The Vita Merlini

[the Black Knight]

Therefore when Rhydderch found that he could not influence the prophet by any gift, and he could not find out the reason for the laughter, straightway he ordered the chains to be loosed and gave him permission to seek the deserted groves, that he might be willing to give the desired explanation.  Then Merlin, rejoicing that he could go, said, “This is the reason I laughed, Rhydderch.  You were by a single act both praiseworthy and blameworthy.  When just now you removed the leaf that the queen had in her hair without knowing it, you acted more faithfully toward her than she did toward you when she went under the bush where her lover met her and lay with her; and while she was lying there supine with her hair spread out, by chance there caught in it the leaf that you, not knowing all this, removed.”

 

[the Black Knight]

Rhydderch suddenly became sad at this accusation and turned his face from her and cursed the day he had married her.  But she, not at all moved, hid her shame behind a smiling face and said to her husband, “Why are you sad, my love?  Why do you become so angry over this thing and blame me unjustly, and believe a madman who, lacking sound sense, mixes lies with the truth?  The man who believes him becomes many times more a fool than he is.  Now then, watch, and if I am not mistaken I will show you that he is crazy and has not spoken the truth.”

[the Black Knight]

There was in the hall a certain boy, one of many, and the ingenious woman catching sight of him straightway thought of a novel trick by which she might convict her brother of falsehood. 15  So she ordered the boy to come in and asked her brother to predict by what death the lad should die.  He answered, “Dearest sister, he shall die, when a man, by falling from a high rock.”  Smiling at these words, she ordered the boy to go away and take off the clothes he was wearing and put on others and to cut off his long hair; she bade him come back to them thus that he might seem to them a different person.  The boy obeyed her, for he came back to them with his clothes changed as he had been ordered to do.  Soon the queen asked her brother again, “Tell your dear sister what the death of this boy will be like.”  Merlin answered, “This boy when he grows up shall, while out of his mind, meet with a violent death in a tree.”  When he had finished she said to her husband, “Could this false prophet lead you so far astray as to make you believe that I had committed so great a crime?  And if you will notice with how much sense he has spoken this about the boy, you will believe that the things he said about me were made up so that he might get away to the woods.  Far be it from me to do such a thing!  I shall keep my bed chaste, and chaste shall I always be while the breath of life is in me.  I convicted him of falsehood when I asked him about the death of the boy.  Now I shall do it again; pay attention and judge.”

[the Black Knight]

When she had said this she told the boy in an aside to go out and put on woman’s clothing, and to come back thus.  Soon the boy left and did as he was bid, for he came back in woman’s clothes just as though he were a woman, and stood in front of Merlin to whom the queen said banteringly, “Say brother, tell me about the death of this girl.”  “Girl or not she shall die in the river,” said her brother to her, which made King Rhydderch laugh at his reasoning; since when asked about the death of a single boy Merlin had predicted three different kinds.  Therefore Rhydderch thought he had spoken falsely about the queen, and did not believe him, but grieved, and hated the fact that he had trusted him and had condemned his beloved.  The queen, seeing this, forgave him and kissed and caressed him and made him joyful.

 

[the Black Knight]

Meanwhile Merlin planned to go to the woods, and he left his dwelling and ordered the gates to be opened; but his sister stood in his way and with rising tears begged him to remain with her for a while and to put aside his madness.  The hard-hearted man would not desist from his project but kept trying to open the doors, and he strove to leave and raged and fought and by his clamour forced the servants to open.  At length, since no one could hold him back when he wanted to go, the queen quickly ordered Guendoloena, who was absent, to come to make him desist.  She came and on her knees begged him to remain; but he spurned her prayers and would not stay, nor would he, as he was accustomed to do, look upon her with a joyful face.  She grieved and dissolved in tears and tore her hair, and scratched her cheeks with her nails and rolled on the ground as though dying.  The queen seeing this said to him, “This Guendoloena who is dying thus for you, what shall she do?  Shall she marry again or do you bid her remain a widow, or go with you wherever you are going?  For she will go, and with you she will joyfully inhabit the groves and the green woodland meadows provided she has your love.”  To this the prophet answered, “Sister I do not want a cow that pours out water in a broad fountain like the urn of the Virgin in summer-time, nor shall I change my care as Orpheus once did when Eurydice gave her baskets to the boys to hold before she swam back across the Stygian sands.  Freed from both of you I shall remain without the taint of love.  Let her therefore be given a proper opportunity to marry and let him whom she shall choose have her.  But let the man who marries her be careful that he never gets in my way or comes near me; let him keep away for fear lest if I happen to meet him he may feel my flashing sword.  But when the day of the solemn [formal] wedding comes and the different viands are distributed to the guests, I shall be present in person, furnished with seemly gifts, and I shall profusely endow Guendoloena when she is given away.”  When he had finished he said farewell to each of them and went away, and with no one to hinder him he went back to the woods he longed for.

