Le Morte d'Arthur

“ When King Arthur beheld that piteous sight he had great compassion on them, so that his heart bled for sorrow, and hailed him, saying in this wise: He that all the world wieldeth give thee short life and shameful death; and the devil have thy soul; why hast thou murdered these young innocent children, and murdered this duchess? Therefore, arise and dress thee, thou glutton, for this day shalt thou die of my hand. Then the glutton anon started up, and took a great club in his hand, and smote at the king that his coronal fell to the earth. ”

“ KING ARTHUR'S DEATH. A FRAGMENT. Reliques of English Poetry, iii, 67.
"The subject of this ballad is evidently taken from the old romance Morte Arthur, but with some variations, especially in the concluding stanzas; in which the author seems rather to follow the traditions of the old Welsh Bards, who 'believed that King Arthur was not dead, but conveied awaie by the Fairies into some pleasant place, where he should remaine for a time, and then returne againe and reign in as great authority as ever.' (Holinshed, B. 5, c. 14.) ”

“ Recommending unto King Arthur and to all his knights errant, beseeching them all that insomuch as I, King Hermance, king of the Red City, thus am slain by felony and treason, through two knights of mine own, and of mine own bringing up and of mine own making, that some worshipful knight will revenge my death, insomuch I have been ever to my power well willing unto Arthur’s court. And who that will adventure his life with these two traitors for my sake in one battle, I, King Hermance, king of the Red City, freely give him all my lands and rents that ever I welded in my life. ”

“ When this occurs on a windless night, the echo of it rings through the timbers of the old houses in a haven.” (Tennyson.) A ground-swell is a heavy swell due to a violent gale. It is often felt for some days afterwards and on shores which are far distant from the scene of the storm.
MORTE D’ARTHUR.
Published in 1842.
Morte D’Arthur (The Death of Arthur) is a story of King Arthur and The Round Table, based on the legend entitled Morte D’Arthur, which was written by Malory, an English writer of the sixteenth century. ”

“ But though assuredly the poet’s love for the picturesque is in this noble epic—for epic the Idylls in their completed state may be accounted—amply indulged, I think it is seldom to the detriment of the human interest, and the remark I made about one of them, the “Morte d’Arthur,” really applies to all. The Arthur cycle is not historical, as “Harold” or “Queen Mary” is, where the style is often simple almost to baldness; the whole of it belongs to the reign of myth, legend, fairy story, and parable. ”

“ And when it was known that the emperor was slain, anon all the Romans with all their host put them to flight, and King Arthur with all his knights followed the chase, and slew down right all them that they might attain. And thus was the victory given to King Arthur, and the triumph; and there were slain on the part of Lucius more than an hundred thousand. And after King Arthur did do ransack the dead bodies, and did do bury them that were slain of his retinue, every man according to the estate and degree that he was of. ”

“ Nay, said Sir Arthur, I may not so, for I have promised to do the battle to the uttermost, by the faith of my body, while me lasteth the life, and therefore I had lever to die with honour than to live with shame; and if it were possible for me to die an hundred times, I had lever to die so oft than yield me to thee; for though I lack weapon, I shall lack no worship, and if thou slay me weaponless that shall be thy shame. ”

“ But an angry murmur arose from the barons, who cried that what a boy could do, a man could do; so, at the Archbishop's word, the sword was put back, and each man, whether baron or knight, tried in his turn to draw it forth, and failed. Then, for the third time, Arthur drew forth the sword. Immediately there arose from the people a great shout: "Arthur is King! Arthur is King! We will have no King but Arthur" ”

“ He who has been familiar with the old Morte Arthur from his boyhood, must consent to let the poet transport him into a quite new region of the imagination, and must in a manner and for the time forget the old before he can read the Idylls of the King without a somewhat sad feeling that these are not the old knights whom he has always known. ”

