“And return’d
Among the flowers, in May, with Guinevere.”
Then their long love may have begun, as in the story of Tristram sent to
bring Yseult to be the bride of King Mark. In Malory, however, Lancelot
does not come on the scene till after Arthur’s wedding and return from
his conquering expedition to Rome. Then Lancelot wins renown, “wherefore
Queen Guinevere had him in favour above all other knights; and in certain
he loved the Queen again above all other ladies damosels of his life.”
Lancelot, as we have seen, is practically a French creation, adopted to
illustrate the chivalrous theory of love, with its bitter fruit. Though
not of the original Celtic stock of legend, Sir Lancelot makes the
romance what it is, and draws down the tragedy that originally turned on
the sin of Arthur himself, the sin that gave birth to the traitor Modred.
But the mediæval romancers disguised that form of the story, and the
process of idealising Arthur reached such heights in the middle ages that
Tennyson thought himself at liberty to paint the _Flos Regum_, “the
blameless King.” He followed the _Brut ab Arthur_. “In short, God has
not made since Adam was, the man more perfect than Arthur.” This is
remote from the Arthur of the oldest Celtic legends, but justifies the
poet in adapting Arthur to the ideal hero of the Idylls:—
“Ideal manhood closed in real man,
Rather than that grey king, whose name, a ghost,
Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain-peak,
And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or him
Of Geoffrey’s book, or him of Malleor’s, one
Touched by the adulterous finger of a time
That hovered between war and wantonness,
And crownings and dethronements.”
The poetical beauties of _The Coming of Arthur_ excel those of _Gareth
and Lynette_. The sons of Lot and Bellicent seem to have been originally
regarded as the incestuous offspring of Arthur and his sister, the wife
of King Lot. Next it was represented that Arthur was ignorant of the
relationship. Mr Rhys supposes that the mythical scandal (still present
in Malory as a sin of ignorance) arose from blending the Celtic Arthur
(as Culture Hero) with an older divine personage, such as Zeus, who
marries his sister Hera. Marriages of brother and sister are familiar in
the Egyptian royal house, and that of the Incas. But the poet has a
perfect right to disregard a scandalous myth which, obviously
crystallised later about the figure of the mythical Celtic Arthur, was an
incongruous accretion to his legend. Gareth, therefore, is merely
Arthur’s nephew, not son, in the poem, as are Gawain and the traitor
Modred. The story seems to be rather mediæval French than Celtic—a
mingling of the spirit of _fabliau_ and popular fairy tale. The poet has
added to its lightness, almost frivolity, the description of the unreal
city of Camelot, built to music, as when
“Ilion, like a mist, rose into towers.”
He has also brought in the allegory of Death, which, when faced, proves
to be “a blooming boy” behind the mask. The courtesy and prowess of
Lancelot lead up to the later development of his character.
In _The Marriage of Geraint_, a rumour has already risen about Lancelot
and the Queen, darkening the Court, and presaging
“The world’s loud whisper breaking into storm.”
For this reason Geraint removes Enid from Camelot to his own land—the
poet thus early leading up to the sin and the doom of Lancelot. But this
motive does not occur in the Welsh story of Enid and Geraint, which
Tennyson has otherwise followed with unwonted closeness. The tale occurs
in French romances in various forms, but it appears to have returned, by
way of France and coloured with French influences, to Wales, where it is
one of the later Mabinogion. The characters are Celtic, and Nud, father
of Edyrn, Geraint’s defeated antagonist, appears to be recognised by Mr
Rhys as “the Celtic Zeus.” The manners and the tournaments are French.
In the Welsh tale Geraint and Enid are bedded in Arthur’s own chamber,
which seems to be a symbolic commutation of the _jus primæ noctis_ a
custom of which the very existence is disputed. This unseemly
antiquarian detail, of course, is omitted in the Idyll.
An abstract of the Welsh tale will show how closely Tennyson here follows
his original. News is brought into Arthur’s Court of the appearance of a
white stag. The king arranges a hunt, and Guinevere asks leave to go and
watch the sport. Next morning she cannot be wakened, though the tale
does not aver, like the Idyll, that she was
“Lost in sweet dreams, and dreaming of her love
For Lancelot.”
Guinevere wakes late, and rides through a ford of Usk to the hunt.
Geraint follows, “a golden-hilted sword was at his side, and a robe and a
surcoat of satin were upon him, and two shoes of leather upon his feet,
and around him was a scarf of blue purple, at each corner of which was a
golden apple”:—
“But Guinevere lay late into the morn,
Lost in sweet dreams, and dreaming of her love
For Lancelot, and forgetful of the hunt;
But rose at last, a single maiden with her,
Took horse, and forded Usk, and gain’d the wood;
There, on a little knoll beside it, stay’d
Waiting to hear the hounds; but heard instead
A sudden sound of hoofs, for Prince Geraint,
Late also, wearing neither hunting-dress
Nor weapon, save a golden-hilted brand,
Came quickly flashing thro’ the shallow ford
Behind them, and so gallop’d up the knoll.
