Alfred, Lord Tennyson - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Tennyson Alfred

  ”She broke into a little scornful laugh:

  ‘Arthur, my lord, Arthur, the faultless King,

  That passionate perfection, my good lord -

  But who can gaze upon the Sun in heaven?

  He never spake word of reproach to me,

  He never had a glimpse of mine untruth,

  He cares not for me: only here to-day

  There gleam’d a vague suspicion in his eyes:

  Some meddling rogue has tamper’d with him — else

  Rapt in this fancy of his Table Round,

  And swearing men to vows impossible,

  To make them like himself: but, friend, to me

  He is all fault who hath no fault at all:

  For who loves me must have a touch of earth;

  The low sun makes the colour: I am yours,

  Not Arthur’s, as ye know, save by the bond.”

  It is not the beautiful Queen who wins us, our hearts are with “the innocence of love” in Elaine. But Lancelot has the charm that captivated Lavaine; and Tennyson’s Arthur remains

  “The moral child without the craft to rule,

  Else had he not lost me.”

  Indeed the romance of Malory makes Arthur deserve “the pretty popular name such manhood earns” by his conduct as regards Guinevere when she is accused by her enemies in the later chapters. Yet Malory does not finally condone the sin which baffles Lancelot’s quest of the Holy Grail.

  Tennyson at first was in doubt as to writing on the Grail, for certain respects of reverence. When he did approach the theme it was in a method of extreme condensation. The romances on the Grail outrun the length even of mediaeval poetry and prose. They are exceedingly confused, as was natural, if that hypothesis which regards the story as a Christianised form of obscure Celtic myth be correct. Sir Percivale’s sister, in the Idyll, has the first vision of the Grail:-

  “Sweet brother, I have seen the Holy Grail:

  For, waked at dead of night, I heard a sound

  As of a silver horn from o’er the hills

  Blown, and I thought, ‘It is not Arthur’s use

  To hunt by moonlight’; and the slender sound

  As from a distance beyond distance grew

  Coming upon me — O never harp nor horn,

  Nor aught we blow with breath, or touch with hand,

  Was like that music as it came; and then

  Stream’d thro’ my cell a cold and silver beam,

  And down the long beam stole the Holy Grail,

  Rose-red with beatings in it, as if alive,

  Till all the white walls of my cell were dyed

  With rosy colours leaping on the wall;

  And then the music faded, and the Grail

  Past, and the beam decay’d, and from the walls

  The rosy quiverings died into the night.

  So now the Holy Thing is here again

  Among us, brother, fast thou too and pray,

  And tell thy brother knights to fast and pray,

  That so perchance the vision may be seen

  By thee and those, and all the world be heal’d.”

  Galahad, son of Lancelot and the first Elaine (who became Lancelot’s mistress by art magic), then vows himself to the Quest, and, after the vision in hall at Camelot, the knights, except Arthur, follow his example, to Arthur’s grief. “Ye follow wandering fires!” Probably, or perhaps, the poet indicates dislike of hasty spiritual enthusiasms, of “seeking for a sign,” and of the mysticism which betokens want of faith. The Middle Ages, more than many readers know, were ages of doubt. Men desired the witness of the senses to the truth of what the Church taught, they wished to see that naked child of the romance “smite himself into” the wafer of the Sacrament. The author of the Imitatio Christi discourages such vain and too curious inquiries as helped to rend the Church, and divided Christendom into hostile camps. The Quest of the actual Grail was a knightly form of theological research into the unsearchable; undertaken, often in a secular spirit of adventure, by sinful men. The poet’s heart is rather with human things:-

  ”’O brother,’ ask’d Ambrosius,—’for in sooth

  These ancient books — and they would win thee — teem,

  Only I find not there this Holy Grail,

  With miracles and marvels like to these,

  Not all unlike; which oftentime I read,

  Who read but on my breviary with ease,

  Till my head swims; and then go forth and pass

  Down to the little thorpe that lies so close,

  And almost plaster’d like a martin’s nest

  To these old walls — and mingle with our folk;

  And knowing every honest face of theirs

  As well as ever shepherd knew his sheep,

  And every homely secret in their hearts,

  Delight myself with gossip and old wives,

  And ills and aches, and teethings, lyings-in,

  And mirthful sayings, children of the place,

  That have no meaning half a league away:

  Or lulling random squabbles when they rise,

  Chafferings and chatterings at the market-cross,

  Rejoice, small man, in this small world of mine,

  Yea, even in their hens and in their eggs.”’

