grun

"Lacketh ine neither meat pe drink

In King Herodes hall:
There is a child in Bedlem born
Is better than we all."
"'What afleth thee, Steven?
Art thou wood, or ginnest weede? 3
Lacketh thee either gold or fee0 Property
Or any rich weed?"0 clothing
"Lacketh me neither gold ne fee
30 Ne none rich weed:
There is a child in Bedlem born
Shall help us at our need."
"That is als0 0 sooth, 0 Steven, as / true
Also sooth, ywis,o indeed
35 As this capon crow shal
That lith o here in my dish." lies

That word was not so soon said,

That word in that hall,
The capon crew Christus natus est4
40 Among the lords all.
"Riseth up, my tormentors,
By two and all by one,
And leadeth Steven out of this town,
And stoneth him with stone."
45 Tooken they Steven,
And stoned him in the way;
And therefore is his even 5
Christ's own day.
J. Art tnou insane or beginningto go 4. Christis born.
mad? -5. Eve: the day before his feast day.

SIR THOMAS MALORY

(ca. 1405—1471)
i451 : First of a long series of arrests and imprison.
ments.
ca. 1469—70:
Morte Darthur completed in prison.
1485: Morte Darthur printed by William Caxton.

e little that we know•of Malory (and that the Malory discussedhere was
indeed the Malory who wrote the Morte Darthur is an assumption that has
recently been challenged severely though by no means fatally). suggests a
man of violent temperamen@
much given to. He.eems •to
order-
 352 Sir Thomas Malory [Introduction
have been a respectable enough person in his youth, but in 1451 he got into
diffculties with the law that lasted the rest of his life. In that year he was
arrested in order to —presumably further injury—
to a priory in Lincolnshire, and shortly ereafter he was accusedof a num-
ber of criminal acts These included

