Then she bethought her of a faded silk, A faded mantle and a faded veil, And moving toward a cedarn cabinet, Wherein she kept them folded reverently With sprigs of summer laid between the folds, She took them, and array'd herself therein, Remembering when first he came on her Drest in that dress, and how he loved her in it, And all her foolish fears about the dress, And all his journey to her, as himself Had told her, and their coming to the court."Tennyson's "Arms on which the standing muscle sloped, As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone, Running too vehemently to break upon it,"is suggested perhaps by Theocritus--"The muscles on his brawny arms stood out like rounded rocks that the winter torrent has rolled and worn smooth, in the great swirling stream" (Idyll xxii.)The second part of the poem follows the original less closely. Thus Limours, in the tale, is not an old suitor of Enid; Edyrn does not appear to the rescue; certain cruel games, veiled in a magic mist, occur in the tale, and are omitted by the poet; "Gwyffert petit, so called by the Franks, whom the Cymry call the Little King," in the tale, is not a character in the Idyll, and, generally, the gross Celtic exaggerations of Geraint's feats are toned down by Tennyson.
In other respects, as when Geraint eats the mowers' dinner, the tale supplies the materials. But it does not dwell tenderly on the reconciliation. The tale is more or less in the vein of "patient Grizel," and he who told it is more concerned with the fighting than with amoris redintegratio, and the sufferings of Enid. The Idyll is enriched with many beautiful pictures from nature, such as this:-"But at the flash and motion of the man They vanish'd panic-stricken, like a shoal Of darting fish, that on a summer morn Adown the crystal dykes at Camelot Come slipping o'er their shadows on the sand, But if a man who stands upon the brink But lift a shining hand against the sun, There is not left the twinkle of a fin Betwixt the cressy islets white in flower;So, scared but at the motion of the man, Fled all the boon companions of the Earl, And left him lying in the public way."In Balin and Balan Tennyson displays great constructive power, and remarkable skill in moulding the most recalcitrant materials. Balin or Balyn, according to Mr Rhys, is the Belinus of Geoffrey of Monmouth, "whose name represents the Celtic divinity described in Latin as Apollo Belenus or Belinus." In Geoffrey, Belinus, euphemerised, or reduced from god to hero, has a brother, Brennius, the Celtic Bran, King of Britain from Caithness to the Humber.
Belinus drives Bran into exile. "Thus it is seen that Belinus or Balyn was, mythologically speaking, the natural enemy" (as Apollo Belinus, the radiant god) "of the dark divinity Bran or Balan."If this view be correct, the two brothers answer to the good and bad principles of myths like that of the Huron Iouskeha the Sun, and Anatensic the Moon, or rather Taouiscara and Iouskeha, the hostile brothers, Black and White. These mythical brethren are, in Malory, two knights of Northumberland, Balin the wild and Balan.
Their adventures are mixed up with a hostile Lady of the Lake, whom Balin slays in Arthur's presence, with a sword which none but Balin can draw from sheath; and with an evil black-faced knight Garlon, invisible at will, whom Balin slays in the castle of the knight's brother, King Pellam. Pursued from room to room by Pellam, Balin finds himself in a chamber full of relics of Joseph of Arimathea.
There he seizes a spear, the very spear with which the Roman soldier pierced the side of the Crucified, and wounds Pellam. The castle falls in ruins "through that dolorous stroke." Pellam becomes the maimed king, who can only be healed by the Holy Grail. Apparently Celtic myths of obscure antiquity have been adapted in France, and interwoven with fables about Joseph of Arimathea and Christian mysteries. It is not possible here to go into the complicated learning of the subject. In Malory, Balin, after dealing the dolorous stroke, borrows a strange shield from a knight, and, thus accoutred, meets his brother Balan, who does not recognise him. They fight, both die and are buried in one tomb, and Galahad later achieves the adventure of winning Balin's sword. "Thus endeth the tale of Balyn and of Balan, two brethren born in Northumberland, good knights," says Malory, simply, and unconscious of the strange mythological medley under the coat armour of romance.
The materials, then, seemed confused and obdurate, but Tennyson works them into the course of the fatal love of Lancelot and Guinevere, and into the spiritual texture of the Idylls. Balin has been expelled from Court for the wildness that gives him his name, Balin le Sauvage. He had buffeted a squire in hall. He and Balan await all challengers beside a well. Arthur encounters and dismounts them.
Balin devotes himself to self-conquest. Then comes tidings that Pellam, of old leagued with Lot against Arthur, has taken to religion, collects relics, claims descent from Joseph of Arimathea, and owns the sacred spear that pierced the side of Christ. But Garlon is with him, the knight invisible, who appears to come from an Irish source, or at least has a parallel in Irish legend. This Garlon has an unknightly way of killing men by viewless blows from the rear. Balan goes to encounter Garlon. Balin remains, learning courtesy, modelling himself on Lancelot, and gaining leave to bear Guinevere's Crown Matrimonial for his cognisance,--which, of course, Balan does not know, -"As golden earnest of a better life."
But Balin sees reason to think that Lancelot and Guinevere love even too well.
"Then chanced, one morning, that Sir Balin sat Close-bower'd in that garden nigh the hall.
A walk of roses ran from door to door;
A walk of lilies crost it to the bower: