spigot: ‘bung’ (T.).
270. ill: evil.
277. Ev’n in the presence of an enemy’s fleet: one of a bard’s responsibilities.
286. Gorloïs: see CA 72 and note (p. 307).
289. Bude and Bos: ‘north of Tintagil’ (T.).
295–6. And that his grave should be a mystery/From all men, like his birth: ambiguity about Arthur’s precise burial occurs in Malory xxi 6. 311. gadding: wandering. 319. come next: by next year. 395. The Dragon of the great Pendragonship: ‘The headship of the tribes who had confederated against the Lords of the White Horse. “Pendragon” not a dactyl as some make it, but Pén-drágon’ (T.).
419–20. one/I honour’d: Leodogran, Guinevere’s father.
424. craft: cunning.
429. twelve great battles: see especially LE 284–307 and note (p. 343).
431. From waging bitter war with him: as in Malory.
437. Clave: clung to.
446. Howbeit I know, if ancient prophecies/Have err’d not, that I march to meet my doom: the ancient prophecies are Merlin’s, CA 306, 410.
487. ensample: pattern or model of conduct.
491. scathe: hurt, harm.
495. wonted: accustomed.
500. Usk: Caerleon upon Usk.
534–5. that fierce lawJThe doom of treason and the flaming death: In Malory, Arthur condemned Guinevere to be burnt to death, and she was rescued by Lancelot.
568. that great battle in the west: the battle of Camlan.
569—70. the man they call/1 My sister’s son – no kin of mine: Modred, who indeed in Malory is Arthur’s own son.
591–2. so she did not see the face,/Which then was as an angel’s: Acts vi 15, of Stephen: ‘And all that sat in the council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.’
628. fume: a fit of anger.
657. vail: lower.
670–80. Expansion of Malory: see opening note to this idyll.
679. holer, more wholesome.
The Passing of Arthur
Published December 1869 (dated 1870). Tennyson created it around his Morte d’Arthur (1842), which forms 11. 170–440 of this later poem. Based on Malory xxi 4–5.
1–3. That story which the bold Sir Bedivere… Told: Malory xxi 6: ‘For this tale sir Bedivere, knight of the round table, made it plainly to be written.’
6–28. Tennyson’s addition.
14. As if some lesser god had made the world: ‘Cf. the demiurge of Plato, and the gnostic belief that lesser Powers created the world’ (T.).
26. Reels back into the beast: cf. LT 125: ‘Reel back into the beast.’
27. My God, thou hast forgotten me in my death: Matthew xxvii 46: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’
30–31. There came on Arthur sleeping, Gawain kill’dl In Lancelot’s war, theghostof Gawain blown: Malory has Gawain’s death in the battle between Lancelot and the king. Malory xxi 4 has the ghost of Gawain warn Arthur not to fight that day, but battle commences when a knight treads on an adder.
36. And I am blown along a wandering wind: Tennyson compares Aeneid vi 740–41, on the fate of the dead: ‘aliae panduntur inanes/suspensae ad ventos’ (‘Some are hung stretched out to the empty winds’).
52. Elves, and the harmless glamour of the field: ‘The legends which cluster round the king’s name’ (T.).
57. for the ghost is as the man: ‘the spirit’ (T.).
67–9. than when we strove in youth,/And brake the petty kings, and fought with Rome,/Or thrust the heathen from the Roman wall: referring to CA 95–120, 503–12
81. sunset bound: due west, where the sun sinks over the horizon.
82–3. A land of old upheaven from the abyss/By fire, to sink into the abyss again: both tradition and geology. The rocks of Cornwall are largely igneous.
84. Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt: ‘perhaps old Celts’ (T.).
91. Burn’d at his lowest in the rolling year. ‘The winter solstice’ (T.).
93–4. Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight/Like this last, dim, weird battle of the west: ‘A Vision of Death’ (T.).
