Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Fitt 4 with Chivalry Guild and Banished Kent

Summary

Ascend – The Great Books Podcast Episode: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Fitt 4 with Chivalry Guild and Banished Kent Hosts: Deacon Harrison Garlick, Adam Minihan Guests: George (Chivalry Guild), Kent (Banished Kent) Date: December 30, 2025

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode concludes the Ascend podcast’s deep dive into Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, focusing on the poem’s fourth and final “fitt.” The hosts and guests examine Gawain’s climactic confrontation at the Green Chapel, the moral and symbolic weight of the green girdle, the tension between chivalric and Christian ideals, and the influence of characters like Morgan le Fay. Throughout, the conversation pursues the poem’s major themes: testing, confession, the limits of human virtue, and the ambiguous legacy of chivalry.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: Return to Armor and the Girdle (04:49–09:00)

• Gawain donning his armor symbolizes return to his “true” state as both a chivalric and Christian knight. (04:49)
• The green girdle, accepted for self-preservation, becomes integrated into his ensemble, marking a visible change after his testing at Bertilak’s castle.
  • “He wore it not for worth nor for wealth, not for pride… but so that himself he might save, when suffer he must.” (stanza 81; 08:00)
• The group questions whether trust in the girdle signals a spiritual failing—did Gawain trust in magical protection (Fae magic) over Providence?

A (Garlick): "There's a dichotomy of what is he actually trusting in or what should he be trusting in to carry him through this? Is this being governed by this fey magic or is it being governed by Providence?" (09:22)

2. Wrestling with Tolkien’s Reading (10:58–15:01)

• Discussion of Tolkien’s essay and his claim that Gawain never really trusts the girdle, comparing that with the text’s explicit statements.
  • The group leans toward seeing Gawain as genuinely tempted, though not entirely convinced of the girdle’s efficacy.
  • Gawain’s confession and emotional state suggest inner turmoil and a failing in fortitude, not just a “game” violation.

C (George/Chivalry Guild): "It had to be an incredibly distressing moment... Even if he doesn't ultimately think that it is after thinking about it, even if he ultimately concludes that it's not going to save him at the moment, it had to have had a major effect on him as just a possibility." (15:01)

3. Gawain’s Final Temptation: Refusal to Flee (16:50–20:42)

• Gawain is offered one more chance to escape by a servant before entering the Green Chapel; he refuses, citing personal honor and faith in God over saving face or life.
• "With God's will, I comply, whose protection I do own." (Stanza 86; 16:00)

A (Garlick): “This is a temptation to what? You can keep your reputation... but you still get to preserve your life. ... He handles it quite well.” (20:17)

4. Arrival at the Green Chapel: Barrow as Symbol (21:22–24:54)

• The “chapel” is described as a barrow (burial mound), evoking death, mystery, and ancient pagan or primordial England.
• Green Knight’s ambiguous nature: simultaneously connected to supernatural/diabolical forces and expressing overtly Christian language.

B (Kent): “If we do see that the Green Chapel is actually a barrow, it's a tomb. And so Gawain is marching to his certain death at a tomb in a valley. Right. So we have Gawain walking through the valley of death here.” (21:47)

5. The Green Knight’s Entrance & Thematic Tension (24:54–33:41)

• The Green Knight’s dramatic entrance is both ominous and oddly comedic—he appears from a hole, pole-vaults a creek, wields a Danish axe (another tie to England’s ancient past).
• Repeated noting of the Green Knight’s mixture of pagan, nature-based symbolism with courtly, even Christian, characteristics.
• Discussion about the impossibility of cleanly separating pagan and Christian code, and the interplay of magic, courtesy, and chivalry.

A (Garlick): "Is he a failure of the Pentangle himself? ...he's very courteous, very chivalric, but also has, like, a very deep, abiding evil in him for what he's done." (32:51)

6. The Beheading Game: Testing Gawain’s Virtue (36:13–48:29)

• The exchange of blows: the Green Knight fakes two swings, striking only on the third (“stroke for stroke” to parallel Gawain’s successes and failure during the temptations).
• Exchanges are full of banter and respect—the language remains playful, even as death is at hand.
• Gawain’s final "nick" is proportionate to his one lapse—keeping the girdle, motivated by fear.
• The color imagery: Gawain’s blood on snow, the green valley—linking iconography to internal struggles.

C (George): “Never since he was as man child of his mother was born was he ever on this earth half so happy a man.” (53:22)

7. Confession, Judgment, and the Role of the Green Knight (54:00–68:54)

• The Green Knight reveals himself as Bertilak and explains the three strikes—two for honest exchanges, one for slipping with the girdle.
• Bertilak dismisses the failing as minor, chalking it up to self-preservation, but Gawain’s own conscience is much harsher.
  • "Through care for thy blow, cowardice brought me to consent to coveting, my true kind to forsake." (Stanza 95)
• Parallels to the Christian Sacrament of Confession, but the question arises: Is Bertilak a true moral authority, or does the poem suggest deeper spiritual peril in the test he’s constructed?
• Tolkien’s argument about "loyalty" vs. "legality"—is Gawain’s sin a minor technicality, or something deeper?

B (Kent): “His loyalty comes short... Gawain can’t abide that... to love your own life is something much more serious.” (58:30)

8. The Femme Fatale: Morgan le Fay’s Role (76:54–85:56)

• Bertilak credits Morgan le Fay for orchestrating the entire challenge to test the pride of Arthur’s court and to, possibly, kill Guinevere with fright.
• The group interprets Morgan as a force of ancient, pagan (even evil) magic, contrasted with the protection and guidance of Mary—the poem’s two feminine poles.
• Discussion on Mary vs. Morgan le Fay, and how each represents different destinies for Gawain (Providence vs. Fae magic).
• Debate on the true impact of outside forces: is Gawain the victim of others’ schemes, or the master of his moral choices?

A (Garlick): “One, did you notice... lingering?... He doesn’t go back to the castle... No one who would have conducted this test is friendly to you. ...this test was evil and you cannot return.” (71:38, 89:28)

9. Homecoming, Solidarity, and Legacy (88:25–99:27)

• Gawain returns to Camelot, openly confesses his failing, and is comforted.
• Arthur’s court responds with laughter and solidarity, adopting the green sash as a symbol of fraternity and humility, not shame or mockery.
  • “All the court also laughed loudly there at… whoso belonged to the table, and every knight of the brotherhood, a baldric should have... for love of that knight.” (91:50)
• The ending motto (“shame be to him who thinks evil of it”)—discussed as both a marker of forgiveness and possible textual addition linking the poem to actual English chivalric orders.

C (George): “The laughter can be both. Laughter of actual enjoyment... relief that their beloved friend is back, admiration for him, an appreciation of the absurd, ridiculous, comedic, tragic situation in which he found himself... Incredibly beautiful.” (94:00)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the struggle between magic and faith:

  A (Garlick): “This whole poem, there’s been a tension of who is actually governing the fate of Sir Gawain. Is it Mother Mary and divine Providence, or is it this Fae magic?” (61:22)

• On confession and self-critique:

  B (Kent): “He takes the belt off and he throws it and he says, ‘See there the falsifier and foul be its fate, through care for thy blow, cowardice brought me to consent to coveting, my true kind to forsake…’” (Stanza 95; 65:43)

• On Gawain’s irresistible likability:

  C (George): “Gawain is so compelling, so endearing... I’ve done a highly unscientific unofficial poll of Twitter’s favorite Knight of the Round Table, and it’s always Gawain.” (103:23)

• On the order of the Garter motto:

  A (Garlick): “It’s a motto of the British Order of the Garter…which would lend towards not reading too heavily into Gawain’s error–that it needs to be taken with a certain levity and lightness.” (96:29)

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Significant Timestamps

• 04:49 – Armor, the pentangle, and the green girdle’s symbolism.
• 08:37 – Discussion of Gawain’s intent in accepting the girdle.
• 15:01 – Tolkien’s interpretation and group’s challenge to his leniency.
• 16:50 – Gawain’s refusal of the servant’s offer to flee.
• 21:47 – The Green Chapel as barrow/tomb; implications for Gawain’s journey.
• 32:51 – The Green Knight as both comedic and sinister; clash of old and new chivalry.
• 40:11–53:22 – The beheading game, its rules, banter, the “nick,” and color symbolism.
• 54:00 – Confession scene, nature and depth of Gawain’s failing.
• 76:54–85:56 – Morgan le Fay’s reveal and contrast with Mary.
• 88:25 – Gawain’s return home; the meaning of the green sash.
• 96:29 – The poem’s enigmatic French motto; implications for interpreting Gawain’s “sin.”

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Tone and Style

The conversation is scholarly but accessible, balancing literary analysis, theological reflection, and banter among a group that clearly cherishes the poem. The guests bring in references from Tolkien, Tennyson, Malory, Shakespeare, and the broader Arthurian tradition, always rooting back into the language, ambiguity, and moral puzzles of the text.

The episode’s tone is one of real affection for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, gentle disagreement, humility before the text, and delight in its complexities.

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Final Thoughts

• The podcast concludes with reflection on Gawain as an “anti-Lancelot”—deeply flawed, yet ultimately admirable because of his sensitivity to failing and his willingness to aim for the pentangle ideal.
• The group sees the poem as both critique and defense of chivalry—it is not the Machiavellian despair of later Arthurian literature, but a “friendly” critique that urges self-examination while holding out hope.
• The poem is celebrated for its richness and perennial relevance; several participants note they are still “wrestling” with its big questions and that rereading is warranted.

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Next episode: The panel will discuss “Why Christians Should Read the Pagans,” exploring early church responses to pre-Christian literature.

Resources mentioned: Sir Gawain question guide, Chivalry Guild on X, upcoming website guides, The Pearl (the other poem by the Gawain poet).

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Summary prepared by the Ascend Podcast Summarizer—engaging the great conversation, one fitt at a time.

Transcript

[A]

Today on the stand in the Great Books podcast, we're discussing the fourth and final fit of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Guys, this has been a marvelous read. I have loved this read through of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It's been a wonderful conversation. We've had excellent guests. I feel like I have been invited deeper and deeper into this text, a text that I already loved, but one that I feel like I know so much better now. And today's conversation is going to be no different. We do a deep dive on fit4 if you and try to put a bow on some of the major themes of the poem and really kind of wrestle with a lot of the tension that we've seen in this text where the poet is very particularly bringing two different readings together and kind of tempting you to choose one or the other. Also, if you haven't already, please check out our 50 question and answer guide to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It's an excellent resource for you or your small group when you do your second reading or third reading of this marvelous great book. Also, I just want to say thank you. Thank you to all of you, particularly those of you who support us on Patreon. You keep us going month after month. Share those comments, share those photos of you reading the Great Books. Share pictures of your small groups. It means a lot that we really are helping you read the Great Books. We see the numbers, we're going up, up and up, but we really appreciate those personal touches and personal testimonies. But today, join us for a marvelous conversation on fit 4 of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Welcome to Ascend, the Great Books Podcast. My name is Deacon Harrison Garlic. I'm a husband, father of five and serve as the Chancellor and General Counsel for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Tulsa. We are recording on a beautiful afternoon here at the Chancery. If you're new to Ascend, we are a weekly podcast that helps guide you through the Great books. For example, if you want to read the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Greek plays, Dante's Inferno, or Plato, we have podcast videos and written guides to help guide you or your small group through these great books. Check us out on X, YouTube, Facebook and Patreon. We appreciate all of our supporters who have access to a whole library of written guides on the Great Books and also a community chat on Plato and also Sir Gallon and the Green Knight. Go visit thegreatbookspodcast.com for our reading schedule and more information. Okay, today we're doing FIT four in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. So we're bringing this text to a conclusion. I have greatly enjoyed our conversation on it today to join us to guide us through this text. Once again, we have banished Kent from X. Kent, how are you doing today?

