Mr. Newell's King Arthur and the Table Round

A NEW TRANSLATION OF THE ARTHURIAN EPOS.

IT is a well-known remark of Renan that the historic sense is the chief acquisition of the present century. Literature has not been the last to reflect this new influence, and to it may be ascribed a twofold revolution as it affects our attitude toward the individual and toward the race. Thus, on the one hand, modern fiction has gained a fresh field in portraying the development of character, and in describing to us a life amid circumstances of a previous age. On the other hand, primitive works of literature have acquired a peculiar interest by their appeal to this newly awakened faculty, evoking within us thoughts and emotions of a youthful people, — an interest doubly enhanced when from the earliest days down to the present we can follow a long line of successors, varying in nature with the progression of time.

Certainly, all lovers of Spenser and Tennyson, and of the many lesser chroniclers of King Arthur, will welcome the two handsome volumes of Mr. Newell’s King Arthur and the Table Round, which offer in pleasant form translations from the oldest poems on that subject. And let us say at once that Mr. Newell’s work is well done. The language is simple and not without grace ; and he has admirably avoided the queer translation English, neither archaic nor modern, which is so much affected by recent translators (as if the further their style were from any known model, the closer it might convey foreign ideas), and which reaches a wide public in the standard prose versions of Homer. It is rare that reader or critic complains of a book that it is too short; but in this case most readers, we fancy, would wish the chapters on the history of the legends a little fuller, and their interest would not flag if the body of the work were considerably longer.

By far the larger part of the translations are taken from Chrétien de Troyes, and only sufficient matter from other sources is added to give a fairly complete story of the Round Table. Perhaps even more space might judiciously have been devoted to the French poet who is here first introduced to English readers. His poems, apart from their own beauty, may claim our attention as being the oldest literary work on the subject that has been preserved, if not the earliest written. The real origin of the Arthurian saga, as every one knows, is an obscure and vexed question. Celtic, English, French, and German writers, all worked together to produce the vast body of romances that flooded Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and it is far from easy to ascribe to each people its share in this labor. So much, however, may be prudently affirmed: that Arthur as a personality belongs to the Celtic traditions of Great Britain and Brittany. Certain fanciful features of chivalry, also, as portrayed in these romances, — especially the tender regard for women and the idealization of love, — may in part be due to Celtic imagination ; but in the twelfth century the legends were taken up by the French trouvères, and to them must be attributed the courtly form and the more or less consistent development which changed the floating traditions to literature. At that time France was the intellectual school of Europe, and the story of King Arthur as we read it today, together with almost all the rest of mediæval literature, must be called a French creation. It may be the German minnesingers helped to introduce the vein of religious mysticism that is so marked in some of the later romances, but beyond that German influence can hardly be important. It would be pleasant to believe this epic cycle was the offspring of one great genius, and no doubt Chrétien de Troyes did more than any other single man to give popularity to these new themes, and to turn readers from the older, sterner epics of Charlemagne to the gayer adventures of the Celtic knights ; but we opine that the present translator is carried away by enthusiasm for his own author in attributing “ to Crestien of Troyes, more than all other influences, . . . the character of the extant Arthurian story.”

To us this obscure labor of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is chiefly interesting for its effect on later English literature. The first writer of English in the strict sense to treat the subject was the much lauded — and, we fancy, little read — Sir Thomas Malory, who, in the fifteenth century, put together his Morte Darthur from French and Old English sources. It is not easy to discover in Malory’s disjointed narrative “ the vision and the faculty divine ” with which his popular editor would endow him. Mr. Newell’s judgment of the work seems very fair when he says that “ out of such a conglomeration it was impossible to produce an interesting whole. The attraction of Malory’s work is chiefly owing to the language; only in the conclusion, where he borrowed from the English poem, has his account unquestioned merit.” But just a century later Spenser published his Faerie Queene, and with this poem the story of Arthur becomes an integral part of our literature. Lovers of Milton may not allow to Spenser the first place in narrative poetry, which some would claim for him. but second, at least, he must stand. If he never rises quite so high as the great passages in Milton, and if his speech lacks the magisterial authority of the Puritan, he yet equals his follower and admirer in infinite charm, and excels him in sustained interest. The Faerie Queene owes its greatness partly to the individual genius of the poet, and partly to his skill in weaving together all the romantic motives of his age. Bojardo and Ariosto, adopting the epic tale of Charlemagne, had altered its spirit to the gay tone of chivalry introduced by the Arthurian romances Spenser, in imitating them, curiously reverts to the Arthurian story which he professes to make his main theme, and on this embroiders many of the brilliant episodes of Italian invention, so that there is in his work an inextricable blending of the two cycles. But besides the color and vivacious movement which he found ready to hand in Ariosto, Spenser borrowed also the cunning allegory made popular by the Romance of the Rose; and it is this persistent yet wisely subordinated moralization that renders the Faerie Queene to many readers more satisfactory than the Orlando. The ethical idea that runs through the poem, while never obtrusive, gives a kind of background to the isolated scenes, and binds them together. There is something more than mere diversion in the reading, and we feel that pleasurable excitation which follows the appeal to our higher faculties. It was for the sake of this allegory that Spenser made Arthur his avowed hero. So far as I know, there is nothing in the Faerie Queene to prove that Spenser was acquainted with the poems of Chrétien, yet, conversant as he was with the early romantic literature, it is not likely he should have overlooked the master singer of his favorite King Arthur. At least, we may read in the Perceval of the French poet an earlier account of the training of a knight in “ gentle discipline,” which would teach him mercy to the fallen, courtesy to women, restraint in speech, and reverence toward God : and it is pleasant to be able to compare this simpler picture of chivalric training with the portrayal of it as colored by the luxury of Italian fancy and subtilized by the ethics of Aristotle.