tarious rsons and mmittin pg. Malory plea ed inno-

cent of all charges, and it is indeed possible that he was less guilty of (or
had more provocation for th crimes than the records make it appear. The
years of the ars o the Roses were violent ones, when a supporter Of
the pa out of wer was a t to be subjected to much persecution by the
ru Ing group; suc a man might at times eel himself justified in taking the
law into his own hands in order to recover what had wrongfully been taken
from him. But one suspects that Malory took the law into his.owmhands
How much time Malory passed in prison is not known, but he was
surely a prisoner in 1468 after he had su orted an u nca -
trian revolt a inst t or i t in , Edward IV, who specificallyex-
cluded Malory from two amnesties It was
probablyin prison that he became engaged on the Morte Darthur; he was
still in prison when he completed it, and may have died there. The boo
was printed and edited in b William Caxton, the first En lish
prin er. A manuscript of it that has recent y come to lg t helps us to a
better text than Caxton's.
&th.urian-1Qmance,
of highly diverse narrative materials which originated at various times
among various peoples and which only gradually became associated with
the name of Arthur.) Arthur himself was probably a British Qr Roman-
British king who resisted the
6th centu , but hi historicalreali is less im ortant than the le enda
role he la e as the eat fi ure around whom the me leva 1 ea of
c iva ourished t its simplest,chivalryis the code.that governsthe Q
actions of the knight-adventurer who rides out in search of wrongs that he whi'CK
may right—typically in search of ladies whom he may rescue from mon- QJi
sters, churls, and wicked (non-Arthurian) knights. The ideal was invented
and given a local habitation in the brilliantly imaginative and idealistic
12th century. History had, of course, never witnessed such knights, suc
ladies, nor such a landscape as that on which their adventures took place,
and when chivalry was first invented it was already placed in the past.
Map's urze to devise an idealized past seems to be recuryent, for the
Camelot of Arthur has its counterpart in the Sherwood Forest of Robin
—Hood and in the American West. All three of these fictionshave the same
i eal: that of maintainin order in an essentiall lawlessIan
of the indivi ual, who fights for the right against seeminglyoveru'helming
Naive as the practice of this ideal may seem in the
(FFieIdea}IfseTffias maae an i tion—though
one -Imitates literally the Arthurian practice of enforcing the right by
?+iolence$asXMalory's life suggescsthat he did, One will find oneself not
Gnarnfaininz okåer, bGt disrupting it.
 Mt'rte ;
Morte Darthur 353
the remnants of primitive pagan religious rites, heavily moralized Chris-
tianity, an elaborate and in general flagrantly immoral code of romantic
ove, and others equally miscellaneous.
hous Arthurian material was given a kind of order in a eeries of prose
arrativ rather hief
material which alory-further-edite,dand ordered while translating it into
En is
His book is attractive, however,not only because it is the best and most
complete treatment of the storv of Arthur and his knights. but also bee
cause it is one of the greatest picces of prose in English. Malory was the
first English writer to make prose as sensitive an instrument of narrative
as English poetry had alwaysbeen. One has only to turn from a page of
Chaucer's prose to a page of Malory's to be struck by the naturalnesEand
Indeed, Malo achieves in hi
prose that wonderful impressionof simplicity that Chaucer achieves in
his poetry. No matter how extravazant the adventure Malory is recounting.
.he I a mana es to ive it har ba
ialogueæwith which he keeps his narrative close t
earth. And both he and the majority of his characters are masters of under-
statement who expressthemselves,in moments of great emotional tension,
with a bare minimumof words. The result is highly provocativeto the
reader's imagination,which is made, in a sense, to do the writer's work for
0 him. This appeal to the reader's creative imagination probably explains why
the Morte Darthur brings forth such widely differing responses from its
readers, who agree, perhaps, only in their affection for the work.
"The Death of Arthur"—the incident that gives the book its title,
though the book itself concerns the whole life of Arthur—is one of
Malory's finest passages,-and
Idy_lLLargelyat the insistenceof his nephew Gawain, Arthur has been
in France, futilely besieginghis friend Lancelot in a halfhearted attempt
to punish him for havingbeen Queen Guinevere's lov r. M/ord comes to
the King that his bastard son Mor re as seized the kingdom, and Arthur
2 leads his forces back to England. Mordred attacks them upon their land-
ing, and Gawain is mortally wounded and dies, though not before he has
repented for having insisted that Arthur fight Lancelot and has written
Lancelot to come to the aid of his former lord.

From Morte Darthur l

[The Death of Arthur]
So upon Trinity Sunday at night King Arthur dreamed ag.'.Q,W-
derful dream. his dream him seemed 2 that he saw upon a
echaffet a chaly an chair was fast to a w and
sat King Arthur in the richest cloth of old that mi h
c eowQS¯ Qfdo,ry
1. The selection here given is from the duced from the Caxton edition; spell-
section of the book that Caxton called ing has been modernizedand modern
Book XXI, Chaps. 3—7,with omissions. punctuation added.
The text has been based on the M'in- 2. It seemed to him. ' 'Chafflet": scaf-
chester MS.. with some•readings intro- fold.
 354 • Sih Thomas Malory
And the king thought far from him, an
hideous dqep_black water.
and and wild beasts, foul and horrible, And suddenly the
King th6Wghtthat the wheel turned upside down, and he fell among
the serpents, and eve beast took him b a And then the
Kiwcried as he_layin IS "Help,
And then king, and
then he was so amazed that he wist8 not where he wasqAnd the
he awaked' until it was ni h dav and the fell on slumbering
again, not sleeping nor thoro So he King seemed
verily that there Sir Gawain unto him wit a number of fai
ladies with him. o hen King Arthur saw him, he said,-'fWel-
come, my sister's son. I weened yeåad been dead. And now
on-live, much am beholden unto Ah,
HitJpöand been these ladiesthat hither
comewithyou?"
"Sir," said Gawæin,"all these be ladies for whom I have
foughten for when I was man living. And all these are thoythat I
did ba uarrel hath
grace, aVÅ reat ra ecause I di r
righti t a ey s ould bring me 1 er unto yo Thus much hat
lßiven me leave God warn you o your eat . For and ye figh
c' tomorn 7 with ir Mor as ye both have assigned,s doubt ye not
ye must be slain and the most pa of 'our people on both=partiesJ
And for the great grace an goodness that Almighty Jesu hath unto
c you, and for pity of you and many moo other good men thereshall
be slain, God_hath sent me to you of his special grace to give you
warningthat in no wiseye do battle as but that•ætakea
treatisel for a month-day, so_that tomorn
ye put in a delay) For within a ponth shall come Sir Lancelot with
all his noble knights and rescue you worshipfully and slay Sir
Mordred and all that ever will hold with him."
Then Sir Gawain and all_the ladies vanished. And anon the King
called upon his knights, squires, and yeomen, and charged them
wightly3 to fetch his noble and wise bisho s unto him/ And
when they were come the King told them o IS avis10n, 4 that Sir
Gawain had told him and warned him that,
morn, he should be slain. Then the King commanded Sir Lucan
t e ut er an IS rot er Sir Bedivere the Bold, with two bish-

