The Fall of Arthur
Page 4
and its steel tempered strong and deadly – 200
forth leapt he as fire a flame wielding.
The king of Gothland on his carven prow
he smote to death and to sea drave him;
upon lords of Lochlan lightning hurled he,
helms boar-crested, heathen standards 205
hewed asunder. High rang his voice
‘Arthur’ calling. The air trembled
with thunderous answer thousandfolded.
As straw from storm, as stalks falling
before reapers ruthless, as roke flying 210
before the rising sun wrathful blazing
his foemen fled. Fear o’ercame them.
From board and beam beaten fell they,
in the sea they sank their souls losing.
Boats were blazing, burned and smoking; 215
some on shore shivered to shards broken.
Red ran the tide the rocks staining.
Shields on the water shorn and splintered
as flotsam floated. Few saved their lives
broken and bleeding from that battle flying. 220
Thus came Arthur to his own kingdom
and the sea’s passage with the sword conquered,
Gawain leading. Now his glory shone
as the star of noon stern and cloudless
o’er the heads of men to its height climbing 225
ere it fall and fail. Fate yet waited.
Tide was turning. Timbers broken,
dead men and drowned, a dark jetsam,
were left to lie on the long beaches;
rocks robed with red rose from water. 230
*
V
____________
Of the setting of the sun at Romeril.
Thus Arthur abode on the ebb riding.
At his land he looked and longed sorely
on the grass again there green swaying,
to walk at his will, while the world lasted;
the sweet to savour of salt mingled 5
with wine-scented waft of clover
over sunlit turf seaward leaning,
in kindly Christendom the clear ringing
of bells to hear on the breeze swaying,
a king of peace kingdom wielding 10
in a holy realm beside Heaven’s gateway.
On the land he looked lofty shining.
Treason trod there trumpets sounding
in power and pride. Princes faithless
on shore their shields shameless marshalled, 15
their king betraying, Christ forsaking,
to heathen might their hope turning.
Men were mustering marching southward,
from the East hurried evil horsemen
as plague of fire pouring ruinous; 20
white towers were burned, wheat was trampled,
the ground groaning and the grass withered.
There was woe in Britain and the world faded;
bells were silent, blades were ringing
hell’s gate was wide and heaven distant. 25
Toll must he pay and trewage grievous,
the blood spending that he best treasured
the lives losing that he loved dearest;
there friends should fall and the flower wither
of fair knighthood, for faith earning 30
the death and darkness, doom of mortals,
ere the walls were won or the way conquered,
or the grass again there green springing
his feet should feel faring homeward.
Never had Arthur need or danger 35
tamed or daunted, turned from purpose
or his path hindered. Now pity whelmed him
and love of his land and his loyal people,
for the low misled and the long-tempted,
the weak that wavered, for the wicked grieving. 40
With woe and weariness and war sated,
kingship owning crowned and righteous
he would pass in peace pardon granting,
the hurt healing and the whole guiding,
to Britain the blessed bliss recalling. 45
Death lay between dark before him
ere the way were won or the world conquered.
[The next sixteen lines were written more hastily on a separate slip of paper.]
For Gawain he called. Gravely speaking
dark thoughts he showed in his deep trouble.
‘Liege and kinsman loyal and noble, 50
my tower and targe, my true counsel,
the path before us to peril leadeth.
We have won the water. The walls remain,
and manned with menace might defy they.
Do we rightly choose ruthless onset, 55
to traitor keeper toll of death
to pay for passage, no price counting,
on dread venture at disadvantage
all hope to hazard? My heart urgeth
that best it were that battle waited. 60
To other landing our arms leading
let us trust the wind and tide ebbing
to waft us westward.’
Here ends The Fall of Arthur in its latest form.
NOTES ON THE TEXT OF
THE FALL OF ARTHUR
Canto I
1–9 On King Arthur’s campaign into eastern regions see here.
21 fanes: temples.
33 at last embayed (a pencilled correction of embayed and leaguered): No such meaning of a verb embay is recorded in the Oxford English Dictionary, but the sense is obviously ‘brought to bay’.
44–50 Knights of the Round Table. Lionel and Ector (on whom see here), Bors and Blamore, were kinsmen of Lancelot: Ector was his younger brother. Bedivere is only named here in The Fall of Arthur, but he would no doubt have played a part in the aftermath of the battle of Camlan, if my father had reached so far in his narrative (see here).
Marrac and Meneduc and Errac are named in the alliterative Morte Arthure among the slain at Camlan.
Reged was the name of a forgotten kingdom in North Britain. Urien king of Reged and his son Iwain (Ówein) seem to have been in origin historical kings, who became famous in the wars of the North Britons against the Angles in the sixth century.
Several of these knights appear in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Lionel, Bors, Bedivere, Errac, Iwain son of Urien (in my father’s translation, stanzas 6 and 24).
