Idylls of the King, Alfred Lord Tennyson [the reading strategies book TXT] 📗

mother, all before his time

Was Arthur born, and all as soon as born

Delivered at a secret postern-gate

To Merlin, to be holden far apart

Until his hour should come; because the lords

Of that fierce day were as the lords of this,

Wild beasts, and surely would have torn the child

Piecemeal among them, had they known; for each

But sought to rule for his own self and hand,

And many hated Uther for the sake

Of Gorlois. Wherefore Merlin took the child,

And gave him to Sir Anton, an old knight

And ancient friend of Uther; and his wife

Nursed the young prince, and reared him with her own;

And no man knew. And ever since the lords

Have foughten like wild beasts among themselves,

So that the realm has gone to wrack: but now,

This year, when Merlin (for his hour had come)

Brought Arthur forth, and set him in the hall,

Proclaiming, “Here is Uther’s heir, your king,”

A hundred voices cried, “Away with him!

No king of ours! a son of Gorlois he,

Or else the child of Anton, and no king,

Or else baseborn.” Yet Merlin through his craft,

And while the people clamoured for a king,

Had Arthur crowned; but after, the great lords

Banded, and so brake out in open war.’

 

Then while the King debated with himself

If Arthur were the child of shamefulness,

Or born the son of Gorlois, after death,

Or Uther’s son, and born before his time,

Or whether there were truth in anything

Said by these three, there came to Cameliard,

With Gawain and young Modred, her two sons,

Lot’s wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent;

Whom as he could, not as he would, the King

Made feast for, saying, as they sat at meat,

 

‘A doubtful throne is ice on summer seas.

Ye come from Arthur’s court. Victor his men

Report him! Yea, but ye—think ye this king—

So many those that hate him, and so strong,

So few his knights, however brave they be—

Hath body enow to hold his foemen down?’

 

‘O King,’ she cried, ‘and I will tell thee: few,

Few, but all brave, all of one mind with him;

For I was near him when the savage yells

Of Uther’s peerage died, and Arthur sat

Crowned on the dais, and his warriors cried,

“Be thou the king, and we will work thy will

Who love thee.” Then the King in low deep tones,

And simple words of great authority,

Bound them by so strait vows to his own self,

That when they rose, knighted from kneeling, some

Were pale as at the passing of a ghost,

Some flushed, and others dazed, as one who wakes

Half-blinded at the coming of a light.

 

‘But when he spake and cheered his Table Round

With large, divine, and comfortable words,

Beyond my tongue to tell thee—I beheld

From eye to eye through all their Order flash

A momentary likeness of the King:

And ere it left their faces, through the cross

And those around it and the Crucified,

Down from the casement over Arthur, smote

Flame-colour, vert and azure, in three rays,

One falling upon each of three fair queens,

Who stood in silence near his throne, the friends

Of Arthur, gazing on him, tall, with bright

Sweet faces, who will help him at his need.

 

‘And there I saw mage Merlin, whose vast wit

And hundred winters are but as the hands

Of loyal vassals toiling for their liege.

 

‘And near him stood the Lady of the Lake,

Who knows a subtler magic than his own—

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful.

She gave the King his huge cross-hilted sword,

Whereby to drive the heathen out: a mist

Of incense curled about her, and her face

Wellnigh was hidden in the minster gloom;

But there was heard among the holy hymns

A voice as of the waters, for she dwells

Down in a deep; calm, whatsoever storms

May shake the world, and when the surface rolls,

Hath power to walk the waters like our Lord.

 

‘There likewise I beheld Excalibur

Before him at his crowning borne, the sword

That rose from out the bosom of the lake,

And Arthur rowed across and took it—rich

With jewels, elfin Urim, on the hilt,

Bewildering heart and eye—the blade so bright

That men are blinded by it—on one side,

Graven in the oldest tongue of all this world,

“Take me,” but turn the blade and ye shall see,

And written in the speech ye speak yourself,

“Cast me away!” And sad was Arthur’s face

Taking it, but old Merlin counselled him,

“Take thou and strike! the time to cast away

Is yet far-off.” So this great brand the king

Took, and by this will beat his foemen down.’

 

Thereat Leodogran rejoiced, but thought

To sift his doubtings to the last, and asked,

Fixing full eyes of question on her face,

‘The swallow and the swift are near akin,

But thou art closer to this noble prince,

Being his own dear sister;’ and she said,

‘Daughter of Gorlois and Ygerne am I;’

‘And therefore Arthur’s sister?’ asked the King.

She answered, ‘These be secret things,’ and signed

To those two sons to pass, and let them be.

And Gawain went, and breaking into song

Sprang out, and followed by his flying hair

Ran like a colt, and leapt at all he saw:

But Modred laid his ear beside the doors,

And there half-heard; the same that afterward

Struck for the throne, and striking found his doom.

 

And then the Queen made answer, ‘What know I?

