Idylls of the King · Balin and Balan (1/2)

Balin and Balan

Pellam the King, who held and lost with Lot

In that first war, and had his realm restored

But rendered tributary, failed of late

To send his tribute; wherefore Arthur called

His treasurer, one of many years, and spake,

“Go thou with him and him and bring it to us,

Lest we should set one truer on his throne.

Man’s word is God in man.”

His Baron said

“We go but harken: there be two strange knights

Who sit near Camelot at a fountain-side,

A mile beneath the forest, challenging

And overthrowing every knight who comes.

Wilt thou I undertake them as we pass,

And send them to thee?”

Arthur laughed upon him.

“Old friend, too old to be so young, depart,

Delay not thou for aught, but let them sit,

Until they find a lustier than themselves.”

So these departed. Early, one fair dawn,

The light-winged spirit of his youth returned

On Arthur’s heart; he armed himself and went,

So coming to the fountain-side beheld

Balin and Balan sitting statuelike,

Brethren, to right and left the spring, that down,

From underneath a plume of lady-fern,

Sang, and the sand danced at the bottom of it.

And on the right of Balin Balin’s horse

Was fast beside an alder, on the left

Of Balan Balan’s near a poplartree.

“Fair Sirs,” said Arthur, “wherefore sit ye here?”

Balin and Balan answered “For the sake

Of glory; we be mightier men than all

In Arthur’s court; that also have we proved;

For whatsoever knight against us came

Or I or he have easily overthrown.”

“I too,” said Arthur, “am of Arthur’s hall,

But rather proven in his Paynim wars

Than famous jousts; but see, or proven or not,

Whether me likewise ye can overthrow.”

And Arthur lightly smote the brethren down,

And lightly so returned, and no man knew.

Then Balin rose, and Balan, and beside

The carolling water set themselves again,

And spake no word until the shadow turned;

When from the fringe of coppice round them burst

A spangled pursuivant, and crying “Sirs,

Rise, follow! ye be sent for by the King,”

They followed; whom when Arthur seeing asked

“Tell me your names; why sat ye by the well?”

Balin the stillness of a minute broke

Saying “An unmelodious name to thee,

Balin, ‘the Savage’⁠—that addition thine⁠—

My brother and my better, this man here,

Balan. I smote upon the naked skull

A thrall of thine in open hall, my hand

Was gauntleted, half slew him; for I heard

He had spoken evil of me; thy just wrath

Sent me a three-years’ exile from thine eyes.

I have not lived my life delightsomely:

For I that did that violence to thy thrall,

Had often wrought some fury on myself,

Saving for Balan: those three kingless years

Have past⁠—were wormwood-bitter to me. King,

Methought that if we sat beside the well,

And hurled to ground what knight soever spurred

Against us, thou would’st take me gladlier back,

And make, as ten-times worthier to be thine

Than twenty Balins, Balan knight. I have said.

Not so⁠—not all. A man of thine today

Abashed us both, and brake my boast. Thy will?”

Said Arthur “Thou hast ever spoken truth;

Thy too fierce manhood would not let thee lie.

Rise, my true knight. As children learn, be thou

Wiser for falling! walk with me, and move

To music with thine Order and the King.

Thy chair, a grief to all the brethren, stands

Vacant, but thou retake it, mine again!”

Thereafter, when Sir Balin entered hall,

The Lost one Found was greeted as in Heaven

With joy that blazed itself in woodland wealth

Of leaf, and gayest garlandage of flowers,

Along the walls and down the board; they sat,

And cup clashed cup; they drank and someone sang,

Sweet-voiced, a song of welcome, whereupon

Their common shout in chorus, mounting, made

Those banners of twelve battles overhead

Stir, as they stirred of old, when Arthur’s host

Proclaimed him Victor, and the day was won.

Then Balan added to their Order lived

A wealthier life than heretofore with these

And Balin, till their embassage returned.