Here perhaps a word of explanation is necessary. I have said that the development of character as affected by circumstances is a new phase of literature related to the recently acquired historic sense. Objection might be urged that as early as Chrétien de Troyes we have the story of the making of a knight; and that, indeed, long before this Xenophon had written a novel on the education of Cyrus. But the contradiction is only apparent ; for in all these works the character of the hero is completely formed in childhood, and there is no growth, in the true sense of the word. His education is merely the learning of outer forms.

But to return to King Arthur. It is a notable fact that both Virgil and Milton in the end should have chosen for epic treatment themes quite different from what they first proposed to themselves. Virgil’s maturer choice was in every way fortunate. It is perilous, considering the sublimity of Paradise Lost, to say otherwise of Milton ; yet Taine has not been alone in esteeming his youthful romantic work more highly than his solemn epics. At least, it is curious, and, with Comus before us, not altogether idle, to conjecture what might have been the beauty of that poem if Milton had indeed called up in song “ Arthur still moving wars beneath the earth and the mighty heroes of the invincible Table.” We may probably charge to Cromwell’s government the loss of a work combining the tragic grandeur of Paradise Lost with the incomparable charm of Comus.

It remained for Tennyson to give currency to these legends in epic, or halfepic, form ; and the Arthur and Lancelot and Gawain of the Idylls are now, as they are likely always to be, for us, the true heroes of the Round Table. Tennyson has been much censured — and Mr. Newell echoes the cry — for wantonly departing from the spirit of the mediæval poets ; but there seems to be little justice in such a reproach. As for specific changes in plot, he only followed, in allowing himself such liberties, innumerable writers before him. And still more idle is it in the nineteenth century to demand of a bard the childlike spirit of the twelfth. The attempt to reproduce it would necessarily have been abortive ; and indeed. Chrétien himself had apparently altered the primitive Celtic tone of the myths as much as Tennyson alters Sir Thomas Malory. In Chrétien, and to a certain degree in Malory, we have the simple character, however idealized, of chivalry as it appeared to contemporaries, and the picture has a freshness that needed little extraneous coloring. Spenser, portraying a life already past, lends to it the factitious interest of renaissance color and allegory. Tennyson, writing in an age far removed from chivalry and of little poetic value in itself, still further veils the bare narration by deepening allegory into symbolism. Verse in a period essentially prosaic must perforce depend on reflection for any serious appeal to the reader ; and the symbolism of Tennyson is just this inner reflection ; seeking in departed forms a significance never dreamed of during their existence, and brooding over a past life of activity as if it were but an emblem of spiritual experience. This is not allegory, in which, action and reflection being still sharply distinguished, the particular virtues and vices move about like puppets only half humanized, and which in the moral world is as naïve as simple narration in the practical, but a something more intimate and illusive, wherein thought and act are blended together, and we seem to live in a land of shadows. Such is the spirit of the Idylls of the King ; and if, in comparison with the genuine epic of an older time, they appear to lack substance and vitality, the blame must fall on the age, and not on the individual author.

