In this season of bloom, when the days begin to lengthen and grow warmer, and the May sunlight to provide something more of sparkle and of magic as a blessing in anticipation of approaching summer, your faithful correspondent takes it upon himself to spend more time out of doors, and to wish that he were provided of a noble steed. Then could he better imagine himself clad all in mail and galloping full speed toward the castle walls of Camelot.
Inside the walls there would be a feast and general revelry, with goblets of mead by a tremendous, roaring fireplace, passing fair damosels, and tales of great deeds of chivalry and feats of arms. Ahhh, at times such as these, dear readers, my kingdom for a horse! But let not that stop us. Rather come, take up your sword and ride with me, my falcon to serve as our guide. (Away, Pellinor, fly!) Our destination — a Celtic kingdom in the later fifth century, as described to us by one Sir Thomas Malory in the classic Le Morte D’Arthur, published by William Caxton in the Year of Our Lord, 1485. Come then, there is no time to lose; we must in haste unto Camelot!
See, there in the distance, the castle of the King! Arthur, that is, King by predestination, a concept largely unfamiliar to us these days. But 1485 is not “these days” by any means. Surely you know something of the story — don’t you? — of how Arthur came to be the King? Or even how he came to be Arthur? In short, Arthur was born of Igraine, the Duchess of Cornwall, in the Castle of Tintagel, sired by one King Uther Pendragon, by magic of Merlin, who required of Uther that the child be delivered unto him for rearing. (I find it difficult to avoid lapsing into Malory’s diction when I get to reflecting upon this book. But I’ll try, without promises.) Merlin would see to it that the young Arthur receive the necessary training and guidance to fulfill his unlikely destiny, which was, of course, to be King, and all which that has come to entail.
Arthur Becomes King
For this reason, according to Sir Thomas, “Merlin went to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and counseled him for to send for all the lords of the realm, and all the gentlemen of arms, that they should to London come by Christmas, upon pain of cursing; and for this cause: that Jehu, that was born on that night, that He would of his great mercy show some miracle, as He was come to be king of mankind, for to show some miracle who should be rightwise king of this realm.” The rest is history, if we can call it that. You know of the “great stone four square, like unto a marble stone, and in the midst thereof was like an anvil of steel a foot on high, and therein stuck a fair sword naked by the point, and letters there were written in gold about the sword that saiden thus: Whoso Pulleth Out This Sword of This Stone and Anvil, is Rightwise King Born of All England. (God bless the English language, the “jinglish janglage” in the parlance of the Irish novelist James Joyce.)
So Arthur becomes King, and a wise and fair King, indeed. One of his missions, among many, is to gather unto himself the strongest, and the most just and pure of all the men of the realm (and beyond) to serve as his — there’s not really a word in English that quite captures it — his “correligionarios.” That’s about as close as I can come … his “co-religionaries,” as the Spanish would call them. And so he does gather such people to serve, to populate, his dream. (He lives in a dream world, too, like Gatsby, of whom we have spoken before in this space.) But, as in all dreams, there comes the point wherein the dreamer must awaken. And the wake-up call for the innocent King Arthur is the infidelity (though born of star-crossed love) of his Queen and his best knight — the best in all the world — Sir Launcelot du Lac.
So begins one of the primordial and most popular of Western love triangles: the accomplished, loyal and worthy Launcelot, chief among Arthur’s host, versus the unsuspecting Arthur himself, both vying for the love of the most fair Guenever (Malory spells it withouten the final “e,” God rest him), daughter of the King Leodegrance of Camelerd. “’Yea,’ says King Arthur [to Merlin], ‘I love Guenever the King’s daughter Leodegrance, of the land of Camelerd, which holdeth in his house the Table Round that ye told he had of my father Uther. And this damosel is the most valiant and fairest lady that I know living, or yet that ever I could find.’” That love triangle ends, as all love triangles do, tragically, the best and the worst in all parties being brought to bear, and that place to which all parties wish so desperately to get back somehow irretrievably lost, and forever. You really must read the book to find out how, in the end, it is resolved among the affected characters.
