The poetical beauties of The Coming of Arthur excel those of Gareth and Lynette. The sons of Lot and Bellicent seem to have been originally regarded as the incestuous offspring of Arthur and his sister, the wife of King Lot. Next it was represented that Arthur was ignorant of the relationship. Mr Rhys supposes that the mythical scandal (still present in Malory as a sin of ignorance) arose from blending the Celtic Arthur (as Culture Hero) with an older divine personage, such as Zeus, who marries his sister Hera. Marriages of brother and sister are familiar in the Egyptian royal house, and that of the Incas. But the poet has a perfect right to disregard a scandalous myth which, obviously crystallised later about the figure of the mythical Celtic Arthur, was an incongruous accretion to his legend. Gareth, therefore, is merely Arthur’s nephew, not son, in the poem, as are Gawain and the traitor Modred. The story seems to be rather mediæval French than Celtic—a mingling of the spirit of fabliau and popular fairy tale. The poet has added to its lightness, almost frivolity, the description of the unreal city of Camelot, built to music, as when
“Ilion, like a mist, rose into towers.”
He has also brought in the allegory of Death, which, when faced, proves to be “a blooming boy” behind the mask. The courtesy and prowess of Lancelot lead up to the later development of his character.
In The Marriage of Geraint, a rumour has already risen about Lancelot and the Queen, darkening the Court, and presaging
“The world’s loud whisper breaking into storm.”
For this reason Geraint removes Enid from Camelot to his own land—the poet thus early leading up to the sin and the doom of Lancelot. But this motive does not occur in the Welsh story of Enid and Geraint, which Tennyson has otherwise followed with unwonted closeness. The tale occurs in French romances in various forms, but it appears to have returned, by way of France and coloured with French influences, to Wales, where it is one of the later Mabinogion. The characters are Celtic, and Nud, father of Edyrn, Geraint’s defeated antagonist, appears to be recognised by Mr Rhys as “the Celtic Zeus.” The manners and the tournaments are French. In the Welsh tale Geraint and Enid are bedded in Arthur’s own chamber, which seems to be a symbolic commutation of the jus primæ noctis a custom of which the very existence is disputed. This unseemly antiquarian detail, of course, is omitted in the Idyll.
An abstract of the Welsh tale will show how closely Tennyson here follows his original. News is brought into Arthur’s Court of the appearance of a white stag. The king arranges a hunt, and Guinevere asks leave to go and watch the sport. Next morning she cannot be wakened, though the tale does not aver, like the Idyll, that she was
“Lost in sweet dreams, and dreaming of her love
For Lancelot.”
Guinevere wakes late, and rides through a ford of Usk to the hunt. Geraint follows, “a golden-hilted sword was at his side, and a robe and a surcoat of satin were upon him, and two shoes of leather upon his feet, and around him was a scarf of blue purple, at each corner of which was a golden apple”:—
“But Guinevere lay late into the morn,
Lost in sweet dreams, and dreaming of her love
For Lancelot, and forgetful of the hunt;
But rose at last, a single maiden with her,
Took horse, and forded Usk, and gain’d the wood;
There, on a little knoll beside it, stay’d
Waiting to hear the hounds; but heard instead
A sudden sound of hoofs, for Prince Geraint,
Late also, wearing neither hunting-dress
Nor weapon, save a golden-hilted brand,
Came quickly flashing thro’ the shallow ford
Behind them, and so gallop’d up the knoll.
A purple scarf, at either end whereof
There swung an apple of the purest gold,
Sway’d round about him, as he gallop’d up
To join them, glancing like a dragon-fly
In summer suit and silks of holiday.”