Granting, then, that the feature formed part of the early Arthurian legend, are we to consider that the version given by the chronicles faithfully represents the original tradition, and that it was Mordred who was Guinevere's original lover? I think not. It is an extremely curious feature of the problem, that though in each of the pseudo-historic versions Guinevere, as we have seen, is genuinely in love with Mordred, and is roundly condemned by the chroniclers for her conduct, in no single one of the Arthurian romances is there any trace of the slightest affection existing between them. Mordred, save as traitor in the final scenes, plays no rôle in the story; he is never represented as a persona grata at court; in one important version, as we shall see, the queen dislikes him because she suspects his true relation to Arthur. Guinevere's moral character is held to be untarnished, even by her liaison with Lancelot.
I suspect that we have here to deal with a lapse of tradition. Mordred is not the original lover, but he represents him; and between that original lover and Lancelot there intervenes a period in which Guinevere's lapse from virtue was smoothed over, and partially forgotten. It is certainly remarkable that in each of the three great prose branches, the Merlin,[120] the Tristan, and the Lancelot, Guinevere's moral character is apparently unaffected by her conduct with Lancelot. The compilers all agree in extolling her as the noblest of queens and best of women. Even so aggressively virtuous and clerical a romance as the prose Perceval li Gallois, though quite aware of the connection, regards Guinevere in a favourable light—indeed, as morally superior to Arthur! Nor can we quote the Queste as representing the opposite view; true, Lancelot is blamed for his relations with the queen, but Guinevere, when she appears upon the scene, is treated with marked respect, and the reader has an uncomfortable suspicion that the writer objected to her rather as woman than as wife,—he objects to the sex as a whole, only forgiving Perceval's sister on account of her virginity. It seems clear that if the character of Guinevere has, among the Welsh, been handed down to posterity under the unfavourable light in which Professor Rhys tells us she is popularly regarded, this must be due either to a tradition emanating from an earlier and healthier state of society, when conjugal infidelity was not regarded with complacency, or to a later and more enlightened verdict on her relations with Lancelot, but in no case can it be due to the influence of those who told the story of these relations.
The second cause will, I think, account for the nineteenth-century presentment of Guinevere's character; we judge her on the grounds of her relations with Lancelot, which we regard as blameworthy, though not undeserving of sympathy—in fact, we do but emphasise Malory's verdict.
But this does not account for the Welsh tradition, which, as I have before pointed out, knows practically nothing of Lancelot; that must rest upon other grounds, and I believe it rests upon the tradition preserved to us in the Mordred story.
What this original tradition was, we can now only surmise; it belonged to a period of which but few and fragmentary traces survive, but I think that most probably the primitive story ascribed the rôle of lover to Gawain. I made this suggestion some four years ago,[121] and subsequent study has shown me nothing to induce me to alter my opinion, though it has suggested sundry important modifications.
I think now that Gawain and Mordred really represent the two sides of one original personality; and that a personality very closely connected with early Celtic tradition.
What the exact nature of the relation between Gawain and early Irish mythic tradition may be we cannot yet say: that such a relation exists is practically beyond doubt.[122]
Among the characteristic features of the early Irish heroes with whom Gawain is connected, we find the following: Adventurous hero and nephew on the female side to royal centre of cycle (Cuchulinn and Diarmid[123]); son to that uncle (Cuchulinn); lover of uncle's wife, eloping with her (Diarmid); deadly combat between father and son (Cuchulinn and Conlaoch). This latter incident I believe to be of greater importance in heroic-mythic tradition than has yet been realised. As I interpret it, the father and son combat in heroic tradition really represents the 'slayer who shall himself be slain,' the prehistoric combat of the 'Golden Bough' (to which I have referred in chap. v.) influenced by the doctrine of re-birth, as set forth by Mr. Nutt in vol. ii. of the Voyage of Bran, i.e. it is a conflict of the god with his re-born and re-juvenated self, and as such has a very real place in Celtic tradition.
As we see above, we do not at present possess a version in which all these characteristics are united in one hero, but they might very well be so united. I think that the earlier Gawain was at once Arthur's nephew and son by his sister,[124] adventurous hero of the court, lover of the queen, and eventually slayer of his father-uncle.[125]
Very probably in the original story there was some such device as the beauty-spot of Diarmid, which aroused involuntary passion in every woman who beheld him; or the love-potion of the Tristan story; a device whereby the earlier tellers of these tales secured sympathy for the lovers, without lowering the character of the husband, so that Gawain, no less than Diarmid and Tristan, would be regarded as a gallant and sympathetic figure.