[the Black Knight]

Guendoloena remained sadly in the door watching him and so did the queen, both moved by what had happened to their friend, and they marvelled that a madman should be so familiar with secret things and should have known of the love affair of his sister.  Nevertheless they thought that he lied about the death of the boy since he told of three different deaths when he should have told of one.  Therefore his speech seemed for long years to be an empty one until the time when the boy grew to manhood; then it was made apparent to all and convincing to many.  For while he was hunting with his dogs he caught sight of a stag hiding in a grove of trees; he loosed the dogs who, as soon as they saw the stag, climbed through unfrequented ways and filled the air with their baying.  He urged on his horse with his spurs and followed after, and urged on the huntsmen, directing them, now with his horn and now with his voice, and he bade them go more quickly.  There was a high mountain surrounded on all sides by rocks with a stream flowing through the plain at its foot; thither the animal fled until he came to the river, seeking a hiding place after the usual manner of its kind.  The young man pressed on and passed straight over the mountain, hunting for the stag among the rocks lying about.  Meanwhile it happened, while his impetuosity was leading him on, that his horse slipped from a high rock and the man fell over a precipice into the river, but so that one of his feet caught in a tree, and the rest of his body was submerged in the stream.  Thus he fell, and was drowned, and hung from a tree, and by his threefold death made the prophet a true one.

[the Black Knight]

The latter meanwhile had gone to the woods and was living like a wild beast, subsisting on frozen moss, in the snow, in the rain, in the cruel blasts of the wind.  And this pleased him more than administering laws throughout his cities and ruling over fierce people.  Meanwhile Guendoloena, since her husband was leading a life like this with his woodland flock through the passing years, was married in accordance with her husband’s permission.

[the Black Knight]

It was night and the horns of the bright moon were shining, and all the lights of the vault of heaven were gleaming; the air was clearer than usual, for cruel, frigid, Boreas had driven away the clouds and had made the sky serene again and had dried up the mists with his arid breath.  From the top of a lofty mountain the prophet was regarding the courses of the stars, speaking to himself out in the open air.  “What does this ray of Mars mean?  Does its fresh redness mean that one king is dead and that there shall be another?  So I see it, for Constantine has died and his nephew Conan, through an evil fate and the murder of his uncle, has taken the crown and is king. 16  And you, highest Venus, who slipping along within your ordered limits beneath the zodiac are accompanying the sun in his course, what about this double ray of yours that is cleaving the air?  Does not its division indicate a severing of my love?  Such a ray indeed shows that loves are divided.  Perhaps Guendoloena has left me in my absence and now clings to another man and rejoices in his embraces.  So I lose; so another enjoys her.  So my rights are taken away from me while I dally.  So it is surely, for a slothful lover is beaten by one who is not slothful or absent but is right on hand.  But I am not jealous; let her marry now under favourable auspices and let her enjoy her new husband with my permission.  And when tomorrow’s sun shall shine I will go and take with me the gift I promised her when I left.”  So he spoke and went about all the woods and groves and collected a herd of stags in a single line, and the deer and she-goats likewise, and he himself mounted a stag. 17  And when day dawned he came quickly, driving the line before him to the place where Guendoloena was to be married.  When he arrived he forced the stags to stand patiently outside the gates while he cried aloud, “Guendoloena!  Guendoloena!  Come!  Your presents are looking for you!”  Guendoloena therefore came quickly, smiling and marvelling that the man was riding on the stag and that it obeyed him, and that he could get together so large a number of animals and drive them before him just as a shepherd does the sheep that he is in the habit of driving to the pastures.

