287. Glem: small river in the north of Tennyson’s own county, Lincolnshire.
289. that on Bassa: the island called the Bass Rock.
291. Celidon the forest: the Caledonian forest, in Scotland.
293. In Nennius Arthur bore the image of the Virgin Mary upon his shoulders. For the cuirass or breastplate cf. Faerie Queene I vii 29–30: ‘Athwart his brest a bauldrick brave he ware,/That shynd, like twinkling stars, with stons most pretious rare.//And in the midst thereof one pretious stone/Of wondrous worth, and eke of wondrous mights,/Shapt like a Ladies head, exceeding shone.’
296. Caerleon: one of Arthur’s two capitals.
297. the wild white Horse: the emblem of the Saxons was a white horse (not to be confused with the white horse emblem mentioned in GE 935, which is prehistoric).
298. parapet: defence of earth or stone to cover troops from the enemy’s observation or fire.
299. Agned-Cathregonion: the footnote alternative being preferred to the ‘Cat Bregion’ of the text, as more sonorous.
302. Badon: the last and most decisive battle.
312. For if his own knight cast him down: as in Malory x 73, xviii 23.
314. Yet in this heathen war the fire of God/Fills him: cf. CA 127–8: ‘“Sir and my liege,” he cried, “the fire of God/Descends upon thee in the battle-field.’”
338. rathe: ‘early’ (T.).
341. Down the long tower-stairs, hesitating: ‘“Stairs” is to be read as a monosyllable, with a pause after it’ (T.).
355–82. Malory xviii 9: ‘So thus as shee came too and fro, shee was so hoot in her love that she besought sir Launcelot to weare upon him at the justs a token of hers. “Faire damosell,” said sir Launcelot, “and if I graunt you that, yee may say I doe more for your love then ever I did for lady or damosell.” Then hee remembred him that hee would ride unto the justs disguised, and for because he had never before that time borne no manner of token of no damosell, then he bethought him that he would beare on of hers, that none of his blood thereby might know him. And then hee said, “faire damosell, I will graunt you to weare a token of yours upon my helmet, and therefore what it is shew me.” “Sir,” said shee, “it is a red sleeve of mine of scarlet, well embroadered with great pearles.” And so she brought it him. So sir Launcelot received it, and said, “Never or this time did I so much for no damosell.” And then sir Launcelot betooke the faire damosell his shield in keeping, and prayed her to keepe it until he came againe. And so that night hee had merry rest and great cheere; for ever the faire damosell Elaine was about sir Launcelot all the while that she might be suffered.’
360. favour: in medieval chivalry something given by a-lady to her knight to be worn conspicuously as a token of affection.
398. bushless: devoid of bushes. Tennyson’s coinage.
432. Since to his crown the golden dragon clung: the dragon is Arthur’s symbol from the first; see note to C A 373 (p. 309).
444. seat: seat in the saddle.
446. crescent: growing, developing.
447–9. and in me there dwells/No greatness, save it be some far-off touch/Of greatness to know well I am not great: ‘When I wrote that, I was thinking of Wordsworth and myself (T.).
459. bode: waited. In Malory xv 5 Lancelot waits to see which side is the weaker, and then joins it.
468–74. Malory xviii 11: ‘“O mercy, Jesu,” said sir Gawaine, “what knight is that I see yonder that doth so mervailous deedes of armes in the fields?” “I wote well who is that,” said king Arthur, “but at this time I will not name him.” “Sir,” said sir Gawaine, “I would say it were sir Launcelot by the riding, and by his buffets that I see him deale; but alway me seemeth it should not bee hee, because he beareth the red sleeve upon the helme, for I wist him never yet beare token at no justs of lady nor gentlewoman.” “Let him be,” said king Arthur, “for he will be better known and doe more or he depart.” ’
475. a fiery family passion for the name/ Of Lancelot: as in Malory.
480–84. as a wild wave in the wide North-sea,/Green-glimmering toward the summit, bears, with all/Its stormy crests that smoke against the skies,/Down on a bark, and overbears the bark,/And him that helms it: ‘Seen on a voyage to Norway’ (T.).
484. helms: steers.
494. holpen: assisted, helped.
