 Hello fellow followers of Christ and welcome to the show that introduces you to the men and women behind history's greatest works of literature. Come along every week as we explore these renowned authors, the times and genre in which they wrote, why scholars praise their writing and how we as Catholics should read and understand their works. I'm Joseph Pierce and this is The Authority. Hello and welcome to this episode of The Authority where we are going to be looking at another anonymous poet, an author about whom we know very little but who wrote one of the most important poems of the medieval era in English at the Arthurian romance Sir Gawain and The Green Knight. So we'll be looking at this a we don't know much about him except that he was writing in the Mercian or Mercian dialect so that's the West Midlands. His contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer and Chaucer will be the authority that we will be discussing the next episode. So he's a contemporary of Chaucer so living in the late 1300s so the 14th century but whereas Chaucer's based in London and it's associated with the court and diplomacy and should we say the inner corridors of power and therefore the Chaucer is very open to the new ideas in poetry. He's speaking in English which is much more frenchified. We'll talk about the well perhaps we'll do that now that the English language went through a transformation with the Norman conquest in 1066 so we looked at a few episodes back at the Bear Wolf poet and that's Anglo-Saxon England from when the Romans left in the 5th century to the Norman conquest in 1066. Well the Normans were as their name was suggest Norse men so they were Vikings from Scandinavia but they settled in what is now called Normandy in northern France and over a period of generations no longer spoke Old Norse and spoke French so by the time that the Normans invaded England in 1066 they were French speaking so what happened after that is that the language of court the language of nobility the language of the aristocracy because the Norman aristocrats replaced the Anglo-Saxon aristocrats for the most part so that the the language of the higher echelons of society became French and it was only if you like the lower echelons of society the peasants and the common folk who still spoke English that you know the Anglo-Saxon old English and it would actually be around the time of the Sagraine poet and Chaucer late 1300s before an official opening of Parliament was done in English not in French so for that there was 300 years of this if you like two-tier language system Chaucer is Anglo-Saxon by descent not French but he speaks a version of English where these two languages are now melding so Chaucerian English is this melding of the Latin and French and the Germanic English halves of the language coming together and that's why Chaucer is called the founder of English poetry and even sometimes the founder of the English language the father of the English language of the father of English poetry we'll talk about that perhaps more next week when we get to Chaucer however away from London away from court the different dialects were much more Anglo-Saxon so whereas we can read Chaucer in perhaps with difficulty but a modern English speaker can read and understand Chaucer with a modicum of effort we cannot read the Sagraine the Green Knight poem even though it was written at around the same time which is why the the edition that I have here is translated by a certain J.R.R. Tolkien from the Middle English of the time which is again much more rustic much more West Midlands dialect than Chaucer's proper spoken or written English so the other thing about it is that because it's the backwoods in some sense it's also backwood in the sense that it has much more in common than the Anglo-Saxon poetry such as Beowulf that we looked at where the poem is not written with regular meter and rhyme as per the the fashion in court and the fashion the renaissance in Europe but as with the Anglo-Saxons with alliterative syllables and stresses rather than counter syllables and rhyme schemes so it's not so much about the number of syllables per line as the number of stresses per line there's a lot of emphasis upon alliteration rather than rhyme so this is a different style it has much more common with the Anglo-Saxon past because this is closer to the Anglo-Saxon culture than the French-ified culture of London. All right so we're going to go into the poem to see again how profoundly Christian this poem is and we also see how it's part of a living heritage of Western civilization so the poem begins with a connection with ancient Troy so he see the poet keeping the tradition obviously the Iliad's about Troy the Odyssey's about Troy and then the Aeneid by Virgil is about Troy so it's as if we go out we need to and there's even allusions to him in Beowulf so let's look at this how the poem starts when the siege and the assault has ceased at Troy and the fortress fed in flame to firebrands and ashes the traitor who the contrivance of trees and their fashioned was tried for his treachery the most true upon earth it was Aeneas the noble and his renowned kindred who then laid under them lands and lords became of well nigh all the wealth in the Western Isles when royal Romulus to Rome his road had taken in great pomp and pride he peopled it first and named it with his own name yet now it bears so this is a poem actually about King Arthur's court but it begins with connecting this poem or basically this day and age