They never dreamed the passes would be past.'
Answered Sir Gareth
graciously to one
Not many a moon his younger, 'My fair child,
What
madness made thee
challenge the chief
knightOf Arthur's hall?' 'Fair Sir, they bad me do it.
They hate the King, and Lancelot, the King's friend,
They hoped to slay him somewhere on the stream,
They never dreamed the passes could be past.'
Then
sprang the happier day from underground;
And Lady Lyonors and her house, with dance
And revel and song, made merry over Death,
As being after all their foolish fears
And
horrors only proven a
blooming boy.
So large mirth lived and Gareth won the quest.
And he that told the tale in older times
Says that Sir Gareth
wedded Lyonors,
But he, that told it later, says Lynette.
The Marriage of Geraint
The brave Geraint, a
knight of Arthur's court,
A
tributaryprince of Devon, one
Of that great Order of the Table Round,
Had married Enid, Yniol's only child,
And loved her, as he loved the light of Heaven.
And as the light of Heaven varies, now
At
sunrise, now at
sunset, now by night
With moon and trembling stars, so loved Geraint
To make her beauty vary day by day,
In crimsons and in
purples and in gems.
And Enid, but to please her husband's eye,
Who first had found and loved her in a state
Of broken fortunes, daily fronted him
In some fresh splendour; and the Queen herself,
Grateful to Prince Geraint for service done,
Loved her, and often with her own white hands
Arrayed and decked her, as the loveliest,
Next after her own self, in all the court.
And Enid loved the Queen, and with true heart
Adored her, as the stateliest and the best
And loveliest of all women upon earth.
And
seeing them so tender and so close,
Long in their common love rejoiced Geraint.
But when a rumour rose about the Queen,
Touching her
guilty love for Lancelot,
Though yet there lived no proof, nor yet was heard
The world's loud
whisper breaking into storm,
Not less Geraint believed it; and there fell
A
horror on him, lest his gentle wife,
Through that great
tenderness for Guinevere,
Had suffered, or should suffer any taint
In nature:
wherefore going to the King,
He made this pretext, that his
princedom lay
Close on the borders of a territory,
Wherein were
bandit earls, and caitiff
knights,
Assassins, and all flyers from the hand
Of Justice, and
whatever loathes a law:
And
therefore, till the King himself should please
To
cleanse this common sewer of all his realm,
He craved a fair
permission to depart,
And there defend his marches; and the King
Mused for a little on his plea, but, last,
Allowing it, the Prince and Enid rode,
And fifty
knights rode with them, to the shores
Of Severn, and they past to their own land;
Where, thinking, that if ever yet was wife
True to her lord, mine shall be so to me,
He compassed her with sweet observances
And
worship, never leaving her, and grew
Forgetful of his promise to the King,
Forgetful of the
falcon and the hunt,
Forgetful of the tilt and tournament,
Forgetful of his glory and his name,
Forgetful of his
princedom and its cares.
And this
forgetfulness was
hateful to her.
And by and by the people, when they met
In twos and threes, or fuller companies,
Began to scoff and jeer and
babble of him
As of a
prince whose
manhood was all gone,
And
molten down in mere uxoriousness.
And this she gathered from the people's eyes:
This too the women who attired her head,
To please her,
dwelling on his
boundless love,
Told Enid, and they saddened her the more:
And day by day she thought to tell Geraint,
But could not out of
bashful delicacy;
While he that watched her sadden, was the more
Suspicious that her nature had a taint.
At last, it chanced that on a summer morn
(They
sleeping each by either) the new sun
Beat through the blindless
casement of the room,
And heated the strong
warrior in his dreams;
Who, moving, cast the
coverlet aside,
And bared the knotted
column of his throat,
The
massive square of his
heroic breast,
And arms on which the
standingmuscle sloped,
As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone,
Running too vehemently to break upon it.
And Enid woke and sat beside the couch,
Admiring him, and thought within herself,
Was ever man so grandly made as he?
