Platypus of Truth

   And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard: 'My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone. Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight, And bear me to the margin; yet I fear My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die.' Now that Bedivere has passed the test of obedience he can fulfill Arthur’s words: “ For thou, the latest-left of all my knights,/In whom should meet the offices of all .” Bedivere has “upheld” Arthur from the beginning when he fought in the Twelve Battles and defended him against accusations before King Leodogran.  It is fitting that he should now uphold him in a literal fashion as well.  This scene is also interesting given its parallels with J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Return of the King” where Sam bares Frodo up the slopes of Mount Doom.  In addition, in each story we see an object of mystic power that must be cast away, into water or lava, in spite of its obvious attractions.    So saying, from the pavement he half r...

    Then went Sir Bedivere the second time Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere, Counting the dewy pebbles, fixed in thought; But when he saw the wonder of the hilt, How curiously and strangely chased, he smote His palms together, and he cried aloud:    'And if indeed I cast the brand away, Surely a precious thing, one worthy note, Should thus be lost for ever from the earth, Which might have pleased the eyes of many men. Arthur as a “saint” should have appropriate holy relics, but every relic risks becoming an idol.  Arthur’s mission was to point men to God, not thrill them with baubles, however costly.  As all the old certainties are upset, Bedivere is clutching at straws.  The irony is that Arthur is not even dead. What good should follow this, if this were done? What harm, undone? Deep harm to disobey, Seeing obedience is the bond of rule. Were it well to obey then, if a king demand An act unprofitable, against...

   Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere: 'The sequel of today unsolders all The goodliest fellowship of famous knights Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep They sleep--the men I loved. I think that we Shall never more, at any future time, Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds, Walking about the gardens and the halls Of Camelot, as in the days that were. Arthur tells Bedivere that his life’s work has been destroyed in the destruction of the Round Table.  Arthur has himself participated in this destruction thus siding with his duty as king over the love of his work.  Even though Arthur expresses no doubts that he has done the right thing, he still mourns the passing of his work and the individuals who participated in it.  This completes Arthur’s realization in the outset of the poem that: “For I, being simple, thought to work His will,/And have but stricken with the sword in vain;”.  Arthur knows now that he cannot build the K...

The post for march 9th, "Glossing Tennyson: The Platypus Reads Part XCII" has been ammended to correct for the loss of several sentences from the original.

I've just acquired a three-in-one copy of "Arthurian Torso," "Taliesin Through Logres," and "The Kingdom of the Summer Stars".  Fresh off of Tennyson and in the middle of teaching Mallory, I'm ready to dig in.  However, I've been told that the best way to approach the work is to read Lewis' essay first and then read the poems in his suggested order.  Does anyone have anything else to add for the benefit of a first-time reader?  I've already encountered Williams via "Descent Into Hell," "All Hallows' Eve," "Many Dimensions," "War in Heaven," and Humphrey Carpenter's study of the Inklings.

   Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere, And whiter than the mist that all day long Had held the field of battle was the King: Tennyson gives us another picture of Arthur as Leodogran’s “phantom king.”  Bedivere stands with Arthur at the last, like John at the crucifixion, and so is able to record a true testimony of Arthur’s final words and deeds.    'Hearest thou this great voice that shakes the world, And wastes the narrow realm whereon we move, And beats upon the faces of the dead, My dead, as though they had not died for me?-- O Bedivere, for on my heart hath fallen Confusion, till I know not what I am, Nor whence I am, nor whether I be King. Behold, I seem but King among the dead.' The “great voice that shakes the world” is in a literal sense the sound of the surf (“and rolling far along the gloomy shores”).  Figuratively, it may be the voice of Death or Time, “the voice of days of old and days to be.”  Looking at the bre...

   Then rose the King and moved his host by night, And ever pushed Sir Modred, league by league, Back to the sunset bound of Lyonnesse-- A land of old upheaven from the abyss By fire, to sink into the abyss again; Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt, And the long mountains ended in a coast Of ever-shifting sand, and far away The phantom circle of a moaning sea. Moving at night, Arthur enters into the dream-like world of Lyonnesse where time and reality begin to break down.  This is Arthur’s crucifixion and, like Christ’s crucifixion, it becomes an event that transcends time and re-orders past and future events around it like the hub and spokes of a wheel.  Arthur has now firmly passed into that place where History and Myth meet.  There the pursuer could pursue no more, And he that fled no further fly the King; And there, that day when the great light of heaven Burned at his lowest in the rolling year, On the waste sand by the waste sea ...

*All Images Copyright James R. Harrington 2011

*All Images Copyright James R. Harrington 2011