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Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

Page 241

by Lord Tennyson Alfred


  ”And while he waited in the castle court,

  The voice of Enid, Yniol’s daughter, rang

  Clear thro’ the open casement of the hall,

  Singing; and as the sweet voice of a bird,

  Heard by the lander in a lonely isle,

  Moves him to think what kind of bird it is

  That sings so delicately clear, and make

  Conjecture of the plumage and the form;

  So the sweet voice of Enid moved Geraint;

  And made him like a man abroad at morn

  When first the liquid note beloved of men

  Comes flying over many a windy wave

  To Britain, and in April suddenly

  Breaks from a coppice gemm’d with green and red,

  And he suspends his converse with a friend,

  Or it may be the labour of his hands,

  To think or say, ‘There is the nightingale’;

  So fared it with Geraint, who thought and said,

  ‘Here, by God’s grace, is the one voice for me.’”

  Yniol frankly admits in the tale that he was in the wrong in the quarrel with his nephew. The poet, however, gives him the right, as is natural. The combat is exactly followed in the Idyll, as is Geraint’s insistence in carrying his bride to Court in her faded silks. Geraint, however, leaves Court with Enid, not because of the scandal about Lancelot, but to do his duty in his own country. He becomes indolent and uxorious, and Enid deplores his weakness, and awakes his suspicions, thus:-

  And one morning in the summer time they were upon their couch, and Geraint lay upon the edge of it. And Enid was without sleep in the apartment which had windows of glass. And the sun shone upon the couch. And the clothes had slipped from off his arms and his breast, and he was asleep. Then she gazed upon the marvellous beauty of his appearance, and she said, “Alas, and am I the cause that these arms and this breast have lost their glory and the warlike fame which they once so richly enjoyed!” And as she said this, the tears dropped from her eyes, and they fell upon his breast. And the tears she shed, and the words she had spoken, awoke him; and another thing contributed to awaken him, and that was the idea that it was not in thinking of him that she spoke thus, but that it was because she loved some other man more than him, and that she wished for other society, and thereupon Geraint was troubled in his mind, and he called his squire; and when he came to him, “Go quickly,” said he, “and prepare my horse and my arms, and make them ready. And do thou arise,” said he to Enid, “and apparel thyself; and cause thy horse to be accoutred, and clothe thee in the worst riding-dress that thou hast in thy possession. And evil betide me,” said he, “if thou returnest here until thou knowest whether I have lost my strength so completely as thou didst say. And if it be so, it will then be easy for thee to seek the society thou didst wish for of him of whom thou wast thinking.” So she arose, and clothed herself in her meanest garments. “I know nothing, Lord,” said she, “of thy meaning.” “Neither wilt thou know at this time,” said he.

  ”At last, it chanced that on a summer morn

  (They sleeping each by either) the new sun

  Beat thro’ the blindless casement of the room,

  And heated the strong warrior in his dreams;

  Who, moving, cast the coverlet aside,

  And bared the knotted column of his throat,

  The massive square of his heroic breast,

  And arms on which the standing muscle sloped,

  As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone,

  Running too vehemently to break upon it.

  And Enid woke and sat beside the couch,

  Admiring him, and thought within herself,

  Was ever man so grandly made as he?

  Then, like a shadow, past the people’s talk

  And accusation of uxoriousness

  Across her mind, and bowing over him,

  Low to her own heart piteously she said:

  ’O noble breast and all-puissant arms,

  Am I the cause, I the poor cause that men

  Reproach you, saying all your force is gone?

  I AM the cause, because I dare not speak

  And tell him what I think and what they say.

  And yet I hate that he should linger here;

  I cannot love my lord and not his name.

  Far liefer had I gird his harness on him,

  And ride with him to battle and stand by,

  And watch his mightful hand striking great blows

  At caitiffs and at wrongers of the world.

  Far better were I laid in the dark earth,

  Not hearing any more his noble voice,

  Not to be folded more in these dear arms,

  And darken’d from the high light in his eyes,

  Than that my lord thro’ me should suffer shame.

