Tennyson

Published 1842. Written 1833–4 (Mem. i 129, 138, and Heath MS), under the shock of Arthur Hallam’s death, the news of which was sent to T. on 1 Oct. 1833. Cp. Merlin and the Gleam 77–80: ‘Arthur had vanished/I knew not whither,/The king who loved me,/And cannot die.’ R. J. Tennant wrote to T., 30 Sept. 1834: ‘You promised to send me your Mort d’Arthur if you could get it written out’ (Letters i 119). T. wrote to Spedding, early Oct. 1834: ‘I cannot write the Suicide for you –tis too long, nor Mort d’Arthur (which I myself think the best thing I have managed lately) for tis likewise too long’ (Letters i 125). On 16 Oct. 1834, Hallam’s sister Ellen noted the visit of T.’s sister Emily: ‘My dear Emily read to me this morning a little poem of Alfred’s –a kind of ballad upon the death of King Arthur’, Martin (p. 195) comments: ‘If this was the Morte d’Arthur, the description is a strange one’.

So all day long the noise of battle rolled

Among the mountains by the winter sea;

Until King Arthur’s table, man by man,

Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord,

King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,

The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,

Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,

And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,

A broken chancel with a broken cross,

That stood on a dark strait of barren land.

On one side lay the Ocean, and on one

Lay a great water, and the moon was full.

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:

The sequel of today unsolders all

The goodliest fellowship of famous knights

Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep

They sleep – the men I loved. I think that we

Shall never more, at any future time,

Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,

Walking about the gardens and the halls

Of Camelot, as in the days that were.

I perish by this people which I made, –

Though Merlin sware that I should come again

To rule once more – but let what will be, be,

I am so deeply smitten through the helm

That without help I cannot last till morn.

Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,

Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how

In those old days, one summer noon, an arm

Rose up from out the bosom of the lake,

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,

Holding the sword – and how I rowed across

And took it, and have worn it, like a king:

And, wheresoever I am sung or told

In aftertime, this also shall be known:

But now delay not: take Excalibur,

And fling him far into the middle mere:

Watch what thou seëst, and lightly bring me word.’

To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere:

‘It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus,

Aidless, alone, and smitten through the helm.

A little thing may harm a wounded man.

Yet I thy hest will all perform at full,

Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word.’

So saying, from the ruined shrine he stept

And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,

Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,

Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang

Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down

By zig-zag paths, and juts of pointed rock,

Came on the shining levels of the lake.

There drew he forth the brand Excalibur,

And o’er him, drawing it, the winter moon,

Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth

And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt:

For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks,

Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work

Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long

That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood,

This way and that dividing the swift mind,

In act to throw: but at the last it seemed

Better to leave Excalibur concealed

There in the many-knotted waterflags,

That whistled stiff and dry about the marge.

So strode he back slow to the wounded King.

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:

Hast thou performed my mission which I gave?

What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?’

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:

I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,

And the wild water lapping on the crag.’

To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale:

Thou hast betrayed thy nature and thy name,

Not rendering true answer, as beseemed

Thy fëalty, nor like a noble knight:

For surer sign had followed, either hand,

Or voice, or else a motion of the mere.

This is a shameful thing for men to lie.

Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again

As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing

I bad thee, watch, and lightly bring me word’.

Then went Sir Bedivere the second time

Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere,

Counting the dewy pebbles, fixed in thought;

But when he saw the wonder of the hilt,

How curiously and strangely chased, he smote

His palms together, and he cried aloud,

‘And if indeed I cast the brand away,

Surely a precious thing, one worthy note,

Should thus be lost for ever from the earth,

Which might have pleased the eyes of many men.

What good should follow this, if this were done?

What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey,

Seeing obedience is the bond of rule.

Were it well to obey then, if a king demand

An act unprofitable, against himself?

The King is sick, and knows not what he does.

What record, or what relic of my lord

Should be to aftertime, but empty breath

And rumours of a doubt? but were this kept,

Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,

Some one might show it at a joust of arms,

Saying, “King Arthur’s sword, Excalibur,

Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake.

Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps

Upon the hidden bases of the hills.”

So might some old man speak in the aftertime

To all the people, winning reverence.

But now much honour and much fame were lost.’

So spake he, clouded with his own conceit,

And hid Excalibur the second time,

And so strode back slow to the wounded King.

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily:

‘What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?’

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:

‘I heard the water lapping on the crag,

And the long ripple washing in the reeds.’

To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath:

‘Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,

Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!

Authority forgets a dying king,

Laid widowed of the power in his eye

That bowed the will. I see thee what thou art,

For thou, the latest-left of all my knights,

In whom should meet the offices of all,

Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt;

Either from lust of gold, or like a girl

Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes.

Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice,

And the third time may prosper, get thee hence:

But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur,

I will arise and slay thee with my hands.’

Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,

And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged

Among the bulrush-beds, and clutched the sword,

And strongly wheeled and threw it. The great brand

Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon,

And flashing round and round, and whirled in an arch,

Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,

Seen where the moving isles of winter shock

By night, with noises of the northern sea.

So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur:

But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,

And caught him by the hilt, and brandished him

Three times, and drew him under in the mere.

And lightly went the other to the King.

Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath:

‘Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.

Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?’

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:

‘Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems

Should blind my purpose, for I never saw,

Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die,

Not though I live three lives of mortal men,

So great a miracle as yonder hilt.

Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him;

But when I looked again, behold an arm,

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,

That caught him by the hilt, and brandished him

Three times, and drew him under in the mere.’

And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard:

‘My end draws nigh; ’tis time that I were gone.

Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight,

And bear me to the margin; yet I fear

My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die.’

So saying, from the pavement he half rose,

Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm,

And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes

As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere

Remorsefully regarded through his tears,

And would have spoken, but he found not words,

Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee,

O’er both his shoulders drew the languid hands,

And rising bore him through the place of tombs.

But, as he walked, King Arthur panted hard,

Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed

When all the house is mute. So sighed the King,

Muttering and murmuring at his ear, ‘Quick, quick!

I fear it is too late, and I shall die.’

But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,

Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walked,

Larger than human on the frozen hills.

He heard the deep behind him, and a cry

Before. His own thought drove him, like a goad.

Dry clashed his harness in the icy caves

And barren chasms, and all to left and right

The bare black cliff clanged round him, as he based

His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang

Sharp-smitten with the dint of armèd heels –

And on a sudden, lo! the level lake,

And the long glories of the winter moon.

Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge,

Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,

Beneath them; and descending they were ware

That all the decks were dense with stately forms

Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream – by these

Three Queens with crowns of gold – and from them rose

A cry that shivered to the tingling stars,

And, as it were one voice, an agony

Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills

All night in a waste land, where no one comes,

Or hath come, since the making of the world.

Then murmured Arthur, ‘Place me in the barge,’

And to the barge they came. There those three Queens

Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.

But she, that rose the tallest of them all

And fairest, laid his head upon her lap,

And loosed the shattered casque, and chafed his hands,

And called him by his name, complaining loud,

And dropping bitter tears against his brow

Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white

And colourless, and like the withered moon

Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east;

And all his greaves and cuisses dashed with drops

Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls –

That made his forehead like a rising sun

High from the daïs-throne – were parched with dust;

Or, clotted into points and hanging loose,

Mixed with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.

So like a shattered column lay the King;

Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,

From spur to plume a star of tournament,

Shot through the lists at Camelot, and charged

Before the eyes of ladies and of kings.

Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere,

‘Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?

Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?

For now I see the true old times are dead,

When every morning brought a noble chance,

And every chance brought out a noble knight.

Such times have been not since the light that led

The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.

But now the whole round table is dissolved

Which was an image of the mighty world;

And I, the last, go forth companionless,

And the days darken round me, and the years,

Among new men, strange faces, other minds.’

And slowly answered Arthur from the barge:

‘The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfils Himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?

I have lived my life, and that which I have done

May He within Himself make pure! but thou,

If thou shouldst never see my face again,

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice

Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.

But now farewell. I am going a long way

With these thou seëst – if indeed I go –

(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)

To the island-valley of Avilion;

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,

Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies

Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard-lawns

And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea,

Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.’

