A Good Knight

One thing I like about Arthurian literature is that the same story is told over and over again; one might even say that the creative emphasis is on delivery rather than content. I was fortunate to be reminded of this today in a used book store when I picked up La Mort le Roi Artu (in translation), not to be confused with the Alliterative Morte Arthure, the Stanzaic Morte Arthur, or Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, the most well-known of the four.

In all these iterations of the fall of Arthur, one of the main themes is the question of what makes a good knight. Ideas of faithful love, honor, and bravery rise as answers to this question, as well as skill in riding and fighting, the literal meaning of 'chivalry'. If you ask who the Best Knight of the Round Table, many people might say Lancelot, who is essentially never defeated in combat, but whose affair with Guinevere is the largest catalyst of the death of Arthur and the destruction of the flower of chivalry. Another common answer is Galahad, who is even more unbeatable and perfect than his father Lancelot, but he is almost more of a priest than a knight, and he is barely 'of the Round Table' because his only quest is the grail and he fights more Round Table knights than he cooperates with. Tristram is another essentially unbeatable knight, but he shares all of Lancelot's flaws and fewer of his virtues.

If I was pressed to name the Best Knight of the Round Table, I would probably go with Percival or Bors, but I think the most interesting answer is Gawain. In most Arthurian tales, Gawain is often defeated and commits many sins, but he nevertheless remains one of the most esteemed and influential knights of the Round Table. There are many sides to this conversation, but for now I propose that Gawain is a good knight because he admits his flaws and shows contrition. This passage at the beginning of La Mort le Roi Artu gives a good example:

"The king [Arthur] had heard the rumor that Gawain had killed several [knights], and he summoned him before him and said:

'Gawain, I order you, by the oath you swore when I knighted you, to answer the question I am going to ask you.'

'My Lord,' replied Sir Gawain, 'since you have asked me in that manner I shall not fail in any way to tell you, even if it brought me shame as great as ever befell a knight of your court.'

'I want to ask you,' said the king, 'how many knights you think you killed, by your own hand, on this quest.' Sir Gawain thought for a moment and the king said again: 'By my oath, I want to know, because there are people who are saying that you have killed a very large number.'

'My Lord,' said Sir Gawain, 'you obviously wish to be certain of my great misfortune, and I shall tell you, because I see that I must. I can tell you in truth that I killed eighteen by my own hand, not because I was a better knight than any of the others, but since misfortune affected me more than any of my companions. Indeed, it did not come about through my chivalry, but through my sin. You have made me reveal my shame.'

'Certainly, my nephew,' said the king, 'that was truly great misfortune, and I am well aware that it happened through your sin. Nevertheless, tell me whether you believe you killed King Baudemagus.'

'My Lord,' he said, 'I definitely did kill him - and I have never done anything that I regret so much as that.'

'Indeed, my nephew,' said the king, 'if you have regrets about that it is not surprising; because, may God help me, I regret it too. My court has lost more in him than in the four best knights who died on the quest.'

Gawain is clearly a flawed knight in this scene, but contrast his admission of weakness with Lancelot's behavior during a fight with a young Gareth in Le Morte d'Arthur: 

"[Gareth] fought more like a giant than a knight; and his fighting was so passing durable and passing perilous, for Sir Lancelot had so much ado with him that he dreaded himself to be shamed, and said, 'Beaumains, fight not so sore! Your quarrel and mine is not so great but we may soon leave off.'"

Shame is mentioned in both passages; Gawain publicly accepts his shame and shows contrition, while Lancelot fights to preserve his image. Many years later, after being caught with Guinevere, Lancelot continues to fight rather than admit fault, to the point of killing Gareth (who loved Lancelot more than his own brothers) and destroying the Round Table. A full discussion of knightly shame would require many more sources; for example, Gawain's ability to confess sin and accept the consequences at the cost of reputation is a major part of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Just as Gawain's moral weakness is redeemed through confession, his relative weakness in combat leads him to be a more good knight, while not a better knight, than his stronger compatriots. There is an idea in chivalric stories that right makes might, i.e. whoever is on the side of justice will prevail in combat (which is why trial by combat is valid). Because of this, one might say that since Lancelot always wins battles, he must be the most morally upright knight. On the other hand, Lancelot fights just as well when killing unarmed knights to save Guinevere from the consequences of his actions as he does on any of his nobler adventures, and there are plenty of tales with evil knights who are strong enough to defeat all but the best from the Round Table. Therefore, I would say that an often-defeated knight such as Gawain shows more bravery in going out questing than an undefeated knight such as Lancelot or Tristram; it takes more fortitude to lose a fight and suffer for doing good than it does to go from victory to victory.

