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THERFOR me thynketh this present boke called La mort D'arthur is ryght necessary often to be redde. For in it shal ye fynde the gracious, knystly, and vertuous werre of moost noble knyghtes of the worlde, wherly they gate praying contynuall. Also me semyth by the oft redyng therof, yeche grey desyre tacustome yourself in folowynge those gracyous knyghtly dedes. That is to saye, to drede god, & loue rightvietes, beythfully & courageously to serue your souuerayne •Rows." And the pore that god hath yeuen you the tryumphall honour, the mekerye oughte to be, euer feryng the vnstablynes of this dysceyuable worlde. 1485 Syr T. MALEORE. Kyng Arthur, v. 2, p. 451-2. ed. 1817

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OOKING to the interest shown by so many thousands in Mr. Tennyson's Morte Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and his Idylls of the King, the editor and publisher of the present text have thought it well to try whether an older version of one of the same themes will attract a sufficient number of readers to pay the cost of printing it, and thus perhaps encourage others to put before the public other texts on the like subject now too often hidden among the members of private printing clubs, or issued in very limited numbers. It can hardly fail to be of interest to some, at least, to set the old man's work

Preface.

beside the modern one's; to hear the sight Syr Bedewere saw

"nothynge

But watres depe, and wawès wanne :

reported in the answer of "bold Sir Bedivere,"

I heard the water lapping on the crag,

And the long ripple washing in the reeds :

or to listen to the stricken king's farewell,

I will wende a little stownd (time)
Into the vale of Aveloune,

A while to heal me of my wound,

changed into the Laureate's

The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
Comfort thyself; what comfort is in me?

I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within himself make pure! but thou,
If thou shouldst never see my face again,

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
But now farewell. I am going a long way
With these thou seest-if indeed I go-
(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)
To the island-valley of Avilion;

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard-lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound."

Granted that the early writer's style does not gratify the ear as the rich music of the

Preface.

late one's does; yet still the palm for naturalness and simplicity rests with the older man, and his verse takes us back to knightly days in our land. Nameless he is, and no sunny memories cling round him of heroes' and sovereigns' honour, of college life and loving friends, of wife and boy, but let us believe that in his day he was worthy of them, and that now he is glad that a greater than he has arisen to say to this Victorian time "Arthur is come again: he cannot die."

Unluckily it is more than probable that the old poet's verses have suffered both in rhymes and words from transcription by a later hand, and possibly into another dialect than those in which they were originally written.

Out of the Harleian MS. not only has a line (14136) certainly been omitted, but one or more stanzas or folios have been lost between folios 102 and 103 (p. 50 of text), the latter of which begins with the second line of a stanza, and needs some such verse as

The Quenè sche was euer bente,

to head it. The poem as we have it, though written (as is usual in MSS.) with all its lines ranging, as if now for blank verse, consists of 484 stanzas, which should, I assume, have been all of eight lines each. But two* stanzas have seven lines, four or five t

* Stanzas 46 (7 361-7, p. 16) and 171 (/ 1489-95, p. 58). +226 (/ 1920-5, p. 76), 276 (/2318-23, p. 93), 326 (/271621, p. 109-10), 378 (1 3130-5, p. 127), and 414 (3416-21, p. 139). If stanza 148 ( 1176-81, p. 50,) is complete, as it seems to be, it too has only six lines.

Preface.

stanzas have six lines, and one stanza, 448 ( 3678-82, p. 150), has but four lines. In most of these stanzas the odd lines rhyme with each other, and the even ones with the even ones; but in stanzas 263 ( 2214-21, p. 88) and 291 ( 2436-43, p. 98) the first and third lines rhyme, and the fifth and seventh, making two couples instead of one quatrain. Again, in the nine stanzas mentioned below,* the second and fourth lines rhyme with each other, but not with the sixth and eighth lines. These irregularities I put down to the copyist, who seems also to have had some contempt for rhyme, and no mercy for the poet's occasionally stealing one by altering the words of a household phrase. For instance, the author having to make a rhyme to chapelle, 3813, p. 155, no doubt thought himself justified in writing

Rewfully he herd rynge a belle;

but the copier thought sense better than verse, and without scruple altered the line to, Rewfully he herd a belle rynge,

leaving poor chapelle without its mate. So in the phrase "black and white," as we say now, and as the author undoubtedly wrote in line 3709, p. 151, the copyist has changed it to "white and black," and thereby spoilt the rhyme, probably remembering the Sermon on

* St. I,
7 1-8, p. I St. 350,
51, 400-7, 18

2906-13, p. 117-18

354,

2938-45,

66, 520-7,

23

365,

3026-33,

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3802-9,

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185, 1600-7,

119

123

155

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