The amount of time and thought that my father expended on this work is astounding. It would be possible of course to provide a complete and detailed textual apparatus, including an account of every emendation that arose in the successive manuscripts as he searched unceasingly for a better rhythm, or a better word or phrase within the alliterative constraints. But this would be a huge task, and in my view disproportionate.

In what follows I use the word ‘draft’ to refer to any or all of the pages of verse that precede the latest text of The Fall of Arthur, that is, the manuscript from which the text in this book is taken. This latest text does give the impression of having been written as a whole and set apart, and so might be regarded as ‘final’, but it underwent a good deal of correction and alteration subsequently, chiefly in the first two cantos. As a rule, indeed, no manuscript of my father’s could be regarded as ‘final’ until it had safely left his hands. But in this case by far the greater number of such changes were made quickly in pencil; and of similar changes made to the manuscripts of my father’s ‘Norse’ poems I wrote (The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún, p.40): ‘I have the impression that my father read through the text many years later … and quickly emended points that struck him as he went.’ The same may well be true of The Fall of Arthur, but of course this cannot be determined. The fact that these changes are markedly more numerous in Cantos I and II may suggest renewed interest in the poem at some later date, which petered out.

A most extraordinary aspect of the writing of the poem is revealed in the draft pages: namely, that Canto I, the account of King Arthur’s campaign into the East, so far from being the first to be written, was in fact introduced when work on the poem was well advanced.

There are two draft manuscripts of Canto II (the narrative of the news brought by the captain of the wrecked Frisian ship, and of Mordred’s visit to Guinevere in Camelot), and also a single page carrying the opening of the poem. All three begin with the lines:

The earliest, which I will call IIa, has this title:

The Fall of Arthur

I

How [Mordred >] Radbod brought news and Mordred gathered his army to stay the king’s landing

The text is in essentials the same as that of Canto II in LT as printed, though with a great many differences, but goes no further than the equivalent of line II.109, in this text ‘cormorants of the coast and the cold marshes’.

The second, following, draft text, called IIb, has the same heading as IIa on the first page, but has the whole text of the canto, with again numerous differences though not of structure.

The single page, IIc, of the canto, referred to above, follows the text IIb, and here the heading is thus:

The Fall of Arthur

II

How the Frisian ship brought news, and Mordred gathered an

army and came to Camelot seeking the queen.

But the figure II in this heading was a later extension from I.

It is notable that when Canto I was added no new narrative elements or references were added to what had become Canto II; but this, I presume, was because my father’s original plan had been to open the poem with Mordred and Guinevere, and he had not then considered any prior narrative necessary. One has only to read Canto II now, therefore, with this knowledge, to appreciate how little had been told of Arthur’s absence from Britain: no more is said of the previous history than the words that Radbod, the captain of the Frisian ship, spoke to Mordred before he died (the equivalence in the draft manuscript IIb of the lines II.70–77 in the latest version):

Mordred’s warning to Guinevere, II.144–7, was present in IIb in this form, with a reference to Benwick:

Another, and notable, reference to Lancelot appears in IIb (repeated from IIa), where Mordred summons to his side ‘lords and earls … faithful in falseness, foes of Arthur, lovers of Lancelot’: in LT (the latest text) Lancelot was changed to treason (II.105).

*

Canto III

For a number of reasons it is clearest, or at any rate least unclear, to begin this account with Canto III, ‘Of Sir Lancelot, who abode in Benwick’.

The draft manuscripts consist very largely of verses, but among them are three synopses of the story of Lancelot and Guinevere as my father thought to tell it, or rather to assume it, in his poem. They were numbered (subsequently) I, II, and III. All three were written very rapidly but seldom illegibly. I have expanded contractions and made a few very minor emendations.

Synopsis I opens with a passage in praise of Lancelot that was quite closely followed in III.19–28. Then follows:

Gawain alone was almost his equal but of sterner mood, loving the king above men and above women, in courtesy cloaking mistrust of the Queen. But the Queen loved Lancelot, to his praise only would she listen. Thus jealousy awoke in lesser hearts, but most in Mordred’s whom her beauty inflamed. Lancelot rejoiced in the Queen’s beauty and served her ever but was loyal long to his lord, but the net closed about him and the Queen would not release him, but with laughter or with tears bent his purpose till he fell from loyalty.

