Friday, 17 October 2014

Two Monsters and a Dragon: Beowulf

The Myth: Beowulf! A monster and his mum! Treasure! Magic swords! A dragon! Fabulous treasure from a lost race!
The Book: Beowulf
The Author:  Unknown, sometime in the eighth century. Possibly the ninth. No later than the eleventh. (Thanks, Wiki.)
This text: etext of a 1909 translation by F. B. Gummere in "English imitative meter".
Price: Nothin' (Kindle Free Library)


Beowulf kills a monster. Then he kills another monster. Fifty years later, he kills a dragon, and dies. Also, there are digressions into Geatish history and politics.
"So he came in the night?"
"Yeah, he wanted to give us a
hand."
"And you...?"

"He found my hospitality
disarming."
"By which you mean..."
"This is a fine hall, Hrothgar, I've got to
hand it to you."
"Right. I get it."
"I ripped his arm off, is what I'm saying."
"I gathered. From the monster arm you're waving around."
"'cos I'm a champion of
unarmed combat."
"Are you finished?"
"Yeah, I'm done."
Ok, yes, there's more to it than that. The poem is pretty awesome, all alliterative and bloody. The setting is detailed, the characterisation solid, the fighting visceral. The digressions are occasionally a bit weird, coming across as a sort of poetic product placement: "Have you considered such other fine poems as 'The Tragic Lay of Heremod' or 'The Epic of Freawuru'?" They may have meant more to an 8th-11th century audience.

But at the base of it, a hero fights monsters and wins. Then dies.
 
This is foundation stuff for the English language and well worth a read. And it's not that long. It took Redcrosse far more verbiage to kill his dragon, for example.

Tuesday, 14 October 2014

For Queene and Country: The Adventures of the Redcrosse Knight

The Myth: Gloriana, the Faerie Queene! Mythic England! Magic queens! Knights! Ladies! Witches! Sorcerers! Giants! Lions! Dragons! More allegory than you could possibly imagine!
The Book: The Faerie Queene (Book I)
The Author: Edmund Spenser, 1590
This text: etext of a 1903 edition, edited by George Armstrong Wauchope
Price: Nothin' (Kindle Free Library)



In the first book - actually, in the preamble, a letter to Sir Walter Raleigh - a young country boy presents himself at the court of the Faerie Queene herself, Gloriana, saying that he wants to be a knight. At the same time, a young woman, Una, presents herself at the court, asking that the Queene aid her land, which is beset by a dragon. The Queene, in an admirable display of efficiency, knights the boy and sends him off with Una, as per their respective requests.
"Somehow I thought this would be harder. Like, there might be a test or something." "You're still here? Dragons don't slay themselves, kid."
Then the poem actually starts, and the lad is now the Redcrosse Knight, on account of the red cross on his surcoat. He sets out with the lady and her dwarf. It's not an easy trip. The three are constantly tricked, captured, threatened, tilted at and generally harassed. They're hassled by the shifty wizard Archimago, the faithless, seductive witch Duessa, the Saracen brother-knights Sansloy, Sansjoy and Sansfoy, and a full cast of giants and monsters. Luckily, despite having been given the job without even addressing the selection criteria, the boy turns out to be pretty good at knighting and kind of okay at resisting seduction. Una, despite being less martial, has a useful knack for being protected by a lion at key points in the narrative. Also, King Arthur arrives to save the day and banish Duessa to hell.

According to the annotations, this is all highly allegorical and probably terribly witty to the Elizabethan crowd. Redcrosse represents Holiness (and England, and Protestantism), Una represents Truth, the dwarf is Common Sense, the lion is Reason (and the Reformation, and Henry VIII) and they fight against dishonesty, falsehood, treachery, misery, hypocrisy and so on (and also France, the Pope, Catholics, Spain, Jesuits and other nasties). You probably need to be an Elizabethan courtier to get all the references, and if you're an Elizabethan courtier you're probably actually in it.

Anyway, eventually, they make it to Una's home country, which is Eden, and Redcrosse squares off against the dragon (Satan, and also maybe Spain). This is a drag-out, knock-down, three-day battle, where Redcrosse and the dragon each give as good as they get. At the end of the first day, Redcrosse is killed but falls into Eden's life-giving well. At the end of the second, Redcross is burned and poisoned but healed by a balm from the tree of life. Finally, Redcrosse wins. He and Una are betrothed, and everyone lives happily ever after. Except, say, Duessa, or Archimago.

