The enchantress, Vivien, is one of that dubious company of Ladies of the Lake, now friendly, now treacherous. Probably these ladies are the fairies of popular Celtic tradition, taken up into the more elaborate poetry of Cymric literature and mediaeval romance. Mr Rhys traces Vivien, or Nimue, or Nyneue, back, through a series of palaeographic changes and errors, to Rhiannon, wife of Pwyll, a kind of lady of the lake he thinks, but the identification is not very satisfactory. Vivien is certainly "one of the damsels of the lake"in Malory, and the damsels of the lake seem to be lake fairies, with all their beguilements and strange unstable loves. "And always Merlin lay about the lady to have her maidenhood, and she was ever passing weary of him, and fain would have been delivered of him, for she was afraid of him because he was a devil's son. . . . So by her subtle working she made Merlin to go under that stone to let her wit of the marvels there, but she wrought so there for him that he came never out for all the craft he could do. And so she departed and left Merlin." The sympathy of Malory is not with the enchanter. In the Idylls, as finally published, Vivien is born on a battlefield of death, with a nature perverted, and an instinctive hatred of the good. Wherefore she leaves the Court of King Mark to make mischief in Camelot. She is, in fact, the ideal minx, a character not elsewhere treated by Tennyson:-"She hated all the knights, and heard in thought Their lavish comment when her name was named.
For once, when Arthur walking all alone, Vext at a rumour issued from herself Of some corruption crept among his knights, Had met her, Vivien, being greeted fair, Would fain have wrought upon his cloudy mood With reverent eyes mock-loyal, shaken voice, And flutter'd adoration, and at last With dark sweet hints of some who prized him more Than who should prize him most; at which the King Had gazed upon her blankly and gone by:
But one had watch'd, and had not held his peace:
It made the laughter of an afternoon That Vivien should attempt the blameless King.
And after that, she set herself to gain Him, the most famous man of all those times, Merlin, who knew the range of all their arts, Had built the King his havens, ships, and halls, Was also Bard, and knew the starry heavens;The people call'd him Wizard; whom at first She play'd about with slight and sprightly talk, And vivid smiles, and faintly-venom'd points Of slander, glancing here and grazing there;And yielding to his kindlier moods, the Seer Would watch her at her petulance, and play, Ev'n when they seem'd unloveable, and laugh As those that watch a kitten; thus he grew Tolerant of what he half disdain'd, and she, Perceiving that she was but half disdain'd, Began to break her sports with graver fits, Turn red or pale, would often when they met Sigh fully, or all-silent gaze upon him With such a fixt devotion, that the old man, Tho' doubtful, felt the flattery, and at times Would flatter his own wish in age for love, And half believe her true: for thus at times He waver'd; but that other clung to him, Fixt in her will, and so the seasons went."Vivien is modern enough--if any type of character is modern: at all events there is no such Blanche Amory of a girl in the old legends and romances. In these Merlin fatigues the lady by his love; she learns his arts, and gets rid of him as she can. His forebodings in the Idyll contain a magnificent image:-"There lay she all her length and kiss'd his feet, As if in deepest reverence and in love.
A twist of gold was round her hair; a robe Of samite without price, that more exprest Than hid her, clung about her lissome limbs, In colour like the satin-shining palm On sallows in the windy gleams of March:
And while she kiss'd them, crying, 'Trample me, Dear feet, that I have follow'd thro' the world, And I will pay you worship; tread me down And I will kiss you for it'; he was mute:
So dark a forethought roll'd about his brain, As on a dull day in an Ocean cave The blind wave feeling round his long sea-hall In silence."We think of the blinded Cyclops groping round his cave, like "the blind wave feeling round his long sea-hall."The richness, the many shining contrasts and immortal lines in Vivien, seem almost too noble for a subject not easily redeemed, and the picture of the ideal Court lying in full corruption. Next to Elaine, Jowett wrote that he "admired Vivien the most (the naughty one), which seems to me a work of wonderful power and skill. It is most elegant and fanciful. I am not surprised at your Delilah beguiling the wise man; she is quite equal to it." The dramatic versatility of Tennyson's genius, his power of creating the most various characters, is nowhere better displayed than in the contrast between the Vivien and the Elaine. Vivien is a type, her adventure is of a nature, which he has not elsewhere handled. Thackeray, who admired the Idylls so enthusiastically, might have recognised in Vivien a character not unlike some of his own, as dark as Becky Sharp, more terrible in her selfishness than that Beatrix Esmond who is still a paragon, and, in her creator's despite, a queen of hearts.
In Elaine, on the other hand, Tennyson has drawn a girl so innocently passionate, and told a tale of love that never found his earthly close, so delicately beautiful, that we may perhaps place this Idyll the highest of his poems on love, and reckon it the gem of the Idylls, the central diamond in the diamond crown. Reading Elaine once more, after an interval of years, one is captivated by its grace, its pathos, its nobility. The poet had touched on some unidentified form of the story, long before, in The Lady of Shalott.
That poem had the mystery of romance, but, in human interest, could not compete with Elaine, if indeed any poem of Tennyson's can be ranked with this matchless Idyll.
The mere invention, and, as we may say, charpentage, are of the first order. The materials in Malory, though beautiful, are ******, and left a field for the poet's invention.