English Literature for Boys and Girls - H. E. Marshall

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has been printed many times, and it is through it perhaps, more than through the earlier books, that the stories of Arthur still live for us. Yet it is not perfect - it has indeed been called "a most pleasant jumble."* Malory made up none of the stories; as he himself tells us, he took them from French books, and in some of these French books the stories are told much better. But what we have to remember and thank Malory for is that he kept alive the stories of Arthur. He did this more than any other writer in that he wrote in English such as all English-speaking people must love to read.

      *J. Furnivell

      BOOKS TO READ

      Stories of King Arthur's Knights, by Mary Macgregor.

       Stories from Morte d'Arthur, by C. L. Thomson. Morte d'Arthur,

       Globe Edition.

       Table of Contents

      FOUR hundred years after Malory wrote his book, another English writer told the tales of Arthur anew. This was the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He told them in poetry.

      Tennyson calls his poems the Idylls of the King. Idyll means a short poem about some simple and beautiful subject. The king that Tennyson sings of is the great King Arthur.

      Tennyson takes his stories, some from The Mabinogion, some from Malory, some from other books. He has told them in very beautiful English, and it is the English such as we speak to-day. He has smoothed away much that strikes us as rough and coarse in the old stories, and his poems are as different from the old stories as a polished diamond is different from the stone newly brought out of the mine. Yet we miss something of strength and vigor. The Arthur of the Idylls is not the Arthur of The Mabinogion nor of Malory. Indeed, Tennyson makes him "almost too good to be true": he is "Ideal manhood closed in real man, rather than that gray king" of old.

      And now I will give you part of the last of the Arthur poems, The Passing of Arthur, so that you may read it along with Layamon's account of the hero's death, and see for yourselves the difference between the two. The Passing of Arthur is written in blank verse, that is verse which does not rhyme, and which depends like the old English verse on the accent. Yet they are not alike.

      "So all day long the noise of battle roll'd

       Among the mountains by the winter sea;

       Until King Arthur's Table, man by man,

       Had fall'n in Lyonnesse about their lord,

       King Arthur. Then, because his wound was deep,

       The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,

       And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,

       A broken chancel by a broken cross,

       That stood in a dark strait of barren land:

       On one side lay the Ocean, and on one

       Lay a great water, and the moon was full."

      Then the King bids Sir Bedivere take his sword Excalibur,

      "And fling him far into the middle mere:

       Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word."

      Sir Bedivere takes the sword, and,

      "From the ruin'd shrine he stept

       And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,

       Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,

       Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang

       Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down

       By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock,

       Came on the shining levels of the lake."

      But when Sir Bedivere drew Excalibur and saw the jewels of the hilt shine in the wintry moonlight, he could not find it in his heart to cast anything so beautiful and precious from him. So, hiding it among the reeds by the water's edge, he returned to his master.

      "Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:

       'Hast thou perform'd my mission which I gave?

       What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?'

       And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:

       'I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,

       And the wild water lapping on the crag.'"

      But King Arthur well knew that Sir Bedivere had not obeyed him. "This is a shameful thing for men to lie," he said, and once more sent the knight to do his bidding.

      Again Sir Bedivere went, but again he could not make up his mind to cast away the sword. "The King is sick, and knows not what he does," he said to himself. So a second time he hid the sword and returned.

      "Then spake King Arthur, breathing heavily:

       'What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?'

      And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:

       'I heard the water lapping on the crag,

       And the long ripple washing in the reeds.'

      To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath:

       'Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,

       Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!

       Authority forgets a dying king.'"

      Then, sorrowful and abashed before the anger of the dying King, Sir Bedivere turned, and running quickly lest his courage should fail him, he reached the water's edge and flung the sword far into the lake.

      "But ere he dip the surface, rose an arm

       Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,

       And caught him by the hilt, and brandish'd him

       Three times, and drew him under in the mere."

      Then Sir Bedivere, in wonder, returned to the King, who, when he saw him come, cried:-

      "'Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.

       Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?'"

      So Sir Bedivere told the King how truly this time he had cast away the sword, and how an arm "clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful," had caught it and drawn it under the mere. Then at the King's bidding Sir Bedivere raised Arthur and bore him to the water's edge.

      "Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge,

       Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,

       Beneath them; and descending they were ware

       That all the decks were dense with stately forms,

       Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream - by these

       Three Queens with crowns of gold: and from them rose

       A cry that shiver'd to the tingling start,

       And, as it were one voice, an agony

       Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills

       All night in a waste land, where no one comes,

       Or hath come, since the making of the world.

      Then, murmur'd Arthur, 'Place me in the barge.'

       So to the barge they came. There those three Queens

       Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept."

      Then slowly from the shore the barge moved. And Sir Bedivere, as he saw his master go, was filled with grief and loneliness, for he only of all the brave King's knights was left. And so he cried in mourning:-

      "'Ah! my Lord Arthur, wither shall I go?

       Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?

       For now I see the true old times are dead.

      …

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