VII.THE IDYLLS OF THE KING.

Mrs Tennyson, doubtless by her lord’s desire, asked the Master (then tutor of Balliol) to suggest themes. Old age was suggested, and is treated inThe Grandmother. Other topics were not handled. “I hold most strongly,” said the Master, “that it is the duty of every one who has the good fortune to know a man of genius to do any trifling service they can to lighten his work.” To do every service in his power to every man was the Master’s life-long practice. He was not much at home, his letters show, with Burns, to whom he seems to have attributedJohn Anderson,my jo,John, while he tells an anecdote of Burns composingTam o’ Shanterwith emotional tears, which, if true at all, is true of the making ofTo Mary in Heaven. If Burns wept overTam o’ Shanter, the tears must have been tears of laughter.

The first fourIdylls of the Kingwere prepared for publication in the spring of 1859; while Tennyson was at work also onPelleas and Ettarre, and the Tristram cycle. In autumn he went on a tour to Lisbon with Mr F. T. Palgrave and Mr Craufurd Grove. Returning, he fell eagerly to reading an early copy of Darwin’sOrigin of Species, the crown of his own early speculations on the theory of evolution. “Your theory does not make against Christianity?” he asked Darwin later (1868), who replied, “No, certainly not.” But Darwin has stated the waverings of his own mind in contact with a topic too high fora priorireasoning, and only to be approached, if at all, on the strength of the scientific method applied to facts which science, so far, neglects, or denies, or “explains away,” rather than explains.

TheIdylls, unlikeMaud, were well received by the press, better by the public, and best of all by friends like Thackeray, the Duke of Argyll, the Master of Balliol, and Clough, while Ruskin showed some reserve. The letter from Thackeray I cannot deny myself the pleasure of citing from the Biography: it was written “in an ardour of claret and gratitude,” but posted some six weeks later:—

Folkestone,September.36Onslow Square,October.My dear old Alfred,—I owe you a letter of happiness and thanks. Sir, about three weeks ago, when I was ill in bed, I read the Idylls of the King, and I thought, “Oh, I must write to him now, for this pleasure, this delight, this splendour of happiness which I have been enjoying.” But I should have blotted the sheets, ’tis ill writing on one’s back. The letter full of gratitude never went as far as the post-office, and how comes it now?D’abord, a bottle of claret. (The landlord of the hotel asked me down to the cellar and treated me.) Then afterwards sitting here, an old magazine, Fraser’s Magazine, 1850, and I come on a poem out of The Princess which says, “I hear the horns of Elfland blowing, blowing,”—no, it’s “the horns of Elfland faintly blowing” (I have been into my bedroom to fetch my pen and it has made that blot), and, reading the lines, which only one man in the world could write, I thought about the other horns of Elfland blowing in full strength, and Arthur in gold armour, and Guinevere in gold hair, and all those knights and heroes and beauties and purple landscapes and misty gray lakes in which you have made me live. They seem like facts to me, since about three weeks ago (three weeks or a month was it?) when I read the book. It is on the table yonder, and I don’t like, somehow, to disturb it, but the delight and gratitude! You have made me as happy as I was as a child with the Arabian Nights,—every step I have walked in Elfland has been a sort of Paradise to me. (The landlord gave two bottles of his claret and I think I drank the most) and here I have been lying back in the chair and thinking of those delightful Idylls, my thoughts being turned to you: what could I do but be grateful to that surprising genius which has made me so happy? Do you understand that what I mean is all true, and that I should break out were you sitting opposite with a pipe in your mouth? Gold and purple and diamonds, I say, gentlemen, and glory and love and honour, and if you haven’t given me all these why should I be in such an ardour of gratitude? But I have had out of that dear book the greatest delight that has ever come to me since I was a young man; to write and think about it makes me almost young, and this I suppose is what I’m doing, like an after-dinner speech.P.S.—I thought the “Grandmother” quite as fine. How can you at 50 be doing things as well as at 35?October 16th.—(I should think six weeks after the writing of the above.)The rhapsody of gratitude was never sent, and for a peculiar reason: just about the time of writing I came to an arrangement with Smith & Elder to edit their new magazine, and to have a contribution from T. was the publishers’ and editor’s highest ambition. But to ask a man for a favour, and to praise and bow down before him in the same page, seemed to be so like hypocrisy, that I held my hand, and left this note in my desk, where it has been lying during a little French-Italian-Swiss tour which my girls and their papa have been making.Meanwhile S. E. & Co. have been making their own proposals to you, and you have replied not favourably, I am sorry to hear; but now there is no reason why you should not have my homages, and I am just as thankful for the Idylls, and love and admire them just as much, as I did two months ago when I began to write in that ardour of claret and gratitude. If you can’t write for us you can’t. If you can by chance some day, and help an old friend, how pleased and happy I shall be! This however must be left to fate and your convenience: I don’t intend to give up hope, but accept the good fortune if it comes. I see one, two, three quarterlies advertised to-day, as all bringing laurels to laureatus. He will not refuse the private tribute of an old friend, will he? You don’t know how pleased the girls were at Kensington t’other day to hear you quote their father’s little verses, and he too I daresay was not disgusted. He sends you and yours his very best regards in this most heartfelt and artless(note of admiration)!Always yours, my dear Alfred,W. M.Thackeray.

Folkestone,September.36Onslow Square,October.

My dear old Alfred,—I owe you a letter of happiness and thanks. Sir, about three weeks ago, when I was ill in bed, I read the Idylls of the King, and I thought, “Oh, I must write to him now, for this pleasure, this delight, this splendour of happiness which I have been enjoying.” But I should have blotted the sheets, ’tis ill writing on one’s back. The letter full of gratitude never went as far as the post-office, and how comes it now?

D’abord, a bottle of claret. (The landlord of the hotel asked me down to the cellar and treated me.) Then afterwards sitting here, an old magazine, Fraser’s Magazine, 1850, and I come on a poem out of The Princess which says, “I hear the horns of Elfland blowing, blowing,”—no, it’s “the horns of Elfland faintly blowing” (I have been into my bedroom to fetch my pen and it has made that blot), and, reading the lines, which only one man in the world could write, I thought about the other horns of Elfland blowing in full strength, and Arthur in gold armour, and Guinevere in gold hair, and all those knights and heroes and beauties and purple landscapes and misty gray lakes in which you have made me live. They seem like facts to me, since about three weeks ago (three weeks or a month was it?) when I read the book. It is on the table yonder, and I don’t like, somehow, to disturb it, but the delight and gratitude! You have made me as happy as I was as a child with the Arabian Nights,—every step I have walked in Elfland has been a sort of Paradise to me. (The landlord gave two bottles of his claret and I think I drank the most) and here I have been lying back in the chair and thinking of those delightful Idylls, my thoughts being turned to you: what could I do but be grateful to that surprising genius which has made me so happy? Do you understand that what I mean is all true, and that I should break out were you sitting opposite with a pipe in your mouth? Gold and purple and diamonds, I say, gentlemen, and glory and love and honour, and if you haven’t given me all these why should I be in such an ardour of gratitude? But I have had out of that dear book the greatest delight that has ever come to me since I was a young man; to write and think about it makes me almost young, and this I suppose is what I’m doing, like an after-dinner speech.

P.S.—I thought the “Grandmother” quite as fine. How can you at 50 be doing things as well as at 35?

October 16th.—(I should think six weeks after the writing of the above.)

The rhapsody of gratitude was never sent, and for a peculiar reason: just about the time of writing I came to an arrangement with Smith & Elder to edit their new magazine, and to have a contribution from T. was the publishers’ and editor’s highest ambition. But to ask a man for a favour, and to praise and bow down before him in the same page, seemed to be so like hypocrisy, that I held my hand, and left this note in my desk, where it has been lying during a little French-Italian-Swiss tour which my girls and their papa have been making.

Meanwhile S. E. & Co. have been making their own proposals to you, and you have replied not favourably, I am sorry to hear; but now there is no reason why you should not have my homages, and I am just as thankful for the Idylls, and love and admire them just as much, as I did two months ago when I began to write in that ardour of claret and gratitude. If you can’t write for us you can’t. If you can by chance some day, and help an old friend, how pleased and happy I shall be! This however must be left to fate and your convenience: I don’t intend to give up hope, but accept the good fortune if it comes. I see one, two, three quarterlies advertised to-day, as all bringing laurels to laureatus. He will not refuse the private tribute of an old friend, will he? You don’t know how pleased the girls were at Kensington t’other day to hear you quote their father’s little verses, and he too I daresay was not disgusted. He sends you and yours his very best regards in this most heartfelt and artless

(note of admiration)!Always yours, my dear Alfred,W. M.Thackeray.

Naturally this letter gave Tennyson more pleasure than all the converted critics with their favourable reviews. The Duke of Argyll announced the conversion of Macaulay. The Master foundElaine“the fairest, sweetest, purest love poem in the English language.” As to the whole, “The allegory in the distancegreatly strengthens,also elevates,the meaning of the poem.”

