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The Court of King Arthur was, as we have seen, the continuation of an early Christian Mystery School. The Court met annually at Pentecost in one or another of four great Castles: at Camelot, Caerleon, Winchester and Windsor. Camelot was the most celebrated of the four.
The knights who came to the King to dedicate themselves in his service and eventually to the search for the Holy Grail were in truth dedicating themselves to the Christ of the Mysteries. Their aspiration was to achieve spiritual wisdom and to demonstrate anew the far-reaching powers of the Immortal Twelve.
At the inmost heart of chivalry was the Mystery of the Lady, whose image the King bore on his banner, for, contrary to accepted opinion, there is much to show that Lady-worship goes back farther than the Middle Ages, although the Middle Ages gave the cult a new form and a new impetus.
The reverence for the Lady goes back in fact to the cult of the great Mother Goddess, which has always been the basic love-cult of the nations and the ages. Even the patriarchal society of Hebrew Palestine could not wholly expunge it, and in the Kabbala, as well as in the Wisdom literature of the Bible the Divine Feminine peeps as through a veil in the likeness of Isis, Mother of Wisdom, in the mystery of Shekinah, "She who inspires the Prophets." Wherever men meditate on high and holy things, says the Zohar, the Shekinah is present with them. Neither Britons, Celts, Goths nor Saxons felt any need to dethrone the Divine Feminine, for they simply identified their own great Goddess with the Virgin Mary, or the Sophia of the Greeks, or the Shekinah of the Hebrews.
The Knights Templar named their Lodges after the Virgin Mary; while in civilian life, the troubadours revered the Lady of the Castle as being made in Mary's image and likeness, even as all mankind is ideally made in the image and likeness of God. And as the monk looked upon his Superior as the representative of Christ, so the knight, fighting the battles of the world, looked upon the Lady as the representative of Mary.
Each knight pledged his devotion to some particular Lady who, by convention, was beautiful, pure and good, as well as wise, and capable of conducting the defense of her castle if the Lord were away. The knight wore his Lady's favor-her colors-on his sleeve or attached to his shield in the jousts and tournaments.
The tournaments were war games which were engaged in by companies of knights. These knights still held to the old teaching of the sanctity of the body as the temple in which the human spirit dwelt as a god, and the tests of athletic and military skill were in the nature of a sacred exercise. At these jousts and tournaments the Ladies were enthusiastic spectators, and were oftentimes chosen as judges to qecide the victor, for they had been thoroughly drilled in all the rules and regulations governing tournaments — an impprtant part of the education of every gently-reared lady!
We shall endeavor to lift the beautiful veil of symbology which conceals the deep inner spiritual truths concerned in the careers of King Arthur and his knights. As previously stated, Arthur came as a great Master Teacher, and his Court was in every sense a Mystery School founded in the Name of Christ. The episodes described in the "Idylls" of these knights, and including the trials which came to Arthur himself, portray the experiences which life itself metes out to those who set their feet upon the Path of Discipleship.
The experiences of each Knight are closely bound up with those of his Lady. The Lady typifies the feminine or heg.rt principle within the human spirit, which is allied with the emotional nature. Through the emotions the neophyte meets his most subtle tests and temptations, for it is difficult to detach oneself from intense feeling. It is this feminine principle that, so long as the carnal remains alive in man, leads to perdiction. It is the same feminine principle which, when the carnal man has been lifted up and transformed into spiritual power, leads into Paradise.
It was King Arthur's custom to celebrate the high holy days with special festivities. Among these holy days the Easter festival stood highest and holiest, and it was on Good Friday that the dove descended to renew the power and mystery of the Holy Grail for another year in the Castle of Carbonek. Arthur's Table Round was the outward reflection of the Table of the Grail, its secular representative so to speak; and in the sacred hour when the dove descended to the Grail, in that same hour the mystic rose in, or above, the center of the Round Table would glow and become luminous with a light that was whiter than snow and brilliant as the sun. Not every eye beheld this transformation, but to some the vision was given, and the story of the flaming white rose passed from mouth to ear among the knights of the inner circle. The white rose is symbolic of the complete transmutation of all that is human into the divine; and this is the highest meaning of Good Friday.
The Feast of Pentecost, which fell in midsummer, was often celebrated with a brilliant tournament, for it was on the Day of Pentecost that Arthur first gathered his knights about his Table, and each year on the same holy day the knights renewed their oaths. It was on the Day of Pentecost, again, that Galahad first came to Arthur's Court, and it was on Pentecost that Galahad was born.
Christmas and Twelfth Night were also occasions for great celebrations; and it was on the Feast of Twelfth Night that Arthur received his kingly Initiation. These midwinter Feasts are com plementary to the midsummer Feast of Pentecost; while the Feast of St. Michael (Michaelmas) is complementary to the Eastertide.
It is to be noted that the fires of Pentecost — such as descended upon the disciples after Christ's Ascension — are not the same as those powers which reside in the Holy Grail. The Pentecostal flames pertain to the downpouring Fire which is the Father; whereas the power of the Grail belongs to the Christ Mystery, in which the heart becomes an organ of divine illumination under the control of the will. In the Kabbala the secret of Pentecost is figured in the flaming Chariot of Elijah, who also was able to bring down the fires of heaven to consume the sacrifices placed upon the altar.
