Courage from King Arthur and the Middle Ages free essay sample

Especially when he did take the Green Knights head and the Green Knight just picks his head up afterwards and rides off into the distance. â€Å"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. † (Nelson Mandela) â€Å"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. † (Mark Twain) There is evidence of this also in â€Å"Sir Gawain and the Green Knight† as Sir Gawain rides off to the Green castle to see if the Green Knight will chop off his head, even if he doesn’t have to (which also goes along with honor). He had gone on to a neighboring castle to try and get directions because he wasn’t going to give up just because he was lost, and decided to play a game with the lord of the castle. We will write a custom essay sample on Courage from King Arthur and the Middle Ages or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page After the game was over, which lasted three days, Sir Gawain continued his journey instead of turning back yet again when he had the chance. The battle had taken place, and at the end, Sir Gawain was spared because he finally that he had lied about the girdle on the third day of the stay at the hosts castle. â€Å"He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy. (Socrates) â€Å"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. † (Reinhold Niebuhr) This quote goes along with the story â€Å"Morte D’Arthur† as King Arthur goes off to fight Mordred at his beloved castle Camelot. The day before the battle was supposed to commence, Arthur has a dream of Sir Gawain saying that if he fought the next day, he would surely die and that in order to win, he had to make a truce for 30 days so Sir Lancelot would come and fight on hi s side with a rally of soldiers. King Arthur went to Mordred with the treaty as planned with his serenity to change the future but didn’t have enough courage to uphold the change in the future when a Knight had drawn his sword and inadvertently started the war. As the war was over, King Arthur had an army of three people against Mordreds’ army of one. King Arthur didn’t have the wisdom like he wanted after the battle because he took a look at the battle grounds and rode with rage against Mordred. The dream was right, and King Arthur was slain because the future really couldn’t have been changed. Courage, is as stated before, the will to do/say something for the good regardless of the outcome. It is relevant to talk about because in today’s world, courage is just a little idea that few people truly know outside of the military. People in today’s realm focus more on their selves and not on the better of other people that courage is a will hard to obtain unless one truly knows what it is. The reason why it is hard to obtain is because people confuse it with disrespect so much that many do more harm than good.