[B]

Doing great. How about yourself?

[A]

Yeah, everything's great. Everything is wonderful here in the diocese of Tulsa and very wonderful because I get to discuss this text, which I really enjoyed this final fit. I thought it brought a lot of things together. However, according to my notes in my text, I think it also raised about 20 different questions I have. So I'm excited to discuss those. We also have. George has returned to the podcast, runs Chivalry Guild on X, has a book out, has a sub stack, all kinds of good conversations. If you have enjoyed listening about the chivalric as we have discussed Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, please go check out Chivalry Guild on X, because this is his daily bread and butter. George, how you doing today?

[C]

Doing well, Deacon. I have. I'm still wrestling with these past two discussions we've had on this text, and this has opened up the text for me in a whole new way. I. I thought that I knew it fairly well and I learned that I didn't, so that's a good thing.

[A]

Yeah, I. I'm in that same boat. So this is a text obviously that I've read because I loved it. It's just. It's incredibly enjoyable. It's a beautiful text. You can tell that there's obviously a lot of moral fabric to it, but at the same time, it. These conversations have really pushed me and that knowledge of the text has actually only invited me to a deeper love of it, but I'm still wrestling with a lot of the questions. Actually. I was reading this late last night, having a glass of Scotch, reading fit4, and then all of a sudden, like, really wondering to myself, like, I think I might have been too hard on Sir Gawain in the. In the last conversation. And I'm still actually kind of wrestling with the girdle. What we're supposed to think of that. What is his actual sin or fault in this? Is it a sin? There's other. There's also another confession scene in fit 4. Like, I still actually have a lot of questions about this text, but it's been incredibly fruitful to discuss them with you guys.

[C]

Well, that's. That's really funny because I am questioning whether I was too lenient towards him. So we'll have to figure that out today.

[A]

Yeah, no, that's Good. Okay, well, then let's. Let's dive into it. Okay, so fit four. This is part four, the final part. And what do we do? We open up here. And what really caught my attention, just like in the beginning, because of the conversations that we've had, is now we have Sir Gawain back in his armor. So he's going to leave. He's going to leave the castle and go to the Green Chapel. He's going to have an escort as he goes. This should just be an easy journey to get there, according to his host. But because I think it was Dr. Schubert, Tiffany Schubert from Wyoming Catholic, she really pointed out, like, we have this whole buildup of his armor, and then particularly the pentangle, which is kind of this idealistic chivalric symbol that I think very much holds the chivalric and the Christian together, which I think is another conversation that I keep kind of churning on as we've gone through this text. And now he's back in the armor, which means he's again wearing the pentangle, which I feel is like where Sir Gallon is presented at who he truly is. And the story is going to. I think it'll, like, progress right now that he's back in his armor, he's back in his natural state, and I'm excited to see where things go.

[B]

Yeah, I thought that it was interesting right at the beginning of four. I don't know if you guys saw this as significant or not, but presumably his. His armor had rusted a little after his journey to Bertillock's castle. And now, like, they go out of their way to specify that it's all that rust has been scraped off and it says its need is new. So I don't know how significant that is or not, but that's one thing that stood out to me in this fourth section, is getting this, is that they go out to tell us that it's just as if it was when he first left Arthur's Court. So maybe drawing a parallel between this leaving of this court to leaving of Arthur's Court.

[A]

Yeah, I like that. That's a good insight. That's right there at the end of that First Stanza. And Fit4, showing that it rusted while he was being tempted, while he also has fallen into an error, we can kind of discuss the degree, the severity of that error. But while he still fell into error. So now he's back with the pentangle, back with his armor. It's, I think, somewhat analogous to his soul. Correct. It's back in its kind of Natural state. It has emblem of the idealistic balance between the chivalric and the Christian. And Sir Gallon's going to be the knight that we know and love him to be. What did you make, though, of the girdle has become now part of the armor, right? So actually there's been a change, there's been a shift. So he says, this is stanza 81, it says, yet he overlooked not the lace that the lady had given him. And so it says that he actually, what, he ties it twice around his waist, that girdle of green silk. And then it's really interesting because I think this gets into his. I almost said mens rea. That's the, the attorney coming out to me, right? His intent, his. His mindset of why is he wearing it? Because I think this is something that Tolkien talks about as well. And this is tethered to maybe the severity of the error of him actually accepting it. So it actually says there, but he wore it not for worth nor for wealth, this girdle, not for pride in the pendants, though polished they were not, though the glittering gold there gleamed at the ends, but so that himself he might save, when suffer he must. So we're getting a commentary on why is he actually wearing it. And it's just on a surface level read, right, this is self preservation. It will save his life, right? The lady has told him that if he, that if you wear the girdle, you can't actually come to harm, right? Someone strikes you, you're not going to be harmed. And so he can wear this kind of object of this like fey magic, kind of maybe balance out the fact that the Green Knight used fey magic and the beheading and he'll be safe. And that's his main reason for wearing it.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's right. And we're going to see that's really significant, I think as we go into the Green Chapel and everything that's to come. I think that's probably one of the most significant lines in the poem right there, right? That he wants to save himself. That's his motivation. And that goes back to what we were discussing in the last episode with Dr. Shubert. You know, that question of whether or not his actions were a sin in the game and not giving up the green girdle. And I, I think that that is really going to be a part of Gallein's reaction, you know, after everything is all said and done, is that he realizes potentially this is a Christian failing, not just a chivalrous failing, this desire to save his life above all else.

[A]

Yeah, my inclination there, which again, this is like where I think I'm. I'm being slightly too hard on, on Sir Gawain. There's a question of whether my critique of Sir Gawain aligns with the author's intent. So I want to make that distinction as well. But I tend to be. It's. It's hard for me to understand the girdle as just like a violation of a game. And it doesn't seem that Gowan takes it that way either because it's both tethered to his self preservation, that he loved his life. But I think you can push into it as well of a few other things, like one, he's relying on Fae magic to preserve him during this trial. I think we'll see that he prays here in a bit. And so I think it sets up a dichotomy of what is he actually trusting in or what should he be trusting in to carry him through this? Is this being governed by this fey magic or is it being governed by Providence? And which one does he have trust in? And like most characters that we've seen since I think Professor Jackson helped us see characters are conflicted. Right. It's. It's blunder and bliss, it's traitor and nobility. And so I think Sir Gawain draws from a certain dichotomy here on the girdle itself. So that is. Yeah, it is something of like the. What's the level of severity of not only loving your own life, but also where's your trust? Like, where's where you trust in Providence or the Fae magic and then also that it led you to lie. And I think that's really the one of the larger critiques too is not just that he has this trust in it, but it actually leads him to be. To lie and also be discourteous towards his host. George, you want to jump in there?

[C]

Yeah. So. So there is that line that you read. I again, I'm leaning too heavily on Tolkien's reading here, but Tolkien has a passage in the essay in his edition. He says in the essay, but the belt requires more attention. I think it is significant that Gatwain nowhere ever shows confidence in the girdle's efficacy. Certainly does not even hope in it sufficient to cause carefree joy. Is there a line that we're missing that causes Tolkien to say that that line of his seems to be contradicted by the line that you just read, does it not? I don't know what to make of this?

[A]

Yeah, that's a great question. It is typically not my intent or inclination to ever go against Tolkien. And I'm not sure, and I'm not sure if that's what I want to say I'm doing. Maybe I don't fully understand the depth of his comment, but as I said last time, Tolkien's essay struck me very heavily as him running a lot of interference for Sir Gawain that he seems to not actually make that large of a mistake. And what you pointed out, George, is actually one of the lines that I think was most troubling to me in Tolkien's commentary. Troubling just insofar as it was hard for me to align to it. Because if he doesn't trust in it, why does he take it like we have, we have context that he's tempted to take it because of its efficacy, because he was already. And I think that's the purpose of the ring. Like you can tell that he doesn't want it for its worth because he was also offered a ring and that didn't do anything for him. He's not tempted by greed. So it's very much the preservation of his life that he is. He does think the Fae magic might bring something to the table that he takes the girdle. Then we have commentary about why he's wearing it, which actually eliminates several other causes, several other intents, and says he basically is wearing it for self preservation. Now, whether or not he ultimately relies on that, I actually think that's a good question. When push comes to shove, does he actually rely on the girdle? Does he actually think it's efficacious? Or does he actually default back to, or pivot correctly back to providence and the virtue of fortitude, which is what he should have had in the beginning. I think that's a distinct question. But to say he never relies on it, I don't know how you hold that. Because also, why would he not just give it back if he didn't rely on it? If it wasn't tempting to him, why would he not just give it back to the Lord of the Castle?

[B]

Yeah, I agree. I tend to agree with you. I don't know that I think Tolkien's line there is entirely justified. Not only do we have the narrator pointing out, as you said in stanza 81, he, that he, he wants to save himself by it. You know, we're going to see that Bertilak points to that and we also see that Gowing himself in, I think it's 95 later is going to say, you know, that his care for the Green Knight's potential blow is what causes him to have cowardice and consent to coveting, right? And so he made, he says that he took the girdle because of fear of this blow that's coming. And so he at least has to have some notion that, hey, maybe this might provide him some protection. But I do think that you're right that also he doesn't seem 100% sold on it. Right. He goes to his last confession and as we saw in the last episode, he seems to be at least making some preparations there, potentially doing his last rites. He seems to still have some sense that he might be going to his doom. He's going to tell Bertilak, you know, get, send me to my destiny at one point. And so I do think that he's kind of torn on whether or not it is going to work or not, but I don't think that he has zero faith in it either.

[C]

Yeah, I mean, so I'm looking at the end of stanza 86 in the rhyming part. Quoth Gawain, by God on high, I will neither grieve nor groan. With God's will I comply, whose protection I do own. So, so there's a statement of his, his trust in divine protection. I guess I also just now thinking of it now, he is terribly nervous when he has to present his neck to the Green Knight. He is not assured of the efficacy of, of the, of the girdle. One more thing. I, I just, I, I tried to make this point in the last episode when he was offered the girdle. I mean, that had to be an incredibly distressing moment or, or, or a moment in which he's torn in all sorts of different directions between withstanding the lady's advances, thinking about his own doom being offered, then a way out of his own doom. Even if he doesn't ultimately think that it is after thinking about it, even if he ultimately concludes that it's not going to save him at the moment, it had to have had a major effect on him as just a possibility. So I would just want to reiterate that he wasn't in a state to think terribly clearly when he accepted the girdle. And that's, that's one of the things that Tolkien's essay does a, a really good job of highlighting.

