Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain-peak,
And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or him
Of Geoffrey's book, or him of Malleor's, one
Touched by the adulterous finger of a time
That hovered between war and wantonness,
And crownings and dethronements."


The poetical beauties of The Coming of Arthur excel those of Gareth
and Lynette. The sons of Lot and Bellicent seem to have been
originally regarded as the incestuous offspring of Arthur and his
sister, the wife of King Lot. Next it was represented that Arthur
was ignorant of the relationship. Mr Rhys supposes that the mythical
scandal (still present in Malory as a sin of ignorance) arose from
blending the Celtic Arthur (as Culture Hero) with an older divine
personage, such as Zeus, who marries his sister Hera. Marriages of
brother and sister are familiar in the Egyptian royal house, and that
of the Incas. But the poet has a perfect right to disregard a
scandalous myth which, obviously crystallised later about the figure
of the mythical Celtic Arthur, was an incongruous accretion to his
legend. Gareth, therefore, is merely Arthur's nephew, not son, in
the poem, as are Gawain and the traitor Modred. The story seems to
be rather mediaeval French than Celtic--a mingling of the spirit of
fabliau and popular fairy tale. The poet has added to its lightness,
almost frivolity, the description of the unreal city of Camelot,
built to music, as when


"Ilion, like a mist, rose into towers."