ABSTRACT
Published 1869 (‘1870’). T.’s wife records that on 13 Feb. 1869 T. ‘read what he had done of the birth and marriage of Arthur’; the poem was finished ‘before the end of Feb.’ (Mem. ii 63–4). The title in the trial edition was The Birth of Arthur (Wise, Bibliography i 197–201). Based on Malory i. ‘In this Idyll the poet lays bare the main lines of his story and of his parable’ (H.T.). T. comments:
‘How much of history we have in the story of Arthur is doubtful. Let not my readers press too hardly on details whether for history or for allegory. Some think that King Arthur may be taken to typify conscience. He is anyhow meantto be a man who spent himself in the cause of honour, duty and self-sacrifice, who felt and aspired with his nobler knights, though with a stronger and a clearer conscience than any of them, “reverencing his conscience as his king.” “In short, God has not made since Adam was, the man more perfect than Arthur,” as an old writer says. “Major practeritis majorque futuris Regibus.” The vision of Arthur as I have drawn him came upon me when, little more than a boy, I first lighted upon Malory.
þe time cōe wes icoren: þa wes Arður iboren. Sone swa he com an eorðe: aluen hine iuengen. heo bigolen þat child: mid galdere swiðe stronge. heo ʒeuē him mihte: to beon bezst alre cnihten. heo ʒeuen him an oðer king: þat he scolde beon riche king. heo ʒiuen hī ïat ïridde: þat he scolde longe libben. heo ʒifen him kat kine-bern: custen swiðe gode. þat he wes mete-custi: of alle quikemonnen. þis þe alue him ƒef: And al swa þat child iþæh. Layamon’s Brut, Madden, vol. ii 384.‘(The time came that was chosen, then was Arthur born. So soon as he came on earth, elves took him; they enchanted the child with magic most strong, they gave him might to be the best of all knights; they gave him another thing, that he should be a rich king; they gave him the third, that he should live long; they gave to him, the child, virtues most good, so that he was most generous of all men alive: This the elves gave him, and thus the child thrived.)
‘The Coming of Arthur is on the night of the New Year; when he is wedded “the world is white with May”; on a summer night the vision of the Holy Grail appears; and the “Last Tournament” is in the “yellowing autumntide.” Guinevere flees through the mists of autumn, and Arthur’s death takes place at midnight in mid-winter. The form of the Coming of Arthur and of the Passing is purposely more archaic than that of the other Idylls. The blank verse throughout each of the twelve Idylls varies according to the subject.’
