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 THE CDiyilNGDF ARTHUR 
 
 AND 
 
 THE PASSING Df ARTHUR 
 
 BY 
 
 Alfred Tennyson. 
 
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ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES-No. 128. 
 
 / 
 
 The Coming of Aethur 
 
 AND 
 
 The Passing of Arthur. 
 
 Alfred Tennyson. 
 
 ry'Ds^y 
 
 Witf) Knttolruction mxti JErplnnatox^ Kotes* 
 
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^ 
 
 Biographical and General Introduction. 
 
 "Alfred Tennyson was born August 5, 1809, at Somersby 
 a hamlet in Lincolnshire, England, of which, and of a neigh- 
 boring parish, his father, Dr. George Clayton Tennyson, was 
 rector. The poet's mother was Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. 
 Stephen Fytche, vicar of Louth. Alfred was the third of seven 
 sons — Frederick, Charles, Alfred, Edward, Horatio, Arthur, 
 and Septimus. A daughter, Cecilia, became the wife of Edmund 
 Law Lushington, long professor of Greek in Glasgow Univer- 
 sity. Whether there were other daughters, the biographies of 
 the poet do not mention. 
 
 Tennyson's career as a poet dates back as far as 1827, in which 
 year, he being then but eighteen years of age, he published 
 anonymously, in connection with his brother Charles (Avho was 
 only thirteen months his senior, having been born July 4, 1808), 
 a small volume, entitled Poems by Two Brothers. The Preface, 
 which is dated March, 1827, states that the poems contained in 
 the volume 'were written from the ages of fifteen to eighteen, 
 not conjointly, but individually; which may account for the 
 difference of style and matter.' 
 
 In 1828, or early in 1829, these two brothers entered Trinity 
 College, Cambridge, where their eldest brother, Frederick, had 
 already entered. At the Cambridge Commencement in 1829, 
 Alfred took the Chancellor's gold medal, by his poem entitled 
 Timbuctoo. That appears to have been the first year of his ac- 
 quaintance, which soon ripened into an ardent friendship, with 
 Arthur Henry Hallam ; this friendship, as we learn from the 
 twenty-second section of In Memorimn, having been, at the 
 death of Hallam, of ' four sweet years,' ' duration. It is an in- 
 teresting fact that Hallam was one of Tennyson's rival com- 
 petitors for the Chancellor's prize. His poem is. dated June, 
 1829. It is contained in his Literary Rernams. Among other 
 of Tennyson's friends at the University were John Mitchell 
 \i ^^ 
 
4 BIOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Kemble, the Anglo-Saxon scholar ; William Henry Brookfield, 
 long an eloquent preacher in London ; James Spedding, the 
 biographer and editor of Lord Bacon ; Henry Alford, Dean of 
 Canterbury; Richard Monckton Milnes (afterwards Lord 
 Houghton), who united the poet and the politician, and was 
 the biographer of Keats ; and Richard Chenevix Trench, who 
 became Dean of Westminster, in 1856, and Archbishop of Dub- 
 lin, in 1864. A brilliant array of college friends ! 
 
 Tennyson's prize poem was published shortly after the Cam- 
 bridge Commencement of 1829, and was very favorably noticed 
 in The Athenceum of July 22, 1829. In it can already be recog- 
 nized much of the real Tennyson. There are, indeed, but very 
 few poets whose earliest productions exhibit so much of their 
 after selves. The real Bja-on, the most vigorous in his diction 
 of all modern poets, hardly appears at all in his Hours of Idle- 
 ness, which was published when he was about the age of Tenny- 
 son was when Timhuctoo was published. 
 
 In 1830 appeared Poeyns, chiefly Lyrical, by Alfred Tennyson. 
 In this volume appeared, among others, the poems entitled 
 Ode to Memory, The Poet, The PoeVs Mi7id, The Deserted 
 House, and The Sleeping Beauty, which were full of promise, 
 and struck key-notes of future works. The reviews of the 
 volume mingled praise and blame — the blame perhaps being 
 predominant. In 1832 appeared Poems by Alfred Tennyson, 
 among which were included The Lady of 8halott, The Milley^^s 
 Daughter, The Palace of Art, The Lotos Eaters, and A Dream 
 of Fair Women, all showing a great advance in workmanship 
 and a more distinctly articulate utterance — many of the poems 
 of the previous volumes being rather artist-studies in vowel 
 and melody suggestiveness. It was reviewed, somewhat face- 
 tiously, in The Quarterly, July, 1833, (vol. 49, pp. 81-96,) by, as 
 was generally understood, John Gibson Lockhart, the son-in- 
 law of Sir Walter Scott, at that time editor of The Quarterly ; 
 and in a more earnest and generous vein, by John Stuart Mill, 
 in The Westminster, July, 1835. 
 
 A silence of ten years succeeded the 1832 volume, broken 
 only by an occasional contribution of a short poem to some 
 magazine or collection. In 1842 appeared Poems by Alfred 
 Tennyson, in two volumes, containing selections from the 
 volumes of 1830 and 1832, and many new poems, among which 
 were Ulysses, Love and Duty, The Talking Oak, Godiva, and 
 the remarkable poems of The Two Voices, and The Vision of 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 iSin. The volumes were most enthusiastically received, and 
 Tennyson took at once his place as England's great poet. A 
 second edition followed in 1843, a third in 1845, a fourth in 1846, 
 and a fifth in 1848. Then came The Priyicess : A Medley, 1847 ; 
 a second edition, 1848 ; In Meynoriam, 1850, three editions ap- 
 pearing in the same year. 
 
 The poet was married June 13, 1850, to Emily, daughter of 
 Henry Sell wood, Esq., and niece of Sir John Franklin, of 
 Arctic Expedition fame. Wordsworth had died April 23 of that 
 year, and the laureateship was vacant. After some opj)Osition, 
 the chief coming from The Athenceiim, which advocated the 
 claims of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Tennyson received the 
 appointment, his In 3Iemoriain, which had appeared a short 
 time before, and which at once laid hold of so many hearts, 
 contributing much, no doubt, to the final decision. His presen- 
 tation to the queen took place at Buckingham Palace, March 6, 
 1851, and in the same month appeared the seventh edition of 
 the Poems, with an introductory poem To the Queen, in which 
 he pays a high tribute to his predecessor in the laureateship ;— 
 • Victoria, since your royal grace 
 
 To one of less desert allows 
 
 This laurel greener from the brows 
 Of him that uttered nothing base ;' 
 
 To do much more than note the titles of his principal works 
 since he became Poet-Laureate, the prescribed limit of this 
 sketch will not allow. In 1855 appeared Maud, which, though 
 it met with great disapprobation and but stinted praise, is, per- 
 haps, one of his greatest poems. In July, 1859, the first of the 
 Idyls of the King appeared, namely, Enid, Vivien, Elaiyie, and 
 Guinevere, which were at once great favorites with all readers 
 of the poet ; in August, 1864, Enoch Arden, with which were 
 published ^3/ ?mer' 5 Field, Sea Dreams, The G^^andmother, and 
 The Northeryi Farmer: in December, 1869, four additional 
 Idyls, under the title. The Holy Grail and Other PoeinSy 
 namely— T/ie Coming of Arthur, The Holy Grail, Pelleas and 
 Ettare, and The Passing of Arthur, of which forty thousand 
 copies were ordered in advance; in December, 1871, in The 
 Contemporary Review, The Last Tournament ; in 1872, Gareth 
 andLynette; in 1875, Queen Mary : A Drama; in 1877, Harold: 
 Drama; in 1880, Ballads and Other Poems. 
 
 Tennyson's Muse has been productive of a body of lyric, 
 idyllic, metaphysical, and narrative or descriptive poetry, the 
 
6 BIOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 
 
 choicest, rarest, daintiest, and of the most exquisite workman- 
 ship of any that the century has to show. In a strictly dramatic 
 direction he can hardly he said to have been successful. . His 
 Queen Mary is but little short of a failure as a drama, and his 
 Harold but a j^artial success. With action proper he has shown 
 but little sympathy, and in the domain of vicarious thinking 
 and feeling, in which Robert Browning is so pre-eminent, but 
 little ability. But no one who is well acquainted with all the 
 best poetry of the nineteenth century, will hesitate to pro- 
 nounce him facile 2)ri7iceps in the domain of the lyric and 
 idyllic ; and in these departments of j^oetry he has developed 
 a style at once individual and, in an artistic point of view, 
 almost ' faultily faultless ' — a style which may be traced from 
 his earliest efforts up to the most complete perfection of his 
 latest poetical works. 
 
 The splendid poetry he has given to the world has been the 
 product of the most patient elaboration. No English poet, with 
 the exception of Milton, Wordsworth, and the Brownings, ever 
 worked with a deeper sense of the divine mission of poetry 
 than Tennyson has worked. And he has worked faithfully, 
 earnestly, and conscientiously to realize the ideal with which 
 he appears to have been early possessed. To this ideal he gave 
 expression in two of his early x^oems, entitled The Poet and 
 The PoeVs Mind; and in another of his early poems, The Lady 
 of Shalottj is mystically shadowed forth the relations which 
 poetic genius should sustain to the world for w^liose spiritual 
 redemption it labors, and the fatal consequences of its being 
 seduced by the world's temptations — the lust of the flesh, and 
 the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. 
 
 Great thinkers and writers owe their power among men, not 
 necessarily so much to a wide range of ideas, or to the origi- 
 nality of their ideas, as to the intense vitality which they are 
 able to impart to some one comprehensive, fructifying idea, 
 with which, through constitution and the circumstances of 
 their times, they have become possessed. It is only when a 
 man is really possessed with an idea (that is, if it does not run 
 away with hhn) that he can express it with a quickening 
 power, and ring all possible changes upon it. 
 
 What may be said to be the dominant idea, and the most 
 vitalized, in the poetry of Alfred Tennyson? It is easily 
 noted. It glints forth everywhere in his poetry. It is, that the 
 complete man must be a well-poised duality of the active and 
 
BIOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 the passive or receptive; must unite with an 'all-subtilizing 
 intellect,' an 'all-comprehensive tenderness;' must 'gain in 
 sweetness and in moral height, nor lose the wrestling thews 
 that throw the world.' " 
 
 Thus far Dr. Corson, of Cornell University, in his Introduc- 
 tion to The Two Voices, and A Dream of Fair Women, poems 
 edited by him for the English Classics. 
 
 "It seems to me that the only just estimate of Tennyson's position 
 is that which declares him to be by eminence, the representative poet 
 of the recent era. Not, like one or another of his compeers, represen- 
 tative of the melody, wisdom, passion, or other partial phase of the 
 era, but of the time itself, with its diverse elements in harmonious 
 conjunction, ********* 
 
 In his verse he is as truly ' the glass of fashion and the mould of form ' 
 of the Victorian generation in the nineteenth century as Spenser was 
 of the Elizabethan court, Milton of the Protectorate, Pope of the reign 
 of Queen Anne. During his supremacy there have been few great 
 leaders at the head of different schools, such as belonged to the time 
 of Byron, Wordsworth, and Keats. His poetry has gathered all the 
 elements which find vital expression in the complex modern art."— 
 Stedman's Victorian Poets, 
 
 " To describe his command of language by any ordinarj^ terms expres- 
 sive of fluency or force would be to convey an idea both inadequate and 
 erroneous. It is not only that he knows every word in the language 
 suited to express his every idea; he can select with the ease of magic 
 the word that above all others is best for his purpose ; nor is it that he 
 can at once summon to his aid the best word the language affords; 
 with an art which Shakespeare never scrupled to apply, though in our 
 day it is apt to be counted mere Germanism, and pronounced contrary 
 to the genius of the language, he combines old words into new epithets, 
 he daringly mingles all colors to bring out tints that never were on sea 
 or shore. His words gleam like pearls and opals, like rubies and emer- 
 alds. He yokes the stern vocables of the English tongue to the chariot 
 of his imagination, and they become gracefully brilliant as the leopards 
 of Bacchus, soft and glowing as the Cytherean doves. He must have 
 been born with an ear for verbal sounds, an instinctive appreciation 
 of the beautiful and delicate in words, hardly ever equaled. Though 
 his later works speak less of the blossom-time— show less of the efflor- 
 escence and iridescence, and mere glance and gleam of colored words 
 —they display no falling off, but rather an advance, in the mightier 
 elements of rhythmic speech."— Peier Bayne, 
 
Idyls of The King. 
 
