“Arms on which the standing muscle sloped,
As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone,
Running too vehemently to break upon it,”
is suggested perhaps by Theocritus—“The muscles on his brawny arms stood
out like rounded rocks that the winter torrent has rolled and worn
smooth, in the great swirling stream” (Idyll xxii.)
The second part of the poem follows the original less closely. Thus
Limours, in the tale, is not an old suitor of Enid; Edyrn does not appear
to the rescue; certain cruel games, veiled in a magic mist, occur in the
tale, and are omitted by the poet; “Gwyffert petit, so called by the
Franks, whom the Cymry call the Little King,” in the tale, is not a
character in the Idyll, and, generally, the gross Celtic exaggerations of
Geraint’s feats are toned down by Tennyson. In other respects, as when
Geraint eats the mowers’ dinner, the tale supplies the materials. But it
does not dwell tenderly on the reconciliation. The tale is more or less
in the vein of “patient Grizel,” and he who told it is more concerned
with the fighting than with _amoris redintegratio_, and the sufferings of
Enid. The Idyll is enriched with many beautiful pictures from nature,
such as this:—
“But at the flash and motion of the man
They vanish’d panic-stricken, like a shoal
Of darting fish, that on a summer morn
Adown the crystal dykes at Camelot
Come slipping o’er their shadows on the sand,
But if a man who stands upon the brink
But lift a shining hand against the sun,
There is not left the twinkle of a fin
Betwixt the cressy islets white in flower;
So, scared but at the motion of the man,
Fled all the boon companions of the Earl,
And left him lying in the public way.”
In _Balin and Balan_ Tennyson displays great constructive power, and
remarkable skill in moulding the most recalcitrant materials. Balin or
Balyn, according to Mr Rhys, is the Belinus of Geoffrey of Monmouth,
“whose name represents the Celtic divinity described in Latin as Apollo
Belenus or Belinus.” {129a} In Geoffrey, Belinus, euphemerised, or
reduced from god to hero, has a brother, Brennius, the Celtic Brân, King
of Britain from Caithness to the Humber. Belinus drives Brân into exile.
“Thus it is seen that Belinus or Balyn was, mythologically speaking, the
natural enemy” (as Apollo Belinus, the radiant god) “of the dark divinity
Brân or Balan.”
If this view be correct, the two brothers answer to the good and bad
principles of myths like that of the Huron Iouskeha the Sun, and
Anatensic the Moon, or rather Taouiscara and Iouskeha, the hostile
brothers, Black and White. {129b} These mythical brethren are, in
Malory, two knights of Northumberland, Balin the wild and Balan. Their
adventures are mixed up with a hostile Lady of the Lake, whom Balin slays
in Arthur’s presence, with a sword which none but Balin can draw from
sheath; and with an evil black-faced knight Garlon, invisible at will,
whom Balin slays in the castle of the knight’s brother, King Pellam.
Pursued from room to room by Pellam, Balin finds himself in a chamber
full of relics of Joseph of Arimathea. There he seizes a spear, the very
spear with which the Roman soldier pierced the side of the Crucified, and
wounds Pellam. The castle falls in ruins “through that dolorous stroke.”
Pellam becomes the maimed king, who can only be healed by the Holy Grail.
Apparently Celtic myths of obscure antiquity have been adapted in France,
and interwoven with fables about Joseph of Arimathea and Christian
mysteries. It is not possible here to go into the complicated learning
of the subject. In Malory, Balin, after dealing the dolorous stroke,
borrows a strange shield from a knight, and, thus accoutred, meets his
brother Balan, who does not recognise him. They fight, both die and are
buried in one tomb, and Galahad later achieves the adventure of winning
Balin’s sword. “Thus endeth the tale of Balyn and of Balan, two brethren
born in Northumberland, good knights,” says Malory, simply, and
unconscious of the strange mythological medley under the coat armour of
romance.
The materials, then, seemed confused and obdurate, but Tennyson works
them into the course of the fatal love of Lancelot and Guinevere, and
into the spiritual texture of the Idylls. Balin has been expelled from
Court for the wildness that gives him his name, _Balin le Sauvage_. He
had buffeted a squire in hall. He and Balan await all challengers beside
a well. Arthur encounters and dismounts them. Balin devotes himself to
self-conquest. Then comes tidings that Pellam, of old leagued with Lot
against Arthur, has taken to religion, collects relics, claims descent
from Joseph of Arimathea, and owns the sacred spear that pierced the side
of Christ. But Garlon is with him, the knight invisible, who appears to
come from an Irish source, or at least has a parallel in Irish legend.