with the past so with Troy with with Aeneas and then through Aeneas is descendant with Remus and Romulus with the founding of Rome so this whole work is part of that enfranchisement of the debt they saw the proxy of the dead enfranchisement the unborn this living tradition of Western civilization that this Arthurian poem about King Arthur in England begins with a reference to Troy to the very roots of Western civilization and by implication Homer and by ad by explication a reference to the Aeneid of Virgil so we have this living legacy connecting Aeneas to Arthur now it the story begins and we talked about this when we talk about the Beowulf poem and in Dante that how dates are used to signify so in Dante's Divine Comedy of course you know that the story begins on the holy Thursday Dante descends into hell on Good Friday he ascends out of hell into the starlight of God's creation at the foot of Mount Purgatory on the morning of Easter Sunday and then ascends Mount Purgatory and then into heaven during the Easter Octave well here the story begins at Christmas tide and the turning of a new year so again we have a we're already if we gotta get our allegorical and Tane twitching thinking okay whether he's the this is probably a significant to the the what's happening in the story and the liturgical year and the theological significance of the liturgical year now the King Arthur's Court in the middle of these festive Christmas New Year celebrations are visited by this mysterious stranger the Green Knight who described in Tolkien's translation as the mightiest on Middle Earth again the word Middle Earth the Tolkien uses goes back to to to these early times the Green Knight accepts a challenge so the Green Green Knight Green Knight announces a challenge to King Arthur's Court or to King Arthur and his court by extension that he would allow his head to be laid to be cut or to be struck by an axe and then if that wasn't fatal then the whoever does it would have to lay his head to be cut off by the axe so it's a trial to the death he would seem and there's something weird about this so good this this Green Knight and everyone is fearful of of of of taking up the challenge because they sent some magic involved some some mystery something supernatural so that even the other bold knights of King Arthur's round table are too cowardly and in the end King Arthur himself says well I will take up the challenge and it's then that's to Gawain in his humility accepts the challenge and this is worth reading he says yes I'm waiting that the King should should should face a challenge when he's got these knights says I am the weakest I am aware and in wit feeblest and the least loss if I live not if one would learn the truth so we're here so Gawain here humbling himself this is a man who has humility who sees himself I'm the weakest I'm not I'm far from the smartest on the contrary probably the dumbest and therefore I'm the one of the least missed I'll be the least loss it should should I die by accepting his challenge so he is his loyalty to his King and his humility which if you like is he's defining characteristic as the story begins the name the magic does begin because so Gawain strikes truly with the axe and the Green Knight's head comes tumbling off rolling across the floor and has even moved even descriptions of the head being sort of kicked away like a football by as it rolls across the floor by people but then the headless Green Knight this mysterious supernatural knight walks over and picks up his head I don't know how he managed to see where it was that's a quibble and then and then holding his head in his hand he basically says that okay I fulfill my side my my side of the deal now your side is that you will have to present yourself to me this time next year to basically to put your head on the block for me to use my axe on your head so then to Gawain lives for the whole of that year knowing that the end of the year this is the fate that he must that awaits him and then more significance it's on it's a Gawain begs to leave to go on his quest to find the Green Knight because he doesn't even know where the Green Knight is it's gonna be like looking for the Holy Grail you're gonna find the the the palace the home of the Green Knight but he begs to leave on all Hallows and other words all Saints Day so again significance right this story begins at Christmas a new year he's gonna set up in his quest on all Saints Day where he asked to leave and all Saints Day but he leaves the next day having gone to it goes to Holy Mass before he sets off so it's a pilgrimage he sets off on the quest which is also a pilgrimage as God will my guide on all souls day so all Saints is where we commemorate the canonized saints in heaven all souls is where we we commemorate the souls in purgatory right the souls that are that that died in sin and on our need of our prayers and of God's mercy so the quest is somehow connected to a purgatorial cleansing of sin then we have he wears on his shield a pentangle which is also known as the endless knot or the eternity in five wounds and I want to look at some of the significance of that so this is part 28 you see it's broken up into sections I want you to take note of the symbolism here the theology of it of the symbolism of the pentangle first thoughtless was he found in his five senses and next in his five fingers he failed at no time and firmly on the five wounds capital F capital W the five wounds of Christ for this number symbolism again which we see in the bear