 The Idyls of the King is a group of magnificent poems 
 — ten in number— dealing with the character and reign of King 
 Arthur, and describing the exploits of the Knights of the Round 
 Table, when these knights were at the height of their glory, 
 and when they had fallen to the depths of their shame. These 
 poems picture, also, the life of Queen Guinevere at the Court 
 and in the Abbey, her death, and that of her lord. They were 
 dedicated by their author to the memory of Prince Albert, 
 and afterwards to Queen Victoria. Having to do exclusively 
 with the Arthurian legends, which have come down to us in 
 numberless books of prose and of poetry, these poems belong, 
 in their subject-matter, to the past. But the legends have 
 filtered through the poet's nature, been etherealized by his 
 imagination, and moulded by his artistic hands into such 
 felicitous forms that this great work is, and will forever re- 
 main, fascinating to all lovers of the beautiful in thought and 
 expression. Tennyson himself says of it that it is 
 
 New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul 
 Rather than that gray king, whose name, a ghost, 
 Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak. 
 
 The great hero of the Idyls, though not always the most 
 active, never contending in the tournaments, is 
 
 King Arthur. Of him, as a veritable and historical personage, 
 nothing can be said. But he is the idealized and idolized hero 
 of British and Welsh legend; is even the Magnificence of 
 Spenser's Fcerie Queene (see Spenser's dedication of the poem 
 toSir Walter Raleigh, and also the opening stanzas of Canto IX., 
 Book I). He is as real, or, if you please, as mythical, a 
 character as William Tell. He is the reputed son of a reputed 
 king, XJther — Pendragon (dragon-head), a surname, Ritson 
 Bays, taken possibly from the form of his helmet or his crest. 
 From him Arthur inherits the title, Arthur grew up ignorant 
 
 8 
 
IDYLS OF TPIE KING. 9 
 
 of his high birth, was taken to London, and, there drawing 
 from a stone, in which it was imbedded, a sword on which was 
 inscribed, "Whoso pulleth this sword out of this stone is 
 rightwise born King of England," was crowned King of 
 Britain. His fabulous exploits in arms, as recorded by the 
 Welshman Geoffrey of Monmouth, about 1138, and in a multi- 
 tude of i3oems afterwards, put to shame the achievements of 
 Alexander or of Csesar. His great enemy, near at home, was 
 the Saxons, after their invasion of the Island in 449. With 
 them he is said to have fought twelve battles (of which Lance- 
 lot speaks in Elaine), in all of which he was conqueror. The 
 battle-fields have been placed in half the shires of England, 
 and in Wales, and their location is as certain, probably, as the 
 battles themselves, or even as the existence of their victor! 
 Where were 
 
 Arthur's Palaces is equally uncertain. Cserleon-upon-Usk, 
 the Isca Silurum of the Romans, is said to have been his chief 
 city. But places claiming the honor of his residence are found 
 scattered throughout the Island. 
 
 For an epitome of the facts concerning a real, historic Arthur, 
 the basis, perhaps, of the mythical Arthur of the Romances, 
 see "Arthur," Encyclopoedia Britannica. 
 
 The Round Table was the famous circle of knights gathered 
 around Arthur as their head. Who these knights were and 
 what they were to do may as well be told in Tennysoil's own 
 lines, put into the mouth of Arthur, in Guinevere : 
 
 But I was first of all the kings who drew 
 
 The knighthood-errant of this realm, and all 
 
 Tlie realms, together under me, their Head, 
 
 In that fair order of my Table Round, 
 
 A glorious company, the flower of men. 
 
 To serve as model for the mighty world, 
 
 And be the fair beginning of a time. 
 
 I made them lay their hands in mine and swear 
 
 To reverence the King, as if he were 
 
 Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, 
 
 To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 
 
 To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 
 
 To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 
 
 To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, 
 
 To love one maiden only, cleave to her, 
 
 And worship her by years of noble deeds 
 
 Until they won her; for, indeed, I knew 
 
10 IDYLS OF THE KING. 
 
 Of no more subtle master under heaven 
 Than is the maiden passion for a maid, 
 Not only to keep down the base in man 
 But teach high thought and amiable words 
 And courtliness and the desire of fame 
 And love of truth and all that makes a man. 
 
 How this circle had declined in virtue the Idyls show. But 
 one is grateful to Tennyson that, in the exquisite pofems em- 
 braced under this title, these knights are lifted out of the 
 crossness of their sins, in which Sir Thomas Mallory makes 
 them wallow, in his History of King Arthur. Of this group 
 
 Lancelot was chief, at least in prowess, and the favorite of 
 A.rthur. He is especially prominent in Elaiyie ; sinning in his 
 love for Queen Guinevere, and yet repenting, and dying, at 
 Last, "a holy man." He is represented as born in Brittany. 
 On the death of his father, he was carried away, then an infant, 
 by Vivien, the lady of the lake, who fostered him ; hence he 
 pv^as called Lancelot du Lac. His birth and possessions in 
 Britany explain his offer to Elaine of a " realm beyond the seas." 
 
 In his F<c^o?'ta7i Poe?!s, Stedman says : * * * * "We 
 3ome at last to Tennyson's master-work, so recently brought 
 ;o a completion after twenty years — during which period the 
 separate Idyls of the King had appeared from time to time. 
 Nave and transept, aisle after aisle, the Gothic minster has ex- 
 tended, until, with the addition of a cloister here and a chapel 
 j^-onder, the structure stands complete. 
 
 I hardly think that the poet at first expected to compose an 
 3pic. It has grown insensibly under the hands of one man who 
 tias given it the best years of his life, — but somewhat as Wolf 
 conceived the Homeric poems to have grown, chant by chant, 
 until the time came for the whole to be welded together iu 
 tieroic form. 
 
 It is the epic of chivalry, the Christian ideal of chivalry which 
 vv'e have deduced from a barbaric source, — our conception of 
 v\-hat knighthood should be, rather than what it really was; 
 but so skillfully wrought of high imaginings, fairy spells, fan- 
 tastic legends, and mediaeval splendors, that the whole work, 
 suffused with the Tennysonian glamour of golden mist, seems 
 Like a chronicle illuminated by saintly hands, and often blazes 
 wifh light like that which flashed from the holy wizard-book 
 tvhen the covers were unclasped." 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 ^ 
 
 Leodogran, the King of Cameliard, 
 Had one fair daughter, and none other child ; 
 And she was fairest of all flesh on earth, 
 Guinevere, and in her his one delight. 
 
 For many a petty king ere Arthur came 5 
 
 Kuled in this isle, and ever waging war 
 Each upon other, wasted all the land ; 
 And still from time to time the heathen host 
 Swarmed overseas, and harried what was left. 
 And so there grew great tracts of wilderness, 10 
 
 Wherein the beast was ever more and more, 
 But man was less and less, till Arthur came. 
 For first Aurelius lived and fought and died, 
 And after him King Uther fought and died. 
 But either failed to make the kingdom one. 15 
 
 And after these King Arthur for a space. 
 And through the puissance of his Table Round, 
 
 17. Table Kound. The order of knighthood established by- 
 King Arthur. It took its name from a large round table at 
 which the King and his knights sat for meals. Such a table is 
 still preserved at Winchester as having belonged to King Arthur. 
 Some accounts say that there were 1.50 seats at the table, and 
 that it was originally constructed to imitate the shape of the 
 world, which long after Arthur"'s time was supposed to be flat 
 and circular in form ; see Guinevere : ^ 
 
 " But I was first of all the kings who drew 
 The knighthood errant of this realm and all 
 The realms together under me, their Head. 
 
 11 
 
12 THE COMING OP ARTHUR. 
 
 Drew all their petty princedoms under him, 
 
 Their king and head, and made a realm, and reigned. 
 
 And thus the land of Cameliard was waste, 
 Thick with wet woods, and many a beast therein. 
 And none or few to scare or chase the beasts ; 5 
 
 So that wild dog, and wolf and boar and bear 
 Came night and day, and rooted in the fields. 
 And wallowed in the gardens of the King. 
 And ever and anon the wolf would steal 
 The children and devour, but now and then, 10 
 
 Her own brood lost or dead, lent her fierce teat 
 To human sucklings ; and the children, housed 
 In her foul den, there at their meat would growl, 
 And mock their foster-mother on four feet, 
 
 In that fair Order of my Table Round, 
 A glorious Company, the flower of men 
 To serve as model for the mighty world 
 And be the fair beginning of a time "— 
 
 We are further told that this table was originally constructed by 
 Merlin, the wizard, for Uther Pendragon, who presented it to 
 Leodogran, but that on Arthur's marriage with Leodogran's 
 daughter, the table and 100 knights with it were sent to Arthur 
 with Guinevere as a wedding gift that should please him more 
 than a grant of land. One of the seats was called the Siege (i.e., 
 seat) Perilous [see The Last Tournavient] because it swallowed 
 up any unchaste person who sat in it. Galahad the Pure was the 
 only knight who could occupy it with safety. Other accounts 
 say that the Round Table was constructed in imitation of the 
 table used by Christ and His disciples at the Last Supper ; that 
 it contained 13 seats, and that the seat originally occupied by 
 Christ was always empty except when occupied by the Holy 
 Grail. Other Kings and Princes besides Arthur had Round 
 Tables. In the reign of Edward I. Roger de Mortimer established 
 a Round Table for the f lU'therance of warlike pastimes, and King 
 Edward HI. is said to have done the same. " To hold a Round 
 Table " came to mean little more than to hold a tournament. 
 
 11. lent . . . four feet. Many authentic recoi-ds of wolf- 
 reared children in comparatively modern times are to be found. 
 A good account of a half -wild boy, captured in a wolf's den, is 
 given in Dr. Ball's Jungle Life in India, where thede.sci iption of 
 the boy's habits tallies with that given in the text of the habits 
 of his forerunners in Cameliard. Cf. the tale of Romulus and 
 Remus and the ancient belief in the existence of the were-wolf, 
 or loup-garou, a bogie, half-man, half-wolf, that devoured 
 children. Giraldus Cambrensis tells us that Irishmen can 
 " change into wolves." 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 13 
 
 Till, straightened, they grew up to wolf -like men, 
 Worse than the wolves. And King Leodogran 
 Groaned for the Roman legions here again, 
 And Caesar's eagle : then his brother king, 
 Urien, assailed him : last a heathen horde, 5 
 
 Reddening the sun with smoke and earth with blood, 
 And on the spike that split the mother's heart 
 Spitting the child, brake on him, till, amazed. 
 He knew not whither he should turn for aid. 
 
 But— for he heard of Arthur newly crowned, 10 
 Though not without an uproar made by those 
 Who cried, "He is not Uther's son " — the King 
 Sent to him, saying, " Arise, and help us thou ! 
 For here between the man and beast we die. " 
 
 And Arthur yet had done no deed of arms, 15 
 
 But heard the call, and came : and Guinevere 
 Stood by the castle walls to watch him pass ; 
 But since he neither wore on helm or shield 
 The golden symbol of his kinglihood. 
 But rode a simple knight among his knights, 20 
 
 And many of these in richer arms than he. 
 She saw him not, or marked not, if she saw, 
 One among many, though his face was bare. 
 But Artliur, looking downward as he past, 
 
 1. wolf-like men. Cf. Geraint and Enid, of bandit 
 knights : 
 
 " Stript from the three dead wolves of woman born 
 The three gay suits of armor which they wore." 
 23. tlioiigli lii.s face was bare, i.e.. his visor, the face-piece of 
 his helmet, was raised. A hint is, perhaps, here given that Gui- 
 nevere ought to have instinetively known at sight of Arthur's 
 face that he was God's " highest creature here '' ; but, as she says 
 of herself, in the Idyll that bears her name, her 
 
 "false voluptuous pride, that took 
 Too easily impressions from below, 
 Would not look up " 
 to recognize the height of Arthur's purity. 
 
14 THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 Felt the light of her eyes into his life 
 
 Smite on the sudden, yet rode on, and pitched 
 
 His tents beside the forest. Then he drave 
 
 The heathen ; after, slew the beast, and felled 
 
 The forest, letting in the sun, and made 5 
 
 Broad pathways for the hunter and the knight 
 
 And so returned. 
 
 For while he lingered there, 
 A doubt that ever smoldered in the hearts 
 Of those great Lords and Barons of his realm 
 Flashed forth and into war : for most of these, 10 
 Colleaguing with a score of petty kings, 
 Made head against him, crying, " Who is he 
 That he should rule us ? who hath proven him 
 King Uther's son ? for lo ! we look at him, 
 And find nor face nor bearing, limbs nor voice, 15 
 Are like to those of Uther whom we knew. 
 This is the son of Gorlo'is, not the King ; 
 This is the son of Anton, not the King." 
 
