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

of his crown

Than make him knight because men call him king.

The kings we found, ye know we stayed their hands

From war among themselves, but left them kings;

Of whom were any bounteous, merciful,

Truth-speaking, brave, good livers, them we enrolled

Among us, and they sit within our hall.

But as Mark hath tarnished the great name of king,

As Mark would sully the low state of churl:

And, seeing he hath sent us cloth of gold,

Return, and meet, and hold him from our eyes,

Lest we should lap him up in cloth of lead,

Silenced for ever—craven—a man of plots,

Craft, poisonous counsels, wayside ambushings—

No fault of thine: let Kay the seneschal

Look to thy wants, and send thee satisfied—

Accursed, who strikes nor lets the hand be seen!’

 

And many another suppliant crying came

With noise of ravage wrought by beast and man,

And evermore a knight would ride away.

 

Last, Gareth leaning both hands heavily

Down on the shoulders of the twain, his men,

Approached between them toward the King, and asked,

‘A boon, Sir King (his voice was all ashamed),

For see ye not how weak and hungerworn

I seem—leaning on these? grant me to serve

For meat and drink among thy kitchen-knaves

A twelvemonth and a day, nor seek my name.

Hereafter I will fight.’

 

To him the King,

‘A goodly youth and worth a goodlier boon!

But so thou wilt no goodlier, then must Kay,

The master of the meats and drinks, be thine.’

 

He rose and past; then Kay, a man of mien

Wan-sallow as the plant that feels itself

Root-bitten by white lichen,

 

‘Lo ye now!

This fellow hath broken from some Abbey, where,

God wot, he had not beef and brewis enow,

However that might chance! but an he work,

Like any pigeon will I cram his crop,

And sleeker shall he shine than any hog.’

 

Then Lancelot standing near, ‘Sir Seneschal,

Sleuth-hound thou knowest, and gray, and all the hounds;

A horse thou knowest, a man thou dost not know:

Broad brows and fair, a fluent hair and fine,

High nose, a nostril large and fine, and hands

Large, fair and fine!—Some young lad’s mystery—

But, or from sheepcot or king’s hall, the boy

Is noble-natured. Treat him with all grace,

Lest he should come to shame thy judging of him.’

 

Then Kay, ‘What murmurest thou of mystery?

Think ye this fellow will poison the King’s dish?

Nay, for he spake too fool-like: mystery!

Tut, an the lad were noble, he had asked

For horse and armour: fair and fine, forsooth!

Sir Fine-face, Sir Fair-hands? but see thou to it

That thine own fineness, Lancelot, some fine day

Undo thee not—and leave my man to me.’

 

So Gareth all for glory underwent

The sooty yoke of kitchen-vassalage;

Ate with young lads his portion by the door,

And couched at night with grimy kitchen-knaves.

And Lancelot ever spake him pleasantly,

But Kay the seneschal, who loved him not,

Would hustle and harry him, and labour him

Beyond his comrade of the hearth, and set

To turn the broach, draw water, or hew wood,

Or grosser tasks; and Gareth bowed himself

With all obedience to the King, and wrought

All kind of service with a noble ease

That graced the lowliest act in doing it.

And when the thralls had talk among themselves,

And one would praise the love that linkt the King

And Lancelot—how the King had saved his life

In battle twice, and Lancelot once the King’s—

For Lancelot was the first in Tournament,

But Arthur mightiest on the battlefield—

Gareth was glad. Or if some other told,

How once the wandering forester at dawn,

Far over the blue tarns and hazy seas,

On Caer-Eryri’s highest found the King,

A naked babe, of whom the Prophet spake,

‘He passes to the Isle Avilion,

He passes and is healed and cannot die’—

Gareth was glad. But if their talk were foul,

Then would he whistle rapid as any lark,

Or carol some old roundelay, and so loud

That first they mocked, but, after, reverenced him.

Or Gareth telling some prodigious tale

Of knights, who sliced a red life-bubbling way

Through twenty folds of twisted dragon, held

All in a gap-mouthed circle his good mates

Lying or sitting round him, idle hands,

Charmed; till Sir Kay, the seneschal, would come

Blustering upon them, like a sudden wind

Among dead leaves, and drive them all apart.

Or when the thralls had sport among themselves,

So there were any trial of mastery,

He, by two yards in casting bar or stone

Was counted best; and if there chanced a joust,

So that Sir Kay nodded him leave to go,

Would hurry thither, and when he saw the knights

Clash like the coming and retiring wave,

And the spear spring, and good horse reel, the boy

Was half beyond himself for ecstasy.

 

So for a month he wrought among the thralls;

But in the weeks that followed, the good Queen,

Repentant of the word she made him swear,

And saddening in her childless castle, sent,

Between the in-crescent and de-crescent moon,

Arms for her son, and loosed him from his vow.

 

This, Gareth hearing from a squire of Lot

With whom he used to play at tourney once,

When both were children, and in lonely haunts

Would scratch a ragged oval on the sand,

And each at either dash from either end—

Shame never made girl redder than Gareth joy.

He laughed; he sprang. ‘Out of the smoke, at once

I leap from Satan’s foot to Peter’s knee—

These news be mine, none other’s—nay, the King’s—

Descend into the city:’ whereon he sought

The King alone, and found, and told him all.

 

‘I have staggered thy strong Gawain in a tilt

For pastime; yea, he said it: joust can I.