It was in the summer season at Caerleon on Usk, Arthur holding court there, that the noble Geraint, oversleeping himself on a morning when Arthur and his knights had gone to hunt a white hart in the forest, rode out in his gay attire, but without arms or armor, to a certain place where he might watch the hunt pass. There he found Queen Guinevere and one of her maidens, who invited him to stay with them to watch the hunt. "For on this knoll, if anywhere," she said, "there is good chance that we shall hear the hounds: here often they break covert at our feet."
While they listened for the distant hunt, there passed slowly by on the road below a knight, lady and dwarf; and since the knight's vizor was up, and Guinevere saw that he was a stranger to Arthur's court, she sent her maiden to inquire of the dwarf who his master might be. The dwarf struck at the maiden with his whip, and Geraint therefore went in her place to ask. Receiving the same treatment, he was forced to retreat with a gash in his cheek. Returning to the Queen, Geraint said that he would avenge the insult done to her through her maid, and also to himself, and rode away hoping to find arms so that he might engage the strange knight in battle, having also promised the Queen that if he were one clay to wed he would bring his loved one to Camelot where the Queen would "clothe her with bridals like the sun," even if she were a beggar from the field.
Geraint followed the knight and his companions to a little town in a long valley, where on one side of the valley was a new castle, white from the mason's hand, while on the other was a broken down, and neglected and scarcely habitable ruin. He rode down the street asking for arms, but though the smiths were busy turning out all varieties of armor and arms they refused to part with any, saying that all were needed for a tournament to be held on the morrow. One suggested, however, that perhaps Earl Yniol could provide him with what he needed. Geraint rode across the bridge to the old castle, and was there greeted by Earl Yniol, his wife and his beautiful young daughter Enid, whose voice he had heard in the courtyard as she sang within the castle. Instantly he loved her, saying within himself, "Here by God's grace is the one voice for me."
Tennyson creates, or recreates, a lyric for Enid's song which challenged the wheel of fortune, in which the words, "for man is man and master of his fate," establish the keynote of the story.
Such was Geraint's introduction to a maiden as bright and brave of spirit as she was pure and lovely of body.
Geraint learned that Earl Yniol had been deprived of all his wealth, except for this poor castle in which he lives, by the arrogant young knight whom Geraint had followed to the town, the young knight being his nephew, and he was told of the conditions governing the tournament to be held the next day. Geraint immediately offered to fight as champion for Earl Yniol and Enid, and having received rusted and unused armor from the Earl, he appeared in the tourney against Yniol's nephew, Edryn, son of Nudd. Geraint was victor and sent Edryn to Arthur's Court; then, mindful of his promise to the Queen, he insisted that Enid should ride with him to the Court, dressed only in her faded silk dress, so that Guinevere could clothe her for her wedding. So nobly did Guinevere hold to her promise that Enid was second only to the Queen herself in the glory of her attire, as she was also in the grace and loveliness of her person.
Geraint's adoration of his bride was plain to all. He took joy in beholding her arrayed in costly garments and decked with rare jewels, having eyes for no one and for nothing else.
But already the shadow of Lancelot's illicit love for Guinevere had begun to fall upon the Court and the Round Table, and Geraint, fearing Enid's close companionship with the Queen might be to her hurt, asked Arthur's permission to retire to his own estates, on plea of urgent necessity. There he centered his entire attention, his life's interest, in Enid. He forgot his oath of knighthood and his vow of allegiance to the King's service, living for love alone.
Enid was well named "the good," as well as "the fair." She wept bitterly at this state of affairs saying, "I alone am the cause of his dereliction." Weeping and murmuring above him as he slept by her side, her tears falling upon his chest, Enid failed to observe that Geraint had awakened and, listening with closed eyes, heard her say: "O me, I fear that I am no true wife." These words he took to mean that she had been untrue to their wedded love, "weeping for some gay knight in Arthur's hall."
Wrathfully, then, he commanded her to clothe herself in old garments and go with him into the wilderness. She found, where she had tenderly laid it away, the old silken dress she had first worn to Arthur's Court at Caerleon, and attired in this, with gray veil and mantle, rode with her lord, keeping silence, for he had forbidden her to speak.
Sunk in despair and gloom, riding with head bent, Geraint was unaware of three bandits hiding behind a great rock, but Enid saw them, as she was now riding a little ahead, and determined to speak, to warn him of the ambush. Geraint conquered the three bandits, tied their armor on the backs of their three horses and gave the bridle-reins into Enid's hands and directed her to drive and control them, which she did. This happened yet again, so that Enid was driving twice three horses.
There are three distinct steps or stages upon the Way of Attainment. These are generally termed Probationership, Discipleship and Mastership. The horse symbolizes the animalistic nature or "animal soul" and must always be strictly controlled by the feminine or Love power. The threefold battle with the bandits, twice repeated, all of whom are overcome, signifies the over coming of the lower ambitions and aims which were formerly in the saddle, and their replacement by spiritual objectives in the first two stages mentioned. Geraint, the spiritualized Will, or power-aspect of the ego, warred and overcame; Enid, the Love power and spiritualized understanding, controlled and directed.
