Come ye, not call'd? I gloried in my knave,

Who being still rebuked would answer still Courteous as any knight - but now, if knight,

The marvel dies, and leaves me fool'd and

trick'd,

The tale of Gareth, petulantly she said: 'Ay, well-ay, well-for worse than being fool'd

Of others, is to fool one's self. A cave, Sir Lancelot, is hard by, with meats and drinks

And forage for the horse, and flint for fire.
But all about it flies a honeysuckle.
Seek, till we find.' And when they sought
and found,

Sir Gareth drank and ate, and all his life Past into sleep; on whom the maiden gazed:

Sound sleep be thine! sound cause to sleep hast thou.

1790

upon;

1220

And all the three were silent seeing, pitch'd
Beside the Castle Perilous on flat field,
A huge pavilion like a mountain peak 1329
Sunder the glooming crimson on the marge,
Black, with black banner, and a long black
horn

Beside it hanging; which Sir Gareth graspt,
And so, before the two could hinder him,
Sent all his heart and breath thro' all the
horn.

Echo'd the walls; a light twinkled; anon Came lights and lights, and once again he blew;

Whereon were hollow tramplings up and down

And muffled voices heard, and shadows

past;

And horrors only proven a blooming boy. So large mirth lived, and Gareth won the quest.

And he that told the tale in older times Says that Sir Gareth wedded Lyonors, But he that told it later says Lynette.

NOTE. The complete series of the Idylls, including The Coming of Arthur and The Passing of Arthur, comprises twelve poems. In this volume six of the series are omitted, the first omission being of four Idylls following Gareth and Lynette in the completed work. These omitted Idylls are by name (1) The Marriage of Geraint, (2) Geraint and Enid, (3) Balin and Balan, (4) Merlin and Vivien. The second omission follows the Idyll of The Holy Grail, the omitted Idylls being Pelleas and Ettarre and The Last Tournament.

The unity of the Idylls of the King, taken as a whole, is not so strictly maintained that a reading of the omitted Idylls is essential to an understanding of the story. It is true that we can find in a study of the whole series of the Idylls a progressive degeneration within Arthur's court, and that a careful treatment of the Idylls with a special effort to emphasize this element in the unity of the whole series can bring forth in each Idyll some character or incident that betrays the growing degeneration, but the true unity lies, not in the story of this degeneration, but in the character of Arthur. The reader can get the essential elements of the Idylls by a study of those separate poems included in this volume in which the influence of Arthur is predominant.

In connection with this question of the unity of the Idylls as a whole, the date of composition of the separate poems is noteworthy. The Morte d'Arthur, later incorporated into The Passing of Arthur, was written about 1835 and published in the 1842 volume. In 1859, seventeen years later, appeared the first instalment of the Idylls, including the following titles: Enid, Vivien, Elaine, and Guinevere. After a lapse of ten years, in 1869 four new poems were added to those already published, namely, The Coming of Arthur, The Holy Grail, Pelleas and Ettarre, and The Passing of Arthur (including as mentioned before the Morte d'Arthur of 1842). After another lapse, this time of three years, The Last Tournament and Gareth and Lynette appeared. And last of all, in 1885, Balin and Balan was included, appearing in a volume entitled Tiresias and Other Poems. This résumé of the dates of publication of the separate poems in the series is introduced here to show that the unity of the whole is dependent not upon a clearly defined plot worked out progressively from Idyll to Idyll, but upon the character. "nfluence, ideals, and personality of Arthur.

Furthermore, those Idylls in which the influ

ence of Arthur, whether he is represented throughout as being present in person or not, is clearly predominant, are the Idylls which contain the finest poetry of the whole series. No one will seriously assert that the Enid Idylls, or Balin and Balan, or Pelleas and Ettarre are, in plot or expression, the equals of Gareth and Lynette, Lancelot and Elaine, or the exquisitely pathetic Guinevere. In restricting the Idylls in this volume to those in which the influence of Arthur is predominant, we have therefore not only retained the material that is necessary for a conception of the truest unity of the series as a whole, but we have chosen also the finest of the separate Idylls for the reader.

LANCELOT AND ELAINE

Before or after-reading Lancelot and Elaine, the student should for comparison read The Lady of Shalott (p. 617 in this volume). The Lady of Shalott, which was published in 1832, is one of the earliest instances of Tennyson's interest in the Arthur legends and is founded on the same story which is the subject of Lancelot and Elaine.

ELAINE the fair, Elaine the lovable,
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,
High in her chamber up a tower to the
east

Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot; Which first she placed where morning's earliest ray

Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam;

Then fearing rust or soilure fashion'd for it
A case of silk, and braided thereupon
All the devices blazon'd on the shield
In their own tinct, and added, of her wit,
A border fantasy of branch and flower,
And yellow-throated nestling in the nest.
Nor rested thus content, but day by day,
Leaving her household and good father,
climb'd

That eastern tower, and entering barr'd her door,

Stript off the case, and read the naked shield,

Now guess'd a hidden meaning in his arms, Now made a pretty history to herself

Of every dint a sword had beaten in it, 19 And every scratch a lance had made upon it, Conjecturing when and where: this cut is fresh,

That ten years back; this dealt him at Caerlyle,