By the end of the movie Invictus I wanted to find the poem which inspired Nelson Mandela through his 28 long years of imprisonment under apartheid. As President of South Africa in the early 90's, Mandela (played by Morgan Freeman) gives the poem to the captain of the Springbok rugby team ( Matt Damon,) and encourages him to lead the team to greatness.Ernest Henley wrote the poem 'Invictus' in 1875 while he lay in the hospital after his leg was amputated below the knee because of tuberculosis of the bone.
The poem looks at depression, resiliency, and hope. Despite difficult circumstances we can be master of our fate...
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
The movie was based on the book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game that Made a Nation by John Carlin.
