Chapter: The Passing of Arthur

  That story which the bold Sir Bedivere,
  First made and latest left of all the knights,
  Told, when the man was no more than a voice
  In the white winter of his age, to those
  With whom he dwelt, new faces, other minds.

     For on their march to westward, Bedivere,
  Who slowly paced among the slumbering host,
  Heard in his tent the moanings of the King:

     'I found Him in the shining of the stars,
  I marked 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?
  Or else 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;
  And all whereon I leaned in wife and friend
  Is traitor to my peace, and all my realm
  Reels back into the beast, and is no more.
  My God, thou hast forgotten me in my death;
  Nay--God my Christ--I pass but shall not die.'

     Then, ere that last weird battle in the west,
  There came on Arthur sleeping, Gawain killed
  In Lancelot's war, the ghost of Gawain blown
  Along a wandering wind, and past his ear
  Went shrilling, 'Hollow, hollow all delight!
  Hail, King! tomorrow thou shalt pass away.
  Farewell! there is an isle of rest for thee.
  And I am blown along a wandering wind,
  And hollow, hollow, hollow all delight.'
  And fainter onward, like wild birds that change
  Their season in the night and wail their way
  From cloud to cloud, down the long wind the dream
  Shrilled; but in going mingled with dim cries
  Far in the moonlit haze among the hills,
  As of some lonely city sacked by night,
  When all is lost, and wife and child with wail
  Pass to new lords; and Arthur woke and called,
  'Who spake?  A dream.  O light upon the wind,
  Thine, Gawain, was the voice--are these dim cries
  Thine? or doth all that haunts the waste and wild
  Mourn, knowing it will go along with me?'

     This heard the bold Sir Bedivere and spake:
  'O me, my King, let pass whatever will,
  Elves, and the harmless glamour of the field;
  But in their stead thy name and glory cling
  To all high places like a golden cloud
  For ever:  but as yet thou shalt not pass.
  Light was Gawain in life, and light in death
  Is Gawain, for the ghost is as the man;
  And care not thou for dreams from him, but rise--
  I hear the steps of Modred in the west,
  And with him many of thy people, and knights
  Once thine, whom thou hast loved, but grosser grown
  Than heathen, spitting at their vows and thee.
  Right well in heart they know thee for the King.
  Arise, go forth and conquer as of old.'

     Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
  'Far other is this battle in the west
  Whereto we move, than when we strove in youth,
  And brake the petty kings, and fought with Rome,
  Or thrust the heathen from the Roman wall,
  And shook him through the north.  Ill doom is mine
  To war against my people and my knights.
  The king who fights his people fights himself.
  And they my knights, who loved me once, the stroke
  That strikes them dead is as my death to me.
  Yet let us hence, and find or feel a way
  Through this blind haze, which ever since I saw
  One lying in the dust at Almesbury,
  Hath folded in the passes of the world.'

     Then rose the King and moved his host by night,
  And ever pushed Sir Modred, league by league,
  Back to the sunset bound of Lyonnesse--
  A land of old upheaven from the abyss
  By fire, to sink into the abyss again;
  Where fragments of forgotten peoples dwelt,
  And the long mountains ended in a coast
  Of ever-shifting sand, and far away
  The phantom circle of a moaning sea.
  There the pursuer could pursue no more,
  And he that fled no further fly the King;
  And there, that day when the great light of heaven
  Burned at his lowest in the rolling year,
  On the waste sand by the waste sea they closed.
  Nor ever yet had Arthur fought a fight
  Like this last, dim, weird battle of the west.
  A deathwhite mist slept over sand and sea:
  Whereof the chill, to him who breathed it, drew
  Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold
  With formless fear; and even on Arthur fell
  Confusion, since he saw not whom he fought.
  For friend and foe were shadows in the mist,
  And friend slew friend not knowing whom he slew;
  And some had visions out of golden youth,
  And some beheld the faces of old ghosts
  Look in upon the battle; and in the mist
  Was many a noble deed, many a base,
  And chance and craft and strength in single fights,
  And ever and anon with host to host
  Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn,
  Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash
  Of battleaxes on shattered helms, and shrieks
  After the Christ, of those who falling down
  Looked up for heaven, and only saw the mist;
  And shouts of heathen and the traitor knights,
  Oaths, insults, filth, and monstrous blasphemies,
  Sweat, writhings, anguish, labouring of the lungs
  In that close mist, and cryings for the light,
  Moans of the dying, and voices of the dead.

