Idylls of the King (Unabridged). Alfred Tennyson

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СКАЧАТЬ There stands the third fool of their allegory.’

      For there beyond a bridge of treble bow,

       All in a rose-red from the west, and all

       Naked it seemed, and glowing in the broad

       Deep-dimpled current underneath, the knight,

       That named himself the Star of Evening, stood.

      And Gareth, ‘Wherefore waits the madman there

       Naked in open dayshine?’ ‘Nay,’ she cried,

       ‘Not naked, only wrapt in hardened skins

       That fit him like his own; and so ye cleave

       His armour off him, these will turn the blade.’

      Then the third brother shouted o’er the bridge,

       ‘O brother-star, why shine ye here so low?

       Thy ward is higher up: but have ye slain

       The damsel’s champion?’ and the damsel cried,

      ‘No star of thine, but shot from Arthur’s heaven

       With all disaster unto thine and thee!

       For both thy younger brethren have gone down

       Before this youth; and so wilt thou, Sir Star;

       Art thou not old?’

       ‘Old, damsel, old and hard,

       Old, with the might and breath of twenty boys.’

       Said Gareth, ‘Old, and over-bold in brag!

       But that same strength which threw the Morning Star

       Can throw the Evening.’

      Then that other blew

       A hard and deadly note upon the horn.

       ‘Approach and arm me!’ With slow steps from out

       An old storm-beaten, russet, many-stained

       Pavilion, forth a grizzled damsel came,

       And armed him in old arms, and brought a helm

       With but a drying evergreen for crest,

       And gave a shield whereon the Star of Even

       Half-tarnished and half-bright, his emblem, shone.

       But when it glittered o’er the saddle-bow,

       They madly hurled together on the bridge;

       And Gareth overthrew him, lighted, drew,

       There met him drawn, and overthrew him again,

       But up like fire he started: and as oft

       As Gareth brought him grovelling on his knees,

       So many a time he vaulted up again;

       Till Gareth panted hard, and his great heart,

       Foredooming all his trouble was in vain,

       Laboured within him, for he seemed as one

       That all in later, sadder age begins

       To war against ill uses of a life,

       But these from all his life arise, and cry,

       ‘Thou hast made us lords, and canst not put us down!’

       He half despairs; so Gareth seemed to strike

       Vainly, the damsel clamouring all the while,

       ‘Well done, knave-knight, well-stricken, O good knight-knave —

       O knave, as noble as any of all the knights —

       Shame me not, shame me not. I have prophesied —

       Strike, thou art worthy of the Table Round —

       His arms are old, he trusts the hardened skin —

       Strike — strike — the wind will never change again.’

       And Gareth hearing ever stronglier smote,

       And hewed great pieces of his armour off him,

       But lashed in vain against the hardened skin,

       And could not wholly bring him under, more

       Than loud Southwesterns, rolling ridge on ridge,

       The buoy that rides at sea, and dips and springs

       For ever; till at length Sir Gareth’s brand

       Clashed his, and brake it utterly to the hilt.

       ‘I have thee now;’ but forth that other sprang,

       And, all unknightlike, writhed his wiry arms

       Around him, till he felt, despite his mail,

       Strangled, but straining even his uttermost

       Cast, and so hurled him headlong o’er the bridge

       Down to the river, sink or swim, and cried,

       ‘Lead, and I follow.’

      But the damsel said,

       ‘I lead no longer; ride thou at my side;

       Thou art the kingliest of all kitchen-knaves.

      ‘“O trefoil, sparkling on the rainy plain,

       O rainbow with three colours after rain,

       Shine sweetly: thrice my love hath smiled on me.”

      ‘Sir — and, good faith, I fain had added — Knight,

       But that I heard thee call thyself a knave —

       Shamed am I that I so rebuked, reviled,

       Missaid thee; noble I am; and thought the King

       Scorned me and mine; and now thy pardon, friend,

       For thou hast ever answered courteously,

       And wholly bold thou art, and meek withal

       As any of Arthur’s best, but, being knave,

       Hast mazed my wit: I marvel what thou art.’

      ‘Damsel,’ he said, ‘you be not all to blame,

       Saving that you mistrusted our good King

       Would handle scorn, or yield you, asking, one

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