot, I dwine, forsaken of sweet love's cheer, Of my privy Pearl without a spot. The same rhymes persevere through the first eight lines, as in a sonnet, the rhyme of the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth lines continues in the ninth and eleventh; a new rhyme appears in the tenth and twelfth lines: and throughout there is much alliteration. In stanzas 1 to 5, "pearl withouten spot" comes always as a "refrain" at the close, and other refrains end each set of five or six stanzas, as in the old French _ballade._ The form is thus difficult and highly artificial, the making of the poem was, as Tennyson says, "the dull mechanic exercise" to deaden the pain of the singer.