114. Oaths, insult, filth, and monstrous blasphemies: Tennyson compares Revelation xvi 21: ‘and men blasphemed God’, after the battle of Armageddon. ‘This grim battle in the mist contrasts with Arthur’s glorious battle in The Coming of Arthur, fought on a bright day when “he saw the smallest rock far on the faintest hill” ’ (T.). The landscape and the mist are additions to Malory.
164–9. Malory xxi 4: ‘Then king Arthur gate his speare in both his hands, and ranne toward sir Mordred, crying, “Traitour, now is thy death day come!” And when sir Mordred heard king Arthur, hee ran unto him with his sword drawen in his hand, and there king Arthur smote sir Modred under the shield with a foine of his speare throughout the body more than a fadom. And when sir Mordred felt that hee had his death wound, he thrust himselfe with all the might that hee had up to the end of king Arthurs speare, and right so he smote his father Arthur with his sword that hee held in both his hands on the side of the head, that the sword perced the helmet and the brain-pan. And therwith sir Mordred fel downe starke dead to the earth.’
170. So all day long the noise of battle roll’d; Where the Morte d’Arthur of 1842 takes up, and continues to 1. 440. Tennyson’s line is one of the ‘Homeric echoes’ mentioned in the frame to the Morte {The Epic 39): Iliad vi, 1, xvii 384. Cf. Tennyson’s translation, ‘Achilles’ 9: ‘All day the men contend in grievous war.’
173. Lyonnesse: ‘the country of legend that lay between Cornwall and the Scilly Islands’ (T.).
174–81. Malory xxi 4: ‘And the noble king Arthur fell in a sowne to the earth, and there hee sowned oftentimes. And sir Lucan and sir Bedivere oftentimes heaved him up, and so weakly they lad him betweene them both unto a little chappell not farre from the sea side.’
182–5. Malory xx 9: ‘For I have now lost the fairest fellowship of noble knights that ever held Christian king together.’ unsolders: dissolves.
191. Tho’ Merlin sware that I should come again: 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.’
195–201. Malory i 25: ‘So they rode til they came to a lake, which was a faire water and a broade, and in the middes of the lake king Arthur was ware of an arme clothed in white samite, that held a faire sword in the hand.’
204–12. Malory xxi 5 (subsequent quotations from Malory, unless noted otherwise, run on consecutively without omissions): ‘“Therefore take thou Excalibur my good sword, and goe with it unto yonder water side, and, when thou commest there, I charge thee throw my sword into that water, and come againe and tell me what thou shalt see there.” “My lord,” said sir Bedivere, “your commande shall be done, and lightly bring you word againe.” ’
211. hest: command.
213–33. Malory: ‘And so sir Bedivere departed; and by the way he beheld that noble sword where the pummell and the haft were all of precious stones, and then hee said to himselfe, “If I throw this rich sword into the water, thereof shall never come good, but harme and losse.” And then sir Bedivere hid Excalibur under a tree, and as soone as hee might he came againe unto king Arthur, and said hee had beene at the water, and had throwen the sword into the water.’
218. juts: projections.
225. jacinth-work: inlaid with blue or reddish gems.
228. This way and that dividing the swift mind: Tennyson compares Aeneid iv 285: ‘atque animum nunc hue celerem, ruine dividit illuc’ (‘And now hither, now thither, he swiftly throws his mind’).
234–49. Malory: ‘ “What sawest thou there?” said the king. “Sir,” said he, “I saw nothing but waves and wind.” “That is untruely said of thee,” said king Arthur, “therefore goe thou lightly and doe my command, as thou art to mee lefe and deere; spare not, but throw it in.” ’
250–80. Malory: ‘T
hen sir Bedivere returned againe, and tooke the sword in his hand; and then him thought it sinne and shame to throw away that noble sword. And so eft (again) hee hid the sword, and returned againe and told to the king that hee had beene at the water and done his command.’
254. chased: ornamented with embossed work, engraved in relief.