51 Cador the hasty: my father wrote fearless but later pencilled in hasty above. One might suppose that in making this change he was thinking of the incident described by Geoffrey of Monmouth, when the letter from the Emperor Lucius was read (see here). Geoffrey called Cador, Duke of Cornwall, a ‘merry’ man (erat laeti animi): he burst out laughing on that occasion, urging that the Roman challenge be welcomed, for the Britons had become soft and slothful. In Laȝamon’s Brut (see here) Cador declared For nauere ne lufede ich longe grið inne mine londe (‘for never loved I long peace in my land’), and for this he was roundly rebuked by Gawain. But in The Fall of Arthur (I.36–8) it was Gawain who
was for battle eager,
in idle ease the evil seeing
that had rent asunder the Round Table.
130 forwandered: wearied with wandering.
145 Cradoc: see here.
160 Wild blow the winds of war in Britain!: see here.
167 Lochlan: the name of a land in Irish legend, here it seems suggesting a remote people hostile to Arthur; it is repeated in IV.204.
168 Almain: Germany; Angel: the ancient homeland of the Angles in the Danish peninsula.
185, 191–2 Ban’s kindred: King Ban of Benwick in France was the father of Sir Lancelot; see here.
203–4 From the Forest’s margin / to the Isle of Avalon: see here.
Canto II
12 mort: the note blown on a horn at the death of a hunted deer.
27 Guinever: my father’s spelling of the Queen’s name was very various. Guinever preponderates, but in the latest t
ext of Canto II, while Guinever appears at lines 27, 135, and 143, it is Guinevere at 194 and 211; and in the text preceding the last the spellings are Guinevere, Gwenevere, Gwenever.
50 the dungeon-stair: dungeon is here used in the old sense of the keep or great central tower of a medieval castle.
52–3 Time is spared us / too short for shrift. In the earliest version of the canto the text here reads The sea spares us / a shrift too short (see here). The original meaning of ‘short shrift’ was a short space of time in which to make a confession (shrift) before death; hence, a brief respite. Cf. II.68 shrift he sought not.
80 Whitesand: Wissant in the Pas-de-Calais, between Calais and Boulogne.
86 On the waves they wait and the wind’s fury: i.e. they wait until the waves and the wind abate.
101 Logres: the kingdom of Britain ruled by King Arthur.
107–8 Erin: Ireland; Alban: Scotland; East-Sassoin: East Saxony. For Almain and Angel see note to I.168.
198, 202–3 Leodegrance: King of Camiliard in Wales, father of Guinevere. The mention of the Round Table at line 203 is a reference to the legend that it was made for Uther Pendragon, Arthur’s father. In Malory’s Tale of King Arthur Leodegrance learned of Merlin that Arthur wished to have Guinevere for his wife:
‘That is to me,’ seyde kyng Leodegreauns, ‘the beste tydynges that ever I herde, that so worthy a kyng of prouesse and noblesse wol wedde my doughter. And as for my londis, I wolde geff hit hym yf I wyste hyt myght please hym, but he hath londis inow, he nedith none. But I shall sende hym a gyffte that shal please hym muche more, for I shall gyff hym the Table Rounde which Uther, hys fadir, gaff me.’
Canto III
7 On Benwick’s beaches: see note to I.185.
29 Gold was Gawain, gold as sunlight. Gawain is again likened to the sun later in the poem (III.177–9, ‘the westering sun’; IV.223–4, ‘the star of noon’), and ‘a sun rising’ was sewn on the sail of his ship (IV.142). But there is no reference to his strength increasing towards noon and then declining, which was an important element in the story of the siege of Benwick, where Lancelot wounded him grievously when his strength waned (see here).
55–6 These lines are a closely similar repetition of II.28–9, and reappear in the same form in another text where they are put into the mouth of Sir Lionel (see here). Their earliest appearance is in the third synopsis, see here.
62 steel well-tempered: these words have been applied to Lancelot in line 26 of this canto.
In the manuscript as written the reading was Strong oaths she broke, changed in pencil to they broke; see here.
68. For the story here briefly suggested see see here.
69–70 Agravain the dour-handed translates Agravain a la dure mayn (as he is called in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, line 110), using dour in its old sense ‘hard’.
82–3 Gaheris and Gareth: see here.
86 Here and in line 156 the word battle is used in the sense ‘battle array’.
89 ruth: remorse.
100 little liked her: little pleased her.
104 bewrayed: betrayed.
122 siege: seat.
140–2 These lines are a repetition of 15–16, 18 in this canto.
148 the Lord of Logres: King Arthur.
Canto IV
29 fewte: the track of a hunted animal. The word occurs in the accounts of the hunts in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, as for example Summe fel in þe fute þer þe fox bade, in my father’s translation (stanza 68) Some [of the hounds] fell on the line to where the fox was lying.
41 Romeril: Romney in Kent (see here).
43 A partial repetition of II.108.
68 Leodegrance: see note to II.198.
98–9 the fair lily on the field sable: see note to IV.134.
126 sheen: bright, shining.
