Preface
Arthur
Words
Notes




Preface


As one of the chief objects of the Early English Text Society is to
print every Early English Text relating to Arthur, the Committee have
decided that this short sketch of the British hero's life shall form one
of the first issue of the Society's publications. The six hundred and
forty-two English lines here printed occur in an incomplete Latin
Chronicle of the Kings of Britain, bound up with many other valuable
pieces in a MS. belonging to the Marquis of Bath. The old chronicler has
dealt with Uther Pendragon, and Brounsteele (Excalibur), and is
narrating Arthur's deeds, when, as if feeling that Latin prose was no
fit vehicle for telling of Arthur, king of men, he breaks out into
English verse,

"Herkeneþ, þat loueþ hono_ur_,
Of kyng Arthour & hys labo_ur_."

The story he tells is an abstract, with omissions, of the earlier
version of Geoffry of Monmouth, before the love of Guinevere for