This Garlon has an unknightly way of killing men by viewless blows from
the rear. Balan goes to encounter Garlon. Balin remains, learning
courtesy, modelling himself on Lancelot, and gaining leave to bear
Guinevere’s Crown Matrimonial for his cognisance,—which, of course, Balan
does not know,—
“As golden earnest of a better life.”
But Balin sees reason to think that Lancelot and Guinevere love even too
well.
“Then chanced, one morning, that Sir Balin sat
Close-bower’d in that garden nigh the hall.
A walk of roses ran from door to door;
A walk of lilies crost it to the bower:
And down that range of roses the great Queen
Came with slow steps, the morning on her face;
And all in shadow from the counter door
Sir Lancelot as to meet her, then at once,
As if he saw not, glanced aside, and paced
The long white walk of lilies toward the bower.
Follow’d the Queen; Sir Balin heard her ‘Prince,
Art thou so little loyal to thy Queen,
As pass without good morrow to thy Queen?’
To whom Sir Lancelot with his eyes on earth,
‘Fain would I still be loyal to the Queen.’
‘Yea so,’ she said, ‘but so to pass me by—
So loyal scarce is loyal to thyself,
Whom all men rate the king of courtesy.
Let be: ye stand, fair lord, as in a dream.’
Then Lancelot with his hand among the flowers,
‘Yea—for a dream. Last night methought I saw
That maiden Saint who stands with lily in hand
In yonder shrine. All round her prest the dark,
And all the light upon her silver face
Flow’d from the spiritual lily that she held.
Lo! these her emblems drew mine eyes—away:
For see, how perfect-pure! As light a flush
As hardly tints the blossom of the quince
Would mar their charm of stainless maidenhood.’
‘Sweeter to me,’ she said, ‘this garden rose
Deep-hued and many-folded sweeter still
The wild-wood hyacinth and the bloom of May.
Prince, we have ridd’n before among the flowers
In those fair days—not all as cool as these,
Tho’ season-earlier. Art thou sad? or sick?
Our noble King will send thee his own leech—
Sick? or for any matter anger’d at me?’
Then Lancelot lifted his large eyes; they dwelt
Deep-tranced on hers, and could not fall: her hue
Changed at his gaze: so turning side by side
They past, and Balin started from his bower.
‘Queen? subject? but I see not what I see.
Damsel and lover? hear not what I hear.
My father hath begotten me in his wrath.
I suffer from the things before me, know,
Learn nothing; am not worthy to be knight;
A churl, a clown!’ and in him gloom on gloom
Deepen’d: he sharply caught his lance and shield,
Nor stay’d to crave permission of the King,
But, mad for strange adventure, dash’d away.”
Balin is “disillusioned,” his faith in the Ideal is shaken if not
shattered. He rides at adventure. Arriving at the half-ruined castle of
Pellam, that dubious devotee, he hears Garlon insult Guinevere, but
restrains himself. Next day, again insulted for bearing “the crown
scandalous” on his shield, he strikes Garlon down, is pursued, seizes the
sacred spear, and escapes. Vivien meets him in the woods, drops scandal
in his ears, and so maddens him that he defaces his shield with the crown
of Guinevere. Her song, and her words,
“This fire of Heaven,
This old sun-worship, boy, will rise again,
And beat the cross to earth, and break the King
And all his Table,”
might be forced into an allegory of the revived pride of life, at the
Renaissance and after. The maddened yells of Balin strike the ear of
Balan, who thinks he has met the foul knight Garlon, that
“Tramples on the goodly shield to show
His loathing of our Order and the Queen.”
They fight, fatally wound, and finally recognise each other: Balan trying
to restore Balin’s faith in Guinevere, who is merely slandered by Garlon
and Vivien. Balin acknowledges that his wildness has been their common
bane, and they die, “either locked in either’s arms.”
There is nothing in Malory, nor in any other source, so far as I am
aware, which suggested to Tennyson the _clou_ of the situation—the use of
Guinevere’s crown as a cognisance by Balin. This device enables the poet
to weave the rather confused and unintelligible adventures of Balin and
Balan into the scheme, and to make it a stage in the progress of his
fable. That Balin was reckless and wild Malory bears witness, but his
endeavours to conquer himself and reach the ideal set by Lancelot are
Tennyson’s addition, with all the tragedy of Balin’s disenchantment and
despair. The strange fantastic house of Pellam, full of the most sacred
things,
“In which he scarce could spy the Christ for Saints,”
yet sheltering the human fiend Garlon, is supplied by Malory, whose
predecessors probably blended more than one myth of the old Cymry into
the romance, washed over with Christian colouring. As Malory tells this
part of the tale it is perhaps more strange and effective than in the
Idyll. The introduction of Vivien into this adventure is wholly due to
Tennyson: her appearance here leads up to her triumph in the poem which
follows, _Merlin and Vivien_.
