pe time cō pe wes icoren:
pa wes Arður iboren.
Sone swa he com an eorðe:
aluen hine iuengen.
heo bigolen pat child:
mid galdere swiðe stronge.
heo 3euē him mihte:
to beon bezst aire cnihten.
heo 3euen him an oðer ping:
pat he scolde beon riche king.
heo 3 uen hī pat pridde:
pat he scolde longe libben.
heo 3ifen him pat kine-bern:
custen swiðe gode.
pat he wes mete-custi:
of alle quikemonnen.
pis pe alue him 3ef:
And al swa pat child ipaeh.
Layamon’s Brut, Madden, vol. ii 384.
‘(The time came that was chosen, then was Arthur born. So soon as he came on earth, elves took him; they enchanted the child with magic most strong, they gave him might to be the best of all knights; they gave him another thing, that he should be a rich king; they gave him the third, that he should live long; they gave to him, the child, virtues most good, so that he was most generous of all men alive: This the elves gave him, and thus the child thrived.)
‘The Coming of Arthur is on the night of the New Year; when he is wedded “the world is white with May” on a summer night the vision of the Holy Grail appears; and the “Last Tournament” is in the “yellowing autumn-tide”. Guinevere flees thro’ the mists of autumn, and Arthur’s death takes place at midnight in mid-winter. The form of the Coming of Arthur and of the Passing is purposely more archaic than that of the other Idylls. The blank verse throughout each of the twelve Idylls varies according to the subject.’
5. For many a petty king: ‘This explains the existence of Leodogran, one of the petty princes. “Cameliard is apparently”, according to Wright, “the district called Carmelide in the English metrical romance of Merlin, on the border of which was a town called ‘Breckenho’ (Brecknock)” – T. Wright’s edition of the Mort d’Arthure’ (T.).
8. the heathen host: Jutes, Angles and Saxons.
13. Aurelius: ‘Aurelius (Emrys) Ambrosius was brother of King Uther’ (T.). H.T. adds: ‘For the histories of Aurelius and Uther see Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Chronicle, Bks v and vi.’
17. puissance: power.
Table Round: ‘A table called King Arthur’s is kept at Winchester. It was supposed to symbolize the world, being flat and round’ (T.).
18. Drew all their petty princedoms under him: ‘The several petty princedoms were under lne head, the “pendragon” ’ (T.).
24. rooted: of swine, to turn up the soil by grubbing with the snout.
31. And mock their foster-mother on four feet: ‘Imitate the wolf by going on four feet’ (T.).
32. they grew up to wolf-like men: ‘Compare what is told of in some parts of India (Journal of Anthropological Society of Bombay, vol. i) and of the loup-garous and were-wolves of France and Germany’ (T.).
34. Groan’d for the Roman legions here again: ‘Cf. Groans of the Britons, by Gildas’ (T.).
35. Cesar’s eagle: imperial protection, symbolized by the legionary standards.
36. Urien] 1873; Rience 1869–70. ‘King of North Wales’ (T.).
39. Spitting the child: impale it upon sharp pointed weapons (‘Your naked Infants spitted upon Pykes’ – Henry VIII 3.138).
42. Tho’not without an uproar, as in Malory 16.
47–57. Tennyson’s invention.
50. The golden symbol of his kinglihood: ‘The golden dragon’ (T.). kinglihood: kingly or royal state (Tennyson’s coinage).
58. drave: archaic form of drove.
66] 1873; not 1869–70.
67. Made head against: to advance against, resist successfully.
72. Gorloïs: name from Geoffrey of Monmouth, but Tennyson’s spelling is from Spenser, Faerie Queene III iii 27.
73. Anton: Ector in Malory, Antor in other versions. Arthur’s foster-father.
84. saving: excepting.
94–133] 1873; not 1869–70.
102. clarions shrilling unto blood: shrill-sounding trumpet with a narrow tube, formerly much used as a signal in war (‘Clariouns/That in the bataille blowen blody sounes’-Chaucer, Knight’s Tale 1653).
103. The long-lanced battle let their horses run: Malory i 15: ‘then either battaile let their horses runne as fast as they might’.
111–15. Kings opposing Arthur in Malory. For metrical and other effects Tennyson modifies some names.
118. brake: broke.