[A]

Yeah, I agree. I think two thoughts there. One is, and we'll kind of see when we get there is, is there any evidence at all when he actually gets before the green knight, that he relies in any way on the efficacy of the girl. I would say that he fell into temptation. He took it, he ties it around his waist and so. And then we get this commentary on it. But the. What are we supposed to call these again? The bob and wheel? These, these. The rhyming part at the end of the stanza that you read, I think it's one of my favorites in the entire poem. Because what ends up happening here, right, we get the warning. So he's being led by this individual from the castle out to the green Chapel. And this is another temptation. All of a sudden, he's hit with another temptation. But this one is really about his loyalty, his bravery, his fortitude, and he handles it quite well. What's the guy say, listen, you're going to die. Everyone dies. Who goes over here. If you want to run away, like, basically, I'll lie for you, and you can keep your reputation, but you'll also keep your life. I loved his response to this, right? When he's like, no one will know. It's just me and you. He says in line, or this is stanza 85, he says, I should a knight coward be. I could not be excused. In other words, I would know. I would know. Sir Gawain would know that Sir Gawain was a coward and fell away. And that's why I love. Then when he goes into 86. And then you get this right before the stanza that you read, George, he gallops. He gets to the directions to the green Chapel and he gallops Gringolet towards the green chapel. I love it. And then he has this, like, very kind of faith filled, powerful. I think, in a certain way, thematic statement of, you know, by God on high, I will neither grieve nor groan. With God's will, I comply, whose protection I do own. There's no green girdle there. This is. I'm now relying on Providence. And so, no, I think he is torn. But as we go through the narrative, it's not clear to me that he relies on the girdle at all. And what he ends up relying on is the really the state of his own soul, the excellence of his own soul, and his protection under God. But he's still torn. And then when he's called out on his. On his mistake, I think that's one reason he takes it so poorly, because he could have. If. I guess one way to look at it is if he wouldn't have taken the girdle, would it changed anything for him? Because he doesn't rely on it. So he had the faith, he had the fortitude, he had the virtue to do this well, but was still tempted by this, like, fey magic cop out. I think that's one reason it bothers him so bad. Did you guys, when you read this, did you think that the servant is in on it?

[B]

I do, because I think that's kind of a late game temptation there. Right. To, hey, don't go over there. Right. I won't tell anybody. Nobody comes back from this place, you know, so that's the vibe that I got as well, is that he's. And he's certainly one of Fertilax servants. Right. So, yeah, I do. I think that's part of the temptation.

[C]

Yeah. The more I think about it, the more it seems like that would be a part of the deal. And yeah, I like that observation that this is. This is the last one that they're going to, or maybe not the last one, but it's. It's another in a series that they are offering him another out and he does the right thing and doesn't take it.

[A]

Yeah. Because this is a temptation to what? You. You can get your fame, you can say that you went to the Green Chapel, you can say whatever you want to, but you still get to preserve your life. So you get your reputation, this kind of chivalric culture of doing things of great deeds and quests and et cetera. You can keep all that and. And be guaranteed to keep your life. So it is another type of temptation, but it's one, I think that Sir Gawain handles marvelously.

[B]

I think so, too. I also think that he almost puts on this, like you said, great faith and stoicism all the way up until the Green Knight is going to remind.

[A]

Him about the girdle.

[B]

So I'm just still chewing on this, his dependency or his reliance on the girdle, because it almost seems like he does. He just puts it on and forgets about it until it's pointed out to him and then he becomes a completely different person when that is pointed out to him. So I'm just kind of curious as we. As we read through, I guess, the next few stanzas to pay attention to that, because I don't know, that's something to chew on. I haven't totally come up with an answer there.

[A]

Well, the great books are usually great because they're worth rereading. The best commentary you can actually have on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is probably just to read it again. Once you understand the story and then all these like details come up. But Kent, maybe I, I can push into you a bit. So Stanza87, we start getting our descriptions of the chapel and it says that it's on a barrow. Any thoughts on that?

[B]

Yeah, definitely. And I had made a Twitter post about this and so I'm sure, or X I guess is now what it's called. I'll always call it Twitter. But. But yeah, as you read through Stanza 87 and we're describing, he's looking for a church, right? That's what he's expecting. And then he goes down in this valley. I also think that's important that it's in a valley that potentially has some scriptural significance there. We've got crags and boulders. He halted, held his force for some time. He changed off his front to the chapel to find. Didn't see anything. And then save a mound as it might be near the marge of a green, a worn barrow on a bray by the brink of a water. And so there we have both mound and barrow, which is, you know, common in Anglo Saxon England. That's how they buried people. Right. If you ever go to England or even most of Scandinavia, I went into one a couple years ago in Denmark as a ship burial where they brought in the ship and buried what was probably a low level king or achieved in there inside the ship. And then they build the mound around the ship was often the tactic there, or even sometimes without a ship. But it was a way that they buried great men was to build these mounds around them. Tolkien obviously uses this in Lord of the Rings, right. The hobbits end up in the barrows and are haunted there. And so this is the place of death. It's basically a tomb, it seems like to me. And I had some comments on X about it. There's apparently some legend about there is a church in southern England that's set in kind of like a cave and I'm forgetting the name of it right now, but there's some speculation that potentially that's what they're describing here is that there's this chapel in a cave that was well known at the time. And so anyone. So that's a potential as well, but I think there's a lot of great symbolism and depth that we can see. If we do see that the Green Chapel is actually a barrow, it's a tomb. And so Gawain is marching to his certain death at a tomb in a valley. Right. So we have Gawain walking through the valley of death here.

[C]

One could possibly Read at the conclusion of that stanza. I just want to read these four lines. Can this be the green chapel, O Lord, said the gentle knight here. The devil might say, I ween his matins about midnight. Pretty terrifying moment there. Which then gets. I mean, I think we're gonna probably have to talk about this in this conversation, but what exactly is the Green Knight and this, this relationship that he has to both God? I mean, he. He makes some gestures of. Of being a professing Christian. And then there is this also like satanic imagery. It is. It's a lot to wrap one's head around.

[A]

Yeah, that's a fantastic question, because that was something, as I was reflecting on our conversation with Professor Jackson, that I don't think we even took up is why is the Green Knight green? And it comes in with an abandonment here. I like Kent's comments about the cave, the valley, the grave. But then, yeah, you get in at the end of 87 and then going into 88, you get this mixture of imagery between nature, like almost a chaotic nature. Things are overgrown, et cetera. It's like almost raw, primordial nature and Satan. These are the two kind of wells by which this like, imagery is drawing from. And this is all then embodied in the Green Knight himself. Like he's kind of an icon of this entire kind of landscape. And even then how he's introduced is marvelous. I mean, you, I think, George, you talked about, you know, if you have a kind of a cinematic mindset, this is an incredibly cinematic scene where the Green Knight doesn't just come out and say, oh, you made it, like congratulations, et cetera. What's he here? He hears like a noise like a scythe grinding on a stone, on a grindstone, like wetting it. And this is that kind of like terrible sound. But you hear the blade and this is the noise that Sir Gawain hears to announce the Green Knight. It's an incredibly cinematic moment.

[C]

Not only that, but he then comes up as if from a hole. No, I mean literally he came from a hole that's in stanza89 with this new Danish axe. And then, doesn't he. He basically like pole vaults. There's a. There's a creek in between Gawain and the Green Knight. And he uses the axe to pole vault over. Over the creek. That's. That's a really wonderful, action packed, movement filled image of Gawain's tryst. And they use that word. That's. That's a really interesting word in itself, isn't it?

[B]

Yeah, I think It's a. It's really interesting that he. He won't walk through the water. That's kind of an interesting little detail.

[C]

Is that. Does that have significance in folklore with. With various monsters and evil spirits?

[A]

Yeah, that's a fantastic question. I don't. Yeah. Because I didn't. I didn't know what to take. Like, how much do you read into that of him? Because it's also kind of a. It's a very intentional movement, but at the same time almost a comedic one. Like, this is like you were just grinding this, like, scythe. It ends up being this big Danish axe and making this kind of, like, hellish sound. And then you just decide to, like, pole vault over this little stream. Like, he. I took that almost like, again, this poet seems to love contrasts. And so we have this, like, moment of horror. And then now, like, the Green Knight comes almost in, like, a comedic scene, and there's, like, this comparison, because for him, this isn't scary at all. There's nothing. There's nothing to be afraid of here, as opposed to Sir Gawain. And one comparison I had chicken. I'm not sure how much I would tether these two, but if you remember when we read the third temptation, where it has the three kisses and then they have the trade where he's going to actually keep the green girdle, it's the only one in which Sir Gawain goes and proactively goes up to the lord of the castle and says, oh, these are my winnings. He doesn't wait for the lord to give him his winnings and then ask. So I found it interesting at the beginning of 89 that once again, you have Sir Gawain being the one who's proactive. He's the one who yells, like, who is the master in this place to meet me at this tryst. He hears the noise, but he's not waiting for this to play out. He's going to proactively do that. I thought that was interesting.

[B]

Can I comment on the weapon here? This is a Danish axe. It specifically says, and they're huge. They're notorious for being massive. They're. They're also notorious. They're called Danish axes because this is what the Vikings used to roll into town with back when they would invade England. And so this is a really common weapon of the early medieval period, but it's becoming less common by the time that gall would have been written. By this point. Right. Armor has evolved a lot, and we're starting to become more reliant. On pole axes that had hooks on the back of them. Right. Because you could pull people to the ground with it before you chopped them. And it helped you defeat their armor a little bit. So I almost wonder, I don't know how intentional it is, but I almost wonder if the imagery of the Danish acts is incredibly significant here. That we're in potentially like a barrow which would point back to the past and the way that they used to bury people and were burying weapons from the past. Or that's starting to go out of phase, at least by this point. I don't know. I wonder if there's some significance there that where the Green Knight is pointing to an older England that's coming into contrast with Arthur and his court.

[A]

That would be really interesting because kind of going back to our previous conversation, why is he green? And why is this kind of like primordial wilds and wilderness his domain that also kind of has this like thick satanic underlayer to it? That would be interesting if it's an older deal because obviously, you know, in England, you know, why would he be green? Well, you have, you have the connection to nature, you have the savagery there. Something that's primordial, that has to be conquered. You know, you do have a supernatural. Like sometimes you see the green man in their folklore, right? So you have like this kind of almost Druid spirit like thing in the forest that has all green, covered in leaves, etc, which kind of represents kind of so wrapped in mystery you actually even see him carved into certain cathedrals. But kind of this representation of the wilds, nature, wilderness. There's like something there that can't be conquered. But there's a lot of mystery to it as well. So I think it's interesting to try and contemplate of are there things about the Green Knight that draw them back to a prior age. And you could probably make an argument that the entire Fae magic theme is of that. Right? Because so if those are familiar with like Merlin and his role, I guess in the Arthurian legends a lot of times Merlin is presented as like, you know, the real last bastion of this older like Druid esque magic, this Fae magic, obviously you have, you know, his not so loyal disciple who will be introduced to here in a little bit, who then carries that on. But there's this older magic that tends to wane in a road once the Christian faith comes in. All of that seems to be tied very much up into the Green Knight, which is very much a creature of the wilderness and Fae magic in older ways. So it'd be interesting to see if the Danish Acts is simply just another example of him being tethered to an older time.