It is a digression, and yet not foreign to our argument, to notice here the peculiar treatment of nature in these poems. Each of them, and in fact almost every great work, is marked by the choice of some special natural phenomenon that serves for a background to the picture, and in its change follows the shifting moods of the hero. Passing by for the nonce the writers of antiquity, we may recall the threefold termination “stelle” of the Divine Comedy, — as indeed the stars were a fit emblem of the idealism of one who thought no man might be called an exile while he still had the sky to look upon. In Chrétien and Spenser we are ever traversing pathless wildernesses, with here and there a fountain like a pearl in the waste. Milton invites us into a rich garden, where we wander amid

As for Tennyson himself, I know no other poem where strange winds are always blowing as in the Idylls of the King : and this is in admirable harmony with the intangible breath of symbolism pervading the verses. It is enough to mention the wind that came upon Lancelot in his search for the Grail, —

and Tristram singing of “ the winds that move the mere ; ” and “ the ghost of Gawain blown along a wandering wind ;” and at the close of that last battle the “ bitter wind, clear from the North.”

Sir Thomas Malory, Spenser, Milton, Tennyson, not to mention lesser names, are sufficient to lend unfailing interest to the saga of the Round Table, and to render a version of its earliest singer more than welcome in English literature. But besides this relative value Chrétien may invite our attention for his intrinsic merit, and in fact his historic claim could otherwise hardly be so high. His poems must fairly rank among the few great works of the Middle Ages. There is a freshness and a simple cheer in them, a quaintness with now and again a fineness of sentiment, that continually lure the reader on. The opening paragraphs of the Perceval display so many of these qualities in short compass that no excuse is needed for their quotation : —

“ When trees bloom, thickets leaf, and fields are green, when birds sing sweetly at morn, and all things flame with joy, the son of the Widowed Dame of the Vast Solitary Forest rose and saddled his hunter, taking three of his darts, for it pleased him to visit the sowers who were tilling the fields of his mother, with harrows eight or ten. As he entered the wood, his heart bounded within him, for the sake of the pleasant season, and the songs of the merry birds; because of the sweetness of the sovereign time, he gave his hunter the rein, and left him free to feed on the fresh sprouting grass, while he, who had skill to throw the darts he bore, roved and cast them, now behind and now before, now alow and now aloft, until approached five knights, armed in all their array. Their weapons made a loud noise, as fast as they rode, for the oaks hurtled against their arms, their mail tinkled, and their lances clashed upon their shields. The varlet, who heard them, but could not see, wondered and cried : ‘ By my soul ! my mother, my lady, who telleth me true, saith that devils are wilder than aught in the world ; she saith so, to make me cross myself, that I may be safe from them ; but I will not, no; instead, I will strike the strongest with one of these darts, so that he will not dare come near me, he nor any of his mates, I trow ! ’

“ Thus to himself said the boy ; but when the knights issued from the wood, with their beautiful shields and shining helms, such as never before had he seen, and he beheld green and vermilion, gold, azure, and silver gleam in the sun, he wondered and cried : ‘ Ha, Lord God, mercy ! These are angels I see ! I did wrong, to call them devils ; my mother, who fableth not, saith that naught is so fair as angels, save God, who is more beautiful than all ; here is one so fair, that the others own not a tenth of his beauty ; my mother saith, that one ought to believe in God, bow the knee, and adore Him ; him will I worship, and the rest who are with him.’ So speaking, he cast himself on the ground, repeating his credo, and the prayers his mother had taught him. The lord said to his knights : ‘ Stand back, for this vassal hath fallen to the earth for fear ; if we should approach, all at once, he would go out of his mind, and not be able to tell me aught I wish to learn.’

“ The others halted, while the knight advanced : ‘ Varlet, be not afraid.’ ‘ Not I, by the Saviour in whom I believe ! Are you not God ? ’ ‘By my faith, no.’ ‘ Who are you, then ? ’ ‘I am a knight.’ ‘ A knight? I never saw one, nor heard of one ; but you are fairer than God ; would I were like you, as shining and as perfect! ’ With that, the knight approached, and cried : ‘ Hast thou seen, in this plain, five knights and two maids ?’ The youth, who had his mind elsewhere, grasped the lance: ‘ Fair dear sir, you who call yourself a knight, what is this you carry ? ’ ‘ Methinks, I am finely helped! Fair sweet friend. I looked for tidings, and you ask me questions ; yet I will tell you ; ’t is my lance.’ ”