  This appears to be Tennyson’s original reading of the Quest of the

  Grail. His own mysticism, which did not strive, or cry, or seek

  after marvels, though marvels might come unsought, is expressed in

  Arthur’s words:-

  ”’“And spake I not too truly, O my knights?

  Was I too dark a prophet when I said

  To those who went upon the Holy Quest,

  That most of them would follow wandering fires,

  Lost in the quagmire? — lost to me and gone,

  And left me gazing at a barren board,

  And a lean Order — scarce return’d a tithe -

  And out of those to whom the vision came

  My greatest hardly will believe he saw;

  Another hath beheld it afar off,

  And leaving human wrongs to right themselves,

  Cares but to pass into the silent life.

  And one hath had the vision face to face,

  And now his chair desires him here in vain,

  However they may crown him otherwhere.

  ’”And some among you held, that if the King

  Had seen the sight he would have sworn the vow:

  Not easily, seeing that the King must guard

  That which he rules, and is but as the hind

  To whom a space of land is given to plow

  Who may not wander from the allotted field

  Before his work be done; but, being done,

  Let visions of the night or of the day

  Come, as they will; and many a time they come,

  Until this earth he walks on seems not earth,

  This light that strikes his eyeball is not light,

  This air that smites his forehead is not air

  But vision — yea, his very hand and foot -

  In moments when he feels he cannot die,

  And knows himself no vision to himself,

  Nor the high God a vision, nor that One

  Who rose again: ye have seen what ye have seen.”

  ‘So spake the King: I knew not all he meant.’”

  The closing lines declare, as far as the poet could declare them, these subjective experiences of his which, in a manner rarely parallelled, coloured and formed his thought on the highest things. He introduces them even into this poem on a topic which, because of its sacred associations, he for long did not venture to touch.

  In Pelleas and Ettarre — which deals with the sorrows of one of the young knights who fill up the gaps left at the Round Table by the mischances of the Quest — it would be difficult to trace a Celtic original. For Malory, not Celtic legend, supplied Tennyson with the germinal idea of a poem which, in the romance, has no bearing on the final
catastrophe. Pelleas, a King of the Isles, loves the beautiful Ettarre, “a great lady,” and for her wins at a tourney the prize of the golden circlet. But she hates and despises him, and Sir Gawain is a spectator when, as in the poem, the felon knights of Ettarre bind and insult their conqueror, Pelleas. Gawain promises to win the love of Ettarre for Pelleas, and, as in the poem, borrows his arms and horse, and pretends to have slain him. But in place of turning Ettarre’s heart towards Pelleas, Gawain becomes her lover, and Pelleas, detecting them asleep, lays his naked sword on their necks. He then rides home to die; but Nimue (Vivien), the Lady of the Lake, restores him to health and sanity. His fever gone, he scorns Ettarre, who, by Nimue’s enchantment, now loves him as much as she had hated him. Pelleas weds Nimue, and Ettarre dies of a broken heart. Tennyson, of course, could not make Nimue (his Vivien) do anything benevolent. He therefore closes his poem by a repetition of the effect in the case of Balin. Pelleas is driven desperate by the treachery of Gawain, the reported infidelity of Guinevere, and the general corruption of the ideal. A shadow falls on Lancelot and Guinevere, and Modred sees that his hour is drawing nigh. In spite of beautiful passages this is not one of the finest of the Idylls, save for the study of the fierce, hateful, and beautiful grande dame, Ettarre. The narrative does little to advance the general plot. In the original of Malory it has no connection with the Lancelot cycle, except as far as it reveals the treachery of Gawain, the gay and fair-spoken “light of love,” brother of the traitor Modred. A simpler treatment of the theme may be read in Mr Swinburne’s beautiful poem, The Tale of Balen.

