"And commend me to that gracious one, your lovely wife,
Both the one and the other of those honorable ladies
Who have so cleverly deluded their knight with their game.
But it is no wonder if a fool acts insanely
And is brought to grief through womanly wiles;
For so was Adam beguiled by one, here on earth,
Solomon by several women, and Samson was another—
Delilah was cause of his fate—and afterwards David
Was deluded by Bathsheba, and suffered much grief.
Since these were ruined by their wiles, it would be a great gain
To love women and not trust them, if a man knew how." (2411-2421)

Gawain has just found out that he's been tricked by Bertilak and his wife. These two were behind the beheading game all along. Lady Bertilak intentionally tempted Gawain with the magical green girdle.

Although the above passage occurs before Bertilak reveals who the real baddie is in the plot—Morgan le Fay, FYI—Gawain seems to have an inkling of this truth. Notice how he sarcastically asks Bertilak to give his regards to his wife, and "the other [...] / Who have so cleverly deluded their knight with their game"? It's almost like he already knows that Fairy Lady was behind all these nasty games.

And the audience definitely did. Know, that is. You can almost hear the epic wah, wah, wah music of failure as it's revealed that the wicked witch is the one who orchestrated all of Gawain's suffering.

Since Morgan le Fay was well established as an Arthurian villain, the audience most likely knew where this story was going all along. But that didn't make it any less enjoyable. Quite to the contrary, actually. How many times have you watched your favorite movie?

We thought so. The Arthurian tradition is like a fine wine; it only gets better with age.

Quick, Gawain: Call the Wahmbulance

With good reason, this passage has been referred to by scholars as "Gawain's Antifeminist Rant." And rant, he does. Why do you think he takes the time to trot out this laundry list of Biblical men who were tricked by women?

He's got all the star players here: Adam (duh); Solomon, whose many wives tried to sway him into worshiping their gods; Samson, recipient of one of the more famous haircuts in all of history; and David, who was supposedly tempted by Bathsheba when he saw her bathing naked… Yes, courtships typically work best that way.

Ugh.

All these great men from the Bible share one thing: they were supposedly taken down by devious women. In the antifeminist tradition, there really aren't any other kind, are there? So, when faced with his own shortcomings (not living up to those five chivalric ideals), Gawain takes the ever-popular fallback position—he blames women and their wily ways.

This is a rather whiny move, to be honest. But prototypical of the era. "Oh, woe is me. It's all the evil women's fault. They can't be trusted."

Yawn.

It's All About Symmetry

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an elegantly-structured piece of poetry, and we see an example of that in this passage. Do you doubt our analytical skills, Shmoopers? Hey, don't you think it's a bit bizarre that Gawain seems to have some insight regarding Morgan le Fay's role in the cunning plot?

Here, he mentions "the other" of "those honorable ladies"… even though Bertilak has only told him that he and his wife are involved. So, check it: the elegance here is derived from the poem's symmetry. And this poem is all about symmetry.
We get a big clue in this quote that something big is about to be revealed. Earlier in the poem, when Gawain first meets Lady Bertilak, she shows up supporting the ugly old crone who appears to be a well-respected lady at court. That old crone now makes another appearance, but in this case, she's lexically linked to Lady Bertilak: "the one and the other."

This syntactic construction closely parallels the language used when Morgan first shows up in the story. So this is a nice little verbal echo right before the bombshell is dropped: that crone is really Morgan le Fay… dun dun dun… Gawain's aunt and arch-nemesis of the Round Table.

You see? All of Gawain's knowing-before-he-can-know is carefully crafted by the Gawain Poet to point to the hand of fate in this tale. And to show us that in each little moment, there is meaning. That old crone you weren't really paying attention to before? She was actually one of the most important characters in the story.

What now, Shmoopers? (Sorry, we get a little pugnacious when excited.)