For dark my mother was in eyes and hair,

And dark in hair and eyes am I; and dark

Was Gorlois, yea and dark was Uther too,

Wellnigh to blackness; but this King is fair

Beyond the race of Britons and of men.

Moreover, always in my mind I hear

A cry from out the dawning of my life,

A mother weeping, and I hear her say,

“O that ye had some brother, pretty one,

To guard thee on the rough ways of the world.”’

 

‘Ay,’ said the King, ‘and hear ye such a cry?

But when did Arthur chance upon thee first?’

 

‘O King!’ she cried, ‘and I will tell thee true:

He found me first when yet a little maid:

Beaten I had been for a little fault

Whereof I was not guilty; and out I ran

And flung myself down on a bank of heath,

And hated this fair world and all therein,

And wept, and wished that I were dead; and he—

I know not whether of himself he came,

Or brought by Merlin, who, they say, can walk

Unseen at pleasure—he was at my side,

And spake sweet words, and comforted my heart,

And dried my tears, being a child with me.

And many a time he came, and evermore

As I grew greater grew with me; and sad

At times he seemed, and sad with him was I,

Stern too at times, and then I loved him not,

But sweet again, and then I loved him well.

And now of late I see him less and less,

But those first days had golden hours for me,

For then I surely thought he would be king.

 

‘But let me tell thee now another tale:

For Bleys, our Merlin’s master, as they say,

Died but of late, and sent his cry to me,

To hear him speak before he left his life.

Shrunk like a fairy changeling lay the mage;

And when I entered told me that himself

And Merlin ever served about the King,

Uther, before he died; and on the night

When Uther in Tintagil past away

Moaning and wailing for an heir, the two

Left the still King, and passing forth to breathe,

Then from the castle gateway by the chasm

Descending through the dismal night—a night

In which the bounds of heaven and earth were lost—

Beheld, so high upon the dreary deeps

It seemed in heaven, a ship, the shape thereof

A dragon winged, and all from stern to stern

Bright with a shining people on the decks,

And gone as soon as seen. And then the two

Dropt to the cove, and watched the great sea fall,

Wave after wave, each mightier than the last,

Till last, a ninth one, gathering half the deep

And full of voices, slowly rose and plunged

Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame:

And down the wave and in the flame was borne

A naked babe, and rode to Merlin’s feet,

Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried “The King!

Here is an heir for Uther!” And the fringe

Of that great breaker, sweeping up the strand,

Lashed at the wizard as he spake the word,

And all at once all round him rose in fire,

So that the child and he were clothed in fire.

And presently thereafter followed calm,

Free sky and stars: “And this the same child,” he said,

“Is he who reigns; nor could I part in peace

Till this were told.” And saying this the seer

Went through the strait and dreadful pass of death,

Not ever to be questioned any more

Save on the further side; but when I met

Merlin, and asked him if these things were truth—

The shining dragon and the naked child

Descending in the glory of the seas—

He laughed as is his wont, and answered me

In riddling triplets of old time, and said:

 

‘“Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow in the sky!

A young man will be wiser by and by;

An old man’s wit may wander ere he die.

Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow on the lea!

And truth is this to me, and that to thee;

And truth or clothed or naked let it be.

Rain, sun, and rain! and the free blossom blows:

Sun, rain, and sun! and where is he who knows?

From the great deep to the great deep he goes.”

 

‘So Merlin riddling angered me; but thou

Fear not to give this King thy only child,

Guinevere: so great bards of him will sing

Hereafter; and dark sayings from of old

Ranging and ringing through the minds of men,

And echoed by old folk beside their fires

For comfort after their wage-work is done,

Speak of the King; and Merlin in our time

Hath spoken also, not in jest, and sworn

Though men may wound him that he will not die,

But pass, again to come; and then or now

Utterly smite the heathen underfoot,

Till these and all men hail him for their king.’

 

She spake and King Leodogran rejoiced,

But musing, ‘Shall I answer yea or nay?’

Doubted, and drowsed, nodded and slept, and saw,

Dreaming, a slope of land that ever grew,

Field after field, up to a height, the peak

Haze-hidden, and thereon a phantom king,

Now looming, and now lost; and on the slope

The sword rose, the hind fell, the herd was driven,

Fire glimpsed; and all the land from roof and rick,

In drifts of smoke before a rolling wind,

Streamed to the peak, and mingled with the haze

And made it thicker; while the phantom king

Sent out at times a voice; and here or there

Stood one who pointed toward the voice, the rest

Slew on and burnt, crying, ‘No king of ours,

No son of Uther, and no king of ours;’

Till with a wink his dream was changed, the haze

Descended, and the solid earth became

As nothing, but the King stood out in heaven,

Crowned. And Leodogran awoke, and sent

Ulfius, and Brastias and Bedivere,

Back to the court of Arthur answering yea.

 

Then Arthur charged his warrior whom he loved

And honoured most, Sir Lancelot, to ride forth

And bring the Queen;—and watched him