123. And in the heart of Arthur joy was lord: cf. LT 485: ‘But in the heart of Arthur pain was lord.’
124—5. his warrior whom he loved/And honoured most: Lancelot.
127. the fire of God: cf. LE 314–15: ‘Yet in this heathen war the fire of God/ Fills him.’
132. Man’s word is God in man: repeated BB 8. Cf. also LE 143: ‘a King who honours his own word,/As if it were his God’s?’, and G 470: ‘To honour his own word as if his God’s.’
134. foughten field: battlefield, as in Paradise Lost vi 410.
137. aught: anything whatever.
139. Tennyson develops Leodogran for his own purposes. Malory’s Leodogran has no doubts.
141. holp: archaic form of help.
152–3. Merlin’s master (so they call him) Bleys… wrote/All things and whatsoever Merlin did: Malory i 15: ‘All the batayles that were done in king Arthurs dayes Merlyn caused Bleyse his master to write them.’ The retirement of Bleys from magic because of the superior power of Merlin is Tennyson’s addition.
157. annal-book: year-book or chronicle.
176. breathed: OED 12, to give utterance to.
185–222. Bedivere’s account of Arthur’s origin and birth in all important details follows Malory.
187. Ygerne: spelling as in Layamon’s Brut.
189. Lot’s wife, the Queen of Orkney, Bellicent: name from Wright’s edn of Malory. ‘The kingdom of Orkney and Lothian composed the North and East of Scotland’ (T.).
205. moons: months.
208. the night of the new year: the opening of Tennyson’s year cycle.
211–13. and all as soon as born/Deliver’d at a secret postern-gate/To Merlin: Malory i 3: ‘And when the child is borne, let it bee delivered unto mee at yonder privie postern unchristned.’
postern-gate: back gate.
233. craft: occult art, magic.
234. And while the people clamour’d for a king: Tennyson quotes Malory i 7: ‘wherefore all the cornons cryed at once: “We will have Arthur unto our king.” ’
250 1873; not 1869–70.
252. enow: enough; body enow: ‘strength’ (T.).
267. comfortable: strengthening or supporting, morally or spiritually.
272. the Crucified: in stained glass the figure of Christ on the cross.
274. vert: green, especially in heraldry.
275. three fair queens: Malory xxi 6. Tennyson has introduced them at the inception.
279. mage: magician.
wit: intellect, intelligence.
282. the Lady of the Lake: ‘The Lady of the Lake in the old legends is the Church’ (T.). Her gift to Arthur of a sword is in Malory i 25.
284. samite: a rich silk fabric.
290. A voice as of the waters: Tennyson compares Revelation xiv 2: ‘I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters.’
294. Excalibur. ‘Said to mean “cut steel”. In the Romance of Merlin the sword bore the following inscription: “Ich am y-hote Escalabore/Unto a king a fair tresore”, and it is added: “On Inglis is this writing/Kerve steel and yren and al thing” ’ (T.).
296. That rose from out the bosom of the lake: see PA 198: ‘Rose up from out the bosom of the lake.’
298. Urim: Exodus xxviii 30: ‘And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim’ (oraculous gems) and the armour of the Son of God; Paradise Lost vi 760–61: ‘He in celestial panoply all arm’d/Of radiant Urim, work divinely wrought.’
306–7. Ecclesiastes iii 6: ‘A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away.’
307. brand: sword.
315. Daughter of Gorloīs and Ygerne am I: as in Malory and Arthurian romance, though there known as Margawse.
319–24. Invented by Tennyson, as is all the dialogue in the poem.
325–30. Using the exaggerated division of Celts into Brythonic and Goidelic, dark and fair.
346–7. Merlin, who, they say, can walk/Unseen at pleasure: as often in Malory.
362. changeling: a child secretly substituted for another in infancy.
363. told me that himself/And Merlin ever served about the King: in Malory Merlin alone.
365–85. Uther’s death counterbalanced by Arthur’s coming is unique to Tennyson. In Geoffrey of Monmouth Uther dies when Arthur is fifteen. In Malory Arthur is two at the time of the death.
372. dreary: dismal, gloomy.
373–4. the shape thereof/A dragon wing’d: the first association of the dragon with Arthur, stemming from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia IX 4, where Arthur wears a helmet with dragon for crest. Arthur’s dragon recurs in LE 433–5, HG 263, LT 182, 667, G 395, 590–94.