 And Arthur, passing thence to battle, felt 
 Travail, and throes and agonies of the life, 20 
 
 Desiring to be joined with Guinevere ; 
 And thinking as he rode, ' ' Her father said 
 That there between the man and beast they die. 
 Shall I not lift her from this land of beasts 
 Up to my throne, and side by side with me ? 25 
 
 What happiness to reign a lonely king, 
 Vext — O ye stars that shudder over me, 
 
 earth that soundest hollow under me — 
 Vext with waste dreams ? .for saving I be joined 
 
 To her that is the fairest under heaven, 30 
 
 1 seem as nothing in the mighty world. 
 And cannot will my will, nor work my work 
 
THE COMING OF AETHUR. 15 
 
 Wholly, nor make myself in mine own realm 
 
 Victor and lord. But were I joined with her, 
 
 Then might we live together as one life, 
 
 And reigning with one will in everything 
 
 Have power on this dark land to lighten it, 5 
 
 And power on this dead world to make it live." 
 
 Thereafter — as he speaks who tells the tale — 
 When Arthur reached a field-of-battle bright 
 With pitched pavilions of his foe, the world 
 Was all so clear about him, that he saw 10 
 
 The smallest rock far on the faintest hill. 
 And even in high day the morning star. 
 So when the King had set his banner broad, 
 At once from either side, with trumpet-blast. 
 And shouts, and clarions shrilling unto blood, 15 
 
 The long-lanced battle let their horses run. 
 And now the Barons and the kings prevailed. 
 And now the King, as here and there that war 
 Went swaying ; but the Powers who walk the world 
 Made lightnings and great thunders over him, 20 
 And dazed all eyes, till Arthur by main might. 
 And mightier of his hands with every blow. 
 And leading all his knighthood threw the kings 
 Carados, Urien, Cradlemont of Wales, 
 Claudias, and Clariance of Northumberland, 25 
 
 8. field-of-battle bright . . . star. With this bright pic- 
 ture of Arthur's great battle at the foundation of his realm con- 
 trast that in The Passing of Arthur of the •' last dim, weird 
 battle of the west," where the death-white mist and confusion 
 dulled the hearts of all. 
 
 le. The Ions-lanced . . . run. Cf. Malory, i. 13, " Then 
 either battaile let their horses runne as fast as they might," and 
 i. 15, " All these fortie kniglites rode on afore, with greac speres 
 on tlieir thyghes, and spurred theyr horses myghtely as fast as 
 theyr horses might runne." battle, the main body of an army. 
 Cf. Scott, The Lady of the Lake, vi. 16 : 
 
 " Their barbed horsemen, in the rear, 
 The stern battalia crowned." 
 
16 THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 The King Brandagoras of Latangor, 
 
 With Anguisant of Erin, Morganore, 
 
 And Lot of Orkney. Then, before a voice 
 
 As dreadful as the shout of one who sees 
 
 To one who sins, and deems himself alone 5 
 
 And all the world asleep, they swerved and brake 
 
 Flying, and Arthur called to stay the brands 
 
 That hacked among the fliers, " Ho ! they yield ! " 
 
 So like a painted battle the war stood 
 
 Silenced, the living quiet as the dead, 10 
 
 And in the heart of Arthur joy was lord. 
 
 He laughed upon his warrior whom he loved 
 
 And honored most. " Thou dost not doubt me King, 
 
 So well thine arm hath wrought for me to-day." 
 
 " Sir and my liege," he cried, " the fire of God 15 
 
 Descends upon thee in the battle-field : 
 
 I know thee for my King ! " Whereat the two, 
 
 For each had warded either in the fight, 
 
 Sware on the field of death a deathless love. 
 
 And Arthur said, ' ' Man's word is God in man : 20 
 
 Let chance what will, I trust thee to the death." 
 
 Then quickly from the foughten field he sent 
 
 8. " Ho ! they yield ! " Cf. Malory, i. 15 : " With that came 
 Merlyn upon a great black horse, and sayde to King Arthur, 
 ' Ye have never done ; have ye not done ynough ? of three score 
 thousand ye have left on lyve but fifteene thousand ; it is tyme 
 for to saye ho—'." 'Ho' is the formal exclamation used by a 
 commander in battle or the umpire in a tournament to order a 
 cessation of hostilities ; cf . Malory, x. 44 : " Therewith the haut 
 prince cried Ho ; and then they went to lodging." 
 
 12. his warrior . . . most. Sir Lancelot of the Lake ; see 
 bejow, lines 446-T. 
 
 15. the Are of God . . . battle-field. Cf. Lancelot and 
 Elaine, whei'e Lancelot again says of Arthur, 
 
 "in his heathen war the fire of God 
 Fills him : I never saw his like : there lives 
 No greater leader," 
 
 17. Whereat the two . . . deathless love. In the days of 
 chivalry it was a common custom for two knights to swear to 
 each other a defensive and offensive alliance, and they were then 
 cedled fratres juratit sworn brothers. 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR 17 
 
 Ulflus, and Brastias, and Bedivere, 
 His new-made knights, to King Leodogran, 
 Saying, " If I in aught have served thee well, 
 Give me thy daughter Guinevere to wife." 
 
 Whom when he heard, Leodogran in heart 5 
 
 Debating — " HQM^hould I that am a king, 
 However much he holp me at my need. 
 Give my one daughter saving to a king, 
 And a king's son ? " — lifted his voice, and called 
 A hoary man, his chamberlain, to whom 10 
 
 He trusted all things, and of him required 
 His counsel: " Knowest thou aught of Arthur's 
 birth?" 
 
 Then spake the hoary chamberlain and said, 
 " Sir King, there are but two old men that know : 
 And each is twice as old as I ; and one 15 
 
 Is Merlin, the wise man that ever served 
 King Uther through his magic art ; and one 
 Is Merlin's master (so they call him) Bleys, 
 Who taught him magic ; but the scholar ran 
 Before the master, and so far, that Bleys 20 
 
 7. liolp. Cf. holpen, line 6, page 18. 
 
 16. MerHn . . . art. "According to Geoffrey of Monmouth 
 (lib. vi. cc. 18, 19), Merlin had been court magician since the time 
 of Vortigei-n, who had caused him to be sought as the only one 
 capable of relieving him out of the difficulty he had encountered 
 in raising a castle on Salisbury Plain " (Note in Wright's Malory). 
 " _he true history of Merlin seems to be that he was born be- 
 tween the years 470 and 480, and during the invasion of the Saxon 
 took the name of Ambrose, which preceded his name of Merlin, 
 from the successful leader of the Britons, Ambrosius Aurelianus, 
 who was his first chief, and from his service he passed into that 
 of King Arthur, the southern leader of the Britons " (Morley, 
 English Writers, i.). Merlin is represented in Merlin and Vivien 
 as the son of a demon, and also as " the great Enchanter of the 
 Time,'" and again as 
 
 " 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—" 
 
18 THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 Laid magic by, and sat him down, and wrote 
 All things and whatsoever Merlin did 
 In one great annal-book, where after-years 
 Will learn the secret of our Arthur's birth." 
 
 To whom the King Leodogran replied, 5 
 
 " O friend, had I been holpen half as well 
 By this King Arthur as by thee to-day. 
 Then beast and man had had their share of me : 
 But summon here before us yet once more 
 Ulfius, and Brastias, and Bedivere." 10 
 
 Then, when they came before him, the King said, 
 " I have seen the cuckoo chased by lesser fowl, 
 And reason in the chase : but wherefore now 
 Do these your lords stir up the heat of war, 
 Some calling Arthur born of Gorlois, 15 
 
 Others of Anton ? Tell me, ye yourselves. 
 Hold ye this Arthur for King Uther's son ? " 
 
 And Ulfius and Brastias answered, "Ay." 
 Then Bedivere, the first of all his knights 
 
 6. holpen half as well ... of me. Meaning, of course, 
 that the clianiberlain's help had, in fact, been less than no help 
 at all. 
 
 12. I have seen . . . chase, the reason being that the young 
 cuckoo, having been hatched in tlie nest of the lesser fowl, tries 
 to oust the offspring of the rightful owner ; cuckoos' eggs are 
 often found in the nests of smaller birds. The King asks if the 
 lords have any reason for thinking Arthur has been put in pos- 
 session of a throne to which he has by birth no right. Cf. H(i- 
 rold : Slioiv-day at Battle Abbey: "The cuckoo . . . Crjing 
 with my false eg^ I overwhelm The native nest." 
 
 19. Then Bedivere . . . the King. The characte'r of Bedi- 
 vere, who, in The F((ss/7igo/ ^j-^/iitr. is the King's last companion 
 —"First made and hitest left of all the knights " —is distinctly 
 and consistently painted. He is a plain, blunt, honest soul, who 
 troubles himself little about the doubts and difficulties which 
 beset the belief of others in the right of Arthur's kingship. He 
 takes no account of any supernatural claim, sweeps away all the 
 mystery with which some would surround Arthur's birth, and 
 gives a simple, natural and, to himself at all events, a satisfactory 
 account of Arthur's parentage. Compare his conduct in The 
 Fassiiig of Arthur, where, when even the King is shaken by 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 19 
 
 Knighted by Arthur at his crowning, spake- 
 For bold in heart and act and word was he, 
 Whenever slander breathed against the King- 
 
 " Sir, there be many rumors on this head : 
 For there be those who hate him in their hearts o. 
 Call him baseborn, and since his ways are sweet, 
 And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man : 
 And there be those who deem him more than man. 
 And dream he dropt from heaven : but my beliet 
 In all this matter-so ye care to learn- 
 Sir for ye know that in King Uther's time 
 The prince and warrior Gorlois, he that held 
 Tintagil castle by the Cornish sea, 
 Was wedded with a winsome wife, Ygerne : 
 And daughters had she borne him,-one whereof, 15 
 Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent, 
 Hath ever like a loyal sister cleaved 
 To Arthur,— but a son she had not borne. 
 And Uther cast upon her eyes of love : 
 But she, a stainless wife to Gorlois, 
 So loathed the bright dishonor of his love, 
 That Gorlois and King Uther went to war : 
 And overthrown was Gorlois and slam. 
 Then Uther in his wrath and heat besieged 
 Ygerne within Tintagil, where her men, 35 
 
 Seeing the mighty swarm about their walls, 
 Left her and fled, and Uther entered in. 
 And there was none to call to but himself. 
 So, compassed by the power of the King, 
 
 doubts and inward questioning he wm^^^^^^^ 
 
 where he cares nothing: for grhobts ana "'®^"'^' "r^,. ^ tt„ fppi„ 
 
 ?n^Vt'iSinVlespil a&ors and uever swerves f.om uuques- 
 tiouiug loyalty. 
 
20 THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 Enforced she was to wed him in her tears, 
 
 And with a shameful swiftness : afterward, 
 
 Not many moons, King Uther died himself, 
 
 Moaning and wailing for an heir to rule 
 
 After him, lest the realm should go to wrack. 5 
 
 And that same night, the night of the new year, 
 
 By reason of the bitterness and grief 
 
 That vext his mother, all before his time. 
 
 Was Arthur born, and all as soon as born 
 
 Delivered at a secret postern-gate 10 
 
 To Merlin, to be holden far apart 
 
 Until his hour should come ; because the lords 
 
 Of that fierce day were as the lords of this, 
 
 Wild beasts, and surely would have torn the child, 
 
 Piecemeal among them, had they known ; for each 15 
 
 But sought to rule for his own self and hand, 
 
 And many hated Uther for the sake 
 
 Of Gorloi's. Wherefore Merlin took the child, 
 
 And gave him to Sir Anton, an old knight 
 
 And ancient friend of Uther ; and his wife 20 
 
 Nursed the young prince, and reared him with her 
 
 own ; 
 And no man knew. And ever since the lords 
 Have f oughten like wild beasts among .themselves, ^^ a 
 
 So that the realm has gone to wrack : but now, ^ . 
 
 This year, when Merlin (for his hour had come) 25 "^j\^ 
 Brought Arthur forth, and set him in the hall, 
 Proclaiming, ' Here is Uther's heir, your king,' 
 A hundred voices cried, ' Away with him ! 
 No king of ours ! a son of Gorlois he. 
 Or else the child of Anton, and no king, 30 
 
 Or else baseborn.' Yet Merlin through his craft, 
 And while the people clamored for a king, 
 
 82. clamored for a king. " And at the feast of Pentecost 
 all maimer of men assayed to pull at the sword that would assaj- , 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 21 
 
 Had Arthur crowned ; but after, the great lords 
 Banded, and so brake out in open war." 
 
 Then while the King debated with himself 
 If Arthur were the child of shamefulness, 
 Or born the son of Gorlois, after death, 5 
 
 Or Uther's son, and born before his time, 
 Or whether there were truth in anything i 
 
 Said by these three, there came to Cameliard, 
 With Gawain and young Modred, her two sons, 
 Lot's wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent ; 10 
 
 Whom as he could, not as he would, the King 
 Made feast for, saying, as they sat at meat, 
 
 " A doubtful throne is ice on summer seas. 
 Ye come from Arthur's court. Victor his men 
 Keport him ! Yea, but ye— think ye this King— 15 
 So many those that hate him, and so strong. 
 So few his knights, however brave they be — 
 Hath body enow to hold his foemen down ? " 
 
 " King," she cried, " and I will tell thee : few, 
 Few, but all brave, all of one mind with him ; 20 
 For I was near him when the savage yells 
 Of Uther's peerage died, and Arthur sat 
 Crowned on the dais, and his warriors cried, 
 ' Be thou the king, and we will work thy will 
 
 but none might prevail but Arthur; and he pulled it out afore 
 all the lords and commons that were there, wherefore all the 
 commons cried at once, We will have Arthur unto our king" 
 (Malory, i. 5). 
 