  Am I so bold, and could I so stand by,

  And see my dear lord wounded in the strife,

  Or maybe pierced to death before mine eyes,

  And yet not dare to tell him what I think,

  And how men slur him, saying all his force

  Is melted into mere effeminacy?

  O me, I fear that I am no true wife.’

  Half inwardly, half audibly she spoke,

  And the strong passion in her made her weep

  True tears upon his broad and naked breast,

  And these awoke him, and by great mischance

  He heard but fragments of her later words,

  And that she fear’d she was not a true wife.

  And then he thought, ‘In spite of all my care,

  For all my pains, poor man, for all my pains,

  She is not faithful to me, and I see her

  Weeping for some gay knight in Arthur’s hall.’

  Then tho’ he loved and reverenced her too much

  To dream she could be guilty of foul act,

  Right thro’ his manful breast darted the pang

  That makes a man, in the sweet face of her

  Whom he loves most, lonely and miserable.

  At this he hurl’d his huge limbs out of bed,

  And shook his drowsy squire awake and cried,

  ‘My charger and her palfrey’; then to her,

  ‘I will ride forth into the wilderness;

  For tho’ it seems my spurs are yet to win,

  I have not fall’n so low as some would wish.

  And thou, put on thy worst and meanest dress

  And ride with me.’ And Enid ask’d, amazed,

  ‘If Enid errs, let Enid learn her fault.’

  But he, ‘I charge thee, ask not, but obey.’

  Then she bethought her of a faded silk,

  A faded mantle and a faded veil,

  And moving toward a cedarn cabinet,

  Wherein she kept them folded reverently

  With sprigs of summer laid between the folds,

  She took them, and array’d herself therein,

  Remembering when first he came on her

  Drest in that dress, and how he loved her in it,

  And all her foolish fears about the dress,

  And all his journey to her, as himself

  Had told her, and their coming to the court.”

  Tennyson’s

  “Arms on which the standing muscle sloped,

  As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone,

  Running too vehemently to break upon it,”

  is suggested perhaps by Theocritus—”The muscles on his brawny arms stood out like rounded rocks that the winter torrent has rolled and worn smooth, in the great swirling stream” (Idyll xxii.)

  The second part of the poem follows the original less closely. Thus Limours, in the tale, is not an old suitor of Enid; Edyrn does not appear to the rescue; certain cruel games, veiled in a magic mist, occur in the tale, and are omitted by the poet; “Gwyffert petit, so called by the Franks, whom the Cymry call the Little King,” in the tale, is not a character in the Idyll, and, generally, the gross Celtic exaggerations
of Geraint’s feats are toned down by Tennyson. In other respects, as when Geraint eats the mowers’ dinner, the tale supplies the materials. But it does not dwell tenderly on the reconciliation. The tale is more or less in the vein of “patient Grizel,” and he who told it is more concerned with the fighting than with amoris redintegratio, and the sufferings of Enid. The Idyll is enriched with many beautiful pictures from nature, such as this:-

  “But at the flash and motion of the man

  They vanish’d panic-stricken, like a shoal

  Of darting fish, that on a summer morn

  Adown the crystal dykes at Camelot

  Come slipping o’er their shadows on the sand,

  But if a man who stands upon the brink

  But lift a shining hand against the sun,

  There is not left the twinkle of a fin

  Betwixt the cressy islets white in flower;

  So, scared but at the motion of the man,

  Fled all the boon companions of the Earl,

  And left him lying in the public way.”

  In Balin and Balan Tennyson displays great constructive power, and remarkable skill in moulding the most recalcitrant materials. Balin or Balyn, according to Mr Rhys, is the Belinus of Geoffrey of Monmouth, “whose name represents the Celtic divinity described in Latin as Apollo Belenus or Belinus.” In Geoffrey, Belinus, euphemerised, or reduced from god to hero, has a brother, Brennius, the Celtic Bran, King of Britain from Caithness to the Humber. Belinus drives Bran into exile. “Thus it is seen that Belinus or Balyn was, mythologically speaking, the natural enemy” (as Apollo Belinus, the radiant god) “of the dark divinity Bran or Balan.”