wolf all his faith was set that Christ received on the cross as the creed tells us and wherever the brave man into battle was come on this beyond all things was his earnest thought that ever from the five joys capital F capital J all his valor he gained that to Heaven's courteous Queen once came from her child five joys of Mary for which cause the night had incumbeny wise on the inner side of his shield her image depainted that when he cast his eyes thither his courage never fails when he holds his shield up in combat he sees a face the face of the blessed virgin staring at him the fifth five that was used as I find by this night was free giving and friendliness first before all and chastity and chivalry ever changeless and straight and piety surpassing all pie points so the five virtues here free giving so self-sacrifice friendliness so love chat chastity but I said I said shout him in chastity chivalry cause he wouldn't be a night without chivalry and piety free giving friendliness chastity chivalry and piety surpassing all points these perfect five were hasped upon him harder than an any man else now these five series in sooth were fastened on this night and each was knit with another and had no ending but were fixed at five points that failed not at all coincided in no line nor sundered either not not ending in any angle anywhere as I discover wherever the process was put in play or passed to an end in other words this endless not is eternal these virtues point to eternity therefore on his shining shield was shaped now this not royally with red jewels upon red gold set this is the pure pentangle as people of learning have taught now go away in brave array his last at last hath court he gave them all good day forever more as he thought in other words he expects this to be a fatal quest in which he will die at the end of it but you see the the the holiness with which he sets out on the quest connected the five ruins of Christ the five joys of Mary these five life giving virtues though all are signified by the endless not of eternity as he's looking for the green green night sets out on all souls day he's been wandering all over England and Wales looking for the green night he's in North Wales in a wilderness a desert and when is this during Advent alright and we sometimes forget in our modern day and age adrants a season of penitence penitential season like lent so he's passing through this season of of penance and he can't he can't find the green nights palace anywhere and he prays and he prays and he prays but his prayer is not answered on until Christmas Eve in other words the answering of a prayer of the prayer is a Christmas gift and then he sees this appearing from nowhere this castle this palace and when he arrives at the door the gate the line is yes by Peter Quoth the porter so that you're a gatekeeper who who swears by St Peter so it's a connection here with St Peter's gate there's something about entering this palace which is like entering heaven remember it's Christmas day now a time of joy penitential season over and then the Baron the the lord of the manor makes a mysterious wager with him and he's going to go out and and and give to uh he's going to go out hunting and give to Gwyn whatever he catches on his hunt uh and while his way Gwyn has to give him whatever he gets and while he's away the Baron's wife tempts him tempts him particularly to to break his vow of chastity and she's beautiful and you know and she comes into his room and so he has to use all of his powers of virtue assisted no doubt by grace to resist this beautiful temptress who tries to to tempt him to acts of unchastity but the third temptation is much more subtle so first two temptations she tries to fail she can't get him to to uh commit uh an adulterous act with her but this time she offers him a gift it's a green girdle or green kirtle you know garment if he wears it will protect him from all harm bearing in mind he's expecting at some point to meet the green knight and to have his head cut off he succumbs to this temptation this lucky talisman it will preserve his life so the third temptation is subtle it's not conceit no not the pride of the of the lady thing is she's so beautiful that uh that she can seduce the man but deceit all right she's deceiving him for it is my weed in other words my clothing that thou wearest that very woven girdle so this is that this is the uh the the uh the green knight revealing himself as actually the barren in disguise and he set uh the temptation was set by the green knight his wife was playing along uh with him um that very well go my own wife is a it awarded thee I what wed indeed now I'm aware of thy kisses and thy courteous ways and of thy wooing by my wife I work that myself I set that up it was a set up I sent her to test thee and now seems to me truly the fair knight most faultless that air foot set on earth you passed that test beautifully with great virtue great sanctity great chivalry chastity um as a pearl then white peas is prized more highly so is gawain in good faith and other gallant nights but in this you lacked sir a little and of loyalty came short but that was for no art for wickedness not for wooing either but because you loved your own life the less do I blame you all right so the how does the green knight respond to the fact that he's cheated in some way right by wearing this this green girdle this green girdle the other stern knight in the study then stood a long while in such grief and disgust he had a grew in his heart