3. Knew.
les •
for a month from today.
4. Lay awake. 2. Make generousoffers.
S. It seemedto the King. 3. Quickly.
6. Those. 4. Dream.
7; If you fight tomorrow. S. "Butler" here is probably only a title
8. Decided. of high rank, although it was originally
9.1More. "There": i.e., who there. used to
i. Treaty, truce. "For a month-day": charge ofdesignate the omcer who had
wine for the king's table.
 Darthur
n ops with chargedthem in an Wise iåke a treatise f
A) a month-da with Sir or re Sparenot: proffer him lands
e and goods as much as ye thin reasonable.t
So then they departed and came to Sir MOrdred where he had a
e
grim host of an hundred thousand, and there they entreated6 Sir
Mordred long time. And at •the last Sir Mordred was agreed for
to have Cornwall and Kent by King Arthur's days,7 and after that;
allEngland,afteiihe-days of King Arthur.
n
Then were th condescended8 t
shou meet etwixt ot th 9
2) bring our een persons. And so they came with this wordm-should
unto Ar-
am glad that this is done," and so he went
into thefield.
¯Änd when In rthu shouldde art h
ra slay
that trait ir Mordred,for I in no wise trust him." In like wise
warned his host that "And ye see any manner of
that ye come on fiercey, and so slay all that
ever before you standeth, for in no wise no r f his
in the same wise said Sir Mordred unto IS ost,
"For I know well my father will be avenged upon me."
LQ.J
And so they met as their pointmentl was and were agreed and
accorded thoroughly. And wine was fetche
3) gether. Right so came an a ut of a little heath-bush, and it
stung a knight in the foot. And so Wnen the knight felt him so
stung, he looked down and saw the adder. And anon he drew his
sword to slay the adder, and thought 2 none other harm. And whe
the host on both parties saw that sword drawn, then they blew
beams,3 trumpets, and horns, and shouted grimly. And so both
hosts dressed them4 together. horse and
said, "Al'
Morc!cedin-Jike wise.
nd never since was there never seen a more dolefuller battle in
no Christian land, for there was but rus ling and riding, foining5
.1 and striking; and many
and many a deadly stroke. But ever
out the butle 6 ofSir—M01dred-many-times and
a noble and at all times he fainted never. And Sir
Mordred did his devoir7 that day and put himself in great peril.
And thus they fought all the long day, and never stinted8 till the
noble knights were laid to the cold earthi And ever thöGught still
6. Dealt with. 3. Trumpets.
7. During King Arthur's lifetime.
8. Agreed. 4. Prepared to come.
9. Each. 5. Lunging.
l. Arrangement. 6. Battalion.
2. Meant. 7. Knightly duty.
8. Stopped.
356 • Sin ThOmas Malory
till it was near, night, and by, then.was there an hundred thousand
låid dead, upon the down. Then; wag King
of measure when he saw his people so slain from him. And so he
looked about him and could see no mol of all his host, and good
knights left no mo on-live, but two knights: the t'one2 was Sir Lu-
can the Butler and [the other) his brother Sir Bediyere. And yet
they were full sore wounded.
"Jesu, mercy," said the King, "where are all my noble knights
become?3 u.s_that ever I should see this doleful day! For now,"
said King Arthur, "I am come to mine end But would to God,"
said he, "that I wist4 now where were that traitor Sir Mordred that
causedallthisnischief.tt
Then King Arthur looked about and was ware where stood Sir
Mordred leaning upon his sword among a great heap of dead men.
"Now give me my spear," said King Arthur unto Sir Lucan, "for
yonder I have espied the traitor that all this woe hath wrought."
"Sir, let him be," said Sir Lucan, "for he is unhappy.5 And if ye
pass this unhappy day ye shall be right well revenged upon him.
And, good lord, remember ye of your night's dream, and what the
spirit of Sir Gawain told you tonight, and
And for God's sake, my lord, leave
off by this,6 for, blessed be God, ye have won the field: for yet we
been here three on-live, and witW_SirMordred is not one on-live.UæT
And therefore if ye leave off now, this wicked day of destiny is

