ill that thou and thy brother Sir Modred had unto Sir Launcelot hath
caused all this sorrow.... Wit you well my heart was never so heavie as
it is now, and much more I am sorrier for my good knights losse than for
the losse of my queene, for queenes might I have enough, but such a
fellowship of good knightes shall never bee together in no company." But
to the great Poet Laureate, who voices the modern ideal, a true marriage
is the crown of life. To love one maiden only, to cleave to her and
worship her by years of noblest deeds, to be joined with her and to live
together as one life, and, reigning with one will in all things, to have
power on this dead world to make it live,--this was the high ideal of
the blameless King.

"Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee."

And his farewell from her who had not made his life so sweet that he
should greatly care to live,--

"Lo! I forgive thee, as Eternal God
Forgives: ...
And so thou lean on our fair father Christ,
Hereafter in that world where all are pure
We two may meet before high God, and thou
Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine,"--

this is altogether one of the noblest passages in modern verse.

A comparison of the various modern treatments of the Tristram theme, as
given by Tennyson, Richard Wagner, F. Roeber, L. Schneegans, Matthew
Arnold, Algernon Charles Swinburne, F. Millard, touching also on the
Tristan of Hans Sachs, and the Tristram who, because he is true to love,
is the darling of the old romances, and is there--notwithstanding that
his love is the wedded wife of another--always represented as the strong
and beautiful knight, the flower of courtesy, a model to youth,--such a
comparison would reveal striking differences between mediaeval and
modern ideals.

In making the comparison, however, care must be exercised to select the
modern treatment of the theme which represents correctly the modern
ideal. The Middle Age romances, sung by wandering minstrels, before the
invention of the printing press, doubtless expressed the ideals of the
age in which they were produced more infallibly than does the possibly
individualistic conception of the modern poet; for, of the earlier forms
of the romance, only those which found general favor were likely to be
preserved and handed down. This inference may be safely made because of
the method of the dissemination of the poems before the art of printing
was known. It is true that cop