 11. as lie could . . . would, as Hberally as his broken for- 
 tunes allowed, not as liberally as he would liave wished. 
 
 13. ice on suniuier seas, as little likely to endure as ice that 
 has floated into the warmth of southern seas. Icebergs frequently 
 float from the Arctic regions so far south as to be melted by the 
 warm Gulf Stream. Cf. Coventry Patmore's Angel in the 
 House, xi. 2 : 
 
 "An iceberg in an Indian sea." 
 
22 THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 Who love thee.' Then the King in low deep tones, 
 And simple words of great authority, 
 Bound them by so strait vows to his own self. 
 That when they rose, knighted from kneeling, some 
 Were pale as at the passing of a ghost, 5 
 
 Some flushed, and others dazed, as one who wakes 
 Half-blinded at the coming of a light. 
 
 "But when he spake and cheered his Table Round 
 With large, divine, and comfortable words, 
 Beyond my tongue to tell thee — I beheld 10 
 
 From eye to eye through all their Order flash 
 A momentary likeness of the King : 
 
 1. in low deep tones . . . coming of a liglit. These lines 
 are often quoted as the finest in the poem. 
 
 3. 8o strait voavs. Strait and strict are doublets, i.e., words 
 of the same (or a similar) meaning from one root. These vows 
 are briefly enumerated in Gareth and Lynette : 
 
 " my knights are sworn to vows 
 Of utter hardihood, utter gentleness, 
 And, loving, utter gentleness in love. 
 And uttermost obedience to the King." 
 6. otiiers dazed . . . light, dazzled, as it were, by the 
 brightness of the revelation of a new life and duties in store for 
 them, which at first they could only partlj' understand. A pic- 
 ture of this life and its duties is given in Guinevere : 
 
 *'I made them lay their hands in mine and swear, 
 To reverence the King as if he were 
 Their conscience, and their conscience as their King, 
 To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, 
 To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, 
 To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it, 
 To honor his own word as if his God's, 
 To lead sweet lives in purest chastity, 
 To love one maiden only, cleave to her. 
 And worship her by years of noble deeds, 
 Until they won her." 
 9. large, subhme. comfortable, comforting, cheering; 
 Tennyson has 'comfortable words,' again in The Lover's Tale 
 and in Qneen Mary, v. 2. So in the Communion Service in the 
 Prayer Book : " Hear what comfortable words our Saviour 
 Christ saith to all that truly turn to Him." 
 
 11. From eye . . . likeness of the King. Cf. The Holy 
 Grail : 
 
 " and this Galahad when he heard 
 My sister's vision, filled me with amaze ; 
 His eyes became so like her own, they seemed 
 Hers, and himself her brother more than I." 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 23 
 
 And ere it left their faces, through the cross 
 And those around it and the Crucified, 
 Down from the casement over Arthur, smote 
 Flame-color, vert and azure, in three rays, 
 One falling upon each of three fair queens, 5 
 
 Who stood in silence near his throne, the friends 
 Of Arthur, gazing on him, tall, with bright 
 Sweet faces, who will help him at his need. 
 
 "And there I saw mage Merlin, whose vast wit 
 And hundred winters are but as the hands 10 
 
 Of loyal vassals toiling for their liege. 
 
 " And near him stood the Lady of the Lake, 
 
 3. Down from the casement, i.e., through the glass of the 
 " storied window richly dight '' with the picture of Christ on the 
 cross. 
 
 4. vert and azure. Heraldic names for green and blue. 
 
 5. three fair queens. On the deck of a dark barge which 
 bears Arthur away after his last battle in The Passing of Arthur, 
 there also stood " blackstoled, black-hooded ■" •' three queens 
 with crowns of gold " who "put forth their hands and took the 
 king and wept." Bedivere asks if they be not 
 
 " the three whereat we gazed 
 On that high day, when clothed with living light, 
 They stood before the throne in silence, friends 
 Of Arthur, who should help him at his need ? " 
 8. at his need. In the Coronation scene many of the details 
 have a distinctl3^ symbolic reference. The " three fair queens," 
 with the light from the pictured cross falling upon them, probably 
 typify the thiee Christian virtues, Faith, Hope, Charity. Mage 
 Merlin, " who knew the range of all their arts," may ajatly syui- 
 bolize the Intellect : his knowledge ranges over all human philos- 
 ophy, but, as his fate, described in Merlin and Vivien, shows, it 
 is knowledge without moral restraint or spiritual strength. The 
 Lady of the Lake, who stands near Merlin, " knows a subtler 
 magic than his own," inasmuch as the power of Religion is based 
 on deeper and stronger foundations than those of any philosophy 
 that science can teach. She is clothed in wliite, the color of 
 purity ; incense, the emblem of adoration, curls about her ; her 
 face is half hidden in the "dim religious light" of the holy 
 place ; her voice mingles with the hymns, and, like the voice of 
 the great multitude saying Alleluia, heard by St. John in the 
 Revelation, sounds "as the voice of many waters;" her dwelling 
 is in eternal calm, where storms cannot reacli her ; and as our 
 Lord walked on the Galilean waves and stilled their tumult, she 
 can pass over the troubled waters of life and calm them with lier 
 footsteps. 
 1%. Lady of the liake. For Malory's account of " How 
 
24 THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 Who knows a subtler magic than his own — 
 
 Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful. 
 
 She gave the King his huge cross-hilted sword, 
 
 Whereby to drive the heathen out : a mist 
 
 Of incense curled about her, and her face 5 
 
 Well-nigh was hidden in the minster gloom ; 
 
 But there was heard among the holy hymns 
 
 A voice as of the waters, for she dwells 
 
 Down in a deep ; calm, whatsoever storms 
 
 May shake the world, and when the surface rolls, 10 
 
 Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord. 
 
 " There likewise I beheld Excalibur 
 Before him at his crowning borne, the sword 
 That rose from out the bosom of the lake, 
 
 Arthur by the mean of Merlin gat Excalibur his sword of the 
 Lady of the Lake," see his Morte d" Arthur, i. 23. 
 
 2. samite is a rich silk stuff interwoven with gold or silver 
 thread ; derived from Gk. hex, six, and mitos, thread of the 
 warp, literally ' woven of six threads'; cf. dimity. Tennyson 
 has 'red samite' and 'blackest samite' in Lancelot and Elaine, 
 and 'crimson samite ' in The Holy Grail. 
 
 3. hig huge cross-hilted sword. The cross-shaped hilt of 
 the swords of Christian knights, symbolic of their religious 
 belief, w^as often used as a sacred emblem upon which oaths were 
 taken, and which sometimes reminded them of their vows. 
 Malory (xiv. 9) tells of Sir Percivale how, when sore tempted, 
 " by adventure and grace he saw his sword lie upon the giomid 
 all naked, in whose pommel was a red cross, and the sign of the 
 crucifix therein, and bethought him on his knighthood, and his 
 piomi^e made toforehand imto the good man. Then he made 
 the sign of the cross in liis forehead, and therewith the pavilion 
 turned up so down, and then it changed unto a smoke and a 
 black cloud, and then he was adred." 
 
 12. Excalibur. In Malory's Morte d' Arthur, ii. 3, the Lady 
 of the Lake, who had given Arthur the sword, says: " The name 
 of it is Excalibur. that is as much to sn}' as Cut-steel." In Geof- 
 frey of Monmouth's Chronicle we read how " Arthur himself, 
 dressed in a breastplate worthy of so great, a king, places on his 
 head a golden helmet engraved with the semblance of a dragon. 
 Over his shouhiers he throws his shield called Pritcen,on which 
 a picture of Holy Mary. Mother of God, constantly recalled her 
 to his memory. Girt with Caliburn, a most excellent sv^'ord, and 
 fabricated in the Lsle of Avalon, he graces liis right hand with the 
 lance named Ron. This was a long and bioad spear, well contrived 
 for slaughter." Merlin informed Arthur that Excalibur's scab- 
 bard was " worth ten of the sword, for while ye have the scab- 
 bard upon you ye shall lose no blood, be ye never so sore 
 wounded" (Malory, i. 23), 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 25 
 
 And Arthur rowed across and took it — rich 
 
 With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt, 
 
 Bewildering heart and eye — the blade so bright 
 
 That men are blinded by it — on one side, 
 
 Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world, 5 
 
 ' Take me,' but turn the blade and ye shall see. 
 
 And written in the speech ye speak yourself, 
 
 ' Cast me away ! ' And sad was Arthur's face 
 
 Taking it, but old Merlin counselled him, 
 
 ' Take thou and strike ! the time to cast away 10 
 
 Is yet far off.' So this great brand the King 
 
 Took, and by this will beat his foemen down." 
 
 Thereat Leodogran rejoiced, but thought 
 To sift his doubtings to the last, and asked. 
 Fixing full eyes of question on her face, 15 
 
 "The swallow and the swift are near akin, 
 But thou art closer to this noble prince, 
 Being his own dear sister ; " and she said, 
 
 1. rich With jewels. Cf. the description in The Passing of 
 Arthur, p. 4(), 11. 7-9. 
 
 2. elfin Urim. Fairy jewels of mystic significance. Cf. the 
 description of the " breastplate of judgment"" made for the high 
 priest, Bible, Exodus, xxviii. 15-30: "And thou shHlt put in the 
 breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim ; and they 
 shall be upon Aaron's heart when he goeth in before the Lord ; 
 and Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon 
 his heart before the Lord continually.'''' The Urim and Thummim 
 seem to have been a mysterious contrivance in or on the high 
 priest's breastplate, which was supposed to give oracular i-e- 
 sponses ; it consisted, according to some authorities, either of the 
 four rows of precious stones upon which the names of thetwelve 
 tribes of Israel were inscribed, or of three precious stones, one of 
 which, by some peculiar appearance on it, indicated 'Yes,' an- 
 other ' No,' wliile the third Implied that the answer was neuti'al. 
 Urim means Light, and Thummim Truth. 
 
 3. the blade ... by it. Cf . Gareth and Lynette : 
 
 " but this was all of that true steel 
 Whereof they forged thn brand Excalibur, 
 And lightnings played about it in the storm." 
 Cf. Malory, i. 7: " Then he drew his sword Excalibur, but it was 
 so bright in his enemies' eyes that it gave light like thirty 
 torches." So also in The Passing of Arthur, when Excalibur was 
 cast away, it 
 
 " Made lightnings in the splendor of the moon," 
 
26 THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 "Daughter of Gorlois and Ygerne am I ; " 
 
 " And therefore Arthur's sister ? " asked the King. 
 
 She answered, "These be secret things," and signed 
 
 To those two sons to pass, and let them be. 
 
 And Gaw^ain w^ent, and breaking into song 5 
 
 Sprang out, and follow'd by his flying hair 
 
 Ran like a colt, and leapt at all he saw : 
 
 But Modred laid his ear beside the doors, 
 
 And there half-heard ; the same that afterward 
 
 Struck for the throne, and striking found his doom. 
 
 And then the Qneen made answer, " What know 
 I? 11 
 
 For dark my mother w^as in eyes and hair. 
 And dark in hair and eyes am I ; and dark 
 Was Gorlois, yea and dark was Uther too, 
 Well-nigh to blackness ; but this King is fair 15 " 
 
 Beyond the race of Britons and of men. 
 Moreover, always in my mind I hear 
 A cry from out the dawning of my life, 
 A mother weeping, and I hear her say, 
 ' O that ye had some brother, pretty one, 20 
 
 To guard thee on the rough ways of the world. ' " 
 
 " Ay," said the King, " and hear ye such a cry ? 
 But wdien did Arthur chance upon thee first ? " 
 
 " O King ! " she cried, " and I will tell thee true : 
 He found me first w^hen yet a little maid : 
 
 5. And Gawain . . . half-heard. The distinction here 
 suggested between the natures of Gawain and Modred is carried 
 out in the other Idylls. 
 
