The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights

by John Steinbeck

  A pause in the recital of his virtues drew Lancelot's attention. The knight who had tried to kill him in a tree had finished, and among the benches Sir Kay was rising to his feet. Lancelot could hear his voice before he spoke, reciting deeds like leaves and bags and barrels. Before his friend could reach the center of the hall, Sir Lancelot wriggled to his feet and approached the dais. "My lord king," he said, "forgive me if I ask leave to go. An old wound has broken open."

  Arthur smiled down on him. "I have the same old wound," he said. "We'll go together. Perhaps you will come to the tower room when we have attended to our wounds." And he signed the trumpets to end the gathering, and the bodyguards to clear the hall.

  The stone stairway to the king's room was in the thickness of the wall of the round tower of the keep. At short intervals a deep embrasure and a long, beveled arrow slit commanded some aspect of the town below.

  No armed men guarded this stairway. They were below and had passed Sir Lancelot in. The king's room was round, a horizontal slice of the tower, windowless save for the arrow slits, entered by a narrow arched door. It was a sparsely furnished room, carpeted with rushes. A wide bed, and at its foot a carved oaken chest, a bench before the fire-place, and several stools completed the furnishing. But the raw stone of the tower was plastered over and painted with solemn figures of men and angels walking hand in hand. Two candles and the reeky fire gave the only light.

  When Lancelot entered, the queen stood up from the bench before the fire, saying, "I will retire, my lords."

  "No, stay," said Arthur.

  "Stay," said Lancelot.

  The king was stretched comfortably in the bed. His bare feet projecting from his long saffron robe caressed each other, the toes curled downward.

  The queen was lovely in the firelight, all lean, down-flowing lines of green samite. She wore her little mouth-corner smile of concealed amusement, and her bold golden eyes were the same color as her hair, and odd it was that her lashes and slender brows were dark, an oddity contrived with kohl brought in a small enameled pot from an outland by a far-wandering knight.

  "How are you holding up?" Arthur asked.

  "Not well, my lord. It's harder than the quest."

  "Did you really do all the things they said you did?"

  Lancelot chuckled. "Truthfully, I don't know. It sounds different when they tell about it. And most of them feel it necessary to add a little. When I remember leaping eight feet, they tell it at fifty, and frankly I don't recall several of those giants at all."

  The queen made room for him on the fire bench and he took his seat, back to the fire.

  Guinevere said, "The damsel--what's her name--talked about fair queen enchantresses, but she was so excited that her words tumbled over each other. I couldn't make out what happened."

  Lancelot looked nervously away. "You know how excitable young girls are," he said. "A little back-country necromancy in a pasture."

  "But she spoke particularly of queens."

  "My lady, I think everyone is a queen to her. It's like the giants--makes the story richer."

  "Then they were not queens?"

  "Well, for that matter, when you get into the field of enchantment, everyone is a queen, or thinks she is. Next time she tells it, the little damsel will be a queen. I do think, my lord, there's too much of that kind of thing going on. It's a bad sign, a kind of restlessness, when people go in for fortune-telling and all such things. Maybe there should be a law about it."

  "There is," said Arthur. "But it's not in secular hands. The Church is supposed to take care of that."

  "Yes, but some of the nunneries are going in for it."

  "Well, I'll put a bug in the archbishop's ear."

  The queen observed, "I gather you rescued damsels by the dozen." She put her fingers on his arm and a searing shock ran through his body, and his mouth opened in amazement at a hollow ache that pressed upward against his ribs and shortened his breath.

  After a moment she said, "How many damsels did you rescue?"

  His mouth was dry. "Of course there were a few, madame. There always are."

  "And all of them made love to you?"

  "That they did not, madame. There you protect me."

  "I?"

  "Yes. Since with my lord's permission I swore to serve you all my life and gave my knightly courtly love to you, I am sheltered from damsels by your name."

  "And do you want to be sheltered?"

  "Yes, my lady. I am a fighting man. I have neither time nor inclination for any other kind of love. I hope this pleases you, my lady. I sent many prisoners to ask your mercy."

  "I never saw such a crop of them," Arthur said. "You must have swept some counties clean."

  Guinevere touched him on the arm again and with side-glancing golden eyes saw the spasm that shook him. "While we are on this subject I want to mention one lady you did not save. When I saw her she was a headless corpse and not in good condition, and the man who brought her in was half crazed."

  "I am ashamed of that," said Lancelot. "She was under my protection and I failed her. I suppose it was my shame that made me force the man to do it. I'm sorry. I hope you released him from the burden."

  "Not at all," she said. "I wanted him away before the feast reeked up the heavens. I sent him with his burden to the Pope. His friend will not improve on the way. And if his loss of interest in ladies continues, he may turn out to be a very holy man, a hermit or something of that nature, if he isn't a maniac first."

  The king rose on his elbow. "We will have to work out some system," he said. "The rules of errantry are too loose and the quests overlap. Besides, I wonder how long we can leave justice in the hands of men who are themselves unstable. I don't mean you, my friend. But there may come a time when order and organization from the crown will be necessary."

