The Fall of Arthur

  prayer nor order. Pride was wounded.

  In his mind saw he men that eyed him,

  and Gawain’s glance gleaming coldly,

  forgiving gravely grief that he wrought him.

  So horn he blew not nor his host gathered

  though his heart was heavy with half-purpose,

  and his mood they mourned who most loved him.

  He waited and went not. Wild roared the sea.

  The towers trembled tempest-shaken.

  To Guinever again as to glad sunlight

  as from deep dungeon and its dark prison

  thrust often down his thought wandered.

  Wild deeds were wrought; there was war in Britain –

  was she false yet further to her faith renewed

  or did danger press her?

  This passage then continues as in Version A, as cited above, and continues to the end of the canto with no significant differences from A.

  *

  A further complete manuscript of Canto III, which may be called C, again without title or canto-number, is found in the collection of draft papers, as well and legibly written as the ‘final’ text (I.e. LT), which quite possibly it was intended to be. In relation to the B manuscript, or manuscripts, it does in fact almost reach the form in LT as that was written (before it too later received further pencilled corrections): almost all the passages detailed on see here were changed to the final form. Its existence shows my father’s readiness to build his poem layer upon layer, copying the same or closely similar passages again and again, which allows the movement of the work to be followed at large or in fine detail.

  Here there is only one passage in this further text C that need be expressly recorded. This is III.124–7, of which the B text is given on see here. C originally had here:

  Grief knew Arthur

  in his heart’s secret; that his halls regained

  wife unfaithful and more

  My father struck these lines out as he wrote them and replaced them with

  in his heart’s secret; and his house him seemed,

  though fairest woman in her fell beauty

  in the golden courts was queen again,

  now less in gladness, and its light minished,

  From this the final form was reached:

  and his house him seemed

  in mirth now minished, marred in gladness,

  Lastly, beside the opening passsage of the canto in C (‘In the South from sleep to swift fury …’). my father wrote in pencil: ‘Or if this is Fit I In Benwick the blessed &c.’ A ‘fit’ is an Old English word, meaning a part or portion of a poem, which my father sometimes used, though in reference to The Fall of Arthur he also used ‘canto’. His meaning here can only be that he had it in mind that the ‘Lancelot canto’ might be the first canto of the poem, in which case In Benwick the blessed would be the opening lines. This may well explain the two parallel pages in the manuscript B (see here), each with one or other of the two opening passages.

  *

  There is a further curious complication in the history of Canto III. This is a manuscript, or series of manuscript pages amid the great heap of draft papers, in which the events leading to the feud and the breaking of the fellowhip of the Round Table were to be told in a conversation betwewen Lionel and Ector, kinsmen of Lancelot, recollecting together the grievous history.

  This version begins with the passage ‘In Benwick the blessed once Ban was king …’ in the form already encountered as the opening passage of the manuscript B 1 (see here), but with a different third line: where the other text has ‘in the holy lands their homes leaving / to the western world wandering journeyed’ the present text has ‘from the ancient East, islands seeking / in the western world, wandering journeyed’.

  Very legibly written in ink with some preliminary pencilled drafting, this version carries the canto number II in pencil. I give here the text in full, following from the last line of the opening passage, ‘they watched the waters: war they feared not.’

  There now Lancelot, lord of Benwick,

  dark hours endured and deep anguish.

  His mood they mourned who most loved him,

  friends and kinsmen that his fortune shared

  leaving Logres and their lord Arthur.

  Lionel and Ector alone sitting,

  uncle and nephew, the evil days

  to mind recalled. Mighty Ector,

  Ban’s younger son, of his brother speaking,

  of his fame and folly, was filled with ruth.

  ‘In former time of our fair brethren

  he was proven peerless. Praise and glory

  and men’s worship for might and honour

  he ever earned him, until evil grew

  and faith divided. Too fair the queen,

  the knight too noble, and the net too strong

  that caught him captive. Not as queen, alas!

  nor as liege lady, but than life more dear

  he long loved her, yet loyal held him

  to our lord Arthur. But love conquered.

  He strove in vain in her strong fetters,

  but release won not; and love unyielding

  with tears or laughter the true as steel

  bent slowly down to bitter sweetness.’

  Lionel answered – lord proud-hearted,

  in war unwavering, yet in wisdom cool

  men’s hearts he marked and their minds’ purpose:

  ‘Yea, little I love her, lady ruthless,

  fair as fay-woman and fell-minded,

  in the world walking for the woe of men!

  Fate sent her forth. Yet I fouler deem31

  the eyes of envy that are ever watchful,

  the malice of Mordred moving darkly

  with counsel poisoned to crooked purpose.

  Lancelot he loved not for his large renown,

  and for the queen’s favour cursed his fortune;

  Gawain he hated, who guile despised,

  high and noble, hard in temper;

  for the king loved him, to his counsel first

  of his lieges listening; and he his lord guarded

  as jealous hound doth gentle master.

