Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Translated by Bernard O'Donoghue
Written 14th c.

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The Well-Educated Mind (poetry)

My first time reading this was with my kids for our Medieval school year, and it was long enough ago that I did not remember the ending. This time I read it for my WEM challenge. I am simply fond of this romantic English poem for its themes, and the verse is charming as well. The author is unknown, but I found the translation agreeable. 

The setting is during the time of King Arthur's court at Christmastime.  After the narrator recapped Britain's founding and the purpose of the writer: "to describe an adventure," a monstrous green sight appeared before the court. Everything about him was green and he requested the most noblest knight to enter a challenge: to strike him and in a year receive the same in return. King Arthur believed it a foolish request, but he honored it, and Gawain stepped forward. 

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Sir Gawain severed the head of the Green Knight with his blade; and the Knight picked up his head and carried it off, with no more instruction other than for Sir Gawain to "seek out the Green Chapel" on New Year's morning "to be promptly repaid."

A year proceeded and the narrator described the honorable character of Sir Gawain. On his shield was displayed a pentangle with five points because "Gawain was reputed in five ways faithful, and five times over; refined as pure gold, devoid of all sin and marked with virtue where he went."

The fifth five virtues that Gawain maintained were generosity and sympathy first of all, chastity and courtesy which he never failed in, and above all compassion. These five things were fixed more firmly in him than anyone else. And all five were rooted in this knight, each locked to the next so that there was no end or beginning to any: fixed and unwavering...

On his journey to find the Green Knight at the Green Chapel, he met many trials of bears and bulls, trolls and giants, and he defeated them all. Yet, icy weather was his greatest foe. He prayed for mercy and wept for his sins and soon came to an inviting castle and was gratefully admitted inside where he was kindly treated. Sir Gawain explained the reason for his travels, and when it was determined that he was very near the Green Chapel, the King requested Gawain stay with them until New Years. It was Christmastime again, and he had a week to spare. 

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Sir Gawain spent his week resting, and three consecutive days the Lord's lady sought to tempt Gawain while her husband was out hunting. Each time he resisted her, to some degree. On the third day she offered him a gift of her belt. She told him it would offer him protection, and Gawain wore it around his waist.

Finally, the day arrived when Gawain must face his foe. The Lord tried to talk him out of it, but Gawain explained that he was not a cowardly knight. At the Green Chapel, he met the Green Knight. At first blow, the Knight struck Gawain, who flinched. He reminded the Green Knight that if he lost his head, he could not recover it, but would be dead. The Green Knight made a second attempt, but before making contact, he stopped short before striking him. After another exchange of words, Gawain told the Knight to just do it. The Green Knight struck again and this time nicked Gawain's neck slightly.

Surprisingly, the Green Knight revealed that he was the Lord of the castle and the challenge was a test in courage and chastity, in which Gawain had faltered somewhat when he agreed to take belt from the Lord's wife, imagining it would have spared him harm. For that he genuinely confessed his shame and continued to wear the belt as a reminder of his human weakness. 

Other themes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in which Sir Gawain faced were charity, faithfulness, trustworthiness, perseverance, and repentance. Especially when Gawain admitted his fault for keeping the belt, when he should have resisted, his repentance set him free and demonstrated maturity.

Lastly, the poem focuses also on themes in nature, such as renewal and rebirth or regrowth, like the Green Knight's head! This was a favorite section. I titled it a chapter on "climate change." It really was not an entire chapter -- just a couple of pages -- and it reminds me that purposefully there are seasons that follow each other, year after year after year. Always have and always will.

...a year passes quickly and changes its moods; the end rarely matches the spirit it starts in.  ...each season follows the other in sequence.

Then the earth's weather weakens the winter: the cold shrinks underground, the clouds draw up higher. The bright rain falls in warming showers, straight on to the ground so that flowers appear. Both meadows and fields are covered in green; birds hurry to build and sing with excitement out of joy at the summer that follows so sweetly all over the hills. Blossoms swell and bloom in dense...

After the soft breeze of summer season and the west wind that fans seed and grasses, the growth is abundant that issues all round, when the soaking dew drops off the leaves with the touch of heaven that the warm sun brings. But then comes autumn to harden the grain, to warn it to ripen ahead of the winter. 

The rough wind in the sky wrestles with the sun; the lime-tree leaves loosen and fall to the ground, and the grass turns grey that sprang in such hope. All ripens, then rots, that sprang in such hope. So the year passes on through its series of yesterdays and winter comes round again, as nature demands, ever the same. 

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