English Literature for Boys and Girls Part 6

"And as soon as Sir Kay saw the sword he wist well it was the sword of the stone, and he rode to his father Sir Ector and said: 'Sir, lo here is the sword of the stone, wherefore I must be king of this land.'

"When Sir Ector beheld the sword he returned again and came to the church, and there they alit all three, and went into the church. And anon he made Sir Kay to swear upon a book how he came to that sword.

"'Sir,' said Sir Kay, 'by my brother Arthur, for he brought it to me.'

"'How got ye this sword?' said Sir Ector to Arthur.

"'Sir, I will tell you. When I came home for my brother's sword, I found no body at home to deliver me his sword, and so I thought my brother Sir Kay should not go swordless, and so I came hither eagerly and pulled it out of the stone without any pain.'

"'Found ye any knights about the sword?' said Sir Ector.

"'Nay,' said Arthur.

"'Now,' said Sir Ector to Arthur, 'I understand ye must be king of this land.'

"'Wherefore I,' said Arthur, 'and for what cause?'

"'Sir,' said Ector, 'for G.o.d will have it so, for there should never man have drawn out this sword, but he that should be rightwise king of this land. Now let me see if ye can put the sword there as it was and pull it out again.'

"'That is no mastery,' said Arthur. And so he put it in the stone. Therewithall Sir Ector essayed to pull out the sword and failed.

"'Now essay,' said Sir Ector unto Sir Kay. And anon he pulled at the sword with all his might, but it would not be.

"'Now shall ye essay," said Sir Ector unto Arthur.

"'I will well,' said Arthur, and pulled it out easily.

"And therewithall Sir Ector knelt down to the earth, and Sir Kay."

And so Arthur was acknowledged king. "And so anon was the coronation made," Malory goes on to tell us, "and there was Arthur sworn unto his lords and to the commons for to be a true king, to stand with true justice from henceforth the days of his life."

For the rest of all the wonderful stories of King Arthur and his knights you must go to Morte d'Arthur itself. For the language is so simple and clear that it is a book that you can easily read, though there are some parts that you will not understand or like and which you need not read yet.

But of all the books of which we have spoken this is the first which you could read in the very words in which it was written down. I do not mean that you could read it as it was first printed, for the oldest kind of printing was not unlike the writing used in ma.n.u.scripts and so seems hard to read now.

Besides which, although nearly all the words Malory uses are words we still use, the spelling is a little different, and that makes it more difficult to read.

The old lettering looked like this: -

"With that Sir Arthur turned with his knights, and smote behind and before, and ever Sir Arthur was in the foremost press till his horse was slain under him."

That looks difficult. but here it is again in our own lettering:-

"With that Sir Arthur turned with his knights, and smote behind and before, and ever Sir Arthur was in the foremost press till his horse was slain under him."

That is quite easy to read, and there is not a word in it that you cannot understand. For since printing came our language has changed very much less than it did before. And when printing came, the listening time of the world was done and the reading time had begun. As books increased, less and less did people gather to hear others read aloud or tell tales, and more and more people learned to read for themselves, until now there is hardly a boy or girl in all the land who cannot read a little.

It is perhaps because Morte d'Arthur is easily read that it has become a storehouse, a treasure-book, to which other writers have gone and from which they have taken stories and woven them afresh and given them new life. Since Caxton's time Morte d'Arthur has been printed many times, and it is through it perhaps, more than through the earlier books, that the stories of Arthur still live for us. Yet it is not perfect - it has indeed been called "a most pleasant jumble."* Malory made up none of the stories; as he himself tells us, he took them from French books, and in some of these French books the stories are told much better. But what we have to remember and thank Malory for is that he kept alive the stories of Arthur. He did this more than any other writer in that he wrote in English such as all English-speaking people must love to read.

*J. Furnivell

BOOKS TO READ

Stories of King Arthur's Knights, by Mary Macgregor.

Stories from Morte d'Arthur, by C. L. Thomson. Morte d'Arthur, Globe Edition.

Chapter IX "THE Pa.s.sING OF ARTHUR"

FOUR hundred years after Malory wrote his book, another English writer told the tales of Arthur anew. This was the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson. He told them in poetry.

Tennyson calls his poems the Idylls of the King. Idyll means a short poem about some simple and beautiful subject. The king that Tennyson sings of is the great King Arthur.

Tennyson takes his stories, some from The Mabinogion, some from Malory, some from other books. He has told them in very beautiful English, and it is the English such as we speak to-day.

He has smoothed away much that strikes us as rough and coa.r.s.e in the old stories, and his poems are as different from the old stories as a polished diamond is different from the stone newly brought out of the mine. Yet we miss something of strength and vigor. The Arthur of the Idylls is not the Arthur of The Mabinogion nor of Malory. Indeed, Tennyson makes him "almost too good to be true": he is "Ideal manhood closed in real man, rather than that gray king" of old.

And now I will give you part of the last of the Arthur poems, The Pa.s.sing of Arthur, so that you may read it along with Layamon's account of the hero's death, and see for yourselves the difference between the two. The Pa.s.sing of Arthur is written in blank verse, that is verse which does not rhyme, and which depends like the old English verse on the accent. Yet they are not alike.

"So all day long the noise of battle roll'd Among the mountains by the winter sea; Until King Arthur's Table, man by man, Had fall'n in Lyonnesse about their lord, King Arthur. Then, because his wound was deep, The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him, And bore him to a chapel nigh the field, A broken chancel by a broken cross, That stood in 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 the King bids Sir Bedivere take his sword Excalibur,

"And fling him far into the middle mere: Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word."

Sir Bedivere takes the sword, and,

"From the ruin'd 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 zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock, Came on the shining levels of the lake."

But when Sir Bedivere drew Excalibur and saw the jewels of the hilt shine in the wintry moonlight, he could not find it in his heart to cast anything so beautiful and precious from him. So, hiding it among the reeds by the water's edge, he returned to his master.

"Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 'Hast thou perform'd 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.'"

But King Arthur well knew that Sir Bedivere had not obeyed him.

"This is a shameful thing for men to lie," he said, and once more sent the knight to do his bidding.

Again Sir Bedivere went, but again he could not make up his mind to cast away the sword. "The King is sick, and knows not what he does," he said to himself. So a second time he hid the sword and returned.

"Then spake 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!