Chapter Mornay to Morte d'Arthur of M by Brewer's Readers Handbook

The difference of style in the third part is very striking. The end of ch. 44, pt. i. is manifestly the close of a romance. It is a pity that each romance is not marked by some formal indication, thus, pt. i. bk. I, etc.; and each book might be subdivided into chapters.

This book was finished the ninth year of the reign of king Edward IV. by sir Thomas Malory, knight. Thus endeth this noble and joyous book, entitled La Morte d’ Arthur, notwithstanding it treateth of the birth, life, and acts of the said king Arthur, and of his noble knights of the Round Table … and the achieving of the holy Sancgreall, and in the end the dolorous death and departing out of the world of them all.—Concluding paragraph.

Morte d’Arthur, by Tennyson. The poet supposes Arthur (wounded in the great battle of the West) to be borne off the field by sir Bedivere. The wounded monarch directed sir Bedivere to cast Excalibur into the mere. Twice the knight disobeyed the command, intending to save the sword; but the dying king detected the fraud, and insisted on being obeyed. So sir Bedivere cast the sword into the mere, and “an arm, clothed in white samite, caught it by the hilt, brandished it three times, and drew it into the mere.” Sir Bedivere then carried the dying king to a barge, in which were three queens, who conveyed him to the island-valley of Avilion, “where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow, nor ever wind blows loudly.” Here was he taken to be healed of his grievous wound; but whether he lived or died we are not told.

The idyll called The Passing of Arthur is verbatim like the Morte d’Arthur, with an introduction tacked on; but from “So all day long …” (twelfth paragraph) to the line, “So on the mere the wailing died away” (about 270 lines), the two are identical.

This idyll is merely chs. 167, 168 (pt. iii.) of the History of Prince Arthur compiled by sir T. Malory, put into metre, much being a verbatim rendering. (See Notes and Queries, July 13, 1878, where the parallels are shown paragraph by paragraph.)