There is an important lesson to be learned here, the lesson of discrimination, which every aspirant must learn and in which he is tested over and over again. Geraint had forbidden Enid to speak to him, yet out of her loyalty and love she disobeyed him three times. Similarly the neophyte must determine for himself the right course to pursue in any and every circumstance. He must decide what is the right thing to think, say and do, and then, even though an angel of light urge him otherwise, he must act on his own best understanding. There is absolutely nothing more important to the spiritual life than the ability to discriminate between the good and the bad, the greater good and the lesser good, and to have the courage to carry out the action which conscience then dictates at whatever cost to oneself.
After the trials with the bandits, Geraint and Enid arrived at last before the gates of a great castle in the wilderness. Here Geraint was challenged by a giant whom he must meet in combat. This giant represents what is called in modern occultism "The Dweller on the Threshold," although it is known by other names in myth and legend. This figure is symbolic of the accumulated karma of evil from present and past incarnations. Before the disciple can function at will in the soul world, he must be able to undertake the work of transmuting the essence of past evil which still lingers within his inner being below the threshold of awareness, but it often assumes a symbolical form which the disciple must interpret and understand and promise to redeem. Often the Dweller comes to him under the likeness of a great brooding etheric form which bars his way into the higher soul realms. When the specter is fearlessly confronted and its redemption promised, it vanishes, and the triumphant disciple advances into the Degree of Mastership. His joyous liberation into the inner realms has been accomplished.
It was during this battle with the giant of the castle in the wilderness that Geraint realized Enid's faithfulness and utterly self-sacrificing love; for he was left as one dead, and lying so, heard her conversation with the wild bandit knights in the hall. At last, when the giant earl raised his hand to Enid and slapped her cheek so that she cried out bitterly with pain and humiliation, Geraint could bear no more. He leaped to his feet, seized his sword which lay beside him in the hollow shield, and with a blow severed the brute head from the body. After this they rode together reconciled to Arthur's Hall, where he undertook once more the responsibilities laid upon him by the King, with Enid ever beside him to encourage and advise.
Thereafter Geraint kept the King's justice so surely, yet so compassionately, that the people named him "the Great Prince," and his lady they gratefully called "Enid the Good."
Many lifetimes are necessary to the attainment of the powers of the Initiate. Sometimes the ego's development demands a life in which domestic felicity and companionship are the core of existence. All this is good and noble, but in its very goodness lies a subtle temptation. When the disciple has once dedicated himself to the impersonal life of the Way of Initiation, never again can the limited and limiting personal desires be allowed to take precedence. Human love and companionship may become the central focus of the life, but they can never be made its circumference.
Through the gates of Camelot there came a youth, Pelleas. The fragrance of the fields and the sunshine came with him. "Make me a knight, O Sir King, for I know all the vows of knighthood — and I love!"
Arthur loved this young idealist "whose face shone like a priest of old across the flame of sacrifice kindled by fire from heaven, so glad was he," and instructed Sir Lancelot to guard the ardent youth in his first guest, lest harm befall him.
So together Lancelot and Pelleas set out upon the guest, and in due course came upon a bevy of beautiful maidens, clad in glorious garments, who had lost their way. Ettarre, the fairest, besought Pelleas to guide them to the King and promised that if he were victor in tomorrow's tournament she would be his lady and wear his crown of gold. On the morrow Pelleas won the sword of the victor and placed the circlet of gold upon her head. Then he said: "I am content to see thy face but once a day. I have sworn my vows and thou hast given thy promise. When thou hast seen me strained and sifted to the utmost, thou wilt yield me thy love and know me for thy knight." He then went forth upon his duties and adventures, yet his heart and his mind yearned for Ettare and he took thought for her welfare.
Now it happened that Gawain, the knight who was known as the light of love, passed that way and offered to visit Ettarre at the castle on Pelleas' behalf, saying that he would return in three days "with golden news." When he did not return, Pelleas went in and found Ettarre sleeping in the arms of Gawain, in a lovely garden of roses, the circlet of gold upon her head. Pelleas turned sadly away, scarcely able to contain himself at the sight of his false friend and false love.
We understand at this point that as in the story of Geraint and Enid we found an object lesson concerning the temptations abiding in conjugal faith and felicity, we have here the opposite — the trial of sorrow and suffering through false love and treachery.
Pelleas' first impulse was the base one to destroy the guilty lovers. But by this time he had passed far beyond the stage where such baseness had power over his soul. He remembered his sacred vow of knighthood, which was centered in the spirit of fellowship and brotherhood. That holy vow must rule all lesser interests. His life was not his own, but had been dedicated to the service of all that lives. Now his heart's agony was overcome in the spirit of compassion. He laid his sword gently across their breasts as they slept, a mute sign of his presence and still more of his forgiveness, and left them still asleep.
Sometimes the most important lesson of life must be learned in sorrow. True indeed are the wise words of Mabel Collins: "Before the feet can stand in the presence of the Master they must be washed in the blood of the heart."
Pelleas had reached the place on the Path where he was able to transmute hate into love and to know only forgiveness for those who had wronged him. This high consummation earned him the help of the Three Queens who were Arthur's teachers and who bore the symbolic names of Faith, Hope and Love.