“ Malory, at any rate, had some such purpose, for Caxton assures us that the Morte Darthur was “written for our doctrine, and for to beware that we fall not to vice nor sin, but to exercise and follow virtue.” “In Malory’s compilation, and in later mediæval romance, the fate of Arthur means the fate of the chivalrous ideal, whose irreconcilable elements were incorporated in him. In the romantic historians the fate of Arthur is the fate of the Christian Britons in conflict with heathenism from without and treason from within. ”

“ OF THE OPINION OF SOME MEN OF THE DEATH OF KING ARTHUR; AND HOW QUEEN GUENEVER MADE HER A NUN IN ALMESBURY
Yet some men say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place; and men say that he shall come again, and he shall win the holy cross. ”

“ King Arthur was filled with wrath against the Queen, more for the wrong done to Sir Accolon than for the treason to himself. In all ways that he might, he sought to comfort and relieve Sir Accolon, but in vain, for daily the knight grew weaker, and, after many days, he died. Then the King, being recovered of his wounds, returned to Camelot, and calling together a band of knights, led them against the castle of Sir Damas. ”

“ And if I fail to heal him here in this land, I will never take more pain upon me, and that is pity, for he was a good knight, and of great nobleness. What is his name? said Arthur. My good and gracious lord, she said, his name is Sir Urre of the Mount. In good time, said the king, and sith ye are come into this land, ye are right welcome; and wit you well here shall your son be healed, an ever any Christian man may heal him. ”

“ Now shall ye hear what was the cause that King Arthur came into the Forest Perilous, that was in North Wales, by the means of a lady. Her name was Annowre, and this lady came to King Arthur at Cardiff; and she by fair promise and fair behests made King Arthur to ride with her into that Forest Perilous; and she was a great sorceress; and many days she had loved King Arthur, and because she would have him to lie by her she came into that country. So when the king was gone with her many of his knights followed after King Arthur when they missed him, as Sir Launcelot, Brandiles, and many other ”

“ There remains yet space for the twelfth; wherefore, with all speed, send him your beard, else will he lay waste your land with fire and sword." "Viler message," said King Arthur, "was never sent from man to man. Get thee gone, lest we forget thine office protects thee." So spoke the King, for he had seen his knights clap hand to sword, and would not that a messenger should suffer hurt in his court.
Now among the knights present the while was one whom men called Balin le Savage, who had but late been freed from prison for slaying a knight of Arthur's court. ”

“ Birth is a mystery and death is a mystery, and in the midst lies the tableland of life.’” Modern though this “drift” may be, it is perennial and universal enough in its appeal to save the ‘Idylls’—notwithstanding the references to the “modern gentleman” and the Prince Consort—from being a merely Victorian poem, or series of poems. They do not, together, constitute an Arthuriad: they are not meant to represent “the epic, some twelve books” with “faint Homeric echoes” which Tennyson may have been meditating in his earlier years when he published his Morte D’Arthur. ”

“ Mercy Jesu, said the king, why slew he Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris, for I dare say as for Sir Gareth he loved Sir Launcelot above all men earthly. That is truth, said some knights, but they were slain in the hurtling as Sir Launcelot thrang in the thick of the press; and as they were unarmed he smote them and wist not whom that he smote, and so unhappily they were slain. The death of them, said Arthur, will cause the greatest mortal war that ever was ”

“ And hereafter followeth the most piteous history of the morte of King Arthur, the which is the twentieth book.
BOOK XX.
CHAPTER I.
How Sir Agravaine and Sir Mordred were busy upon Sir Gawaine for to disclose the love between Sir Launcelot and Queen Guenever.
In May when every lusty heart flourisheth and bourgeoneth, for as the season is lusty to behold and comfortable, so man and woman rejoice and gladden of summer coming with his fresh flowers: for winter with his rough winds and blasts causeth a lusty man and woman to cower and sit fast by the fire. ”

“ I will do it with a good will, said King Arthur, and do unto you all the worship that I may, for I must by reason ye are my nephew, my sister’s son.
CHAPTER III.
How a poor man riding upon a lean mare desired King Arthur to make his son knight.
Forthwithal there came a poor man into the court, and brought with him a fair young man of eighteen years of age riding upon a lean mare; and the poor man asked all men that he met, Where shall I find King Arthur? Yonder he is, said the knights, wilt thou anything with him? ”