379. a ninth one, gathering half the deep: noted from Edward Davies’s Mythology and Rites of the British Druids, 1809, p. 509.
393. seer: one to whom divine revelations are made in visions.
402.‘The truth appears in different guise to divers persons. The one fact is that man comes from the great deep and returns to it. This is an echo of the triads of the Welsh bards’ (T.).
410. The line is repeated LT 133, PA 445.
420. Tho’ men may wound him that he will not die: Malory xxi 7: ‘Some men yet say in many parts of England that king Arthur is not dead, but had by the will of our Lord Jesu Christ into another place; and men say that hee will come againe, and hee shall winne the holy crosse.’
431. hind: servant.
432. glimpsed: shone faintly or intermittently, glimmered.
451. In Malory iii l it is Merlin who conducts Guinevere to Arthur.
452. Dubric the high saint: ‘Archbishop of Caerleon. His crozier is said to be at St David’s’ (T.). Form of name and epic tag from Layamon’s Brut.
456. the fair beginners of a nobler time: cf. G 463.
459–69] 1873; not 1869–70.
464. A voice as of the waters: see note to 1. 290.
475–502] 1873: not 1869–70. ‘My father wrote to my mother that this Viking song, a pendant to Merlin’s song, “rings like a grand music”.
This and Leodogran’s dream give the drift and grip of the poem, which describes the aspirations and ambitions of Arthur and his knights, doomed to downfall – the hints of coming doom being heard throughout’ (H. T.).
476–7. Great Lords from Rome before the portal stood,/In scornful stillness gazing as they past: ‘Because Rome had been the Lord of Britain’ (T.).
499. The King will follow Christ, and we the King: I Corinthians xi 1: ‘Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.’
503–13. Based on Malory v 1 –3.
508. The old order changeth, yielding place to new: repeated PA 408.
511. To drive the heathen from your Roman wall: ‘A line of forts built by Agrícola betwixt the Firth of Forth and the Clyde, forty miles long’ (T.).
512. No tribute will we pay: Malory v 8.
517. twelve great battles: the earliest record of Arthur, the chronicle of Nennius. Tennyson uses the entire Nennius battle list in LE 284–307. The twelve battles are mentioned in various contexts: BB 85, HG 248–50,311,6499.
Gareth and Lynette
Published 1872. Begun by 19 August 1869 and sent to the press 9 July 1872. All except the beginning is based on Malory vii.
2. showerful: abounding in showers. Tennyson’s coinage.
3. spate: ‘the river in flood’ (T.)
8. precipitancy, the quality of a headlong descent or fall, or of a very rapid onward movement.
18. Heaven yield her for it: cf. ‘And the gods yield you for ’t’ – Antony and Cleopatra IVü33.
20. discaged: to uncage, release from a cage.
21. ever-highering: ‘He invents a verb in his youthful exuberance’ (T.).
25–6. Why, Gawain, when he came/With Modred hither. ‘Gawain and Modred, brothers of Gareth’ (T.). In Malory there was also Agravaine, eliminated from the plot by Tennyson.
29. so shook him in the saddle: to be shaken in the saddle is one of several chivalric disgraces listed in Clark and Wormull’s Introduction to Heraldry, 1779, p. 54 (of which Tennyson had a copy) and so Gawain’s admission in the following line ‘Thou hast half prevail’d against me’ minimizes his brother’s prowess.
46. Book of Hours: a book containing the prayers or offices appointed to be said at the seven stated times of the day allotted to prayer, often as here elaborately illuminated.
47. haunting: OED 3, to frequent or be much about (a place).
50. An: archaic form of if.
51. a leash of kings: ‘Three kings. Cf. a leash of dogs’ (T.).
56. clotnb: archaic past tense of climb.
68. flurried: bewildered or confused as by haste or noise.
71. bemoan’d: moaned for, lamented.
73–80. Lot’s fate in Malory is very different. He dies in battle against Arthur.
90. burns: in Scottish and northern dialects mountain brooks and streams.
91. So make thy manhood mightier day by day. an echo of the battle anthem sung by the knights, CA 497: ‘Blow, for our Sun is mightier day by day!’
93. comfortable: pleasant, enjoyable.
94. prone year, figurative for declining into age.
111. fronted: faced, looked.
149–54. In Malory Gareth himself requests these conditions of the king at the outset.
162. thrall: serf, bondman, slave.