502–5. Malory xviii 12, after Lancelot has been offered the prize: ‘“If I have deserved thankes, I have sore bought it, and that me repenteth, for I am like never to escape with my life; therefore,’ faire lords, I pray you that yee will suffer mee to depart where me liketh, for I am sore hurt; I take no force of none honour, for I had lever to rest me then to be lord of all the world.”’
509–16. Malory xviii 12: ‘“O gentle knight sir Lavaine, helpe me that this trunchion were out of my side, for it sticheth so sore that it almost sleyeth mee.” “O mine owne lord,” said sir Lavaine, “I would faine helpe you, but it dreads me sore and I draw out the trunchion that yee shall bee in perill of death.” “I charge you,” said sir Launcelot, “as yee love mee, draw it out,” And therewith he discended from his horse, and so did sir Lavaine, and foorthwith sir Lavaine drew the trunchion out of his side; and sir Launcelot gave a great shrieke and a mervailous ghastly grone, and his blood brast out nigh a pinte at once, that at the last hee sanke downe upon his buttocks and sowned paile and deadly.’
554–5. And after Lancelot, Tristram, and Geraint/And Gareth, a good knight: As in Malory, with the exception of Geraint, who occurs only in Mabinogion.
567. tarriance: delay, procrastination.
591. fantastical: full of absurd notions.
606. and writhed upon it: in different circumstances, Malory xi 8: ‘then she writhed and weltered as a mad woman’.
635ff. Courtesy with a touch of traitor in it: not in Malory, where Gawain is loyal to Lancelot at this time.
639. turn’d: shaped, formed.
657. but an: but if.
660. ramp in the field: heraldic lions rampant or erect on their hindfeet on the surface or ‘field’ of the shield.
724. predoom’d: precondemned.
739. wormwood: emblem or type of what is bitter or grievous to the soul.
786—92. Malory xviii 15: ‘By fortune sir Lavaine was riden to play him and to enchafe (heat) his horse. And anone as faire Elaine saw him she knew him, and then she cried aloude unto him; and when hee heard her anon hee came unto her. And then she asked her brother, “How fareth my lord sir Launcelot?” “Who told you, sister, that my lords name was sir Launcelot?” ’
787. caper, prance.
curvet: leap of the horse in which the fore-legs are raised together and equally advanced, and the hind-legs raised with a spring before the forelegs reach the ground.
798. his own far blood: distant relatives.
807. battle-writhen: twisted out of regular shape or form by incessant combat.
810. unsleek: unkempt. Tennyson’s coinage.
843–56. Malory xviii 15: ‘So this maide Elaine never went from sir Launcelot, but watched him daie and night, and gave such attendance upon him, there was never woman did more kindlyer for man then shee did.’
851. forbore: tolerated.
857. simples: things medicinally pure.
877. the bright image of one face: ‘Vision of Guinevere’ (T.).
904. festal: keeping holiday.
922–42. Malory xviii 19: ‘ “Have mercy upon me, and suffer mee not to die for your love.” “What would yee that I did?” said sir Launcelot. “I would have you unto my husband,” said the maide Elaine. “Faire damosell, I thanke you,” said sir Lancelot: “but certainely.” said hee, “I cast mee never to bee married.” “Then, faire knight,” said shee, “will yee bee my paramour?” “Jesu defend mee!” said sir Launcelot, “for then should I reward your father and your brother full evil for their great goodnesse.” “Alas!” said she, “then must I needes die for your love… for but if ye wil wed mee, or else be my paramour at the least, wit ye well, sir Laun
celot, my good daies are done.” ’
934. To sere you, and to follow you thro’ the world: cf. Romeo and Juliet II ii 148: ‘And follow thee my lord throughout the world.’
936. All ear and eye: modelled on Adam’s being ‘all ear’, Paradise Lost iv 410.
951–2. Malory xviii 19: ‘“that wheresoever yee will set your heart upon some good knight that will wed you, I shall give you together a thousand pound yearely to you and to your heires.” ’
954. So: if.
955. blood: kin.
966–9. Added to Malory.
998. The song takes the place of Elaine’s religious meditation, Malory xviii 19.
1012–19. The Banshee, as described in J. Brand’s Popular Antiquities.
1065. discomfort: desolation, grief, sorrow.
1092. ghostly man: priest. Malory has ‘ghostly father’.