--

The Faerie Queene is supposed to represent some of the most beautiful writing in the English language.

I don't really see it.

Certainly, I'm not transported the way I was with the (English translation of) the Kalevala, or with Beowulf, or even the latter parts of the Mort. Part of this, I suppose, is that the enthusiastic Elizabethan spelling adds a layer of complication, so that to the modern eye (well, mine), the rhymes and rhythms are a bit wonky. And part of it is the allegory, which can be hilariously unsubtle or weirdly oblique. Overall, it becomes a bit of a struggle.

That said, the dragon bit is awesome.

And the baby daughter rather likes it.

Next: The Temperate Knight.

Monday, 6 October 2014

Georgians in Arabia: The Knight in the Panther Skin

The Myth: Georgia's national epic - Adventure! Romance! Wild animals! Love, both thwarted and true! Questionable fashion choices! Manly men doing manly things! More weeping and swooning than you'd think!
The Book: The Man in the Panther's Skin
The Author: Shot'ha Rust'haveli, sometime in the twelfth century
This text: etext of a 1912 translation by Marjory Scott Wardrop
Price: $3.76 (Amazon Digital Services)

So lets talk about the Knight in the Panther's Skin.


Avt'handil
We first meet Avt'handil, who is in love with the King of Arabia, T'hinat'hin, daughter of the Old King Rostevan. (For clarity: T'hinat'in is not a Queen, but a King in her own right, much like King T'hamara of Georgia, Rust'haveli's patron. T'hamara comes in for some fulsome praise in the introductory verses.) Avt'handil is generalissimo of Arabia and does not wear a panther skin. One day while out hunting, Rostevan and Avt'handil come across a knight who does wear a panther skin. This knight murders several of their servants and disappears without talking to anyone. The mystery of this mysterious figure torments the Old King, so the Young King sends Avt'handil on a quest to find out.

Avt'handil quests for three years, and is just about to give up and go home, when he meets three bandits (or, two bandits and a corpse) who have just been beaten up by an uncommunicative man wearing a panther skin.

Tariel
Avt'handil finds the figure in a cave, along with a maidservant. He asks the knight for his story, so that he may return to his King and, desperately, his King. The knight, Tariel, spins his tale of woe: he was the foster son of the King of India and generalissimo, and he fell in love with the King's daughter, Nestan-Daredjan. He fell so much in love with her that he took to his bed, overcome with weeping and swooning, until a message from his bloodthirsty beloved tells him through her maidservant Asmat'h, that he can better prove his love by conquering the neighbouring lands. Which he does.
"Seriously, what's this weeping and swooning shit? Go and kill someone."
Victorious, Tariel returns home, where the King asks his opinion on who should marry his daughter. Since the princess is cloistered with her Aunt until such time as she be married, Tariel is reluctant to admit that he has met her, and instead says, "Uh, I dunno," leading to the King nominating a Persian Prince. This distresses both the Princess and the generalissimo, who conclude that the only reasonable course of action is murder.
"I shall kill him and his entire army!"
"That's excessive. Just kill him."
When asked to explain his murderous rampage, Tariel says, "I just didn't want a foreigner to sit on the throne which is mine by right as your foster son, it has nothing to do with your daughter, haha, how ridiculous, how could I possibly be in love with your daughter?" The King nevertheless intuits that his daughter's chastity had been compromised, and vows to murder both her and his sister. The Aunt, a sorceress, learns of this plot, and kills herself out of spite, sending the princess into sorceress exile.

Tariel wanders the world in the company of Asmat'h, also disgraced, and befriends P'hridon, prince of Mulghazanzar. P'ridon has an inheritance dispute with his cousins, which Tariel resolves through violence. The two knights, with and sans panther skin, swear eternal brotherhood. It transpires that P'hridon has seen Nestan-Daredjan, and in fact fallen in love with her. However, despite this intelligence Tariel loses the trail of his princess. He retires to a cave on the plains with Asmat'h, now his sworn sister, and resolves to go mad. He takes to dressing in a panther skin because panthers are pretty cats that remind him of his beloved.