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail

Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan

That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,

Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood

With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere

Revolving many memories, till the hull

Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn,

And on the mere the wailing died away.

[THE EPIC]

Here ended Hall, and our last light, that long

Had winked and threatened darkness, flared and fell:

At which the Parson, sent to sleep with sound,

And waked with silence, grunted ‘Good!’ but we

Sat rapt: it was the tone with which he read –

Perhaps some modern touches here and there

Redeemed it from the charge of nothingness –

Or else we loved the man, and prized his work;

I know not: but we sitting, as I said,

The cock crew loud; as at that time of year

The lusty bird takes every hour for dawn:

Then Francis, muttering, like a man ill-used,

‘There now – that’s nothing!’ drew a little back,

And drove his heel into the smouldered log,

That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue:

And so to bed; where yet in sleep I seemed

To sail with Arthur under looming shores,

Point after point; till on to dawn, when dreams

Begin to feel the truth and stir of day,

To me, methought, who waited with a crowd,

There came a bark that, blowing forward, bore

King Arthur, like a modern gentleman

Of stateliest port; and all the people cried,

‘Arthur is come again: he cannot die.’

Then those that stood upon the hills behind

Repeated – ‘Come again, and thrice as fair;’

And, further inland, voices echoed – ‘Come

With all good things, and war shall be no more.’

At this a hundred bells began to peal,

That with the sound I woke, and heard indeed

The clear church-bells ring in the Christmas-morn.

5–12. Malory III clxvi [xxi]: ‘And the noble King Arthur fell in a swoon to the earth. And there he swooned often times. And Sir Lucan and Sir Bedivere oftentimes heaved him up, and so weakly they led him between them both unto a little chapel not far from the sea side.’

These MSS have these lines in brackets, T.’s tentative sign for deletion. This draft of the dream of Gawain’s ghost is based on Malory xxi; T. was to adapt it for The Passing of Arthur (p. 961).

14–17. Malory III cl [xx 9]: ‘For I have now lost the fairest fellowship of noble knights that ever held christian King together.’

17–18] They sleep, I thi [del.] that we, I think, shall nevermore T.MS A 1st reading.

22–4] Not T.MS A, Heath MS; added in Huntington MS, which had as first reading:

23. Malory III clxx [xxi 7]: ‘Some men yet say in many parts of England that King Arthur is not dead, but by the will of our Lord in another place. And men say that he will come again.’

28–33. Malory I xxiii [i 25]: ‘So they rode till they came to a lake, which was a fair water, and abroad [a broad], and in the midst of the lake King Arthur was ware of an arm, clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in the hand.’

29] In the old days, one summer noon, there rose [came T.MS A] T.MS A, Heath MS.

30. Rose… the] From forth the peaceful T.MS A; An arm from out the Heath MS.

35. aftertime] after years T.MS A. 36–44. Malory III clxvii [xxi] (subsequent quotations from Malory, unless noted otherwise, run on consecutively without omissions): ‘“Therefore take you Excalibur, my good sword, and go with it unto yonder water side, and when thou comest there, I charge thee throw my sword into that water, and come again and tell me what thou shalt see there.” “My lord,” said Sir Bedivere, “your command shall be done, and lightly bring you word again.”’

37. H. A. Mason notes Byron’s use of the Latinism (medium in aequor), Childe Harold II xxix: ‘the middle deep’.

44. thee] the Heath MS; thee T.MSS, Fitzwilliam MS, HnMS. 45–65. Malory: ‘And so Sir Bedivere departed, and by the way he beheld that noble sword, where the pomel and the haft were all of precious stones, and then he said to himself: “If I throw this rich sword into the water, thereof shall never come good, but harm and loss.” And then Sir Bedivere hid Excalibur under a tree, and as soon as he might he came again unto King Arthur, and said he had been at the water, and had thrown the sword into the water.’

46. And… athwart] Into the moonlight: through T.MS A 1st reading; And in the moonlight through T.MS A. Mason notes Southey, Thalaba IX xxxiii: And she hath reach’d the Place of Tombs’.