"Now, tide7 me death, tide me life," said the King, "now I see
him yonder alone, he shall never escape mine hands. For at a better
avails shall I never have him."
"God-spged..ynu.-wellt" said Sir Bedivere.
Then the King got his spear in both his hands and ran toward
Sir Mordred, crying and saying, "Traitor, nov@-thy-deathday

And when Sir Mordred saw King Arthur he ran until him with
his sword drawn in his hand, •and there King Arthur smote Sir
Mordred under the shield, with a foin9 of his spear, throughout
the body more than a fathom. l And when Sir Mordred felt that he
had his death's wound,he thrust himself with the might that he
had up to the burr2 of King Arthur's spear, and right so he smote
his father King Arthur with his sword holden in both his hands,
upon the side of the head, that the sword pierced the helmet and
9.. Mad with rage. 6. I.e., with this much accomplished.
1. Others. 7. Betide.
2. That one, i.e., the first. 8. Advantage.
3. What has becomeof all my noble 9. Thrust.
knights? l. Six feet.
4. Knew. 2. Hand guard.
S. I.e., unlucky for you.
 Mort%Parthur 35

the taya Of the brain. And therewith Sir Mordred dashed down
stark dead to the earth.
And noble King Arthur fell in a sw ugh4 to the earth, and there
he swooned oftentimes, and Sir Lucan and Sir Bedivere ofttimes
heaved him_A1p. And so, weaklybetwixt them, they led him to a
little chapel not far from the seaside,and when the King was there,
him thought him reasonablyeased. Then heard they people cry
in the field. "Now go thou, Sir Lucan," said the King, "and do me
to wit5 what betokens that noise in the field.
So Sir Lucan eparted, for he was grievously wounded in many
places. And so as he yede6 he saw and harkened by the moonlight
ow that pillers7 and robbers were come into the field to pill and
to rob many a full noble knight of brooches and bees8 and of many
a good ring and many a rich jewel. And who that were not dead all
out9 •c When
Sir Lucan understood this work, he came to the King as soon as he
might and told him all what he had heard and Fen. "Therefore
by my read,"l said Sir Lucan, "it is best that we bring you to some
town."
"I would it were so," said the King, "but I may not stand, my
head works2 so. Ah, Sir Lance)9t," said King Arthur, "this day_have

vere the other party; and in the lifting up the King swooned and
in the lifting Sir Lucan fell in a swoonthat part of his guts fell out
of his body, and therewith the noble knight's heart burst. And
when the •King awoke he beheld Sir Lucan how he lay foaming
at the mouth
"Alas," said the King, "this is to me a full heavy4 sight to see
o Qhis noble duke so die for mv sake for he would have holpen5 me
that had more need of help than I) Alas that he would not com-•
plain him for6 his heart was so set to help me. Now Jesu have mercy
upon his soul."
Then Sir Bedivere wept for the death of his brother.
"Now leave this mourning and weeping, gentle knight," said the
King, "for all this will not avail me. For wit thou well, and7 1 might
live myself, the death of Sir Lucan would grieve me evermore. But
my time passeth on fast," said the King. "Therefore," said King

