new, as in the case of Lancelot's voyage to Carbonek, it is so entirely recast that it becomes a fresh pleasure-recast, not only for the sake of the allegory, but also for the joy that Tennyson, like a child, felt in the making of high romance. I illustrate this by three things in the poem. The first of these is Percivale's story of his setting forth upon the Quest. Tennyson's object is to show that pride in one's self, and its extreme opposite-despair of sin, which throws us back on self-alike render the life of exalted holiness impossible, because for that we must, like Galahad, lose self altogether.

Percivale starts full of joy in his own bravery, but as he goes, Arthur's warning that his knights in this Quest are following wandering fires occurs to him, and he drops down into despair. Then he sees a series of visions. A burning thirst consumes him; it is the symbol of the thirst for union with God. " And on I rode," he cries, and

I quote this especially for its accurate description of Nature

And when I thought my thirst

Would slay me, saw deep lawns, and then a brook,
With one sharp rapid, where the crisping white

Play'd ever back upon the sloping wave,

And took both ear and eye; and o'er the brook
Were apple trees, and apples by the brook
Fallen, and on the lawns.

And while he drank the brook and ate the apples, all fell into dust, and he was left alone, thirsting still, and in a land of sand and thorns. It is the symbol of the thirsty soul trying to find in the beauty of Nature its true home, and failing. Then he sees a woman spinning at the door of a

fair home, and she cries "Rest here," but she and the house fall also into dust. It is the symbol of the soul trying to find rest in domestic love, and failing.

Then he sees a yellow gleam flash along the world, and the plowman and the milkmaid fall before it; but One, in golden armour, splendid as the sun and crowned, comes along-and he too, touched, falls into dust. It is the symbol of the soul seeking to be satisfied with the glory of the earth, chiefly to be attained in war. Then he finds a city on a hill, walled, and a great crowd that welcomes him and calls him mightiest and purest; but when he comes near, the city is a ruined heap, and the crowd is gone. It is the symbol of the soul seeking to slake its thirst by popular applause, and especially in the fame of a ruler of men, but all is thirst and desolation as before; and then he finds the valley of humility and of forgetfulness of his sins in the glory of God's love. It is a rich invention, and perfectly wrought.

The next illustration of this brilliant inventiveness is the description of the city of Camelot and of the hall of Arthur, and of the streets of the mediæval town when the knights depart on the Quest. The towers, the roofs, the ornaments of the town, the sculpture in the hall, the great statue of gold with its peaked wings pointing to the northern star, the glass of the twelve windows emblazoned with Arthur's wars, are all described as if the poet had seen them face to face, and with a richness which truly represents the gorgeous architecture and furniture of the old romances. Tennyson has

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absorbed and then re-created all he has read in

them, I can scarcely praise this work too highly. Lastly, there is the story of Lancelot's half-vision of the Holy Grail and his drift over the sea to the enchanted rock of Carbonek. Its basis is to be found in the old tale; but whoever reads it in Malory's Morte d'Arthur will see how imaginatively it has been re-conceived. It is full of the true romantic element; it is close to the essence of the story of the Holy Grail; there is nothing in all the Idylls more beautiful in vision and in sound; and the art with which it is worked is as finished as the conception is majestic. I will praise it no more, but quote a part of it. To hear it is its highest praise. Lancelot, torn between his horror of his sin and his love of it, seeking the Grail that he might be free from his sin, yet knowing that he does not wish to be freed, is driven into a madness by the inward battle, "whipt into waste fields far away," and beaten down to earth by little folk, mean knights and then "I came," he cries:

"All in my folly to the naked shore,

Wide flats, where nothing but coarse grasses grew;
But such a blast, my King, began to blow,

So loud a blast along the shore and sea,

Ye could not hear the waters for the blast,

Tho' heapt in mounds and ridges all the sea

Drove like a cataract, and all the sand
Swept like a river, and the clouded heavens
Were shaken with the motion and the sound."

He finds a boat, black in the sea-foam, and drives in it seven days over the deep till it shocks on the castled rock of Carbonek whose "chasm-like portals open to the sea." Then climbing the steps he passes the lions:

IDYLLS: PELLEAS AND ETTARRE 323

"And up into the sounding hall I past;
But nothing in the sounding hall I saw,
No bench nor table, painting on the wall
Or shield of knight; only the rounded moon
Thro' the tall oriel on the rolling sea.
But always in the quiet house I heard,
Clear as a lark, high o'er me as a lark,

A sweet voice singing in the topmost tower
To the eastward: up I climb'd a thousand steps
With pain: as in a dream I seem'd to climb
For ever at the last I reach'd a door,
A light was in the crannies, and I heard,
'Glory and joy and honour to our Lord
And to the Holy Vessel of the Grail.'"

Lancelot was not only the greatest knight; he proves here that he was the greatest singer.

The story of Pelleas and Ettarre as told in Malory's book is natural, simple, and common. The ground of the trouble in the tale is also simple. It is the boredom of Ettarre. She is wearied of being loved by Pelleas, for whom she feels no love. "I have no peace from him," she cries. A woman in such circumstances is naturally cruel. These are simple lines on which to move a tale; and the Pelleas of Malory is quite an ordinary person and his Ettarre not an uncommon character of the Romances. The love-tale also has nothing out of the common, but it is interesting; it has the romantic air, and it goes up and down between pain and pleasure in an adventurous fashion, of which it is agreeable to read in a quiet hour. I need not tell Malory's tale, for the things that happen are much the same as in Tennyson's Idyll, at least as far as that place in the tale where Pelleas leaves Ettarre and rides away. At that point, Tennyson re-casts the

Story

story. Pelleas, in Malory's book, departs furious with the treachery of Gawain, and equally furious with Ettarre, not for her unchastity, but because she has loved another than himself. Tortured by these two angers, he takes to his bed to die of rage and disappointment. He is then found by a Lady of the Lake who has pity on him, cures his sickness, replaces his love of Ettarre by love of herself; and in order to avenge Pelleas on Ettarre, bewitches Ettarre into a hopeless love of Pelleas. Ettarre, drawn to his bedside, beseeches for the affection she has rejected. Pelleas cries out, "Begone, traitress!" and Ettarre dies of that sorrow. Then Pelleas goes away gaily with the Lady of the Lake.

There is no moral direction, nor indeed any special purpose, in the original tale. It is only a faithful record of a piece of human life, quite clearly and simply told. But Tennyson, when he took it, had a special aim in view, and wrote it afresh with a moral purpose. He wanted to represent the luxurious society which precedes the downfall of a nation, especially after the failure of a religious revival founded on the supernatural. The knights have now returned reckless from their unsuccessful effort to achieve the Quest of the Grail; not better but worse than before. Religion, they feel, is useless, and an ideal life absurd. They had been sensual, now they have become cynical. Vivien, the lust of the flesh, the enjoyment of the senses alone, is full mistress of the world. Ettarre represents this society; Pelleas represents its deadly influence on an innocent heart that believes in love, purity and truth, and their embodiment in the King. He finds a world in