The keynote of Ettarre is given in her own words: "Whoever loves me must have a touch of earth."
Gareth, the son of Lot and Bellicent, desired to become a knight at King Arthur's Court. His mother sought to dissuade him, offering him castles, estates and a beautiful bride in his domain. The youth cried reproachfully: "Oh, Mother, how can you keep me here! For shame! I am a man grown, and a man's work must I do."
On one condition only would she let him go: "Prince, go disguised to Arthur's hall, and hire thyself to serve meats and drinks among the scullions and kitchen knaves." Gareth said: "The thrall in person may be free in soul. I will go."
Attended by two servants who had been with him since birth, he set forth. At last they saw Camelot in the distance, a crown of spires upon a noble hill, which flashed in the sun like a fairy castle, now disappearing in mists, and now gleaming clear and bright, so that the two servants were afraid and declared that this could be no real city, but only a glamor-born dream, a city of enchantment built by fairy kings. The King himself is a changeling, the one servant protests, according to tales he has heard, who drove the heathen from the land by sorcery, with Merlin's aid!
Gareth answered them with laughter, saying that he had enough glamor in his blood-glamor of youth, of hope, of noble lineage-to plunge old Merlin in the Arabian sea; and so drove them forward until they neared the great gates of the city.
The gates were decorated with sculptures representative of the various great events of Arthur's life: the Lady of the Lake, who seemed to uphold the gate; the Three Queens of Faerie who had brought Arthur into the world (and who would help him in his need) and many devices so cunningly inter-worked that as the eye wandered among them it grew dizzy, and the figures seemed to be alive.
And as they stood before the great gates in amaze, a blast of music issued from the city, and out from under the gate came an ancient man, long-bearded, saying, "Who be ye, my sons?" and Gareth replied, "We be tillers of the soil who have come to see the glories of the King."
The aged one was not deceived; he knew Gareth very well, for he was a seer and a wise man, and he answered the youth's inquiries with a discourse that was only half in jest: "Truly, as thou sayeth, a fairy king and fairy queen have built the city, son; they came from out a sacred mountain cleft toward the sunrise, each with harp in hand, and built it ta the music of their harps. . . There is nothing in it as it seems, saving the King; though some there be that hold the King a shadow and the city real. . . For an ye heard a music, like enow they are building still, seeing the city is built to music, therefore never built at all, and therefore built forever."
In such manner do subtle temptations accompany the disciple, ofttimes to the very gates of light, where a Wise One meets him and tests him once again, not with lies but with the truth.
Every occultist knows that all form is created in universal substance (ether) by means of sound and that from each created form there emanates its creative keynote. Thus is formed that sublime symphony which sounds through heaven and earth and which is known as the Music of the Spheres. To earth-dulled ears this music is unreal, because it is not heard until the spiritual senses are awakened and attuned to the song of spirit.
Each initiatory School sounds its own keynote. When the aspirant finds the School to which he is attuned, then despite all difficulties and obstructions the gates will open as easily and as beautifully for him as did the gates of King Arthur's castle for Gareth.
Arrived at Arthur's hall the youth beheld with amaze the marvelous sculpturing of it. "Four great zones of sculpture, with many a mystic symbol gird the hall. In the lowest beasts are slaying men. In the second men are slaying beasts. In the third are warriors, perfect men. In the fourth are men with growing wings. And over all one statue in the mold of Arthur with a crown and golden wings aflame, pointing to the northern star. People in far fields at sunrise seeing the gold and flame cry: We have still a King."
Here Tennyson traces the evolutionary progress of mankind from man's beginnings as a small creature, weaker than many others, to his ultimate destiny as the Winged Man, or superman, of the New Age long prophesied by poets and seers. The constellation Aquarius is this Winged Man of the zodiac, and the Aquarian Age is the Utopia so long foreseen by mystics of all faiths. Tennyson was one of the new generation of scientific poets, and in his day the Darwinian concept of evotution was the storm center of religious and philosophical thinking. His own adherence to the Darwinian theory is shown in this poem, as well as a knowledge of astrology.
The shields of the knights, all save one, were brightly emblazoned with designs showing what noble deeds had been done. That of Modred, alone, the evil knight, doer of evil deeds, was dark and blank as death. Even so does the human aura reveal the spiritual status of the individual whom it enhaloes with colors and thought forms of various designs.
With unswerving purpose Gareth bound himself in obedience as kitchen knave, to hew wood, to draw water, to help in preparing and serving food, and to perform any other menial task demanded of him; "and wrought all kinds of service with a noble ease."
This is a lesson every aspirant must learn: that it is the spirit in which a task is done that ennobles; for every necessary work is noble in itself if nobly done.
One day there came to Arthur's Court seeking justice the Lady Lynette, who was barred from her castle by four evil knights, named Morning Star, Noon Sun, Evening Star and Night, or Death, the latter of whom wears a helmet mounted with a skull and on his arms a skeleton.
Gareth promptly petitioned the King for permission to be this Lady's champion, for he loved her on sight, and Arthur granted his wish. Thus released from his vow to his mother, Gareth set forth attendant upon Lynette. Lynette, who believed that the King had treated her with disdain, scoffed at the kitchen knave as she deemed him to be, commanding that he keep his distance for she finds his kitchen odors offensive.
