Stories of King Arthur and His Knights | Page 4

history.
After giving ideas to generation after generation of romance writers of
many countries and in many languages, these same romantic stories
were, in the fifteenth century, skilfully brought together into one
connected prose narrative,--one of the choicest of the older English
classics, "Le Morte Darthur," by Sir Thomas Malory. Those were
troublous times when Sir Thomas, perhaps after having himself fought
and suffered in the Wars of the Roses then in progress, found some
quiet spot in Warwickshire in which to put together in lasting form the
fine old stories that already in his day were classics.
Malory finished his book in 1470, and its permanence for all time was
assured fifteen years later, when Caxton, after the "symple connynge"
that God had sent him (to use the quaint forms of expression then
common), "under the favour and correctyon of al noble lordes and
gentylmen emprysed to emprynte a book of the noble hystoryes of the
sayd Kynge Arthur and of certeyn of his knyghtes after a copye unto
him delyuerd whyche copye Syr Thomas Malorye dyd take oute of
certeyn bookes of Frensche and reduced it in to Englysche." This
hard-headed business man,--this fifteenth-century publisher,--was
rather doubtful about the Briton king of a thousand years before his day,
and to those urging upon him the venture of printing Malory's book he
answered: "Dyuers men holde oppynyon that there was no suche Arthur
and that alle suche bookes as been maad of hym ben fayned and fables
by cause that somme cronycles make of him no mencyon ne remember
him noo thynge ne of his knyghtes."

But the arguments of those in favour of the undertaking prevailed,
greatly to the advantage of the four centuries that have followed, during
which "Le Morte Darthur" has been a constant source of poetic
inspiration. Generation after generation of readers and of writers have
drawn life from its chapters, and the new delight in Tennyson's "Idylls
of the King," almost of our own time, shows that the fountain has not
yet been drained dry.
Malory's "Morte Darthur" is a long book, and its really great interest is
partly hidden from us by forms of expression that belong only to the
time when it was first written. Besides this, the ideas of what was right
and proper in conduct and speech--moral standards--were far lower in
Malory's day than they are now.
The purpose of this new little volume is to bring the old tales freshly to
the attention of young people of the present time. It keeps, as far as
may be, the exact language and the spirit of the original, chooses such
stories as best represent the whole, and modifies these only in order to
remove what could possibly hide the thought, or be so crude in taste
and morals as to seem unworthy of the really high-minded author of
five hundred years ago. It aims also so to condense the book that, in
this age of hurry, readers may not be repelled from the tales merely
because of their length.
Chivalry of just King Arthur's kind was given up long ago, but that for
which it stood--human fellowship in noble purpose--is far older than
the institution of knighthood or than even the traditions of the energetic,
brave, true, helpful King Arthur himself. It links us with all the past and
all the future. The knights of the twentieth century do not set out in
chain-armour to right the wrongs of the oppressed by force of arms, but
the best influences of chivalry have been preserved for the quickening
of a broader and a nobler world than was ever in the dreams of
knight-errant of old. Modern heroes of the genuine type owe more than
they know to those of Arthur's court who swore:
"To reverence the King, as if he were Their conscience, and their
conscience as their King, To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, To speak no slander, no, nor

listen to it, To honour his own word as if his God's, To lead sweet lives
in purest chastity, To love one maiden only, cleave to her, And worship
her by years of noble deeds, Until they won her."
"Antiquity produced heroes, but not gentlemen," someone has said. In
the days of Charlemagne and Alfred began the training which,
continued in the days of Chaucer and Sir Thomas Malory and many,
many more, has given to this our age that highest type of manhood, the
Christian gentleman.
U. W. C.

Stories of King Arthur
CHAPTER I
OF THE BIRTH OF KING ARTHUR
It befell in the days of Uther Pendragon, when he was king of all
England, that there was a mighty duke in Cornwall that held war
against him a long time. And