 15. fair ... of men. Arthur's fairness of complexion is 
 alluded to in The Passing of Arthur ; see 1. 5. p. 50, " with wide 
 blue eyes," and 1. 4, p. 52, "his light and lustrous curls." The 
 ancient Britons were generally of a light complexion, and 
 ' blonde as an Englishwoman ' is still used in France as a de- 
 scription of unusual fah'ness. 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 27 
 
 Beaten I had been for a little fault 
 
 Whereof I was not guilty ; and out I ran 
 
 And flung myself down on a bank of heath, 
 
 And hated this fair world and all therein, 
 
 And wept, and wished that I were dead ; and he — 
 
 I know not whether of himself he came, 6 
 
 Or brought by Merlin, who, they say, can walk 
 
 Unseen at pleasure — he was at my side. 
 
 And spake sweet words, and comforted my heart. 
 
 And dried my tears, being a child with me. 10 
 
 And many a time he came, and evermore 
 
 As I grew greater grew with me ; and sad 
 
 At times he seemed, and sad with him was I, 
 
 Stern too at times, and then I loved him not. 
 
 But sweet again, and then I loved him well. 15 
 
 And now of late I see him less and less. 
 
 But those first days had golden hours for me. 
 
 For then I surely thought he would be king. 
 
 " But let me tell thee now another tale : 
 For Bleys, our Merlin's master, as they say, 20 
 
 Died but of late, and sent his cry to me, 
 To hear him speak before he left his life. 
 Shrunk like a fairy changeling lay the mage ; 
 
 7. who . . . can walk Unseen. A cominou attribute of 
 wizards, generally described as inherent in some magic amulet, 
 dress, ring, or herb that they wore. Cf. Shaks., i. Henry IV. iv. 
 4: "We have the receipt of fern seed, we walk invisible," and 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, Fair Maid of the Inn, i.: 
 
 " W^hy, did you think that you had Gyges' ring, 
 Or the herb tliat gives invisibility ? " 
 23. Shrunk like a fairy changeling:. It was an accepted 
 doctrine of fair}' lore that wicked fairies had the power to sub- 
 stitute an elf or imp of their own species for a human child. The 
 changeling, liowever, was soon recognized as no natural offspring 
 by its peevishness and wizened, shriveled appearance ; it often 
 resembled a litrle old man with a face full of puckers and 
 wrinkles. Cf. Shaks., i. Henry IV. i. 1 : 
 
 " Oh, that it could be proved 
 That some night-tripping fairy had exchanged, 
 In cradle-clothes, our children as they lay." 
 
28 THE COMING OP ARTHUR. 
 
 And when I entered told me that himself 
 
 And Merlin ever served about the King, 
 
 Uther, before he died ; and on the night 
 
 When Uther in Tintagil past away 
 
 Moaning and wailing for an heir, the two 5 
 
 Left the still King, and passing forth to breathe, 
 
 Tlien from the castle gateway by the chasm 
 
 Descending through the dismal night — a night 
 
 In which the bounds of heaven and earth were lost — 
 
 Beheld, so high upon the dreary deeps 10 
 
 It seemed in heaven, a ship, the shape thereof 
 
 A dragon winged, and all from stem to stern 
 
 Bright with a shining people on the decks. 
 
 And gone as soon as seen. And then the two 
 
 Dropt to the cove, and watched the great sea fall, 15 
 
 Wave after wave, each mightier than the last. 
 
 Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep 
 
 And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged 
 
 Eoaring, and all the wave was in a flame : 
 
 And down the wave and in the flame was borne 20 
 
 A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet. 
 
 Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried ' The 
 
 King ! 
 Here is an heir for Uther ! ' And the fringe 
 Of that great breaker, sweeping up the strand, 
 Lashed at the wizard as he spake the word, 25 
 
 And all at once all round him rose in fire. 
 So that the child and he were clothed in fire. 
 
 12. and all . . . decks. Contrast this bright vision with the 
 gloomy blackness of the "duslcy barge, dark as a funeral scarf 
 from stem to stern," which carries Arthur away in The Passing 
 of Arthur. The dragon sliip is "gone as soon as seen"; the 
 barge glides slowly away till it appears to go 
 
 " From less to less and vanish into light." 
 
 17. a ninth one. Every ninth wave, and in a smaller degree 
 every third, was commotdy believed to be larger than those that 
 went before it. 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 29 
 
 And presently thereafter followed calm, 
 Free sky and stars : ' And this same child,' he said, 
 ' Is he who reigns ; nor could I part in peace 
 Till this were told.' And saying this the seer 
 Went through the strait and dreadful pass of death, 
 Not ever to be questioned any more 6 
 
 Save on the further side ; but when I met 
 Merlin, and asked him if these things were truth — 
 The shining dragon and the naked child 
 Descending in the glory of the seas — 10 
 
 He laughed as is his wont, and answered me 
 In riddling triplets of old time, and said' : 
 
 " ' Rain, rain, and sun ! a rainbow in the sky ! 
 A young man will be wiser by and by ; 
 An old man's wit may wander ere he die. 15 
 
 Rain, rain, and sun ! a rainbow on the lea ! 
 And truth is this to me, and that to thee ; 
 And truth or clothed or naked let it be. 
 
 Rain, sun, and rain ! and the free blossom blows : 
 Sun, rain, and sun ! and where is he who knows ? 20 
 From the great deep to the great deep he goes. ' 
 
 " So Merlin riddling angered me ; but thou 
 Fear not to give this King thine only child, 
 Guinevere : so great bards of him will sing 
 Hereafter ; and dark sayings from of old 25 
 
 12. riddling: triplets of old time. Cf. Gareth and Ly- 
 neite: 
 
 " ' Know ye not then the Riddhu.s: of the Bards ? 
 Confusion, and illusion, and relation, 
 Elusion, and occasion, and evasion ? ' " 
 
 The most ancient of the Cambrian Bards wrote in stanzas of 
 three rhyming: lines, called Englyu Milim\ or "The Warrior's 
 Triplet," each line containing seven syllables. Hence are said to 
 have sprung the Welsh Triads, which contained the CJymric 
 systems of theology, ethics, history, jurisprudence, and bardism. 
 Facts and teachings were strung together in successive groups of 
 three of a kind. 
 
30 THE COMING OF ARTHUE. 
 
 Ranging and ringing through the minds of men, 
 
 And echoed by old folk beside their fires 
 
 For comfort after their wage-work is done, 
 
 Speak of the King ; and Merlin in our time 
 
 Hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn 5 
 
 Though men may wound him that he will not die. 
 
 But pass, again to come ; and then or now 
 
 Utterly smite the heathen underfoot. 
 
 Till these and all men hail him for their king." 
 
 She spake and King Leodogran rejoiced, 10 
 
 But musing " Shall I answer yea or nay ? " 
 Doubted, and drowsed, nodded and slept, and saw, 
 Dreaming, a slope of land that ever grew, 
 Field after field, up to a height, the peak 
 Haze-hidden, and thereon a phantom king, 15 
 
 Now looming, and now lost ; and on the slope 
 The sword rose, the hind fell, the herd was driven. 
 Fire glimpsed ; and all the land from roof and rick, 
 In drifts of smoke before a rolling wind. 
 Streamed to the peak, and mingled with the haze 20 
 And made it thicker ; while the phantom king 
 
 6. will not die . . . again to come. The belief in a 'second 
 coming' is found in many of the legends of ancient heroes, e.g., m 
 those of Charlemagne, Barbarossa, Desmond, Sebastian of Brazil. 
 Malory, xxi. 7, writes: "Yet some men say in many parts of 
 England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our 
 Lord Jesu in another place. And men say that he shall come 
 again, and he shall win the holy cross. 1 will not sa}' it shall be 
 so. but rather I will say, here in this world he changed nis life. 
 But many men say that there is writren upon his tomb this verse, 
 ' Hie jacet Arthuius Rex quondam Rexque futurus. "" 
 
 15. a phantom king- . . . Crowned. Mr. Hutton, Literary 
 Essays, remarks on this dream : ". . . the dream in which he 
 mingles the story of the actual wars of Arthur against the 
 heathen with the rumors of the still struggling passions of his 
 rebellious subjects, and yet augurs that the grandeur of the King 
 will survive even the history of his deeds— is a splendid embodi- 
 ment of Tennyson's drift throughout the poem. Grant that a 
 perfect king is a phantom of the human imagination, yet it is a 
 phantom which will haunt it long after what we call the real 
 earth shall have dissolved. . . . Like all true authority, that of 
 the ideal king is hidden in mystery, but the image of his glory in 
 the heavens survives the crumbling of his kingdom on earth." 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 31 
 
 Sent out at times a voice ; and here or there 
 
 Stood one who pointed toward the voice, the rest 
 
 Slew on and burnt, crying, " No king of ours, 
 
 No son of Uther, and no king of ours ; " 
 
 Till with a wink his dream A^as changed, and haze 5 
 
 Descended, and the solid earth became 
 
 As nothing, but the King stood out in heaven, 
 
 Crowned. And Leodogran awoke, and sent 
 
 Ulfius, and Brastias and Bedivere, 
 
 Back to the court of Arthur answering yea. 10 
 
 Then Arthur charged his warrior whom he loved 
 And honored most, Sir Lancelot, to ride forth 
 And bring the Queen ;— and watched him from the 
 
 gates : 
 And Lancelot past away among the flowers, 
 (For then was latter April) and returned 15 
 
 Among the flowers, in May, with Guinevere. 
 To whom arrived, by Dubric the high saint, 
 Chief of the church in Britain, and before 
 The stateliest of her altar-shrines, the King 
 That morn was married, while in stainless white, 20 
 The fair beginners of a nobler time. 
 And glorying in their vows and him, his knights 
 Stood round him, and rejoicing in his joy. 
 Far shone the fields of May through open door, 
 Tlie sacred altar blossomed white with May, 25 
 
 The Sun of May descended on their King, 
 They gazed on all earth's beauty in their Queen, 
 
 14. flowers . . . latter April. Notice the appropriateness 
 of tlie season. 
 
 17. Dubric or Dubritius, archbishop of Caerleonupon-Usk 
 and primate of Britain. Drayton, Polijolbioii, xxiv., calls him 
 "St. Dubiic, whose report old Caerleon still doth carry." 
 
 19. The stateliest of her altar-shrines. Malory, iii. 5, says: 
 "Then was the high feast made ready and the King was wedded 
 at Camelot unto Dame Guenever in the church of St. Stephen's 
 with great solemnity." 
 
32 THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 Rolled incense, and there past along the hymns 
 A voice as of the waters, while the two 
 Sware at the shrine of Christ a deathless love : 
 And Arthur said, " Behold, thy doom is mine. 
 Let chance what will, I love thee to the death ! " 5 
 To whom the Queen replied with drooping eyes, 
 " King and my lord, I love thee to the death ! " 
 And holy Dubric spread his hands and spake, 
 " Reign ye, and live and love, and make the world 
 Other, and may thy Queen be one with thee, 10 
 
 And all this Order of thy Table Round 
 Fulfill the boundless purpose of their King ! " 
 
 So Dubric said ; but when they left the shrine • 
 Great Lords from Rome before the portal stood, 
 In scornful stillness gazing as they past ; 15 
 
 Then while they paced a city all on fire 
 With sun and cloth of gold, the trumpets blew, 
 And Arthur's knighthood sang before the King : — 
 
 " Blow trumpet, for the world is white with May ; 
 Blow trumpet, the long night hath rolled away ! 20 
 Blow through the living world — ' Let the King reign.' 
 
 " Shall Rome or Heathen rule in Arthur's realm ? 
 Flash brand and lance, fall battle- ax upon helm, 
 Fall battle-ax, and flash brand ! Let the King reign. 
 
 "Strike for the King and live ! his knights have 
 heard 25 
 
 14. Great Lords froiu Rome. Malory, v. 1, tells how twelve 
 aged ambassadors of Rome came to King: Arthur as ambassadors 
 and messengers from the Emperor Lucius, which was called at 
 that time Dictator or Procuror of the Public Weal of Rome, to 
 demand truage of the realm on the ground of the statutes and 
 decrees made by Julius Csesar, conqueror of the realm. And sub- 
 sequently we read how Arthur made war aga iiist Lucius and smote 
 him with Excalibur, "that it cleft his head from the summit of 
 his head, and stinted not till it came to his breast. And then the 
 emperor fell down dead, and there ended his life." 
 
THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 33 
 
 That God hath told the King a secret word. 
 
 Fall battle-ax, and flash brand ! Let the King reign. 
 
 ' ' Blow trumpet ! he will lift us from the dust. 
 Blow trumpet ! live the strength and die the lust ! 
 Clang battle-ax, and clash brand ! Let the King 
 reign. 5 
 
 " Strike for the King and die ! and if thou diest. 
 The King is King, and ever wills the highest. 
 Clang battle-ax, and clash brand ! Let the King 
 
 " Blow, for our Sun is mighty in his May ! 
 Blow, for our Sun is mightier day by day ! 10 
 
 Clang battle-ax, and clash brand ! Let the King 
 reign. 
 
 " The King will follow Christ, and we the King 
 In whom high God hath breathed a secret thing. 
 Fall battle-ax, and flash brand ! Let the King reign." 
 