  The queen stood up. "My lords, will you grant me permission to leave you now? I know you will wish to speak of great things foreign and perhaps tiresome to a lady's ears."

  The king said, "Surely, my lady. Go to your rest."

  "No, sire--not rest. If I do not lay out the designs for the needle-point, my ladies will have no work tomorrow."

  "But these are feast days, my dear."

  "I like to give them something every day, my lord. They're lazy things and some of them so woolly in the mind that they forget how to thread a needle from day to day. Forgive me, my lords."

  She swept from the room with proud and powerful steps, and the little breeze she made in the still air carried a strange scent to Lancelot, a perfume which sent a shivering excitement coursing through his body. It was an odor he did not, could not, know, for it was the smell of Guinevere distilled by her own skin. And as she passed through the door and descended the steps, he saw himself leap up and follow her, although he did not move. And when she was gone the room was bleak and the glory was gone from it, and Sir Lancelot was dog-weary, tired almost to weeping.

  "What a queen she is," said King Arthur softly. "And what a woman equally. Merlin was with me when I chose her. He tried to dissuade me with his usual doomful prophecies. That was one of the few times I differed with him. Well, my choice has proved him fallible. She has shown the world what a queen should be. All other women lose their sheen when she is present."

  Lancelot said, "Yes, my lord," and for no reason he knew, except perhaps the intemperate dullness of the feast, he felt lost and a cold knife of loneliness pressed against his heart.

  The king was chuckling. "It is the device of ladies that their lords have great matters to discuss, when if the truth were told, we bore them. And I hope the truth is never told. Why, you look haggard, my friend. Are you feverish? Did you mean that about an old wound opening?"

  "No. The wound was what you thought it was, my lord. But it is true that I can fight, travel, live on berries, fight again, go without sleeping, and come out fresh and fierce, but sitting still at Whitsun feast has wearied me to death."

  Arthur said, "I can see it. We'll discuss the rea
lm's health another time. Go to your bed now. Have you your old quarters?"

  "No--better ones. Sir Kay has cleared five knights from the lovely lordly rooms over the north gate. He did it in memory of an adventure which we, God help us, will have to listen to tomorrow. I accept your dismissal, my lord."

  And Lancelot knelt down and took the king's beloved hand in both of his and kissed it. "Good night, my liege lord, my liege friend," he said, and then stumbled blindly from the room and felt his way down the curving stone steps past the arrow slits.

  As he came to the level of the next landing Guinevere issued silently from a darkened entrance. He could see her in the thin light from the arrow slit. She took his arm and led him to her dark chamber and closed the oaken door.

  "A strange thing happened," she said softly. "When I left you I thought you followed me. I was so sure of it I did not even look around to verify it. You were there behind me. And when I came to my own door, I said good night to you, so certain I was that you were there."

  He could see her outline in the dark and smell the scent which was herself. "My lady," he said, "when you left the room, I saw myself follow you as though I were another person looking on."

  Their bodies locked together as though a trap had sprung. Their mouths met and each devoured the other. Each frantic heartbeat at the walls of ribs trying to get to the other until their held breaths burst out and Lancelot, dizzied, found the door and blundered down the stairs. And he was weeping bitterly.

  And so at that tyme sir Lancelot had

  the grettyste name of ony knyght of the worlde,

  and moste he was honoured of hyghe and lowe.

  EXPLICIT A NOBLE TALE OF SIR LANCELOT DU LAKE

  APPENDIX

  JOHN STEINBECK WROTE The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights from the Winchester Manuscript of Malory's tales. His work is more than redaction, since John added to the original stories. It was written in Somerset, England, in 1958 - 9 and it is unfinished; it was not edited or corrected by John.

  The excerpts from his letters, which follow, show that he wrote two drafts of parts of the book. These letters were written to Elizabeth Otis, his literary agent from 1931 to his death in 1968, and to me (the former indicated by ERO, and the latter by CHASE). They describe some of his thoughts, show how he worked, and give some of his ideas about writing. John did not finish King Arthur, and did not say why or how he felt blocked, if indeed he was, when he stopped work on it.

  What is evident is his great and genuine interest in the subject. In these letters a novelist describes his hopes, some of his plans, and how he proceeded in this portion of his work as a writer.

  Chase Horton

  TO ERO--NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 11, 1956

  I am going to start the Morte immediately. Let it be private between us until I get it done. It has all the old magic.

  TO ERO--NEW YORK, NOVEMBER 19, 1956

  I have been dipping into the Malory. And with delight. As long as I don't know what is going on in the world, I would like to have a try with this. I'm going to try anyway.

  Now as to method. I am in some wonder about this. When I first read it, at about Louis' age, I must have been already enamored of words because the old and obsolete words delighted me. However, I wonder whether children now would be so attracted. They are more trained by picture than by sound. I'm going to make a trial run--not removing all of the old forms, nor all the Malory sentence structure, but substituting known simple words and reversing sentences which even now are puzzling.

