Idylls of the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

First published: 1859–85

Type of work: Poetry

Type of plot: Arthurian romance

Time of plot: Fifth century c.e.

Locale: England

Principal Characters

• King Arthur,
• Queen Guinevere,
• Sir Lancelot, ,
• Gareth, ,
• Geraint, ,
• Balin, ,
• Balan, ,
• Gawain, ,
• Sir Galahad, ,
• Sir Bors, ,
• Sir Pelleas, ,
• Sir Percivale, ,
• Sir Modred, ,
• Sir Tristram, and
• Sir Bedivere, Knights of the Round Table
• Merlin, a magician
• Lynette, the wife of Gareth
• Enid, the wife of Geraint
• Vivien, an enchantress
• Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat
• Ettarre, a woman loved by Pelleas and Gawain
• Isolt, of the white hands, Tristram’s wife

The Poem

The Coming of Arthur. Gorlois and Ygerne bear one daughter, Bellicent. King Uther overcomes Gorlois in battle and forces the widow to marry him immediately. Shortly afterward, King Uther dies. Ygerne’s son, Arthur, is born at a time when he could have been the son of Gorlois or the son of Uther. The birth of Arthur is shrouded in great mystery. Merlin the magician rears the prince until it is time for him to take over Uther’s kingdom and to receive from the Lady of the Lake the magic sword, Excalibur. After the marriage of Arthur and Guinevere, the king and his loyal Knights of the Round Table, in twelve battles, drive the enemy out of the kingdom.

Gareth and Lynette. Bellicent, Arthur’s sister, allows her youngest son to join his two brothers at King Arthur’s court on the condition that Gareth serve as a kitchen knave under the surly directions of Sir Kay, the seneschal. When the young boy presents himself to King Arthur, Gareth makes the king promise to give him the first quest that comes along. One day, Lynette comes to the court asking for Sir Lancelot to save her sister from wicked knights who hold her captive. King Arthur sends Gareth with Lynette, who grumbles disdainfully at the kitchen knave ordered to serve her.

The first knight Gareth overcomes is the Morning Star. Lynette still sneers at the knave. After Gareth defeats another knight, Lynette begins to relent. When he conquers a third strong knight, she allows him to ride at her side. Next, Gareth encounters a terrible knight, Death, who proves to be a mere boy forced by his brothers to assume a fierce appearance. Gareth returns to the Round Table victorious and marries Lynette.

The Marriage of Geraint and Enid. Geraint, on a quest for Guinevere, comes to the impoverished castle of Earl Yniol and his daughter Enid, a woman whose faded brocades speak of former wealth and family pride. There, Geraint learns that the rejected suitor of Enid caused the ruin of Yniol. The earl gives Geraint Enid for his wife.

Geraint, fearing that the sin of the queen’s love for Lancelot will taint Enid’s love, goes to his own castle and there idles away the hours in company with his wife until neighbors begin to gossip that Geraint has lost his courage. Enid fears to tell her lord about the gossip, and Geraint, observing her strange attitude, decides that she has fallen in love with some Knight of the Round Table. One morning, bidding Enid to don her faded brocade gown, Geraint sets out with his wife after ordering her not to speak to him. Riding ahead of Geraint, Enid encounters men who would attack her husband, and each time, she breaks his command by warning him of his danger. After a while, Enid is able to prove her love to her suspicious husband. They return to Camelot, where Guinevere warmly welcomes Enid to the court.

Balin and Balan. Balan leaves Balin, his mad brother, and goes on a mission to quell King Pellam, who refuses to pay his yearly tribute to King Arthur. With his brother gone, Balin is left alone in his gloomy moods. He worships the purity of Lancelot and the faithfulness of Guinevere until, one day, he sees his two idols speaking familiarly in the garden. Disillusioned, Balin flees to the woods. There, he meets Vivien, a wanton woman of the court, who poisons his mind against Lancelot and Guinevere. He leaves, hanging on a tree the shield Guinevere gave him years before. Hearing Balin’s mad shrieks among the trees, Balan rushes out to seek Balin. In the ensuing struggle, Balin kills Balan and then is crushed by his own horse.

Merlin and Vivien. Vain and coquettish Vivien sets out to ensnare the most chivalric man in all the kingdom, King Arthur, but her wiles fail to win the attention of a king whose mind can harbor no evil thoughts. Vivien then turns to Merlin, who she knows possesses a magic spell. She tries to charm the magician with her beauty, pretending to love the ancient, bearded man, but he knows that she is not to be trusted. When she asks him to teach her the spell, he refuses. Vivien will not be denied. At last, tricked by her beauty, Merlin teaches her his magic powers. She enchants him and causes him to disappear forever, a prisoner in a hollow tree.