48–50] Heroes –and stepping down from rock to rock T.MS A 1st reading; Heroes and over [ll. 48–50]… rock T.MS A 2nd reading, with By] Through (in l. 50).

51. Came on] He reached T.MS A 1st reading. levels: cp. The Lover’s Tale iii 4: ‘the rippling levels of the lake’.

52. There] T.MS A 3rd reading, T.MS B; Then T.MS A 1st and 2nd reading, Heath MS.

54. Mason notes Paradise Lost xi 878: ‘The fluid skirts of that same watrie Cloud’.

60. T. compares Aeneid iv 285: atque animum nunc huc celerem, nunc dividit illuc (‘And now hither, now thither, he swiftly throws his mind’). In Dryden’s translation (iv 411): ‘This way, and that, he turns his anxious Mind’ (noted by Mason). From Iliad i 188: εν δε οι ητορ…. διανδιχα µερµηριξεν (‘and within his shaggy breast his heart was divided in counsel’). Cp. The Lover’s Tale iii 49–50 n, MS: ‘dividing the swift mind /That way and this’. Turner (p. 78) notes: ‘Aeneas, when in doubt whether to obey the gods and throw over Dido… both men are torn between obedience to a higher power and attraction to physical beauty (Aeneas is actually wearing a sword, adorned like Excalibur with jewels, which Dido has given him).’

61. but] and T.MS A 1st reading. G. G. Loane compares Pope’s Iliad iv 570: ‘In act to throw; but cautious, looked around’ (Echoes in Tennyson, 1928, p. 6).

66–81. Malory: ‘“What sawest thou there?” said the King. “Sir,” said he, “I saw nothing but waves and wind.” “That is untruly said of thee,” said King Arthur, “therefore go thou lightly and do my command, as thou art to me life [lief] and dear, spare not but throw it in.”’

71. lapping] wapping T.MSS, Heath MS. The archaic word is from Malory; see ll. 113–32n.

82–112. Malory: ‘Then Sir Bedivere returned again, and took the sword in his hand; and then he thought it sin and shame to throw away that noble sword. And so after he hid the sword, and returned again, and told to the King that he had been at the water, and done his command.’

104. lonely maiden] prudent Lady T.MS, Heath MS. The friendly sorceress of Malory I xxiii [i 25, out of the sequence]: ‘“That is the Lady of the Lake,” said Merlin, “and within that lake is a rock, and therein is as fair a place [palace] as any is on earth, and richly beseen.”’

105–6. Cp. 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.’

106. Upon] And by T.MS A. hidden… hills] secret… rocks T. MS A 1st reading. bases of the hills: incorporated from The Lover’s Tale ii 120. M. Y. Mason compares Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, chap. xvi: ‘the sea washed the base of the hills’ (VP x, 1972, 175).

113–32. Malory: ‘“What saw ye there,” said the King. “Sir,” said he, “I saw nothing but the water wap and the waves wan,” “Ah traitor, untrue,” said King Arthur, “now hast thou betrayed me two times, who would have wend [weened] that thou hast been unto me so self [lief] and dear, and thou art named a noble Knight, and wouldest betray me for the rich sword. But now, go again lightly, for thy long tarrying putteth me in great jeopardy of my life, for I have taken cold. And but if thou do as I command thee, and if ever I may see thee, I shall slay thee with mine own hands, for thou wouldest for my rich sword see me dead.”’

118. much in wrath] red with scorn T.MS A; filled with scorn T.MS B, Heath MS.

120. traitor-] sordid- T.MS A. Woe… me!] Now I see T.MS A 1st reading.

132. Gray (pp. 11, 139) notes the ‘Biblical resonance’, e.g. 2 Sam. xvii 1: ‘I will arise and pursue after David.’

133–66. Malory: ‘Then Sir Bedivere departed, and went to the sword, and lightly took it up, and went to the water side, and there he bound the girdle about the hilt. And then he threw the sword into the water as far as he might, and there came an arm and an hand above the water, and met it and caught it, and so shook it thrice and brandished. And then the hand vanished away with the sword in the water. So Sir Bedivere came again to the King and told him what he had seen. “Alas,” said the King, “help me from hence, for I dread me I have tarried over long.”’

