Wednesday with Words: Idylls, Continued

I began my quotations from Tennyson's Idylls of the King here, so now I am up to Geraint and Enid.  Oddly, I highlighted nothing from that Idyll.  Balin and Balan is up next with this one quote, rather grim foreshadowing, in my opinion.  There wasn't much joy in this section at all, really.

Then turning to her Squire 'This fire of Heaven,
This old sun-worship, boy, will rise again,
And beat the cross to earth, and break the King
And all his Table.'

Merlin and Vivien was a maddening story, truly.  I wanted to scream at them both!  But here you go...

'They place their pride in Lancelot and the Queen.

So passionate for an utter purity

Beyond the limit of their bond, are these,

For Arthur bound them not to singleness.

 Brave hearts and clean! and yet--God guide

them--young.'

"Is that the Lancelot? goodly--ay, but gaunt:
Courteous--amends for gauntess--takes her hand--
That glance of theirs, but for the street, had been
A clinging kiss--how hand lingers in hand!
Let go at last!--they ride away--to hawk
For waterfowl. Royal game is mine." 

Dun, dun, DUN!!  Then, Merlin, in his "relationship" with Vivien, which led to his demise.

thus he grew
Tolerant of what he half disdained,

(By the way, each paragraph break means a totally separate quote.  I need to figure out how to put them in quote boxes to make it clear there is a lot of story between each.)

And Vivien ever sought to work the charm
Upon the great Enchanter of the Time,
As fancying that her glory would be great
According to his greatness whom she quenched.

I think ye hardly know the tender rhyme
Of "rust me not at all or all in all"

What did the wanton say?
"Not mount as high;" we scarce can sink as low:
For men at most differ as Heaven and earth,
But women, worst and best, as Heaven and Hell.

Not me, of course. (I'm level-headed and perfect. Haha!) But those other women out there.  Then spake Merlin:

Yea, they would pare the mountain to the plain,
To leave an equal baseness; and in this
Are harlots like the crowd, that if they find
Some stain or blemish in a name of note,
Not grieving that their greatest are so small,
Inflate themselves with some insane delight,
And judge all nature from her feet of clay,
Without the will to lift their eyes, and see
Her godlike head crowned with spiritual fire,
And touching other worlds. I am weary of her.'

 Weary of her he may have been, but he didn't run away screaming like he ought to have done!

Luna(r) moth, 2008.
(Posting because it was mentioned in Then They Were Five, which we just finished reading.)