“ Now, said Sir Ector to Arthur, I understand ye must be king of this land. Wherefore I, said Arthur, and for what cause? Sir, said Ector, for God will have it so, for there should never man have drawn out this sword, but he that shall be rightways king of this land. ”

“ King Arthur followed ever after; for in his heart was bitter anger against the false nephew who had wrought woe upon him and all his realm. At the last, when Mordred could flee no further, the two hosts were drawn up near the shore of the great western sea; and it was the Feast of the Holy Trinity. ”

“ And at the feast of Pentecost all manner of men essayed to pull at the sword that would essay, but none might prevail but Arthur, and pulled it out afore all the lords and commons that were there, wherefore all the commons cried at once, We will have Arthur unto our king, we will put him no more in delay, for we all see that it is God's will that he shall be our king, and who that holdeth against it, we will slay him. ”

“ It grieveth me, said Sir Launcelot, to speak of his death, for all the world may not find such a knight. All this is truth, said Sir Bors, but there is one thing shall courage you and us all, ye know well King Arthur and King Mark were never like of conditions, for there was never yet man could prove King Arthur untrue of his promise. ”

“ To whom I answered, that divers men hold opinion that there was no such Arthur, and that all such books as been made of him be feigned and fables, by cause that some chronicles make of him no mention nor remember him no thing, nor of his knights. Whereto they answered and one in special said, that in him that should say or think that there was never such a king called Arthur, might well be credited great folly and blindness ”

“ And so, in history, Arthur, the hero of such a mass of romantic story, is little more than a name, and it is hardly possible to explain how he attained to such renown as the hero of marvellous and, sometimes, magical feats, unless on the supposition that he became confused with some legendary hero, half god, half man, whose fame he added to his own. ”

“ And so by fortune the ship drave unto a castle, and was all to-riven, and destroyed the most part, save that Mordred was cast up, and a good man found him, and nourished him till he was fourteen year old, and then he brought him to the court, as it rehearseth afterward, toward the end of the Death of Arthur. So many lords and barons of this realm were displeased, for their children were so lost, and many put the wyte on Merlin more than on Arthur ”

“ And when they were come to the abbey, he let fetch leeches and search his wounds and Accolon’s both; but Sir Accolon died within four days, for he had bled so much blood that he might not live, but King Arthur was well recovered. ”

“ Then were they wroth both, and gave each other many sore strokes, but always Sir Arthur lost so much blood that it was marvel he stood on his feet, but he was so full of knighthood that knightly he endured the pain. ”

“ Arthur is dead, aye, there the corzie grows, But while he lived, the danger was the more; His death hath freed me from a thousand fears, But it hath purchased me ten times ten thousand foes. Why all is one; such luck shall haunt his game, To whom the devil owes an open shame. His life a foe that leveled at my crown, His death a frame to pull my building down. ”

“ Attention is next claimed by some of the references to Arthur in Welsh literature, and here the Black Book of Carmarthen is entitled to the first place. The manuscript may be supposed to have been written in the reigns of Stephen, Henry II., and Richard. [15] One of the allusions to Arthur in this manuscript consists of a triplet occurring in the Stanzas of the Graves, apprising the reader of the futility of looking for Arthur’s grave, as follows [16] :—
⁠Bet y march. ”

“ Alas! e'en now I feel the icy hand
Of hasty death, press down my swelling heart;
E'en now I hear a sweet aerial band,
Summon thy faithful Arthur to depart.
Let not thy tears an absent lover mourn,
Remember that he bravely, nobly died ”

“ One of us had to die. As for the damsel, she died by her own hand, for which no man can be sorrier than I. For her sake I shall owe all women the better love and favor."
"You have done yourself great damage," said the dwarf. "The kindred of this knight will follow you through the world till they have revenged on you his death."
"That I do not greatly dread," said Balin. "But I am sorry to have displeased King Arthur for the death of this knight; and sorrier still for the fate of this lovelorn damsel." ”