Bedivere

“ The time for casting away has not yet come." Thinking on this, it seemed to Bedivere that no good, but harm, must come of obeying the King's word; so hiding the sword under a tree, he hastened back to the little chapel. Then said the King: "What saw'st thou?" "Sir," answered Bedivere, "I saw naught but the waves, heard naught but the wind." "That is untrue," said King Arthur; "I charge thee, as thou art true knight, go again and spare not to throw away the sword." ”

“ 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: “Hearest thou this great voice that shakes the world, 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, Nor whence I am, nor whether I be King. ”

“ Then Sir Bedivere wept for his brother. "Leave this mourning and weeping," said the king, "for wilt thou well, if I might live myself, the death of Sir Lucan would grieve me evermore; but my time hieth fast. Therefore," said Arthur unto Sir Bedivere, "take thou Excalibar, my good sword, and go with it to yonder water-side; and when thou comest there I charge thee throw my sword in that water, and come again and tell me what thou there seest." "My lord," said Sir Bedivere, "your commandment shall be done." ”

“ Then Sir Bedivere said to the King, “Look you, Sir, how he stands looking at us in the moonlight, like a wounded hawk looking upon those who have wounded him. Beware, Sir, and remember the dream that you had last night when Sir Gawaine appeared to you in that dream. So far have you escaped all harm, but should you assail this desperate man, who knoweth but that you may yet meet your death at this time and at his hands?”
But King Arthur said, “What is my life to me now, and what have I to lose in losing my life? Have I not lost my Queen, who was the lover of my youth? ”

“ And so he wandered here to Glastonbury. And when he found Bedivere here, when Bedivere had told him all about the great battle, and when he had shown him the grave in the chapel where he believed that King Arthur was buried, then Lancelot begged the abbot to let him stay here and be a monk with the rest of them as long as he lived. And the abbot and Bedivere were both glad to have him stay. So Lancelot, too, lived his life among his brother monks and among the poor and the sick, and they all learned to love him, as, long ago, all the good knights in Arthur's court had learned to love him. ”

“ Then to King Arthur spoke Sir Bedivere:
"Far other is this battle, our great test,
Whereto we move, than when great Lancelot
(Now far cavorting in the snow at Cannes)
Thrust his great rival from St. Stephen's seats,
And shook him thro' the North. Ill doom is ours
To war against our rivals, and each other.
The chief who fights old followers fights himself,
And they, old friends who loved us once, the stroke
We strike at them is a back-stroke to us. ”

“ They had come to take him away, Sir Bedivere did not know where. When they saw the wounded king, they gave a cry of grief that seemed to rise to the stars. Then they lifted him into the barge. The tallest put his head on her knees, and took off his broken helmet. She called him by name, weeping bitterly.
Poor Sir Bedivere cried:
"Oh, my Lord Arthur, you are leaving me. Where shall I go? The great Round Table is broken up forever. What shall I do?"
Then Arthur answered:
"Old customs pass and new ones come. God makes his world better in many ways. ”

“ Bedivere
Sick and sated. The heavy clouds seem to fall on us. One would say that all the tempests of the world had gathered in that storm, which soon will break about us.
Lucan
There’s something monstrous in the season, a curse and an infection. Storm after storm! The corn rots unripened, there’s mildew in the orchards.
Bedivere
And here, unnatural strife. Arthur and the brother of his heart.
Lucan
And the Queen betwixt them, like some baleful star.
Bedivere
And Gawaine mad with hate.
Lucan
How long is it since we have besieged this Joyous Gard of Launcelot’s? ”

“ Iron indeed would have been the grasp which could have held a knight so doughty as Arthur. Slipping from the monster’s clutches, the King hacked at his adversary now in one place, now in another, till at length he smote the giant so mightily that Excalibur was buried deep in his brain-pan. The giant fell like an oak torn up by the roots in the fury of the winds. Rushing up as he crashed to the earth, Sir Bedivere struck off the hideous head, grinning in death, to be a show to those in the tents below. ”

“ The night before the battle, Sir Bedivere heard the king praying. Then Arthur slept, and when he awakened he called to his friend:
"Sir Bedivere," he said, "I have had a dream. I thought that Sir Gawain came to me and told me that to-morrow I shall die."
"My lord, it is but a dream," answered Sir Bedivere. "You are great; you have [262] done much good which will last forever, and you will live many years yet to perform many gracious acts. The day will soon dawn, and you will win the battle." ”

“ Then the king was very angry.
"Ah, unkind!" he cried. "You, too, are a traitor. Because I am dying, I have no authority. You refuse to obey me, you who are the last of my knights! Yet it is possible for a man to fail in his duty twice, and succeed the third time. Go now, and throw Excalibur."
Sir Bedivere ran quickly and seized the sword, shutting his eyes that he might not see its beauty. He whirled it round his head and threw it far out over the lake. ”