 

[the Black Knight]

The bridegroom stood watching from a lofty window and marvelling at the rider on his seat, and he laughed.  But when the prophet saw him and understood who he was, at once he wrenched the horns from the stag he was riding and shook them and threw them at the man and completely smashed his head in, and killed him and drove out his life into the air.  With a quick blow of his heels he set the stag flying and was on his way back to the woods.  At these happenings the servants rushed out from all sides and quickly followed the prophet through the fields.  But he ran ahead so fast that he would have reached the woods untouched if a river had not been in his way; while his beast was hurriedly leaping over the torrent Merlin slipped from his back and fell into the rapid waves.  The servants lined the shore and captured him as he swam, and bound him and took him home and gave him to his sister.

[the Black Knight]

The prophet, captured in this way, became sad and wanted to go back to the woods, and he fought to break his bonds and refused to smile or to take food or drink, and by his sadness he made his sister sad.  Rhydderch, therefore, seeing him drive all joy from him and refuse to taste of the banquets that had been prepared for him, took pity on him and ordered him to be led out into the city, through the market place among the people, in the hope that he might be cheered up by going and seeing the novelties that were being sold there.

[the Black Knight]

After he had been taken out and was going away from the palace he saw before a door a servant of a poor appearance, the doorkeeper, asking with trembling lips of all the passers-by some money with which to get his clothes mended. 18  The prophet thereupon stood still and laughed, wondering at the poor man.  When he had gone on from here he saw a young man holding some new shoes and buying some pieces of leather to patch them with.  Then he laughed again and refused to go further through the market place to be stared at by the people he was watching.  But he yearned for the woods, toward which he frequently looked back, and to which, although forbidden, he tried to direct his steps.

[the Black Knight]

The servants returned home and told that he had laughed twice and also that he had tried to get away to the woods.  Rhydderch, who wished to know what he had meant by his laughter, quickly gave orders for his bonds to be loosed and gave him permission to go back to his accustomed woods if only he would explain why he laughed.  The prophet, now quite joyful, answered, “The doorkeeper was sitting outside the doors in well worn clothing and kept asking those who went by to give him something to buy clothes with, just as though he had been a pauper, and all the time he was secretly a rich man and had under him hidden piles of coins.  That is what I laughed at; turn up the ground under him and you will find coins preserved there for a long time.  From there they led me further toward the market place and I saw a man buying some shoes and also some patches so that after the shoes were wornout and had holes in them from use he might mend them and make them fit for service again.  This too I laughed at since the poor man will not be able to use the shoes nor,” he added, “the patches, since he is already drowned in the waves and is floating toward the shore; go and you will see.”  Rhydderch, wishing to test the man’s sayings, ordered his servants to go quickly along the bank of the river, so that if they should chance to find such a man drowned by the shore they might at once bring him word.  They obeyed the king’s orders, for going along the the river they found a drowned man in a waste patch of sand, and returned home and reported the fact to him.  But the king meanwhile, after sending away the doorkeeper, had dug and turned up the ground and found a treasure placed under it, and laughingly he worshipped the prophet.