Ruskin, like some other critics, felt “the art and finish in these poems a little more than I like to feel it.” YetGuinevereandElainehad been rapidly written and little corrected. I confess to the opinion that what a man does most easily is, as a rule, what he does best. We know that the “art and finish” of Shakespeare were spontaneous, and so were those of Tennyson. Perfection in art is sometimes more sudden than we think, but then “the long preparation for it,—that unseen germination,thatis what we ignore and forget.” But he wisely kept his pieces by him for a long time, restudying them with a fresh eye. The “unreality” of the subject also failed to please Ruskin, as it is a stumbling-block to others. He wanted poems on “the living present,” a theme not selected by Homer, Shakespeare, Spenser, Milton, Virgil, or the Greek dramatists, except (among surviving plays) in thePersæ ofÆschylus. The poet who can transfigure the hot present is fortunate, but most, and the greatest, have visited the cool quiet purlieus of the past.

TheIdylls may probably be best considered in their final shape: they are not an epic, but a series of heroicidylliaof the same genre as the heroicidylliaof Theocritus. He wrote long after the natural age of national epic, the age of Homer. He saw the later literary epic rise in theArgonauticaof Apollonius Rhodius, a poem with many beauties, if rather an archaistic and elaborate revival as a whole. The time for long narrative poems, Theocritus appears to have thought, was past, and he only ventured on the heroicidylliaof Heracles, and certain adventures of the Argonauts. Tennyson, too, from the first believed that his pieces ought to be short. Therefore, though he had a conception of his work as a whole, a conception long mused on, and sketched in various lights, he produced no epic, only a series of epicidyllia. He had a spiritual conception, “an allegory in the distance,” an allegory not to be insisted upon, though its presence was to be felt. No longer, as in youth, did Tennyson intend Merlin to symbolise “the sceptical understanding” (as if one were to “break into blank the gospel of” Herr Kant), or poor Guinevere to stand for the Blessed Reformation, or the Table Round for Liberal Institutions. Mercifully Tennyson never actually allegorised Arthur in that fashion. Later he thought of a musical masque of Arthur, and sketched ascenario. Finally Tennyson dropped both the allegory of Liberal principles and the musical masque in favour of the series of heroic idylls. There was only a “parabolic drift” in the intention. “There is no single fact or incident in the Idylls, however seemingly mystical, which cannot be explained without any mystery or allegory whatever.” The Idylls ought to be read (and the right readers never dream of doing anything else) as romantic poems, just like Browning’sChilde Roland, in which the wrong readers (the members of the Browning Society) sought for mystic mountains and marvels. Yet Tennyson had his own interpretation, “a dream of man coming into practical life and ruined by one sin.” That was his “interpretation,” or “allegory in the distance.”

People may be heard objecting to the suggestion of any spiritual interpretation of the Arthur legends, and even to the existence of elementary morality among the Arthurian knights and ladies. There seems to be a notion that “bold bawdry and open manslaughter,” as Roger Ascham said, are the staple of Tennyson’s sources, whether in the mediæval French, the Welsh, or in Malory’s compilation, chiefly from French sources. Tennyson is accused of “Bowdlerising” these, and of introducing gentleness, courtesy, and conscience into a literature where such qualities were unknown. I must confess myself ignorant of any early and popular, or “primitive” literature, in which human virtues, and the human conscience, do not play their part. Those who object to Tennyson’s handling of the great Arthurian cycle, on the ground that he is too refined and too moral, must either never have read or must long have forgotten even Malory’s romance. Thus we read, in a recent novel, that Lancelot was anhomme aux bonnes fortunes, whereas Lancelot was the most loyal of lovers.

Among other critics, Mr Harrison has objected that the Arthurian world of Tennyson “is not quite an ideal world. Therein lies the difficulty. The scene, though not of course historic, has certain historic suggestions and characters.” It is not apparent who the historic characters are, for the real Arthur is but a historic phantasm. “But then, in the midst of so much realism, the knights, from Arthur downwards, talk and act in ways with which we are familiar in modern ethical and psychological novels, but which are as impossible in real mediæval knights as a Bengal tiger or a Polar bear would be in a drawing-room.” I confess to little acquaintance with modern ethical novels; but real mediæval knights, and still more the knights of mediæval romance, were capable of very ethical actions. To halt an army for the protection and comfort of a laundress was a highly ethical action. Perhaps Sir Redvers Buller would do it: Bruce did. Mr Harrison accuses the ladies of the Idylls of soul-bewildering casuistry, like that of women inMiddlemarchorHelbeck of Bannisdale. Now I am not reminded by Guinevere, and Elaine, and Enid, of ladies in these ethical novels. But the women of the mediævalCours d’Amour(the originals from whom the old romancers drew) were nothing if not casuists. “Spiritual delicacy” (as they understood it) was their delight.

Mr Harrison even argues that Malory’s men lived hot-blooded lives in fierce times, “before an idea had arisen in the world of ‘reverencing conscience,’ ‘leading sweet lives,’” and so on. But he admits that they had “fantastic ideals of ‘honour’ and ‘love.’” As to “fantastic,” that is a matter of opinion, but to have ideals and to live in accordance with them is to “reverence conscience”, which the heroes of the romances are said by Mr Harrison never to have had an idea of doing. They are denied even “amiable words and courtliness.” Need one say that courtliness is the dominant note of mediæval knights, in history as in romance? With discourtesy Froissart would “head the count of crimes.” After a battle, he says, Scots knights and English would thank each other for a good fight, “not like the Germans.” “And now, I dare say,” said Malory’s Sir Ector, “thou, Sir Lancelot, wast the curtiest knight that ever bare shield, . . . and thou wast the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall among ladies.” Observe Sir Lancelot in the difficult pass where the Lily Maid offers her love: “Jesu defend me, for then I rewarded your father and your brother full evil for their great goodness. . . . But because, fair damsel, that ye love me as ye say ye do, I will, for your good will and kindness, show you some goodness, . . . and always while I live to be your true knight.” Here are “amiable words and courtesy.” I cannot agree with Mr Harrison that Malory’s book is merely “a fierce lusty epic.” That was not the opinion of its printer and publisher, Caxton. He produced it as an example of “the gentle and virtuous deeds that some knights used in these days, . . . noble and renowned acts of humanity, gentleness, and chivalry. For herein may be seen noble chivalry, courtesy, humanity, friendliness, love, cowardice, murder, hate, virtue, and sin. Do after the good and leave the evil.”

In reaction against the bold-faced heroines and sensual amours of some of the old French romances, an ideal of exaggerated asceticism, of stainless chastity, notoriously pervades the portion of Malory’s work which deals with the Holy Grail. Lancelot is distraught when he finds that, by dint of enchantment, he has been made false to Guinevere (Book XI. chap. viii.) After his dreaming vision of the Holy Grail, with the reproachful Voice, Sir Lancelot said, “My sin and my wickedness have brought me great dishonour, . . . and now I see and understand that my old sin hindereth and shameth me.” He was human, the Lancelot of Malory, and “fell to his old love again,” with a heavy heart, and with long penance at the end. How such good knights can be deemed conscienceless and void of courtesy one knows not, except by a survival of the Puritanism of Ascham. But Tennyson found in the book what is in the book—honour, conscience, courtesy, and the hero—

“Whose honour rooted in dishonour stood,And faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.”

Malory’s book, which was Tennyson’s chief source, ends by being the tragedy of the conscience of Lancelot. Arthur is dead, or “In Avalon he groweth old.” The Queen and Lancelot might sing, as Lennox reports that Queen Mary did after Darnley’s murder—

“Weel is meFor I am free.”

“Why took they not their pastime?” Because conscience forbade, and Guinevere sends her lover far from her, and both die in religion. Thus Malory’s “fierce lusty epic” is neither so lusty nor so fierce but that it gives Tennyson his keynote: the sin that breaks the fair companionship, and is bitterly repented.

“The knights are almost too polite to kill each other,” the critic urges. In Malory they are sometimes quite too polite to kill each other. Sir Darras has a blood-feud against Sir Tristram, and Sir Tristram is in his dungeon. Sir Darras said, “Wit ye well that Sir Darras shall never destroy such a noble knight as thou art in prison, howbeit that thou hast slain three of my sons, whereby I was greatly aggrieved. But now shalt thou go and thy fellows. . . . All that ye did,” said Sir Darras, “was by force of knighthood, and that was the cause I would not put you to death” (Book IX. chap. xl.)

Tennyson is accused of “emasculating the fierce lusty epic into a moral lesson, as if it were to be performed in a drawing-room by an academy of young ladies”—presided over, I daresay, by “Anglican clergymen.” I know not how any one who has read theMorte d’Arthurcan blame Tennyson in the matter. Let Malory and his sources be blamed, if to be moral is to be culpable. A few passages apart, there is no coarseness in Malory; that there are conscience, courtesy, “sweet lives,” “keeping down the base in man,” “amiable words,” and all that Tennyson gives, and, in Mr Harrison’s theory, gives without authority in the romance, my quotations from Malory demonstrate. They are chosen at a casual opening of his book. That there “had not arisen in the world” “the idea of reverencing conscience” before the close of the fifteenth centuryA.D.is an extraordinary statement for a critic of history to offer.