[B]

Yeah. Which I get the feeling that it is. But then it's just. It's really hard to reconcile with the fact that he's so courtly, you know, and he does profess Christ and God several times throughout. Because I was having that thought and I went back and looked. I was like, okay, well, where does he talk about. And he does several times. You know, he professes at least Christ and God several times. They have the church in the chapel where they celebrate Christmas and go to Mass. So it's just kind of odd, you know, I don't quite know how to. How to square those two things, but I think that he does have a lot of that symbolism. But then it's not a clean allegory either, because he's. He's meeting Gallian on some terms of chivalry, too.

[A]

Yeah, he's another conflicted character. I. I think if I am somewhat naturally harsh to Sir Gawain, I am incredibly harsh towards the Green Knight, as we kind of see him then explored later in this text. I. Yeah, I. I was very interested when Professor Jackson said that he was, like, very chivalric and very courteous and et cetera, because I actually think there's a deep kind of abiding evil in the Green Knight, even though. So he. It would be interesting to compare those two if he's also, like. Is he a failure of the Pentangle himself? Because in certain ways, I find him to be very courteous, very chivalric, but also has, like, a very deep, abiding evil in him for what he's done. And I, I don't hold him. I don't really hold him in high esteem, but we'll get there. So maybe I'll try and find a character that I don't do that to. But we'll.

[B]

We'll.

[A]

We'll get there here in a bit. So. I do like Sargowan. I like him a. A lot. I think. I think subconsciously what I'm doing is I'm pushing back against Tolkien. Not necessarily because I disagree with it, but I want to see if it holds up.

[C]

Is what I'm doing the one thing to say? I don't disagree with anything you said about the Green Knight, but he is also, at the same time, so funny that you. He's not just this. This brooding, satanic character. He is also. I mean, he goes in there when he taunts Arthur's knights and, you know, calls them all beardless children. It's genuinely funny. But I. I love this line in stands in 90. So they have. They've now met. After they meet, actually, the first thing that the Green Knight says is, gawain, may God keep thee. So there's a. There's a reference to the apparent faith of the Green Knight, despite whatever he is. But the. The line that I wanted to talk about was stanza 90 in the middle. He is telling Gawain about, you know, let's. Let's get down to business here. And he says, bandy me no more debate than I brought before thee when thou didst sweep off my head with one swipe only exclamation point. What I think is so funny there is like, he's almost exasperated or he's almost resentful of Gawain because Galway had the nerve to cut off his head when the Green Knight brought this challenge before him in the first place and then was clearly asking for it. There's just a really funny instance of him kind of playing both sides. Do you guys get that?

[A]

No, It's a really funny line. And then I actually thought it was Gowen's response to that, which is a bit delayed. It's after the first kind of strike, but at the end of 91, where he basically says, well, just for the record, if my head comes off, it can't be restored. So it is funny that there's a little bit of wit and banter, which is part of that chivalry, I would assume.

[B]

Right.

[A]

I mean, George, correct me if I'm wrong, but these guys are playing a game of death and they're still keeping their wits about them in this kind of, like, back and forth. Because I actually think this is some of where Sir Gawain is his best in this moment. Yeah.

[B]

And you see that they really get a lot of respect for each other through it. Right. I mean, the Green Knight's going to go so far as to say that he loves Gowing by the end of things. Right. And you see that same kind of playfulness, I think, at the beginning with Gowing, when there's a really funny moment when Arthur gives the axe over to Gowing and he's like, let's get to business. And he starts, like, stroking the axe. He says, the. The narrator says, right. So they're. They're playful in both beheading scenes. They're both being pretty playful with each other.

[A]

Okay, so let's look at 91. So this is where we get the first, like, swing of the axe a little bit, right? So just, like, as a cursory glance. So Ragowan's gonna get his head cut off. So he's kneeling, which we should mention. Right, Is proportionate, then, to what he did to the Green Knight. And that was something that I thought was really challenging, that Professor Jackson pushed on, was that the Green Knight didn't present it as a beheading game. He presented it as stroke for stroke. Now, again, there's no rule of proportionality, but did Sir Gowan fail in following Arthur's advice to simply cut off his head? Because then if you do that, he can't strike you back. Was that really the Christian or the chivalric thing to do in that moment? Or do you just nick him or do some other kind of clever move and then put, for lack of a better metaphor, the ball back in his court to then try and make the chivalric, Christian response to that? And if he does it incorrectly, that's his fault. That's on him, not you. So that's something I've been keeping in my mind. Is. Is this set up now in a somewhat disordered way or disproportionate way, because Sir Gawain followed, right, the advice of this king. That's something I'm still kind of like focusing on. But in this first one, what caught my attention, right, what happens? He's got to cut his head off, and Sir Gawain shrinks a little bit, right? It says at about, I don't know, a couple lines down from 91. He shrank a little with his shoulders at the sharp iron. And, man, the Green Knight just lends into him, right? But what's really interesting here is the argument that he makes to him is very similar to what the lady said, which is, thou art not Gawain, said the Green Knight, who is so good reported, who never flinched from any foes on fel or in dale. And now thou fleest in fear ere thou feelest a hurt of such cowardice that night I never heard accused. So I thought it was interesting that again, pricking that identity, pricking that pride, which is the same tactic, the same kind of rhetorical device that the lady took as well.

[C]

I just want to continue reading from where you left off. He says, of such cowardice that night I never heard accused, neither blenched I nor bact. When thy blow, sir, thou a mist, nor, excuse me, thou aimest nor uttered any cavil in the court of Arthur, My head flew to my feet, and yet I and yet fled I never, but thou ere thou hast any hurt in thy heart, Quailest. And so the nobler knight to be named I deserve, therefore, just wonderful trash talking again, showing this resentment over Galway beheading him when he was clearly asking for it. I don't know how to say anything more insightful than this is just wonderful stuff.

[A]

Yeah, it's a wonderful and very clever passage. And then it lends into that where Gawain's response to this is. Yeah, but if my head goes flying off, I can't pick it up from the floor. So, right, there's that kind of like, you know, those quips and barbs going back and forth.

[C]

Perfect, perfect, perfect response. As good as the Green Knights passages there. Gawain's response is just. It's wonderful.

[A]

Which I do think so maybe we should actually give some positive statement about courtesy culture. And one of the things that I, I think is really interesting about, and I mean, George, you would understand this better than I do, but when you look at the chivalric and you look at like Sir Gawain and the legends and what, like he's supposed to be this ideal Christian knight, it's very interesting to me. A part of the ideal is how well formed these individuals have to be that they have to have both this, like, martial prowess, they have to be men of prayer, they have to be in self sacrifice of temperance. But then also there's an intellectual side. They have to be able to have rhetoric, they have to be able to engage in this banter, they have to be able to talk to women and be able to, you know, I don't want to say flirt, but there's this banter between them that's supposed to be at its best healthy. And so I just think it's really fascinating that I think we overlook it that the chivalric, right, that pentangle has a certain, like, masculine ideal to it that today seems like just completely out of reach that anyone could actually exceed in all of these different areas. And in fact, we don't even try and hold them together anymore. I don't even think we actually think they. I don't even think we believe in the pentangle, to be quite honest. But it's just interesting that once again here we have Sir Gawain, this wonderful knight, who has shown a massive amount of temperance and, and fortitude, et cetera. And even in the face of death, he can be quite clever in his speech. Like there's something to really think about that.

[B]

I like that here in those lines that you pointed out, George, the green knights once again pointing towards Gowan's heart. He's very concerned about what's in his heart. Right in your heart, you quaest. It's not just, oh, you flinched. It's that that flinching is indicative of something that's in your heart. And that's something we've seen throughout the whole play. Not play, sorry. I'm used to Shakespeare. The whole poem is that the poem is very concerned on what's in people's hearts. When Gawain is leaving the court, they're laughing on the outside, but their hearts are hiding sorrow. And here we have a return to what's on the inside versus what's on the outside. And I think that we'll see by the end of things that the reconciliation that comes at the end of the poem is not an abandonment of that ideal that we're talking about, but rather a recognition of maybe some of that innerness that needs to be brought to the outside as well.

[A]

Okay, so let's look at the.

[C]

Oh, can I. Can I say something real quick, Deacon? Go for it. In response to what you had said, it's really fascinating if you read some of the other Arthurian sources, and I'm thinking, for instance, of Tennyson's Idols of the King, in that the Gawain character is an absolute rogue of a man. He's. He does the kinds of things that you really disapprove of, but can't help. Kind of like him in spite of all that. And he. He totally betrays another knight's trust and has a conquest of his. Of his lady love. But in thinking of that, it brings me back to what you had said just a minute ago about these knights have the. The verbal capabilities of the highest level cinematic rogues. And I, I really like thinking about that because we. We've gotten to this point where we lazily just think of chivalry as white knighting, simping, doing whatever is required, bending over backwards to please the. The tyrannical whims of ladies. And these guys are clearly capable of a lot more than that.

[A]

They.

[C]

The proper knight in this vision has to have the same talents that a rogue has, but direct them more properly.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's a good insight. Yeah, there's a lot there in the. I think in the chivalric that is completely lost on us that hopefully then, you know, obviously this. I think this poem has a certain critique to it. I don't think it's fatal to the chivalric at all inside a Christian context, but it's. It. I think it does pose an interesting critique. Let's look at the stands in 92. So let's look at the second swing, if you will. I love this one. This was great. Right, so now we get Sir Gawain. He has found his heart and he's basically just rooted to the ground, right? This wonderful imagery that, with a hundred raveled roots and rocks is embedded. I mean, he is a stump. He is not moving this time. I loved this. But what did you think about this? There's a slight reference here to Arthur. So the Green Knight, when he sees this, merely remarked, so now thou hast thy heart whole, a hit I must make. May the high order now keep thee that Arthur gave thee. I'm still really kind of invited to contemplate what Arthur's role was in the Christmas game and whether he really did mislead Sir Gawain into this. And now what he's receiving is actually part of the problem of him following his superior, him following his king's recommendation.

[C]

Just to be clear, this is. This is the second go at it. And the Green Knight basically does a fake out, doesn't he? He brings the axe up and begins the swing, if I'm understanding this correctly, about six lines down into 92. He made at him a mighty aim, but the man he touched, not holding back hastily, his hand ere hurt it might do so. So he is. He is making as though he's bringing down the ax on Gawain's head, halts it as if to say, just, just kidding, Gawain, that is. That's pretty wild.

[A]

And if I understand the terms of the game correctly, and we'll see that here in a few lines so we can judge. My understanding is that I'm assuming if Sir Gawain would have not flinched, there still would have been three swings. So two fake outs and then the third one, because then they're proportionate. We saw that they're proportionate or tethered to the game that was played in the castle, not to King Arthur's court. King Arthur's court seems to control the anticipated severity of the blow. But these three swings are parallel to the three temptations in the castle. The first two he passes. So I'm assuming that Gawain flinching in the first one isn't what actually precipitates the second one. That there still would have been two false swings and then a nick on the third one, if I understand correctly. Feel free to push back because he explains it here in a bit, but that was my understanding.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's exactly what the knight ends up saying. So I think you're right there. I love how angry Gawain gets in 92 about that. He's like, quit messing with me. He says, even along with this ability to Bantu, you see that he says, tis thy heart, me thinks in the. That now quaileth like, oh, you're afraid to cut my head off, you know, and so you can see that he's kind of egging him on a little bit there.

