How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph.)
Quote #4
There was a kind of rushing noise, and a long chord played along with it. All round the churchyard there were hundreds of old friends. They rose over the church wall all together, like the Punch and Judy ghosts of remembered days, and there were badgers and nightingales and vulgar crows and hares and wild geese and falcons and fishes and dogs and dainty unicorns and solitary wasps and corkindrills and hedgehogs and griffins and the thousand other animals he had met. They loomed round the church wall, the lovers and helpers of the Wart, and they all spoke solemnly in turn. Some of them had come with banners in the church, where they were painted in heraldry, some from the waters and the sky and the fields about—but all, down to the smallest shrew mouse, had come to help on account of love. Wart felt his power grow. (S.23.36)
Drawing the sword from the stone is symbolic of Wart become Arthur—moving from boyhood to manhood. At this moment, Wart's hearing the sounds of all the animals that helped him along his way, teaching him valuable lessons. They've all contributed something, and they're present to lend him their strength.
Quote #5
"Tell you!" [Merlyn] exclaimed. "And what is going to happen when there is nobody to tell you? Are you never going to think for yourself?" (Q.2.28)
Merlyn's nothing if not consistent. He wants to get Arthur to the place where he doesn't need to be told, where he can exercise his critical thinking skills and figure things out for himself.
Quote #6
Nobody had told them that it was cruel to hurt [the donkeys], but then, nobody had told the donkeys either. On the rim of the world they knew too much about cruelty to be surprised by it. So the small circus was a unity—the beasts reluctant to move and the children vigorous to move them, the two parties bound together by the link of pain to which they both agreed without question. The pain itself was so much a matter of course that it had vanished out of the picture, as if by a process of cancellation. The animals did not seem to be suffering, and the children did not seem to be enjoying the suffering. The only difference was that the boys were violently animated while the donkeys were as static as possible. (Q.5.59)
This is one of the more disturbing passages in the novels—wanton cruelty to animals. The G-boys and the donkeys both blend together in their descriptions, so you have a hard time telling where the boys end and the donkeys begin. Makes sense, since these boys haven't been educated to know that cruelty is not okay. They don't have a teacher like Merlyn (St. Toirdealbhach isn't exactly of the same caliber), and Morgause couldn't care less about this kind of education.