Mr Harrison makes his protest because “in the conspiracy of silence into which Tennyson’s just fame has hypnotised the critics, it is bare honesty to admit defects.” I think I am not hypnotised, and I do not regard the Idylls as the crown of Tennyson’s work. But it is not his “defect” to have introduced generosity, gentleness, conscience, and chastity where no such things occur in his sources. Take Sir Darras: his position is that of Priam when he meets Achilles, who slew his sons, except that Priam comes as a suppliant; Sir Darras has Tristram in his hands, and may slay him. He is “too polite,” as Mr Harrison says: he is too good a Christian, or too good a gentleman. One would not have given a tripod for the life of Achilles had he fallen into the hands of Priam. But between 1200B.C.(or so) and the date of Malory, new ideas about “living sweet lives” had arisen. Where and when do they not arise? A British patrol fired on certain Swazis in time of truce. Their lieutenant, who had been absent when this occurred, rode alone to the stronghold of the Swazi king, Sekukoeni, and gave himself up, expecting death by torture. “Go, sir,” said the king; “we too are gentlemen.” The idea of a “sweet life” of honour had dawned even on Sekukoeni: it lights up Malory’s romance, and is reflected in Tennyson’s Idylls, doubtless with some modernism of expression.

That the Idylls represent no real world is certain. That Tennyson modernises and moralises too much, I willingly admit; what I deny is that he introduces gentleness, courtesy, and conscience where his sources have none. Indeed this is not a matter of critical opinion, but of verifiable fact. Any one can read Malory and judge for himself. But the world in which the Idylls move could not be real. For more than a thousand years different races, different ages, had taken hold of the ancient Celtic legends and spiritualised them after their own manner, and moulded them to their own ideals. There may have been a historical Arthur,Comes Britanniæ, after the Roman withdrawal.Ye Amherawdyr Arthur, “the Emperor Arthur,” may have lived and fought, and led the Brythons to battle. But there may also have been a Brythonic deity, or culture hero, of the same, or of a similar name, and myths about him may have been assigned to a real Arthur. Again, the Arthur of the old Welsh legends was by no means the blameless king—even in comparatively late French romances he is not blameless. But the process of idealising him went on: still incomplete in Malory’s compilation, where he is often rather otiose and far from royal. Tennyson, for his purpose, completed the idealisation.

As to Guinevere, she was not idealised in the old Welsh rhyme—

“Guinevere, Giant Ogurvan’s daughter,Naughty young, more naughty later.”

Of Lancelot, and her passion for him, the old Welsh has nothing to say. Probably Chrétien de Troyes, by a happy blunder or misconception, gave Lancelot his love and his pre-eminent part. Lancelot was confused with Peredur, and Guinevere with the lady of whom Peredur was in quest. The Elaine who becomes by Lancelot the mother of Galahad “was Lancelot’s rightful consort, as one recognises in her name that of Elen, the Empress, whom the story of Peredur” (Lancelot, by the confusion) “gives that hero to wife.” The second Elaine, the maid of Astolat, is another refraction from the original Elen. As to the Grail, it may be a Christianised rendering of one or another of the magical and mystic caldrons of Welsh or Irish legend. There is even an apparent Celtic source of the mysterious fisher king of the Grail romance.[112]

A sketch of the evolution of the Arthurian legends might run thus:—

Sixth to eighth century, growth of myth about an Arthur, real, or supposed to be real.

Tenth century, the Duchies of Normandy and Brittany are in close relations; by the eleventh century Normans know Celtic Arthurian stories.

After, 1066, Normans in contact with the Celtic peoples of this island are in touch with the Arthur tales.

1130–1145, works on Arthurian matter by Geoffrey of Monmouth.

1155, Wace’s French translation of Geoffrey.

1150–1182, Chrétien de Troyes writes poems on Arthurian topics.

French prose romances on Arthur, from, say, 1180 to 1250. Those romances reach Wales, and modify, in translations, the original Welsh legends, or, in part, supplant them.

Amplifications and recastings are numerous. In 1485 Caxton publishes Malory’s selections from French and English sources, the whole being Tennyson’s main source,Le Mort d’Arthur.[113]

Thus the Arthur stories, originally Celtic, originally a mass of semi-pagan legend, myth, andmärchen, have been retold and rehandled by Norman, Englishman, and Frenchman, taking on new hues, expressing new ideals—religious, chivalrous, and moral. Any poet may work his will on them, and Tennyson’s will was to retain the chivalrous courtesy, generosity, love, and asceticism, while dimly or brightly veiling or illuminating them with his own ideals. After so many processes, from folk-tale to modern idyll, the Arthurian world could not be real, and real it is not. Camelot lies “out of space, out of time,” though the colouring is mainly that of the later chivalry, and “the gleam” on the hues is partly derived from Celtic fancy of various dates, and is partly Tennysonian.

As the Idylls were finally arranged, the first,The Coming of Arthur, is a remarkable proof of Tennyson’s ingenuity in construction. Tales about the birth of Arthur varied. In Malory, Uther Pendragon, the Bretwalda (in later phrase) of Britain, besieges the Duke of Tintagil, who has a fair wife, Ygerne, in another castle. Merlin magically puts on Uther the shape of Ygerne’s husband, and as her husband she receives him. On that night Arthur is begotten by Uther, and the Duke of Tintagil, his mother’s husband, is slain in a sortie. Uther weds Ygerne; both recognise Arthur as their child. However, by the Celtic custom of fosterage the infant is intrusted to Sir Ector as hisdalt, or foster-child, and Uther falls in battle. Arthur is later approven king by the adventure of drawing from the stone the magic sword that no other king could move. This adventure answers to Sigmund’s drawing the sword from the Branstock, in the Volsunga Saga, “Now men stand up, and none would fain be the last to lay hand to the sword,” apparently stricken into the pillar by Woden. “But none who came thereto might avail to pull it out, for in nowise would it come away howsoever they tugged at it, but now up comes Sigmund, King Volsung’s son, and sets hand to the sword, and pulls it from the stock, even as if it lay loose before him.” The incident in the Arthurian as in the Volsunga legend is on a par with the Golden Bough, in the sixth book of theÆneid. Only the predestined champion, such as Æneas, can pluck, or break, or cut the bough—

“Ipse volens facilisque sequetuSi te fata vocant.”

All this ancient popular element in the Arthur story is disregarded by Tennyson. He does not make Uther approach Ygerne in the semblance of her lord, as Zeus approached Alcmena in the semblance of her husband, Amphitryon. He neglects the other ancient test of the proving of Arthur by his success in drawing the sword. The poet’s object is to enfold the origin and birth of Arthur in a spiritual mystery. This is deftly accomplished by aid of the various versions of the tale that reach King Leodogran when Arthur seeks the hand of his daughter Guinevere, for Arthur’s title to the crown is still disputed, so Leodogran makes inquiries. The answers first leave it dubious whether Arthur is son of Gorloïs, husband of Ygerne, or of Uther, who slew Gorloïs and married her:—

“Enforced she was to wed him in her tears.”

The Celtic custom of fosterage is overlooked, and Merlin gives the child to Anton, not as the customarydalt, but to preserve the babe from danger. Queen Bellicent then tells Leodogran, from the evidence of Bleys, Merlin’s master in necromancy, the story of Arthur’s miraculous advent.

“And down the wave and in the flame was borneA naked babe, and rode to Merlin’s feet,Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried ‘The King!Here is an heir for Uther!’”

But Merlin, when asked by Bellicent to corroborate the statement of Bleys, merely

“Answer’d in riddling triplets of old time.”

Finally, Leodogran’s faith is confirmed by a vision. Thus doubtfully, amidst rumour and portent, cloud and spiritual light, comes Arthur: “from the great deep” he comes, and in as strange fashion, at the end, “to the great deep he goes”—a king to be accepted in faith or rejected by doubt. Arthur and his ideal are objects of belief. All goes well while the knights hold that

“The King will follow Christ, and we the King,In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing.”

In history we find the same situation in the France of 1429—

“The King will follow Jeanne, and we the King.”

While this faith held, all went well; when the king ceased to follow, the spell was broken,—the Maid was martyred. In this sense the poet conceives the coming of Arthur, a sign to be spoken against, a test of high purposes, a belief redeeming and ennobling till faith fails, and the little rift within the lute, the love of Lancelot and Guinevere, makes discord of the music. As matter of legend, it is to be understood that Guinevere did not recognise Arthur when first he rode below her window—

“Since he neither wore on helm or shieldThe golden symbol of his kinglihood.”

But Lancelot was sent to bring the bride—

“And return’dAmong the flowers, in May, with Guinevere.”