[A]

That is such a fantastic law. I love, I love that because, you know, because you have that feeling, right? You've had that feeling of like, I have to do this thing, I have to be spirited. And you just put, put your mind in a certain mindset and then you can just tell he is in the zone. It is this pure thematic. Here we go. Like, I, Yeah, I just, I love that comparison. You know what? You're afraid to cut my head off. Let's go. Like, I just. It's such a quick, amazing turnaround from the first swing.

[C]

I love my understanding now. Yeah, of course your explanation of the three swings is correct once we get to the end. My understanding though is that there's, there's one swing he takes, the first one, Gawain flinches, so that doesn't count. He get, he gets a proper do over because Gawain owes it to him to, to, to stay put. With the second one, I understood it to be like basically a check swing. So that he was just, he's just playing a little, a little joke on Gawain. This one doesn't really count though. It's. I'm just, just gonna see if you flinch. So, so then with the third one, that's the, the, the real swing. So I, it fits within the model that you're talking about and that the, the green knight later explains. But it also seems to work on a different level and because again, it is a stroke for a stroke that's explained at the beginning. So the, the first two strokes essentially then don't count is my understanding.

[B]

Yeah, I think you're right. Like, he's, he's giving gan excuses for why he's making multiple strokes, but it doesn't count until the blades touched him. That's the, the return of the stroke.

[A]

Yeah, I don't have any disagreement with any of that. Okay, so let's look at the third one then. So this is. Stands at 93. So this is where he swings and he nicks him right on the side. Sever the skin through the fair fat sank the edge and the flesh entered. So that the shining blood over his shoulders was shed on the earth. And when the good knight saw the gore that gleamed on the snow, he sprang out with his spurting feet a spear's length and more in haste caught his helm and. And on his head cast it. And under his fair shield he shot with a shake of his shoulders and brandishes bright sword. It's a wonderful scene, right? So he sees that he's been hit. It's called a nick, but at the same time, it's enough on the neck that he has blood that splashes out on the snow. So I'm assuming it's maybe not what we would call a nick. Maybe it's a nick when you're dealing with Danish axes. It's a proportionate nick that he receives. But I just love, like, I don't know, the vitality, the joy of him. Like, he realizes that he got his one stroke, and then what's he do? He doesn't just jump up and say, okay, we're done. You gotcha. He jumps up and he is ready for war. He's like, if you want anything more than this, we are going to fight. And keep in mind what this guy looks like. It's just. Again, you love going. It's a beautiful scene.

[B]

Yeah. I love the use of color here, by the way. The red blood on the white snow and the green grass that we have here. We're told that there's some green in the valley, but there's also snow and there's red. The colors of the characters are coming together beautifully. I don't know if there's any moral compunction to that whatsoever. But I love the use of the symbolism of colors here, because red is Gawain's color throughout the whole poem. And now we go out of our way to be like, yeah, his. His blood, you know, is coming out of. No, I just. I thought that was really beautifully put there.

[C]

It's excellent, too, because, I mean, if you're looking at this, the. The poet puts the focus on this. You are in Gawain's head and you see your blood on the snow. And then you realize, wait, that that's it. My head is still. Even though there's blood on the snow, my head is still on my shoulders. And then the great line. Never since he was as man child of his mother was born. He, as man child of his mother was born, was he ever on this earth half so happy a man. Yeah. And so I, I just. What you were saying, Deacon, I. I found this so incredibly endearing. He says, have done, sir, with thy dents. Now deal me no more. I have stood from the a stroke without strife on this spot. And if thou offerest me others, I shall answer thee promptly and give as good again and as grim.

[B]

Be assured, I love the next couple of lines where we get the, you know, the camera pans to the green knight. And this is, I think the part that's the most endearing to me of the green knight is that he's just standing there leaning on the ax. And it says, to see him standing, meaning to see Gawain standing, so stout, so stern there and fearless, armed and unafraid. His heart it well pleased, right? So he's looking at Gowing and he's having the exact same experience that we're having. Look, reading over Gowen's response, he's like, yeah, okay, that's. That's very respectable. It's very endearing to the Green knight as well.

[A]

And then even following that, right, Merrily he spoke. Because I think the. I don't know if you guys can recall, but I. This is the scene that I vividly remember the very first time I read it. Because he doesn't. He remember it's brilliantly written by the poem or by the poet, because he doesn't just say, okay, hey, guess what? This is who I am. He just starts explaining the deal and just leans right into the. The game that was played in the castle, right? This kind of like trading game between the hunting and whatever you win inside the castle. And it's a phenomenal, subtle kind of build up into understanding who the green knight actually is. I very much remember reading this for the first time and like all of it clicking and it just being a wonderful moment, but it's really well written. But here is where to go. Back to what I mentioned earlier, the structure, right? So he explains, I guess, his rationale. So this is towards the end of 94, right? So on the first evening, all thy gains thou gavest me, et cetera, right? Because you had kissed my comely wife. And so this is where we're starting to understand who the green knight actually is. And then he talks about the second one, only two harmless faints to make. And then the third one, thou didst fail on the third day. And so that tap now take. So according to just kind of mapping this out as we go along, again, the three kind of strokes were the Three days. The three temptations day is probably wrong word. The three temptations of Sir Gawain in the castle. He passes the first two. Now, Gawain flinching, as George mentioned, is a different dynamic that comes up just in this moment. But theoretically, maybe there would have been two false swings at Sir Gawain to represent the two temptations that he passed. And then he's nicked on the third one because according to the Green Knight, he failed. Because he says this gets into 95 and some of the crux, the moral crux of the poem. For it is my weed that thou wearest that very woven girdle, my own wife it awarded thee I wot well indeed. Now I am aware of thy kisses and thy courteous ways, and of thy wooing by my wife. I worked that myself. I sent her to test thee. And thou seemest to me truly the fair knight most faultless that ever foot set on earth as a pearl. Then White Pease is prized more highly, so is Gawain in good faith, than other gallant knights. So before I go to the critique, I do want to agree that I think the Green Knight has an authentic appreciation for Sir Gawain and his authenticity and him, I guess, to use this language, adhering to the pin tingle, that he really is right. The most fairest knight more prized highly is Gawain in good faith than other gallant knights. But then he did fail. He says, but in this you lacked, sir, a little, and of loyalty came short. But that was for no artful wickedness, nor for wooing either. But because you loved your own life, the less do I blame you. So it wasn't something malicious like that wickedness. It wasn't for the wooing either, right? Some kind of like lustfulness. It was because you gave in to self preservation. You gave in because you thought the girdle might provide you some type of protection in the game, in this deadly game, which to tie in our earlier comments, please push back. I see nothing in the three strokes that shows that Sir Gallen relies on the girdle whatsoever. So I think he really has reverted back to relying on Providence and the excellence of his own soul and rooting himself in his own virtue. But previous to this, he failed by taking the girdle in an act of self preservation when he should have been relying on Providence, his own excellence, et cetera, and then also lying by not giving it to the lord of the castle.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's right. And I think the knight's critique of him is that his loyalty comes Short. Right. He didn't abide by the terms of the game, and that's why he's getting nicked a little bit. If we, if we're correct to look at the Green Knight and see these aspects of the past and of nature and like we talked about earlier, you know, the greenness pointing to things of maybe an older society in older England, he is saying, I don't blame you wanting to save your own life. Right. It's not a great wickedness, and that's deserving of a small nick and nothing more. But Gowing can't abide that. You know, he. He is not of that world. He's not of that tradition for. For Gowing and for his beliefs, you know, to love your own life is something much more serious. And so we're going to see that. That he's. He's going to take it a lot harder than the Green Knight, who just kind of chuckles about it and says, well, who can blame you? Of course, you wanted to save your own life.

[C]

Fascinating note here in the Tolkien essay because you read that quote where the Green Knight calls a little bit into question Gawain's loyalty. Tolkien says, so the word is lute, L, E, W, T, E. The word is not well translated by loyalty, in spite of the kinship of the words. For loyalty is now chiefly applied to honesty and steadfastness in some important personal or public relationship or duty. Legality would be equally akin and better, for loyalty might mean no more than sticking to the rules of whatever grade or sanction. So here again, we go back to those different levels of obligations that Gawain has. And he. He definitely fails somewhere, but Tolkien is suggesting that it is on the. The lowest level.

[B]

He.

[C]

He failed to abide by the legal requirements of A and elsewhere. Gawain or elsewhere. Tolkien basically said this was a shoot. What's the. I can't remember the exact term he uses it, but basically an illegitimate agreement. So. So Gawain's failure is that he failed to abide by the letter of the law to a basically illegitimate agreement, which is a fascinating way of thinking about it.

[A]

Yeah. And that kind of goes back to, I think, the interference that Tolkien's running for Sir Gowan. And he might be completely right. I'm just. I'm expressing my own kind of read of the poem because I think it has layers. And so there is a way to read it insofar as, like, what does this even matter? It was a game. It wasn't actually like, you know, a feat of virtue or Christian morality. It was just a game that they invented. And he broke the term of the game. It's not that big a deal. I think there's a way to read it that way. I don't think you can read it that way according to the pentangle, because there is no way to actually separate the game, which I think it's interesting that Tolkien tries to separate even the games from the nightly chivalric courtesy. So I think, as you mentioned the last episode, we've mainly been talking about the chivalric and the Christian. Tolkien actually talks about three realms of conduct. The games, the courtesy, chivalric, and then the Christian. And so he actually has a more complicated spread there, where I tend to be slightly unsettled with this, with that type of read. If we just. And I'm not saying this is Tolkien's. Let's just say, is it really that big a deal? He just took the girdle. He messed up in a game, but he's passed everything else with flying colors. He didn't give into the temptation, things like this. I think part of the problem is that I think as you read deeper into it, because Sir Gowen's reaction to me makes sense. I don't. I don't find it terribly disproportionate because one, it did lead him to lie. And I. There is no exemption in Christian morality for lying. You might argue that it's not a moral mortal sin because it doesn't actually deal with something that actually has, like, grave matter. It's more of a white lie or things like this. You could make an. A degree of severity argument, but you can't make an argument that lying in certain contexts are not really lying because it was just a game that we played. I don't think you can actually do that under Christian ethics. And so I. I'm a little hesitant to say, like, it just wasn't even like a sin. And then that you kind of tether that to him, also saying that Sir Gawain didn't even seem to rely on it. That sis seems to run too much interference for me and kind of just like exculpate him in a way that I. I think is maybe not. It's hard for me to read that in the poem. The other thing too, though, that I think on a deeper level is that doesn't seem to comport well with the motif in the poem of the antagonisms or tension between providence and the Fae magic. And we're going to see that heavily here in a moment where this whole poem, there's been a tension of who is actually governing the fate of Sir Gawain. Is it Mother Mary and divine Providence, or is it this Fae magic? Like, remember, he prays to Mary and Mary leads him to the castle. That's a fascinating dynamic. So who's actually leading this? And so I think in a lot of ways, the way I read it and feel free to push back, is that the acceptance of the girdle is another kind of microcosm. It's another kind of blip between the tension between the Fae magic and the Christian where. What is Sir Gawain going to actually rely on to preserve his life in this context? And, yes, I think he doesn't end up relying on the girdle, but he certainly wanted it in the beginning. He took it from the lady when he hadn't taken other things. He took it for a particular reason, we're told he wore it for a particular reason, and he lied and didn't give it back for that reason. So I think that there's a tension there. And if. I think if you see the girl, then as a kind of microcosm of the larger tension, an example kind of a species of the larger tension between the Fey magic and the Christian, as far as, like, Providence and who's controlling this narrative, then. Then I think it actually is a great depravity, a great strike against who Sir Gowan is because of what he relied on. And that's what he realizes, I think, is he realizes his failure. We'll get into that because I think there's reasons he doesn't go back to the house. I think there's some subtleties that the poet gives us. And I realize it's probably a pretty harsh read on just taking this green girdle, but I do think there's a way to read that where it is a sign of much greater tension inside the poem. Yeah.

