Glossing Tennyson: The Platypus Reads Part XCI

   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 they closed.

Tennyson reminds us that this battle is fought on the Winter Solstice, or the darkest time of the year.  This represents the death of Arthur and his realm as we reach Camelot’s winter.  It is also a day of power in paganism and thus heightens the sense that the forces of evil and regression have the upper hand.  The battle takes place on “the waste sand by the waste sea” to remind us that Arthur’s kingdom has now reverted to the “waste” that characterized Briton before “The Coming of Arthur.”

Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight
Like this last, dim, weird battle of the west.
A deathwhite mist slept over sand and sea:

As at Christ’s crucifixion, a darkness falls over the land.  Notice also the return of the “battle in the west” motif.  In “To The Queen,” Tennyson elaborates that it is “that battle in the West, where all of high and holy dies away.”  As the Round Table turns and devours itself, it is not just its sins that will be blotted out, but all of “high and holy” that it strove to create as well.  We may compare this with the Biblical narrative where the Babylonian chastisement on sinful Judah also destroys the Temple.  We may also compare this with Tolkien’s pyrrhic victory in “The Lord of the Rings” where even though Sauron is defeated, the elves still pass away.

Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew
Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold
With formless fear; and even on Arthur fell
Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought.

For friend and foe were shadows in the mist,
And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew;

Tennyson notes that this battle is meant to be “a vision of death.”  We might add that it also represents the spiritual turmoil of civil war.  This was not a far-off concept as the American Civil War was raging during the time of composition of several of the idylls.  It can also been seen as a snap-shot of the raging controversies and deep doubts that racked mid-Victorian England.

And some had visions out of golden youth,
And some beheld the faces of old ghosts
Look in upon the battle; and in the mist

As noted earlier, time begins to break down as the battle rages and past and present begin to meet.  At this moment, Arthur’s kingdom has come full-circle to the warfare and chaos in which it began.  Readers of the novels of Charles Williams, who attempted his own poetic Arthurian cycle, should be reminded of similar temporal and spiritual nexuses in his own writings; particularly in “Descent Into Hell.” 

Was many a noble deed, many a base,
And chance and craft and strength in single fights,
And ever and anon with host to host
Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn,
Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash
Of battleaxes on shattered helms, and shrieks
After the Christ, of those who falling down
Looked up for heaven, and only saw the mist;
And shouts of heathen and the traitor knights,
Oaths, insults, filth, and monstrous blasphemies,
Sweat, writhings, anguish, labouring of the lungs
In that close mist, and cryings for the light,
Moans of the dying, and voices of the dead.

Tennyson records no deeds of note during this last battle to enhance the sensation of confusion and the loss of meaning created by the spiritual and political uncertainties that the mist, at one level, represents.  The word-choice also creates a harsh and clashing sounds when read aloud that mirror the actions they describe.  Since he is a master of poetic style, it is always important to be on the alert when reading Tennyson for how the sounds of the words he chooses match what they describe.

   Last, as by some one deathbed after wail
Of suffering, silence follows, or through death
Or deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore,
Save for some whisper of the seething seas,
A dead hush fell; but when the dolorous day
Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came
A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew
The mist aside, and with that wind the tide
Rose, and the pale King glanced across the field
Of battle: but no man was moving there;
Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon,
Nor yet of heathen; only the wan wave
Brake in among dead faces, to and fro
Swaying the helpless hands, and up and down
Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen,
And shivered brands that once had fought with Rome,
And rolling far along the gloomy shores
The voice of days of old and days to be.

Tennyson tells us that the last “weird battle in the west” is a metaphor for death.  It is Arthur’s crucifixion, but it is also the death of the Round Table.  Though it is not mentioned here, we should remember from the Geraint poems that it is in this battle where Edyrn son of Nudd and Geraint, knights Arthur was able to redeem, die fighting for the king.  We aren’t told which knights turn traitor beyond Sir Modred.  Regardless of what side they fought on, when all the confused and warring knights are dead the mist of earthly confusion parts.  For good or ill, Death ends the ambiguity and confusion of earthly existence.  This is oddly parallel with the final lines of “Guinevere” who passes “to where beyond these voices there is peace.”  The North wind often represents Death in literature and thus it is fitting that it blows back the mist.  The fratricidal knights, the mist, and the pale king all parallel elements in king Leodogran’s dream from “The Coming of Arthur” and Arthur’s dream before the battle.  Tennyson also takes care to mention that the shattered swords that litter the sea-shore are also those that freed Arthur’s kingdom from Roman rule at the outset.  Enhancing the sense that we have come full-circle are the voices “of days of old and days to be.”  This is the foretold moment of catastrophe where Arthur actually faces the complete ruin of his life’s work.