More Avt'handil
It is in this state that Avt'handil has found him. Avt'handil is overwhelmed with brotherly love - to the point of weeping and swooning - and the two knights swear eternal brotherhood. Avt'handil then returns home to relate the story to the King and the King. However, he is struck with longing of the weeping and swooning kind for his sworn brother, and makes to leave. King T'hinat'hin understands completely, having witnessed a lot of this weeping and swooning on her own behalf, but the King Rostevan is outraged and forbids it. Reasoning that he's no use to his King as a weeping and swooning wreck, Avt'handil sneaks out and heads for the plains.

He arrives to find Tariel half dead, near a panther and a lion, fully dead. Tariel has lost the will to live, but Avt'handil tells him to buck the hell up, he didn't abandon his country and his girlfriend the King to travel half way to Turkey for a brother who'll just die. Especially not when there's a princess to find and, if possible, rescue!

Avt'handil swears to undertake the quest himself, and rides off to pick up the quest.
"I'm off. No sneaky killing yourself while I'm away!"
The first port of call is Mulghazanzar, which might be Turkey. P'hridon is impressed by Avt'handil from the get-go, but is overjoyed to learn of Tariel. The two knights, without panther skins, swear eternal brotherhood, and P'hridon provides some warriors for Avt'handil's quest. Avt'handil continues on, and comes across a band of merchants beset by pirates. Avt'handil solves their problems with violence, and they carry him across the sea and make him their chief.

In the guise of a merchant leader, Avt'handil arrives in the Sea-King's city of Gulansharo, which is possibly Venice. He is invited to meet with the chief merchant of the city, Usen, which he does. Usen's wife, P'hatman, falls for Avt'handil and sets about seducing him. Avt'handil discovers that Nestan-Daredjan has been seen in these parts and in fact this palace, and allows himself to be seduced. P'hatman has a former suitor who needs settling with violence, and once Avt'handil has settled him with violence, he confesses that he is not actually a morally-lax merchant prince but in fact a fine upstanding knight on a heroic rescue mission, and therefore probably shouldn't have been seduced so easily. P'hatman spills the beans.

Yes, she says, Nestan-Daredjan was here. P'hatman and her husband had captured her from the slaves who were carrying her, and took her into their own house where they (a) kept her presence a secret and (b) both fell in love with her. Usen made the mistake of boasting of the captive to the King, but before the King could take her for himself, the princess escaped and was promptly captured by evil sorcerous Kadjis. The evil sorceress-King of the Kadjis seeks to marry her to her son when he comes of age, so while Nestan-Daredjan is imprisoned in an impregnable rock fortress guarded by ten thousand mad warriors and a sorceress-King, there's not a lot of time pressure. Avt'handil goes back to the cave to get Tariel, and they return to P'hridon to come up with a rescue plan.
 
Three brothers, one cat-skin
P'hridon supplies three thousand of his best warriors, and the three  debate the best way to take an impregnable sorcerous fortress.
"Stealth?"
"Not very heroic, is it?"
"Subterfuge?"
"Again..."
"Suicidal frontal attack?"
"Avt'handil won't let me kill myself."
"Something tricky involving tactics?"
"Worth a shot, I guess."
Superior tactics win the day, and the impervious fortress turns out to be pervious after all. Tariel and Nestan-Daredjan are reunited. P'hridon marries them, gallantly accepting that Tariel saw her first. The newlyweds plan to return to India and wrest the throne from Nestan-Daredjan's father, but Tariel refuses until Avt'handil is married to his beloved, the King. Avt'handil takes a surprising amount of persuading, but in the end concedes that Arabia is in fact on the way, so he returns, apologises to the King for leaving him in the lurch, and marries King T'hinat'hin. They live happily ever after.

It doesn't seem to occur to anyone that neither P'hridon nor Ashmat'h get to marry anyone.

--

I enjoyed with this one, but it must be said that the translation is not an elegant one - it's overly literal and occasionally uncertain, without any sort of poetic flow. There are a lot of unfamiliar metaphors: eyelashes of jet, faces of crystal and ruby, teeth of coral, bodies like aloe trees, faces that burn like the sun with beauty. The Georgian-Arabian idea of courtly love is also quite different from what I'm used to, and involves an awful lot of weeping and swooning.

But there's high adventure, military maneuvers, brotherhood, romance, all that stuff. It was fun.