all the blood from his breast in his blush mingled and he shrank into himself with shame at his speech at that speech the first words on that field that he found then to say were cursed be ye coveting and cowardice also so cursed be coveting some things so coveting this gift because it might save his own neck literally his own neck uh and cowardice all right um it was cowardice that got him to accept this gift in you is vileness and vice that virtue destroyeth he took then the treacherous thing and untying the knot fiercely flung he the belt at the feet of the knight see there the falsifier and foul be its fate through care for thy blow cowardice brought me through care for thy blow fear of having my head chopped off cowardice brought me to consent to coveting to wanting this my true kind to forsake which is free hand and faithful word that are fitting to knights now I am faulty and false who afraid have been ever of treachery and truth breach breaking of promises the two now my curse may bear I've done both I confess sir here to you all faulty has been my fair let me gain your grace anew and after I will be where um so this this again more humility a humble acceptance of his guilt in being seduced by cowardice to covet the talisman that might save his neck um and then immediately after that we have this confession and again I have to read it because it's it's it's the it's the sacrament of confession that's been talked about here then the other man laughed and lightly answered I hold it healed beyond doubt you're forgiven the harm that I had thou has confessed the so clean and acknowledged dine errors and has the penance plain to see from the point of my blade he just nicks him just a little scratch my way of token that I hold the purged of that debt cleansed made as pure and as clean as hats thou done no ill deed since the day thou were born and I give thee sir the girdle with gold at its hems I'll give it back to you as a gift now the girdle that you talk for it is green like my gown so sir Gawain you may think of this our contest when in the throng thou walkest among the princes of high praise to will be a plain reminder of the chance of the green chapel between chivalrous nights and now you shall in this new year so what's happening it's happening on new year right at they they are renewal during the Christmas season the 12 days of Christmas that uh that he is being purged of his sin and his washed white of the snow is making a clean start coming on to my house and in our revels the rest of this rich season shall go the Lord pressed him hard to when and said my wife I know we soon shall make your friend who was your bitter foe so get to know my wife as she really is not as someone who's who's testing you and then how does it end I'm going to read this as well and then we'll wrap up this is section one oh one low lord he said at last and the lace handled and the lace handled this is the band for this for this a rebuke I bear in my neck this little scar on my neck is a rebuke for the fact that I took this to save my own skin this is the grief and disgrace I have not I have got for myself from the covetousness and cowardice that are came me there this is the token of truth breach that I had direct detected in and these must aware it while in the world I remain so he now wears it as a token of shame a token of humility a token of his own sinfulness and then further down every night of the brotherhood a Baldrick should have a band of bright green obliquely about him and this for love of that night as a livery should wear so okay all the other nights of the round table will wear it as well in solidarity why because they're all sinners right none of them are perfect so this is a token a sign of their own sinfulness that they're not perfect in this sense we can see the green girdle the green kirtle as a as a as a crucifix right that which we when we look at it reminds us of our own sinfulness our own worthiness our own need for Christ's grace and intercession and it the the the poem ends with to his bliss us bring who bore the crown of thorns on brow and otherwise make may the Christ who wore the crown of thorns for our own covetousness and cowardice and sinfulness may he bring us to his bliss may he bring us to heaven that's a marvelous profoundly catholic poem the final prayer is to a merciful God on behalf of miserable sinners and as we see how the allegory of dates is used but has been used by Dante already and will be used by Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings and on that note thank you so much for joining us in this episode of The Authority where we have looked at the author of the poem Sogarain and the Green Knight. Please do join me next time as we turn our attention to another great authority the authority of Geoffrey Chaucer until then goodbye and God bless this has been an episode of The Authority with Joseph Pierce brought to you by Tan for updates on new episodes and to support The Authority and other great free content visit theauthoritypodcast.com to subscribe and use coupon code authority 25 to get 25% off your next order including books audio books and video courses by Joseph Pierce on literary giants such as Tolkien, Chesterton, Lewis, Shakespeare, and Bellach as well as Tan's extensive catalog of content from the Saints and great spiritual masters to strengthen your faith and interior life to follow Joseph and support his work check out his blog and sign up for email updates and exclusive content at jpears.co and thanks for listening.