And at his Royal table sit and feast
In warlike orders, all their arms round hurled
As if they meant to circumscribe the world.”
This is a noble passage, and sums up the leading points in King Arthur’s history, as related in the Fabliaux, and at the same time serves as evidence of the power of divination and eloquence of Merlin. The matter of the prophecy was obviously taken from Malory, but the dramatist introduced one strange variation in his story. Merlin, indignant that his demoniac father should strive to harm his mother, uses his art and magic spells to enclose the Devil in a rock—an idea suggested, no doubt, by Merlin’s own fate. Furthermore, finding himself called to aid Pendragon against the Saxons, Merlin conducts his mother to a place of retirement called Merlin’s Bower, and tells her that when she dies he will erect a monument—
“Upon the verdant plains of Salisbury—
(No king shall have so high a sepulchre)—
With pendulous stones that I will hang by art,
Where neither lime nor mortar shall be used,
A dark enigma to the memory,
For none shall have the power to number them.”