The nature and origin of Merlin are something of a mystery. Hints and
rumours of Merlin, as of Arthur, stream from hill and grave as far north
as Tweedside. If he was a historical person, myths of magic might
crystallise round him, as round Virgil in Italy. The process would be
the easier in a country where the practices of Druidry still lingered,
and revived after the retreat of the Romans. The mediæval romancers
invented a legend that Merlin was a virgin-born child of Satan. In
Tennyson he may be guessed to represent the fabled esoteric lore of old
religions, with their vague pantheisms, and such magic as the _tapas_ of
Brahmanic legends. He is wise with a riddling evasive wisdom: the
builder of Camelot, the prophet, a shadow of Druidry clinging to the
Christian king. His wisdom cannot avail him: if he beholds “his own
mischance with a glassy countenance,” he cannot avoid his shapen fate.
He becomes assotted of Vivien, and goes open-eyed to his doom.
The enchantress, Vivien, is one of that dubious company of Ladies of the
Lake, now friendly, now treacherous. Probably these ladies are the
fairies of popular Celtic tradition, taken up into the more elaborate
poetry of Cymric literature and mediæval romance. Mr Rhys traces Vivien,
or Nimue, or Nyneue, back, through a series of palæographic changes and
errors, to Rhiannon, wife of Pwyll, a kind of lady of the lake he thinks,
but the identification is not very satisfactory. Vivien is certainly
“one of the damsels of the lake” in Malory, and the damsels of the lake
seem to be lake fairies, with all their beguilements and strange unstable
loves. “And always Merlin lay about the lady to have her maidenhood, and
she was ever passing weary of him, and fain would have been delivered of
him, for she was afraid of him because he was a devil’s son. . . . So by
her subtle working she made Merlin to go under that stone to let her wit
of the marvels there, but she wrought so there for him that he came never
out for all the craft he could do. And so she departed and left Merlin.”
The sympathy of Malory is not with the enchanter. In the Idylls, as
finally published, Vivien is born on a battlefield of death, with a
nature perverted, and an instinctive hatred of the good. Wherefore she
leaves the Court of King Mark to make mischief in Camelot. She is, in
fact, the ideal minx, a character not elsewhere treated by Tennyson:—
“She hated all the knights, and heard in thought
Their lavish comment when her name was named.
For once, when Arthur walking all alone,
Vext at a rumour issued from herself
Of some corruption crept among his knights,
Had met her, Vivien, being greeted fair,
Would fain have wrought upon his cloudy mood
With reverent eyes mock-loyal, shaken voice,
And flutter’d adoration, and at last
With dark sweet hints of some who prized him more
Than who should prize him most; at which the King
Had gazed upon her blankly and gone by:
But one had watch’d, and had not held his peace:
It made the laughter of an afternoon
That Vivien should attempt the blameless King.
And after that, she set herself to gain
Him, the most famous man of all those times,
Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts,
Had built the King his havens, ships, and halls,
Was also Bard, and knew the starry heavens;
The people call’d him Wizard; whom at first
She play’d about with slight and sprightly talk,
And vivid smiles, and faintly-venom’d points
Of slander, glancing here and grazing there;
And yielding to his kindlier moods, the Seer
Would watch her at her petulance, and play,
Ev’n when they seem’d unloveable, and laugh
As those that watch a kitten; thus he grew
Tolerant of what he half disdain’d, and she,
Perceiving that she was but half disdain’d,
Began to break her sports with graver fits,
Turn red or pale, would often when they met
Sigh fully, or all-silent gaze upon him
With such a fixt devotion, that the old man,
Tho’ doubtful, felt the flattery, and at times
Would flatter his own wish in age for love,
And half believe her true: for thus at times
He waver’d; but that other clung to him,
Fixt in her will, and so the seasons went.”
Vivien is modern enough—if any type of character is modern: at all events
there is no such Blanche Amory of a girl in the old legends and romances.
In these Merlin fatigues the lady by his love; she learns his arts, and
gets rid of him as she can. His forebodings in the Idyll contain a
magnificent image:—
“There lay she all her length and kiss’d his feet,
As if in deepest reverence and in love.