3. Edge. 1. Advice.
4. Swoon. 2. Aches.
5. Let me know. 3. On oneside.
6. Walked. 4. Sorrowful.
7. Plunderers. 5. Helped.
8. Bracelets. 6. Because.
9. Entirely. "Harness" : armor. 7. If
 Sir Thomas Malory
Arthur unto Sir:Bedivere; "take thou here Excalibur my good
sword and go with it to yonder water's side; and when thou comest
there I charge thee throw my sword in that water and come again
and tell me what thou sawest there."
"My lord," said Sir Bedivere, "your commandment shall be done,
and [I shall] lightly9bring you word again."
So Sir Bedivere departed. And by the way he beheld that noble
sword, that the pommell and the haft was all precious stones. And
then he said to himself,"If I throwthis rich swordin the water,
thereof shall never come good, but harm and loss." And then Sir
Bedivere hid Excalibur under a tree. And so, as soon as he might,
he came again unto the King and said he had been at the water
and had thrown the sword into the water.
"What saw thou there?" said the King.
"Sir," he said, "I saw nothing but waves and winds."
"That is untruly said of thee," said the King. "And therefore go
thou lightly again and do my commandment; as thou art to me
lief2 •and dear, spare not, but throw it in."
Then Sir Bedivere returned again and took the swofd in his hand.
And yet him thought3 sin and shame to throw away that noble
sword. And so eft4 he hid the sword and returned again and told
the King that he had been at the water and done his command-
ment.
"What sawest the King.
"Sir," he said, "I saw
"Ah, traitor unto me and untrue," said King Arthur, "now hast
thou betrayedme twice. Who wouldhave weened that thou that
hast been to me so lief and dear, and thou art named a noble knight,
and would betray me fpr the riches of this sword. But now go agaim
lightly, for thy long tarrying putteth me in great jeopardy of my
life, for I have taken cold. And but if thou do now as I bid thee,
if ever I may see thee I shall slay thee mined own hands, for thou
wouldest for my rich sword see me dead."
Then Sir Bedivere departed and went to the sword and lightly
took it up, and so he went to the water's side; and there he bound
the girdle7 about the hilts, and threw the sword as far into the wa-
ter as he might. And there came an arm and an hand above the
water and took it and clutched it, and shook it thrice and bran-
dished;-and then vanished away the hand with the sword into the