At this point in the story of Gareth and Lynette we are taught concerning the subtle test of acquisitiveness, or the love of personal possessions and worldly status. The Lord Christ taught this lesson in the case of the rich young man who came asking, "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" To which the Master made answer: "Go, sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and follow me." The rich young man turned sorrowfully away, for he had great possessions; but the youth Gareth willingly submitted himself to outward humiliation in order to win the honors of a good and noble spirit.
Gareth's mother had first played the part of tempter to the young knight when she put in his path the allurements of estates and riches and a beautiful bride, which should be his for renouncing his spiritual aspirations. He passed this test triumphantly, proving himself a truly illumined soul who had grown beyond the love of worldly things.
His second test was that of humility; a high-born knight compelled to serve as kitchen knave, to attend upon the wants of knights with whom he longed to tread the path of truth and light in equal fellowship.
Again he proved his worth, never hesitating, and performing menial duties with a noble grace of soul.
The test of humility usually comes to the aspirant when he has gone so far that he stands upon the very threshold of illumination. Gareth had shown himself to be an advanced soul. He demon strated this in his meekness under Lynette's rebukes, and again by his noble amiability when, after conquering the Knight of Death and being accepted into her favor as an honored guest, he generously forebore from any illwill against her. Having overcome all things, Gareth at last won all things. This is the supreme initiatory law. One must be willing to renounce all before he can gain all. This is what is meant by the strait and narrow Path, which is found by few.
Gareth could now sing the triumphant soul song of the conqueror over himself: "There is nothing in all the outer world which can hold my good away from me."
Long ago another great soul walked this Path, met and overcame these same temptations, after which he declared: "Greater is he that controlleth himself than he that taketh a city."
When Lynette had come to Arthur asking for a knight champion, she had expected that he would send the brave Lancelot to rid her of the enemy who surrounded her castle. Her indignation knew no bounds when the King chose Gareth as the knight who was to accompany her. She saw him as a kitchen knave; his true nobility was hidden from her scornful eyes. To recognize human worth regardless of appearances was a lesson she had not learned.
When at each of three bends of the river which surrounded her castle this seeming knave overcame one of three bandits, she recognized him for what he was: no knave, but true knight. The three bends of the river are the three stages of the Path of Preparation as described hitherto: Probationership, Discipleship, Mastership. The names of the three bandits guarding the three bends in the river indicate their nature: Morning Star, Noon Sun, Evening Star, one day in the life of man. The last is Night, or Death. And after these four the fifth conquest was that of the Red Knight of the Red Lawns. The colors of the first three knights were those of the primitive rainbow: Blue, Red and Green, of which Lynette sings:
The trefoil was a sacred emblem of Druidism and was carried over into Druidic Christianity as emblem of the Trinity and of that God who is Light and who set His bow in the cloud. Here as in the Zohar, Green is given as a primary color, with yellow omitted; but Black is added in place of white.
The four Knights of Day and Night, together with the fifth, the Red Knight of the Red Lawns (Desire World) represent all of the temptations that come to the soul by way of the senses throughout the life-day in the school of experience. We are shown that the tests which lead to Initiation come in the course of daily living, in the work of the world in which the neophyte finds himself stationed by the Lords of Destiny. It is not by isolating oneself and withdrawing from human contacts that the greatest strength is attained, but in learning to "live the life"· mid the stress and discord of the world.
When Gareth overcame the first bandit knight, Lynette smiled upon him and sang joyously, "At last my love has smiled on me." And with the overcoming of the third, when she invited Gareth to ride beside her, she sang, "Three times my love has smiled on me." Side by side they approached the entrance to the castle where Gareth was confronted by the dark-armored gruesome figure of the Knight of Death; but riding fearlessly he found Death suddenly transformed into a beautiful cherub who gave him his blessing. And the poet adds that the four knights of his story were simply imitating certain rock-hewn pictures on a cliff nearby, and from this had drawn name and color of armor, and that the whole of it was an allegory of the soul's progress from birth to death, and from ignorance to wisdom.
We have said before that the most precious heritage of Initiation is the first-hand knowledge that there is no death and that life is eternal. This Gareth learns when he overcomes the fourth knight-bandit.
Now, hand in hand, Gareth and Lynette pass through the wide open portals and enter together into the Castle of Understanding.
Merlin, the Archdruid of Christ, was famous for his great wisdom. Men whispered that he was in very truth the architect of Stonehenge, so ancient he seemed, and said that he knew a magic taught him by a hermit in the deep woods to whom the curtain that separates spirit from matter was clear as glass, so that he could control the elements of nature.
Merlin knew the ancient teachings handed down from the farthest past-from Lemuria and Atlantis, from Babylon and Egypt, from Greece and Rome-and summed it up in the sublime wisdom of Glastonbury. Born of a "human" Christian mother and an "archdemon" (Druid High Priest) father, his name was said to signify "serpent babe" or "wondrus one", for he possessed the wisdom of the serpent without its guile. He was a strange being in whom Celtic magic and Christian mysticism were blended. He was able to read the events of the past and future, and the young knights of King Arthur's Court looked upon him with awe and reverence, going softly in fear of his power and in respect of his vast learning. His somber figure appeared and disappeared miraculously. Tall, brown, lean, and rough of hair, he lived much alone in the great woods and waste places where demoniac spirits drew him.