[B]

And I think both of those viewpoints are shown by the characters in the poem. Right. I think what Tolkien's pointing to is exactly what the Green Knight is saying is, yeah, no big deal. You know, it's just. Just the technicality here. And what you're pointing to is what Galleon actually feels. Right. I like when he says in. Later in 95. I think he makes it very clear why he's having this reaction. He takes the belt off and he throws it and he says, see there the falsifier and foul be its fate through care for thy blow. Cowardice brought me to consent to coveting my true Kind to forsake, which I think means knighthood. Right. My. My ideal that's on my shield. I forsook for a moment, which is free hand and faithful word that are fitting to knight. Now I am faulty and false, who afraid have been ever of treachery and truth breach. The two now are my curse to bear. And then he gets into his confession. He confesses his sin here to the Green Knight. And the Green Knight's going to laugh it off. You know, he kind of says, yeah, you've made a great confession, Gawain. And I think you're pure. And, you know, as you're. You're pure and clean as the day.

[A]

That you were born.

[B]

He's going to tell him that's not good enough for Gawain as he's going through this. And so I do think that it's important to the read of the poem to see that there is a greater failing here. Um, even if you don't necessarily think that that would be a failing in your own life, you know, that you tend to side a little bit more with the Green Knight here. Um, I think if you can't see the. The point that Gowing makes, that there's the. The fear for your own life is potentially a Christian failing. And, and the decisions that came from that, I think that's the point that the poet wants us to get to here.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's well said. Yeah. Two things there. One, it is a confession scene which should be paralleled and held together with the confession scene that we saw in the last fit. And so I think that's really fascinating. And then, yeah, the Green Knight playing the role of the priest, I hold it healed beyond doubt the harm that I had. Thou has confessed thee so clean and acknowledged thine errors, and now has the penance plain to see from the point of my blade that I hold the purged of that debt, made as pure and as clean. And he goes on. So, I mean, it's. It parallels the sacrament of confession very clearly. The question that I would have is, is the Green Knight a true moral arbiter? Is the Green Knight the one that you actually want to receive your moral commentary from? And I think the answer to that is no. And the answer for why, I think is coming up. But here in this moment, I do agree with you. I think the Green Knight sees it, does not see it the same way Sir Gawain does. And I think we have to ask, why is that? And what comparison is a poet drawing between them two? And keep the pentangle in mind, where is the balance and where are the balances being struck between these two characters?

[C]

George so I find Tolkien's reading very compelling. I also find your pushback very compelling. Deacon and I really liked the way that Kent acknowledged that both of those readings are in the text in the voice of the Green Knight and Gawain. The one thing I would want to clarify again is that if Gawain fails, it's largely because very sophisticated people put him into a hopeless moral dilemma. He was absolutely trapped. And one of the reasons why he got trapped is because he is such a good person. He A jumps to Arthur's defense in his moment of need and then follows Arthur's commands. B I this isn't as important, but it's pretty important when he is a guest in Bertilak's castle and Bertilak suggests that they play a game or that they observe a covenant. Gawain is the kind of guy who says, sure, I'm down, let's do whatever. That is A that is the mark of a high spirited man who people like to be around who.

[A]

Yeah, I think that was, I think that was well said and I, I have a lot to say on that. I want to come to Sir Gowan's defense because I think what you're touching on is an incredible insight and I think that really comes to bear and stands a 98 before we get there. 97 Just a few thoughts. One, did you notice it's line three down in Tolkien's translation? Here we get the motif comes back of him lingering. And I did not notice this at all the first time I read it. But there are these conversations now. I have, we have him lingering in King Arthur's court about when is he going to actually leave and go on this quest? Because remember, he doesn't know how long it's gonna take him to get there. Then we have him lingering in bed in the castle and now we have him saying, I have lingered here too long, I need to go. Because what's the, what's the offer? The Green Knight's like, hey, come back, come back to castle now. You know, we were your foes, now we'll be your friends. Everything's great, like, why don't you come back and celebrate with us? And his response to that is, I have lingered too long. And I think that's really fascinating and worth exploring is that relationship between those three examples of lingering in the text.

[C]

Yeah, that's a fascinating insight. I would not have observed that but for these conversations we've Had. That's great.

[B]

Yeah. So I. I wonder, you know, is that evidence that he's learned something over the course of the poem? You know, is that what you're getting at, is that now he's. He's realized that there's some danger to. To lingering in places that one shouldn't linger? Is that kind of why you're getting that?

[A]

Well, that could be it. I'm not really getting at anything. I think I'm at the. I'm at the stage of observation, noticing a pattern. I like. I like your insight because that would be. Has Sir Gallen actually undergone some type of maturation because of this test? So now he realizes. So actually. So tether that to George's comments. This is a sir. This Sir Gowan that says, yeah, I'll play a game. Yeah, I'll show up. Yeah, I'll linger in bed. I'm here. And now what? He's asked to go back to the castle to celebrate, and he's like, I'm out.

[B]

I've lingered too long.

[A]

So that's an interesting. So has he. Has he matured in this? I think he's starting to understand. I mean, personally, and maybe I'm just reading too much into it. I think he's anticipating what is going to be said in 98. I think he's anticipating that. Maybe I'll say it this way. No one who would have conducted this test is friendly to you. No matter what they say, you cannot go back into that castle because this test was evil and you cannot return. And I think we'll see that very clearly in 98. But that's my kind of. My appetizer for that. What did you take of the. His warning about women here. But the woman, right? This is remind. He mentions Adam. So, Adam, why did you eat of the tree? The woman that you gave me. So he mentions that he's actually in good company. For even Adam, Solomon, Samson and David were all blinded by women. The goal here is to love them well and believe them not. It's a little. Little twist of the knife here. What'd you guys take of this passage?

[B]

Yeah, I loved that line. I laughed out loud when I read that. You know, to love them well and believe them not.

[A]

He seems to be like, I don't know.

[B]

He's trying to make an excuse for himself to some degree. Like, you know, he does. He points to Adam, and Adam kind of does the same thing, right? Like the woman you gave me. I don't know. I don't know entirely because he almost Like a step back where he was hard on himself and now he's looking for somebody else to, to point the finger at. But I haven't quite wrapped my head around what to make of it yet.

[A]

I'm not sure if the text holds this up, but in my head I see this as a very exasperated Sir Gawain of him, just like trying to reach out and grab for rationale for his own mistake, you know, because I put my note, I mean again, not to be too terribly critical of him, but again, like we, he made certain decisions. He didn't, to reiterate, he did not choose the Joseph and Potiphar's wife option. He did not choose the St. Thomas Aquinas option of just chasing the prostitute.

[B]

Around the room with a fiery brand.

[A]

Until she leaves your room. Like he played a certain game and that game left him lingering in danger for a long time. Now we could argue is that right or wrong courtesy. How are these things bow balanced. But that's what he did. And so I think it's. That was what I wrote out in my notes here because down here at the kind of, what was it called? The bobbin wheel. And all of them were betrayed by women that they knew. Though a fool I now am, made some excuse, I think my due. So he, like, he, he's aware that he's looking for an excuse. Look, all these other great men fell because of women. I'm a fool. And so I thought it was interesting of then like, you know, well, who doesn't fall, Joseph doesn't fall, St. Thomas Aquinas doesn't fall, etc. And so I just. It's an interesting comparison. I agree with you, Kent. I don't think it's thrown out as like a fully polished thesis. I think he's kind of exasperated and clinging to some kind of excuse, very much in the spirit of the first man, Adam.

[C]

And to clarify, he fell, but he fell in the least serious way. And I also would say that, okay, so. So he initially rages at himself over his failure, then he lashes out at the lady. And he does finally then return though, because in the next stanza he talks about how he is going to actually keep the girdle now as a token of my trespass. So he doesn't. He, he does, as you suggest, Deacon, seem to be kind of knowing and kind of jocular about his blaming it on the lady. And he does return the blame to himself and says I am going to wear this for the rest of my life as a reminder of the time that I failed to live up to the high calling of chivalry.

[A]

I like your. I agree with you, like the capacity or the severity of which you fell. But I also think that it's part. It's interesting that he. He tries to blame and I think he does recover. It's almost like a comedic line, if you will. Not a serious one. But I do think it is part of an ongoing theme of the feminine in the text. And I would argue maybe to use that as a. As a segue. I would argue that that comes to an absolute zenith in 98. And so let's kind of just look at this. So he's going to take the girdle, as he says, a token of my trespass. I shall turn it to it often when I ride in renown. So anytime his heart is pricked for his prowess in arms, then he'll look at the love lace and it will make him humble, it will lower him. But then he asks a question which it's been interesting to see that this question has not been answered, is he asks the lord his name and it's Bertalak, which we've already said several times, but this is the first time that he actually is able to know this. But then Bertolac, the lord of the castle, gives the backstory to the green knight. And I actually think this is just very. It's crux to understanding this poem and maybe I lean into it too much for some of my moral reads. But what's he say here? He says that Morgan le Fay, who then is the old lady in the mansion, the castle, remember? So there's the beautiful lady and then there's the older lady. So now we're finding out that Morgan le Fay, who is basically like the arch nemesis of King Arthur, right? She's a student I mentioned earlier of Merlin, who in a lot of the narratives basically got Merlin to teach her all of his wisdom, all of his magic. He's kind of the last druid, Fae magic wizard, whatever you want to call. She learns it all and then basically seduces him and traps him for all time. And so now she is the last one, this practitioner of this Fae magic, this, this witchcraft, if you will. She. And he actually mentions this, right? She's the magic arts of Merlin, et cetera. So he then calls her Morgan. The goddess is therefore now her name. None power and pride possess too hide too high for her to tame. So she. This is interesting line. She made me go in this guise to your goodly court to put its pride to proof. If the reports were true. That runs of the great renown of the Round Table. It just let me read one more line or one couplet. She put this magic upon me to deprive you of your wits and hope Guinevere to hurt, that she in horror might die. Okay, so let's just try to unpack this a little bit. So we have Morgan le Fay, who is very much always considered an evil character, to my knowledge, inside of these Arthurian legends. It says that she made Bertolac go. We don't really actually get any context for what that means. It. Does she force him to go? We don't know. At least I don't pick it up from the text. But it says, made me go in this disguise. And what was the purpose? Well, okay, you guys are prideful, et cetera. But by the way, she was kind of hoping that Guinevere would die of fright when I did this. Is this a good man? Is this a chivalric man that does this? I mean, this is where I tend to push back pretty hard here. That Bertolac is an evil character. He's very chivalric, he's very courteous. He has a certain renown that I think he appreciates in Sir Gawain. But if you hold him according to the pentangle, like he has shifted his balance in one particular direction and he participates. And let's. Let's argue that it's willfully at the moment, he participates in this test, this ruse. That one I think is evil to begin with, because leading people, testing people to see if they'll sin is a sin. Right? Leading people to actually have disordered thoughts and to test them in their purity is sinful and evil by nature. Then also, by the way, as a side note, we were just really hoping that Guinevere would die when she saw this. I mean, what did you guys make of this? Is it a fan? Because also, Bertilak just says this in this, like, jolly merrily way of like, hey. And then like, hey, come back to my castle. Sorry. We tried to get your queen to die of fright, and this was just to test you, and you could have died. But, hey, why don't you just come back and hang out with me at the castle? What'd you guys make of this?