“Sir King,” they brought report, “we hardly found,

So bushed about it is with gloom, the hall

Of him to whom ye sent us, Pellam, once

A Christless foe of thine as ever dashed

Horse against horse; but seeing that thy realm

Hath prospered in the name of Christ, the King

Took, as in rival heat, to holy things;

And finds himself descended from the Saint

Arimathaean Joseph; him who first

Brought the great faith to Britain over seas;

He boasts his life as purer than thine own;

Eats scarce enow to keep his pulse abeat;

Hath pushed aside his faithful wife, nor lets

Or dame or damsel enter at his gates

Lest he should be polluted. This gray King

Showed us a shrine wherein were wonders⁠—yea⁠—

Rich arks with priceless bones of martyrdom,

Thorns of the crown and shivers of the cross,

And therewithal (for thus he told us) brought

By holy Joseph thither, that same spear

Wherewith the Roman pierced the side of Christ.

He much amazed us; after, when we sought

The tribute, answered ‘I have quite foregone

All matters of this world: Garlon, mine heir,

Of him demand it,’ which this Garlon gave

With much ado, railing at thine and thee.

“But when we left, in those deep woods we found

A knight of thine spear-stricken from behind,

Dead, whom we buried; more than one of us

Cried out on Garlon, but a woodman there

Reported of some demon in the woods

Was once a man, who driven by evil tongues

From all his fellows, lived alone, and came

To learn black magic, and to hate his kind

With such a hate, that when he died, his soul

Became a Fiend, which, as the man in life

Was wounded by blind tongues he saw not whence,

Strikes from behind. This woodman showed the cave

From which he sallies, and wherein he dwelt.

We saw the hoof-print of a horse, no more.”

Then Arthur, “Let who goes before me, see

He do not fall behind me: foully slain

And villainously! who will hunt for me

This demon of the woods?” Said Balan, “I!”

So claimed the quest and rode away, but first,

Embracing Balin, “Good my brother, hear!

Let not thy moods prevail, when I am gone

Who used to lay them! hold them outer fiends,

Who leap at thee to tear thee; shake them aside,

Dreams ruling when wit sleeps! yea, but to dream

That any of these would wrong thee, wrongs thyself.

Witness their flowery welcome. Bound are they

To speak no evil. Truly save for fears,

My fears for thee, so rich a fellowship

Would make me wholly blest: thou one of them,

Be one indeed: consider them, and all

Their bearing in their common bond of love,

No more of hatred than in Heaven itself,

No more of jealousy than in Paradise.”

So Balan warned, and went; Balin remained:

Who⁠—for but three brief moons had glanced away

From being knighted till he smote the thrall,

And faded from the presence into years

Of exile⁠—now would strictlier set himself

To learn what Arthur meant by courtesy,

Manhood, and knighthood; wherefore hovered round

Lancelot, but when he marked his high sweet smile

In passing, and a transitory word

Make knight or churl or child or damsel seem

From being smiled at happier in themselves⁠—

Sighed, as a boy lame-born beneath a height,

That glooms his valley, sighs to see the peak

Sun-flushed, or touch at night the northern star;

For one from out his village lately climed

And brought report of azure lands and fair,

Far seen to left and right; and he himself

Hath hardly scaled with help a hundred feet

Up from the base: so Balin marvelling oft

How far beyond him Lancelot seemed to move,

Groaned, and at times would mutter, “These be gifts,

Born with the blood, not learnable, divine,

Beyond my reach. Well had I foughten⁠—well⁠—

In those fierce wars, struck hard⁠—and had I crowned

With my slain self the heaps of whom I slew⁠—

So⁠—better!⁠—But this worship of the Queen,

That honour too wherein she holds him⁠—this,

This was the sunshine that hath given the man

A growth, a name that branches o’er the rest,

And strength against all odds, and what the King

So prizes⁠—overprizes⁠—gentleness.

Her likewise would I worship an I might.

I never can be close with her, as he

That brought her hither. Shall I pray the King

To let me bear some token of his Queen

Whereon to gaze, remembering her⁠—forget

My heats and violences? live afresh?