  If this view be correct, the two brothers answer to the good and bad principles of myths like that of the Huron Iouskeha the Sun, and Anatensic the Moon, or rather Taouiscara and Iouskeha, the hostile brothers, Black and White. These mythical brethren are, in Malory, two knights of Northumberland, Balin the wild and Balan. Their adventures are mixed up with a hostile Lady of the Lake, whom Balin slays in Arthur’s presence, with a sword which none but Balin can draw from sheath; and with an evil black-faced knight Garlon, invisible at will, whom Balin slays in the castle of the knight’s brother, King Pellam. Pursued from room to room by Pellam, Balin finds himself in a chamber full of relics of Joseph of Arimathea. There he seizes a spear, the very spear with which the Roman soldier pierced the side of the Crucified, and wounds Pellam. The castle falls in ruins “through that dolorous stroke.” Pellam becomes the maimed king, who can only be healed by the Holy Grail. Apparently Celtic myths of obscure antiquity have been adapted in France, and interwoven with fables about Joseph of Arimathea and Christian mysteries. It is not possible here to go into the complicated learning of the subject. In Malory, Balin, after dealing the dolorous stroke, borrows a strange shield from a knight, and, thus accoutred, meets his brother Balan, who does not recognise him. They fight, both die and are buried in one tomb, and Galahad later achieves the adventure of winning Balin’s sword. “Thus endeth the tale of Balyn and of Balan, two brethren born in Northumberland, good knights,” says Malory, simply, and unconscious of the strange mythological medley under the coat armour of romance.

  The materials, then, seemed confused and obdurate, but Tennyson works them into the course of the fatal love of Lancelot and Guinevere, and into the spiritual texture of the Idylls. Balin has been expelled from Court for the wildness that gives him his name, Balin le Sauvage. He had buffeted a squire in hall. He and Balan await all challengers beside a well. Arthur encounters and dismounts them. Balin devotes himself to self-conquest. Then comes tidings that Pellam, of old leagued with Lot against Arthur, has taken to religion, collects relics, claims descent from Joseph of Arimathea, and owns the sacred spear that pierced the side of Christ. But Garlon is with him, the knight invisible, who appears to come from an Irish source, or at least has a parallel in Irish legend. This Garlon has an unknightly way of killing men by viewless blows from the rear. Balan goes to encounter Garlon. Balin remains, learning courtesy, modelling himself on Lancelot, and gaining leave to bear Guinevere’s Crown Matrimonial for his cognisance, — which, of course, Balan does not know, -

  “As golden earnest of a better life.”

  But Balin sees reason to think that Lancelot and Guinevere love even too well.

  ”Then chanced, one morning, that Sir Balin sat

  Close-bower’d in that garden nigh the hall.

  A walk of roses ran from door to door;

  A walk of lilies crost it to the bower:

  And down that range of roses the great Queen

  Came with slow steps, the morning on her face;

  And all in shadow from the counter door

  Sir Lancelot as to meet her, then at once,

  As if he saw not, glanced aside, and paced

  The long white walk of lilies toward the bower.

  Follow’d the Queen; Sir Balin heard her ‘Prince,

  Art thou so little loyal to thy Queen,

  As pass without good morrow to thy Queen?’

  To whom Sir Lancelot with his eyes on earth,

  ‘Fain would I still be loyal to the Queen.’

  ‘Yea so,’ she said, ‘but so to pass me by -

  So loyal scarce is loyal to thyself,

  Whom all men rate the king of courtesy.

  Let be: ye stand, fair lord, as in a dream.’

  Then Lancelot with his hand among the flowers,

  ‘Yea — for a dream. Last night methought I saw

  That maiden Saint who stands with lily in hand

  In yonder shrine. All round her prest the dark,

  And all the light upon her silver face

  Flow’d from the spiritual lily that she held.

  Lo! these her emblems drew mine eyes — away:

  For see, how perfect-pure! As light a flush

  As hardly tints the blossom of the quince

  Would mar their charm of stainless maidenhood.’

