Chapter CLIV: Section II: Arthur

No Keltic name approaches in renown to that of the central figure of the Round Table; yet, in the very dazzle of his brightness, his person has been so much lost, that, as the author of _Welsh Sketches_ observes, “Whereas Peter Schlemihl lost his shadow, Arthur has lost his substance.”

To begin with his name. He may have been a Romanized Briton named from Arctus, “Arthur’s slow wain rolling his course round the pole,” and Arcturus, the bear’s-tail, far behind him in Boötes; and Arth, perhaps from them, does indeed mean a bear in British.

Ard, the consonant softening into _th_ in composition, means high or noble, in all the Keltic tongues but Welsh, and had been a name from time immemorial in Ireland, as Scott knew when he made the Bertram family tree bear fruit of Arths in fabulous ages. Art, a Milesian, is said to have lived B.C. 233; Art MacCormac appears in the Ossianic legends, “Art Oge MacMorne kept Dundorme;” according to Hanmer’s catalogue of Finn MacCoul’s comrades, Art and Arth recur for ever in Erse Highland pedigree; and in the end of the fourteenth century, Art MacMorough was the great hero of Ireland, who slew Roger Mortimer, and sorely puzzled Richard II., reigned in Leinster for forty years, and cost the English treasury twelve million marcs; so that when he died,

“Since Brien’s death in Erin
Such a mourning had not been.”

Arthmael, bear’s servant or worshipper, was a Welsh prince, but here, as in Ireland, all the Arths are now merged in Arthur.

Ardghal, or Ardal, of high valour, is an Erse name, and was long used, though it has now been suppressed by the supposed Anglicism Arnold, eagle-power. It explains the name of Arthgallo, who, in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s legendary history, is the persecuting brother, whom Elidure’s untiring love and generosity finally won from his cruel courses to justice and mercy. _Artegal and Elidure_ was one of the best ante-Shakesperian dramas; and Artegal was selected by Spenser as one of the best and noblest of his knights-errant, representing Arthur Lord Grey.

Ardrigh was an Erse term for the supreme monarch over their five lesser realms, and is still applied by the native Irish to the king of France,—much as the Greeks were wont to style the Persian monarch the Great King. This most probably accounts for the term Arviragus, which we picked up by the Romans, and applied to that son of Cymbeline who was really the brave Caradwg. Ardheer is another form of this same title of the highest chief, and the later critics tell us to consider this as the origin of our hero.

He is not, indeed, mentioned by Gildas, unless he be the “dragon of the island;” but his omission from that letter is only to his credit, and the individuality of Arthur stands on the testimony of Welsh bards up to his own date, and of universal tradition.

Arthur, or Arthwys, seems to have been the son of Uthyr, and Emrys, whom he succeeded, bearing the title of Pendragon in his own tongue, and of Imperator in Latin, which was the language of politics to the Britons. A Silurian like Caradwg, his spirit was the same, and his hereditary possessions would seem to have been on the Welsh border, with Caerleon on Uske for their capital; but he was born at Tintagel in Cornwall, and he was prompt in flying to the aid of the British cause in all quarters. The West Saxons were his chief enemies, and his battles, twelve in number, are almost all in the kingdom of Wessex; but he must also have been acknowledged by the northern Britons of the old province of Valentia, and have ruled over “fair Strathclyde and Reged wide” from his fortress at Carlisle. After a brave reign of forty years, he at length perished through the treachery of his nephew; but whether his last fatal battle was fought in Strathclyde, Cornwall, or in Somerset, it seems impossible to determine.

The Cymry mourned passionately. The Welsh bards made _Triads_, and the Armoricans sang songs.

Nennius mentions Arthur in the sixth century.

In 720, a person called Eremita Britannus, or the British hermit, is said to have written about King Arthur; the Welsh _Mabinogion_, or children’s tales, were all centering on him; and when, in the early part of the twelfth century, Geoffrey of Monmouth brought out his chronicle, it was translated all over Europe, even into Greek, and furnished myriads of romances, metrical and otherwise.

The outline of the Arthur of romance scarcely needs to be here traced; the prince, brought up in concealment, establishing his claim by pulling the sword out of the stone whence no one else could detach it; the Christian warrior, conquering all around, and extending his victories to Rome; the band of Knights; the vow and quest of the Holy Grail that breaks the earthly league; the fall and defection of the two most accomplished knights through unhallowed love, the death of one, and the rebellion of the other, the lover of Arthur’s own faithless wife,—all opening the way to the fatal treason of the nephew; and the last battle, when the wounded king causes his sword to be thrown into the river, as a signal to the fairies, who bear him away to their hidden isle. All this is our own peculiar insular heritage of romance, ennobled as it has been by old Mallory’s prose in the fifteenth century, and in the nineteenth by Tennyson’s poetry, the best of all the interpretations of the import of Arthur himself.

As to his name, it was not very common even in Wales. It only came forth as a matter of romance, and was given occasionally either from fancy or policy.

Constance of Brittany gave her little son this popular name, perhaps in the hope that in time British Arthur would be restored to England, and thenceforth Arzur, as the Bretons call it, was occasionally used in the duchy.

An old prophecy of Merlin was said to have declared that Richmond should come from Brittany to conquer England, and this prediction caused Henry V. to refuse all requests to allow Arthur, Comte de Richemont, son of the Duke of Brittany, to be ransomed when taken prisoner at Agincourt. His name of Arthur no doubt added to the danger, and Henry’s keen eyesight might have likewise detected in him the military skill which made him so formidable an enemy to the English on his own soil, not theirs.

When Richmond really came out of Brittany and conquered England, he named his first son Arthur, but that son never wore the British crown, nor did the infant Arthur of Scotland, so named by James V., survive to be known in history. Arthur, however, had become an occasional name; but it was reserved for the great Arthur Wellesley, whose name had perhaps more to do with the old Art of Erse times than with the king of the Round Table, to make it, as it is at present, one of the most universally popular of English names. Even the French use it, for its sound, it may be presumed, rather than for its recent distinction, and they have ceased to spell it in the old form, Artus, and adopted our own. The Italians know, but do not use, Arturo; however, the name changes so little that Madame Schopenhauer’s husband was justified in choosing it for his son as a useful name for a merchant, because it does not alter in being translated.

The English feminine Arthurine is occasionally used.