Tennyson conveys the idea that Merlin was in his dotage when he fell prey to the seduction of the sorceress Vivien; but other tales have it that she was a follower of the old gods who came to Merlin for instruction, as many of the old religion did, combining their own ancient tradition with that of Christ. The Lady of the Lake, who broods over King Arthur's Court throughout the Idylls, is still another of the great teachers of the ancient Druid wisdom who "put on the Christ." It was she who gave to the King his sword Excalibur, a huge crosshilted sword, and was the foster mother of Lancelot. "A mist of incense curled about her and her face was well-nigh hidden in the minister gloom, but there was heard among the holy hymns a voice as of the waters."
But Vivien was "born among the dead." She could not take the step forward which would bring her to Christ and the powers of the Grail. Her parents had fallen in battle against Arthur's hosts, she herself was born from her dying mother on the battlefield, and she lived only for . revenge and to destroy, if possible, the knighthood of the Grail. Her mother had died cursing King Arthur and all his Court.
The feminine in man debases or exalts, drags down or lifts up. Vivien came, says the poet, "like a baleful star clothed in grey vapor." She first endeavored to subdue Arthur with her charms, but he was beyond beguilement. Next she turned to the wise Merlin and succeeded in persuading him to take her for a pupil, and he taught her the secrets of his magic, all save one, which he had learned from the ancient hermit in the wood, and which, in other hands, could bring about his undoing.
But the witch Vivien, with her flaming hair and green eyes and her passion for learning, at last won his confidence-through her seductive beauty. Tennyson would have us believe, for he portrays her as a Kundry, a temptress, who had power over the magician's senses as Kundry had over Amfortas. She represents the lure of the old religion. Her power is greatest in the wild dark woods of Brittany, among the elemental forces dedicated to the service of the Black Grail.
One day as Merlin and Vivien walked hand and hand in the wild forest of Broceliande in Brittany, having sailed thither in a little boat, they became weary, and when a sudden thunder storm arose, took shelter under a blossoming hawthorn tree. (Some say a hollow oak.) Merlin laid his head in the maiden's lap and was soon deep in slumber.
Then Vivien arose and, with her wimple, made a ring round about the bush and round about Merlin who slept under it; and she began the enchantment as he himself had taught her. Nine times she made the ring, and nine times she made the enchant ment, and then she went and sat down by him and took his head again upon her lap. And when he awoke and looked around him, it seemed to him that he was enclosed in the strongest tower in the world and laid upon a fair bed. Then said he to the maid, "My lady, you have deceived me. Abide with me, for no one hath power to unmake this tower but you alone."
She promised that she would be often with him there, and this covenant she kept. Merlin nevermore left the tower wherein Vivien had enclosed him, but she entered and went out again when she listed.
Merlin typifies the individual who enters the Way of Attainment impelled only by an eager thirst for knowledge. Such an one will devote every available moment to reading and study neglecting all opportunities to give of himself in love and serving for others. Inevitably his narrowness of outlook brings about a one-sided development which can end only in sorrow and disillusionment. Saint Paul refers to the unillumined intellect as "the power of darkness." The aspirant who is working for well-rounded develop ment will for each important occult truth that he learns give of himself anew in loving, self-forgetting service for the betterment of some one of God's creatures.. If mind and heart are working equally together, the fate of Merlin will be an impossibility. It is significant to note that mind occultly correlates with the element of air. Vivien's magic tower in which she encased Merlin was fashioned of air. It was an enchantment of the mind only.
The ancient wisdom possessed a glyph which showed the aspirant at a certain stage of development. He stands between two beautiful maidens, one crowned with the leaves of the vine, typifying the lure of the personality, the other crowned with stars, the way of the Spirit. Each aspirant must come to this place of choosing, where he will decide which of the two maidens he will make his own. Nowhere in the Mystery epics is this story of decision more strikingly told than in the story of the young knight Lancelot.
Lancelot came to Arthur's Court when he was about nineteen years of age. Comely and gifted, venturesome and filled with idealistic enthusiasm, he soon was a prime favorite with all the Court, and most of all with King Arthur himself. When the King wished to send an envoy to escort the young princess Guinevere to the castle where she was to become his bride, he chose the handsome Sir Lancelot as his emissary.
When Guinevere saw Lancelot she mistook him for the King and gave him her heart at first sight. Neither Guinevere nor Lancelot ever forgot that wondrous journey which they made together to King Arthur's Court. They travelled through far-stretching meadows fragrant with sheets of waving hyacinth, and on a road beneath great trees filled with singing birds. Before they reached the castle they had pledged their love forever.
Lancelot was known far and wide for his bravery and for his skill in all knightly accomplishments. He was inevitably the hero in every tournament in which he chose to make trail of arms and was greatly admired and sought after by great ladies everywhere. Yet throughout his earlier life he loved Guinevere alone, to the hurt of himself and the whole Court.