What, if the Queen disdained to grant it! nay

Being so stately-gentle, would she make

My darkness blackness? and with how sweet grace

She greeted my return! Bold will I be⁠—

Some goodly cognizance of Guinevere,

In lieu of this rough beast upon my shield,

Langued gules, and toothed with grinning savagery.”

And Arthur, when Sir Balin sought him, said

“What wilt thou bear?” Balin was bold, and asked

To bear her own crown-royal upon shield,

Whereat she smiled and turned her to the King,

Who answered “Thou shalt put the crown to use.

The crown is but the shadow of the King,

And this a shadow’s shadow, let him have it,

So this will help him of his violences!”

“No shadow,” said Sir Balin, “O my Queen,

But light to me! no shadow, O my King,

But golden earnest of a gentler life!”

So Balin bare the crown, and all the knights

Approved him, and the Queen, and all the world

Made music, and he felt his being move

In music with his Order, and the King.

The nightingale, full-toned in middle May,

Hath ever and anon a note so thin

It seems another voice in other groves;

Thus, after some quick burst of sudden wrath,

The music in him seemed to change, and grow

Faint and far-off.

And once he saw the thrall

His passion half had gauntleted to death,

That causer of his banishment and shame,

Smile at him, as he deemed, presumptuously:

His arm half rose to strike again, but fell:

The memory of that cognizance on shield

Weighted it down, but in himself he moaned:

“Too high this mount of Camelot for me:

These high-set courtesies are not for me.

Shall I not rather prove the worse for these?

Fierier and stormier from restraining, break

Into some madness even before the Queen?”

Thus, as a hearth lit in a mountain home,

And glancing on the window, when the gloom

Of twilight deepens round it, seems a flame

That rages in the woodland far below,

So when his moods were darkened, court and King

And all the kindly warmth of Arthur’s hall

Shadowed an angry distance: yet he strove

To learn the graces of their Table, fought

Hard with himself, and seemed at length in peace.

Then chanced, one morning, that Sir Balin sat

Close-bowered in that garden nigh the hall.

A walk of roses ran from door to door;

A walk of lilies crost it to the bower:

And down that range of roses the great Queen

Came with slow steps, the morning on her face;

And all in shadow from the counter door

Sir Lancelot as to meet her, then at once,

As if he saw not, glanced aside, and paced

The long white walk of lilies toward the bower.

Followed the Queen; Sir Balin heard her “Prince,

Art thou so little loyal to thy Queen,

As pass without good morrow to thy Queen?”

To whom Sir Lancelot with his eyes on earth,

“Fain would I still be loyal to the Queen.”

“Yea so,” she said, “but so to pass me by⁠—

So loyal scarce is loyal to thyself,

Whom all men rate the king of courtesy.

Let be: ye stand, fair lord, as in a dream.”

Then Lancelot with his hand among the flowers

“Yea⁠—for a dream. Last night methought I saw

That maiden Saint who stands with lily in hand

In yonder shrine. All round her prest the dark,

And all the light upon her silver face

Flowed from the spiritual lily that she held.

Lo! these her emblems drew mine eyes⁠—away:

For see, how perfect-pure! As light a flush

As hardly tints the blossom of the quince

Would mar their charm of stainless maidenhood.”

“Sweeter to me,” she said, “this garden rose

Deep-hued and many-folded! sweeter still

The wild-wood hyacinth and the bloom of May.

Prince, we have ridden before among the flowers

In those fair days⁠—not all as cool as these,

Though season-earlier. Art thou sad? or sick?

Our noble King will send thee his own leech⁠—

Sick? or for any matter angered at me?”

Then Lancelot lifted his large eyes; they dwelt

Deep-tranced on hers, and could not fall: her hue

Changed at his gaze: so turning side by side

They past, and Balin started from his bower.

“Queen? subject? but I see not what I see.

Damsel and lover? hear not what I hear.

My father hath begotten me in his wrath.

I suffer from the things before me, know,

Learn nothing; am not worthy to be knight;

A churl, a clown!” and in him gloom on gloom

Deepened: he sharply caught his lance and shield,

Nor stayed to crave permission of the King,

But, mad for strange adventure, dashed away.