Part 10 (1/2)

1150-1182, Chretien de Troyes writes poems on Arthurian topics

French prose romances on Arthur, from, say, 1180 to 1250 Those roinal Welsh legends, or, in part, supplant thes are numerous In 1485 Caxton publishes Malory's selections fro Tennyson's main source, Le Mort d'Arthur {13}

Thus the Arthur stories, originally Celtic, originally a end, myth, and lish new ideals--religious, chivalrous, and moral Any poet may work his will on them, and Tennyson's as to retain the chivalrous courtesy, generosity, love, and asceticis them with his own ideals After so many processes, from folk-tale to modern idyll, the Arthurian world could not be real, and real it is not Cah the colouring is leam” on the hues is partly derived from Celtic fancy of various dates, and is partly Tennysonian

As the Idylls were finally arranged, the first, The Coenuity in construction Tales about the birth of Arthur varied In Malory, Uther Pendragon, the Bretwalda (in later phrase) of Britain, besieges the Duke of Tintagil, who has a fair wife, Ygerne, in another castle Merlin erne's husband, and as her husband she receives hiotten by Uther, and the Duke of Tintagil, his erne; both recognise Arthur as their child However, by the Celtic custoe the infant is intrusted to Sir Ector as his dalt, or foster-child, and Uther falls in battle Arthur is later approven king by the adventure of drawing fro couldthe sword froa, ”Now men stand up, and none would fain be the last to lay hand to the sword,” apparently stricken into the pillar by Woden ”But none who caht avail to pull it out, for in noould it co's son, and sets hand to the sword, and pulls it from the stock, even as if it lay loose before hiend is on a par with the Golden Bough, in the sixth book of the AEneid Only the predestined chah -

”Ipse volens facilisque sequetur Si te fata vocant”

All this ancient popular elearded by Tennyson He does not erne in the semblance of her lord, as Zeus approached Alclects the other ancient test of the proving of Arthur by his success in drawing the sword The poet's object is to enfold the origin and birth of Arthur in a spiritual mystery This is deftly accomplished by aid of the various versions of the tale that reach King Leodogran when Arthur seeks the hand of his daughter Guinevere, for Arthur's title to the crown is still disputed, so Leodogran makes inquiries The answers first leave it dubious whether Arthur is son of Gorlois, husband of Ygerne, or of Uther, who slew Gorlois and married her:-

”Enforced she was to wed hie is overlooked, and Merlin gives the child to Anton, not as the custoer Queen Bellicent then tells Leodogran, from the evidence of Bleys, Merlin's master in necromancy, the story of Arthur's miraculous advent

”And down the wave and in the flame was borne A naked babe, and rode to Merlin's feet, Who stoopt and caught the babe, and cried 'The King!

Here is an heir for Uther!'”

But Merlin, when asked by Bellicent to corroborate the state triplets of old tiran's faith is confirmed by a vision Thus doubtfully, aht, coe fashi+on, at the end, ”to the great deep he goes”--a king to be accepted in faith or rejected by doubt Arthur and his ideal are objects of belief All goes hile the knights hold that

”The King will follow Christ, and we the King, In who”

In history we find the sa will follow Jeanne, and we the King”

While this faith held, all ell; when the king ceased to follow, the spell was broken,--the Maid wasof Arthur, a sign to be spoken against, a test of high purposes, a belief redee till faith fails, and the little rift within the lute, the love of Lancelot and Guinevere, end, it is to be understood that Guinevere did not recognise Arthur when first he rode below her-

”Since he neither wore on hellihood”

But Lancelot was sent to bring the bride -

”And return'd A the flowers, in May, with Guinevere”