Among the many romantic adventures which fell to him was that of the maiden Elaine. It chanced that he was to take part in a famous contest, and he had decided that he would enter the lists incognito, fighting unknown. He therefore journeyed to the castle of Astolat, which was the home of a distinguished knight, Sir Gervaine, who lent him his sword. Sir Gervaine had a daughter named Elaine, who by reason of her purity and beauty was known as the Lily Maid of Astolat. She, like Guinevere, loved Lancelot at first sight, and asked that he wear her colors in the tournament. Lancelot had promised Guinevere that he would never wear any colors save hers, but thinking that this would make his disguise more complete he accepted the young maid's offer and wore her tokens, a handsome red sleeve richly embroidered with rare pearls. Lancelot was again the victor. It happened that Sir Gawain, one of King Arthur's knights, being in the vicinity, attended the tournament and recognized the hero. He carried the story back to King Arthur's Court, and as he described the beautiful maiden whose colors Lancelot had worn, Guinevere was filled with anger and humiliation.
Injured in the tournament, Lancelot was taken back to the castle of Astolat where Elaine nursed him day and night until he recovered. It was then that she told him of her great love, and asked that he might give his in return. Gently but firmly he replied that he could not do this, for his heart was no longer in his own keeping.
When Lancelot had gone away Elaine told her brother that since Lancelot could not love her, she must die; but first she must write a letter to the knight.
When her brother offered to take the letter to Lancelot she declared that this could not be, for she, and she alone, must deliver her message.
She bade them send her body in a barge to Camelot: "In her right hand the lily, in her left the letter, all her bright hair streaming down; all the coverlet was cloth of gold, and she in white; her clear-cut features smiling as though she were asleep." And so the barge drifted down to Camelot and came to rest under the Queen's windows.
At this moment Lancelot ente,red the Queen's chamber. For nine successive years he had taken part in nine tournaments and won them all, the prize in each having been a magnificent diamond, which he had kept to present all together to the Queen, but Guinevere, in jealous rage, rushed to the casement window and cast the diamonds into the river far below. They gleamed like sinking stars as they fell into the water beside the boat on which lay the Lily Maid of Astolat.
Again, this is the story of the choice which must be made between earthly and heavenly love, the love of personality and the love of the spirit and spiritual things. The ordinary person makes the choice that Lancelot made, having no concept of the infinite joy and bliss which attend on the dedication of the life to the things of Spirit. Therefore it is that the Lily Maid must sleep upon the waters of time until the mind of mankind awakens to know the high meaning of life.
The nine diamonds are the glory of the Nine Lesser Mysteries. King Arthur's Court, as we have said, is the continuation of the Mystery School of early Christianity. Since there are but few now, as in the time of Christ, who are ready to receive the profound teachings of Esoteric Christianity, the diamonds of the Mysteries are lost until humanity is sufficiently advanced to recover them.
After the adventure of Astolat the relationship between Guinevere and Lancelot was never again the same. A cloud of doubt and suspicion had drifted between them. Guinevere could not countenance Lancelot's reverence for the Lily Maid, while for Lancelot the Lily Maid's beauty and purity of spirit had awakened his aspiration afresh, and he knew that his illicit love of the Queen would forever prevent him from attaining the Quest of the Grail.
A soft white cloud may appear above the horizon of a clear blue sky and give no portent of evil. Yet, joined by other clouds, the sky is soon overcast and the fury of the storm may devastate the landscape. Even so the little cloud which was the guilty love of Lancelot and Guinevere cast the first shadow upon the glories of King Arthur's Court. Wrongdoing is contagious, and gradually other knights began to respond to the subtle influence of hidden lawlessness which pervaded the Court, until it seemed that they lived for pleasure alone, dead to the call of knightly courtesy. Thus the cycle of dissolution began. The light of the Grail slowly dimmed, and in the last tournament we hear the knights making light of holy things, even to the forgetting of their sacred vow of knighthood.
The man of the world, who lives only from moment to moment, believes that he can live as he likes so long as he is not caught by the law of the land, enjoying the pleasures of the senses; but the esotericist knows that there is a Law of Cause and Effect which governs the entire universe, in the small things as in the great. It manifests in every aspect of the life of every individual and every nation and is nowhere more clearly and plainly stated than in the Bible: "Whatsoever a man sows that shall he also reap."
It would be well if this statement of the cosmic law could be indelibly inscribed upon the soul of every human being in the world, for the time is not far distant when our civilization must face the fruits of its past sowing, keeping the good and casting out the evil in preparation for the New Age.
Sir Lancelot and Guinevere were reconciled, but their love was more troubled than before. Not only had the Queen's jealousy of Elaine come between them, but her power over Lancelot had caused him to fail in the Quest of the Holy Grail; and he could not put from his mind the vision of the spiritual joy he could not win, whose loss he continually mourned.
Jealousy and ambition had grown among the knights of the Round Table, too, as the spirit of fellowship waned. Finally Modred and his brother Agravaine, who had long brewed mischief, denounced the lovers to Arthur and attacked Lancelot in Guinevere's chamber. Lancelot, though unarmed, fought his way to safety, but Guinevere was in the enemy's hands. Arthur's grief, as Malory describes it, seems more for Lancelot than for Guinevere, whose lack of true affection must have been apparent long since. "'Alas, me sore repenteth,' said the King, 'that ever Sir Lancelot should be against me. Now I am sure the noble fellowship of the Round Table is broken forever, for with him will many a noble knight hold.'"