135. Among] Into T.MS A 1st reading; Amongst T.MS A. bulrush-beds] withered sedge T.MS A. clutched] took T.MS A 1st reading.

139] Sunk, whizzing like a flight of fiery stones T.MS A 1st reading; Whizzed like a flying noise of fiery stones. T.MS A.

140. isles] thrones Heath MS. Cp. Thomas Gisborne, on the Arctic: ‘With shock of floating isles’, Walks in a Forest (1794). There was a copy of Gisborne at Somersby (Lincoln).

140–2] Shot [Flung 1st reading] from the moon. So flasht Excalibur. T.MS A. Cp. this simile with Scott’s Lay of the Last Minstrel II viii (of which there was a copy at Somersby, Lincoln): ‘And red and bright the streamers light / Were dancing in the glowing north. / So had he seen, in fair Castile, / The youth in glittering squadrons start, / Sudden the flying jennet wheel, / And hurl the unexpected dart. / He knew, by the streamers that shot so bright, / That spirits were riding the northern light.’

155. T. compares Odyssey iii 245, τρὶς γὰρ δή μὶν φασιν ἀνάξασθαι γένεἐ ἀνδρω̂ν. (‘For thrice, men say, has he been King for a generation of men.’)

167–203. Malory: ‘Then Sir Bedivere took King Arthur upon his back, and so went with him to the water’s side. And when they were at the water’s side, even fast by the bank, hoved a little barge, with many fair ladies in it, and among them all was a Queen, and all they had black hoods, and they wept and shrieked when they saw King Arthur.’

171–2] Not T.MS A; T.MS B had the first line, and added the second as did Heath MS (in T.’s hand).

183. Larger than human: humano maior, like the ghost of Romulus in Ovid, Fasti ii 503. Cp. Hark! the dogs howl 20–1, which is also on the death of Hallam: ‘Larger than human passes by / The shadow of the man I loved.’ Also T.’s projected essay on Ghosts for the Cambridge ‘Apostles’, quoted by J. H. Buckley (p. 33): ‘Forth issue from the inmost gloom the colossal Presences of the Past majores humano, some as they lived, seemingly pale with exhaustion and faintly smiling; some as they died in a still agony …’ (H.Nbk 7).

188. J. Kolb compares Shelley, Alastor 86: ‘On black bare pointed islets ever beat.’

190. armèd] mailèd T. MS A, which breaks off here at the foot of the page (then stubs).

192. Betty Miller, Twentieth Century clxvii (1960) 526, compares Dryden, Aeneis i 10: ‘And the long Glories of Majestick Rome’. Henry Boyd quoted Dryden’s line prominently in his translation of Dante (1802), of which a copy was at Somersby (Lincoln); Boyd also mentions ‘the long glories of his line’ (i 97, 102).

202. Gray (p. 12) notes ‘the potent name of the Queen that Malory has deliberately placed third, the “Queen of the Waste Lands”’.

204–25. Malory: ‘ “Now put me into the barge,” said the King. And so he did softly, and there received him three Queens with great mourning, and so these three Queens set him down, and in one of their laps King Arthur laid his head. And then that Queen said: “Ah, dear brother, why have ye tarried so long from me. Alas, this wound on your head hath taken over much cold.”’

205–6] And those three Queens received him, weeping wild. T.MS B, Heath MS. G. G. Loane (Echoes in Tennyson, 1928, p. 5) compares Wordsworth, the death of Lucy Gray: ‘And to the bridge they came’. Malory III clxix [xxi 6, out of the sequence]: ‘Thus was he led away in a barge wherein were three Queens. That one was King Arthur’s sister Morgan le Fay; the other was the Queen of Northgalis; and the third was the Queen of the Waste Lands.’ T. commented: ‘Some say that the three Queens are Faith, Hope, and Charity…. They are three of the noblest of women. They are also those three Graces, but they are much more.’