     Last, as by some one deathbed after wail
  Of suffering, silence follows, or through death
  Or deathlike swoon, thus over all that shore,
  Save for some whisper of the seething seas,
  A dead hush fell; but when the dolorous day
  Grew drearier toward twilight falling, came
  A bitter wind, clear from the North, and blew
  The mist aside, and with that wind the tide
  Rose, and the pale King glanced across the field
  Of battle:  but no man was moving there;
  Nor any cry of Christian heard thereon,
  Nor yet of heathen; only the wan wave
  Brake in among dead faces, to and fro
  Swaying the helpless hands, and up and down
  Tumbling the hollow helmets of the fallen,
  And shivered brands that once had fought with Rome,
  And rolling far along the gloomy shores
  The voice of days of old and days to be.

     Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere,
  And whiter than the mist that all day long
  Had held the field of battle was the King:

     'Hearest thou this great voice that shakes the world,
  And wastes the narrow realm whereon we move,
  And beats upon the faces of the dead,
  My dead, as though they had not died for me?--
  O Bedivere, for on my heart hath fallen
  Confusion, till I know not what I am,
  Nor whence I am, nor whether I be King.
  Behold, I seem but King among the dead.'

     Then spake the bold Sir Bedivere:  'My King,
  King everywhere! and so the dead have kings,
  There also will I worship thee as King.
  Yet still thy life is whole, and still I live
  Who love thee; but who hates thee, he that brought
  The heathen back among us, yonder stands,
  Modred, unharmed, the traitor of thine house.'

     Then spake the King:  'My house hath been my doom.
  But call not thou this traitor of my house
  Who hath but dwelt beneath one roof with me.
  My house are rather they who sware my vows,
  Yea, even while they brake them, owned me King.
  And well for thee, saying in my dark hour,
  When all the purport of my throne hath failed,
  That quick or dead thou holdest me for King.
  King am I, whatsoever be their cry;
  And one last act of kinghood shalt thou see
  Yet, ere I pass.'  And uttering this the King
  Made at the man:  then Modred smote his liege
  Hard on that helm which many a heathen sword
  Had beaten thin; while Arthur at one blow,
  Striking the last stroke with Excalibur,
  Slew him, and all but slain himself, he fell.

     So all day long the noise of battle rolled
  Among the mountains by the winter sea;
  Until King Arthur's Table, man by man,
  Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their lord,
  King Arthur.  Then, because his wound was deep,
  The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,
  And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,
  A broken chancel with a broken cross,
  That stood on a dark strait of barren land:
  On one side lay the Ocean, and on one
  Lay a great water, and the moon was full.

     Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
  'The sequel of today unsolders all
  The goodliest fellowship of famous knights
  Whereof this world holds record.  Such a sleep
  They sleep--the men I loved.  I think that we
  Shall never more, at any future time,
  Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,
  Walking about the gardens and the halls
  Of Camelot, as in the days that were.
  I perish by this people which I made,--
  Though Merlin sware that I should come again
  To rule once more; but, let what will be, be,
  I am so deeply smitten through the helm
  That without help I cannot last till morn.
  Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,
  Which was my pride:  for thou rememberest how
  In those old days, one summer noon, an arm
  Rose up from out the bosom of the lake,
  Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
  Holding the sword--and how I rowed across
  And took it, and have worn it, like a king;
  And, wheresoever I am sung or told
  In aftertime, this also shall be known:
  But now delay not:  take Excalibur,
  And fling him far into the middle mere:
  Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word.'

     To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere:
  'It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus,
  Aidless, alone, and smitten through the helm--
  A little thing may harm a wounded man;
  Yet I thy hest will all perform at full,
  Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word.'

     So saying, from the ruined shrine he stept,
  And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,
  Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,
  Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang
  Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam.  He, stepping down
  By zigzag paths, and juts of pointed rock,
  Came on the shining levels of the lake.

