Lesson video

Hi, and welcome to today's English lesson.

This is the third lesson on the series on The Canterbury Tales: The Knight's Tale.

And today we're going to be exploring the Knights themselves; Palamon and Arcita.

Before we get started, let's make sure that you've got something to write on and something to write with, and that you've turned off any apps, notifications or other distractions that might lose your focus while we're going through the lesson.

Take a moment to make sure you've got everything you need and everything is sorted, by pausing the video for a moment now.

Are we all ready? Brilliant, let's make a start then.

Okay.

Let's start with a brief recap.

The pilgrims heading to Canterbury decide to have a storytelling competition to pass the time.

The Knight draws the short straw, and so tells his tail first.

We found out all about the Knight and what he was like as a person in our last lesson.

If you missed out on that, maybe think about going back and looking at lessons one and two in The Canterbury Tales: The Knight's Tale series.

The Knight's Tale is set in ancient Greece and features Duke Theseus, who you may remember from Greek mythological stories.

It is a tale of chivalry.

Chivalry was an important word that we learned last lesson.

Chivalry is a code of behaviour that prizes, religion, glory, and honouring women above all else.

Returning from battle with his wife to be, Hippolyta, and her beautiful sister, Emily, Theseus comes across a group of women.

The women are crying, they're mourning their husbands.

King Creon of Thebes has refused to return the bodies of their husbands, who have died in battle.

Honouring women above all else, Duke Theseus, immediately rides to Thebes.

There, he fights Creon in an open battle and kills him.

In our previous lessons, we discussed how Theseus is showing chivalric behaviour.

He's following the chivalric code by honouring these mourning women above all else and immediately doing battle with Creon of Thebes.

We also discussed Theseus's noble behaviour by fighting Creon in open battle by giving Creon a fair chance to kill him before Theseus dispatched slew Creon.

So let's see where we are with that recap.

Copy out and complete the sentences below by filling in the gaps.

In a moment, I'm going to ask you to pause the video and complete the gaps on the missing two sentences.

Pause the video now.

Okay, let's see how you got on.

Sentence one.

Theseus immediately does as the women ask and fight King Creon in open battle.

Theseus is honouring the morning women by doing what they ask, he is showing chivalric behaviour.

Sentence two.

Honouring women and achieving glory is an act of chivalry.

The missing word is chivalry, an important aspect of life in the chivalric code.

Okay, so we're up to date with our story so far.

If you're comfortable with all that information, then we'll move on in a moment.

If you're not too sure about what happens between Duke Theseus and King Creon, then perhaps you want to go back to the start of this video, where we look at this in a little more detail, or perhaps you'd like to pause and go back to episode one or two in this series.

Where we looking in way more detail at the battle of the beginning of The Knight's Tale.

For the moment we'll move on now with the story.

So King Creon has been defeated by Duke Theseus and let's look at what happens on the battlefield.

Scavengers would often go through the dead bodies after a battle, looking for anything worth money or that there could use.

While searching the dead, in this particular case, the scavengers come across two Theban Knights.

Two Knights from Thebes.

Let's look at what happens in Chaucer's original.

And so befell that in a heap they found, pierced through with many a grievous, bloody wound, two young knights lying together, side by side, bearing one crest, wrought richly of their pride.

And of those two Arcita was the one, the other knight was known as Palamon.

And if you remember back to our first episode in the season, what we were looking at here was the idea of iambic pentameter: pairs of syllables coming up with five per line.

So that's five pairs of syllables forming an iambic line.

Two of these lines together would rhyme at the end, and this would be a heroic couplet.

And we can see this in each of the lines.

And so befell that in a heap they found, pierced through with many a grievous, bloody wound.

Found and wound are half rhymes.

What we see in the story here is that two young Theban Knights, grievously wounded have been found by the scavengers coming behind Theseus's army.

And those two are Arcita and Palamon.

One of the most interesting things about modern translations are the many, many possible pronunciations of Arcita.

We hear Arcita, we hear Acite, we hear Arcite and lots of other pronunciations as well.

In our versions, for the purpose of scansion and making our lines work with iambic pentameter and also with heroic couplets, we'll stick with the pronunciation Arcita.

So we have our two Theban knights, Arcita and Palamon.

On finding his seriously injured enemies, Theseus acts in a chivalrous way and decides that there will be no glory in allowing them to die, as they had fought well in the battle.