Lancelot and Elaine. Lancelot in disguise goes to Astolat, where he leaves his shield with Elaine and rides off with her brother Lavaine to the tournaments. Lancelot wins the jousts. Then, wounded, he flees before anyone can discover who he is. King Arthur sends Gawain to search for the winner of the tournament. Gawain rides to Astolat, where he lingers because he has fallen in love with Elaine. She tells him that she loves the knight who left his shield with her. When Gawain sees the shield, he identifies it as that of Lancelot.

Elaine nurses Lancelot back to health in the hope that he will return her love. Recovered, he sadly tells her that he can never marry any woman. After he leaves, Elaine becomes ill and finally dies of grief. Her dying wish is to be put into a boat and sent to Camelot.

In Camelot, Guinevere coldly rejects Lancelot, for Gawain tells of the affair between Lancelot and Elaine. When the body of Elaine floats to Camelot, King Arthur and Lancelot find the beautiful maiden in her boat, a letter to Lancelot in her hand. Lancelot authorizes a fitting burial for the lily maid. He unhappily laments his hopeless love for the queen.

The Holy Grail. One day while Sir Galahad, the youngest and purest of all the knights, sits in Merlin’s chair, the Holy Grail descends upon the Round Table in a flash and then is gone. When the knights swear to go on a quest for the Holy Grail, King Arthur gloomily predicts that the search will end in disaster for many of his knights because none is pure enough, save Galahad or Percivale, to see the holy vessel.

To Galahad the Grail appears in all its splendor. Percivale, who follows him, also sees the holy sign. Sir Bors returns to King Arthur to report that he viewed the Grail, but Lancelot saw only a sign of it. Some of the other knights never return to the Round Table from their perilous quest.

Pelleas and Ettarre. Pelleas gives Ettarre a trophy he won in a tournament, but she, scorning the young knight, bars him from her court. Gawain, meeting Pelleas in his despair, offers to help him. After telling the knight to hide in the forest, Gawain goes to Ettarre and tells her he killed Pelleas. As the days pass, Pelleas becomes impatient. One night, stealing into the castle, he finds Gawain and Ettarre sleeping together and places his naked sword across the throats of the sleeping lovers. Then, in a mad rage, he rides through the forest until he meets Percivale, who accidentally reveals to Pelleas the scandal about Lancelot and Guinevere. Disillusioned, the young knight returns to the Round Table, where his rude manner to the queen foreshadows evil to Lancelot and Guinevere. Sir Modred sees that the ruin of the Round Table is near at hand.

The Last Tournament. To a tournament at Camelot comes Tristram, who left his bride, Isolt of the white hands. Her name is the same as that of his beloved, Isolt, the wife of King Mark of Cornwall. Lancelot, laboring under the guilt of his sinful love for Guinevere, decides to fight with the similarly guilty Tristram, who wins the tournament. Tristram then goes to Isolt of Cornwall. King Mark is away on a hunting trip. He returns unexpectedly, finds the lovers together, and kills Tristram.

In the north, a knight rebels against King Arthur’s rule and charges that the Round Table is a thing of falseness and guilt, where harlots and adulterers live disguised as ladies and knights. King Arthur rides to quell the revolt, and the guilty man is killed, but King Arthur is heavy in heart when he returns to Camelot.

Guinevere. Fearing exposure of her love for Lancelot, Guinevere asks him to leave Camelot. On the night of their farewell, Modred traps the lovers together, and Guinevere, feeling that she is shamed forever, goes to Almesbury and takes refuge in a nunnery. There, she recalls how Lancelot brought her from her father’s home to marry Arthur, how she thought Arthur cold, and how she fell in love with the courtly, outgoing Lancelot.

King Arthur goes to Almesbury. To Guinevere, he speaks of his pride in the marvelous ideals that the Round Table upheld and that Guinevere inspired. Now all is lost, but he forgives Guinevere before he goes off to fight against Modred and his traitor knights.

Filled with remorse, Guinevere asks the nuns to accept her in their order. There, she gives her services until they make her abbess. After three years in that rank, she dies.

The Passing of Arthur. In Modred’s revolt, King Arthur is mortally wounded. As he lies dying, he tells Sir Bedivere to cast the sword Excalibur into the lake. When Bedivere finally brings to King Arthur the tale that amid flashing and strange sights an arm reached out from the lake to receive the sword, King Arthur knows that Bedivere has truly sent Excalibur back to the Lady of the Lake. Next, King Arthur tells Bedivere to carry him to the shore. There, three maidens come in a barge to take King Arthur away. As Bedivere stands weeping, King Arthur assures him that the old order of the Round Table must pass to give way to something new.

King Arthur passes, in the manner of his legendary beginning, back across the waters to Avalon, but many men believe that someday he will return to his people in their need. Bedivere watches on the shore until the wintry dawn breaks, bringing a new year.

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