“ But when Arthur told his dream to Sir Bedivere, good old Sir Bedivere replied, "Don't mind what dreams tell you, but get your knights together and go out to the West to meet Sir Modred, who has stirred up against you so many of the knights you love. They all know in their hearts that you are king. Go and conquer them as of old." ”

“ Yet men begin to cry that with the King all is profitless fighting, but with Mordred feasting and plunder.
Bedivere
Would God we were fighting him, not Launcelot.
Gawaine enters.
Gawaine
Where is the King?
Bedivere
He has passed into his tent. He rests.
Gawaine
What, can remembrance sleep? The wrong that Launcelot has done is red before my eyes, day and night. Can he forget?
Bedivere
The King were a glad man, if he could forget. At the bottom of their hearts is a dear love one to the other. ”

“ He gripped them hard for one font moment, the eyes of the physician keen, the eyes of the man—what clamored in the eyes of the man? As she began vaguely to question with an unaccountable hurry of heartbeats, the dominant forces of a sternly self commanded nature again assumed supremacy. He stooped to pat the head of Sir Bedivere, who was insistently demanding recognition. ”

“ Him Sir Bedivere 170
Remorsefully regarded thro’ 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,
And rising bore him thro’ the place of tombs. 175
But, as he walk’d, King Arthur panted hard,
Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed
When all the house is mute. So sigh’d the King,
Muttering and murmuring at his ear, ‘Quick, quick! ”

“ Once again Sir Bedivere returned to the lake and once again he came back to Arthur with a lying tale that he had obeyed the King's commands. Then Arthur in high anger commanded him to deceive a dying man no longer and Sir Bedivere at last went back and threw Excalibur into the lake. ”

“ WOMAN'S WORK IN THE MIDDLE AGES.
"King Arthur's sword, Excalibur,
Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake.
Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps
Upon the hidden bases of the hills."
Sir Bedivere's heart misgave him twice ere he could obey the dying commands of King Arthur, and fling away so precious a relic. The lonely maiden's industry has been equalled by many of her mortal sisters, sitting, not indeed "upon the hidden bases of the hills," but in all the varied human habitations built above them since the days of King Arthur. ”

“ Was Bedivere right, he thought to himself, or were the barons right? As he sat pondering over everything in his palace, three great visitors came to the castle; these were the Queen of Orkney, the daughter of Gerlois and Ygerne, with her two sons, Gawain and Modred. Leodogran made a great feast for them and while entertaining them at table remembered what Bedivere had said about Arthur and this queen. So he turned to the queen and remarked:
THREE VISITORS TO THE CASTLE.
"An insecure throne is no better than a mass of ice in a summer's sea; it all melts away. You are from Arthur's court ”

“ Sir Bedivere was there ever still hermit to his life's end, but the French book maketh mention that Sir Bors and three of the knights that were with him at the hermitage went into the Holy Land, and there did many battles upon the miscreant Turks, and there they died upon a Good Friday, for God's sake. ”

“ And when Sir Bedivere lost sight of the barge, he wept bitterly; and, weeping, he went into the forest, where he wandered all that long night.
“Some men yet say,” continues Sir Thomas Malory, “that King Arthur is not dead, but taken by the will of our Lord into another place. And men say that he shall come again and shall win the holy cross. ”

“ That famous fellowship of knights is dust.
Guenevere
Who shall let leap his bright sword in the air?
In what cause? There is no cause any more.
What tidings brought Sir Bedivere? Tell all.
[Pg 125]
Lynned
The rebel power is broken, and he that raised it
Dead. Woe on us that the King died with him!
Upon a field all mounded with the slain,
The bloodiest harvest Time did ever reap,
He and the traitor Mordred met their last
And smote each other, even to the death. ”

“ Bernard of Quintavalle occupies in the story something of the position of Sir Bedivere, "first made and latest left of Arthur's knights," for he reappears again at the right hand of the saint on his deathbed and receives some sort of special blessing. But all those things belong to another historical world and were quite remote from the ragged and fantastic trio in their tumble-down hut. They were not monks except perhaps in the most literal and archaic sense which was identical with hermits. They were, so to speak, three solitaries living together socially, but not as a society. ”

“ Arthur is royal to the close, and when he passes away with the weeping Queens across the mere, unlike the star of the tournament he was of old, he is still the King. Sir Bedivere, left alone on the freezing shore, hears the King give his last message to the world. It is a modern Christian who speaks, but the phrases do not sound out of harmony with that which might be in Romance. Moreover, the end of the saying is of Avilion or Avalon—of the old heathen Celtic place where the wounded are healed and the old made young. ”

“ Bedivere
Our grief it was, your presence shone not on us.
Bors
Ah, Madam, had you seen Sir Launcelot there!
Kay
He never rode so terrible a course
In all his days.
Bedivere
There was no man could stand
Against the fury of his setting on.
Colegrevance
Why, all men have their lucky day. ”