132. AND SLAY THEE WITH MY HANDS. Compare Malory: "And but if thou do
now as I bid thee, if ever I may see thee, I shall slay thee with mine
own hands, for thou wouldest for my rich sword see me dead." In Rowe and
Webb's edition it is suggested that 'with my hands' is added for one of
two reasons,--either "because he had now no sword; or more probably,
these words are introduced in imitation of Homer's habit of mentioning
specific details: cf. 'he went taking long steps with his feet.'" This
explanation is ingenious, but unnecessary in view of the quotation from
Malory. The note proceeds: "Notice the touch of human personality in the
king's sharp anger; otherwise Arthur is generally represented by Tennyson
as a rather colourless being, and as almost 'too good for human nature's
daily food.'"
133-142. Brimley in his valuable essay on Tennyson, analyses this poem
in some detail. Of this passage he writes: "A series of brilliant
effects is hit off in these two words, 'made lightnings.' 'Whirl'd in an
arch,' is a splendid instance of sound answering to sense, which the
older critics made so much of; the additional syllable which breaks the
measure, and necessitates an increased rapidity of utterance, seeming to
express to the ear the rush of the sword up its parabolic curve. And
with what lavish richness of presentative power is the boreal aurora, the
collision, the crash, and the thunder of the meeting icebergs, brought
before the eye. An inferior artist would have shouted through a page,
and emptied a whole pallet of colour, without any result but interrupting
his narrative, where Tennyson in three lines strikingly illustrates the
fact he has to tell,--associates it impressively with one of Nature's
grandest phenomena, and gives a complete picture of this phenomenon
besides." The whole essay deserves to be carefully read.