172. outward purpose: ‘purpose to go’ (T.).
187. Royal mount: note that the adjective is capitalized.
202. glamour: magic, enchantment, spell.
212. The Lady of the Lake: ‘The Lady of the Lake in the old romances of Lancelot instructs him in the mysteries of the Christian faith’ (T.).
219. sacred fish: ancient symbol of Christianity.
223. inveterately: in a manner confirmed by long existence or practice.
225–6. those three Queens, the friends/Of Arthur, who should help him at his need: see CA 275 and note.
229. dragon-boughts: ‘folds of the dragons’ tails’ (T.). ‘His huge long tayle wound up in hundred foldes,/Does overspred his long bras-scaly backe,/ Whose wreathed boughts when ever he unfoldes,/Bespotted as with shields of red and black’ – Faerie Qjteene I xi II.
elvish: having the nature of an elf, supernatural, weird.
236–7. an ancient man,/ Long-bearded: ‘Merlin’ (T.).
249–52. ‘Refraction by mirage’ (T.).
253. Take thou the truth as thou hast told it me: ‘Ironical’ (T.).
257. Toward the sunrise: ‘The religions and the arts that came from the East’ (T.).
269–70. Pass not beneath this gateway, but abide/ Without, among the cattle of the field: ‘Be a mere beast’ (T.).
272–4. They are building still, seeing the city is built/ To musk, therefore never built at all,/And therefore built for ever. ‘By the Muses’ (T.).
285. I know thee who thou art: Luke iv 34: ‘I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God.’
302. had made it spire to heaven: ‘Symbolizing the divine’ (T.).
326—41. Based on Malory i 7: ‘And many complaints were made unto king Arthur of great wrongs that were done since the death of Utherpendragon, of many lands that were bereved of lords, knights, ladyes, and gentlemen. Wherefore king Arthur made the lands for to be rendred againe unto them that ought (owned) them.’
327. boon: the asking of a chivalric favour.
345. the Barons’ war: see C A 94–133.
350. thrall’d: imprisoned.
355. wreak: revenge, avenge.
359. Sir Kay, the seneschal: ‘In the Roman de la Rose Sir Kay is given as a pattern of rough discourtesy’ (T.).
seneschal: steward.
361. railer. reviler.
362. gyve and gag: prevented by fetters and gag from motion and speech.
367. Aurelias Emrys: see note to CA 13.
376–410. This episode has no counterpart in Malory and Arthurian romance.
380. charlock: field mustard.
391. feälty, the obligation of fidelity on the part of a feudal tenant or vassal to his lord.
398. blazon’d: painted with a heraldic device.
411. reave: forcibly deprive of something.
419. churl: bondman or serf, one with no rank or status.
422. Lest we should lap him up in cloth of lead: ‘King Pandion he is dead;/All thy friends are lapped in lead’ – The Passionate Pilgrim, ‘As it fell upon a day’ 23–4.
423–7. A synopsis of the activities of Mark in Malory viii 13, ix 19, 37, x 7, 26–7.
428. suppliant: humble petitioner.
431–6. Malory vii t: ‘Right so came into the hall two men well beseene and richly, and upon their shoulders there leaned the goodliest young man and the fairest that ever they saw, and he was large, long, and broad in the shoulders, and well visaged, and the fairest and the largest hands that ever man saw, but he fared as though he might not goe nor beare himselfe, but if hee leaned upon their shoulders.’
436–40. Malory vii 1: ‘“Now, sir,” said he, “this is my petition for this feast, that ye will give me meate and drinke sufficiently for these twelve-monethes, and at that day I will aske mine other two giftes.” “My faire sonne,” said king Arthur, “aske better, I counsaile thee, for this is but simple asking, for my heart giveth mee to thee greatly that thou art come of men of worship… Yee shall have meate and drinke enough; I never defended that none, neither my friend nor foe. But what is thy name? I would faine know.” “I can not tell you,” said hee. “That have I mar-vaile of thee,” said the king, ‘that thou knowest not thine owne name, and thou art one of the goodliest young men that ever I saw.” ’
441–2. Malory vii 1: ‘Then the noble king Arthur betooke him unto the steward sir Kay, and charged him that hee should give him of all manner of meates and drinkes of the best, “and also that he have all manner of finding, as though hee were a lords sonne.” ’
Idylls of the King Page 34