1096–129. Malory xviii 19: ‘And then shee called her father sir Bernard, and her brother sir Tirre, and heartely shee praied her father that her brother might write a letter like as she would endite it. And so his father graunted her. And when the letter was written word by word like as shee had devised, then she prayed her father that shee might bee watched untill she were dead, “And while my body is whole, let this letter be put into my right hand, and my hand bound fast with the letter untill that I bee cold, and let me be put in a faire bed with all the richest clothes that I have about me, and so let my bed and all my rich clothes be laide with me in a chariot to the next place where as the Thamse is, and there let me bee put in a barge, and but one man with me, such as yee trust, to stere me thither, and that my barge be covered with blacke samite over and over. Thus, father, I beseech you let me be done.” So her father graunted her faithfully that all this thing should bee done like as shee had devised. Then her father and her brother made great dole, for, when this was done, anon shee died.’
1125. Was rather in the fantasy than the blood: imagined rather than real.
1129. dole: mourning.
1130–54. Malory xviii 19: ‘And so when shee was dead, the corps and the bed and all was led the next way unto the Thamse, and there a man and the corps and all were put in a barge on the Thamse, and so the man steered the barge to Westminster, and there hee rowed a great while too and fro or any man espied it.’
1150. coverlid: coverlet, uppermost covering of a bed.
1170–235. Malory xviii 20: ‘So by fortune king Arthur and queene Guenev-er were speaking together at a window; and so as they looked into the Thamse, they espied the blacke barge, and had mervaile what it might meane… and shee lay as though she had smiled.’
1170. oriel: large recess with a window.
1179. Your beauty is your beauty: cf. LT 556.
1197. quicker of belief. more rapid understanding.
1202. despite: contempt, scorn, disdain.
1210. joys: sexual pleasures.
1253. girt with: encircled by.
1256–7. Sir Percivale and Sir Galahad as pallbearers are Tennyson’s addition.
1262. Malory xviii 20: ‘Then the queene espied the letter in the right hand, afnd told the king thereof. Then the king tooke it in his hand.’
1264–74. Malory xviii 20: ‘“Most noble knight, my lord sir Launcelot du Lake, now hath death made us two at debate for your love; I was your lover, that men call the faire maiden of Astolat; therefore unto all ladies I make my moone; yet for my soule that yee pray, and bury me at the least, and offer ye my masse peny. This is my last request; and a cleane maide I died, I take God to my witnesse. Pray for my soule, sir Launcelot, as thou art a knight pearles.” ’
1275–9. Malory xviii 20: ‘And when it was red, the queene and all the knights wept for pittie of the dolefull complaints.’
1281–98. Malory xviii 20: ‘“My lord king Arthur, wit you well that I am right heavy of the death of this faire damosell; God knoweth I was never causer of her death by my will, and that I will report mee unto her owne brother, here hee is, sir Lavaine. I will not say nay,” said sir Launcelot, “but that shee was both faire and good, and much I was beholden unto her, but shee loved me out of measure.” ’
1298–301. Malory xviii 20: ‘“Yee might have shewed her,” said the queene, “some bountie and gentlenesse, that ye might have preserved her life.” ’
1303–14. Malory xviii 20: ‘“Madame,” said sir Launcelot, “shee would none other way bee answered but that shee would bee my wife, or else my paramour, and of these two I would not graunt her; but I proffered her, for her good love which shee shewed me, a thousand pound yearely to her and her heires, and to wed any manner of knight that she could find best to love in her heart; for, madame,” said sir Launcelot, “I love not to bee constrained to love, for love must arise of the heart, and not by constraint.”
1311. Estate: endow with.
1315–18. Malory xviii 20: ‘Then said the king unto sir Launcelot, “It will be your worship that ye oversee that shee bee buried worshipfully.” ’
1319–35. Malory xviii 20: ‘And so many knights went thether to behold the faire dead maide. And on the morrow shee was richly buried; and sir Launcelot offered her masse peny, and all the knights of the round table that were there at that time offered with sir Launcelot.’ Tennyson says of 11. 1319–27: ‘This passage and the “tower-stair” passage (1. 341) are among the best blank verse in Lancelot and Elaine, I think’ (T.).
1322. sad beyond his wont: Virgil, Georgics i 412: ‘praeter solitum’.