Then their long love may have begun, as in the story of Tristram sent to bring Yseult to be the bride of King Mark. In Malory, however, Lancelot does not come on the scene till after Arthur’s wedding and return from his conquering expedition to Rome. Then Lancelot wins renown, “wherefore Queen Guinevere had him in favour above all other knights; and in certain he loved the Queen again above all other ladies damosels of his life.” Lancelot, as we have seen, is practically a French creation, adopted to illustrate the chivalrous theory of love, with its bitter fruit. Though not of the original Celtic stock of legend, Sir Lancelot makes the romance what it is, and draws down the tragedy that originally turned on the sin of Arthur himself, the sin that gave birth to the traitor Modred. But the mediæval romancers disguised that form of the story, and the process of idealising Arthur reached such heights in the middle ages that Tennyson thought himself at liberty to paint theFlos Regum, “the blameless King.” He followed theBrut ab Arthur. “In short, God has not made since Adam was, the man more perfect than Arthur.” This is remote from the Arthur of the oldest Celtic legends, but justifies the poet in adapting Arthur to the ideal hero of the Idylls:—

“Ideal manhood closed in real man,Rather than that grey king, whose name, a ghost,Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain-peak,And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or himOf Geoffrey’s book, or him of Malleor’s, oneTouched by the adulterous finger of a timeThat hovered between war and wantonness,And crownings and dethronements.”

The poetical beauties ofThe Coming of Arthurexcel those ofGareth and Lynette. The sons of Lot and Bellicent seem to have been originally regarded as the incestuous offspring of Arthur and his sister, the wife of King Lot. Next it was represented that Arthur was ignorant of the relationship. Mr Rhys supposes that the mythical scandal (still present in Malory as a sin of ignorance) arose from blending the Celtic Arthur (as Culture Hero) with an older divine personage, such as Zeus, who marries his sister Hera. Marriages of brother and sister are familiar in the Egyptian royal house, and that of the Incas. But the poet has a perfect right to disregard a scandalous myth which, obviously crystallised later about the figure of the mythical Celtic Arthur, was an incongruous accretion to his legend. Gareth, therefore, is merely Arthur’s nephew, not son, in the poem, as are Gawain and the traitor Modred. The story seems to be rather mediæval French than Celtic—a mingling of the spirit offabliauand popular fairy tale. The poet has added to its lightness, almost frivolity, the description of the unreal city of Camelot, built to music, as when

“Ilion, like a mist, rose into towers.”

He has also brought in the allegory of Death, which, when faced, proves to be “a blooming boy” behind the mask. The courtesy and prowess of Lancelot lead up to the later development of his character.

InThe Marriage of Geraint, a rumour has already risen about Lancelot and the Queen, darkening the Court, and presaging

“The world’s loud whisper breaking into storm.”

For this reason Geraint removes Enid from Camelot to his own land—the poet thus early leading up to the sin and the doom of Lancelot. But this motive does not occur in the Welsh story of Enid and Geraint, which Tennyson has otherwise followed with unwonted closeness. The tale occurs in French romances in various forms, but it appears to have returned, by way of France and coloured with French influences, to Wales, where it is one of the later Mabinogion. The characters are Celtic, and Nud, father of Edyrn, Geraint’s defeated antagonist, appears to be recognised by Mr Rhys as “the Celtic Zeus.” The manners and the tournaments are French. In the Welsh tale Geraint and Enid are bedded in Arthur’s own chamber, which seems to be a symbolic commutation of thejus primæ noctisa custom of which the very existence is disputed. This unseemly antiquarian detail, of course, is omitted in the Idyll.

An abstract of the Welsh tale will show how closely Tennyson here follows his original. News is brought into Arthur’s Court of the appearance of a white stag. The king arranges a hunt, and Guinevere asks leave to go and watch the sport. Next morning she cannot be wakened, though the tale does not aver, like the Idyll, that she was

“Lost in sweet dreams, and dreaming of her loveFor Lancelot.”

Guinevere wakes late, and rides through a ford of Usk to the hunt. Geraint follows, “a golden-hilted sword was at his side, and a robe and a surcoat of satin were upon him, and two shoes of leather upon his feet, and around him was a scarf of blue purple, at each corner of which was a golden apple”:—

“But Guinevere lay late into the morn,Lost in sweet dreams, and dreaming of her loveFor Lancelot, and forgetful of the hunt;But rose at last, a single maiden with her,Took horse, and forded Usk, and gain’d the wood;There, on a little knoll beside it, stay’dWaiting to hear the hounds; but heard insteadA sudden sound of hoofs, for Prince Geraint,Late also, wearing neither hunting-dressNor weapon, save a golden-hilted brand,Came quickly flashing thro’ the shallow fordBehind them, and so gallop’d up the knoll.A purple scarf, at either end whereofThere swung an apple of the purest gold,Sway’d round about him, as he gallop’d upTo join them, glancing like a dragon-flyIn summer suit and silks of holiday.”

The encounter with the dwarf, the lady, and the knight follows. The prose of the Mabinogi may be compared with the verse of Tennyson:—

“Geraint,” said Gwenhwyvar, “knowest thou the name of that tall knight yonder?” “I know him not,” said he, “and the strange armour that he wears prevents my either seeing his face or his features.” “Go, maiden,” said Gwenhwyvar, “and ask the dwarf who that knight is.” Then the maiden went up to the dwarf; and the dwarf waited for the maiden, when he saw her coming towards him. And the maiden inquired of the dwarf who the knight was. “I will not tell thee,” he answered. “Since thou art so churlish as not to tell me,” said she, “I will ask him himself.” “Thou shalt not ask him, by my faith,” said he. “Wherefore?” said she. “Because thou art not of honour sufficient to befit thee to speak to my Lord.” Then the maiden turned her horse’s head towards the knight, upon which the dwarf struck her with the whip that was in his hand across the face and the eyes, until the blood flowed forth. And the maiden, through the hurt she received from the blow, returned to Gwenhwyvar, complaining of the pain. “Very rudely has the dwarf treated thee,” said Geraint. “I will go myself to know who the knight is.” “Go,” said Gwenhwyvar. And Geraint went up to the dwarf. “Who is yonder knight?” said Geraint. “I will not tell thee,” said the dwarf. “Then will I ask him himself,” said he. “That wilt thou not, by my faith,” said the dwarf; “thou art not honourable enough to speak with my Lord.” Said Geraint, “I have spoken with men of equal rank with him.” And he turned his horse’s head towards the knight; but the dwarf overtook him, and struck him as he had done the maiden, so that the blood coloured the scarf that Geraint wore. Then Geraint put his hand upon the hilt of his sword, but he took counsel with himself, and considered that it would be no vengeance for him to slay the dwarf, and to be attacked unarmed by the armed knight, so he returned to where Gwenhwyvar was.“And while they listen’d for the distant hunt,And chiefly for the baying of Cavall,King Arthur’s hound of deepest mouth, there rodeFull slowly by a knight, lady, and dwarf;Whereof the dwarf lagg’d latest, and the knightHad vizor up, and show’d a youthful face,Imperious, and of haughtiest lineaments.And Guinevere, not mindful of his faceIn the King’s hall, desired his name, and sentHer maiden to demand it of the dwarf;Who being vicious, old and irritable,And doubling all his master’s vice of pride,Made answer sharply that she should not know.‘Then will I ask it of himself,’ she said.‘Nay, by my faith, thou shalt not,’ cried the dwarf;‘Thou art not worthy ev’n to speak of him’;And when she put her horse toward the knight,Struck at her with his whip, and she return’dIndignant to the Queen; whereat GeraintExclaiming, ‘Surely I will learn the name,’Made sharply to the dwarf, and ask’d it of him,Who answer’d as before; and when the PrinceHad put his horse in motion toward the knight,Struck at him with his whip, and cut his cheek.The Prince’s blood spirted upon the scarf,Dyeing it; and his quick, instinctive handCaught at the hilt, as to abolish him:But he, from his exceeding manfulnessAnd pure nobility of temperament,Wroth to be wroth at such a worm, refrain’dFrom ev’n a word.”

“And while they listen’d for the distant hunt,And chiefly for the baying of Cavall,King Arthur’s hound of deepest mouth, there rodeFull slowly by a knight, lady, and dwarf;Whereof the dwarf lagg’d latest, and the knightHad vizor up, and show’d a youthful face,Imperious, and of haughtiest lineaments.And Guinevere, not mindful of his faceIn the King’s hall, desired his name, and sentHer maiden to demand it of the dwarf;Who being vicious, old and irritable,And doubling all his master’s vice of pride,Made answer sharply that she should not know.‘Then will I ask it of himself,’ she said.‘Nay, by my faith, thou shalt not,’ cried the dwarf;‘Thou art not worthy ev’n to speak of him’;And when she put her horse toward the knight,Struck at her with his whip, and she return’dIndignant to the Queen; whereat GeraintExclaiming, ‘Surely I will learn the name,’Made sharply to the dwarf, and ask’d it of him,Who answer’d as before; and when the PrinceHad put his horse in motion toward the knight,Struck at him with his whip, and cut his cheek.The Prince’s blood spirted upon the scarf,Dyeing it; and his quick, instinctive handCaught at the hilt, as to abolish him:But he, from his exceeding manfulnessAnd pure nobility of temperament,Wroth to be wroth at such a worm, refrain’dFrom ev’n a word.”