     There drew he forth the brand Excalibur,
  And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon,
  Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth
  And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt:
  For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks,
  Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work
  Of subtlest jewellery.  He gazed so long
  That both his eyes were dazzled as he stood,
  This way and that dividing the swift mind,
  In act to throw:  but at the last it seemed
  Better to leave Excalibur concealed
  There in the many-knotted waterflags,
  That whistled stiff and dry about the marge.
  So strode he back slow to the wounded King.

     Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:
  'Hast thou performed my mission which I gave?
  What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?'

     And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
  'I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,
  And the wild water lapping on the crag.'

     To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale:
  'Thou hast betrayed thy nature and thy name,
  Not rendering true answer, as beseemed
  Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight:
  For surer sign had followed, either hand,
  Or voice, or else a motion of the mere.
  This is a shameful thing for men to lie.
  Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again,
  As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing
  I bade thee, watch, and lightly bring me word.'

     Then went Sir Bedivere the second time
  Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere,
  Counting the dewy pebbles, fixed in thought;
  But when he saw the wonder of the hilt,
  How curiously and strangely chased, he smote
  His palms together, and he cried aloud:

     'And if indeed I cast the brand away,
  Surely a precious thing, one worthy note,
  Should thus be lost for ever from the earth,
  Which might have pleased the eyes of many men.
  What good should follow this, if this were done?
  What harm, undone?  Deep harm to disobey,
  Seeing obedience is the bond of rule.
  Were it well to obey then, if a king demand
  An act unprofitable, against himself?
  The King is sick, and knows not what he does.
  What record, or what relic of my lord
  Should be to aftertime, but empty breath
  And rumours of a doubt?  But were this kept,
  Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,
  Some one might show it at a joust of arms,
  Saying, "King Arthur's sword, Excalibur,
  Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake.
  Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps
  Upon the hidden bases of the hills."
  So might some old man speak in the aftertime
  To all the people, winning reverence.
  But now much honour and much fame were lost.'

     So spake he, clouded with his own conceit,
  And hid Excalibur the second time,
  And so strode back slow to the wounded King.

     Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily:
  'What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?'

     And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
  'I heard the water lapping on the crag,
  And the long ripple washing in the reeds.'

     To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath:
  'Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,
  Unknightly, traitor-hearted!  Woe is me!
  Authority forgets a dying king,
  Laid widowed of the power in his eye
  That bowed the will.  I see thee what thou art,
  For thou, the latest-left of all my knights,
  In whom should meet the offices of all,
  Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt;
  Either from lust of gold, or like a girl
  Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes.
  Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice,
  And the third time may prosper, get thee hence:
  But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur,
  I will arise and slay thee with my hands.'

     Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,
  And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged
  Among the bulrush beds, and clutched the sword,
  And strongly wheeled and threw it.  The great brand
  Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon,
  And flashing round and round, and whirled in an arch,
  Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,
  Seen where the moving isles of winter shock
  By night, with noises of the Northern Sea.
  So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur:
  But ere he dipt the surface, rose an arm
  Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
  And caught him by the hilt, and brandished him
  Three times, and drew him under in the mere.
  And lightly went the other to the King.

     Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath:
  'Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.
  Speak out:  what is it thou hast heard, or seen?'

     And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:
  'Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems
  Should blind my purpose, for I never saw,
  Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die,
  Not though I live three lives of mortal men,
  So great a miracle as yonder hilt.
  Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him;
  But when I looked again, behold an arm,
  Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
  That caught him by the hilt, and brandished him
  Three times, and drew him under in the mere.'

     And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard:
  'My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone.
  Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight,
  And bear me to the margin; yet I fear
  My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die.'

     So saying, from the pavement he half rose,
  Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm,
  And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes
  As in a picture.  Him Sir Bedivere
  Remorsefully regarded through his tears,
  And would have spoken, but he found not words;
  Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee,
  O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands,
  And rising bore him through the place of tombs.

     But, as he walked, King Arthur panted hard,
  Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed
  When all the house is mute.  So sighed the King,
  Muttering and murmuring at his ear, 'Quick, quick!
  I fear it is too late, and I shall die.'

