The Fall of Arthur

by J. R. R. Tolkien

  Eyes hath envy that are ever watchful:

  most was Mordred by malice goaded:

  he loved not Lancelot for his large renown,

  and for the queen’s favour cursed his fortune;

  Gawain he hated, great and steadfast,

  strong, unbending, stern in temper,

  who the queen mistrusted but the king worshipped

  as jealous as a hound gentle master

  watches unwearied. Words he spake then

  with guile to Gawain: Guinevere accused

  and Lancelot with lies slandered

  darker than the deeds were. Dire was the anger

  of Gawain the good – grief smote his heart.

  Thus to Arthur’s ears evil tidings,

  bitter words he brought who best loved him.

  Thus Gawain earned Guinevere’s hatred

  and Lancelot’s love he lost for ever;

  and Mordred watched moved to laughter.

  In twain was rent the Round Table’s

  freedom and fellowship with fierce quarrels.

  Swift swords were drawn by sworn brethren

  brother brother slew, blood spilled in wrath,

  ere the queen was captive. With cruel justice

  to death they doomed her. But the day came not.

  For Lancelot like lightning’s flame

  raging, deadly, riding the thunder

  in sudden assault sweeping heedless

  his friends of old felled and sundered.

  The queen he freed, and carried her afar;

  then rage left him, and his wrath sickened,

  his mood faltered. He mourned too late

  in ruth for the ruin of the Round Table,

  the fellowship and freedom of his fair brethren,

  longing yet for the love of his lord Arthur,

  repenting his pride and his prowess even.

  Pardon was denied him. Peace he sought for;

  honour yet would heal with his own sorrow,

  and the queen’s estate with her king’s mercy

  establish anew. Strange she deemed him;

  yet she liked little lonely exile

  as for love to lose her life’s splendour.

  Thus in pain they parted. Pardon she was granted,

  in the courts of Camelot to be queen once more,

  though Gawain grudged it. Grace with Arthur

  Lancelot found not: from the land banished,

  from the Round Table reft of knighthood,

  from his height fallen to his homes afar

  he went as he would not. Woe knew Arthur

  in his heart’s secret that his halls regained

  Queen surpassing fair at cost so heavy,

  his noblest knight in his need losing.

  Not alone from the land over loud waters

  went Lancelot. Lords of his kindred

  many were and mighty. At their masts floated

  the banners of Blamore and of Bors the strong,

  of Lionel and Lavain and loyal Ector

  Ban’s younger son. These to Benwick sailed

  Britain forsaking. In battle no more

  to Arthur’s aid their arms bore they,

  but in the towers of Ban, tall and dauntless,

  watchful dwelt they, war refusing,

  Lancelot their lord with love guarding.

  Here my father left a space, before continuing, as it appears, at the same time (and with line-numbering continuous with the text that preceded) and on a different subject. Later, in a smaller and more careful hand, he inserted in the margin following the words ‘with love guarding’:

  in his days of darkness. Deep his anguish,

  repenting repentance and his pride humbled,

  who loyalty had left in love’s service

  and love had now lost loyalty craving.

  It is not obvious where this text should be placed in relation to the other manuscripts of Canto III, but from various indications I think it very probable that it stands closest to the earliest of them, A (see here) and may therefore be called as a mere convenience A*; but in any case it must be regarded as a distinct treatment, in view of the account given on how the feud came to pass, which is only found in the manuscript of the poem here and in the ‘Lionel and Ector version’ deriving from it (see here). That my father had A* in front of him when he wrote LE, and that as he wrote it he transformed it into a conversation between Lionel and Ector, is very plain. If I am correct in seeing A* as deriving from a time near to the beginning of my father’s writing of the ‘Lancelot canto’, it would presumably follow that the idea of telling the story of Lancelot and Guinevere as a discussion between two Knights of the Round Table, kinsmen of Lancelot, was also early in the evolution of the poem, and early abandoned.

  *

  Canto I

  I have said that the account in this manuscript A* of the feud that tore the Round Table apart is followed after a space by verses on a different subject, with continuous line-numbering. I set out here the lines of this manuscript at this point:

  In battle no more 85

  to Arthur’s aid their arms bore they,

  but in the towers of Ban, tall and dauntless

  watchful dwelt they, war refusing,

  Lancelot their lord with love guarding.

  Arthur eastward in arms journeyed, 90

  and war he waged on the wild marches …

  Here is the first appearance in the draft papers of what would become the opening lines of the poem, the first lines of Canto I, Arthur’s campaign against the heathen invaders from the east. That my father had always intended to give an important place in his poem to the ‘eastern campaign’ of King Arthur seems very unlikely. There is only one reference to it in the synopses: this is in synopsis I (see here), ‘Neither he [Lancelot] nor his kindred fought any more for Arthur, not even when they heard of the attacks on Britain, nor of Arthur’s sortie East.’ There are also some pencilled notes on an isolated slip of paper suggesting structural orderings of the cantos. One of these reads:

  I Arthur Eastward

  II Lancelot and the rising storm [followed by an illegible reference to Guinevere]

  III Mordred

  The other reads:

  II Make Arthur’s eastward journey immediately after Flight of Guinevere

  III Work in part of back history with Lancelot musing – at rising of storm. [? More] when Ector and Lionel discuss his inaction and chafe at it

  IV Romeril and Death of Gawain

  These sequences, agreeing neither with each other nor with the structure of the poem in the latest text, probably reflect my father’s own musings when Arthur’s eastern campaign had appeared as a chief element in the narrative. In the remark on Canto III in the second group of notes he is seen reflecting on the mode in which the story in retrospect of Lancelot and Guinevere and the great feud is to be framed. Note II in the second group is hard to interpret.