The Story of Excalibur
Ultimately, however, the crisis does reach a sort of resolution in the which redemption and sanctity at long last prevail. But along the way we witness, as readers, the development and resolution of crises of all sorts and different stripes, from the unforgettable quest for the Holy Sangrail to the climactic conflict with the villain Mordred. There is ample meat, in short, upon the narrative bone. I cannot end, however, without telling you about the getting, and the ultimate return, of that most famous of kingly swords, Excalibur. “So they rode [Arthur and Merlin] till they came to a lake, the which was a fair water and broad, and in the midst of the lake Arthur was ware of an arm clothed in white samite, that held a fair sword in that hand.” Yea, it is the spectral Lady of the Lake who gives unto Arthur the magical sword Excalibur, the scabbard of which will protect him from wounds on the field of battle. Of that you’ll have to read yourself, but it sees King Arthur through many battles full bloody and gruesome (in the experience of your faithful correspondent, only The Iliad surpassing this tale as regards the recounting of the horrors of the field).
Excalibur comes to be, in effect, identified with the King, the separation of the two being unthinkable absent some ominous and extraordinary goings-on. But it is precisely with such goings-on that Malory provides us near the very end of the book. Arthur, near death, enjoins the venerable Sir Bedevere to “take thou Excalibur, my good sword, and go with it to yonder water side, and when thou comest there I charge thee throw my sword in that water, and come again and tell me what thou there seest.” Bedevere, for his part, undertakes the task, but buckles under the weight of misgivings and temptation. He comes again to Arthur and tells that he has been to the water and carried out the King’s command. “What saw thou there?” questions Arthur. Says Sir Bedevere, “Sir … I saw nothing but waves and winds.”
Arthur reproaches him that his report is untruly said and commands him to undertake his mission once again. Again a report that Bedevere saw “nothing but the waters wap and the waves wan.” Then finally the sage King sends him a third time for to dispose of his beloved sword (knowing whence it came and fully expecting whereunto it should be, must be, returned). What follows bears quotation at length, in order to give you a further taste of the majesty of Malory’s language: “Then Sir Bedevere 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 hilts, and then he threw the sword as far into the water 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 vanished away the hand with the sword in the water.” Note the rhythm and the meter of the words. Contemplate the Petrine resonances: the momentary weakness of the otherwise impeccable Loved One, the impending death of the Master, and all set against the backdrop of a triple trial of will. Ahh, Malory!
The Arthurian Legend
At the end of the day Le Morte D’Arthur is one of our greatest cultural treasures. Moreso, even, it is both truly and literally a legend (ranking somewhat higher than “novel,” at least as far as I’m concerned, in the storytelling heirarchy). Whatever it is, it brings joy to the soul: “So as the queen had Mayed and all her knights, all were bedashed with herbs, mosses and flowers, in the best manner and the freshest.” That’s the joy of Springtime described in a single sentence, and the language is ours to remember or to forget. I choose to remember it, to celebrate it, and Malory’s document comes ultimately to be, for me, a celebration — a celebration of language and of the condition of being human; at the same time beautiful, and sacred, and lofty, and good, and weak, and vain, and covetous, and vulnerable.
It is a testament to Malory that echoes of the notes upon which he plays in 1485 can be heard throughout subsequent generations, down to the present day, of writers and reflectors upon the way the world is and the way that we in it are. Fitzgerald (as you know, a sentimental favorite), Joyce, Pynchon, T.S. Eliot, T.H. White, Tennyson, I could go on and on, all have taken up the Arthurian themes of the Grail, of the Dream, of the all-consuming Quest.
It’s inescapable, the Arthurian legend, even if one were foolish enough to somehow wish to escape it. For my part, I simply wish to see it flower — in the contemporary imagination and even, perhaps, someday, once again in reality. It puts me in mind, metaphorically, of the Catholic vision of salvation itself, that vision wherein we are obliged to wait, to bide our time in faith until that day when the Mystical and the Real come to intersect in Time once more (as sadly unlikely as that might seem every now and then when we appear to walk in darkness). But I have to tell you, dear readers, I do make it a point to tread ever so slowly, in my solitary woodland wanderings, past those secluded ponds and standing pools of water which I might by chance encounter, for it is said that Excalibur will rise again, unexpectedly, to usher in the new era. And so I watch, and I hope, and I wait. As long as it might take. After all…you never do know.