221. B. Richards notes: ‘It was traditional to refer to monarchs as columns, e.g. the pattern-poems on Queen Elizabeth as a pillar of state … For the notion of the broken column and the great man see Petrarch: “Rotta e l’alta Colonna e’l verde lauro”’ (English Verse 1830–1890, 1980, p. 86).

224] Rapidly galloping at Camelot charged T.MS B (which also has charged [?] at Camelot), Heath MS; Rapidly galloping in the list, went by T.MS B 1st reading, Fitzwilliam MS.

226–38. Malory: ‘And so then they rowed from the land. And Sir Bedivere beheld all these ladies go from him, then Sir Bedivere cried: “Ah, my lord Arthur, what shall become of me now ye go from me, and leave me here alone among mine enemies.”’

234–5. Malory III l [xiv 2, out of the sequence]: ‘Also Merlin made the Round Table in token of the roundness of the world. For by the Round Table is the world signified by right.’

238. Arthur Hallam, to Gladstone, 13 Aug. 1827: ‘I have been suffering much from headaches; and sometimes, when in low spirits, anticipate being laid up at some infernal [AHH informal] posthouse, among strange faces, and stupid doctors, so as to realise the “rapidi vicinia leti” [Ovid, Met. viii 225, “the swift proximity of death”]. If I die, before I see you again, I give you leave to print this in the Morning post, as a marvellous coincidence’ (AHH, p. 164).

239. slowly] clearly T.MS B 1st reading, Fitzwilliam MS (which accidentally omits answered).

239–64. Malory: ‘ “Comfort thyself,” said King Arthur, “and do as well as thou mayest, for in me is no trust for to trust in, for I will into the vale of Avilion, for to heal me of my grievous wound. And if thou never hear more of me, pray for my soul.”’

255. ‘My father said that this passage was not, as has been said, suggested by Iliad viii 19 or by Plato, Theaetetus 153’ (H.T.).

256–64] Farewell then: I (256); 259; 264: If I may … T.MS B 1st reading.

260–3. T. compares Odyssey iv 566ff, and Lucretius iii 18ff; adapted again as Lucretius 104–10 (II 713).

262. Deep-meadowed: T. compared Pindar, Pythian Odes x 23, and Iliad ix 151.

263. T. compares Odyssey x 195, νη̂σον, τὴν τέρι πόντος ’κπεἰριτος ἐστεφάνωται (‘the island, about which is set as a crown the boundless deep’).

265–72. Malory: ‘But evermore the Queens and the ladies wept and shrieked, that it was pity for to hear them. And as soon as Sir Bedivere had lost sight of the barge, he wept and wailed, and so took the forest, and so he went all the night.’

270. Revolving: Miltonic, cp. ‘much revolving’, Paradise Lost iv 31; deriving from Aeneid i 305: per noctem plurima volvens.

282–3. Hamlet I i 157– 60: ‘It faded on the crowing of the cock. / Some say that ever’ gainst that season comes / Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated / This bird of dawning singeth all night long.’ This passage was quoted in Thomas Keightley’s Fairy Mythology (1828; 2nd edn, 1833, ii 137), which T. used when working on Morte d’Arthur in 1833 (Mem. i 129), and later owned (Lincoln).

286–7. John Churton Collins compared Dante’s Paradiso xviii 100–1: ‘Poi come nel percuoter de’ ciocchi arsi / surgono innumerabili faville.’ (‘Then, as when burning logs are struck rise innumerable sparks.’) Alongside this, T. wrote ‘!!!’ (Cornhill, Jan. 1880, Lincoln).

290–1. A traditional belief; cp. Shelley, Hellas 122: ‘The truth of day lightens upon my dream’. H. A. Mason notes T.’s letter to Milnes, c. 21 Dec. 1836: ‘the small hours, when dreams are true’ (Letters i 146).

294. Anticipating the Dedication and Epilogue of the Idylls; cp. l. 225n.

300. H. A. Mason remarks the many Biblical echoes, including Micah iv 3: ‘neither shall they learn war any more’.

226 Morte d’Arthur