King, &c., in Pavilion before Castle.
We must give one example of a combat—rather a long one, but it combines many different points of interest. “So as they (Merlin and King Arthur) went thus talking, they came to a fountain, and a rich pavilion by it. Then was King Arthur aware where a knight sat all armed in a chair. ‘Sir Knight,’ said King Arthur, ‘for what cause abidest thou here, that there may no knight ride this way, but if he do just with thee; leave that custom.’ ‘This custom,’ said the knight, ‘have I used, and will use maugre who saith nay, and who is grieved with my custom, let him amend it that will.’ ‘I will amend it,’ saith King Arthur. ‘And I shall defend it,’ saith the knight. Anon he took his horse, and dressed his shield, and took a spear; and they met so hard either on other’s shield, that they shivered their spears. Therewith King Arthur drew his sword. ‘Nay, not so,’ saith the knight, ‘it is fairer that we twain run more together with sharp spears.’ ‘I will well,’ said King Arthur, ‘an I had any more spears.’ ‘I have spears enough,’ said the knight. So there came a squire, and brought two good spears, and King Arthur took one, and he another; so they spurred their horses, and came together with all their might, that either break their spears in their hands. Then King Arthur set hand to his sword. ‘Nay,’ said the knight, ‘ye shall do better; ye are a passing good juster as ever I met withal; for the love of the high order of knighthood let us just it once again.’ ‘I assent me,’ said King Arthur. Anon there were brought two good spears, and each knight got a spear, and therewith they ran together, that King Arthur’s spear broke to shivers. But the knight hit him so hard in the middle of the shield, that horse and man fell to the earth, wherewith King Arthur was sore angered, and drew out his sword, and said, ‘I will assay thee, Sir Knight, on foot, for I have lost the honour on horseback.’ ‘I will be on horseback,’ said the knight. Then was King Arthur wrath, and dressed his shield towards him with his sword drawn. When the knight saw that, he alighted for him, for he thought it was no worship to have a knight at such advantage, he to be on horseback, and the other on foot, and so alighted, and dressed himself to King Arthur. Then there began a strong battle with many great strokes, and so hewed with their swords that the cantels flew on the field, and much blood they bled both, so that all the place where they fought was all bloody; and thus they fought long and rested them, and then they went to battle again, and so hurtled together like two wild boars, that either of them fell to the earth. So at the last they smote together, that both their swords met even together. But the sword of the knight smote King Arthur’s sword in two pieces, wherefore he was heavy. Then said the knight to the king, ‘Thou art in my danger, whether me list to slay thee or save thee; and but thou yield thee as overcome and recreant, thou shalt die.’ ‘As for death,’ said King Arthur, ‘welcome be it when it cometh, but as to yield me to thee as recreant, I had liever die than be so shamed.’ And therewithal the king leapt upon Pelinore, and took him by the middle, and threw him down, and rased off his helmet. When the knight felt that he was a dread, for he was a passing big man of might; and anon he brought King Arthur under him, and rased off his helmet, and would have smitten off his head. Therewithal came Merlin, and said, ‘Knight, hold thy hand.’”
Knights Justing.
Happy for the wounded knight if there were a religious house at hand, for there he was sure to find kind hospitality and such surgical skill as the times afforded. King Bagdemagus had this good fortune when he had been wounded by Sir Galahad. “I am sore wounded,” said he, “and full hardly shall I escape from the death. Then the squire fet [fetched] his horse, and brought him with great pain to an abbey. Then was he taken down softly and unarmed, and laid in a bed, and his wound was looked into, for he lay there long and escaped hard with his life.” So Sir Tristram, in his combat with Sir Marhaus, was so sorely wounded, “that unneath he might recover, and lay at a nunnery half a year.” Such adventures sometimes, no doubt, ended fatally, as in the case of the unfortunate Sir Marhaus, and there was a summary conclusion to his adventures; and there was nothing left but to take him home and bury him in his parish church, and hang his sword and helmet over his tomb.[376] Many a knight would be satisfied with the series of adventures which finished by laying him on a sick bed for six months, with only an ancient nun for his nurse; and as soon as he was well enough he would get himself conveyed home on a horse litter, a sadder and a wiser man. The modern romances have good mediæval authority, too, for making marriage a natural conclusion of their three volumes of adventures; we have no less authority for it than that of Sir Launcelot:—“Now, damsel,” said he, at the conclusion of an adventure, “will ye any more service of me?” “Nay, sir,” said she at this time, “but God preserve you, wherever ye go or ride, for the courtliest knight thou art, and meekest to all ladies and gentlewomen that now liveth. But, Sir Knight, one thing me thinketh that ye lack, ye that are a knight wifeless, that ye will not love some maiden or gentlewoman, for I could never hear say that ye loved any of no manner degree, wherefore many in this country of high estate and low make great sorrow.” “Fair damsel,” said Sir Launcelot, “to be a wedded man I think never to be, for if I were, then should I be bound to tarry with my wife, and leave arms and tournaments, battles and adventures.”
We have only space left for a few examples of the quaint and poetical phrases that, as we have said, frequently occur in these Romances, some of which Tennyson has culled, and set like uncut mediæval gems in his circlet of “Idyls of the King.” In the account of the great battle between King Arthur and his knights against the eleven kings “and their chivalry,” we read “they were so courageous, that many knights shook and trembled for eagerness,” and “they fought together, that the sound rang by the water and the wood,” and “there was slain that morrow-tide ten thousand of good men’s bodies.” The second of these expressions is a favourite one; we meet with it again: “when King Ban came into the battle, he came in so fiercely, that the stroke resounded again from the water and the wood.” Again we read, King Arthur “commanded his trumpets to blow the bloody sounds in such wise that the earth trembled and dindled.” He was “a mighty man of men;” and “all men of worship said it was merry to be under such a chieftain, that would put his person in adventure as other poor knights did.”
CHAPTER V.
KNIGHTS-ERRANT.