Strides in the circles of unthinking men.
Imitated from Schiller.
And frank Gawaine,
Whom mirth for ever, like a fairy child,
Lock'd from the cares of life.
Some liberty, in the course of this poem, will be taken with the legendary character, less perhaps of the Gawaine of the Fabliaux, than of the Gwalchmai (Hawk of Battle) of the Welch bards. In both, indeed, this hero is represented as sage, courteous, and eloquent; but he is a livelier character in the Fabliaux than in the tales of his native land. The characters of many of the Cymrian heroes, indeed, vary according to the caprice of the poets. Thus Kai, in the Triads, one of the Three Diademed chiefs of battle and a powerful magician, is, in the French romances, Messire Queux, the chief of the cooks; and in the Mabinogion,[A] he is at one time but an unlucky knight of more valour than discretion, and at another time attains the dignity assigned to him in the Triads, and exults in supernatural attributes. And poor Gawaine himself, the mirror of chivalry, in most of the Fabliaux is, as Southey observes, "shamefully calumniated" in the Mort D'Arthur as the "false Gawaine." The Caradoc of this poem is not intended to be identified with the hero Caradoc Vreichvras. The name was sufficiently common in Britain (it is the right reading for Caractacus) to allow to the use of the poet as many Caradocs as he pleases.
Frank youth, high thoughts, crown'd Nature's kings in both.
Lancelot was, indeed, the son of a king, but a dethroned and a tributary one. The popular history of his infancy will be told in a subsequent book.
Welcome Bal-Huan back to yon sweet sky.