  I watched them oft. Words he whispered

  with guile to Gawain, Guinevere accused

  and Lancelot with lies slandered

  darker than the deeds were. Dire was the anger

  and grief of Gawain. Glad was Mordred;

  for to Arthur’s ears evil tidings,

  harm to hearer, hurt to speaker,

  he32 bluntly brought who best loved him.

  Thus Gawain earned Guinever’s hatred;

  and Lancelot to her lie holdeth

  that lust and envy loathly changed him

  to evil adder – that only knight

  who almost his equal envy knew not,

  who in courtesy cloaked a cold mistrust

  of the queen’s beauty. Curséd falsehood!33

  There was snake in sooth, secret crawling,

  and stealthy stinging, whom still he sees not!’

  Ector answered: ‘All our kindred

  must bear the blame of that blind folly,

  but Lionel only. We little hearkened

  to thy words of wisdom, and too well loved him

  for rights or reasons, wrong defending,

  and the queen’s quarrel our cause making

  for love of Lancelot. Our love endureth,

  though in twain we rent the Round Table’s

  freedom and fellowship, fiercely striving.

  Swift swords we drew against sworn brethren,

  ere the queen was taken. With cruel justice

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

  Lo! Lancelot as lightning’s flame

  radiant, deadly, riding thunder,

  in sudden assault sweeping heedless

  his friends of old felled and trampled.

  [The queen he freed and carried her afar]

  The last line w
as struck through, and beneath it my father wrote in pencil the words ‘I was with him’, presumably uttered by Sir Ector.

  Here this text, which may be called the ‘Lionel and Ector version’, referred to as LE, ends. I feel sure that no more was written of this telling of the tale in reported speech. It will be seen that from the line ‘Swift swords we drew against sworn brethren’, seven lines from the end, this text moves towards that of LT in Canto III.71–80; and the last five lines are indeed all but identical with the text both of the earliest manuscript A and of its successor B (see here), which reads:

  to death they doomed her. But her doom came not.

  Lo! Lancelot, lightning kindled,

  radiant, deadly, riding thunder,

  in sudden assault sweeping heedless

  his friends of old felled and trampled.

  If this were all the evidence available, one would say that if my father did not have B in front of him, at any rate when he reached this point in the ‘Lionel and Ector version’ he must have retained the passage from B in memory; and if the latter, one might speculate that he realized at this point that Lionel and Ector were becoming mere mouthpieces for the story in retrospect as he had already told it. But as will be seen shortly (see here.), the matter is more complex.

  Before turning to this, however, this new version is of particular interest in that only here, and in Synopsis I, did my father describe in any detail the machinations of Mordred. In the second synopsis (see here) it is said only that ‘Mordred moving darkly warns both Lancelot and the king’. In the third synopsis, which, my father noted, was followed in the poem, nothing is said of this at all, save in a rejected sentence (see here) that Mordred betrayed Lancelot; but it is also said that after his return to France, when pondering his course of action, he thought of ‘the cold scorn of Gawain whom he had wronged’ (see here). Of course, none of these synopses was a careful statement of a proposed narrative: rather, they were memoranda, significant ‘moments’ that he wished to bear in mind, and so set down in writing.

  In Synopsis I, however (see here), we learn that Mordred told Gawain and his brothers; that Agravain told the king; and that Lancelot slew Agravain. The essential element in the story there is that Mordred, lying to Lancelot and Guinevere, said that the betrayal ‘was by Gawain’s purpose out of envy’; and Lancelot believed Mordred. Here appears first, what was repeated in the third synopsis, Gawain’s’ cold scorn’ for Lancelot, by whom he had been wronged.

  In the ‘Lionel and Ector’ version of the canto, Mordred accused Guinevere and Lancelot to Gawain, and in ‘anger and grief’ Gawain told the king, so earning Guinevere’s hatred, and her lie that Gawain had been changed by lust and envy into a snake – which Lancelot believed, and greatly wronged him.

  This is a convenient place to introduce yet another text, very brief. The first of two pages was written in soft pencil, and looks as if it were dashed down as new composition, almost without punctuation; but it is surprisingly legible, though not at all points.

  Lancelot was holden by low and high

  freest most fearless of the fair brethren

  of the Round Table ere ruinous time

  and Mordred’s malice mischief compassed

  At this point the text is interrutpted by extraneous notes and it is not clear whether what follows is to be treated as continuous.

  jealousy awakened joy was darkened

  for none would the queen hear named in praise

  save Lancelot alone it liked them ill –

  the lesser in loyalty [illegible]

  when Mordred’s malice moved to evil.

  words were spoken of woman’s frailty

  and man’s weakness, and many harkened.

  The king men told how his court was dishonoured –

  [? and or by] Mordred himself with mouth smiling

  Yet the queen he told that her counsel was betrayed

  by Gawain the good for his great purity

  his love and loyalty to his liege Arthur.

  Thus came the hate of Gawain and Lancelot

  Thus came the hate of Gawain and Guinever

  Thus came the wrath of Arthur and Lancelot

  He left the company of the Round Table

  sailed back over sea to his seats of old

  to Joyous Gard in the jagged hills

  in Benoic the blessed where Ban had ruled

  The story of the feud arising from the love of Lancelot and Guinevere seems here to be that Mordred told Guinevere that Gawain had told the King.