     But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,
  Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walked,
  Larger than human on the frozen hills.
  He heard the deep behind him, and a cry
  Before.  His own thought drove him like a goad.
  Dry clashed his harness in the icy caves
  And barren chasms, and all to left and right
  The bare black cliff clanged round him, as he based
  His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang
  Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels--
  And on a sudden, lo! the level lake,
  And the long glories of the winter moon.

     Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge,
  Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,
  Beneath them; and descending they were ware
  That all the decks were dense with stately forms,
  Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream--by these
  Three Queens with crowns of gold:  and from them rose
  A cry that shivered to the tingling stars,
  And, as it were one voice, an agony
  Of lamentation, like a wind that shrills
  All night in a waste land, where no one comes,
  Or hath come, since the making of the world.

     Then murmured Arthur, 'Place me in the barge.'
  So to the barge they came.  There those three Queens
  Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.
  But she, that rose the tallest of them all
  And fairest, laid his head upon her lap,
  And loosed the shattered casque, and chafed his hands,
  And called him by his name, complaining loud,
  And dropping bitter tears against a brow
  Striped with dark blood:  for all his face was white
  And colourless, and like the withered moon
  Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east;
  And all his greaves and cuisses dashed with drops
  Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls--
  That made his forehead like a rising sun
  High from the dais-throne--were parched with dust;
  Or, clotted into points and hanging loose,
  Mixed with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.
  So like a shattered column lay the King;
  Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,
  From spur to plume a star of tournament,
  Shot through the lists at Camelot, and charged
  Before the eyes of ladies and of kings.

     Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere:
  'Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?
  Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
  For now I see the true old times are dead,
  When every morning brought a noble chance,
  And every chance brought out a noble knight.
  Such times have been not since the light that led
  The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.
  But now the whole Round Table is dissolved
  Which was an image of the mighty world,
  And I, the last, go forth companionless,
  And the days darken round me, and the years,
  Among new men, strange faces, other minds.'

     And slowly answered Arthur from the barge:
  'The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
  And God fulfils himself in many ways,
  Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
  Comfort thyself:  what comfort is in me?
  I have lived my life, and that which I have done
  May He within himself make pure! but thou,
  If thou shouldst never see my face again,
  Pray for my soul.  More things are wrought by prayer
  Than this world dreams of.  Wherefore, let thy voice
  Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
  For what are men better than sheep or goats
  That nourish a blind life within the brain,
  If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
  Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
  For so the whole round earth is every way
  Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.
  But now farewell.  I am going a long way
  With these thou seest--if indeed I go
  (For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)--
  To the island-valley of Avilion;
  Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
  Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
  Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns
  And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea,
  Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.'

     So said he, and the barge with oar and sail
  Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan
  That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,
  Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood
  With swarthy webs.  Long stood Sir Bedivere
  Revolving many memories, till the hull
  Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn,
  And on the mere the wailing died away.

     But when that moan had past for evermore,
  The stillness of the dead world's winter dawn
  Amazed him, and he groaned, 'The King is gone.'
  And therewithal came on him the weird rhyme,
  'From the great deep to the great deep he goes.'

     Whereat he slowly turned and slowly clomb
  The last hard footstep of that iron crag;
  Thence marked the black hull moving yet, and cried,
  'He passes to be King among the dead,
  And after healing of his grievous wound
  He comes again; but--if he come no more--
  O me, be yon dark Queens in yon black boat,
  Who shrieked and wailed, the three whereat we gazed
  On that high day, when, clothed with living light,
  They stood before his throne in silence, friends
  Of Arthur, who should help him at his need?'

     Then from the dawn it seemed there came, but faint
  As from beyond the limit of the world,
  Like the last echo born of a great cry,
  Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice
  Around a king returning from his wars.

     Thereat once more he moved about, and clomb
  Even to the highest he could climb, and saw,
  Straining his eyes beneath an arch of hand,
  Or thought he saw, the speck that bare the King,
  Down that long water opening on the deep
  Somewhere far off, pass on and on, and go
  From less to less and vanish into light.
  And the new sun rose bringing the new year.