  ’Sweeter to me,’ she said, ‘this garden rose

  Deep-hued and many-folded sweeter still

  The wild-wood hyacinth and the bloom of May.

  Prince, we have ridd’n before among the flowers

  In those fair days — not all as cool as these,

  Tho’ season-earlier. Art thou sad? or sick?

  Our noble King will send thee his own leech -

  Sick? or for any matter anger’d at me?’

  Then Lancelot lifted his large eyes; they dwelt

  Deep-tranced on hers, and could not fall: her hue

  Changed at his gaze: so turning side by side

  They past, and Balin started from his bower.

  ’Queen? subject? but I see not what I see.

  Damsel and lover? hear not what I hear.

  My father hath begotten me in his wrath.

  I suffer from the things before me, know,

  Learn nothing; am not worthy to be knight;

  A churl, a clown!’ and in him gloom on gloom

  Deepen’d: he sharply caught his lance and shield,

  Nor stay’d to crave permission of the King,

  But, mad for strange adventure, dash’d away.”

  Balin is “disillusioned,” his faith in the Ideal is shaken if not shattered. He rides at adventure. Arriving at the half-ruined castle of Pellam, that dubious devotee, he hears Garlon insult Guinevere, but restrains himself. Next day, again insulted for bearing “the crown scandalous” on his shield, he strikes Garlon down, is pursued, seizes the sacred spear, and escapes. Vivien meets him in the woods, drops scandal in his ears, and so maddens him that he defaces his shield with the crown of Guinevere. Her song, and her words,

  ”This fire of Heaven,

  This old sun-worship, boy, will rise again,

  And beat the cross to earth, and break the King

  And all his Table,”

  might be forced into an allegory of the revived pride of life, at the Renaissance and after. The maddened yells of Balin strike the ear of Ba
lan, who thinks he has met the foul knight Garlon, that

  “Tramples on the goodly shield to show

  His loathing of our Order and the Queen.”

  They fight, fatally wound, and finally recognise each other: Balan trying to restore Balin’s faith in Guinevere, who is merely slandered by Garlon and Vivien. Balin acknowledges that his wildness has been their common bane, and they die, “either locked in either’s arms.”

  There is nothing in Malory, nor in any other source, so far as I am aware, which suggested to Tennyson the clou of the situation — the use of Guinevere’s crown as a cognisance by Balin. This device enables the poet to weave the rather confused and unintelligible adventures of Balin and Balan into the scheme, and to make it a stage in the progress of his fable. That Balin was reckless and wild Malory bears witness, but his endeavours to conquer himself and reach the ideal set by Lancelot are Tennyson’s addition, with all the tragedy of Balin’s disenchantment and despair. The strange fantastic house of Pellam, full of the most sacred things,

  “In which he scarce could spy the Christ for Saints,”

  yet sheltering the human fiend Garlon, is supplied by Malory, whose predecessors probably blended more than one myth of the old Cymry into the romance, washed over with Christian colouring. As Malory tells this part of the tale it is perhaps more strange and effective than in the Idyll. The introduction of Vivien into this adventure is wholly due to Tennyson: her appearance here leads up to her triumph in the poem which follows, Merlin and Vivien.

  The nature and origin of Merlin are something of a mystery. Hints and rumours of Merlin, as of Arthur, stream from hill and grave as far north as Tweedside. If he was a historical person, myths of magic might crystallise round him, as round Virgil in Italy. The process would be the easier in a country where the practices of Druidry still lingered, and revived after the retreat of the Romans. The mediaeval romancers invented a legend that Merlin was a virgin- born child of Satan. In Tennyson he may be guessed to represent the fabled esoteric lore of old religions, with their vague pantheisms, and such magic as the tapas of Brahmanic legends. He is wise with a riddling evasive wisdom: the builder of Camelot, the prophet, a shadow of Druidry clinging to the Christian king. His wisdom cannot avail him: if he beholds “his own mischance with a glassy countenance,” he cannot avoid his shapen fate. He becomes assotted of Vivien, and goes open-eyed to his doom.

 

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