Theseus desires to save the lives of the two princes and takes them back to Athens, as prisoners.

The heralds readily could tell with all that they were of the Theban blood royal, and that they had been of two sisters born.

Out of that heap the spoilers had them torn and carried gently over to the tent of Theseus; who shortly had them sent to Athens, there in prison cell to lie forever without ransom till they die.

Let's check your learning then.

In a moment, I'm going to ask you to pause the video.

I'm going to read out four statements.

Some are true, some are false.

When you've paused the video, you can make that decision.

For each sentence feel free to write a T or a F depending on whether you think it's true or false.

Sentence A.

Palamon and Arcita are Princes from Thebes.

Sentence B.

Palamon and Arcita pretended to be dead during the battle.

Sentence C.

Theseus behaved in a chivalrous way, by letting the Princes go free.

Sentence D.

Theseus saved the Prince's lives, but took them to Athens as prisoners.

For each decide whether it is true or false and pause the video now.

Okay, let's see how you got on.

Sentence A.

Palamon and Arcita are Princes from Thebes.

It's certainly true.

The two young men are bearing the coat of arms of Theban Princes and Theseus spots this immediately.

Sentence B.

Palamon and Arcita pretended to be dead during the battle.

This is false.

They actually were very near to death.

They had fought well during the battle as Theseus had seen, but were grievously wounded during the fighting.

C, Theseus behaved in a chivalrous way by letting the Princes go free.

This is also false.

Theseus certainly did behave in a chivalrous way by saving their lives, but he doesn't let the Princes go free.

D, Theseus saved the Prince's lives, but took them to Athens as prisoners.

This is in fact what happens and therefore is true.

Theseus saves the Princes' lives, but takes them to Athens as prisoners, as he cannot risk the chance that they will fight against him in the future.

If you managed to get all four of those, correct, then that's fantastic efforts.

If you weren't quite there, perhaps you'd like to go back in the video to the last few slides and just review your learning to make sure that it's solid.

On returning to Athens, Theseus refuses any ransom for the two Princes as he knows that they would return to Thebes to raise an army.

Instead, he locks them in a tower in Athens for the rest of their lives.

His term of life; what more need words express? And in a tower, in anguish and distress, Palamon and Arcita, day and night, dwelt whence no gold might help them to take flight.

We've learned some new language there.

A ransom is when money is paid to free a prisoner.

Palamon and Arcita's families wanted to pay a ransom to have the Princes freed from prison.

Theseus would not allow the Princes to be ransomed.

Anguish and distress is a way of describing extreme mental or physical suffering.

Palamon and Arcita felt anguish at being held prisoner.

The Princes were distressed that Theseus would accept no ransom.

Theseus intended on keeping Palamon and Arcita locked up in the tower forever more.

And although he treated them well, as per the chivalric code, he couldn't risk them going back to Thebes and choosing to fight against him.

An opportunity to check our learning now.

In a second, I'm going to ask you to pause the video.

There are four options on the screen, answering the question: Why did Theseus lock up Palamon and Arcita? Your job will be to decide which one is the correct answer.

So why did Theseus lockup Palamon and Arcita? Is it option one? Theseus, hopeD that they would die of their wounds.

Option two.

Theseus wanted to ransom them back to their families.

Option three.

Theseus wanted to make friends with the Princes.

Or option four.

Theseus wanted to save their lives, but couldn't risk freeing them.

Pause the video now and make your decision.

Let's see how you did.

The answer is of course, option four.

Theseus wanted to save the lives of the Princes, as per the chivalric code, but he couldn't risk them going free.

And coming back to fight him later, after their return to Thebes.

Let's take this opportunity to review our understanding of the story so far.

Theseus fights and kills King Creon in open battle.

Scavengers find Palamon and Arcita among the dying.

Theseus wants to save them, but he can't risk setting them free.

Theseus saves Palamon and Arcita's lives and takes them back to Athens.

In Athens Theseus locks the Princes in a tower and refuses a ransom.

Okay, let's move on to a more challenging activity now to check our learning.

In a second, you're going to pause the video and read the slides on the next page.

When you do that, I want you to complete the sentence expansions.

So there are three sentences for you to expand in a moment.

You're going to copy down the three sentence openings and then expand those sentences using the because, but, so level.

Sentence one.

Theseus saved Palamon and Arcita's lives because.

Use your knowledge of why he chose to save their lives.

Sentence two.