8. The sword which Arthur had re- 2. Beloved.

ceived as a young man from the Lady 3. It seemed to him.
of the Lake; it is presumablyshe who 4. Again.
catches it when Bedivere finally throws 5. The phrase seems to mean Uwaters
it into the water. wash the shore and waves grow dark."
9. Quickly. 6. I.e., with mine.
I. Rounded knob on the hilt;-"haft": 7. Sword belt.
handle.
 Monte Darthur 359
he
water. So Sir Bediverecame again to the King and told him what
saw.
"Alas," said the King, "help me.hence, for I dread me I have
tarried overlong."
Then Sir Bediveretook the King•upon his back and so went
with him to that water's side. And when they were at the water's
e even fasts by the bank hoved9 a little barge with many@i
ladies in it; and among them all was a queen;naKÜall they had
black hoods, and all they wept and shrieked when they saw King
Arthur.
"Now put me into that barge," said the King; and so he did
softly. And there receivedhim three ladies with great mourning
and so they set theml down. And in one of their laps King Arthur
laid his head, and then the queen said, "Ah, my dear brother, why
have ye tarried so long from me? Alas, this wound on your head
hath caught overmuchcold." And anon they rowed fromward the
land, and Sir Bediverebeheld all tho ladies go froward him.
Then Sir Bediverecried and said, "Ah, my lord Arthur, what
shall become of me, now ye go from me and leave me here alone
among mine enemies?"
"Comfort thyself,"said the King, "and do as well as thou may-
est, for in me is no trust for to trust in. For I must into the vale
of Avilion2 to heal me of my grievouswoun . nd if thou ear
n¯-€fiiiö€6Eme, pray for my soul."
But ever the queen and ladies wept and shrieked that it was pity
to hear. And as soon as Sir Bedivere had lost the sight of the barge
he wept and wailed and so took3 the forest, and went all that night.
And in the morning he was ware betwixt two holts hoar4 of a chapel
nd an
*Thus of Arthur I find no more written in booksthat been author-
ized,6neither more of the very certainty of his death heard I never
read,7 but thus was he led away in a ship wherein were three queens:
that one was King Arthur's sister, Queen Morgan la Fée, the t'other s
was the Queen of North Wales, and the third was the Queen of
Lands. * *
death of King Arthur could I never find but
that these ladies brought him to his burials,9 and such one was
buried there that the hermit bore witness that sometime was Bishop
8. Close. of ladies had brought to the chapel a
9. -Waited. dead body, asking that it be buried. Sir
1. I.e.,they sat. Bedivere exclaims that the dead man
2. A legendary island, sometimes iden- must have been King Arthur, and vows
tified with the earthly paradise. to spend the rest of his life there in
3. Took to. "Went": walked. he chapel as a hermit.
4. Ancient copses. 6. That have authority.
S. In the passage here omitted, -Sir 7. Tell.
Bedivere meets the former Bishop of 8. The second.
Canterbury, now a hermit, who describes 9. Grave.
how on the previous night a conipahy
 360 • William Caxton [Introduction
Of Canterbury.l But yet the hermit knew not in certain that he
was verily the body of King Arthur,
Knight of the Table Round, made it to be written. Yet some_men
say in many parts Of England that King Arthur is not dead, but
had by the will of our Lord Jesu into another place.And men sa
that he shall come again and he shall win the Holy Cross. Yet I
will not say that it shall be so, but ratherIwill-sayvHere in this
world he changed his life. And many men say that there _iswritten >CC-O A-C-)
upon his tom 'erse; Hic iacet Arthurus, rex quondam, rexque ccm/
futurus.2
1469—70 1485

1. Of whom the hermit, who was for- 2. lies Arthur, who_waEonce.king

merly Bishop of Canterbury, bore wit- and kingy€ill_beagain."
ness.

WILLIAM CAXTON
(ca. 1422—1491)
mostly
In his early years Caxton was a prosperousmerchant who traded
in the low countries.
Recueil
of Burgundy, he com leted a translation into En lish of the French
had
des Histoires de Troie (i.e., collection of the stories of Troy), which he
be-
begun earlier in his leisure time. This work, circulated in manuscript,
that
came so popular that the demand for it exceededthe number of copies
could be readily produced by scribes. Caxton thereupon went to Cologne,
where he studied the newly developed art of printing, and subsequently
set up a press at Bruges in Belgium. printed his translation of
the Tro book the first book •nted in English), and in the next
year re-
in
turned to England, where he establishe ng an 's first printing press,
London. Among his first ublica i n were Chaucer's Canter
ond edition about 1 8 ) . In 1485 he printed Malory's work, with
the Preface reproduce ere. /
A shrewd publisher and practiced writer, as well as a pioneer printer,
Caxton gives a most astute and inviting account of Malory's work and
the personage after whom it was named. Caxton himself evidently put small
credence in the historicity of Arthur, but by appearing—in all modesty—to
have been overwhelmedby the faith that eminent peoplehad in Arthur's
existence,as well as by the survixalof certain relics that seemed to support
such faith, he encourages the reader to lay' aside his own skepticism (al-
though the warning remains: "ye are at your liberty" to accept or reject the
truth of Malory's narrative) . In describing the work itself, Caxton is careful
to emphasize its exemplary qualities, "the noble acts of chivalry" that
knights performed in the old days, from which one learn virtuous con-
duct; but he is also careful not to suppressthe fact—thoughlie presents it