A purple scarf, at either end whereof
There swung an apple of the purest gold,
Sway’d round about him, as he gallop’d up
To join them, glancing like a dragon-fly
In summer suit and silks of holiday.”
The encounter with the dwarf, the lady, and the knight follows. The
prose of the Mabinogi may be compared with the verse of Tennyson:—
“Geraint,” said Gwenhwyvar, “knowest thou the name of that tall
knight yonder?” “I know him not,” said he, “and the strange armour
that he wears prevents my either seeing his face or his features.”
“Go, maiden,” said Gwenhwyvar, “and ask the dwarf who that knight
is.” Then the maiden went up to the dwarf; and the dwarf waited for
the maiden, when he saw her coming towards him. And the maiden
inquired of the dwarf who the knight was. “I will not tell thee,” he
answered. “Since thou art so churlish as not to tell me,” said she,
“I will ask him himself.” “Thou shalt not ask him, by my faith,”
said he. “Wherefore?” said she. “Because thou art not of honour
sufficient to befit thee to speak to my Lord.” Then the maiden
turned her horse’s head towards the knight, upon which the dwarf
struck her with the whip that was in his hand across the face and the
eyes, until the blood flowed forth. And the maiden, through the hurt
she received from the blow, returned to Gwenhwyvar, complaining of
the pain. “Very rudely has the dwarf treated thee,” said Geraint.
“I will go myself to know who the knight is.” “Go,” said Gwenhwyvar.
And Geraint went up to the dwarf. “Who is yonder knight?” said
Geraint. “I will not tell thee,” said the dwarf. “Then will I ask
him himself,” said he. “That wilt thou not, by my faith,” said the
dwarf; “thou art not honourable enough to speak with my Lord.” Said
Geraint, “I have spoken with men of equal rank with him.” And he
turned his horse’s head towards the knight; but the dwarf overtook
him, and struck him as he had done the maiden, so that the blood
coloured the scarf that Geraint wore. Then Geraint put his hand upon
the hilt of his sword, but he took counsel with himself, and
considered that it would be no vengeance for him to slay the dwarf,
and to be attacked unarmed by the armed knight, so he returned to
where Gwenhwyvar was.
“And while they listen’d for the distant hunt,
And chiefly for the baying of Cavall,
King Arthur’s hound of deepest mouth, there rode
Full slowly by a knight, lady, and dwarf;
Whereof the dwarf lagg’d latest, and the knight
Had vizor up, and show’d a youthful face,
Imperious, and of haughtiest lineaments.
And Guinevere, not mindful of his face
In the King’s hall, desired his name, and sent
Her maiden to demand it of the dwarf;
Who being vicious, old and irritable,
And doubling all his master’s vice of pride,
Made answer sharply that she should not know.
‘Then will I ask it of himself,’ she said.
‘Nay, by my faith, thou shalt not,’ cried the dwarf;
‘Thou art not worthy ev’n to speak of him’;
And when she put her horse toward the knight,
Struck at her with his whip, and she return’d
Indignant to the Queen; whereat Geraint
Exclaiming, ‘Surely I will learn the name,’
Made sharply to the dwarf, and ask’d it of him,
Who answer’d as before; and when the Prince
Had put his horse in motion toward the knight,
Struck at him with his whip, and cut his cheek.
The Prince’s blood spirted upon the scarf,
Dyeing it; and his quick, instinctive hand
Caught at the hilt, as to abolish him:
But he, from his exceeding manfulness
And pure nobility of temperament,
Wroth to be wroth at such a worm, refrain’d
From ev’n a word.”
The self-restraint of Geraint, who does not slay the dwarf,
“From his exceeding manfulness
And pure nobility of temperament,”
may appear “too polite,” and too much in accord with the still
undiscovered idea of “leading sweet lives.” However, the uninvented idea
does occur in the Welsh original: “Then Geraint put his hand upon the
hilt of his sword, but he took counsel with himself, and considered that
it would be no vengeance for him to slay the dwarf,” while he also
reflects that he would be “attacked unarmed by the armed knight.”
Perhaps Tennyson may be blamed for omitting this obvious motive for
self-restraint. Geraint therefore follows the knight in hope of finding
arms, and arrives at the town all busy with preparations for the
tournament of the sparrow-hawk. This was a challenge sparrow-hawk: the
knight had won it twice, and if he won it thrice it would be his to keep.
The rest, in the tale, is exactly followed in the Idyll. Geraint is
entertained by the ruined Yniol. The youth bears the “costrel” full of
“good purchased mead” (the ruined Earl not brewing for himself), and Enid
carries the manchet bread in her veil, “old, and beginning to be worn
out.” All Tennyson’s own is the beautiful passage—
“And while he waited in the castle court,
The voice of Enid, Yniol’s daughter, rang
Clear thro’ the open casement of the hall,
Singing; and as the sweet voice of a bird,
Heard by the lander in a lonely isle,
Moves him to think what kind of bird it is
That sings so delicately clear, and make
Conjecture of the plumage and the form;
So the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint;
And made him like a man abroad at morn
When first the liquid note beloved of men
Comes flying over many a windy wave
To Britain, and in April suddenly
Breaks from a coppice gemm’d with green and red,
And he suspends his converse with a friend,
Or it may be the labour of his hands,
To think or say, ‘There is the nightingale’;
So fared it with Geraint, who thought and said,
‘Here, by God’s grace, is the one voice for me.’”
