Eighth Reader Part 27

HOW KING ARTHUR GOT HIS NAME[61]

One day at sunset, s...o...b..rd, the young son of a king, came over the brow of a hill that stepped forward from a dark company of mountains and leaned over the sh.o.r.eless sea which fills the West and drowns the North.

All day he had been wandering alone, his mind heavy with wonder over many things. He had heard strange tales of late, tales about his heroic father and the royal clan, and how they were not like other men, but half divine. He had heard, too, of his own destiny,--that he also was to be a great king. What was Destiny, he wondered....

Then, as he wondered, he turned over and over in his mind all the names he could think of that he might choose for his own; for the time was come for him to put away the name of his childhood and to take on that by which he should be known among men.

He came over the brow of the hill, and out of the way of the mountain wind, and, being tired, lay down among the heather and stared across the gray wilderness of the sea. The sun set, and the invisible throwers of the nets trailed darkness across the waves and up the wild sh.o.r.es and over the faces of the cliffs. Stars climbed out of shadowy abysses, and the great chariots of the constellations rode from the West to the East and from the North to the South.

His eyes closed, ... but when he opened them again, he saw a great and kingly figure standing beside him. So great in stature, so splendid in kingly beauty, was the mysterious one who had so silently joined him, that he thought this must be one of the G.o.ds.

"Do you know me, my son?" said the kingly stranger.

The boy looked at him in awe and wonder, but unrecognizingly.

"Do you not know me, my son?" he heard again ... "for I am your father, Pendragon. But my home is yonder, and that is why I have come to you as a vision in a dream ..." and, as he spoke, he pointed to the constellation of the _Arth_, or Bear, which nightly prowls through the vast abysses of the polar sky.

When the boy turned his gaze from the great constellation which hung in the dark wilderness overhead, he saw that he was alone again. While he yet wondered in great awe at what he had seen and heard, he felt himself float like a mist and become like a cloud, rise beyond the brows of the hills, and ascend the invisible stairways of the sky....

It seemed to him thereafter that a swoon came over him, in which he pa.s.sed beyond the far-off blazing fires of strange stars. At last, suddenly, he stood on the verge of _Arth_, _Arth Uthyr_, the Great Bear.

There he saw, with the vision of immortal, not of mortal, eyes, a company of most n.o.ble and majestic figures seated at what he thought a circular abyss, but which had the semblance of a vast table. Each of these seven great knights or lordly kings had a star upon his forehead, and these were stars of the mighty constellation of the Bear which the boy had seen night after night from his home among the mountains by the sea.

It was with a burning throb at his heart that he recognized in the King of all these kings no other than himself.

While he looked, in amazement so great that he could hear the pulse of his heart, as in the silence of a wood one hears the tapping of a woodp.e.c.k.e.r, he saw this mighty phantom self rise till he stood towering over all there, and heard a voice as though an ocean rose and fell through the eternal silences.

"Comrades in G.o.d," it said, "the time is come when that which is great shall become small."

And when the voice was ended, the mighty figure faded in the blue darkness, and only a great star shone where the uplifted dragon helm had brushed the roof of heaven. One by one the white lords of the sky followed in his mysterious way, till once more were to be seen only the stars of the Bear.

The boy dreamed that he fell as a falling meteor, and that he floated over land and sea as a cloud, and then that he sank as mist upon the hills of his own land.

A noise of wind stirred in his ears. He rose stumblingly, and stood, staring around him. He glanced upward and saw the stars of the Great Bear in their slow march round the Pole.... Then he remembered.

He went slowly down the hill, his mind heavy with thought. When he was come to his own place, lo! all the fierce chivalry of the land came out to meet him; for the archdruid had foretold that the great King to be had received his mystic initiation among the holy silences of the hills.

"I am no more s...o...b..rd, the child," the boy said, looking at them fearless and as though already King. "Henceforth I am Arth-Urthyr,[62]

for my place is in the Great Bear which we see yonder in the north."

So all there acclaimed him as Arthur, the wondrous one of the stars, the Great Bear.

"I am old," said his father, "and soon you shall be King, Arthur, my son. So ask now a great boon of me and it shall be granted to you."

Then Arthur remembered his dream.

"Father and King," he said, "when I am King after you, I shall make a new order of knights, who shall be pure as the Immortal Ones, and be tender as women, and simple as little children. But first I ask of you seven flawless knights to be of my chosen company. To-morrow let the wood wrights make for me a round table, such as that where we eat our roasted meats, but round and of a size whereat I and my chosen knights may sit at ease."

The king listened, and all there.

"So be it," said the king.

Then Arthur chose the seven flawless knights, and called them to him.

"Ye are now Children of the Great Bear," he said, "and comrades and liegemen to me, Arthur, who shall be King of the West.

"And ye shall be known as the Knights of the Round Table. But no man shall make a mock of that name and live: and in the end that name shall be so great in the mouths and minds of men that they shall consider no glory of the world to be so great as to be the youngest and frailest of that knighthood."

And that is how Arthur, who three years later became King of the West, read the rune of the stars that are called the Great Bear, and took their name upon him, and from the strongest and purest and n.o.blest of the land made Knighthood, such as the world had not seen, such as the world since has not seen.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 61: A Gaelic legend, by Fiona Macleod.]

[Footnote 62: p.r.o.nounced _Arth-Ur_. In the ancient British language, _Arth_ means Bear, and _Urthyr_, great, wondrous.]

EXPRESSION: Read this selection very carefully to get at the true meaning of each sentence and each thought. What peculiarities do you notice in the style of the language employed? Talk about King Arthur, and tell what you have learned elsewhere about him and his knights of the Round Table. In what respects does this legend differ from some other accounts of his boyhood? Now reread the selection, picturing in your mind the peculiarities of place and time.

ANTONY'S ORATION OVER CaeSAR'S DEAD BODY[63]

_Antony._ Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears: I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Caesar. The n.o.ble Brutus Hath told you Caesar was ambitious: If it were so, it was a grievous fault, And grievously hath Caesar answered it.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest-- For Brutus is an honorable man; So are they all, all honorable men-- Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me; But Brutus says he was ambitious, And Brutus is an honorable man.

He hath brought many captives home to Rome, Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill; Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept; Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, And Brutus is an honorable man.

You all did see, that on the Lupercal, I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?

Yet Brutus says he was ambitious, And, sure, he is an honorable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause; What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason.--Bear with me; My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, And I must pause till it come back to me.

But yesterday the word of Caesar might Have stood against the world; now lies he there, And none so poor to do him reverence.

O masters! If I were disposed to stir Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage, I should do Brutus wrong and Ca.s.sius wrong, Who, you all know, are honorable men.

I will not do them wrong; I rather choose To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you, Than I will wrong such honorable men.

But here's a parchment with the seal of Caesar, I found it in his closet; 'tis his will.

Let but the commons hear this testament,-- Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read,-- And they would go and kiss dead Caesar's wounds, And dip their napkins in his sacred blood; Yea, beg a hair of him for memory, And, dying, mention it within their wills, Bequeathing it as a rich legacy Unto their issue.

_Citizen._ We'll hear the will: read it, Mark Antony.

_All._ The will, the will! we will hear Caesar's will.