272. lonely maiden: the friendly sorceress of Malory i 25 (out of the sequence): ‘“That is the lady of the lake,” said Merlin, “and within that lake is a roch, and therein is as faire a place as any is on earth, and richly beseene.” ’
273–4. Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps/Upon the hidden bases, of the hills: Cf. Pope’s Iliad xviii 468–72, where Vulcan is about to make the shield of Achilles: ‘Chains, bracelets, pendants, all their toys I wrought./ Nine years kept secret in the dark abode,/Secure I lay concealed from man and God./Deep in a caverned rock my days were led;/The rushing ocean murmured o’er my head.’
278. conceit: fancy.
281–300. Malory: ‘“What saw yee there?” said the king. “Sir,” said hee, “I saw nothing but the water wap and waves waune.” “Ah, traitour untrue!” said king Arthur, “now hast thou betraied me two times. Who would have wend that thou that hast beene unto me so selfe and deere, and thou art named a noble knight, and wouldest betray mee for the rich sword? But now goe againe lightly, for thy long tarying putteth me in great jeopardie of my life, for I have taken cold; and but if thou doe as I commaund thee, and if ever I may see thee, I shall sley thee with my owne hands, for thou wouldst for my rich sword see me dead.” ’
296. Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes: cf. Horace, Epistles II i 188: ‘oculos et gaudia vana’.
301–34. Malory: ‘Then sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and lightly tooke it up, and went to the waters side; and there hee bound the girdell about the hilts, and then hee threw the sword into the water as farre as hee might; and there came an arme and an hand above the water, and met it and caught it, and so shooke it thrise and brandished. And then the hand vanished away with the sword in the water. So sir Bedivere came againe to the king, and told him what he had seene. “Alas!” said the king, “helpe me from hence, for I dread me I have taried over long.” ’
306. And flashing round and round, and whirl’d in an arch: ‘The extra syllable gives the rush of the sword as it is whirled in a parabolic curve’ (T.).
307. streamer, the Aurora Borealis.
323. Not tho’ I live three lives of mortal men: Tennyson compares Odyssey iii 245: ‘For thrice, men say, has he been King for a generation of men.’
335–71. Malory: ‘Then sir Bedivere took king Arthur upon his backe, and “so went with him to the waters side. And when they were at the waters, side, even fast by the banke hoved a little barge with many faire ladies in it, and among them all was a queene, and all they had blacke hoods, and they wept and shriked when they saw king Arthur.’
351. Larger than human: humano maior, like the ghost of Romulus in Ovid, Fasti ii 503.
366–7. and from them rose/’A cry that shiver’d to the tingling stars: cf. Aeneid ii 387: ‘a/ domus interior gemitu miseroque tumultu/miscetur penitusque cavae plangoribus aedeslfemineis ululant: ferit aurea sidera clamor’ (‘The echoing halls resounded through and through with the keening of women, whose wails and shrieks beat at the golden stars’).
372–93. Malory: ‘ “Now put mee into the barge,” said the king; and so hee did softly; and there received him three queenes with great mourning, and so these three queenes set them downe, and in one of their laps king Arthur laide his head. And then that queene said, “Ah! deer brother, why have ye taried so long from me? Alas! this wound on your head hath taken over much cold.” ’
373–4. There those three Queens/Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept: Malory xxi 6(out of the sequence): ‘But thus was hee led away in a barge, wherein were three queenes; that one was king Arthurs sister Morgan le Fay; the other was the queene of Northgalis; and the third was the queene of the wast lands.’
383. greaves and misses: armour for shin and thigh.
394–406. Malory: ‘And so then they rowed from the land, and sir Bedivere beheld al those ladies goe from him; then sir Bedivere cried, “Ah! my lord Arthur, what shall become of mee now ye goe from me, and leave me here alone among mine enemies?” ’
402–3. But now the whole Round Table is dissolved/Which was an image of the mighty world: Malory xiv 2 (out of the sequence): ‘Also Merlin made the round table in token of the roundnesse of the world; for by the round table is the world signified by right.’