  The last two lines (at the bottom of the page) are notable for the names. This is the only place in the Fall of Arthur papers where the name Joyous Gard appears (see here, here, here), here set ‘in the jagged hills in Benoic’ – elsewhere always Benwick: but Benoic is the form in the French Mort Artu (see here).

  The second of the two pages was written in ink in a scrawl that is very hard to decipher. It begins with the line ‘Thus came the hate of Gawain and Lancelot’ and repeats the following six lines (with Benwick for Benoic). Then follows:

  [? So] the worm had pierced all the wealth and root

  of the Tree of blossom in its time of [illegible word]

  so went Lancelot no more with his liege to battle

  on the far marches against the fierce Saxons.

  [illegible line]

  A word over the water of woe in Britain

  came to Lancelot in his land afar

  of Arthur arming against his own kingdom.

  he waited and went not. Word from [? his] lady

  came not [? him calling], from the king no summons

  to sail over salt water was sent to him

  for Gawain the good of Guinevere’s [? friends]

  [illegible words]

  These last words might be read as ‘doubted as faithless’. It seems to me that this text was a very early sketching out of this element in the story. Incidentally, the lines in this text (see here)

  jealousy awakened joy was darkened

  for none would the queen hear named in praise

  save Lancelot alone it liked them ill –

  the lesser in loyalty

  are reminiscent of the words of Synopsis I, see here: ‘But the Queen loved Lancelot, to his praise only would she listen. Thus jealousy awoke in lesser hearts …’

  There is also another single page that seems fairly certainly to be associated with the pages of the preceding text: it was found with them and is on the same subject, with one closely similar line. The text begins in mid-sentence, but the preceding page has disappeared; and was written very rapidly in ink.

  of Arthur arming against his own kingdom.

  Oft he wondered whether word would come,

  would Arthur ask him for aid in war.

  Now Mordred’s malice was made clear to him

  and many things he saw he had missed before.

  Oft then we wished and wondered that word might come

  to summon him to sail over salt water

  asking for his aid in Arthur’s need.

  Or haply from Britain he would hear ere long

  and the queen would call him to comfort her.

  But no word came and he cursed the day

  and a black thought brooded in his breast at eve.

  Let the king be conquered – and the queen widowed.

  [In] Mordred shall remember the might of Benwick

  another more worthy shall that crown seize.

  Grim were his looks.

  Ector said to Lionel

  I don’t think that these last words show that this text was associated with the abandoned device of putting the retrospective story of Lancelot and Guinevere into the mouths of Sir Lionel and Sir Ector. I think it belongs rather with an isolated note in which my father proposed to himself that some part of the earlier history should be ‘worked in with Lancelot’s musing – at the rising of the storm’, and should be further amplified ‘when Ector and Lionel discuss his inaction and chafe at it’ (see her
e). In the line ‘In Mordred shall remember’ the word ‘In’ seems clear but is obviously an error, perhaps for ‘Then’. I assume that ‘that crown’ refers to the crown of Britain. Lancelot’s speculation about a possibly desirable outcome of Britain’s woes is astounding, and has no echo anywhere in the draft papers. On the other hand, his perplexity of mind as portrayed in Synopsis I (see here), and similarly in Synopsis III (see here), could be seen as fertile ground from which so black a ‘black thought’ could ‘brood in his breast’.

  Returning to the question of the Lionel and Ector text (LE) and its convergence with the B version (see here), the fact is that there exists another manuscript which is demonstrably earlier than LE, which my father was demonstrably following when he wrote LE, but from which Lionel and Ector are absent.

  In this manuscript the In Benwick the blessed opening passage is in an earlier form than in any of its numerous other occurrences. In line 3 it has ‘from the ancient East, islands seeking’, as does LE (see here); but in addition it has the following readings where LE has the later ones (see here): in line 6 ‘against the wilderness’ for ‘against the wild peoples’; in line 7 ‘Tower’ for ‘Towers’ (and so ‘below it’ in line 9 for ‘below them’, ‘it watched’ and ‘it feared’ for ‘they’ in line 12); and ‘carven cliffs’ for ‘cavernous cliffs’ in line 10. These and many other corrections were written in the margins of this text, but I give it as it was before the corrections were made.

  After the opening passage this further text continues thus, to be compared with that of LE on see here.

  There now Lancelot, the lord of Benwick,

  bitter days abode burned with longing.

  In former time of the fair brethren

  he was proven peerless; praise and glory

  and men’s worship for might and honour

  he had ever earned him, until evil grew

  and faith divided. Too fair the Queen,

  the knight too noble, and the net too strong

  that caught him captive. Not as Queen only

  nor as lady he loved her, but than life more dear

  he loved her long, yet loyal held him

  to his lord Arthur. Love was stronger.

  By her beauty blinded he bent at last,

  trust betraying, who was true as steel.

  Thus the seed was sown of sorrow unending.