Gawain guessed not but Mordred watched. At length Mordred told Gawain and his brothers Agravain and Gareth and said that as they were of the king’s kin they should warn him. Agravain jealous of Lancelot’s estate and favour on his brother’s behalf told the king. The court was rent with feud. [Added: Agravain slain by Lancelot.] Mordred told Guinevere and Lancelot that the betrayal was by Gawain’s purpose out of envy, and Lancelot believed the lie – though Gawain was in truth the one of all the knights who was not envious and thought only of the king and not himself. The king condemned the Queen to [illegible word struck out and replaced by and Lancelot to die] and men accused Lancelot of cravenhood since he had fled. But as the Queen was led to the stake Lancelot appeared at the head of his kindred and rescued her and carried her off. Gareth [? and others] of Gawain’s kin were slain. But Lancelot’s mood sickened and he returned the Queen – but Arthur would not look on him again and he went back to Benwick.

Neither he nor his kindred fought any more for Arthur, not even when they heard of the attacks on Britain, nor of Arthur’s sortie East. This chafed his followers and they mourned for his mood – repenting penitence and his humbled pride after losing himself for love and now love for loyalty spurned.

Now word came of Mordred’s treachery – and Arthur arming against his own kingdom. Lancelot saw clearer the guile he was ensnared in. Half he thought of gathering his host to help Arthur. Then pride withheld him and the thought of Gawain whom he had wronged and his cold scorn. He thought he would go nonetheless if the king called. Where was Guinevere – he had not the might to go to Britain without joining with Arthur. Was she fair and false as men said (and Mordred)? Lightly she had left him and seemed not to pity his anguish or comprehend his penitence. If she sent to tell him of peril he would come. But no word came from Arthur whom Gawain guided. No word came fom Guinevere who waited upon the times. Lancelot went not forth, but abode in Benwick. The sun shone out after storm and his heart lightened. He called for music and bade men be merry for life has still hope, but he knew not that the tides of chance had changed and he had missed the flood.

Gawain guessed but Mordred watched. Thus came the feud and the sundering of the Round Table which many have sung. [Illegible word] first cloud gathered over the glory of Arthur. Mordred moving darkly warns both Lancelot and the king. The king’s great anger, which Gawain tries to temper, but Mordred has for the time the king’s ear. He vows that both Lancelot and Guinevere shall suffer death for treason – according indeed to just law. But Lancelot warned has taken Guinevere and fled to safety (this as Mordred intended) proclaiming guilt. In the attack on the castle many are slain including Agravain and Gareth, Gawain’s kinsmen. Only then will Gawain join in. He challenges Lancelot, that no more noble knights be slain. But Lancelot’s mood has changed: he repents the ruin he has wrought, and the Queen is frightened and unwilling to risk the peril of Lancelot’s failure. First blow to Lancelot’s love. Lancelot therefore treats and yields Guinevere on condition that she shall be pardoned and received in full honour. But the king will not pardon Lancelot – nor does Gawain urge it – and banishes him, and he departs with his kindred to Benwick.

Beside the number III of the third synopsis my father noted ‘followed in poem’. This begins with a greatly reduced version of the openings of the previous two synopses, and there is a good deal of repetition from synopsis I in the concluding passage, but I will cite this text in full.

Lancelot was deemed doughtiest of Arthur’s knights, and the fairest of all men – dark and splendid beside the gold of Gawain. Gawain only was almost his equal, but sterner in mood, and he loved the king only above men and above women, but mistrusted the Queen even ere the shadow fell. But the Queen loved Lancelot, and Lancelot rejoiced in the Queen’s beauty and served her ever gladly, and loved her above women and above men. Honour and renown only loved he almost as dear. Therefore long was he loyal to his lord. But the net closed on him, and the Queen drew the toils ever tighter – for she released seldom that which she had or ceased to grasp for what she desired. Fair as fay-woman but fell-minded in the world walking for the woe of men. Thus with smiles and tears she bent Lancelot’s will.

Thus came the feud that many have sung and the first cloud over the glory of Arthur, when swords were drawn in the king’s house and brethren of the Round Table slew one another. [Struck out: Mordred contrived it, envying Lancelot, desiring the Queen, he betrayed Lancelot.] With cruel justice the Queen was condemned to the fire, but Lancelot rescued her and carried [her] afar. That day fell many knights by the hand of Ban’s kindred, and among them Gawain’s brother. But his mood sickened and the Queen disliked exile. He repented the slayings and returned the Queen – obtaining full pardon for her; but not for himself. He departed to Benwick with his kin and went no more to war with Arthur.