Then, like a shadow, past the people's talk
And
accusation of uxoriousness
Across her mind, and bowing over him,
Low to her own heart
piteously she said:
'O noble breast and all-puissant arms,
Am I the cause, I the poor cause that men
Reproach you,
saying all your force is gone?
I am the cause, because I dare not speak
And tell him what I think and what they say.
And yet I hate that he should
linger here;
I cannot love my lord and not his name.
Far liefer had I gird his
harness on him,
And ride with him to battle and stand by,
And watch his mightful hand
striking great blows
At caitiffs and at wrongers of the world.
Far better were I laid in the dark earth,
Not
hearing any more his noble voice,
Not to be folded more in these dear arms,
And darkened from the high light in his eyes,
Than that my lord through me should suffer shame.
Am I so bold, and could I so stand by,
And see my dear lord wounded in the strife,
And maybe pierced to death before mine eyes,
And yet not dare to tell him what I think,
And how men slur him,
saying all his force
Is melted into mere effeminacy?
O me, I fear that I am no true wife.'
Half
inwardly, half audibly she spoke,
And the strong
passion in her made her weep
True tears upon his broad and naked breast,
And these awoke him, and by great mischance
He heard but fragments of her later words,
And that she feared she was not a true wife.
And then he thought, 'In spite of all my care,
For all my pains, poor man, for all my pains,
She is not
faithful to me, and I see her
Weeping for some gay
knight in Arthur's hall.'
Then though he loved and reverenced her too much
To dream she could be
guilty of foul act,
Right through his manful breast darted the pang
That makes a man, in the sweet face of her
Whom he loves most,
lonely and miserable.
At this he hurled his huge limbs out of bed,
And shook his
drowsysquire awake and cried,
'My
charger" target="_blank" title="n.军马;委托者;控诉者">
charger and her palfrey;' then to her,
'I will ride forth into the wilderness;
For though it seems my spurs are yet to win,
I have not fallen so low as some would wish.
And thou, put on thy worst and meanest dress
And ride with me.' And Enid asked, amazed,
'If Enid errs, let Enid learn her fault.'
But he, 'I
charge thee, ask not, but obey.'
Then she bethought her of a faded silk,
A faded
mantle and a faded veil,
And moving toward a cedarn cabinet,
Wherein she kept them folded reverently
With sprigs of summer laid between the folds,
She took them, and arrayed herself therein,
Remembering when first he came on her
Drest in that dress, and how he loved her in it,
And all her foolish fears about the dress,
And all his journey to her, as himself
Had told her, and their coming to the court.
For Arthur on the Whitsuntide before
Held court at old Caerleon upon Usk.
There on a day, he sitting high in hall,
Before him came a
forester of Dean,
Wet from the woods, with notice of a hart
Taller than all his fellows, milky-white,
First seen that day: these things he told the King.
Then the good King gave order to let blow
His horns for
hunting on the
morrow morn.
And when the King petitioned for his leave
To see the hunt, allowed it easily.
So with the morning all the court were gone.
But Guinevere lay late into the morn,
Lost in sweet dreams, and dreaming of her love
For Lancelot, and forgetful of the hunt;
But rose at last, a single
maiden with her,
Took horse, and forded Usk, and gained the wood;
There, on a little knoll beside it, stayed
Waiting to hear the hounds; but heard instead
A sudden sound of hoofs, for Prince Geraint,
Late also, wearing neither
hunting-dress
Nor
weapon, save a golden-hilted brand,
Came quickly flashing through the
shallow ford
Behind them, and so galloped up the knoll.
A
purple scarf, at either end whereof
There swung an apple of the purest gold,
Swayed round about him, as he galloped up
To join them, glancing like a dragon-fly
In summer suit and silks of holiday.
Low bowed the
tributary Prince, and she,
Sweet and statelily, and with all grace
Of wo
manhood and queenhood, answered him:
'Late, late, Sir Prince,' she said, 'later than we!'
'Yea, noble Queen,' he answered, 'and so late
That I but come like you to see the hunt,
Not join it.' 'Therefore wait with me,' she said;
'For on this little knoll, if anywhere,
There is good chance that we shall hear the hounds:
Here often they break
covert at our feet.'