  I have to admit that while the sequence of composition in respect of the manuscripts of individual cantos can be worked out, I have found it impossible to detect with certainty the sequence in which these structural movements took place. But from the surviving draft material, which is sufficiently abundant, it does seem at least very probable that it was here, in the manuscript A*, suddenly, ‘unheralded’ as it were, that the great assault by King Arthur on the barbarians made its entry into The Fall of Arthur.

  The relation between this earliest surviving manuscript of Canto I ‘How Arthur & Gawain went to war and rode into the East’, which is the the latter part of A* but which I will distinguish as AE, for ‘Arthur Eastward’, and the final text, is extraordinary. I give here the text of AE for the first 28 lines, with the line-numbers of the (more or less) corresponding verses in LT (the Latest Text) given in the margin.

  Arthur eastward in arms journeyed (I.1–4)

  and war he waged on the wild marches

  over seas sailing to Saxon lands,

  from the Roman realm ruin
defending.

  Halls and temples of the heathen kings (I.41–2)

  his might assailed marching in conquest

  to misty Mirkwood’s margin dreary. (After I.43, struck out)

  The following eight lines were inserted into the text, at the time of writing, with a direction to place them after line 7:

  Thus the tides of time to turn backward, (I.5–9)

  heathen men to tame his heart purposed,

  that with harrying fleets they should hunt no more

  on the shining shores and shallow waters

  of Southern Britain seeking booty,

  raiding and ravaging. Ravens croaking (I.76–8)

  the eagles answered in the air wheeling,

  wolves were howling on the wood’s border.

  Lancelot he missed; Lionel and Ector, (I.44–5)

  Bors and Blamore to battle came not.

  But the times drave him and treacherous fate,

  and Mordred’s malice moved his counsels.

  Gawain guessed not guile or treason, (I.35)

  in war rejoicing; worship seeking

  before the foremost fiercely rode he

  [struck out: his king’s bulwark.] Cold blew the wind. (I.79)

  From the west came word winged and urgent (I.143–5)

  of war awaking and woe in Britain.

  Careworn came Cradoc the king seeking,

  riding restless; rent were his garments,

  with haste and hunger his horse foundered.

  If one compared these two texts without any other knowledge one might suppose that the author was picking out lines from the longer text in any order that he pleased! But the reverse must be the case. I see no other solution to the puzzle but that those lines in the first part of AE must have remained alive and precisely memorable in my father’s mind (or perhaps he held all of it in memory), and when he came later to write a much fuller poem on Arthur’s campaign they reappeared, even in altogether different contexts. So the ravens that were croaking and the eagles that were wheeling, and the wolves that were howling on the wood’s border, after the raids of the Saxon robbers and destroyers, reappear in lonely lands far removed from the coasts of Britain. And ‘the wolves were howling on the wood’s border’ in the first line of the fourth canto of The Fall of Arthur.

  But beyond the point reached above AE changes to become for fifty lines a very close forerunner of Canto I in the text LT, beginning:

  To Arthur spake he evil tidings: (I.151–200)

  Too long my lord from your land ye tarry!

  While war ye wage on the wild people

  in the houseless East .........

  with only very slight divergences here and there. Then, from ‘and tarnished shields of truant knights / our numbers swell’ (I.200–1) AE omits I.202–15, thus

  our numbers swell. What need ye more?

  Is not Gawain true? Hath not greater menace

  aforetime fled that we faced together? (I.216)

  and continues to the end as in the final form, with ‘anger’ for ‘vengeance’ as the final word of the canto.

  My father struck through with single pencil strokes the whole of the AE text, which ends here. In all the mass of draft papers for The Fall of Arthur there is no other element relating to Canto I save a single isolated page, very clearly written, beginning with the words ‘thou wilt find their [read thy] friends as foes meet thee’ (I.194). It is obviously the only suriving page of a text of Canto I that either immediately preceded LT or was at one further remove from it. It scarcely differs from the text in LT except for the lines following ‘to the Isle of Avalon, armies countless’, that is I.205–210, which in this text read as follows:

  knights more noble of renown fairer,

  men more mighty, nor our match in prowess,

  wouldst thou ever assemble. Here is earth’s blossom

  that men shall remember through the mists of time

  as a golden summer ere the grey winter.

  This is a convenient place to record several substantial corrections, made carefully in ink to the latest text of Canto I.