Some say that Arthur condemned his Queen to be burnt at the stake because of her adultery, such being the law of the land; but Lancelot and his friends carried Guinevere to his Castle, Joyous Gard. Arthur beseiged him there, though unwillingly, for he often thought on "the great courtesy that was in Sir Lancelot more than in any other man." And Lancelot lamented: "I have no heart to fight against my Lord Arthur, for ever me seemeth I do not as I ought to do."
At last the Pope commanded Arthur to receive Guinevere back with honor, and Lancelot departed across the sea to France. As Arthur had foreseen, many good knights went with Lancelot, although he besought them to stay with the King, warning them that Modred meant treachery.
Arthur gathered together an army and followed Lancelot to France, spurred on by Gawain whose brothers Lancelot had killed while rescuing Guinevere. This was Modred's opportunity. He seized the kingdom and declared that he would marry Guinevere, whereupon the Queen shut herself in the Tower of London. Arthur then came quickly back to London, but with only a remnant of his knights, for many had fallen in the battles with Lancelot and his hosts. The King won the last battle, but would see Guinevere no more. After Arthur's death, Guinevere entered a nunnery.
Lancelot, hearing in France of Arthur's troubles hastened back to England to help him, only to learn of his death and Guinevere's retreat to a convent. The poignant story is told of Lancelot's farewell visit with Guinevere: "At last he came to a nunnery, and then was Queen Guinevere aware of Sir Lancelot as he walked in the cloister. And when she saw him there she swooned thrice, that all the ladies and gentlewomen had work enough to hold the Queen up... When Sir Lancelot was brought to her, then she said to all the ladies: 'Through this man and me hath all this war been wrought, and the death of the most noblest knights of the world; for through our love that we have loved together is my most noble lord slain... Therefore, Sir Lancelot, I require of thee and beseech thee heartily, for all the love that ever was betwixt us, that thou never see me more...for as well as I have loved thee, mine heart will not serve me to see thee, for thwugh thee and me is the flower of kings and knights destroyed; therefore, Sir Lancelot, go to thy realm, and there take thee a wife, and live with her in joy and bliss...' 'Now, sweet madam,' said Sir Lancelot, 'would ye that I return again to my country, and there to wed a lady? Nay, madam, wit ye well that I shall never do... but the same destiny that ye have taken ye have taken you to perfection, I must needs take me to perfection, of right. For I take record of God, in you have I had mine earthly joy; and if I had found you now so disposed, I had cast to have had you in mine own realm... Wherefore, madam, I pray you kiss me and never no more.' 'Nay,' said the Queen, 'that shall I never do, but abstain you from such words'; and they departed."
Lancelot went his way weeping, and came to a hermitage where he dwelt with Sir Bedivere and Sir Bors and seven other knights of the Round Table, until there came to him a vision in which he saw that Guinevere was dead, and in which he was instructed to take her body and bury it beside King Arthur.
So Lancelot went with his fellows to the nunnery and carried the Queen's body to Glastonbury and laid her with the King. After this, Lancelot "ate but little meat, ne drank, till he was dead." Six weeks after Guinevere's death the hermit dreamed that "he saw the angels heave up Sir Lancelot into heaven," and when he went to Lancelot's cell he found him "stark dead, and he lay as he had smiled." Then Lancelot's companions took him and buried him as he had desired at Joyous Gard, and there Sir Ector de Maris bade him farewell in words that might serve as a lament for all of medieval chivalry:
"Ah Lancelot," he said, "thou wert head of all Christian knights, and now I dare say, thou Sir Lancelot, there thou liest, thou that were never matched of earthly knight's hand. And thou wert the courteousest knight that ever bare shield. And thou wert the truest friend to thy friend that ever bestrode horse. And thou sert the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved a woman. And thou wert the kindest man that ever struck with sword. And thou were the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights. And thou wert the meekest man and the gentlest that ever ate in hall among ladies. And thou wert the sternest knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest."
In the story of Lancelot we have evidence that the trials which overtake the aspirant on the heart path may be more cataclysmic than those of the aspirant on the head path, such as Merlin. For it was not Merlin's failure that caused the disruption of King Arthur's Court; it was the defections of those like Lancelot, who were following the path of the heart who were largely responsible for bringing about the destruction of the Order of the Round Table and the dispersion of those knights whom Tennyson has described as "that glorious company, the flower of all men."
As the modern aspirant ponders on these things, it is well for him to take courage from the words of the great Christian Initiate Saint Paul, who was familiar with all the subtle tests and trials which beset both head and heart, and of which he continually warned. For if he described the mortal intellect as "the power of darkness," he pointed to the remedy when he said, "Have that mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus, that ye may be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
Of the even more subtle tests which beset those on the heart path, he instructed his pupils that they must learn to "put on the whole armor of God." In other words, they must surround themselves at all times with All-Good, thinking only Christed thoughts, speaking only Christed words, and performing only Christed deeds. Finally, and perhaps this is his most important word of instruction, applying equally to aspirants on both head and heart paths, he said, "Pray without ceasing."
— Corinne Heline
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Contemporary Mystic Christianity |
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