Theseus saved Palamon and Arcita's lives, but.

Use your knowledge from the story so far to say what happened as a result of him saving their lives.

And three.

Theseus saved Palamon and Arcita's lives, so.

Think about what the after effects were of Theseus saving Palamon and Arcita's lives.

Pause the video now.

Copy those openings and expand your sentences.

Okay, let's see how well you've done with those then.

Sentence one.

Theseus saved Palamon and Arcita's lives because.

We could have said because they fought well and he didn't want them to die.

This is absolutely the case.

Theseus nobility says that because Palamon and Arcita had fought well, they had honoured themselves.

And so he did not want them to die.

We could have developed this answer further and said, Theseus saved Palamon and Arcita's lives because he follows the chivalric code and didn't want the Princes to die as they had fought well, in battle.

This would use the keywords chivalric code that would explain the reason why Theseus felt that the Knights didn't deserve to die because of how well they've fought in battle.

Sentence two.

Theseus saved Palamon and Arcita's lives, but they were his enemies.

This is a perfectly good answer.

They were his enemies.

Despite the fact he chose to save their lives.

However, we could have developed this further, couldn't we.

Theseus saved Palamon and Arcita's lives, but they were still his enemies and would raise an army against him, if Theseus allowed them to go free.

This better answer, this more developed answer, allows us to look at the reasons why, the fact that they were still his enemies was going to be a problem.

And it brings up the reasoning that Theseus still saved them, despite the fact that they were his enemies.

Sentence three.

Theseus saved Palamon and Arcita's lives, so he took them to Athens and kept them prisoner.

This is a perfectly good answer.

It's absolutely the case.

Theseus does save Palamon and Arcita's lives.

And that is the reason he takes them prisoner, but it doesn't go through the reasons why he takes them back to Athens with him.

So we could have developed it to Theseus saved Palamon and Arcita's lives, so he treated them well, but kept them prisoner in a tower and refuse to accept a ransom for them.

This allows us to develop our answer further, to look at the idea that he saved their lives and therefore his chivalry required him to treat them well.

However, the fact that they might raise an army against him means that he must keep them in a tower forever.

Refusing to accept a ransom, allowing them to go back to Thebes.

Now, please don't worry if your answers don't look exactly like the modelled ones that you've seen here.

As always, you're looking for keywords and similarities that suggest that you have the general drift of what we're trying to say.

If you feel that you understand these key points, then that's fantastic and you've done really well.

If you're still struggling a little , feel free to go back to earlier in the video where we can review our learning.

If you feel that your understanding of the relationship between Theseus, Palamon and Arcita is solid, then let's move on to something a little more challenging now.

Here is an extra Challenge Question, and this is the last thing that we're going to do in this lesson.

In a moment, you're going to pause the video and have a go at answering the question below.

Do you think that Theseus was being chivalrous in his behaviour towards Palamon and Arcita? Now there's no sentence starter here, so you'll really have to consider a few different things.

Do you think that Theseus' actions were chivalrous? Do you think that the reason behind these actions or motive was chivalrous? And how do you think other characters, for example Palamon and Arcita, may feel about Theseus' actions? Do you think they'll think that they are chivalrous or do you think that he was behaving with his own best interests at heart? You can pause the video now and have a go at this question, or alternatively, you can come back to it in your own time, and then have a go at a longer answer.

Fantastic effort, that brings us to the end of our lesson and lesson three on The Canterbury Tales: The Knight's Tale.

A huge well done.

You've achieved an awful lot during that session with some really difficult ideas.

There's a couple of things I'd like you to do when this video finishes.

Firstly, I'd like you to look back through your notes from this video and select the three things that you feel are the most important to remember.

That might be some new vocab.

It might be the idea of the plot, or it might be what some of those words or ideas mean to you.

The second thing I'd love you to do is to take the opportunity to get a parent or carer to share some of your work, firstly, with your teacher back at school, because I know they'd love to know how well you're doing, but also with our Oak National @OakNational Twitter account, with the #LearnwithOak, because I'd love to see what a fantastic job you're doing too.

Particularly on that last Challenge Question.

If you get the opportunity to give it a go, because that allows you to give some of your own thoughts on what you've been learning so far.

We'll be back very soon with the fourth instalment on The Canterbury Tales: The Knight's Tale journey.

And I hope you'll join us too to see what happens next.

In the meantime, again, a massive well done and bye for now.