[the Black Knight]

After these things had happened the prophet was making haste to go to the woods he was accustomed to, hating the people in the city.  The queen advised him to stay with her and to put off his desired trip to the woods until the cold of white winter, which was then at hand, should be over, and summer should return again with its tender fruits on which he could live while the weather grew warm from the sun.  He refused, and desirous of departing and scorning the winter he said to her, “O dear sister, why do you labour to hold me back?  Winter with his tempests cannot frighten me, nor icy Boreas when he rages with his cruel blasts and suddenly injures the flocks of sheep with hail; neither does Auster disturb me when its rain clouds shed their waters.  Why should I not seek the deserted groves and the green woodlands?  Content with a little I can endure the frost.  There under the leaves of the trees among the odorous blossoms I shall take pleasure in lying through the summer; but lest I lack food in winter you might build me a house in the woods and have servants in it to wait on me and prepare me food when the ground refuses to produce grain or the trees fruit.  Before the other buildings build me a remote one with seventy doors and as many windows through which I may watch fire-breathing Phoebus and Venus and the stars gliding from the heavens by night, all of whom shall show me what is going to happen to the people of the kingdom.  And let the same number of scribes be at hand, trained to take my dictation, and let them be attentive to record my prophecy on their tablets. 19  You too are to come often, dear sister, and then you can relieve my hunger with food and drink.”  After he had finished speaking he departed hastily for the woods.

 

[the Black Knight]

His sister obeyed him and built the place he had asked for, and the other houses and whatever else he had bid her.  But he, while the apples remained and Phoebus was ascending higher through the stars, rejoiced to remain beneath the leaves and to wander through the groves with their soothing breezes.  Then winter came, harsh with icy winds, and despoiled the ground and the trees of all their fruit, and Merlin lacked food because the rains were at hand, and he came, sad and hungry, to the aforesaid place.  Thither the queen often came and rejoiced to bring her brother both food and drink.  He, after he had refreshed himself with various kinds of edibles, would arise and express his approval of his sister.  Then wandering about the house he would look at the stars while he prophecied things like these which he knew were going to come to pass.

[the Black Knight]

“O madness of the Britons whom a plenitude, always excessive, of riches exalts more than is seemly. 20  They do not wish to enjoy peace but are stirred up by the Fury’s goad.  They engage in civil wars and battles between relatives, and permit the church of the Lord to fall into ruin; the holy bishops they drive into remote lands.  The nephews of the Boar of Cornwall 21 cast everything into confusion, and setting snares for each other engage in a mutual slaughter with their wicked swords.  They do not wish to wait to get possession of the kingdom lawfully, but seize the crown.  The fourth 22 from them shall be more cruel and more harsh still; him shall a wolf from the sea conquer in fight and shall drive defeated beyond the Severn through the kingdoms of the barbarians.  This latter shall besiege Cirencester with a blockade and with sparrows, and shall overthrow its walls to their very bases.  He shall seek the Gauls in his ship, but shall die beneath the weapon of a king.  Rhydderch shall die, 23 after whom long discord shall hold the Scots and the Cumbrians for a long time until Cumbria shall be granted to his growing tusk.  The Welsh shall attack the men of Gwent, 24 and afterwards those of Cornwall and no law shall restrain them.  Wales shall rejoice in the shedding of blood; O people always hateful to God, why do you rejoice in bloodshed?  Wales shall compel brothers to fight and to condemn their own relatives to a wicked death.  The troops of the Scots shall often cross the Humber and, putting aside all sentiment, shall kill those who oppose them.  Not with impunity, however, for the leader shall be killed; he shall have the name of a horse 25 and because of that fact shall be fierce.  His heir shall be expelled and shall depart from our territories.  Scots, sheathe your swords which you bare too readily; your strength shall be unequal to that of our fierce people.  The city of Dumbarton 26 shall be destroyed and no king shall repair it for an age until the Scot shall be subdued in war.  Carlisle, spoiled of its shepherd, shall lie vacant until the sceptre of the Lion shall restore its pastoral staff. 27  Segontium and its towers and mighty palaces shall lament in ruins until the Welsh return to their former domains. 28  Porchester shall see its broken walls in its harbour until a rich man with the tooth of a wolf shall restore it.  The city of Richborough 29 shall lie spread out on the shore of its harbour and a man from Flanders 30 shall re-establish it with his crested ship.  The fifth from him shall rebuild the walls of St David’s and shall bring back to her  the pall lost for many years. 31  The City of the Legions 32 shall fall into thy bosom, O Severn, and shall lose her citizens for a long time, and these the Bear in the Lamb 33 shall restore to her when he shall come.