Make me thy knight—in secret! let my name

Be hidden, and give me the first quest, I spring

Like flame from ashes.’

 

Here the King’s calm eye

Fell on, and checked, and made him flush, and bow

Lowly, to kiss his hand, who answered him,

‘Son, the good mother let me know thee here,

And sent her wish that I would yield thee thine.

Make thee my knight? my knights are sworn to vows

Of utter hardihood, utter gentleness,

And, loving, utter faithfulness in love,

And uttermost obedience to the King.’

 

Then Gareth, lightly springing from his knees,

‘My King, for hardihood I can promise thee.

For uttermost obedience make demand

Of whom ye gave me to, the Seneschal,

No mellow master of the meats and drinks!

And as for love, God wot, I love not yet,

But love I shall, God willing.’

 

And the King

‘Make thee my knight in secret? yea, but he,

Our noblest brother, and our truest man,

And one with me in all, he needs must know.’

 

‘Let Lancelot know, my King, let Lancelot know,

Thy noblest and thy truest!’

 

And the King—

‘But wherefore would ye men should wonder at you?

Nay, rather for the sake of me, their King,

And the deed’s sake my knighthood do the deed,

Than to be noised of.’

 

Merrily Gareth asked,

‘Have I not earned my cake in baking of it?

Let be my name until I make my name!

My deeds will speak: it is but for a day.’

So with a kindly hand on Gareth’s arm

Smiled the great King, and half-unwillingly

Loving his lusty youthhood yielded to him.

Then, after summoning Lancelot privily,

‘I have given him the first quest: he is not proven.

Look therefore when he calls for this in hall,

Thou get to horse and follow him far away.

Cover the lions on thy shield, and see

Far as thou mayest, he be nor ta’en nor slain.’

 

Then that same day there past into the hall

A damsel of high lineage, and a brow

May-blossom, and a cheek of apple-blossom,

Hawk-eyes; and lightly was her slender nose

Tip-tilted like the petal of a flower;

She into hall past with her page and cried,

 

‘O King, for thou hast driven the foe without,

See to the foe within! bridge, ford, beset

By bandits, everyone that owns a tower

The Lord for half a league. Why sit ye there?

Rest would I not, Sir King, an I were king,

Till even the lonest hold were all as free

From cursed bloodshed, as thine altar-cloth

From that best blood it is a sin to spill.’

 

‘Comfort thyself,’ said Arthur. ‘I nor mine

Rest: so my knighthood keep the vows they swore,

The wastest moorland of our realm shall be

Safe, damsel, as the centre of this hall.

What is thy name? thy need?’

 

‘My name?’ she said—

‘Lynette my name; noble; my need, a knight

To combat for my sister, Lyonors,

A lady of high lineage, of great lands,

And comely, yea, and comelier than myself.

She lives in Castle Perilous: a river

Runs in three loops about her living-place;

And o’er it are three passings, and three knights

Defend the passings, brethren, and a fourth

And of that four the mightiest, holds her stayed

In her own castle, and so besieges her

To break her will, and make her wed with him:

And but delays his purport till thou send

To do the battle with him, thy chief man

Sir Lancelot whom he trusts to overthrow,

Then wed, with glory: but she will not wed

Save whom she loveth, or a holy life.

Now therefore have I come for Lancelot.’

 

Then Arthur mindful of Sir Gareth asked,

‘Damsel, ye know this Order lives to crush

All wrongers of the Realm. But say, these four,

Who be they? What the fashion of the men?’

 

‘They be of foolish fashion, O Sir King,

The fashion of that old knight-errantry

Who ride abroad, and do but what they will;

Courteous or bestial from the moment, such

As have nor law nor king; and three of these

Proud in their fantasy call themselves the Day,

Morning-Star, and Noon-Sun, and Evening-Star,

Being strong fools; and never a whit more wise

The fourth, who alway rideth armed in black,

A huge man-beast of boundless savagery.

He names himself the Night and oftener Death,

And wears a helmet mounted with a skull,

And bears a skeleton figured on his arms,

To show that who may slay or scape the three,

Slain by himself, shall enter endless night.

And all these four be fools, but mighty men,

And therefore am I come for Lancelot.’

 

Hereat Sir Gareth called from where he rose,

A head with kindling eyes above the throng,

‘A boon, Sir King—this quest!’ then—for he marked

Kay near him groaning like a wounded bull—

‘Yea, King, thou knowest thy kitchen-knave am I,

And mighty through thy meats and drinks am I,

And I can topple over a hundred such.

Thy promise, King,’ and Arthur glancing at him,

Brought down a momentary brow. ‘Rough, sudden,

And pardonable, worthy to be knight—

Go therefore,’ and all hearers were amazed.

 

But on the damsel’s forehead shame, pride, wrath

Slew the May-white: she lifted either arm,

‘Fie on thee, King! I asked for thy chief knight,

And thou hast given me but a kitchen-knave.’

Then ere a man in hall could stay her, turned,

Fled down the lane of access to the King,

Took horse, descended the slope street, and past

The weird white gate, and paused without, beside

The field of tourney, murmuring ‘kitchen-knave.’

 

Now two great entries opened from the hall,

At one end one, that gave upon a range

Of level pavement where the King would pace

At sunrise, gazing over plain and wood;

And down from this a lordly stairway sloped

Till lost in blowing trees and tops of towers;

And out by this