  It is in The Last Tournament that Modred finds the beginning of his opportunity. The brief life of the Ideal has burned itself out, as the year, in its vernal beauty when Arthur came, is burning out in autumn. The poem is purposely autumnal, with the autumn, not of mellow fruitfulness, but of the “flying gold of the ruined woodlands” and the dank odours of decay. In that miserable season is held the Tourney of the Dead Innocence, with the blood-red prize of rubies. With a wise touch Tennyson has represented the Court as fallen not into vice only and crime, but into positive vulgarity and bad taste. The Tournament is a carnival of the “smart” and the third-rate. Courtesy is dead, even Tristram is brutal, and in Iseult hatred of her husband is as powerful as love of her lover. The satire strikes at England, where the world has never been corrupt with a good grace. It is a passage of arms neither gentle nor joyous that Lancelot presides over:-

  ”The sudden trumpet sounded as in a dream

  To ears but half-awaked, then one low roll

  Of Autumn thunder, and the jousts began:

  And ever the wind blew, and yellowing leaf

  And gloom and gleam, and shower and shorn plume

  Went down it. Sighing weariedly, as one

  Who sits and gazes on a faded fire,

  When all the goodlier guests are past away,

  Sat their great umpire, looking o’er the lists.

  He saw the laws that ruled the tournament

  Broken, but spake not; once, a knight cast down

  Before his throne of arbitration cursed

  The dead babe and the follies of the King;

  And once the laces of a helmet crack’d,

  And show’d him, like a vermin in its hole,

  Modred, a narrow face: anon he heard

  The voice that billow’d round the barriers roar

  An ocean-sounding welcome to one knight,

  But newly-enter’d, taller than the rest,

  And armour’d all in forest green, whereon

  There tript a hundred tiny silver deer,

  And wearing but a holly-spray for crest,

  With ever-scattering berries, and on shield

  A spear, a harp, a bugle — Tristram — late

  From overseas in Brittany return’d,

  And marriage with a princess of that realm,

  Isolt the White — Sir Tristram of the Woods -

  Whom Lancelot knew, had held sometime with pain

  His own against him, and now yearn’d to shake

  The burthen off his heart in one full shock

  With Tristram ev’n to death: his strong hands gript

  And dinted the gilt dragons right and left,

  Until he groan’d for wrath — so many of those,

  That ware their ladies’ colours on the casque,

  Drew from before Sir Tristram to the bounds,

  And there with gibes and flickering mockeries

  Stood, while he mutter’d, ‘Craven crests! O shame!

  What faith have these in whom they sware to love?

  The glory of our Round Table is no more.’

  So Tristram won, and Lancelot gave, the gems,

  Not speaking other word than ‘Hast thou won?

  Art thou the purest, brother? See, the hand

  Wherewith thou takest this, is red!’ to whom

  Tristram, half plagued by Lancelot’s languorous mood,

  Made answer, ‘Ay, but wherefore toss me this

  Like a dry bone cast to some hungry hound?

  Let be thy fair Queen’s fantasy. Strength of heart

  And might of limb, but mainly use and skill,

  Are winners in this pastime of our King.

  My hand — belike the lance hath dript upon it -

  No blood of mine, I trow; but O chief knight,

  Right arm of Arthur in the battlefield,

  Great brother, thou nor I have made the world;

  Be happy in thy fair Queen as I in mine.’

  And Tristram round the gallery made his horse

  Caracole; then bow’d his homage, bluntly saying,

  ‘Fair damsels, each to him who worships each

  Sole Queen of Beauty and of love, behold

  This day my Queen of Beauty is not here.’

  And most of these were mute, some anger’d, one

  Murmuring, ‘All courtesy is dead,’ and one,

  ‘The glory of our Round Table is no more.’