These pages are delightful, and so perfect in their kind that they may seem to justify unqualified enthusiasm for the author. But exquisite as the trouvère may be, his place in the hierarchy of great poets must be attended by limitations which affect this whole branch of mediæval literature, and in large part the romantic works of the present. We are fully aware that the weighing and comparing of genius is invidious, and can appreciate the catholic sentiment of Taine, who (as Mr. Saintsbury relates) “ once said to a literary novice who rashly asked him whether he liked this or that, ‘ Monsieur, en littérature j’aime tout.’ ” Yet there seems no better way to purge our minds of cowardly acquiescence in criticism than by comparing each new claimant to honor with those whose reputation is already assured by universal consent; nor can the strength and weakness of the class of writers to which Chrétien belongs be set forth more clearly than by contrasting them with the great classic models. And although their champion deprecates such a treatment, yet similarity of conditions almost demands the testing of these newly heralded poems by the epic of Homer ; for in much the same way both French trouvère and Greek rhapsodist worked over popular traditions and disjointed lays into more or less unified structure, and both are the earliest preserved examples of a long series of epic writers. More than this, their divergence in spirit invites comparison quite as much as their similarity in origin. Entertaining as Chrétien assuredly is, he yet altogether lacks the force of passion and the seriousness that mark the great epic. To be particular, we may say that the interest of mediæval romance in general depends on variety of incident, on the unexpected, and a corresponding distraction of mind. The sequence of cause and effect is for the most part ignored, so that the world takes on a holiday, haphazard character, and the mind is jostled about by a series of surprising adventures, often without much coordination or meaning, although not without interest. Moral responsibility, depending on the stern law of cause and effect, can have little part in this happy world, and its place is occupied by delicate touches of sentiment, and occasional hints at the deeper symbolism that later becomes the dominant tone in romance. We are in a land of play. Mighty blows are dealt, brave knights are hacked to pieces, fair ladies swoon on every page ; but no one thinks of taking it quite seriously, no strong emotion is stirred within us, and the pageantry of war passes before us very much like that kind of elegant sport which Ruskin would see in all battle. We hear a good deal of the lightheartedness of the Greeks; but compared with Chrétien, Homer might be called sombre. This follows naturally from the art of the Greek. Instead of variety there is in Homer concentration, and the attempt to intensify a single passion by focusing all the narrative upon it. Instead of reverie there is profound reflection, and instead of merriment an earnestness that at times passes into tragic pathos. In a word, we have in these two authors the contrast between fancy and imagination : fancy that would beguile away our heaviness of heart, and imagination that would throw the light of beauty on the graver passions of life. The one relaxes the mind, the other braces it for action. In his own office Chrétien succeeds admirably ; but if literature is to be taken as a serious concern of life and something more than a dissipation, it seems that some qualification should be added to praise that would recognize in him a “ treasure equal to the Homeric epos.”

It would be a most intricate problem to discuss all the causes that gave mediæval romance its peculiar character, but two prominent influences must not be passed over. The earliest work of Chrétien, it may be remarked, was a translation of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria. Now, Ovid, who represents the literature of amusement in antiquity, and Virgil, the most religious mind of Rome, were the Latin poets most read during the Middle Ages ; and the contrast between them is significant of a strange division which had arisen in mediæval literature. The serious writing of the age falls to the Latin tongue, and is the property of the clerks, who form practically the whole educated class ; whereas the vernacular is thought worthy only of a lighter vein. This feud caused confusion both ways ; bringing scholastic dryness to the monstrous tomes of the clerks and denuding them of human interest, and on the other hand depriving the popular works of the deeper reflection to be borrowed from religion and philosophy.

Perhaps a still stronger influence that affected the Arthurian romance is touched on by Mr. Newell. “ By the middle of the twelfth century,” he says, “ in the courts of France and England, had been formed a large body of readers, in great part women, who had ceased to be content with the savage splendor of an epos [the chansons de geste] designed for the amusement of warriors, and required of fiction especially nutriment for tender emotions.” No slur is intended against the gentle sex, who to-day also form the mass of our readers, if the Arthurian romance be described as essentially feminine. its chief inspiration is, not man’s ambition, but his servitude to woman. What is called the Celtic idea of love had passed with Celtic legend into French hands ; and love, unreasoning, anti-social, glorying the more as it overleaps all bounds, has been the one theme of fiction from that day to this. The passion of Lancelot is something quite different from the longing of Odysseus for wife and home. Indeed, such a passion was looked upon by the Greeks as a weakness or kind of madness, and thought to be unsuited for serious literature. Yet if anything redeems these romances from the charge of frivolity, it is this free, selfglorying love, which so readily passed into the higher idealism. Love is the teacher of honor, the inspirer of bravery, the guide of ambition. He may be a dangerous master, yet how prettily he talks in the mouth of a fair heroine : “ I assure you, if God save you from death, you shall undergo no hardship so long as you remember me. Accept this ring, which hath such virtue that its wearer cannot suffer imprisonment or wounds while he is mindful of his love ; it shall be an armor stronger than iron, and serve you better than hauberk or shield. What I never bestowed on man, out of affection I give you.” Our religion is one of love ; our literature obeys the same passion; our conscience calls for mercy, and not justice. Much that is best and much that is worst in modern civilization flows from this source, and to understand its full influence one must turn to mediæval romance and to the Arthurian epos, where it obtains the fairest expression.