“The Blood-Titans” From the Rhineland (The Green Knight and the Gladiators)

A Time of the Roman Republic


(200 BC to, 120 AD)


Preface and Background: When I think of Rome, I think of the whole world in those far off days, the Roman Republic, Trojan’s Column, built in 114 AD. The Great Coliseum (75-79AD, built), which holds 100,000 spectators. And Adrian’s Tomb, Nero, and Cicero, and the wars with Carthage; Sylla (88 BC) and the Caesar’s, Pompeii, and the Roman Forum; Tiberius, cruel and tyrannical (223 AD); Augustus Caesar, Emperor for 44-years; the Arch of Titus, Hannibal and his horde and the Green Knight (200 BC to 120 AD).


How it was in Rhineland


(Narrator) It was perhaps the brutish country the Green Knight had fought in yet, with the blond haired savages, primitive warriors. There was hundreds of them, whole tribes of them, and one Roman legend that marched on foot into this wolfs cage, and both sides fought heavily, the Romans with long beards, against these prime naked males, and their women fought like tigresses’ whom would sink their teeth deep into the feet, or arms of the Roman warrior, wherever possible.

The Green Knight was actually taller than these blond haired titans; he had great shoulders, muscles, and long and swelling mighty arms. The tall blond titans, as they were called, boomed across the mysterious nights, prowling into the valley’s and raided the camp of the Romans when possible, whom were outnumbered the Romans five to one, then raced back into the forest of trees, singing and dancing war songs. The Green Knight had never known such warriors as these before.

Bronze swords, singing like thunder, and (archery), arrows hissing, men dropping to their death daily; it was a slaughter in fury on both sides, blood soaked the earth in those far off days, and the Green Knight would remember those days until his last hour of life.


▼


The Poetic Sage Continues


The Circus Maximus

Titus Sulla
(Governor of Eboracum)

49


Titus Sulla
And the Gladiators


Titus Sulla was only answerable to the
Emperor of Rome, and he craved his games
in the Circus Maximus—and commanded the
Green Knight, to fight as a Gladiator there;
he was the pride of Rome, the peak of a warrior
of them all—and justly proud. But to perform,
for the sport of it, was beneath him, so he felt,
yet he would fight this one answerable day! He
felt like a trapped wolf, trapped in a cage.




The Trapped Wolf

50

The Green Knight came hauntingly out in his aspect—;
(bright military garb), his appearing skin texture was striking,
he wore complete green, even a green breast plate
with a long sword, and a short stabbing dagger at
his belt. Oh his head, a silver green helmet, with a
green shield and spear in each hand. The several
impassive solders in back of him, blond titans,
ghostly scared (the Mediterranean sun was basting
over the Circus Maximus): horror was stained on their
faces; next, he leaped at all seven, black fire came from
his sword, burning through flesh, like heated butter.
Cynically Sulla bowed to the Greet Gladiator.


The Might of the Green Knight


51

His lips writhed looking at his foe, his hands like
iron spikes, his raw fingers crunched human bones,
punished many a man with them, all victims—
his fists fell like hammers driving a man deeper
and deeper into submission, broken lips and
torn gums, lost teeth, the Green Knight fought
like a beast: his temples with swollen veins, anger
coming out of every pour, muscles knotted.

















(Narrator) The Green Knight now rested a moment under the Palestine Moon, two strangers seemingly lost from their camps, both Knights; a bonfire going, as if to welcome whomever: the Green Knight was hoping for a battle, he
still had not gotten over Florencia of Camelot, thus perhaps
displacing his anger for the loss, whom he still
blamed on Gawain now long dead.



The Green Knight:
‘Aye, more—! Young pine, young wine, more ‘T is strange!
I’ve had no love affair since Florencia! Perchance, I’ve seen
too much infidelity, hearts fall in heathendom.
Too, too much, way too much, for a life time!

Florencia being the exception, a woman’s tongue is
more dangerous than a python; and these women that
follow the camps, exchange their bodies for love…,

it’s all that can be for a wandering sword! No more!
So you boast to be a Knight, with a childless youth!’
(The Green Knight stops, shilly-shally, looks at the youth.)

“Soldas,” says the youth, and he sang a song:

Song of the Boy Knight ♫
‘ Sing…a song as the old moon wanes
To win, to win, the first born kiss
A kiss, a kiss, from a young princess
Find thee in a hidden place!
But who am I to tell thee…in the
Desert sands of Palestine!’

No: 1896





The Boy Knight:
‘You torment in the blood you pour—perhaps peacefulness
consumes you more, I have forgotten the darkness
of night, all loneliness parishes with love, for a wife…

sets above my soul, and soon I will be back with her…
in Rhineland—my home (where Saxtons still roam)!’


The Green Knight:
‘Yes, oh yes young prince, or piper, silence is monarch
in my heart, it holds the dead and me…too many aisles
in my mind to trod, I am dead, but I am not mute.

Yes, prince or pauper, or knight—whom ever you be,
mortals question of my name. Thou know’st not,
but here side by side you and me, a moment fads…

that will never be again, for evil is of its own—!’


Morning of the Next Day

And for what, and whither, in the morn, the boy knight
was gone, and the Green Knight looked about—the fire
heap was cold, the sphere was showing the sun.

.


Notes: ‘The Boy Knight,’ was written on 7-3-2007, revised and edited on 7-7-2007, and then put into the manuscript, ‘Sir Gawain, and the Ghost of the Green Knight.’