 So sang the knighthood, moving to their hall. 15 
 There at the banquet those great Lords from Rome, 
 The slowly-fading mistress of the world. 
 Strode in, and claimed their tribute as of yore. 
 But Arthur spake, " Behold, for these have sworn 
 
 1. That God . . . secret word. Arthur had. doubtless, in- 
 formed his knights, when swearing thH'ni of the Table Round, 
 how authority had been bestowed on him and sanction given to 
 his " boundless purpose"' by secret revelation from heaven. 
 
 17. The slowly-fading . . . world. In the fifth century 
 (about 411) the last of the Roman legions was withdrawn from 
 Britain. Rome needed all her soldiers at home : the Gotli was on 
 her track, and as an empire she was already on the wane 
 
 19. "Behold . . . pay." Malory, v. 2. tells "how the kings 
 and lords promised to King Arthur aid and help against the 
 Romans." Arthur's reply to tlie demand for truage is thus 
 given : " I will that ye return unto your lord and Procinor of the 
 Common Weal for the Romans and say to him. Of his demand 
 and commandment I set nothing, and that I know of no truage, 
 
34 THE COMING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 To wage my wars, and worship me their King ; 
 The old order changeth, yielding place to new ; 
 And we that fight for our fair father Christ, 
 Seeing that ye be grown too weak and old 
 To drive the heathen from your Roman wall, 5 
 
 No tribute will we pay : " so those great lords 
 Drew back in wrath, and Arthur strove with Rome. 
 
 And Arthur and his knighthood for a space 
 Were all one will, and through that strength the 
 
 King 
 Drew in the petty princedoms under him, 10 
 
 Fought, and in twelve great battles overcame 
 The heathen hordes, and made a realm and reigned. 
 
 ne tribute that I owe to him, ne to none other earthly prince, 
 Christian ne heathen ; but I pretend to have and occupy the 
 sovereignty of the empire, wherein I am entitled b}' the right of 
 my predecessors, sometime kings of this land." 
 
 5. your Konian wall. Agricola drew a line of military sta- 
 tions across the interval, about 40 miles in length, between the 
 Firth of Fortli and the Clyde; afterwards in the reign of Antoni- 
 nus Pius this line was fortified by a turf rampart erected on foun- 
 dations cf stone. The Emperor Hadri;in caused a rampart of 
 earth to be erected between Newcastle and Carlisle, and Septim- 
 ius Severus had a stone wall built parallel to Hadrian's rampart 
 and in the same locality. Considerable traces of these walls may 
 still be seen. 
 
 11. twelve great battles. Some of these battles are enumer- 
 ated and described in Lancelot and Elaine, 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 That story which the bold Sir Bedivere, 
 
 First made and latest left of all the knights, 
 
 Told, when the man was no more than a voice 
 
 In the white winter of his age, to those 
 
 With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds. 5 
 
 For on their march to westward, Bedivere, 
 Who slowly paced among the si Limbering host, 
 Heard in his tent the moanings of the King : 
 
 " I found Him in the shining of the stars, 
 I marked Him in the flowering of His fields, 10 
 
 1. The incidents in Arthur's career that immediately preceded 
 his death are briefly these : The Queen, Guinevere, had left the 
 King's court, and fled to hiding at the nunnery of Amesbury, 
 owing to the discovery by the treacherous Modred, the King's 
 nephew, of her love for Lancelot. King Arthur had gone to 
 attack Lancelot in the north; during his absence Modred had 
 raised a revolt, and had had himself crowned king. The King 
 marched soutli, and pursued Modred to the vilest coast. On his 
 way he stopped at Amesbury. and had the farewell interview 
 with the repentant Queen so beautifully described in the Idyll of 
 Guinevere. The King then marches westward in pursuit of 
 Modred. 
 
 2. First made and latest left. Cf. Tlie Coming of Arthur : 
 
 "Then Bedivere, the first of all his knights 
 Knighted by Arthur at his crowning." 
 
 3. Avlien tlie man . . . voice, when extreme old age had 
 left Bedivere only strength enough to tell the tale of his past life. 
 Cf . the Latin vox et proeterea nihil. 
 
 7. Who slowly . . . King;. Bedivere, passing in the quiet 
 night through the slumbering camp, overheard Arthur in his 
 tent mourning over the failure of his purposes. 
 
 9. I found Him . . . find Him not. Arthur cannot under- 
 staijd why the glory and power of God should be so clearl}- man- 
 
 35 
 
36 THE PASSIXG OF ARTHUR. 
 
 But in His ways with men I find Him not. 
 
 I waged His wars, and now I pass and die. 
 
 O me ! for why is all around us here 
 
 As if some lesser god had made the world, 
 
 But had not force to shape it as he would, 5 
 
 Till the High God behold it from beyond, 
 
 And enter it, and make it beautiful ? 
 
 Or else as if the world were wholly fair, 
 
 But that these eyes of men are dense and dim, 
 
 And have not power to see it as it is : 10 
 
 Perchance, because we see not to the close ; — 
 
 For I, being simple, thought to work His will. 
 
 And have but stricken with the sword in vain ; 
 
 And all whereon I leaned in wife and friend 
 
 Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm 15 
 
 Reels back into the beast, and is no more. 
 
 My God, thou hast forgotten me in my death : 
 
 Nay — God my Christ — I pass but shall not die." 
 
 ifested in the works of nature, in the visible beauty of heaven 
 and earth, "vhile His dealings with mankind seem full of mystery 
 and contradiction. Arthur had fought in God's cause and 
 founded the Round Table for "love of God and men": was he 
 now to die amid the ruins of his life's work ? 
 
 3. for why. The expression for tcJiy, used, as here, as an 
 equivalent to the interrogative u-fierefore, is met with in old bal- 
 lad poetry and in modern imitations of it, as in Cowper's John 
 Gilpin, 11211, 21:i: 
 
 " He lost them sooner than at first; 
 For why '? — they were too big.'" 
 
 In Harper''s Magazine for December 1883. Mrs. Anne Thackeray 
 Ritchie writes: " The first 'Idyll ' and the last, I have heard Mr. 
 Tennyson say, are intentionally more archaic than the others."' 
 This archaism is noticeable in the studied severity and simplicity 
 of the diction generally as well as in the use of such old forms or 
 yrovds an stricken, rq)l>eavcn, liyhtly, hest, lief; in the repetition 
 of 'permanent epithets,' whether composed of single words as in 
 'bold Sir Bedivere,' or of whole lines as " Clothed in white samite, 
 mystic, wonderful ; " also in the formal introduction to each 
 si^eech, as 
 
 " Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere," 
 " To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere." 
 
 14. And all . . . peace alludes specially to the treachery of 
 Guinevere and Lancelot. 
 
 18. I pas.s . . . not (lie. Even in the extremity of his despair 
 Arthur has faith in the fulfillment of the prophecy i-egarding his 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 37 
 
 Then, ere the last weird battle in the west, 
 There came on Arthur sleeping, Gawain killed 
 In Lancelot's war, the ghost ofJGawain blown 
 Along a wandering wind, and past his ear 
 Went shrilling, ' ' Hollow, hollow all delight ! 5 
 
 Hail, King ! to-morrow thou shalt pass away. 
 Farewell ! there is an isle of rest for thee. 
 And I am blown along a wandering wind. 
 And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight." 
 And fainter onward, like wild birds that change 10 
 Their season in the night and wail their way 
 
 mysterious doom made by Merlin, 'the wise man ' ; see The Com- 
 ing of Arthur, p. bO, 4-T : 
 
 " And Merlin in our time 
 Hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn 
 Thoufi;h men may wound liini that lie will not die, 
 But pass, again to come." 
 1. weird battle. See the description of the battle, below, 
 line 2, p. 41, to line 16. p. 42. 
 
 'Z. Gawain was brother of Modred and Gareth. and nephew of 
 King Ar hur, being sou of his sister, " Lot's wife, the Queen of 
 Orkney. Bellicent.'" 
 
 3. kiHed In Lancelot's war. Malory, Morte cV Arthur, xxi. 
 2. thus tiescribes Gawain' s death: "And then was the noble 
 knight sir Gawaine found in a great boate lying more than halfe 
 dead. . . . ' My uncle King Arthur,' said sir Gawaine, ' wit ye well 
 that my deathes day is come and all is through mine owne hasti- 
 nesse and wilfulnesse, for I am smitten upon the old wound that 
 sir Launcelot du Lake gave me, of the Avhich I feele that I must 
 die.' And so at the houre of noone sir Gawaine betooke his soule 
 into the hands of our Lord God." 
 
 4. blown . . . wandering Avind. In Dante's Pnrgatorio, 
 Canto v., the punishment of '" carnal sinners " is thus described : 
 
 " The stormy blast of hell 
 With restless fury drives the spirits on, 
 W'iiirled round and dashed anaain with sore annoy. 
 W'hen they arrive before the ruinous sweep. 
 There shrieks are heard, there lamentations, moans, 
 And blasphemies 'gainst the good Power in heaven." (Gary.) 
 7. an isle of rest, "the island-valley of Avilion " of line 24, 
 p. 53. So in Homer, Od. xi., the shade of Tiiesias foretells to 
 Odysseus : 
 
 "So peaceful shalt thou end thy blissful days 
 And steal thyself from life by slow decays." (Pope.) 
 11. wail tbeir Avay. Cf. the Canto from The Purgatorio of 
 Dante, quoted above : 
 
 " As cranes. 
 Chanting their dolorous notes, traverse the sky. 
 Stretched out in long array, so I beheld 
 Spirits; who came loud wailing, hurried oq 
 By their dire doom." (Cary.) 
 
38 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 From cloud to cloud, down the long wind the dream 
 Shrilled ; but in going mingled with dim cries 
 Far in the moonlight haze among the hills, 
 As of some lonely city sacked by night, 
 When all is lost, and wife and child with wail 5 
 
 Pass to new lords ; and Arthur woke and called, 
 " Who spake ? A dream. O light upon the wind, 
 Thine, Gawain, was the voice — are these dim cries 
 Thine ? or doth all that haunts the waste and wild 
 Mourn, knowing it will go along with me ?" 10 
 
 This heard the bold Sir Bedivere and spake : 
 " O me, my King, let pass whatever will. 
 Elves, and the harmless glamour of the field ; 
 But in their stead thy name and glory cling 
 To all high places like a golden clcud 15 
 
 For ever : but as yet thou shalt not pass. 
 Light was Gawain in life, and light in death 
 Is Gawain, for the ghost is as the man ; 
 And care not thou for dreams from him, but rise — 
 
 2. Shrilled ; but . . . cries. Notice the effect of the unusual 
 break, denoted by the semicolon, after the fiist half-foot; the 
 reader is brought to a sudden pause, as if to listen to the shrill 
 wail of the flj' ing spirit. 
 
 10. go along with me, be involved in my ruin. 
 
 12. let pass . . . field. Bedivere's unimaginative and prac- 
 tical nature has no care for anything which he cannot see and 
 touch and accoimt for ; all else he regards as of no significance, 
 or, at most, as harmless. 
 
 14. thy name . . . clovid. Of. The Last Tournament: 
 
 "the knights, 
 Glorying in each new glory, set his name 
 High on all hills and in the signs of heaven," 
 
 and To the Queen, at the end of the Idylls : 
 
 " that gray king, whose name, a ghost 
 Streams like a cloud, man shaped, from mountain peak, 
 And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still.'" 
 
 'Arthur's Seat' is the name given to the lofty hill near Edin- 
 burgh, and to other "'high places" in various parts of Great 
 Britain; certain cromlechs in Glamorgan ana in Herefordshire 
 are known as 'Arthur's Stones.' 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 39 
 
 I hear the steps of Modred in the west, 
 And with him many of thy people, and knights 
 Once thine, whom thou hast loved, but grosser grown 
 Than heathen, spitting at their vows and thee. 
 Right well in heart they know thee for the King. 5 
 Arise, go forth and conquer as of old." 
 
 Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
 ' ' Far other is this battle in the west 
 Whereto we move, than when we strove in youth, 
 And brake the petty kings, and fought with Rome, 
 Or thrust the heathen from the Roman wall, 11 
 
 And shook him through the north. Ill doom is mine 
 To war against my people and my knights. 
 The king who fights his people fights himself. 
 And they my knights, who loved me once, the stroke 
 That strikes them dead is as my death to me. 16 
 
 Yet let us hence, and find or feel a way 
 Through this blind haze, which ever since I saw 
 One lying in the dust at Almesbury, 
 Hath folded in the passes of the world." 20 
 
 1. Modred. In Guinevere Arthur calls him 
 
 "the man they call 
 My sister's son — no kin of mine, who leagues 
 With Lords of the White Horse, heathen and knights, 
 Traitors—" 
 and again, in II. 9, 10, p. 43, disclaims kinship with him. Mod- 
 red's character is painted throughout the Idylls in the darkest 
 colors. Even In boyhood his mean and treacherous nature is 
 hintecj at in contrast with the frankness of the young Gawain ; 
 see The Coming of Arthur, p. 26, II. 8, 9: 
 
 " But Modred laid his ear against the door, 
 And there half-heard." 
 