The self-restraint of Geraint, who does not slay the dwarf,

“From his exceeding manfulnessAnd pure nobility of temperament,”

may appear “too polite,” and too much in accord with the still undiscovered idea of “leading sweet lives.” However, the uninvented idea does occur in the Welsh original: “Then Geraint put his hand upon the hilt of his sword, but he took counsel with himself, and considered that it would be no vengeance for him to slay the dwarf,” while he also reflects that he would be “attacked unarmed by the armed knight.” Perhaps Tennyson may be blamed for omitting this obvious motive for self-restraint. Geraint therefore follows the knight in hope of finding arms, and arrives at the town all busy with preparations for the tournament of the sparrow-hawk. This was a challenge sparrow-hawk: the knight had won it twice, and if he won it thrice it would be his to keep. The rest, in the tale, is exactly followed in the Idyll. Geraint is entertained by the ruined Yniol. The youth bears the “costrel” full of “good purchased mead” (the ruined Earl not brewing for himself), and Enid carries the manchet bread in her veil, “old, and beginning to be worn out.” All Tennyson’s own is the beautiful passage—

“And while he waited in the castle court,The voice of Enid, Yniol’s daughter, rangClear thro’ the open casement of the hall,Singing; and as the sweet voice of a bird,Heard by the lander in a lonely isle,Moves him to think what kind of bird it isThat sings so delicately clear, and makeConjecture of the plumage and the form;So the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint;And made him like a man abroad at mornWhen first the liquid note beloved of menComes flying over many a windy waveTo Britain, and in April suddenlyBreaks from a coppice gemm’d with green and red,And he suspends his converse with a friend,Or it may be the labour of his hands,To think or say, ‘There is the nightingale’;So fared it with Geraint, who thought and said,‘Here, by God’s grace, is the one voice for me.’”

Yniol frankly admits in the tale that he was in the wrong in the quarrel with his nephew. The poet, however, gives him the right, as is natural. The combat is exactly followed in the Idyll, as is Geraint’s insistence in carrying his bride to Court in her faded silks. Geraint, however, leaves Court with Enid, not because of the scandal about Lancelot, but to do his duty in his own country. He becomes indolent and uxorious, and Enid deplores his weakness, and awakes his suspicions, thus:—

And one morning in the summer time they were upon their couch, and Geraint lay upon the edge of it. And Enid was without sleep in the apartment which had windows of glass. And the sun shone upon the couch. And the clothes had slipped from off his arms and his breast, and he was asleep. Then she gazed upon the marvellous beauty of his appearance, and she said, “Alas, and am I the cause that these arms and this breast have lost their glory and the warlike fame which they once so richly enjoyed!” And as she said this, the tears dropped from her eyes, and they fell upon his breast. And the tears she shed, and the words she had spoken, awoke him; and another thing contributed to awaken him, and that was the idea that it was not in thinking of him that she spoke thus, but that it was because she loved some other man more than him, and that she wished for other society, and thereupon Geraint was troubled in his mind, and he called his squire; and when he came to him, “Go quickly,” said he, “and prepare my horse and my arms, and make them ready. And do thou arise,” said he to Enid, “and apparel thyself; and cause thy horse to be accoutred, and clothe thee in the worst riding-dress that thou hast in thy possession. And evil betide me,” said he, “if thou returnest here until thou knowest whether I have lost my strength so completely as thou didst say. And if it be so, it will then be easy for thee to seek the society thou didst wish for of him of whom thou wast thinking.” So she arose, and clothed herself in her meanest garments. “I know nothing, Lord,” said she, “of thy meaning.” “Neither wilt thou know at this time,” said he.“At last, it chanced that on a summer morn(They sleeping each by either) the new sunBeat thro’ the blindless casement of the room,And heated the strong warrior in his dreams;Who, moving, cast the coverlet aside,And bared the knotted column of his throat,The massive square of his heroic breast,And arms on which the standing muscle sloped,As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone,Running too vehemently to break upon it.And Enid woke and sat beside the couch,Admiring him, and thought within herself,Was ever man so grandly made as he?Then, like a shadow, past the people’s talkAnd accusation of uxoriousnessAcross her mind, and bowing over him,Low to her own heart piteously she said:‘O noble breast and all-puissant arms,Am I the cause, I the poor cause that menReproach you, saying all your force is gone?Iamthe cause, because I dare not speakAnd tell him what I think and what they say.And yet I hate that he should linger here;I cannot love my lord and not his name.Far liefer had I gird his harness on him,And ride with him to battle and stand by,And watch his mightful hand striking great blowsAt caitiffs and at wrongers of the world.Far better were I laid in the dark earth,Not hearing any more his noble voice,Not to be folded more in these dear arms,And darken’d from the high light in his eyes,Than that my lord thro’ me should suffer shame.Am I so bold, and could I so stand by,And see my dear lord wounded in the strife,Or maybe pierced to death before mine eyes,And yet not dare to tell him what I think,And how men slur him, saying all his forceIs melted into mere effeminacy?O me, I fear that I am no true wife.’Half inwardly, half audibly she spoke,And the strong passion in her made her weepTrue tears upon his broad and naked breast,And these awoke him, and by great mischanceHe heard but fragments of her later words,And that she fear’d she was not a true wife.And then he thought, ‘In spite of all my care,For all my pains, poor man, for all my pains,She is not faithful to me, and I see herWeeping for some gay knight in Arthur’s hall.’Then tho’ he loved and reverenced her too muchTo dream she could be guilty of foul act,Right thro’ his manful breast darted the pangThat makes a man, in the sweet face of herWhom he loves most, lonely and miserable.At this he hurl’d his huge limbs out of bed,And shook his drowsy squire awake and cried,‘My charger and her palfrey’; then to her,‘I will ride forth into the wilderness;For tho’ it seems my spurs are yet to win,I have not fall’n so low as some would wish.And thou, put on thy worst and meanest dressAnd ride with me.’ And Enid ask’d, amazed,‘If Enid errs, let Enid learn her fault.’But he, ‘I charge thee, ask not, but obey.’Then she bethought her of a faded silk,A faded mantle and a faded veil,And moving toward a cedarn cabinet,Wherein she kept them folded reverentlyWith sprigs of summer laid between the folds,She took them, and array’d herself therein,Remembering when first he came on herDrest in that dress, and how he loved her in it,And all her foolish fears about the dress,And all his journey to her, as himselfHad told her, and their coming to the court.”

“At last, it chanced that on a summer morn(They sleeping each by either) the new sunBeat thro’ the blindless casement of the room,And heated the strong warrior in his dreams;Who, moving, cast the coverlet aside,And bared the knotted column of his throat,The massive square of his heroic breast,And arms on which the standing muscle sloped,As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone,Running too vehemently to break upon it.And Enid woke and sat beside the couch,Admiring him, and thought within herself,Was ever man so grandly made as he?Then, like a shadow, past the people’s talkAnd accusation of uxoriousnessAcross her mind, and bowing over him,Low to her own heart piteously she said:

‘O noble breast and all-puissant arms,Am I the cause, I the poor cause that menReproach you, saying all your force is gone?Iamthe cause, because I dare not speakAnd tell him what I think and what they say.And yet I hate that he should linger here;I cannot love my lord and not his name.Far liefer had I gird his harness on him,And ride with him to battle and stand by,And watch his mightful hand striking great blowsAt caitiffs and at wrongers of the world.Far better were I laid in the dark earth,Not hearing any more his noble voice,Not to be folded more in these dear arms,And darken’d from the high light in his eyes,Than that my lord thro’ me should suffer shame.Am I so bold, and could I so stand by,And see my dear lord wounded in the strife,Or maybe pierced to death before mine eyes,And yet not dare to tell him what I think,And how men slur him, saying all his forceIs melted into mere effeminacy?O me, I fear that I am no true wife.’

Half inwardly, half audibly she spoke,And the strong passion in her made her weepTrue tears upon his broad and naked breast,And these awoke him, and by great mischanceHe heard but fragments of her later words,And that she fear’d she was not a true wife.And then he thought, ‘In spite of all my care,For all my pains, poor man, for all my pains,She is not faithful to me, and I see herWeeping for some gay knight in Arthur’s hall.’Then tho’ he loved and reverenced her too muchTo dream she could be guilty of foul act,Right thro’ his manful breast darted the pangThat makes a man, in the sweet face of herWhom he loves most, lonely and miserable.At this he hurl’d his huge limbs out of bed,And shook his drowsy squire awake and cried,‘My charger and her palfrey’; then to her,‘I will ride forth into the wilderness;For tho’ it seems my spurs are yet to win,I have not fall’n so low as some would wish.And thou, put on thy worst and meanest dressAnd ride with me.’ And Enid ask’d, amazed,‘If Enid errs, let Enid learn her fault.’But he, ‘I charge thee, ask not, but obey.’Then she bethought her of a faded silk,A faded mantle and a faded veil,And moving toward a cedarn cabinet,Wherein she kept them folded reverentlyWith sprigs of summer laid between the folds,She took them, and array’d herself therein,Remembering when first he came on herDrest in that dress, and how he loved her in it,And all her foolish fears about the dress,And all his journey to her, as himselfHad told her, and their coming to the court.”

Tennyson’s

“Arms on which the standing muscle sloped,As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone,Running too vehemently to break upon it,”

is suggested perhaps by Theocritus—“The muscles on his brawny arms stood out like rounded rocks that the winter torrent has rolled and worn smooth, in the great swirling stream” (Idyll xxii.)

