Simon Armitage interview: Ancient enmities

When it comes to national stereotypes, the modern mind remains thoroughly medieval. The Death of King Arthur, which Simon Armitage has translated from Middle English, contains two insults that sound down the centuries. An enraged Frenchman says, ‘These Britons were always blusterers and braggarts. Lo, how he swaggers in his shining suit/ As if to brutalise us all with the bright sword he brandishes. But his bark is all boast, that boy who stands there.’ To which King Arthur later retorts: ‘Our Frenchmen are enfeebled, I should have guessed this would follow,/ For these folk are foreigners in these far-flung fields and long for the food and fare of their liking.’ Football hooligans against cheese-eating surrender monkeys: it’s an ancient enmity.

Armitage found humour throughout this largely unknown poem. “There are comic moments in some of the battle scenes. One of the enemy combatants rides on minus his torso, still on his horse.