407–32. Malory: ‘“Comfort thy selfe,” said king Arthur, “and do as well as thou maiest, for in mee is no trust for to trust in; for I wil into the vale of Avilion for to heale me of my greivous wound; and if thou never heere more of mee, pray for my soule.” ’
410. Lest one good custom should corrupt the world: ‘e.g. chivalry, by formalism of habit or by any other means’ (T.).
423. Bound by gold chains about the feet of God: a commonplace found variously in Homer, Plato, Chaucer, Spenser, Milton – though none exactly parallels Tennyson’s use.
427. To the island-valley of Avilion: ‘From which he will some day return – the Isle of the Blest’ (T.).
428–31. Tennyson compares Odyssey iv 566ff., and Lucretius iii i8ff.
430. Deep-nuadow’d: Tennyson compares Pindar, Pythian Odes x 23, and Iliad x 151.
431. bowery hollows crown’d with summer sea: Tennyson compares Odyssey x 195: ‘the island, about which is set as a crown the boundless deep’.
433–40. Malory: ‘But evermore the queenes and the ladies wept and shriked that it was pittie for to heare. them. And as soone as sir Bedivere had lost die sight of the barge, hee wept and wailed, and so tooke the forrest; and so he went all the night.’
438. Revolving: Paradise Lost iv 31: ‘much revolving’, deriving from Aeneid i 305: ‘per noctem plurima volvens’.
445. ‘From the great deep to the great deep he goes’: ‘Merlin’s song when he was born’ (T.). See CA 410.
453–6. Referring to CA 275–8.
457. Then from the dawn: ‘From (the dawn) the East, whence have sprung all the great religions of the world. A triumph of welcome is given to him who has proved himself “more than conqueror” ’ (T.).
468. From less to less and vanish into light: ‘The purpose of the individual man may fail for a time, but his work cannot die’ (T.). Tennyson compares 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.’ Tennyson adds: ‘And cf. what Arthur says in Layamon’s Brut, 2861g, Madden’s edition iii 144: “And seothe ich cumen wulle/to mine kineriche,/and wunien mid Brutten,/mid muchelere wunne.” (And afterwards I will come (again) to my kingdom, and dwell with the Britons with much joy.)’
To the Queen
Published 1873. Tennyson had ‘just written’ it, 25 December 1872.
3. that rememberable day. ‘When the Queen and the Prince of Wales went to the thanksgiving at St Paul’s (after the Prince’s dangerous illness) in Feb. 1872’ (T.).
12–13. Thunderless lightnings striking under sea: communication by submarine cable, telegraph.
14–17. And that true North, whereof we lately heard/A strain to shame us ‘keepyou to yourselves;/So loyal is too costly: friends – your love/Is but a burthen: loose the bond, and go.’ ‘Canada. A leading London journal had written advocating that Canada should sever her connection with Great Britain, as she was “too costly”: hence these lines’ (T.). Referring to The Times.
20. Hougoumont: ‘Waterloo’ (T.).
35. For one to whom I made it O ‘er his grave: the Prince Consort, see Dedication.
38. Ideal manhood closed in real man: ’… having this vision of Arthur, my father thought that perhaps he had not made the real humanity of the King sufficiently clear in his
epilogue, so he inserted in 1891 (this line) as his last correction’ (H. T.).
41. cairn: a pyramid of rough stones, raised as a memorial.
cromlech: prehistoric structure of large flat unhewn stone resting horizontally on three or more stones set upright, usually marking a burial.
41–2. or him/Of Geoffrey’s book: ‘GeofTrey of Monmouth’s’ (T.).
Malleor’s: ‘Malory’s name is given as Maleorye, Maleore, and Malleor’ (T.).
43–4. a time/That hover’d between war and wantonness: When Malory was writing Morte d’Arthur England was in the throes of the Wars of the Roses and the final break-up of medieval chivalry.
56. Or Art with poisonous honey stol’nfrom France: art for art’s sake.
65. that battle in the West: Arthur’s last.
Idylls of the King Page 42