How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
‘Sir, there be many rumors on this head:
For there be those who hate him in their hearts,
Call him baseborn, and since his ways are sweet,
And theirs are bestial, hold him less than man;
And there be those who deem him more than man,
And dream he dropt from heaven.’
(“Coming of Arthur,” 177-182)
King Leodogran asks Arthur’s knights to tell the story of his origin, since rumors are swirling that he is not the legitimate heir to the former king. The rumor that Arthur is “baseborn” could be motivated by the jealousy of Arthur’s inferiors. The other rumor is that Arthur is “more than man,” or supernatural in origin. This is the story Bellicent will tell Leodogran in a few lines. Bedivere’s belief, however, falls in the middle: he thinks Arthur is a regular man, the legit son of the former king, and therefore has every right to rule the kingdom.
Quote #2
[…] ‘When I met
Merlin, and ask’d him if these things were truth—
The shining dragon and the naked child
Descending in the glory of the seas—
He laugh’d as is his wont, and answer’d me
In riddling triplets of old time.’
(“Coming of Arthur,” 396-401)
Bellicent has heard a story from Merlin’s dying master, Bleys, about Arthur’s descent from the heavens in a fairy ship. When she asked Merlin to confirm the story, though, he just laughed at her and answered with a riddling rhyme (see the following quote) that questioned the sanity of old men and the possibility of ever knowing the truth about anything. Bellicent’s decision to share that with Leodogran is interesting, given that she’s trying to convince him to marry Guinevere to Arthur. Bellicent seems less concerned about confirming Arthur’s legitimacy than adding to his mystique.
Quote #3
‘Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow on the lea!
And truth is this to me, and that to thee;
And truth or clothed or naked let it be.
Rain, sun, and rain! and the free blossom blows:
Sun, rain, and sun! and where is he who knows?
From the great deep to the great deep he goes.’
(“Coming of Arthur,” 405-410)
Merlin’s answer to Bellicent’s question about Arthur’s true origins is this riddling rhyme, which basically states that truth is in the eye of the beholder. “He who knows” passes from “the great deep to the great deep.” In other words, he is basically inaccessible to normal humans.
Quote #4
[…] And here or there
Stood one who pointed toward the voice, the rest
Slew on and burnt, crying, ‘No king of ours,
No son of Uther, and no king of ours;’
Till with a wink his dream was changed, the haze
Descended, and the solid earth became
As nothing, but the King stood out in heaven,
Crown’d.
(“Coming of Arthur,” 436-443)
The dream that convinces Leodogran to marry Guinevere to Arthur doesn't confirm or deny Arthur’s legitimacy but implies that he will be successful in his endeavors. In the end, that’s all Leodogran really cares about: he wants to entrust his daughter to someone who will be a powerful ally. His willingness to base his opinion of Arthur on a dream suggests that he has taken Merlin’s riddle about the impossibility of ever knowing the truth to heart.
Quote #5
‘And, as thou sayest, it is enchanted, son,
For there is nothing in it as it seems
Saving the King; tho’ some there be that hold
The King a shadow, and the city real.’
(“Gareth and Lynette,” 259-262)
The gatekeeper of Camelot throws into question the reality of both Arthur and Camelot. His point seems to be that the truth depends upon your perception of it. The reality of Arthur is at issue throughout the Idylls, whichnever come down on one side or another on the question of whether he’s human or a creature from fairyland.
Quote #6
‘Know ye not then the Riddling of the Bards:
“Confusion, and illusion, and relation,
Elusion, and occasion, and evasion”?
I mock thee not but as thou mockest me,
And all that see thee, for thou art not who
Thou seemest, but I know thee who thou art.’
(“Gareth and Lynette,” 280-286)
The gatekeeper of Camelot refers to the same “riddling of the Bards” with which Merlin teased Bellicent regarding Arthur’s origins. He implies that his evasiveness about the reality of Camelot is no worse than Gareth’s decision to ride to Camelot in disguise: “Thou art not who thou seemest.” People not being who or what they seem is a theme that will continue throughout the Idylls, as characters like Vivien and Mark question the seeming purity of the knights of the Round Table, connecting Camelot’s ambiguous reality to the ambiguous “seeming” of its knights.
Quote #7
‘Queen? subject? but I see not what I see.
Damsel and lover? hear not what I hear.
My father hath begotten me in his wrath.
I suffer from the things before me, know,
Learn nothing; am not worthy to be knight;
A churl, a clown!’
(“Balin and Balan,” 276-281)
Balin has just witnessed a meeting between Lancelot and Guinevere that confuses him, although he can’t say exactly why. Was what he saw a proper interaction between a queen and her subject or a romantic liaison between a damsel and her lover? Balin feels like he knows and learns nothing. What we want to know is, why does he feel like this inability to interpret what he has seen makes him unworthy of knighthood?
Quote #8
She lied with ease; but horror-stricken he,
Remembering that dark bower at Camelot,
Breathed in a dismal whisper, ‘It is truth.’
(“Balin and Balan,” 517-519)
Vivien tells Balin a lie about witnessing a love-tryst between Lancelot and the queen. In contrast to the meeting Balin witnessed, Vivien’s account is straight up sexual. No ambiguity here, folks. It seems to confirm Balin’s worst fears, transforming his confusion to horror as his perception and understanding of what he saw crystallizes to align with Vivien’s account.
Quote #9
‘ “Where is that goodly company,” said I,
“That so cried out upon me?” and he had
Scarce any voice to answer, and yet gasp’d,
“Whence and what art thou?” and even as he spoke
Fell into dust and disappear’d, and I
Was left alone once more and cried in grief,
“Lo, if I find the Holy Grail itself
And touch it, it will crumble into dust!”’
(“The Holy Grail,” 432-439)
Percivale wanders through a land in which everything he encounters crumbles away to dust. Yet when he asks the old man in the ruined city where everyone has gone, the man questions Percivale’s own reality. These experiences lead Percivale to fear that even if he does find the Holy Grail, it will crumble into dust just like the land. And don't forget that Arthur, too, worried that his knights would chase phantoms if they searched for it, and even at the end of the Grail Quest, his knights question the reality of what they have seen.
Quote #10
‘Let visions of the night or of the day
Come as they will; and many a time they come,
Until this earth he walks on seems not earth,
This light that strikes his eyeball is not light,
This air that smites his forehead is not air
But vision—yea, his very hand and foot—
In moments when he feels he cannot die,
And knows himself no vision to himself,
Nor the high God a vision, nor that One
Who rose again: ye have seen what ye have seen.’
(“The Holy Grail,” 905-915)
Arthur caps off his knights’ search for a vision of the Holy Grail with his experience of visions. For Arthur, the whole world sometimes seems like a one. The only things that feel real to him are himself, God, and Jesus. His experience harkens to what the gatekeeper of Camelot said about Arthur being the only real thing in Camelot. Although the meaning of Arthur’s speech is very ambiguous, it seems to contrast a belief in oneself with a belief in elusive shadows like the Holy Grail as a source of motivation.