126–8 According to Geoffrey of Monmouth there was painted on the inside of Arthur’s shield Prydwen (see note to IV.186) an image of the Virgin Mary, so that he might never cease to think of her; and in the alliterative Morte Arthure the chief of Arthur’s banners before the great sea-battle is thus described:
Bot thare was chosen in the chefe a chalkewhitte mayden and a childe in hir arme, that chefe es of hevynne.
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight the same is told of Sir Gawain, who on account of his devotion to Mary had (in my father’s translation, Stanza 28)
on the inner side of his shield her image depainted, that when he cast his eyes thither his courage never failed.
134 flower-de-luce, or fleur-de-lys, the heraldic lily, the banner of Benwick (132); cf. IV.98, the fair lily on the field sable [of Ban’s kindred], and IV.158, Lancelot with his lilies came not.
144 a fiery griffon. The emblem of a griffon (a beast with the head and wings of an eagle and the body of a lion) is ascribed to Gawain’s arms in the alliterative Morte Arthure (a gryffoune of golde: see here); and in notes for the continuation of the poem beyond the point reached (see here) it is said that his shield bore the image of a griffon.
146 vaward: vanguard.
150 deep weighed dromonds and drawn barges. The word dromonds occurs in the account of the sea-battle in the alliterative Morte Arthure, where Arthur’s fleet included dromowndes and dragges. In the Oxford English Dictionary, where this line is cited, dromond is glossed ‘a very large medieval ship’, while drag here is defined as ‘a float or raft for the conveyance of goods’.
154 targes: shields.
186 Prydwen was the name given to Arthur’s shield by Geoffrey of Monmouth (see note to IV.126-8), followed by Laȝamon in the Brut (see here) but in early Welsh poetry it was the name of his ship, as here.
210 roke: mist.
Canto V
26 trewage: tribute, toll.
THE POEM IN ARTHURIAN TRADITION
THE POEM IN ARTHURIAN TRADITION
More than seven centuries had passed since the departure from Britain of the Roman legions when in the mid-years of the twelfth century, probably about 1136, there appeared a work entitled Historia Regum Britanniae, by Geoffrey of Monmouth (who incidentally makes a momentary appearance in my father’s work The Notion Club Papers, published in Sauron Defeated, pp.192, 216). Of this History of the Kings of Britain it was said (by Sir Edmund Chambers, in 1927) that ‘no work of imagination, save the Aeneid, has done more to shape the legend of a people.’ He used the word ‘imagination’ advisedly. It is said that Geoffrey of Monmouth’s book was the source of the ‘historical’ (as opposed to the ‘romance’) tradition of King Arthur, but the word is very misleading unless it is understood to mean that Geoffrey’s work, while full of marvels and extravagances embedded in a totally unhistorical structure, was nonetheless in ‘the mode of history’ (a narrative chronicle of events in Latin, soberly told), but not by any means of its substance: hence ‘pseudo-historical’ is a term that is applied to it.
In this work the history of the Britons was followed through more than nineteen hundred years, and the life of King Arthur constitutes no more than a quarter of its length. ‘One of the world’s most brazen and successful frauds’, it was called by the eminent scholar R.S. Loomis (The Development of Arthurian Romance, 1963). Yet he wrote also in the same place:
The more one studies the History of the Kings of Britain and the methods of its composition, the more one is astonished at the author’s impudence, and the more one is impressed with his cleverness, his art. Written in a polished but not ornate style, displaying sufficient harmony with learned authorities and accepted traditions, free from the wilder extravagances of the conteurs, founded ostensibly on a very ancient manuscript, no wonder Geoffrey’s magnum opus disarmed scepticism and was welcomed by the learned world.
Its success and its long acceptance was a literary phenomenon of the most extraordinary nature. Of my father’s own estimation of the work I have no knowledge. No doubt he would have accepted the judgement of his friend R.W. Chambers, who wrote of it that it was ‘one of the most influential books ever written in this country�
��. He might well have been in sympathy with C.S. Lewis when he roundly condemned the Arthurian part of the work, in a posthumously published essay The Genesis of a Medieval Book (Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, 1966):
Geoffrey is of course important for the historians of the Arthurian Legend; but since the interest of those historians has seldom lain chiefly in literature, they have not always remembered to tell us that he is an author of mediocre talent and no taste. In the Arthurian parts of his work the lion’s share falls to the insufferable rigmarole of Merlin’s prophecies and to the foreign conquests of Arthur. These latter are, of course, at once the least historical and the least mythical thing about Arthur. If there was a real Arthur he did not conquer Rome. If the story has roots in Celtic paganism, this campaign is not one of them. It is fiction. And what fiction! We can suspend our disbelief in an occasional giant or enchantress. They have friends in our subconscious and in our earliest memories; imagination can easily suppose that the real world has room for them. But vast military operations scrawled over the whole map of Europe and excluded by all the history we know are a different matter. We cannot suspend our disbelief. We don’t even want to. The annals of senseless and monotonously successful aggression are dreary enough reading even when true; when blatantly, stupidly false, they are unendurable.