  (I.9) Two lines following the words booty seeking were struck out:

  raiding and ravaging. His restless mood

  chafed as captive in cage enchained.

  (I.25) ‘Fell thy hand is’ was a correction of ‘Fleet thy ships are’.

  (I.43) After ‘o’er many kingdoms’ the line ‘to misty Mirkwood’s margin dreary’ was struck out; see here, here.

  (I.56) After ‘As in last sortie from leaguered city’ the following lines were struck out:

  when sudden the siege is swept backward

  and daring men their doom almost

  reverse by valour vain and splendid

  against hope and hazard and a host of foes,

  so Gawain led them.

  (I.110–13) As the manuscript was written these lines read before correction:

  There evening came

  with misty moon; mournful breezes

  in the wake of the winds wailed in the branches,

  where strands of storm ....

  *

  Canto II

  I have shown earlier (see here) that in my father’s original conception The Fall of Arthur was to begin with the coming of the Frisian ship and Mordred’s visit to Guinevere in Camelot: the earliest texts give the opening canto the number I, and describe the content in these words: ‘How the Frisian ship brought news and Mordred gathers his army to stay the king’s landing.’

  The earliest manuscript of the canto, which I have called IIa (see here), extends as far as line II.109 in the final text. In the first draft, which it seems was quickly replaced in this respect, Mordred was actually to visit Guinevere before anything was said of the news brought by the captain of the wrecked vessel. Mordred looked from the window ‘in his western tower’ (II.20), as the ‘sea far below sucked and laboured’; then follows at once:

  To Guenaver the golden, with gleaming limbs

  that minds of men with madness filled,

  his thought was turned, thirst-tormented.

  He stepped on a stair steep-winding down

  to her blissful bower …

  But this was rewritten (at once, as it appears):

  His thought was turned, thirst-tormented,

  to Gwenaver the golden, whose gleaming limbs

  the minds of men with madness filled,

  so fair and fell, frail and stony,

  true and faithless. Towers might he conquer

  and thrones overthrow and thirst slake not.

  In her blissful bower …

  The rewritten passage was now close to the form in LT (see II.25–32), and the ‘stair steep-winding’ (II.42) no longer goes down, but leads upward to the battlements of the castle.

  I record in what follows further differences in the earliest text (IIa) of Canto II and the second text IIb (see here) from LT, leaving out the many changes (often made for metrical reasons) that consist in the substitution of a single word or changes in word-order. It may be noted that many of the readings of IIb survived into LT and were rejected and replaced after that text had been written. The reading of LT is indicated by reference to the lines as printed in this book.

  (II.47–65) Text IIa has here:

  Servants sought him, soft-foot running,

  through hall and lodge hunting swiftly.

  Before the queen’s chamber, closed and guarded,

  doubtful they halted at doors of oak.

  Then Ivor his squire the eager words

  let loudly ring: ‘My lord!’ he called,

  ‘Tidings await thee – time is passing!

  Come swiftly forth! The sea spares us

  a shrift too short.’ He shook fiercely

  doors strong-timbered. Drowsed and glowering

  Mordred answered, and men trembled

  as he stood there stony staring grimly:

  ‘Mighty tidings, that ye murder sleep

  ransacking with rabble
my royal castle!’

  Ivor him answered: ‘Thine errand running

  the Frisian captain on flying wings

  hath fled from France but his fated ship

  is broken on the beach. He is breathing still,

  but life is waning and his lips wander.

  All else are dead.’

  In IIb and in LT Ivor’s reply to Mordred was retained from IIa; II.60–4 were an emendation in the latter.

  (II.70–3) These lines were a pencilled addition in LT; IIa

  and IIb have here:

  Cradoc the accursed hath thy counsel bewrayed,

  in Arthur’s ears all is rumoured …

  (II.80–4) IIa and IIb have here:

  Whitesand with boats, wherries and barges,

  crowded as with conclave of clamorous gulls.

  Shining on bulwarks …

  (II.90–1) IIa has here (IIb as in LT):

  faithful to hatred and faith scorning

  his troth keeping to traitor lord

  died as his doom was.

  (II.101–5) IIa has here, repeated in IIb with ‘falsensss’ for ‘fickleness’:

  through the land of Logres to lords and earls

  whom he trusted that their tryst they would truly

  hold

  faithful in fickleness, foes of Arthur,

  lovers of Lancelot, lightly purchased …

  This passage survived into the LT manuscript, where the text that replaced it was written in the margin.

  (II.108–9) Both IIa and IIb have here, where IIa ends:

  of Almain and Angel and isles of the North,

  cormorants of the coast and the cold marshes.

  In all the following entries the text given is that of IIb (before any emendation) with the corresponding LT line reference in the margin.

  (II.110–20) He came to Camelot the queen seeking;

  greedily he gazed on her with glittering eyes;

  her grey eyes gaily his glance challenged,

  proud and pitiless, yet pale her cheek;

  In LT my father repeated this passage, but struck it out and replaced it on a separate page with the longer text beginning ‘Fiercely heard she his feet hasten’ at line 111. At line 119 the word chill was a replacement, with a query, of still.