The second part of the poem follows the original less closely. Thus Limours, in the tale, is not an old suitor of Enid; Edyrn does not appear to the rescue; certain cruel games, veiled in a magic mist, occur in the tale, and are omitted by the poet; “Gwyffert petit, so called by the Franks, whom the Cymry call the Little King,” in the tale, is not a character in the Idyll, and, generally, the gross Celtic exaggerations of Geraint’s feats are toned down by Tennyson. In other respects, as when Geraint eats the mowers’ dinner, the tale supplies the materials. But it does not dwell tenderly on the reconciliation. The tale is more or less in the vein of “patient Grizel,” and he who told it is more concerned with the fighting than withamoris redintegratio, and the sufferings of Enid. The Idyll is enriched with many beautiful pictures from nature, such as this:—

“But at the flash and motion of the manThey vanish’d panic-stricken, like a shoalOf darting fish, that on a summer mornAdown the crystal dykes at CamelotCome slipping o’er their shadows on the sand,But if a man who stands upon the brinkBut lift a shining hand against the sun,There is not left the twinkle of a finBetwixt the cressy islets white in flower;So, scared but at the motion of the man,Fled all the boon companions of the Earl,And left him lying in the public way.”

InBalin and BalanTennyson displays great constructive power, and remarkable skill in moulding the most recalcitrant materials. Balin or Balyn, according to Mr Rhys, is the Belinus of Geoffrey of Monmouth, “whose name represents the Celtic divinity described in Latin as Apollo Belenus or Belinus.”[129a]In Geoffrey, Belinus, euphemerised, or reduced from god to hero, has a brother, Brennius, the Celtic Brân, King of Britain from Caithness to the Humber. Belinus drives Brân into exile. “Thus it is seen that Belinus or Balyn was, mythologically speaking, the natural enemy” (as Apollo Belinus, the radiant god) “of the dark divinity Brân or Balan.”

If this view be correct, the two brothers answer to the good and bad principles of myths like that of the Huron Iouskeha the Sun, and Anatensic the Moon, or rather Taouiscara and Iouskeha, the hostile brothers, Black and White.[129b]These mythical brethren are, in Malory, two knights of Northumberland, Balin the wild and Balan. Their adventures are mixed up with a hostile Lady of the Lake, whom Balin slays in Arthur’s presence, with a sword which none but Balin can draw from sheath; and with an evil black-faced knight Garlon, invisible at will, whom Balin slays in the castle of the knight’s brother, King Pellam. Pursued from room to room by Pellam, Balin finds himself in a chamber full of relics of Joseph of Arimathea. There he seizes a spear, the very spear with which the Roman soldier pierced the side of the Crucified, and wounds Pellam. The castle falls in ruins “through that dolorous stroke.” Pellam becomes the maimed king, who can only be healed by the Holy Grail. Apparently Celtic myths of obscure antiquity have been adapted in France, and interwoven with fables about Joseph of Arimathea and Christian mysteries. It is not possible here to go into the complicated learning of the subject. In Malory, Balin, after dealing the dolorous stroke, borrows a strange shield from a knight, and, thus accoutred, meets his brother Balan, who does not recognise him. They fight, both die and are buried in one tomb, and Galahad later achieves the adventure of winning Balin’s sword. “Thus endeth the tale of Balyn and of Balan, two brethren born in Northumberland, good knights,” says Malory, simply, and unconscious of the strange mythological medley under the coat armour of romance.

The materials, then, seemed confused and obdurate, but Tennyson works them into the course of the fatal love of Lancelot and Guinevere, and into the spiritual texture of the Idylls. Balin has been expelled from Court for the wildness that gives him his name,Balin le Sauvage. He had buffeted a squire in hall. He and Balan await all challengers beside a well. Arthur encounters and dismounts them. Balin devotes himself to self-conquest. Then comes tidings that Pellam, of old leagued with Lot against Arthur, has taken to religion, collects relics, claims descent from Joseph of Arimathea, and owns the sacred spear that pierced the side of Christ. But Garlon is with him, the knight invisible, who appears to come from an Irish source, or at least has a parallel in Irish legend. This Garlon has an unknightly way of killing men by viewless blows from the rear. Balan goes to encounter Garlon. Balin remains, learning courtesy, modelling himself on Lancelot, and gaining leave to bear Guinevere’s Crown Matrimonial for his cognisance,—which, of course, Balan does not know,—

“As golden earnest of a better life.”

But Balin sees reason to think that Lancelot and Guinevere love even too well.

“Then chanced, one morning, that Sir Balin satClose-bower’d in that garden nigh the hall.A walk of roses ran from door to door;A walk of lilies crost it to the bower:And down that range of roses the great QueenCame with slow steps, the morning on her face;And all in shadow from the counter doorSir Lancelot as to meet her, then at once,As if he saw not, glanced aside, and pacedThe long white walk of lilies toward the bower.Follow’d the Queen; Sir Balin heard her ‘Prince,Art thou so little loyal to thy Queen,As pass without good morrow to thy Queen?’To whom Sir Lancelot with his eyes on earth,‘Fain would I still be loyal to the Queen.’‘Yea so,’ she said, ‘but so to pass me by—So loyal scarce is loyal to thyself,Whom all men rate the king of courtesy.Let be: ye stand, fair lord, as in a dream.’Then Lancelot with his hand among the flowers,‘Yea—for a dream. Last night methought I sawThat maiden Saint who stands with lily in handIn yonder shrine. All round her prest the dark,And all the light upon her silver faceFlow’d from the spiritual lily that she held.Lo! these her emblems drew mine eyes—away:For see, how perfect-pure! As light a flushAs hardly tints the blossom of the quinceWould mar their charm of stainless maidenhood.’‘Sweeter to me,’ she said, ‘this garden roseDeep-hued and many-folded sweeter stillThe wild-wood hyacinth and the bloom of May.Prince, we have ridd’n before among the flowersIn those fair days—not all as cool as these,Tho’ season-earlier. Art thou sad? or sick?Our noble King will send thee his own leech—Sick? or for any matter anger’d at me?’Then Lancelot lifted his large eyes; they dweltDeep-tranced on hers, and could not fall: her hueChanged at his gaze: so turning side by sideThey past, and Balin started from his bower.‘Queen? subject? but I see not what I see.Damsel and lover? hear not what I hear.My father hath begotten me in his wrath.I suffer from the things before me, know,Learn nothing; am not worthy to be knight;A churl, a clown!’ and in him gloom on gloomDeepen’d: he sharply caught his lance and shield,Nor stay’d to crave permission of the King,But, mad for strange adventure, dash’d away.”

Then Lancelot with his hand among the flowers,‘Yea—for a dream. Last night methought I sawThat maiden Saint who stands with lily in handIn yonder shrine. All round her prest the dark,And all the light upon her silver faceFlow’d from the spiritual lily that she held.Lo! these her emblems drew mine eyes—away:For see, how perfect-pure! As light a flushAs hardly tints the blossom of the quinceWould mar their charm of stainless maidenhood.’

‘Sweeter to me,’ she said, ‘this garden roseDeep-hued and many-folded sweeter stillThe wild-wood hyacinth and the bloom of May.Prince, we have ridd’n before among the flowersIn those fair days—not all as cool as these,Tho’ season-earlier. Art thou sad? or sick?Our noble King will send thee his own leech—Sick? or for any matter anger’d at me?’

Then Lancelot lifted his large eyes; they dweltDeep-tranced on hers, and could not fall: her hueChanged at his gaze: so turning side by sideThey past, and Balin started from his bower.

‘Queen? subject? but I see not what I see.Damsel and lover? hear not what I hear.My father hath begotten me in his wrath.I suffer from the things before me, know,Learn nothing; am not worthy to be knight;A churl, a clown!’ and in him gloom on gloomDeepen’d: he sharply caught his lance and shield,Nor stay’d to crave permission of the King,But, mad for strange adventure, dash’d away.”

Balin is “disillusioned,” his faith in the Ideal is shaken if not shattered. He rides at adventure. Arriving at the half-ruined castle of Pellam, that dubious devotee, he hears Garlon insult Guinevere, but restrains himself. Next day, again insulted for bearing “the crown scandalous” on his shield, he strikes Garlon down, is pursued, seizes the sacred spear, and escapes. Vivien meets him in the woods, drops scandal in his ears, and so maddens him that he defaces his shield with the crown of Guinevere. Her song, and her words,

“This fire of Heaven,This old sun-worship, boy, will rise again,And beat the cross to earth, and break the KingAnd all his Table,”

might be forced into an allegory of the revived pride of life, at the Renaissance and after. The maddened yells of Balin strike the ear of Balan, who thinks he has met the foul knight Garlon, that

“Tramples on the goodly shield to showHis loathing of our Order and the Queen.”

They fight, fatally wound, and finally recognise each other: Balan trying to restore Balin’s faith in Guinevere, who is merely slandered by Garlon and Vivien. Balin acknowledges that his wildness has been their common bane, and they die, “either locked in either’s arms.”

