New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-12-01
NOT A HUMOROUS BOOK.
THE STORY OF ARTHUR IN NOvEL-wRITERS
ENGLISH.


KING ARTHUR AND THE KNIGHTS OF THE
ROUND TABLE. Modernized Version of the
"Morte D'Arthur.S BY Charles Morris Three
Volumes. PIP. a5e, $685. 255. J. b. Lippincott
SCo.
Almost everybody who NEEDLES in prose with the
story of King Arthur begins by confessing the dill
Guilty, indeed, mpossiby, of nvalliag the style Oh
SIR Thomas Mallory. This being the case and SIR
Thomas's book being easily accessible in more tim one
reprint ID becomes matter Of wonder why modern re
dactors attempt to fill what is manifesty not long
felt want In the volumes described under the title
above printed the effort has been made TO reproduce
In form which, from a literary point Of view Is
scarcely better than that of cheap mover s'orS
whose incidents might well preclude such treatment
Incredible adventures not altogether unsuted 10
the rich prose of Mallory, but they become almost
ludicrous in the paraphrase of Mr.. Morris.
1t would be an uneommonly irksome task TO
compare this modern revision with It's early
source in detail but when the editor says that ne
has taken little further liberty with Malony's quaint
prose than to put 1t into modern dress he certainly
seems unconscious of what he has actually done. IL
he were TO be told that he has actually added figure
10 the mythology of these tales which Sir Thomas
Mallory would not have added without express warrant
from The poems which he translated, and which the
orthodox writers OF the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
would have carefully excluded from their works,
he might deny the fact Yet he has really added
a purely modern conception Of fate destiny which
the medieval mind consciously and deliberately re-
jected. Thus, after the familiar "dolorous stroke,'
Balm is comforted by Merlin with the remark, You
did but what destiny commanded. 1t is fate, not you,
that at fault" On the day when the Siege Perilous"
to be occupied King Arthur is represented as call
ing it "a day set aside by the fates." When Galshad
reached the Castle by the Sea, Mr. Morris makes the
mistress Of the castle say, He must ride until des
tiny is accomplished" When he refuses to draw the
strange sword shlpboad, he is told that no
draw back from that which destiny commands" We
imagine that no such phrases will be found anywhere
in Sir Thomas Mallory in any Of the writers from
whom he copied. In age when people who talked
Of fate and chance cOntemptuousy termed Saddu
the most ignorant troubadour, trouvere mime
singer had sufficient casustry to avoid phrases which
he might have TO recant at the confessional. The
difference between unconscious fate and the immedi
ate intentional rulershp the world which people
in the middle ages attributed to the Deity is so broad
that confusion Of the two shoud be impossible. In
the present state Of the controversy over Arthur a
blunder of this sort is too likely to nappear in the
pages OF some investigator who knows better but has
not taken time to study the arguments against fancy
These volumes are designed only to meet the pos
student What is really needco, now that the tc
rary sources OF the Arthurian legends have been
lore in these legends from the conscious literary ad-
dtOns, and the Western or so-called Celtic ideas
from those borrowed in the Orient. The whole queS
ton is oper in spite of ali that has been writ
ten upon ii; for the reason that nearly an that has
been written has been inspired by partially for
only half tcnable theory The question whether
there ever lived such person as Arthur not has
import so long the legends remain scientifically
classified. But ii is an important question whether
we are to swallow the crude Oriental etymolOges Of
the older scholars like GOerrps the equally crude
interpretations of the Celtic enthusiasts who expect
TO take suggestions from the Koran and the Vulgate
tbs outcome of ancient British mythology.
nr. MOrris's paraphrase into modern English has
led him occasionally iptO strange bunders For
ample, Balm is told by the Irish knight, Our
bat is to the utterance" Probably he thinking
of "a i OutIance" Merlin, after he is imprisoned by
the young is supposed to acknowledge his
f ly by remarkng, Il loved not wisely but too WELL"
thus anticipating modern writer in the use Of what
Is row familiar quotation. We are told of two
knights that they put their spears in the rests" Of
them at next weeks tournament" One Of Artlurs
humber followers is represented enc Of the small
fry of Round-Table knights and Saracen knight is
described an "Tnchristianed villain" Neverthe-
less the volumes neat and readable and doubt
less Will their purpose.