But word came of Mordred’s treachery and of Arthur arming against his own kingdom. Half he resolved to gather his host and haste to the king. Pride withheld him, and the thought of the cold scorn of Gawain whom he had wronged. The king would summon him, if he had need. In thought of Guinevere anguish took him. Was she in danger – but he had no might to go to Britain without joining Arthur. Was she false as fair as some rumoured? Lightly she had left him with little pity. If she sent to him he would go at all peril against Mordred or Arthur. But no word came from Arthur who leaned on Gawain. No word came from Guinevere who waited upon the times to snatch the best from ruin. Therefore Lancelot abode in the tower of Ban torn in mind. The storm fell. The sun shone forth and his heart lifted. He told himself that life yet held hope, tides change, but he knew not that the tides of time had passed their flood and that he had missed his chance.

*

The evolution of Canto III can to a large extent be followed in the draft papers, although there are uncertainties that I have been unable to resolve. Some primary workings survive, among them pages at a level of illegibility that can only be interpreted at all from knowledge of subsequent texts; but it is notable that even when composing at this speed my father was capable of doing so within the alliterative and metrical patterns.

Following these is a series of manuscripts proceeding in my father’s common fashion, each one taking up the changes made to the previous one and then emended in its turn. The first of these, which I will call A, is evidently his first writing out of a text, though far from complete, of the canto. This is in rough but legible form, still with many uncertainties and substitutions as he wrote. The text begins (III.19.):

Beyond this, the text A can be passed by, since it was soon (as I judge) overtaken by another manuscript, and noteworthy features in A reappear in this substantial and complex text, B²⁹.

This manuscript opens with two pages, obviously written at the same time, neither with a title, and identical at almost all points save in the opening passage of the canto. In one of these, which I will call B 1, the opening is thus:

In their place both B 1 and B 2 have:

A passage on a separate page is marked for substitution at this point in B2, after the words ‘Deep his anguish’:

After the opening pages B 1 and B 2 the text continues without duplication for some distance, and can therefore be called simply B. There are a number of cases where LT differs from B, as follows (many of these instances are found in A also). The line-references in each case are to the readings of Canto III in LT as printed in this book.

The final version (‘among the Round Table’s royal order …’) is given on another page of the B manuscript as an alternative; and a further alternative is suggested for III.53, ‘darkly hoarded. Dear she loved him’:

For the meaning compare Synopis III, ‘She released seldom that which she had’ (see here).

The original reading here, in the manuscript A, was ‘Strength was broken.’ Against ‘Strong will she bent’ in B marginal readings are ‘Strong her purpose’ and ‘Swords she broke’. LT as written had ‘Strong oaths she broke’, changed in pencil to ‘Strong oaths they broke’.

(After III.67, later marked for omission)

The last three lines of this passage were struck out at the same time as was the previous reference to Gareth (and in the preceding text A they were bracketed for exclusion). As a result of these deletions Gaheris and Gareth were not mentioned in LT as written, but the lines III.82–3 were added in pencil.

Shortly after this the text B divides again into two, and at the point (III.143) where LT moves on to

these further twinned texts return, surprisingly, to the opening passages of the canto in B 1 and B 2 (see here), with their placing reversed, that is to say, in the manuscript where the canto opens with ‘In Benwick the blessed   once Ban was king’ there appears here the passage beginning ‘In the South from sleep   in swift fury’, while in the other manuscript the reverse is the case. In both versions the passage in question is followed by the verses telling of Lancelot gazing from a window over the sea (cf. III.11–14, 187–9):

My father seems to have decided eventually that of all these arrangements the most satisfactory was to retain ‘In the South from sleep   to swift fury’ as the opening of the canto, and that there was no place for the passage beginning ‘Benwick the blessed’. See further.

From here the B text continues with ‘From western havens   word was rumoured’ (III.143) in two successive forms, labelled ‘Version A’ and ‘Version B’. I give here differences in Version A (before emendation) from LT. It is clearest to set out the text of Version A from its beginning; this corresponds to III.143–173, but the passage III.148–157 is absent.

From this point Version A is the same as LT, from III.174 to the end of the canto, with a few minor variations:

The following are differences in Version B from LT. The passage III.148–157 was absent, as in version A, but the text corresponding to III.157. is distinct both from Version B and LT.