[B]

Yeah, my. So I. I think that line that you honed in on too, calling Morgan a goddess, Morgan the goddess is therefore her name. Now, I found that really important in this read through, particularly if we're looking at all the other aspects of the green light, which is where it's so perplexing to me that, you know, on the surface at least, he seems to have some profession of being Christian. He's got a church in his house. But at the same time, too, he's calling her a goddess and seems to in some ways within the poem be symbolic of these older pagan notions of right and wrong. And his judgment of Gawain seems to be along those lines, right of this. It's judgment according to Morgan the goddess, not judgment according to Christian ethics, as we've said. And I. I think that's really important to understanding the differences here. I love the difference between 96 and 98, where when he offers to give him the green girdle, he tells him that he should take it. And as he walks among princes of high praise, he's going to think of their contest and the reminder of this chance between chivalrous knights, right? He's thinking, hey, you should take this and it'll be a reminder, this great thing that you did and how great you are and what a great chance that you withstood, which there's some element to that, there's some truth to that side of. Of seeing things. But Gowing looks at it very differently and he says, I'm going to take this and it's going to be a reminder of my failure, the frailty of my flesh. And I think you're right to say that they're citing the two different elements that the pentangles kind of being pulled apart between these two figures of knighthood. You see the one that is perhaps entirely the. The martial side of the knighthood. And he's going to side with Morgan the goddess, and have a particular view of how these events should be viewed. And that's in contrast to Gowing, who seems to be siding more on the Christian ethics side of things. And we're going to get in number in line or stands 100. I thought it was really important that he goes back and he does more great deeds that we also gloss over, like we did earlier in the poem. But it says importantly, I think, that by the grace of God, he still lived. I think that's really important to the moral teaching of the poem. But Gowing, yes, he is very good. His failing is, like George said, as minuscule as possibly one could fall and fail. But the fact that he's so sensitive to even such a small failing is perhaps why he's so deserving of this grace and why he's enabled to live on. I don't know, George, if you have anything further on that. That you wanted to add on.

[C]

Yeah. This is a perplexing question. To make it even more complicated, Morgan Le Fay is Gawain's aunt, which, you know, suggests a whole bunch of things about this, what he descends from the, the evil in the family. Not that that necessarily makes him evil, but pretty wild nonetheless. Also, it's. It's funny, I guess that. Yeah. That Gawain did not recognize his aunt while living under the same roof and dining with her. Although that, that's. I was reading something about how the fact that she has been so aged and physically reduced is a clear hint of the. The black magic that she practices. That, that, that is a consequence of. Of magic. So I don't know what to do with this. It's all incredibly perplexing. I'm going to have to, as you say, Deacon, meditate on it and reread it and reread it again and meditate on it some more.

[A]

I think it's beautiful. That's why it's a good book. It's a great book. Yeah. One other comparison that I. I'm kind of captured by going back to the role of the feminine in this text is what is the relationship between then or is there a comparison between Mary and Morgan Le Fay? What I mean by that is like when we talked about the green girdle, right? We talked about the green girdle. We talked about the fact that it was a. Indicative, it was a sign maybe of the tension between the Fae magic and the Christian. And we've seen this tension throughout the whole poem of, well, who's actually guiding this journey? Is it providence or is it this Fae magic? So here it's really fascinating that we get a. It's a female. It's Morgan Le Fay who has orchestrated this entire kind of scheme which is very obviously saturated in this Fae magic, black magic, witchcraft, et cetera. And that is very contrary. I think it's set up as a very intentional parallel to Mary and Mary who has been watching over her night, interceding for him, answering his prayers, et cetera. So Kent's point in that next stanza at a hundred of it's by God's grace. I actually think what you see here is in a lot of ways, I think actually why Gawain actually holds himself to such a high standard is because I think he realizes the type of person that Bertilak is. And even though Gawain is incredibly gracious, notice that nowhere in this I could be wrong, but nowhere in this does he critique his host. He does not critique them for setting him up. He doesn't critique them, obviously. Maybe he critiques the lady by kind of this broad critique of the feminine in general, but I think he kind of recovers from that. But here we see. I think that he's being very gracious towards them, even though they set him up to fail and tested him, which is an evil in of itself. But then behind that is a woman, but who's been caring for him is a woman. So I think that Professor Jackson had an interesting phrase in our first episode where he talked about that the females are in the margins, but they loom large. And I really do kind of. I'm really curious to what degree you can read here this kind of antagonism or juxtaposition between Mary and Morgan le Fay as who's actually guiding this journey that Sir Gowan's on.

[B]

That's a really good point. And I. That's like the judge said, I put some on that. Chew on a little bit more, but I think that's probably right. I feel like that's such a. That's. That's why the poem is so good, is because there are a bunch of overlapping causalities that you could point to. Right. You could point to both Mary and Morgan here. And as George mentioned earlier, he's in all these situations because other people's actions. But then at the same time, he makes choices, too. And he's not entirely faultless either, even if the only reason why he was in the position to make those choices was because of other people's. And so what a rich comparison to our lives on Earth. So many things are entirely outside of our control. We have original sin, right, that we bear because somebody else's choice, it's not ours. And I love that the poem ends on God's grace. And really the knight survived because of that.

[A]

Yeah, well said. Yeah. Just a few. Just a few comments. So I really appreciate that he doesn't go back. He doesn't go back to the castle again. We can maybe read that as a maturation on his part, or it's an insight into the actual nature of his hosts. Like, why would he go back to where Morgan le Fay is? Why would he do that? And so down at the bottom of 99, it's funny because he says, oh, yeah, come back. Nay, by no means I will. And then they just, you know, commit each other to Christ and he goes back. And so you have the grace of God statement in 100, which I thought was very good. And yes, you're Absolutely correct. But once again, we have this, like, brief narrative, like, oh, by the way, he had lots of adventures that were much more of the chivalric nature, this kind of thematic overcoming creatures, et cetera. We're not going to dwell on that. And I love. Then when Gawain comes back, he tells them the story and it says it was a torment for him to tell. The truth is that it ends in stanza 101, which I'd love to talk to someone about this, because the Pearl also ends with 101 stanzas. And I've always wondered whether or not those two are connected. The Pearl being the other poem that's typically attributed to this poet. And so what ends up happening here? He's going to wear this girdle, basically, as a sign of his shame. It says, the king comforted the knight. And all the court also laughed loudly there at. And this law was made in mirth, the lords and the ladies, that whoso belonged to the table. And every knight of the brotherhood, a baldric, should have a band of bright green obliquely about him. And this for love of that knight, as livery should wear. So it's interesting to me that they receive it in mirth. So their. Their response is actually somewhat very similar to the Green Knight. This was not really that bad. Like, I'm sorry you took the. The. The girdle. You know, you didn't give into the temptation. You survived, you know, not flinching. The Green Knight, like, this was a small thing and you shouldn't think much of it. And so at least that's how I read it. But then they also decide then to take on the sign themselves. And I find that really fascinating. And I'm not sure exactly why my inclination there is that, again, Sir Gawain is the ideal in this poem, at least maybe in the English tradition, as. As Professor Jackson said. And I think they see something in him that is very much the pentangle, very much the ideal. And so while simultaneously greeting this with some type of laughter and mirth, they also join with him in this kind of ideal of what it means to be a knight. I find it really fascinating.

[B]

Yeah, I have some thoughts on that. I think that, like you said, they laughed because they're relieved, you know, they didn't expect to ever see him again. And I think that they're just overjoyed. I think you can read the laughter there. I think that the. The decision to. Because I read some criticism of Arthur's court here, that they make light of Arthur of Gowan's journey that they make light of his sin and that, you know, by them donning the green sashes, that they're all further making light of it. I think that there's another way to read it that we. We have that the hidden things that are coming and being shown on the outside now, which is a change from the beginning in the court, where everyone's fear was kind of hidden and kept within. And now, you know, we have this emblem of Galling's fear that they're all taking on as an external emblem. And so I do think that there's maybe some sign of growth and. And change in Arthur's court, that they're going to try to integrate these things and show a little bit more extegrity towards them, I think, is part of the point here. Again, I think a rereading would be helpful again, to see that. But I know that at the beginning of the poem, in the first fit, there's a lot of people are laughing on the outside, but on the inside, they're hiding fear in their hearts. They're astonished when the green knight shows up. And so I think that them showing their fear on the outside now or showing this green girdle on the outside is a way of. Them showing that they no longer have things concealed, potentially is a way to show that and a growth in the Christian court in that way.

[A]

Yeah, I like that. That's a good read.

