When a knight won his spurs . . . sometime last Tuesday . . .
Posted by Andrew | Filed under General
On a rainy Saturday night in Songpa-gu, a memory returns to me . . . a memory of a song, which we would sing back in the days when my secondary school in England still considered itself "Christian" (despite the leanings of many of us in other directions), but which always struck a chord deep within me as there was still – even in the 1970s – some notion of what an "English gentleman" should be, an idea which I have always clung to in my times away from home . . . that it was essential to be an English gentleman, no matter where you were, or whatever your circumstances might have been . . . that there was something that people saw in this, which they somehow admired . . . and which I have always tried to satisfy.
If I were to die tomorrow, I would hope to have approached this . . . but it's hard . . .
Tune: Stowey , from an English traditional melody.
When a knight won his spurs, in the stories of old,
He was gentle and brave, he was gallant and bold;
With a shield on his arm and a lance in his hand
For God and for valour he rode through the land.
No charger have I, and no sword by my side,
Yet still to adventure and battle I ride,
Though back into storyland giants have fled,
And the knights are no more and the dragons are dead.
Let faith be my shield and let joy be my steed
'Gainst the dragons of anger, the ogres of greed;
And let me set free, with the sword of my youth,
From the castle of darkness the power of the truth.
. . . and this was precisely the theme of my unpublished novel.
For every man has within himself a knight errant, working forever in search of the ennoblement and betterment (and probably protection) of what he knew. And without that desire to protect and improve, even if it is only himself, a man is nothing.
And perhaps that is the prime lesson of any man's life.
Tags: career, England, English, Korea, life, poetry, South Korea, teaching