 19. One lying . . . AInie.sbury. See Gtiinevere : 
 
 " prone from off her seat she fell 
 And groveled with her face against the floor." 
 Am.brose-buiy. Ambresbuiy, Almesbury, or Amesbury, in Wilt- 
 shire, 7J miles from Salisbury, possessed an ancient abbey of 
 Benedictine nuns, to which, as the old chronicles relate, Guine- 
 vere had fled after her fall. 
 
 20. Hath folded . . . world. Has covered my path in life 
 with darkness and confusion. 
 
40 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 Then rose the King and moved his host by night, 
 And ever pushed Sir Modred, league by league, 
 Back to the sunset bound of Lyonnesse — 
 A land of old upheaven from the abyss 
 By fire, to sink into the abyss again ; 5 
 
 Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt, 
 And the long mountains ended in a coast 
 Of ever-shifting sand, and far away 
 The phantom circle of a moaning sea. 
 There the pursuer could pursue no more, 10 
 
 And he that fled no further fly the King ; 
 And there, that day when the great light of heaven 
 Burned at his lowest in the rolling year, 
 On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed. 
 Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight 15 
 
 3. Lyonnesse. A fabulous country, an extension of Corn- 
 wall to the south and west, said to be now covered by the sea. 
 There is still extant near Land's End a tradition that the Seilly 
 Isles were once part of the mainland; similarly, in parts of Ire- 
 land the belief exists that a large portion of the island was 
 swallowed up bj' the sea and occasionally comes to the surface. 
 The name is sometimes written Leonnoys. 
 
 9. i)ht*,ntoni circle alludes to the distant sea-horizon, vague 
 and ill defined ; it is called *' sea-circle " in Enoch Arden : cf. 
 Ulysses, 19, 20 : 
 
 " Whose margin fades 
 For ever and for ever when I move." 
 
 12. when the great . . . lowest, i.e., in midwinter. Notice 
 the appropriateness of the seasons to the various events in 
 Arthur's career. In The Coming of Arthur it is in " the night of 
 the new year " that Arthur is born. When he is married to 
 Guinevere, 
 
 " The sacred altar blossomed white with May." 
 In Tlie Holy Grail it is " on a summer niglit" that the vision 
 appears and the quest is undertaken. The date of The Last 
 ToMrjiaHien? is placed in the "j-ellowing autumn-tide." Guine- 
 vere's flight takes place when the white mist of early winter 
 shrouds " the dead earth." The final catastrophe is now fitly 
 accomplished at midnight in the dead of winter, the most 
 sombre, most comfortless hour and season. 
 
 15. Nor ever yet . . . west. Malory's accomit is as follows: 
 "and never was there scene a more "dolefuller battaile in no 
 Christain land, for there was but rashing and riding, foyning and 
 stricking, and many a grim word was there spoken either to 
 other, and many a deadly stroke. . . . And thus they fought all 
 the long day, and never stinted till the noble knights'wei-e hiid to 
 the cold ground: and ever they fought till it was nigh night, and 
 by that time was there an hundred thousand laid dead upon the 
 doune." 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHITE. 41 
 
 Like this last, dim, weird battle of the west/ 
 A death-white mist slept over sand and sea : 
 Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew 
 Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold 
 With formless fear ; and even on Arthur fell 5 
 
 Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought. 
 For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, 
 And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew ; 
 And some had visions out of golden youth, 
 And some beheld the faces of old ghosts 10 
 
 Look in upon the battle ; and in the mist 
 Was many a noble deed, many a base. 
 And chance and craft and strength in single fights, 
 And ever and anon with host to host 
 Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail 
 hewn, 15 
 
 Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash 
 Of battle-axes on shattered helms, and shrieks 
 After the Christ, of those who falling down 
 Looked up for heaven, and only saw the mist ; 
 And shouts of heathen and the traitor knights, 20 
 Oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blasphemies. 
 Sweat, writhings, anguish, laboring of the lungs 
 In that close mist, and cryings for the light. 
 Moans of the dying, and voices of the dead. 
 
 Last, as by some one death-bed after wail 25 
 
 Of suffering, silence follows, or through death 
 
 2. A death-white mist. Contrast with the description of 
 "this last, dim. weird battle" the brilliant picture of Arthur's 
 first battle in The. Coming of Arthur : 
 
 " When Arthur reached a field of battle bright 
 With pitched pavilions of his foe, the world 
 Was ail so clear about liim, that he saw 
 The smallest rock far on the faintest hill 
 And even in high day the morning star." 
 These are only two out of numerous occasions that may be 
 found HI the Idylls wlien the sympathy of external nature with 
 the actions and emotions of man is vividly pictured. 
 
42 THE PASSING OF AETHUR. 
 
 Or deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore, 
 
 Save for some whisper of the seething seas, 
 
 A dead hush fell ; but when the dolorous day 
 
 Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came 
 
 A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew 5 
 
 The mist aside, and with that wind the tide 
 
 Rose, and the pale King glanced across the field 
 
 Of battle : but no man was moving there ; 
 
 Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon, 
 
 Nor yet of heathen ; only the wan wave 10 
 
 Break in among dead faces, to and fro 
 
 Swaying the helpless hands, and up and down 
 
 Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen. 
 
 And shivered brands that once had fought with Rome, 
 
 And rolling far along the gloomy shores 15 
 
 The voice of days of old and days to be. 
 
 Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere, 
 And whiter than the mist that all day long 
 Had held the field of battle was the King : 
 
 " nearest thou this great voice that shakes the 
 world, 20 
 
 And wastes the narrow realm whereon we move, 
 And beats upon the faces of the dead, 
 My dead, as though they had not died for me ?— 
 O Bedivere, for on my heart hath fallen 
 Confusion, till I know not what I am, 25 
 
 Nor whence I am, nor whether I be Kmg. 
 Behold, I seem but King among the dead." 
 
 16. The voice ... to be. The ocean has frequently been 
 used in Hterature as a symbol of Time and Eternity. Cf. Shaks.: 
 " Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore 
 So do our minutes hasten to their end," 
 
 and Byron's 'Address to the Ocean,'' Childe Harold, iv.: 
 '• The image of Eternity." 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 43 
 
 Then spake the bold Sir Bedivere : " My King, 
 King everywhere ! and so the dead have kings, 
 There also will I worship thee as King. 
 Yet still thy life is whole, and still I live 
 Who love thee ; but who hates thee, he that brought 
 The heathen back among us, yonder stands, 6 
 
 Modred, unharmed, the traitor of thine house." 
 
 Then spake the King : " My house hath been my 
 doom. 
 But call not thou this traitor of my house 
 Who hath but dwelt beneath one roof with me. 10 
 My house are rather they who sware my vows. 
 Yea, even while they brake them, owned me King. 
 And well for thee, saying in my dark hour, 
 When all the purport of my throne hath failed, 
 That quick or dead thou boldest me for King. 15 
 
 King am I, whatsoever be their cry ; 
 And one last act of kinghood shalt thou see 
 Yet, ere I pass." And uttering this the King 
 Made at the man : then Modred smote his liege 
 Hard on that helm which many a heathen sword 20 
 Had beaten thin ; while Arthur at one blow, 
 Striking the last stroke with Excalibur, 
 Slew him, and all but slain himself, he fell. 
 
 So all day long the noise of battle rolled 
 Among the mountains by the winter sea ; 25 
 
 Until King Arthur's Table, man by man, 
 
 2. King everywhere . . . house. Bedivere's simple loyalty- 
 is no prey to doubt ; his practical temper finds no I'oom for dis- 
 cussion while work remains to be done, but insists on prompt 
 action with what powers are still available. 
 
 24. So all clay long. The original fragment Morte d' Arthur 
 began at this point. The lines " So all day long . . . King 
 Arthur," which introduced the shorter poem, are here retained, 
 to serve, perhaps, as a sort of recapitulation of the lines now 
 prefixed, that the reader's attention may be concentrated on the 
 last scene which follows. 
 
44 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 Had fall'ii in Lyonnesse about their lord, 
 
 King Arthur. Then, because his wound was deep, 
 
 The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, 
 
 And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, 
 
 A broken chancel with a broken cross, 5 
 
 That stood on a dark strait of barren land : 
 
 On one side lay the Ocean, and on one 
 
 Lay a great water, and the moon was full. 
 
 Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
 " The sequel of to-day unsolders all 10 
 
 The goodliest fellowship of famous knights 
 Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep 
 They sleep — the men I loved. I think that we 
 Sliall never more, at any future time. 
 Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, 15 
 
 Walking about the gardens and the halls 
 Of Camelot, as in the days that were. 
 I perish by this people which I made, — 
 Though Merlin sware that I should come again 
 
 5. chancel. The eastern and most sacred portion of a church, 
 formerly always separated from the mjiiii part of the building by 
 a screen of latlice-work (Lat. cancelli, cross-bars). 
 
 8. a great water. Since the poet wishes to represent the 
 general impression produced by the view from the chapel, he 
 avoids all detail, and uses the vague words ' a water ' instead of 
 ' a lake.' The beholder would not at first sight notice whether it 
 was a lake or a bniad river; all he would be con.^cious of would 
 be a spreading sheet of water of size and shape unknown; and 
 the picture is presented to the reader just as it would first strike 
 the eye of Sii' Bedivere. 
 
 17. Camelot. The city where Arthur held his court, now 
 identified with a village called Queen Camel, in Somersetshire, 
 whei e remains of the vast intrenchments of an ancient town are 
 still to be seen. The traditions of Queen Camel still preserve the 
 name of Artiiur ; the bridge over the river Camel is called 
 'Arthur's Bridge,' and theie is a spring in the neighborhood 
 called ' Arthur's Well.' A description of Arthur's mysterious 
 hall at Camelot is given in the Idyll of The Holy Grail in the 
 lines beginning— 
 
 " O brother, had you known our mighty hall, 
 Which Merlin built for Arthur long ago." 
 
 19. Merlin. See The Coming of Arthur, note 16. p. 17. The 
 Idyll of Merlin and Vivien gives an account of Merlin's fate. See 
 also Matthew Arnold's Tristram and Iseidt, 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUE. 45 
 
 To rule once more ; but, let wliat will be, be, 
 
 I am so deeply smitten through the helm 
 
 That without help I cannot last till morn. 
 
 Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur, 
 
 Which was my pride : for thou rememberest how 5 
 
 In those old days, one summer noon, an arm 
 
 Kose up from out the bosom of the lake. 
 
 Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
 
 Holding the sword — and how I rowed across 
 
 And took it, and have worn it, like a king ; 10 
 
 And, wheresoever I am sung or told 
 
 In aftertime, this also shall be known : 
 
 But now delay not : take Excalibur, 
 
 And fling him far into the middle mere : 14 
 
 Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word." 
 
 To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere : 
 " It is not meet. Sir King, to leave thee thus, 
 Aidless, alone, and smitten through the helm — 
 A little thing may harm a wounded man ; 
 Yet I thy best will all perform at full, 20 
 
 Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word." 
 
 So saying, from the ruined shrine he stept, 
 And in the moon athwart the place of tombs, 
 Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men, 
 Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang 25 
 Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down 
 
 14. fling him. Arthur reg:ards the magic sword as a person 
 endowed with life and power of its own. mere, lake or pool ; 
 the word originally meant 'that which is dead,' hence a desert, 
 waste, or stagnant pool; cf. Lat. viare and Skt. maru, a desert, 
 from iuri, to die; also French mare and English marsh. 
 
 24. mighty bones. The bones of the Danish invaders heaped 
 up in part of the church building at Hytlie are abnormally large- 
 sized, and seem to show that " there were giants in those days." 
 As noted above, there are still extant traces of ancient tombs at 
 Barham-down. 
 
46 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, 
 Came on the shining levels of the lake. 
 
 There drew he forth the brand Excalibur, 
 And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon, 
 Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth 5 
 And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt : 
 For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks, 
 Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work 
 Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long 
 That both his eyes were dazzled as he stood, 10 
 
 This way and that dividing the swift mind, 
 In act to throw : but at the last it seemed 
 Better to leave Excalibur concealed 
 There in the many-knotted water-flags, 
 That whistled stiff and dry about the marge. 15 
 
 So strode he back slow to the wounded King. 
 
 Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere : 
 ' ' Hast thou performed my mission which I gave ? 
 What is it thou hast seen ? or what hast heard ? " 
 
 And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 20 
 
 " I heard the ripple washing in the reeds, 
 And the wild water lapping on the crag." 
 