A further complete manuscript of Canto III, which may be called C, again without title or canto-number, is found in the collection of draft papers, as well and legibly written as the ‘final’ text (I.e. LT), which quite possibly it was intended to be. In relation to the B manuscript, or manuscripts, it does in fact almost reach the form in LT as that was written (before it too later received further pencilled corrections): almost all the passages detailed on see here were changed to the final form. Its existence shows my father’s readiness to build his poem layer upon layer, copying the same or closely similar passages again and again, which allows the movement of the work to be followed at large or in fine detail.

Here there is only one passage in this further text C that need be expressly recorded. This is III.124–7, of which the B text is given on see here. C originally had here:

My father struck these lines out as he wrote them and replaced them with

Lastly, beside the opening passsage of the canto in C (‘In the South from sleep to swift fury …’). my father wrote in pencil: ‘Or if this is Fit I In Benwick the blessed &c.’ A ‘fit’ is an Old English word, meaning a part or portion of a poem, which my father sometimes used, though in reference to The Fall of Arthur he also used ‘canto’. His meaning here can only be that he had it in mind that the ‘Lancelot canto’ might be the first canto of the poem, in which case In Benwick the blessed would be the opening lines. This may well explain the two parallel pages in the manuscript B (see here), each with one or other of the two opening passages.

*

There is a further curious complication in the history of Canto III. This is a manuscript, or series of manuscript pages amid the great heap of draft papers, in which the events leading to the feud and the breaking of the fellowhip of the Round Table were to be told in a conversation betwewen Lionel and Ector, kinsmen of Lancelot, recollecting together the grievous history.

This version begins with the passage ‘In Benwick the blessed   once Ban was king …’ in the form already encountered as the opening passage of the manuscript B 1 (see here), but with a different third line: where the other text has ‘in the holy lands their homes leaving / to the western world wandering journeyed’ the present text has ‘from the ancient East, islands seeking / in the western world, wandering journeyed’.

Very legibly written in ink with some preliminary pencilled drafting, this version carries the canto number II in pencil. I give here the text in full, following from the last line of the opening passage, ‘they watched the waters: war they feared not.’

Here this text, which may be called the ‘Lionel and Ector version’, referred to as LE, ends. I feel sure that no more was written of this telling of the tale in reported speech. It will be seen that from the line ‘Swift swords we drew against sworn brethren’, seven lines from the end, this text moves towards that of LT in Canto III.71–80; and the last five lines are indeed all but identical with the text both of the earliest manuscript A and of its successor B (see here), which reads:

If this were all the evidence available, one would say that if my father did not have B in front of him, at any rate when he reached this point in the ‘Lionel and Ector version’ he must have retained the passage from B in memory; and if the latter, one might speculate that he realized at this point that Lionel and Ector were becoming mere mouthpieces for the story in retrospect as he had already told it. But as will be seen shortly (see here.), the matter is more complex.

Before turning to this, however, this new version is of particular interest in that only here, and in Synopsis I, did my father describe in any detail the machinations of Mordred. In the second synopsis (see here) it is said only that ‘Mordred moving darkly warns both Lancelot and the king’. In the third synopsis, which, my father noted, was followed in the poem, nothing is said of this at all, save in a rejected sentence (see here) that Mordred betrayed Lancelot; but it is also said that after his return to France, when pondering his course of action, he thought of ‘the cold scorn of Gawain whom he had wronged’ (see here). Of course, none of these synopses was a careful statement of a proposed narrative: rather, they were memoranda, significant ‘moments’ that he wished to bear in mind, and so set down in writing.

In Synopsis I, however (see here), we learn that Mordred told Gawain and his brothers; that Agravain told the king; and that Lancelot slew Agravain. The essential element in the story there is that Mordred, lying to Lancelot and Guinevere, said that the betrayal ‘was by Gawain’s purpose out of envy’; and Lancelot believed Mordred. Here appears first, what was repeated in the third synopsis, Gawain’s’ cold scorn’ for Lancelot, by whom he had been wronged.

In the ‘Lionel and Ector’ version of the canto, Mordred accused Guinevere and Lancelot to Gawain, and in ‘anger and grief’ Gawain told the king, so earning Guinevere’s hatred, and her lie that Gawain had been changed by lust and envy into a snake – which Lancelot believed, and greatly wronged him.