Yniol frankly admits in the tale that he was in the wrong in the quarrel
with his nephew. The poet, however, gives him the right, as is natural.
The combat is exactly followed in the Idyll, as is Geraint’s insistence
in carrying his bride to Court in her faded silks. Geraint, however,
leaves Court with Enid, not because of the scandal about Lancelot, but to
do his duty in his own country. He becomes indolent and uxorious, and
Enid deplores his weakness, and awakes his suspicions, thus:—
And one morning in the summer time they were upon their couch, and
Geraint lay upon the edge of it. And Enid was without sleep in the
apartment which had windows of glass. And the sun shone upon the
couch. And the clothes had slipped from off his arms and his breast,
and he was asleep. Then she gazed upon the marvellous beauty of his
appearance, and she said, “Alas, and am I the cause that these arms
and this breast have lost their glory and the warlike fame which they
once so richly enjoyed!” And as she said this, the tears dropped
from her eyes, and they fell upon his breast. And the tears she
shed, and the words she had spoken, awoke him; and another thing
contributed to awaken him, and that was the idea that it was not in
thinking of him that she spoke thus, but that it was because she
loved some other man more than him, and that she wished for other
society, and thereupon Geraint was troubled in his mind, and he
called his squire; and when he came to him, “Go quickly,” said he,
“and prepare my horse and my arms, and make them ready. And do thou
arise,” said he to Enid, “and apparel thyself; and cause thy horse to
be accoutred, and clothe thee in the worst riding-dress that thou
hast in thy possession. And evil betide me,” said he, “if thou
returnest here until thou knowest whether I have lost my strength so
completely as thou didst say. And if it be so, it will then be easy
for thee to seek the society thou didst wish for of him of whom thou
wast thinking.” So she arose, and clothed herself in her meanest
garments. “I know nothing, Lord,” said she, “of thy meaning.”
“Neither wilt thou know at this time,” said he.
“At last, it chanced that on a summer morn
(They sleeping each by either) the new sun
Beat thro’ the blindless casement of the room,
And heated the strong warrior in his dreams;
Who, moving, cast the coverlet aside,
And bared the knotted column of his throat,
The massive square of his heroic breast,
And arms on which the standing muscle sloped,
As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone,
Running too vehemently to break upon it.
And Enid woke and sat beside the couch,
Admiring him, and thought within herself,
Was ever man so grandly made as he?
Then, like a shadow, past the people’s talk
And accusation of uxoriousness
Across her mind, and bowing over him,
Low to her own heart piteously she said:
‘O noble breast and all-puissant arms,
Am I the cause, I the poor cause that men
Reproach you, saying all your force is gone?
I _am_ the cause, because I dare not speak
And tell him what I think and what they say.
And yet I hate that he should linger here;
I cannot love my lord and not his name.
Far liefer had I gird his harness on him,
And ride with him to battle and stand by,
And watch his mightful hand striking great blows
At caitiffs and at wrongers of the world.
Far better were I laid in the dark earth,
Not hearing any more his noble voice,
Not to be folded more in these dear arms,
And darken’d from the high light in his eyes,
Than that my lord thro’ me should suffer shame.
Am I so bold, and could I so stand by,
And see my dear lord wounded in the strife,
Or maybe pierced to death before mine eyes,
And yet not dare to tell him what I think,
And how men slur him, saying all his force
Is melted into mere effeminacy?
O me, I fear that I am no true wife.’
Half inwardly, half audibly she spoke,
And the strong passion in her made her weep
True tears upon his broad and naked breast,
And these awoke him, and by great mischance
He heard but fragments of her later words,
And that she fear’d she was not a true wife.
And then he thought, ‘In spite of all my care,
For all my pains, poor man, for all my pains,
She is not faithful to me, and I see her
Weeping for some gay knight in Arthur’s hall.’
Then tho’ he loved and reverenced her too much
To dream she could be guilty of foul act,
Right thro’ his manful breast darted the pang
That makes a man, in the sweet face of her
Whom he loves most, lonely and miserable.
At this he hurl’d his huge limbs out of bed,
And shook his drowsy squire awake and cried,
‘My charger and her palfrey’; then to her,
‘I will ride forth into the wilderness;
For tho’ it seems my spurs are yet to win,
I have not fall’n so low as some would wish.
And thou, put on thy worst and meanest dress
And ride with me.’ And Enid ask’d, amazed,
‘If Enid errs, let Enid learn her fault.’
But he, ‘I charge thee, ask not, but obey.’
Then she bethought her of a faded silk,
A faded mantle and a faded veil,
And moving toward a cedarn cabinet,
Wherein she kept them folded reverently
With sprigs of summer laid between the folds,
She took them, and array’d herself therein,
Remembering when first he came on her
Drest in that dress, and how he loved her in it,
And all her foolish fears about the dress,
And all his journey to her, as himself
Had told her, and their coming to the court.”