1333. blazon’d: painted with a heraldic device.
1337—42. Malory xviii 20: ‘Then the queene sent for sir Launcelot, and praied him of mercy, for because she had been wroth with him caúseles. “This is not the first time,” said sir Launcelot, “that yee have beene displeased with me caúseles; but, madame, ever I must suffer you, but what sorrow that I endure yee take no force.” ’
1346. affiance: faith, trust.
1369–70. Malory xviii 20: ‘“That is truth,” said king Arthur and many knights; “love is free in himselfe, and never wil be bound, for where hee is bound hee loseth himselfe.” ’
1377. inrunning: inflowing.
1395. Who passes thro’ the vision of the night: Job iv 14: ‘in thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men.’
1418. Not knowing he should die a holy man: Malory xxi 10: ‘I asked my father why he did not write an Idyll “How Sir Lancelot came unto the hermitage, and how he took the habit unto him; and how he sent to Almesbury and found Queen Guinevere dead, whom they brought to Glastonbury; and how Sir Lancelot died a holy man” and he answered, “Because it could not be done better than by Malory”. My father loved his own great imaginative knight, the Lancelot of the Idylls’ (H. T.).
The Holy Grail
Published December 1869 (dated 1870). Begun 9 September 1868, nearly complete by the 14th, complete on the 23rd. Tennyson’s source was Malory xi-xvii, which he modifies very considerably, particularly in the character of Percivale, though the Grail appearances are faithful to Malory.
2. Sir Percivale: the original hero of the Grail legend, and always a most important person in it, though his place was in the later form of the story (especially Malory) taken by Galahad. Tennyson follows the later legend, but by making Percivale the narrator he gives to him and to his adventures the chief degree of prominence. Percivale as a framing character occurs in Malory however; see xi 14 and xvii 23.
3. Whom Arthur and his knighthood call’d the Pure: not in Malory. Tennyson’s addition.
5–7. and leaving for the cowl/The helmet in an abbey far away IFrom Camelot, there and not long after, died: Malory xvii 23.
9. Ambrosius: not in Malory.
14. gustful: gusty
18. I have seen this yew-tree smoke: ‘The pollen in Spring, which, blown abroad by the wind, looks like smoke’ (T.).
21. beyond the pale: beyond the limit or boundary of the monastery.
26—7. but every one ofyoulStamp’d with the image of the King: cf. CA 269–7
0.
32. vainglories: the only other plural usage is Milton’s.
33. heats: passions.
40. one of your own knights: Bors; see II. 696–8.
48. Aromat: ‘Used for Arimathea, the home of Joseph of Arimathea, who, according to the legend, received in the Grail the blood that flowed from our Lord’s side’ (T.).
49–50. After the day of darkness, when the dead/Went wandering o’er Moriah: Matthew xxvii 45 and 52–3: ‘Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour… And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.’
Moriah: 2 Chronicles iii 1.
52–3. Glastonbuty, where the winter thorn/Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord: ‘It was believed to have been grown from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea’ (H. T.).
54. bode: remained.
57–8. the holy cup/Was caught away to Heaven: see Malory xvii 22.
61. Arviragus: king of the Britons.
63. wattles: rods or stakes, interlaced with twigs or branches of trees, used to form fences and the walls of buildings.
69–70. And one no further off in blood from me/Than sister. Malory xvii 2.
85. winters: years.
87. thro’five or six: five.or six old men.
110. use: habit, custom.
136–7. ‘God make thee good as thou art beautiful,’/Said Arthur, when he dubb’d him knight: Malory xiii i: ‘And on the morrow at the houre of prime, at Galahads desire, he (Lancelot) made him knight; and said, “God make him a good man, for beautie faileth him not as any that liveth.”’
dubb’d: conferred the rank of knighthood by the ceremony of striking the shoulder with a sword.
143–5. but some,/Call’d him a son of Lancelot, and some said/Begotten by enchantment: Malory xi 2 tells of the enchantment by which Lancelot was made to sleep with Elaine (daughter of King Pelles), believing her to be Guinevere: ‘and for this entent. The king knew wel that sir Launcelot should get a child upon his daughter, the which should be named sir Galahad the good knight, by whom all the forraine countrey should bee brought out of danger, and by him the holy grale would bee achieved.’
Idylls of the King Page 39