A knight’s code of chivalry

When it was first published, this translation of a middle English poem became a runaway bestseller — an astonishing feat for a work of poetry.

Imagine you’re sitting down to Christmas dinner a thousand years ago with your gang of knights. Your queen is beside you and there’s food and drink and much merrymaking in the hall of your wondrous castle.

Suddenly a stranger appears. Not any stranger, but a green one — astride a green horse and with a giant axe in hand. A Green Knight. He throws down an absurd challenge: a strike for a strike. You, a king of legend with a lineage going back to the beginning of Western history in Troy, get up from your throne to accept. But a younger man offers to take up the challenge on your behalf. And his strike is true, beheading the Green Knight. Except, the knight doesn’t die and casually takes his head up and says he will meet the young challenger a year and a day hence to return the strike.

The beheading game has begun.

This is the inciting incident of the middle English poem and what’s considered a jewel of English literature —Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The name of the original poet is lost to time, but a modern English translation by Simon Armitage brings it to thrilling, sensual life.

Arthurian legend

At its heart, the poem is an Arthurian legend — all the elements of medieval life are here. The chivalric code, violence, brave knights, and beautiful women. There are more odd games and adventures once the young man, Gawain (who is Arthur’s nephew), sets off on his journey to the Green Chapel where he has to receive the return strike from the Green Knight. Gawain is brave, foolhardy, and understandably confused about what it means to live up to your word if you know it will end in your certain death. His concern when he impulsively took up the challenge on behalf of his king and uncle was to spare his elder any embarrassment. But he also spied an opportunity to get his own seat as a bonafide knight at the legendary table.

While the poem speaks of an earlier time before England became England, it is thought to have been written down in the manuscript form around 1400 and the poet, based on analysis of the linguistic style used, is judged to be from the midlands. The manuscript had disappeared for centuries before it resurfaced in the collection of a Yorkshireman and changed hands a few times from the 17th century till it reached its current place as a prized possession of the British Library.

Armitage, an acclaimed poet, playwright, and novelist, has produced a translation that doesn’t seem modern at all — and that’s a compliment to his immense talent. His is an amazing feat of preserving the mythical, medieval atmosphere, and musicality of the original poem while making it accessible to contemporary audiences. You feel, as you read Armitage’s lines, that you are in a magical landscape, a parallel universe that is of this earth and yet not of it. The natural world is evoked in breathtaking splendour and its lushness seems to rise off the page.

When it was published in 2009, Armitage’s translation became a runaway bestseller — an astonishing achievement for a work of poetry. And recently it’s been adapted to a gorgeous, visually decadent film by David Lowery starring Dev Patel. While there are changes made for the screen version, the story retains its vital themes of courage and honour and what it means to be mortal.

The author is a Bengaluru-based writer and communications professional with many published short stories and essays to her credit.

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