 To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale : 
 " Thou hast betrayed thy nature and thy name, 
 Not rendering true answer, as beseemed 25 
 
 1-4, water-flags. Aquatic plants of the genus Iris. 
 
 16. So strode he back slow. These words are all accented, 
 and the line thus becomes heavy and slow to pronounce; the 
 rhythm thus echoes the heavy slow steps of Sir Bedivere. 
 
 21. washing in the reeds— lapping on the crag. It has 
 been remarked that these two phrases mark exactly " the dif- 
 ference of sound produced by water swelling up against a perme- 
 able or impermeable barrier." The water would splash softly 
 through the reeds, but would make a sharper sound when strik- 
 ing against the impenetrable rock. 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 4/ 
 
 Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight : 
 
 For surer sign had followed, either hand, 
 
 Or voice, or else a motion of the mere. 
 
 This is a shameful thing for men to lie. 
 
 Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again, 5 
 
 As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing 
 
 I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word." 
 
 Then went Sir Bedivere the second time 
 Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, 
 Counting the dewy pebbles, fixed in thought ; 10 
 
 But when he saw the wonder of the hilt. 
 How curiously and strangely chased, he smote 
 His palms together, and he cried aloud : 
 
 " And if indeed I cast the brand away, 
 Surely a precious thing, one w^orthy note, 15 
 
 Should thus be lost for ever from the earth. 
 Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. 
 What good should follow this, if this were done ? 
 What harm, undone ? Deep harm to disobey, 
 Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. 20 
 
 Were it well to obey then, if a king demand 
 An act unprofitable, against himself ? 
 The King is sick, and knows not what he does. 
 What record, or what relic of my lord 
 Should be to aftertime, but empty breath 25 
 
 And rumors of a doubt ? But were this kept. 
 Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings, 
 Some one might show it at a joust of arms. 
 Saying, ' King Arthur's sword, Excalibur, 
 Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake. 30 
 
 Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps 
 Upon the hidden bases of the hills.' 
 So might some old man speak in the after-time 
 
48 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 To all the people, winning reverence. 
 
 But now much honor and much fame were lost." 
 
 So spake he, clouded with his own conceit, 
 And hid Excalibur the second time, 
 And so strode back slow to the wounded King. 
 
 Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily : 5 
 " What is it thou hast seen ? or what hast heard ?" 
 
 And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
 " I heard the water lapping on the crag 
 And the long ripple washing in the reeds." 
 
 To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath : 10 
 "Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue, 
 Unknightly, traitor-hearted ! Woe is me ! 
 Authority forgets a dying king. 
 Laid widowed of the power in his eye 
 That bowed the will. I see thee what thou art, 15 
 For thou, the latest left of all my knights. 
 In whom should meet the offices of all. 
 Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt ; 
 Either from lust of gold, or like a girl 
 Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes. 20 
 
 Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice, 
 And the third time may prosper, get thee hence : 
 But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur, 
 I will arise and slay thee with my hands." 
 
 Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran, 25 
 
 And, le ^,^mg down the ridges lightly, plunged 
 Among the bulrush beds, and clutched the sword. 
 And strongly wheeled and threw it. The great 
 
 brand 
 Made lightnings in the sjDlendor of the moon, 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 49 
 
 And flashing round and round, and whirled in an 
 
 arch, 
 Shot like a streamer of the northern morn, 
 Seen where the moving isles of winter- shock 
 By night, with noises of the Northern Sea. 
 So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur : 5 
 
 But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm 
 Clothed in white samite, mystic, w^onderful, 
 And caught him by the hilt, and brandished him 
 Three times, and drew him under in the mere. 
 And lightly went the other to the King. 10 
 
 Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath : 
 " Now see I by thine eyes that this is done. 
 Speak out : what is it thou hast heard, or seen ? " 
 
 And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere : 
 *' Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems 15 
 Should blind my purpose, for I never saw. 
 Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die. 
 Not though I live three lives of mortal men. 
 So great a miracle as yonder hilt. 
 Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him ; 20 
 But when I looked again, behold an arm. 
 Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful, 
 That caught him by the hilt, and brandished him 
 Three times, and drew him under in the mere." 
 
 And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard : 
 " My end draws nigh ; 'tis time that I were gone. 26 
 Make broad thy shoulders to receive my w^ij^ght. 
 
 3. movina^ isles of winter. Floating: icebergs. Observe 
 how the poet in three lines presents a complete picture of one of 
 nature's grandest phenomena, thus introducing a most vivid 
 simile withmit interrupting the flow of the narrative. Notice the 
 compression of style, shock, collide. 
 
OU THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 And bear me to the margin ; yet I fear 
 
 My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die." 
 
 So saying, from the pavement he half rose, 
 Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm, 
 And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes 5 
 
 As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere 
 Remorsefully regarded through his tears, 
 And would have spoken, but he found not words ; 
 Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee. 
 O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands, 10 
 And rising bore him through the place of tombs. 
 
 But, as he walked. King Arthur panted hard, 
 Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed 
 When all the house is mute. So sighed the King, 
 Muttering and murmuring at his ear, ^' Quick, quick ! 
 I fear it is too late, and I shall die." 16 
 
 But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge. 
 Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walked, 
 Larger than human on the frozen hills. 
 He heard the deep behind him, and a cry 20 
 
 Before. His own thought drove him like a goad. 
 Dry clashed his harness in the^icy caves 
 And barren chasms, and all to left and right 
 The bare black cliff clanged round him, as he based 
 His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang 25 
 
 Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels— 
 
 6. As in a picture, as the eyes of a painted portrait of tea 
 have a fixed and expectant gaze. 
 
 13. nightmare. A fiend or witch stipposed to cause evil 
 dreams. S elton has " Medusa, that mare ■" (i.e., that hag:). 
 
 18. Clothed with his breath, enveloped as by a cloak in a 
 mist caused by his own damp breath clinging round him in the 
 frosty air. 
 
 19. Larger than human. Cf. the Idyll of Guinevere. : 
 
 " The moony vapor rolling round the King, 
 Who seemed the phantom of a giant in it, 
 Enwound him fold by fold." 
 22. harness. Originally, as nere, body armor. 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 51 
 
 And on a sudden, lo ! the level lake, 
 And the long glories of the winter moon. 
 
 Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge, 
 Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern, 
 Beneath them ; and descending they were ware 5 
 That all the decks were dense with stately forms, 
 Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream— by these 
 Three Queens with crowns of gold : and from them 
 
 rose 
 A cry that shivered to the tingling stars, 
 And, as it were one voice, an agony 10 
 
 Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills 
 All night in a waste land, where no one comes. 
 Or hath come, since the making of the world. 13 
 
 Then murmured Arthur, " Place me in the barge." 
 So to the barge they came. There those three Queens 
 . Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept. 
 But she, that rose the tallest of them all 
 And fairest, laid his head upon her lap. 
 And loosed the shattered casque, and chafed his 
 
 hands, 
 And called him by his name, complaining loud, 20 
 And dropping bitter tears against a brow 
 Striped with dark blood : for all his face was white 
 
 7. ■ Black-stoled. The stole was a long loose robe reaching to 
 the feet. Cf. " In stoles of white " (Sir Galahad). With this 
 description contrast that of the ship in The Coming of Arthur^ 
 p. 28, 1. 12-13 : 
 
 " And all from stem to stern 
 Bright with a shining people on the decks." 
 
 8. Three Queens. See The Coming of Arthur, p. 23, 1. 5-8 : 
 
 " Three fair Queens, 
 Who stood in silence near his throne, the friends 
 Of Arthur, gazing on him, tall, with bright 
 Sweet faces, who will help him at his need." 
 Malory says : " One was King Arthur's sister. Queen Morgan le 
 Fay; the other was the Queen of Northgales; the third was the 
 Queen of the Waste Lands." 
 
53 THE PASSING OF AETHUR. 
 
 And colorless, and like the withered moon 
 
 Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east ; 
 
 And all his greaves and cuishes dashed with drops 
 
 Of onset ; and the light and lustrous curls — 
 
 That made his forehead like a rising sun 5 
 
 High from the dais-throne — were parched with dust ; 
 
 Or, clotted into points and hanging loose. 
 
 Mixed with the knightly growth that fringed his lips. 
 
 So like a shattered column lay the King ; 
 
 Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, 10 
 
 From spur to plume a star of tournament. 
 
 Shot through the lists at Camelot, and charged 
 
 Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. 
 
 Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere : 
 " Ah ! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go ? 15 
 
 Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes ? 
 For now I see the true old times are dead. 
 When every morning brought a noble chance, 
 And every chance brought out a noble knight. 
 Such times have been not since the light that led 20 
 The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh. 
 But now the whole Round Table is dissolved 
 Which was an image of the mighty world, 
 
 3. greaves. Armor for the lower part of the legs : derivation 
 uncertain, cuishes. Armor for the thighs: Lat. coxa, thigh. 
 dashed with drops of onset, splashed with drops of blood 
 from the encounter. Cf . The Princess : 
 
 "Though dashed with death, 
 He reddens what he kisses." 
 
 20. the light . . . myrrh. Arthur is compared with the 
 star in the East which appeared at Clirist's birth to the Magi, or 
 WMse Men, and led them to Bethlehem, where they presented to 
 the new-born Child offerings of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 
 See Bible, Matthew, ii 11. 
 
 23. image of the mighty world. "Also Merlin made the 
 Round Table in tokening of the roundness of the world, for by 
 the Round Table is the world signified by right. For all the 
 world, Christian and heathen, repair unto the Round Table, and 
 when they are chosen to be of tlie fellowship of the Round 
 Table, they think them more blessed and more in worship than 
 if they had gotten half the world' (Malory). The belief that the 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 53 
 
 And I, the last, go forth companioiiless, 
 
 And the days darken round me, and the years. 
 
 Among new men, strange faces, other minds." 
 
 And slowly answered Arthur from the barge : 
 " The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 5 
 And God fulfills himself in many ways, 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. 
 Comfort thyself : what comfort is in me ? 
 I have lived my life, and that which I have done 
 May He within himself make pure ! but thou, 10 
 
 If tliou shouldst never see my face again, 
 Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by 
 
 prayer 
 Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice 
 Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
 For what are men better than sheep or goats 15 
 
 That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
 If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer 
 Both for themselves and those who call them friend ? 
 For so the whole round earth is every way 
 Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 20 
 
 But now farewell. I am going a long way 
 With these tliou seest — if indeed I go 
 (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt) — 
 To the island- valley of Avilion ; 
 Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, 25 
 
 Nor ever wind blows loudly ; but it lies 
 Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns 
 And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea. 
 Where I will heal me of my grievous wound." 
 
 world was in form round and flat, like the top of a round table, 
 prevailed even after the globe had been circumnavigated. See 
 Columbus : 
 
 " for at last their Highnesses 
 Were half-assured this earth might be a sphere." 
 
54 THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 
 
 So said he, and the barge with oar and sail 
 Moved from the brink, like some full- breasted swan 
 That, fluting a wild carol ere her death, 
 Euffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood 
 With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere 5 
 
 Kevolving many memories, till the hull 
 Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn, 
 And on the mere the wailing died away. 
 
 But when that moan had past for evermore, 
 The stillness of the dead world's winter dawn 10 
 
 Amazed him, and he groaned, " The King is gone." 
 And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme, 
 " From the great deep to the great deep he goes." 
 
 Whereat he slowly turned and slowly clomb 
 The last hard footstep of that iron crag ; 15 
 
 Thence marked the black hull moving yet, and cried, 
 " He passes to be King among the dead. 
 And after healing of his grievous wound 
 He comes again ; but— if he come no more — 
 O me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat, 20 
 
 Who shrieked and wailed, the three whereat we gazed 
 On that high day, when, clothed with living light, 
 They stood before his throne in silence, friends 
 Of Arthur, who should help him at his need ? " 
 
 Then from the dawn it seemed there came, but 
 faint 25 
 
 As from beyond the limit of the world, 
 Like the last echo born of a great cry, 
 Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice 
 Around a king returning from his wars. 
 
 Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb 30 
 Even to the highest he could climb, and saw, 
 
THE PASSING OF ARTHUR. 55 
 
 Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand, 
 
 Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King, 
 
 Down that long water opening on the deep 
 
 Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go 
 
 From less to less and vanish into light. 5 
 
 And the new sun rose "bringing the new year. 
 
 6. And the new . . . new year. The cycle of the mystic 
 year is now complete from Arthur's birth — 
 
 " that same niijht, the night of the new year, 
 Was Arthur born—'" 
 to his passing away before the dawn of another new year, and 
 from this point 
 
 " The old order changeth, yielding place to new." 
 
RUSKIN'S WORKS 
 
 IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT 
 
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AText-Book on English Literature, 
 
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