  There are several things I will not do. I will not clean it up. Pendragon did take the wife of Cornwall, and that is the way it was. I think children not only understand these things but accept them until they are confused by moralities which try by silence to eliminate reality. These men had women and I'm going to keep them. On the other hand, I am going to keep the book and chapter heads and in these I shall keep the Malory-Caxton language intact. I think it is going to be fun to do.

  When I have some of it done, I shall with an opening essay tell of my own interest in the cycle, when it started and where it went--into scholarship and out again on the other side. In this essay I shall also try to put down what I think has been the impact of this book on our language, our attitudes, and morals, and our ethics.

  I have a feeling that this will go very fast--if there aren't too many interruptions. Also, I think that in this I can weather interruptions. I find I know it very well, after all these years.

  One other thing I do not want to do. There are many places in this book which are not clear, as poetry is not clear. They are not literal. I don't intend to make them clear or literal. I remember too well my own delight in conjecture.

  Now as for title--I don't know what was on Caxton's cover but on his title page it was:

  The Birth, Life and Acts of King Arthur, of his Noble Knights of the Round Table, their marvelous enquests and adventures, the achieving of the San Greal and in the end Le Morte Darthur with the Dolorous Death and Departing out of this World of them All.

  I should perhaps like to take an earlier part of this and call the book The Acts of King Arthur. Of course I would explain this in the introduction--quoting the Caxton title page. But the Book is much more Acts than Morte.

  Anyway--that can all be discussed. The main thing is to see whether or not I can do it at all--And the best way to find out is to do it.

  Do you have a Caxton edition? I should like you--as you read my version--to compare it, so that recommendations can be made.

  Next, what would you think of Chase as a kind of Managing Editor? His knowledge and interest seem to be great and he could be of help to me when I come a cropper. It would be good to have someone to consult with. And he might have an opening essay to precede mine. Let me know about this.

  TO ERO--NEW YORK, DECEMBER 3, 1956

  The work on the stories of Arthur goes well and happily. This is by way of being a progress report and prospectus. In the matter of the Arthurian book I find myself singularly well prepared. I have had some Anglo-Saxon and of course, like everyone else, have read a good deal of Old and Middle English. Why I say "everyone else," I don't know because I find that very few people have.

  There are, however, in the Winchester manuscript a large number of words which, while I can pick out the general meaning, may have special meanings too. It is difficult to find lexicons or dictionaries of the older languages. However, I have the library and Fannie working on this and I hope to have some material this week.

  My enthusiasm for the work grows. I am comparing Caxton with the Winchester and I find that Caxton is quite different. He not only edited but put the text in a different manner in many cases. Although he brought out his edition within a few years of Malory's death, his language is quite different from the Winchester. I am inclined to believe that there are two reasons for this. First, Caxton was printer and editor and city man, whereas Malory was very, very much country--and also in jail quite a bit. Also the Winchester manuscript was monkish copyists' work and is probably much more nearly like Malory. I find myself using the Winchester more than the Caxton. If anyone is going to edit, I prefer doing it myself. Besides, there are lovely nuances in the Winchester which have been removed by Caxton.

  In a fairly short time--as soon, in fact, as I finish the Merlin, we will get together on the method I am using and come to a decision.

  TO ERO--NEW YORK, JANUARY 2, 1957

  Your letter came this afternoon and bless you for the admonition to slow down. I don't know where I get this race against time, part of a starvation or bankruptcy fixation I guess. I have known for some time that this is not a job to whip out. There's a lot of reading but a lot of thinking to do also and I don't think quickly.

  Arthur is not a character. You are right. And here it might be well to consider that Jesus isn't either, nor is Buddha. Perhaps the large symbol figures can't be characters, for if they were, we wouldn't identify with them by substituting our own. Such a thing is worth thinki
ng about surely. As for ability as either a fighter or as a ruler, it is quite possible that Malory didn't find these necessary. It was the blood that was important and second the anointing. With these two ability wasn't necessary, while without them ability had little or no chance of operating. You will notice too that no moral law obtains. As a man King Harry was a murderer, but as a king, he couldn't be. This is a state of mind very difficult for us to follow but it was real just the same.

  I'm going to go in to town next Monday. I want to go to the Morgan Library and meet the people there. And it is time to come up for air too.

  TO ERO--NEW YORK, JANUARY 3, 1957

  Just reading and reading and reading and it's like hearing remembered music.

  Remarkable things in the books. Little meanings that peek out for a moment, and a few scholars who make observations and then almost in fright withdraw or qualify what they have said. When I finish this job, if I ever do, I should like to make some observations about the Legend. Somewhere there's a piece missing in the jigsaw and it is a piece which ties the whole thing together. So many scholars have spent so much time trying to establish whether Arthur existed at all that they have lost track of the single truth that he exists over and over. Collingwood establishes that there was an Ursus or the Bear which in Celtic is Artur which he quotes Nennius as translating into Latin as Ursus horribilis. But Ursus horribilis is the grizzly bear and as far as I know has never been found outside of North America. But you see what you get into. I can see how a man, if he wanted to, could get bogged down here and spend many happy years fighting with other specialists about the word bear and its Celtic Artur.