There is nothing in Malory, nor in any other source, so far as I am aware, which suggested to Tennyson theclouof the situation—the use of Guinevere’s crown as a cognisance by Balin. This device enables the poet to weave the rather confused and unintelligible adventures of Balin and Balan into the scheme, and to make it a stage in the progress of his fable. That Balin was reckless and wild Malory bears witness, but his endeavours to conquer himself and reach the ideal set by Lancelot are Tennyson’s addition, with all the tragedy of Balin’s disenchantment and despair. The strange fantastic house of Pellam, full of the most sacred things,

“In which he scarce could spy the Christ for Saints,”

yet sheltering the human fiend Garlon, is supplied by Malory, whose predecessors probably blended more than one myth of the old Cymry into the romance, washed over with Christian colouring. As Malory tells this part of the tale it is perhaps more strange and effective than in the Idyll. The introduction of Vivien into this adventure is wholly due to Tennyson: her appearance here leads up to her triumph in the poem which follows,Merlin and Vivien.

The nature and origin of Merlin are something of a mystery. Hints and rumours of Merlin, as of Arthur, stream from hill and grave as far north as Tweedside. If he was a historical person, myths of magic might crystallise round him, as round Virgil in Italy. The process would be the easier in a country where the practices of Druidry still lingered, and revived after the retreat of the Romans. The mediæval romancers invented a legend that Merlin was a virgin-born child of Satan. In Tennyson he may be guessed to represent the fabled esoteric lore of old religions, with their vague pantheisms, and such magic as thetapasof Brahmanic legends. He is wise with a riddling evasive wisdom: the builder of Camelot, the prophet, a shadow of Druidry clinging to the Christian king. His wisdom cannot avail him: if he beholds “his own mischance with a glassy countenance,” he cannot avoid his shapen fate. He becomes assotted of Vivien, and goes open-eyed to his doom.

The enchantress, Vivien, is one of that dubious company of Ladies of the Lake, now friendly, now treacherous. Probably these ladies are the fairies of popular Celtic tradition, taken up into the more elaborate poetry of Cymric literature and mediæval romance. Mr Rhys traces Vivien, or Nimue, or Nyneue, back, through a series of palæographic changes and errors, to Rhiannon, wife of Pwyll, a kind of lady of the lake he thinks, but the identification is not very satisfactory. Vivien is certainly “one of the damsels of the lake” in Malory, and the damsels of the lake seem to be lake fairies, with all their beguilements and strange unstable loves. “And always Merlin lay about the lady to have her maidenhood, and she was ever passing weary of him, and fain would have been delivered of him, for she was afraid of him because he was a devil’s son. . . . So by her subtle working she made Merlin to go under that stone to let her wit of the marvels there, but she wrought so there for him that he came never out for all the craft he could do. And so she departed and left Merlin.” The sympathy of Malory is not with the enchanter. In the Idylls, as finally published, Vivien is born on a battlefield of death, with a nature perverted, and an instinctive hatred of the good. Wherefore she leaves the Court of King Mark to make mischief in Camelot. She is, in fact, the ideal minx, a character not elsewhere treated by Tennyson:—

“She hated all the knights, and heard in thoughtTheir lavish comment when her name was named.For once, when Arthur walking all alone,Vext at a rumour issued from herselfOf some corruption crept among his knights,Had met her, Vivien, being greeted fair,Would fain have wrought upon his cloudy moodWith reverent eyes mock-loyal, shaken voice,And flutter’d adoration, and at lastWith dark sweet hints of some who prized him moreThan who should prize him most; at which the KingHad gazed upon her blankly and gone by:But one had watch’d, and had not held his peace:It made the laughter of an afternoonThat Vivien should attempt the blameless King.And after that, she set herself to gainHim, the most famous man of all those times,Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts,Had built the King his havens, ships, and halls,Was also Bard, and knew the starry heavens;The people call’d him Wizard; whom at firstShe play’d about with slight and sprightly talk,And vivid smiles, and faintly-venom’d pointsOf slander, glancing here and grazing there;And yielding to his kindlier moods, the SeerWould watch her at her petulance, and play,Ev’n when they seem’d unloveable, and laughAs those that watch a kitten; thus he grewTolerant of what he half disdain’d, and she,Perceiving that she was but half disdain’d,Began to break her sports with graver fits,Turn red or pale, would often when they metSigh fully, or all-silent gaze upon himWith such a fixt devotion, that the old man,Tho’ doubtful, felt the flattery, and at timesWould flatter his own wish in age for love,And half believe her true: for thus at timesHe waver’d; but that other clung to him,Fixt in her will, and so the seasons went.”

Vivien is modern enough—if any type of character is modern: at all events there is no such Blanche Amory of a girl in the old legends and romances. In these Merlin fatigues the lady by his love; she learns his arts, and gets rid of him as she can. His forebodings in the Idyll contain a magnificent image:—

“There lay she all her length and kiss’d his feet,As if in deepest reverence and in love.A twist of gold was round her hair; a robeOf samite without price, that more exprestThan hid her, clung about her lissome limbs,In colour like the satin-shining palmOn sallows in the windy gleams of March:And while she kiss’d them, crying, ‘Trample me,Dear feet, that I have follow’d thro’ the world,And I will pay you worship; tread me downAnd I will kiss you for it’; he was mute:So dark a forethought roll’d about his brain,As on a dull day in an Ocean caveThe blind wave feeling round his long sea-hallIn silence.”

We think of the blinded Cyclops groping round his cave, like “the blind wave feeling round his long sea-hall.”

The richness, the many shining contrasts and immortal lines inVivien, seem almost too noble for a subject not easily redeemed, and the picture of the ideal Court lying in full corruption. Next toElaine, Jowett wrote that he “admiredVivienthe most (the naughty one), which seems to me a work of wonderful power and skill. It is most elegant and fanciful. I am not surprised at your Delilah beguiling the wise man; she is quite equal to it.” The dramatic versatility of Tennyson’s genius, his power of creating the most various characters, is nowhere better displayed than in the contrast between theVivienand theElaine. Vivien is a type, her adventure is of a nature, which he has not elsewhere handled. Thackeray, who admired the Idylls so enthusiastically, might have recognised in Vivien a character not unlike some of his own, as dark as Becky Sharp, more terrible in her selfishness than that Beatrix Esmond who is still a paragon, and, in her creator’s despite, a queen of hearts. In Elaine, on the other hand, Tennyson has drawn a girl so innocently passionate, and told a tale of love that never found his earthly close, so delicately beautiful, that we may perhaps place this Idyll the highest of his poems on love, and reckon it the gem of the Idylls, the central diamond in the diamond crown. ReadingElaineonce more, after an interval of years, one is captivated by its grace, its pathos, its nobility. The poet had touched on some unidentified form of the story, long before, inThe Lady of Shalott. That poem had the mystery of romance, but, in human interest, could not compete withElaine, if indeed any poem of Tennyson’s can be ranked with this matchless Idyll.

The mere invention, and, as we may say,charpentage, are of the first order. The materials in Malory, though beautiful, are simple, and left a field for the poet’s invention.[139]

Arthur, with the Scots and Northern knights, means to encounter all comers at a Whitsuntide tourney. Guinevere is ill, and cannot go to the jousts, while Lancelot makes excuse that he is not healed of a wound. “Wherefore the King was heavy and passing wroth, and so he departed towards Winchester.” The Queen then blamed Lancelot: people will say they deceive Arthur. “Madame,” said Sir Lancelot, “I allow your wit; it is of late come that ye were wise.” In the Idyll Guinevere speaks as if their early loves had been as conspicuous as, according to George Buchanan, were those of Queen Mary and Bothwell. Lancelot will go to the tourney, and, despite Guinevere’s warning, will take part against Arthur and his own fierce Northern kinsmen. He rides to Astolat—“that is, Gylford”—where Arthur sees him. He borrows the blank shield of “Sir Torre,” and the company of his brother Sir Lavaine. Elaine “cast such a love unto Sir Lancelot that she would never withdraw her love, wherefore she died.” At her prayer, and for better disguise (as he had never worn a lady’s favour), Lancelot carried her scarlet pearl-embroidered sleeve in his helmet, and left his shield in Elaine’s keeping. The tourney passes as in the poem, Gawain recognising Lancelot, but puzzled by the favour he wears. The wounded Lancelot “thought to do what he might while he might endure.” When he is offered the prize he is so sore hurt that he “takes no force of no honour.” He rides into a wood, where Lavaine draws forth the spear. Lavaine brings Lancelot to the hermit, once a knight. “I have seen the day,” says the hermit, “I would have loved him the worse, because he was against my lord, King Arthur, for some time. I was one of the fellowship of the Round Table, but I thank God now I am otherwise disposed.” Gawain, seeking the wounded knight, comes to Astolat, where Elaine declares “he is the man in the world that I first loved, and truly he is the last that ever I shall love.” Gawain, on seeing the shield, tells Elaine that the wounded knight is Lancelot, and she goes to seek him and Lavaine. Gawain does not pay court to Elaine, nor does Arthur rebuke him, as in the poem. When Guinevere heard that Lancelot bore another lady’s favour, “she was nigh out of her mind for wrath,” and expressed her anger to Sir Bors, for Gawain had spoken of the maid of Astolat. Bors tells this to Lancelot, who is tended by Elaine. “‘But I well see,’ said Sir Bors, ‘by her diligence about you that she loveth you entirely.’ ‘That me repenteth,’ said Sir Lancelot. Said Sir Bors, ‘Sir, she is not the first that hath lost her pain upon you, and that is the more pity.’” When Lancelot recovers, and returns to Astolat, she declares her love with the frankness of ladies in mediæval romance. “Have mercy upon me and suffer me not to die for thy love.” Lancelot replies with the courtesy and the offers of service which became him. “Of all this,” said the maiden, “I will none; for but if ye will wed me, or be my paramour at the least, wit you well, Sir Lancelot, my good days are done.”