Anyone, then, with the necessary equipment and skill in fighting might be good at being a knight, but as Gawain shows us, it actually takes weakness to be a Good Knight.

Tire Repair

 I was one hour into my five-hour drive home from Atlanta when I noticed that one of my tires was losing air pressure. Even worse, the rate of loss was increasing, so while I thought at first that I could make it back home and deal with the issue later, it soon became clear that I needed to get off the highway. I took the next exit and checked my tire in a gas station parking lot, and found a large nail in it. It was more than I could fix myself, and my spare tire is one of those small ones not suited for long distances. Fortunately, since I wasn't too far from Atlanta, the area was pretty built up and there were several tire shops around-- I counted three just near the exit. Unfortunately, since it was 7 PM on a Friday, they were all closed.

I was marooned in an Americana wilderness of parking lots and plazas. I was pretty stressed at this point, but eventually I asked myself one of the questions I often use while planning things: what's the worst that could (reasonably) happen? The tire shops were right there, so all I needed to do was wait until they opened the next morning. There were plenty of stores and restaurants around, so I could get dinner and maybe even watch a movie or buy a book somewhere. I had a sleeping bag in the car so I could even get some good rest that night. It started sounding almost fun! However, I couldn't in good conscience consider myself stranded unless I made a genuine attempt to leave. Robinson Crusoe's adventures would seem much more artificial, for example, if he had the option to leave the island any time he wanted.

So, I looked online for all the tire shops in the area, and found one only two miles away that was still open. It had a lot of good reviews, and from the website (particularly the font choice), it looked like a locally-owned business. I called ahead to ask if they could do something about a nail in my tire, and they told me to come on over. When I pulled up to the shop, the guy I had talked to on the phone was outside waiting for me, and he seemed pretty friendly. The shop itself was a garage filled with stacks of tires, with a hydraulic jack out front to lift cars.

Since the nail was stuck in the edge of the tire, the diagnosis was that it couldn't safely be patched, so I needed a replacement tire. This ended up being quicker and cheaper than I expected; I drove away twenty minutes later with a fresh tire, $50 less, and an amiable wave. As I got back on the highway, I felt happier than I would have if I hadn't gotten a nail in my tire in the first place. Maybe it was the relatively painless solution to what I imagined would be a terrible ordeal-- after all, who doesn't enjoy a rollercoaster of emotion every now and then?

Critter Encounters

 I've been working in rural Florida this summer and have been impressed by the determination of all sorts of small creatures to get into my house. There are hordes of insects, frogs and geckos that congregate on the windows at night to look in at the light. A few frogs have made it in and I was once surprised to feel a frog jump onto my head while I was working at my desk. There is always one earwig in the shower, never more, never less. And a mouse, the smartest small creature here, took up residence in my kitchen, where I saw it licking my silverware clean late one night. I later opened an unused drawer and saw that the mouse had made its nest there out of some fluffy white material from who-knows-where. The mouse was home at the time and stayed perfectly still as we looked at each other-- it probably didn't know that the drawer could open, an unfortunate trait for a mouse house.

My car, parked in the shade outside, is apparently a mansion for small frogs. They settle under the hood by the windshield wipers and in the lining around the trunk. At least one has found its way to the interior, as I discovered while going 70 miles an hour on the interstate. It jumped onto my neck and I felt the cool moistness of its feet (distinct from the scratchy dryness of an insect) for a second before I spasmed it off and managed not to swerve out of my lane.

I had another instance of critter-caused distracted driving today, also on the interstate, when I reached down for my drink and felt a sudden sharp pain like a needle-prick. I was confused for a few seconds until I looked down and saw a large wasp that must have been trying to share my drink and had stung me on the palm. It was a real shock and the best I could do to react without crashing the car was to open all the windows and hope the wasp would fly out. Instead, it crawled up the dashboard and into an air vent, which I closed behind it. Now, I imagine that the wasp either made it out of the ventilation and is living happily ever after, or that it built a nest somewhere and I can expect dozens of wasps to come out of my air vents sometime in the near future.

This is why I work with plants: while they can have all sorts of thorns and poisons and irritating hairs, I've never had a plant jump on me in the car.