Student Question
What did King Arthur await before starting supper in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and why is it significant?
Quick answer:
In the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, King Arthur "[won't] eat until all were served" as an expression of his hospitality and his respect for his guests, and he also won't eat until he had been told "some strange story or stirring adventure." On this occasion, however, Arthur isn't told a story, but an adventure is acted out by Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
The anonymous chivalric poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is one of the best-known medieval Arthurian romances. King Arthur assembles the entirety of his court at Camelot for the fifteen days at Christmas-tide for "merriment unmatched and mirth without care, ... all meats and all mirth that men could devise, [and] voices [singing] by day, and dancing by night" (3.40, 45, 47, trans. J.R.R. Tolkien).
On New Year's Day, King Arthur and his court assemble for games and the exchange of gifts and kisses, and, with that merriment concluded and their hands washed—hygiene was important because diners shared food with their neighbors at the table—King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and the entire court sit down for the New Year's feast (4.71–72).
King Arthur has established two rules for himself for these kinds of feasts, which is Arthur's custom, "wherever his court was holden" (5.100).
Arthur's first rule is that...
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he won't eat until everyone at the feast had been served (5.85). The significance of this rule is that it reflects Arthur's respect for his guests, and it's an expression of Arthurian hospitality. The rule is also evocative of a certain sense of equality of everyone assembled for the feast, as symbolized by the Round Table, which isn't present in the room on this occasion, but is mentioned by the poet in passing (3.39, 14. 313–314).
The second rule is that Arthur doesn't eat until he's told a story:
it pleased him not to eat
upon festival so fair, ere he first were apprised
of some strange story or stirring adventure,
or some moving marvel that he might believe in
of noble men, knighthood, or new adventures;
or a challenger should come a champion seeking
to join with him in jousting, in jeopardy to set
his life against life, each allowing the other
the favor of fortune, were she fairer to him (5.91–99).
The significance of this rule is that at this particular New Year's feast Arthur isn't told a story, but a real-life adventure is enacted for Arthur and his court with the arrival of the Green Knight—who the poet declares "a perilous horseman, the mightiest on middle earth" (7.136–137) and "the largest man alive" (7.141)—and the adventure which ensues involving the Green Knight and Sir Gawain.
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