  Then fell thick rain, plume droopt and mantle clung,

  And pettish cries awoke, and the wan day

  Went glooming down in wet and weariness:

  But under her black brows a swarthy one

  Laugh’d shrilly, crying, ‘Praise the patient saints,

  Our one white day of Innocence hath past,

  Tho’ somewhat draggled at the skirt. So be it.

  The snowdrop only, flowering thro’ the year,

  Would make the world as blank as Winter-tide.

  Come — let us gladden their sad eyes, our Queen’s

  And Lancelot’s, at this night’s solemnity

  With all the kindlier colours of the field.’”

  Arthur’s last victory over a robber knight is ingloriously squalid:-

  ”He ended: Arthur knew the voice; the face

  Wellnigh was helmet-hidden, and the name

  Went wandering somewhere darkling in his mind.

  And Arthur deign’d not use of word or sword,

  But let the drunkard, as he stretch’d from horse

  To strike him, overbalancing his bulk,

  Down from the causeway heavily to the swamp

  Fall, as the crest of some slow-arching wave,

  Heard in dead night along that table-shore,

  Drops flat, and after the great waters break

  Whitening for half a league, and thin themselves,

  Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud,

  From less and less to nothing; thus he fell

  Head-heavy; then the knights, who watch’d him, roar’d

  And shouted and leapt down upon the fall’n;

  There trampled out his face from being known,

  And sank his head in mire, and slimed themselves:

  Nor heard the King for their own cries, but sprang

  Thro’ open doors, and swording right and left

  Men, women, on their sodden faces, hurl’d

  The tables over and the wines, and slew
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  Till all the rafters rang with woman-yells,

  And all the pavement stream’d with massacre:

  Then, echoing yell with yell, they fired the tower,

  Which half that autumn night, like the live North,

  Red-pulsing up thro’ Alioth and Alcor,

  Made all above it, and a hundred meres

  About it, as the water Moab saw

  Come round by the East, and out beyond them flush’d

  The long low dune, and lazy-plunging sea.”

  Guinevere is one of the greatest of the Idylls. Malory makes Lancelot more sympathetic; his fight, unarmed, in Guinevere’s chamber, against the felon knights, is one of his most spirited scenes. Tennyson omits this, and omits all the unpardonable behaviour of Arthur as narrated in Malory. Critics have usually condemned the last parting of Guinevere and Arthur, because the King doth preach too much to an unhappy woman who has no reply. The position of Arthur is not easily redeemable: it is difficult to conceive that a noble nature could be, or should be, blind so long. He does rehabilitate his Queen in her own self-respect, perhaps, by assuring her that he loves her still:-

  “Let no man dream but that I love thee still.”

  Had he said that one line and no more, we might have loved him better. In the Idylls we have not Malory’s last meeting of Lancelot and Guinevere, one of the scenes in which the wandering composite romance ends as nobly as the Iliad.

  The Passing of Arthur, except for a new introductory passage of great beauty and appropriateness, is the Morte d’Arthur, first published in 1842:-

  “So all day long the noise of battle roll’d

  Among the mountains by the winter sea.”

  The year has run its course, spring, summer, gloomy autumn, and dies in the mist of Arthur’s last wintry battle in the west -

  “And the new sun rose, bringing the new year.”

  The splendid and sombre procession has passed, leaving us to muse as to how far the poet has fulfilled his own ideal. There could be no new epic: he gave a chain of heroic Idylls. An epic there could not be, for the Iliad and Odyssey have each a unity of theme, a narrative compressed into a few days in the former, in the latter into forty days of time. The tragedy of Arthur’s reign could not so be condensed; and Tennyson chose the only feasible plan. He has left a work, not absolutely perfect, indeed, but such as he conceived, after many tentative essays, and such as he desired to achieve. His fame may not rest chiefly on the Idylls, but they form one of the fairest jewels in the crown that shines with unnumbered gems, each with its own glory.