This was a difficult pass for the poet, living in other days of other manners. His art appears in the turn which he gives to Elaine’s declaration:—

“But when Sir Lancelot’s deadly hurt was whole,To Astolat returning rode the three.There morn by morn, arraying her sweet selfIn that wherein she deem’d she look’d her best,She came before Sir Lancelot, for she thought‘If I be loved, these are my festal robes,If not, the victim’s flowers before he fall.’And Lancelot ever prest upon the maidThat she should ask some goodly gift of himFor her own self or hers; ‘and do not shunTo speak the wish most near to your true heart;Such service have ye done me, that I makeMy will of yours, and Prince and Lord am IIn mine own land, and what I will I can.’Then like a ghost she lifted up her face,But like a ghost without the power to speak.And Lancelot saw that she withheld her wish,And bode among them yet a little spaceTill he should learn it; and one morn it chancedHe found her in among the garden yews,And said, ‘Delay no longer, speak your wish,Seeing I go to-day’: then out she brake:‘Going? and we shall never see you more.And I must die for want of one bold word.’‘Speak: that I live to hear,’ he said, ‘is yours.’Then suddenly and passionately she spoke:‘I have gone mad. I love you: let me die.’‘Ah, sister,’ answer’d Lancelot, ‘what is this?’And innocently extending her white arms,‘Your love,’ she said, ‘your love—to be your wife.’And Lancelot answer’d, ‘Had I chosen to wed,I had been wedded earlier, sweet Elaine:But now there never will be wife of mine.’‘No, no’ she cried, ‘I care not to be wife,But to be with you still, to see your face,To serve you, and to follow you thro’ the world.’And Lancelot answer’d, ‘Nay, the world, the world,All ear and eye, with such a stupid heartTo interpret ear and eye, and such a tongueTo blare its own interpretation—nay,Full ill then should I quit your brother’s love,And your good father’s kindness.’ And she said,‘Not to be with you, not to see your face—Alas for me then, my good days are done.’”

So she dies, and is borne down Thames to London, the fairest corpse, “and she lay as though she had smiled.” Her letter is read. “Ye might have showed her,” said the Queen, “some courtesy and gentleness that might have preserved her life;” and so the two are reconciled.

Such, in brief, is the tender old tale of true love, with the shining courtesy of Lavaine and the father of the maid, who speak no word of anger against Lancelot. “For since first I saw my lord, Sir Lancelot,” says Lavaine, “I could never depart from him, nor nought I will, if I may follow him: she doth as I do.” To the simple and moving story Tennyson adds, by way of ornament, the diamonds, the prize of the tourney, and the manner of their finding:—

“For Arthur, long before they crown’d him King,Roving the trackless realms of Lyonnesse,Had found a glen, gray boulder and black tarn.A horror lived about the tarn, and claveLike its own mists to all the mountain side:For here two brothers, one a king, had metAnd fought together; but their names were lost;And each had slain his brother at a blow;And down they fell and made the glen abhorr’d:And there they lay till all their bones were bleach’d,And lichen’d into colour with the crags:And he, that once was king, had on a crownOf diamonds, one in front, and four aside.And Arthur came, and labouring up the pass,All in a misty moonshine, unawaresHad trodden that crown’d skeleton, and the skullBrake from the nape, and from the skull the crownRoll’d into light, and turning on its rimsFled like a glittering rivulet to the tarn:And down the shingly scaur he plunged, and caught,And set it on his head, and in his heartHeard murmurs, ‘Lo, thou likewise shalt be King.’”

The diamonds reappear in the scene of Guinevere’s jealousy:—

“All in an oriel on the summer side,Vine-clad, of Arthur’s palace toward the stream,They met, and Lancelot kneeling utter’d, ‘Queen,Lady, my liege, in whom I have my joy,Take, what I had not won except for you,These jewels, and make me happy, making themAn armlet for the roundest arm on earth,Or necklace for a neck to which the swan’sIs tawnier than her cygnet’s: these are words:Your beauty is your beauty, and I sinIn speaking, yet O grant my worship of itWords, as we grant grief tears. Such sin in words,Perchance, we both can pardon: but, my Queen,I hear of rumours flying thro’ your court.Our bond, as not the bond of man and wife,Should have in it an absoluter trustTo make up that defect: let rumours be:When did not rumours fly? these, as I trustThat you trust me in your own nobleness,I may not well believe that you believe.’While thus he spoke, half turn’d away, the QueenBrake from the vast oriel-embowering vineLeaf after leaf, and tore, and cast them off,Till all the place whereon she stood was green;Then, when he ceased, in one cold passive handReceived at once and laid aside the gemsThere on a table near her, and replied:‘It may be, I am quicker of beliefThan you believe me, Lancelot of the Lake.Our bond is not the bond of man and wife.This good is in it, whatsoe’er of ill,It can be broken easier. I for youThis many a year have done despite and wrongTo one whom ever in my heart of heartsI did acknowledge nobler. What are these?Diamonds for me! they had been thrice their worthBeing your gift, had you not lost your own.To loyal hearts the value of all giftsMust vary as the giver’s. Not for me!For her! for your new fancy. Only thisGrant me, I pray you: have your joys apart.I doubt not that however changed, you keepSo much of what is graceful: and myselfWould shun to break those bounds of courtesyIn which as Arthur’s Queen I move and rule:So cannot speak my mind. An end to this!A strange one! yet I take it with Amen.So pray you, add my diamonds to her pearls;Deck her with these; tell her, she shines me down:An armlet for an arm to which the Queen’sIs haggard, or a necklace for a neckO as much fairer—as a faith once fairWas richer than these diamonds—hers not mine—Nay, by the mother of our Lord himself,Or hers or mine, mine now to work my will—She shall not have them.’Saying which she seized,And, thro’ the casement standing wide for heat,Flung them, and down they flash’d, and smote the stream.Then from the smitten surface flash’d, as it were,Diamonds to meet them, and they past away.Then while Sir Lancelot leant, in half disdainAt love, life, all things, on the window ledge,Close underneath his eyes, and right acrossWhere these had fallen, slowly past the bargeWhereon the lily maid of AstolatLay smiling, like a star in blackest night.”

While thus he spoke, half turn’d away, the QueenBrake from the vast oriel-embowering vineLeaf after leaf, and tore, and cast them off,Till all the place whereon she stood was green;Then, when he ceased, in one cold passive handReceived at once and laid aside the gemsThere on a table near her, and replied:

‘It may be, I am quicker of beliefThan you believe me, Lancelot of the Lake.Our bond is not the bond of man and wife.This good is in it, whatsoe’er of ill,It can be broken easier. I for youThis many a year have done despite and wrongTo one whom ever in my heart of heartsI did acknowledge nobler. What are these?Diamonds for me! they had been thrice their worthBeing your gift, had you not lost your own.To loyal hearts the value of all giftsMust vary as the giver’s. Not for me!For her! for your new fancy. Only thisGrant me, I pray you: have your joys apart.I doubt not that however changed, you keepSo much of what is graceful: and myselfWould shun to break those bounds of courtesyIn which as Arthur’s Queen I move and rule:So cannot speak my mind. An end to this!A strange one! yet I take it with Amen.So pray you, add my diamonds to her pearls;Deck her with these; tell her, she shines me down:An armlet for an arm to which the Queen’sIs haggard, or a necklace for a neckO as much fairer—as a faith once fairWas richer than these diamonds—hers not mine—Nay, by the mother of our Lord himself,Or hers or mine, mine now to work my will—She shall not have them.’

Saying which she seized,And, thro’ the casement standing wide for heat,Flung them, and down they flash’d, and smote the stream.Then from the smitten surface flash’d, as it were,Diamonds to meet them, and they past away.Then while Sir Lancelot leant, in half disdainAt love, life, all things, on the window ledge,Close underneath his eyes, and right acrossWhere these had fallen, slowly past the bargeWhereon the lily maid of AstolatLay smiling, like a star in blackest night.”

This affair of the diamonds is the chief addition to the old tale, in which we already see the curse of lawless love, fallen upon the jealous Queen and the long-enduring Lancelot. “This is not the first time,” said Sir Lancelot, “that ye have been displeased with me causeless, but, madame, ever I must suffer you, but what sorrow I endure I take no force” (that is, “I disregard”).

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