 Welcome, dear Shmoopers, to the story that Bedivere, first and longest living of Arthur's knights, told to the next generation when he was an old man. On the westward march to Arthur's last battle, Bedivere heard Arthur moaning in his tent: I've seen God in the stars and the flowers, but I don't see him in his ways with men. I fought wars for him, but now I'm going to die in vain. So basically, life sucks and I haven't managed to make it any better. Why does the world seem to be missing the beauty and majesty it should have if God created it? Or is it that men's eyes just don't have the power to see its beauty, or that we can't understand the workings of divine providence? I tried to work God's will, but instead I have killed a lot of people in vain and been betrayed by my wife and closest friend. Now my kingdom rebels against me. This is the worst. While Arthur sleeps, he hears Gawain's ghost speaking, saying he's going to die tomorrow. He wakes and cries out, asking if it's really him. When Bedivere hears him, he reassures him that it's just a harmless enchantment that will pass, unlike Arthur's name and glory. Gawain was a harmless prattler in life, and his ghost is no different. He tells Arthur to rise and march westward, conquering just like he did in days of old. Arthur responds by saying that this battle is different from the ones he fought as a young king, for now he fights against his own knights, in a sense fighting against himself. Nevertheless, he struggles to find a way through the blind haze that has surrounded him ever since he saw Guinevere at Almesbury. Arthur and his host push Sir Mordred's forces further and further westward, all the way to the edge of Lyonesse and the western coast. On the shortest day of the year, Arthur and Mordred's forces encounter one another as a white mist cloaks them all, causing friends to kill friends and others to see ghosts. Worst battle ever. Finally, at twilight, a great silence descends and the mist clears, allowing Arthur to gaze out over the battlefield. He sees only dead bodies and the rising tide rolling empty helmets in and out. He hears a great voice and asks Bedivere if he hears it, too. Arthur's declares himself to be king "only of the dead," and Bedivere responds that Arthur is still king everywhere, and that he still loves Arthur. So that's something. He points out that one who hates Arthur still lives, showing him where Mordred stands unharmed after the battle. Seeing him, Arthur declares his intention to do one last kingly act before death. He rushes at Mordred and kills him, receiving his own death-wound in the fight. Way to go, Artie. Bedivere carries Arthur to a chapel near the battlefield in between the ocean and a great lake. Arthur remarks that his death brings an end to the fellowship of the Round Table and the delightful talk of knightly deeds that resounded throughout Camelot. Merlin, he says, told him he would come again to rule Britain once more. But now he's so deeply wounded that he knows he won't last until morning. He asks Bedivere to take his sword, Excalibur, which was given to him by a white, silk-clothed arm jutting out from a lake. He tells Bedivere to throw Excalibur out into the middle of the lake, then return and tell him what he sees. Bedivere carries the sword to the lake but is so dazzled by the richness and beauty of its hilt that he decides to hide the sword among the reeds instead of throwing it in. Uh oh. Not good. When Arthur asks what he has seen, Bedivere responds that he heard only the ripple of the water in the reeds and lapping upon the rocks. Arthur knows that Bedivere did not perform his command, since he would surely have seen a hand and heard a voice if he had really thrown Excalibur in the lake. So Bedivere returns to the sword. This time he stops short of throwing it in the lake because he doesn't want to lose this evidence of Arthur's existence. Excuses excuses. Once again, Bedivere tells Arthur that all he heard was the sound of the water when he threw the sword in. Arthur calls him an un-knightly traitor. Nevertheless, he sends him back again. Job's gotta get done, after all. This time Bedivere rushes to the sword and throws it in the lake without looking at or thinking about it. A white, silk-clothed arm catches it and brandishes it three times. Whoa. Once Arthur learns that Bedivere has thrown the sword in the lake and has seen the arm, he asks him to carry him to the shore of the lake. When they reach the shore, they see a barge with three wailing women on its deck. Arthur instructs Bedivere to place him in the barge. When he does, the women come forward to take him. One lays his head in her lap. Bedivere asks Arthur what he should do now that the old times are dead. Arthur tells him to pray for his soul. He says he is going to the island of Avilion to be healed. The barge floats off into the distance as Bedivere watches. Then he thinks of a "weird rhyme": "from the great deep to the great deep he goes." He remarks that Arthur is going off to be king of the dead but may return again. He wonders if the three women on the boat are the same ones who guarded the gates of Camelot. At dawn he thinks he hears sounds like that of a far-off city welcoming the return of its king. He watches the barge vanish into the sunrise.