A twist of gold was round her hair; a robe
Of samite without price, that more exprest
Than hid her, clung about her lissome limbs,
In colour like the satin-shining palm
On sallows in the windy gleams of March:
And while she kiss’d them, crying, ‘Trample me,
Dear feet, that I have follow’d thro’ the world,
And I will pay you worship; tread me down
And I will kiss you for it’; he was mute:
So dark a forethought roll’d about his brain,
As on a dull day in an Ocean cave
The blind wave feeling round his long sea-hall
In silence.”
We think of the blinded Cyclops groping round his cave, like “the blind
wave feeling round his long sea-hall.”
The richness, the many shining contrasts and immortal lines in _Vivien_,
seem almost too noble for a subject not easily redeemed, and the picture
of the ideal Court lying in full corruption. Next to _Elaine_, Jowett
wrote that he “admired _Vivien_ the most (the naughty one), which seems
to me a work of wonderful power and skill. It is most elegant and
fanciful. I am not surprised at your Delilah beguiling the wise man; she
is quite equal to it.” The dramatic versatility of Tennyson’s genius,
his power of creating the most various characters, is nowhere better
displayed than in the contrast between the _Vivien_ and the _Elaine_.
Vivien is a type, her adventure is of a nature, which he has not
elsewhere handled. Thackeray, who admired the Idylls so
enthusiastically, might have recognised in Vivien a character not unlike
some of his own, as dark as Becky Sharp, more terrible in her selfishness
than that Beatrix Esmond who is still a paragon, and, in her creator’s
despite, a queen of hearts. In Elaine, on the other hand, Tennyson has
drawn a girl so innocently passionate, and told a tale of love that never
found his earthly close, so delicately beautiful, that we may perhaps
place this Idyll the highest of his poems on love, and reckon it the gem
of the Idylls, the central diamond in the diamond crown. Reading
_Elaine_ once more, after an interval of years, one is captivated by its
grace, its pathos, its nobility. The poet had touched on some
unidentified form of the story, long before, in _The Lady of Shalott_.
That poem had the mystery of romance, but, in human interest, could not
compete with _Elaine_, if indeed any poem of Tennyson’s can be ranked
with this matchless Idyll.
The mere invention, and, as we may say, _charpentage_, are of the first
order. The materials in Malory, though beautiful, are simple, and left a
field for the poet’s invention. {139}
Arthur, with the Scots and Northern knights, means to encounter all
comers at a Whitsuntide tourney. Guinevere is ill, and cannot go to the
jousts, while Lancelot makes excuse that he is not healed of a wound.
“Wherefore the King was heavy and passing wroth, and so he departed
towards Winchester.” The Queen then blamed Lancelot: people will say
they deceive Arthur. “Madame,” said Sir Lancelot, “I allow your wit; it
is of late come that ye were wise.” In the Idyll Guinevere speaks as if
their early loves had been as conspicuous as, according to George
Buchanan, were those of Queen Mary and Bothwell. Lancelot will go to the
tourney, and, despite Guinevere’s warning, will take part against Arthur
and his own fierce Northern kinsmen. He rides to Astolat—“that is,
Gylford”—where Arthur sees him. He borrows the blank shield of “Sir
Torre,” and the company of his brother Sir Lavaine. Elaine “cast such a
love unto Sir Lancelot that she would never withdraw her love, wherefore
she died.” At her prayer, and for better disguise (as he had never worn
a lady’s favour), Lancelot carried her scarlet pearl-embroidered sleeve
in his helmet, and left his shield in Elaine’s keeping. The tourney
passes as in the poem, Gawain recognising Lancelot, but puzzled by the
favour he wears. The wounded Lancelot “thought to do what he might while
he might endure.” When he is offered the prize he is so sore hurt that
he “takes no force of no honour.” He rides into a wood, where Lavaine
draws forth the spear. Lavaine brings Lancelot to the hermit, once a
knight. “I have seen the day,” says the hermit, “I would have loved him
the worse, because he was against my lord, King Arthur, for some time. I
was one of the fellowship of the Round Table, but I thank God now I am
otherwise disposed.” Gawain, seeking the wounded knight, comes to
Astolat, where Elaine declares “he is the man in the world that I first
loved, and truly he is the last that ever I shall love.” Gawain, on
seeing the shield, tells Elaine that the wounded knight is Lancelot, and
she goes to seek him and Lavaine. Gawain does not pay court to Elaine,
nor does Arthur rebuke him, as in the poem. When Guinevere heard that
Lancelot bore another lady’s favour, “she was nigh out of her mind for
wrath,” and expressed her anger to Sir Bors, for Gawain had spoken of the
maid of Astolat. Bors tells this to Lancelot, who is tended by Elaine.