[C]

I'm just struck by how much or how beautifully that passage conveys that the. The knights of the Round Table love Gawain. And I mean, I. I can't even articulate this. This properly because it. It just. It speaks on a. A level to me that is just, what, beyond verbal. The. There is a. There's a claim made on the heart here. And the laughter, you know, I don't. The. The laughter can be both. Laughter of actual enjoyment of this story, as Kent was saying, relief that their beloved friend is back, admiration for him, an appreciation of the. The kind of absurd, ridiculous, comedic, tragic situation in which he found himself. This laughter can work on so many different levels, and I think it. It just does because the poem works on so many different levels. And then the fact that they. That they all wear their own green girdle, I can't imagine taking that in any kind of a mocking sense. That is, that. That seems to me to be touchingly devoted to their brother knight and moved by this story, moved by the fact that he's so mad at himself still. And as Deacon Garlic has said, to a certain extent, rightfully so, but on the other hand, he. He acquitted himself about as well as any mortal man can. And, yeah, maybe this gets at a certain tragic nature to our lives here, and Gawain is experiencing a. A heightened form of that tragedy. He is in this unwinnable situation and he does his best, he trusts in God, and he emerges somehow triumphant at the end. And it's just incredibly beautiful.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's a good. I think it's a good moral read. Yeah, I certainly think it's a beautiful sign of fraternity. That type of brotherhood, I think is beautiful. I also think that. Yeah, I would not read it as mocking. I think they love Sir Gawain, as you mentioned. I think we saw that at the beginning, Right. When he's going off on this journey, they're lamenting it. I think they actually critique Arthur for getting him into this mess and kind of to the severity that he is with actually beheading the Green Knight. And remember, there's these lines that, like, he would have made a good lord, he would have done these things, and now the best of them is leaving. So, no, I think it is a sign of fraternity. I think it's a beautiful sign. I think it's going back to my earlier comment a certain way. I think it's an elevation of the court. Sir Gawain is the ideal. He wears the pin tangle. So now they're all going to have this. And so, yeah, it's a beautiful scene. The poem ends. So there's two things to note about how this ends. One actually has three things. One, it's bookended. So again, we go back to Brutus and then Troy and then a statement of Christ. Right. Because this is at Christmas, et cetera. Even though we get a Crown of Thorns reference. I thought it was interesting that the poem ends with an amen. I'm not sure what they make of that, but it's kind of religious nature. I thought that was notable. And then the third thing is that then it has this, like, statement at the end, which I will not try to pronounce. I believe it's old French, and I am not a scholar here, but I want to read something about this because I thought this was really fascinating, where it says that this line that we're kind of looking at is an old French motto, not Middle English. It's a motto of the British Order of the Garter, the highest order of chivalry in England, founded by King Edward III in 1348. And so it basically can be translated to, like, shame be to the person who thinks evil of it, or may he be ashamed who thinks evil of it. So apparently the story, like why would you have an order called Order of the Garter was that all these people are together, they're dancing, they're doing something. A lady's garter slipped off her leg and fell to the floor. People snickered. So the king picked it up and tied it around his own knee and then said this line, this motto, essentially telling the court that anyone who saw something scandalous or ridiculous in such a small thing was one who should be ashamed. Now that is a fascinating kind of way to end the poem because that would, that would. That would lend towards. Right, not reading too heavily into Gawain's error, that it needs to be taken with a certain levity and lightness and context of where he actually errored, which would probably then lead a lot. I would think that such a line, if you were to read it on its face, would lend more towards a Tolkien esque reading than some of the heavily critiques that I laid earlier.

[B]

Yeah, I love it. I did read that they think that it might have been added after the fact as it was held in the collection. Probably somebody who was in the Order of the Gardener made that connection. Whether that's right or not, I don't know. But I do think that, and the least shows bare minimum the impact and the way that galwayne has been brought into the real world. Right. That we're now seeing the connection to real orders and real. I know that the Order of the Garter, a lot of people think that it was an attempt to make King Arthur's court real. Right. Like this is okay, this is the ideal that we really need to be living up to in the real world. And so I think that it shows the way that fiction and this poem straddles, you know, that this ideal into the real world and the. The impact that reading things like this can have on the men of great vitality.

[A]

Yeah, that's fascinating. It's maybe chalked up to mystery, but, you know, whether the poet put it there himself, that's. That's a huge question. Because if he did, that seems to lend towards a certain type of read. Yeah, but this has been beautiful. Any other kind of final thoughts or comments on this fit or just on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight in general?

[C]

Yeah, I. Well, two things I had in the first episode referenced Arthurian chivalry versus Carolingian chivalry or English chivalry versus French chivalry. And, you know, perhaps this is for a different conversation. Maybe. Deacon, we can at some point down the road do the Song of Roland and compare it with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but I think this piece of Arthurian literature is actually a strangely compelling critique of Arthurian literature and.

[B]

The.

[C]

The difficulties that. That Gawain finds himself in. Meditate on that. The other thing that I wanted to just mention is I. I had kind of. I misspoke in. In the first episode and Professor Jackson corrected me on it. I really like this poem because it presents a fascinating companion piece to Mallory's La Morte d', Arthur, which is so Lancelot heavy. And Mallory basically sets the tone for, as far as I can tell, for all of Arthurianism thereafter. Everybody is working with Mallory and Mallory leaves these. He leaves this really, I dare say, like, unsatisfying lack of moral resolution, lack of justice regarding Lancelot and Guinevere. And there's just. There's just a ton to say about that. I love the way this book. I know that this is written before Mallory and Mallory doesn't incorporate this into his larger corpus, but this really does present Gawain as an anti Lancelot. And it's especially interesting if it is true that the. That Lady Bertilak is as beautiful, if not more beautiful, than Guinevere and Gawain withstands her advances. This. This is the. The failure that brought down Arthur's court eventually. So Gawain as the anti Lancelot and then also Gawain sort of as an anti Galahad is pretty fascinating too. Galahad shows up near the end of Mallory as just this absolutely sterling marble knight who does everything perfectly. He's the. He's the one who achieves the Grail quest. I personally have never felt any sort of interest in him. He's. He is just. He's so perfect. He shows up, he does everything perfectly, and then rides off into the sunset. Gawain, though, is so compelling, so endearing. I think it's really fascinating. A couple of times on Twitter, I have done a highly unscientific unofficial poll of Twitter's favorite Night of the Round Table, and it's always Gawain. So anyways, I find all of this really compelling. Gawain as the anti Lancelot. Did you guys. Did you guys get a sense of that from reading this?

[A]

I think the comparison that you just made, that, you know, if you take the. The compliment towards the lady of the castle, truly, or at least even. Even in the same ballpark, then I really like the comparison and the parallel that you made that then Sir Gawain can survive and resist some pretty heavy temptation there. Where Lancelot fails particularly then, even if. Then the lady of the castle is more beautiful than Guinevere. And for those who don't know, like the. The affair, it's very tragic between Lancelot and Guinevere is what then destroys the court. And as I mentioned earlier in our first episode, yeah, I read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I read several things and then read the Death of Arthur and was just kind of blindsided by what I would call. It's almost despair. It's almost like an anti pentangle. Like it's almost showing that this just does not work, that the chivalric is an ideal that really cannot exist. Even King Arthur then and all of that idealistic and Camelot kind of comes collapsing down. So, no, I think that your parallel there is actually really intriguing and one I'd like to think about more because I'm definitely drawn more towards Sir Gowan because when I got done with Death of Arthur, to borrow a phrase, there was no pentangle. It doesn't exist. It's a false notion and it's just an ideal. And the reality actually I found to be very Machiavellian. It actually, after reading the Death of Arthur, it made sense to me why someone like Machiavelli was writing the way that he did just a little while later, if I remember my dates correctly, because of how this interface amongst the nobles and the courts and et cetera, I found very relativistic and very much full of despair. It was much of the chivalric and the courtesy, but no of the Christian ethic. And so it created this kind of atomized ethic that I found very distasteful. Whereas with Sir Galen and the Green Knight, I feel like the pentangle survives, that there is a way that all these things can be held together and there are men who then can exemplify this type of ideal.

[B]

Yeah, I agree. And that's the reason why I love Gowing is because I do think that it is a critique of chivalry to some degree, but it's a friendly one, you know, it's not hostile like Machiavelli or some other ones are. I think it falls kind of similar in line with like Shakespeare in that regard. Right. Shakespeare has a lot of critiques of. Of chivalry for potentially good reasons. But like Gowing, I think it's coming from a friendly place, a place that wants that to be possible. And I. What I love about Gowing Is that it? It really seems to put into it ends with, like, a note of faith, almost right, that this is something worthy of stretching. For here are the potential pitfalls. This is where things can go wrong. But it's really reliant on the grace of God at the end of the day. And that's such a beautiful story to read at Christmas time especially. And I think that's really why it's set at Christmas time, is that it's supposed to point you back to the Lord and reliance on him.

[C]

That's a really good point. I wanted to add one more thing, too. I had read, I think, in the first episode, Tolkien's note about the character of Gawain, Gawain being defined by this loyalty that he has towards Arthur. There's another really good and kind of similar Arthurian legend in which Arthur's life is imperiled and he needs to find the answer to a. A riddle that is perplexing everybody in the kingdom. And this loathly old hag shows up and claims to have the answer that will save Arthur's life. And her price, though, is that she wants to marry one of Arthur's knights and none of them can bring themselves to do it. Arthur really won't even ask. Like, this is such. This is such a remarkable request. Arthur can't bring himself to do it. Of course, who steps up when somebody needs to step up to save Arthur's life? It's Gawain again. So just that there are other romances within this tradition that show Gawain being defined by this loyalty, and this loyalty is where, of course, Lancelot falters and the kingdom dies as a result of that.

[A]

As you were mentioning that myth, I then recalled it. It's in Howard Pyle's King Arthur tales as well. I remember reading it to my children and, yeah, it's a phenomenal tale. It's very charming. Okay, good. Gentlemen, this has been fantastic. I really appreciate it. I have learned a lot. Again, I took a text that I loved and I just fell in love with it even deeper. Obviously, knowledge is an invitation to love, and I've come to know this text a lot better. I appreciate a lot of smaller details and subtleties in this text that I don't think I really noticed prior to our discussion. So I just want to tell you guys both, thank you because I think this has been a marvelous Christmas and New Year's read, and I've just greatly enjoyed it.

[B]

Likewise, I'm very grateful to have been here. Grateful for the invitation Learned a lot from both of you as well. So thank you for having me.

[A]

Yeah, we appreciate it, Ken, I appreciate you joining us.

[C]

I just wanted to beg your audience's forgiveness if I said anything particularly silly. I find myself, as a result of these conversations, rethinking my entire understanding of the poem. So I'm gonna have to, again, reread it.

[A]

Well, I think I set a good tone by being wrong in my interpretation on line like three, when Aeneas comes in. So that brings, like, you know, you have to. If you're going to read the great books, you have to have humility, right? You have to have the fact that the author is the teacher and we are the student and we have to be willing to learn. I mean, that's one reason I've greatly appreciated these conversations with you all is because I learned from them. I had misperceptions that were corrected, actually, that seeing Aeneas as a traitor, I think becomes a template for the whole text. And that's something I thought about as we read through it this time. And that actually was very fecund. I found lots of fruit. And actually holding those two things together and then seeing that, you know, that kind of opened up like the Mary and Morgan Le Fay comparison, the chivalric and the Christian comparison, seeing Arthur as a character in tension, seeing Gawain in this as a character of tension. So, yeah, I've learned a lot. I appreciate both of you tremendously appreciated Dr. Jackson and Dr. Schubert as well. And everyone, you can go check out and find both George at Chivalry Guild and banish Kent on X. So please go check out their accounts. I know George has a book and a substack. I think Kent's got things brewing. We've appreciated both of them, so please go check them out. Next week, we will be kicking off the New year with why we should read Greek Literature. Why should Christians read the pagans? And actually, this question was taken up by our early church fathers. And so we'll read a letter from St. Peter Basil and a letter from St. Jerome. We'll have a good group, good panel on to discuss that. So join us next week. Also, we are working with Dr. Justin Jackson, who wants to come back and discuss Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as a whole. So we'll have that coming up in our schedule sometime soon. Go check us out on X, YouTube, Facebook and Patreon. Appreciate all of our supporters and we will see you next week.