For first Aurelius lived and fought and died,
And after him King Uther fought and died,
But either failed to make the kingdom one.
And after these King Arthur for a space,
_And thro the puissance of his Table Round
Drew all their petty princedoms under him,
Their king and head, and made a realm, and reigned_.
And in _The Passing of Arthur_ we read:
Ill doom is mine
To war against my people and my knights.
The king who fights his people fights himself.
23. THO' MERLINE SWARE--AGAIN. Merlin was the great wizard of Arthur's
court. In the allegorical view of the poem he typifies the intellect,
or, in Tennyson's words: "the sceptical understanding."
This prophecy concerning Arthur is again referred to in _The Coming of
Arthur_:
And Merlin in our time
Hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn,
Though men may wound him, that he will not die,
But pass and come again.
This belief is common to all the Arthurian sources. Compare, for
example, Wace's _Brut_: "Arthur, if the story lies not, was mortally
wounded in the body: he had himself borne to Avalon to heal his wounds.
There he is still; the Britons await him, as they say and
understand . . . The prophet spoke truth, and one can doubt, and always
will doubt whether he is dead or living." Dr. Sykes writes that, "The
sleep of Arthur associates the British story with the similar stories of
Charlemagne and Frederick Barbarossa of Germany, Brian in Ireland,
Boabdil el Chico in Spain, etc."
27. EXCALIBUR. Arthur's magical sword. It is described in _The Coming
of Arthur_, ll. 295 f., as:
the sword
That rose from out the bosom of the lake,
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,
"Take me," but turn the blade and ye shall see,
And written in the speech ye speak yourself,
"Cast me away."
It has been variously held that Excalibur typifies temporal authority, or
spiritual power. The casting away of the sword, therefore, represents
the inevitable change in which human things are involved, and even faith
itself. Compare _Morte d'Arthur_, ll. 240-241.
Magical weapons and enchanted armour are a portion of the equipment of
almost all the great legendary heroes. Their swords and their horses
usually bear distinctive names. Roland's sword was _Durandal_, and
Charlemagne's was _Joyeuse_.