“‘But I well see,’ said Sir Bors, ‘by her diligence about you that she
loveth you entirely.’ ‘That me repenteth,’ said Sir Lancelot. Said Sir
Bors, ‘Sir, she is not the first that hath lost her pain upon you, and
that is the more pity.’” When Lancelot recovers, and returns to Astolat,
she declares her love with the frankness of ladies in mediæval romance.
“Have mercy upon me and suffer me not to die for thy love.” Lancelot
replies with the courtesy and the offers of service which became him.
“Of all this,” said the maiden, “I will none; for but if ye will wed me,
or be my paramour at the least, wit you well, Sir Lancelot, my good days
are done.”
This was a difficult pass for the poet, living in other days of other
manners. His art appears in the turn which he gives to Elaine’s
declaration:—
“But when Sir Lancelot’s deadly hurt was whole,
To Astolat returning rode the three.
There morn by morn, arraying her sweet self
In that wherein she deem’d she look’d her best,
She came before Sir Lancelot, for she thought
‘If I be loved, these are my festal robes,
If not, the victim’s flowers before he fall.’
And Lancelot ever prest upon the maid
That she should ask some goodly gift of him
For her own self or hers; ‘and do not shun
To speak the wish most near to your true heart;
Such service have ye done me, that I make
My will of yours, and Prince and Lord am I
In mine own land, and what I will I can.’
Then like a ghost she lifted up her face,
But like a ghost without the power to speak.
And Lancelot saw that she withheld her wish,
And bode among them yet a little space
Till he should learn it; and one morn it chanced
He found her in among the garden yews,
And said, ‘Delay no longer, speak your wish,
Seeing I go to-day’: then out she brake:
‘Going? and we shall never see you more.
And I must die for want of one bold word.’
‘Speak: that I live to hear,’ he said, ‘is yours.’
Then suddenly and passionately she spoke:
‘I have gone mad. I love you: let me die.’
‘Ah, sister,’ answer’d Lancelot, ‘what is this?’
And innocently extending her white arms,
‘Your love,’ she said, ‘your love—to be your wife.’
And Lancelot answer’d, ‘Had I chosen to wed,
I had been wedded earlier, sweet Elaine:
But now there never will be wife of mine.’
‘No, no’ she cried, ‘I care not to be wife,
But to be with you still, to see your face,
To serve you, and to follow you thro’ the world.’
And Lancelot answer’d, ‘Nay, the world, the world,
All ear and eye, with such a stupid heart
To interpret ear and eye, and such a tongue
To blare its own interpretation—nay,
Full ill then should I quit your brother’s love,
And your good father’s kindness.’ And she said,
‘Not to be with you, not to see your face—
Alas for me then, my good days are done.’”
So she dies, and is borne down Thames to London, the fairest corpse, “and
she lay as though she had smiled.” Her letter is read. “Ye might have
showed her,” said the Queen, “some courtesy and gentleness that might
have preserved her life;” and so the two are reconciled.
Such, in brief, is the tender old tale of true love, with the shining
courtesy of Lavaine and the father of the maid, who speak no word of
anger against Lancelot. “For since first I saw my lord, Sir Lancelot,”
says Lavaine, “I could never depart from him, nor nought I will, if I may
follow him: she doth as I do.” To the simple and moving story Tennyson
adds, by way of ornament, the diamonds, the prize of the tourney, and the
manner of their finding:—
“For Arthur, long before they crown’d him King,
Roving the trackless realms of Lyonnesse,
Had found a glen, gray boulder and black tarn.
A horror lived about the tarn, and clave
Like its own mists to all the mountain side:
For here two brothers, one a king, had met
And fought together; but their names were lost;
And each had slain his brother at a blow;
And down they fell and made the glen abhorr’d:
And there they lay till all their bones were bleach’d,
And lichen’d into colour with the crags:
And he, that once was king, had on a crown
Of diamonds, one in front, and four aside.
And Arthur came, and labouring up the pass,
All in a misty moonshine, unawares
Had trodden that crown’d skeleton, and the skull
Brake from the nape, and from the skull the crown
Roll’d into light, and turning on its rims
Fled like a glittering rivulet to the tarn:
And down the shingly scaur he plunged, and caught,
And set it on his head, and in his heart
Heard murmurs, ‘Lo, thou likewise shalt be King.’”