How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
[…] ‘ Seeing that thy realm
Hath prosper’d in the name of Christ, the King
Took, as in rival heat, to holy things,
And finds himself descended from the Saint
Arimathaean Joseph; him who first
Brought the great faith to Britain over seas.’
(“Balin and Balan,” 95-100)
The messengers make King Pellam’s conversion seem more than a little opportunistic: he sees that Arthur’s kingdom has done well under Christ and longs to get in on the action. Saying King Pellam “finds himself” descended from Joseph of Arimathea undermines the validity of his claim. It’s as though he kind of just decided to start saying he was a relative independent of any outside confirmation.
Quote #2
‘He boasts his life as purer than thine own;
Eats scarce enow to keep his pulse a-beat;
Hath push’d aside his faithful wife, nor lets
Or dame or damsel enter at his gates
Lest he should be polluted . […]
[…] after, when we sought
The tribute answer’d, “I have quite foregone
All matters of this world.”’
(“Balin and Balan,” 101-105, 112-114)
Pellam’s claim that his life is “purer” than Arthur’s sets up a contrast between their two brands of religiosity. Pellam embraces strict asceticism, chastity, and total withdrawal from the world, which causes him to forego his obligation to pay tribute to Arthur. By contrast, Arthur’s religiousness manifests itself as living one’s principles in the world, which also means that it encompasses political action, too.
Quote #3
Then turning to her squire, ‘This fire of Heaven,
This old sun-worship, boy, will rise again,
And beat the cross to earth, and break the King
And all his table.’
(“Balin and Balan,” 450-453)
Vivien has just sung a song describing her spirituality, which rejects the “mumbling” worship of monks and nuns and embraces the “fire within thy blood” (446). Vivien seems to ascribe to a kind of hedonistic animism, revering nature and all its processes—including sex—as desirable and good. The King and the Round Table, by contrast, try to live by principles that require them to control their animalistic impulses. This is why Vivien refers to her religion as breaking the King and his table (his knights).
Quote #4
‘But the sweet vision of the Holy Grail
Drove me from all vainglories, rivalries,
And earthly heats that spring and sparkle out
Among us in the jousts, while women watch
Who wins, who falls; and waste the spiritual strength
Within us, better offer’d up to Heaven.’
(“The Holy Grail,” 30-36)
Percivale explains to a monk why he left the Round Table for a monastery. He believes that a man has only enough “spiritual strength” for either a life in the world or one devoted to God. Later in this idyll, Arthur will call this belief into question.
Quote #5
‘O thou, my love, whose love is one with mine,
I, maiden, round thee, maiden, bind my belt.
Go forth, for thou shalt see what I have seen,
And break thro’ all, till one will crown thee king
Far in the spiritual city:’ and as she spake
She sent the deathless passion in her eyes
Thro’ him, and made him hers, and laid her mind
On him, and he believed in her belief.
(“The Holy Grail,” 158-165)
Arthur speaks frequently of the power of a woman’s love to inspire the best in the knight who experiences it. This passage takes that idea and spiritualizes it. Here the nun who first receives the vision of the Holy Grail makes Galahad her figurative “lover” and inspires him to believe in “her belief.” Instead of an earthly kingdom, Galahad will win a spiritual one, thanks to his chaste possession by this nun.
Quote #6
‘And out of those to whom the vision came
My greatest hardly will believe he saw.
Another hath beheld it afar off,
And, leaving human wrongs to right themselves,
Cares but to pass into the silent life.
And one hath had the vision face to face
And now his chair desires him here in vain,
However they may crown him otherwhere.
(“The Holy Grail,” 891-898)
Although he does not doubt the truth of what his knights were after, Arthur questions the utility of the quest for the Holy Grail. Because of it, deeds of chivalry were left undone. Now that it is over, those who have achieved it either doubt what they saw or have chosen to retire from the world. For a man like Arthur, who tries to transform his beliefs into action, these kinds of responses make no sense.
Quote #7
I found him in the shining of the stars,
I mark’d Him in the flowering of His fields,
But in His ways with men I find Him not.
I waged His wars, and now I pass and die.
O me! for why is all around us here
As if some lesser god had made the world
But had not force to shape it as he would,
Till the High God behold it from beyond,
and enter it, and make it beautiful.’
(“The Passing of Arthur,” 9-17)
Arthur sees God in the world around him but not, at this moment, in the workings of men. To him the world seems like an imperfect place, still in need of someone to “enter it, and make it beautiful.” Arthur tried to be that person, but now he is faced with the betrayal of many of his knights and the complete collapse of the society he created.
Quote #8
‘O me! for why is all around us here
[…] As if the world were wholly fair,
But that these eyes of men are dense and dim,
And have not power to see it as it is:
Perchance, because we see not to the close;—
For I, being simple, thought to work His will,
And have but stricken with the sword in vain.’
(“Passing of Arthur,” 13, 18-23)
Returning to his characteristic idealism, Arthur reflects that perhaps the world truly is beautiful. It’s just that men, unable to see God’s plan for it, aren’t able to understand its beauty. The implication of this inability to see God’s plan, though, is that people, including Arthur, are foolish to attempt to consciously work God’s will on earth.