The Sword in the Stone, by T.H. White

T.H. White’s rather eclectic novelisation of the childhood adventures of King Arthur is one of the more curious books you could ever read. A mishmash of Arthurian legend, fantasy, comedy and sweaty-palmed Medieval fanboy tomfoolery, there are many things about this story that almost don’t work. The tone, the setting, the story; none of it should rightfully hold together. Yet somehow, against all the logic of publishing, this novel manages to exist and better than that, tells a memorable and fairly decent story.

          We are quickly introduced to our protagonists, a young boy with who goes by the lovely nickname of the Wart, and his adoptive brother Kay. The landscape is unambiguously Medieval, taking place in a castle in the middle of the forest, where its lord Sir Ector – the Wart’s foster-father – needs to find a tutor for the two boys. Thanks to a mishap by Kay and the Wart, a tutor is found in the form of the master-magician Merlyn, who happily accompanies the Wart back to the castle and begins to oversee his education. Having a wizard as a mentor proves to be more interesting than expected, as Merlyn teaches his pupil by transforming him into one animal or another to teach him valuable life lessons; a fish, a hawk, an owl, a badger, and other things besides. Other adventures include witnessing the duel between two silly knights, a rescue-mission in the forest alongside Robin Hood, and a Christmastime boar hunt.

Apparently this is T.H. White

          Overall the story, though a tad episodic, is told entertainingly and with added medieval gusto. The characters each bring something unique to the table, be it Wart’s mildly-tense relationship with his foster-brother Kay, or Merlyn’s eccentricity or the wonderful bumbling character of King Pellinore, and the book’s rather comic nature keeps it fun throughout. It is an odd beast, made odder by the slightly confused setting. The Arthurian legend was born of the so-called Dark Ages of post-Roman Britain, and while the many legends and adaptations involving this story quite rightly put it in a generally non-specific medieval setting, T.H. White’s version is a little more confusing than most. There is no definite placing of the story in terms of period, while events, places and concepts that have no place in the Arthurian canon are dotted all over the place. Eton College (est. 1440) and the Battle of Crecy (part of the Hundred Years’ War, 1337-1453) are both mentioned in dialogue, while Robin Hood and every single one of his Merry Men (including Friar Tuck) play a rather significant role in the story, despite Robin Hood being associated with the reign of Richard I at the end of the 12^th Century. Even Uther Pendragon, legendary king of Birtain and Arthur’s unknown father, is given no real place in time, an offhanded reference from Pellinore assigning him the vague dates of ‘1066 to 1216’ [Once and Future King 1996 edition, pg. 207]. It’s as though the entire English Middle Ages had been poured into a bowl, and T.H. White has helped himself to any aspect of it that pleases him.

          Fortunately this queer displacement in time is nicely explained in one edition of the novel. At the beginning of the story Sir Ector and Sir Grummore sit discussing Eton college over a bottle of Port, the writer helpfully adding:

‘It was not really Eton that he mentioned, for the College of the Blessed Mary was not founded until 1440, but it was a place of the same sort. Also they were drinking Metheglyn, not Port, but by mentioning the modern wine it is easier to give you the feel.’ [Once and Future King 1996 edition, pg. 4].

This is a helpful justification by the writer, and explains away most of the anachronistic nature of the book (while the backwards nature of Merlyn’s existence provides a rather more comedic excuse for everything that particular character says and does). This short paragraph we’re on, however, brings up one of the stranger issues that I have with this book. One I have never properly encountered before in a work of fiction. The fact that this explanatory passage appears in one of two different editions that are still in circulation.

This is the edition I read. The cover's quite nice

          T.H. White published his original novel about Arthur’s childhood, The Sword in the Stone, in 1938. Having spent the following years writing about subsequent events and refining his concept, he then published the large 4-part epic The Once and Future King in 1958, of which the Sword in the Stone formed the first part. He must have spent some twenty years tweaking the ideas since he originally published his earlier book, for the version of the story from The Once and Future King has numerous differences from its predecessor, including – but by no means limited to – the aforementioned passage explaining away the oddly anachronistic setting. Whole chapters have been changed, events and story-arcs which appeared in the 1938 edition have been removed and replaced, and subtle alterations in narration and dialogue creep in all over the place. Chapters 11 and 12, for instance, in which the Wart and Kay join forces with Robin Hood to mount a rescue operation, are markedly different in each edition. In 1938 they have to ambush a swarm of grotesque man-eating creatures called Anthropophagi and slaughter every last one of them. In 1958 they must instead break into Castle Chariot and confront Morgan le Fay and her pet Griffin. In both cases they have to rescue the same prisoners.

Other chapters have not just been edited, but were completely rewritten. Whereas in the earlier edition the Wart has adventures in which he is transformed into a grass snake, meets the goddess Athena, and enters a giant’s stronghold to rescue King Pellinore, these sections have been entirely done away with during the book’s incorporation into The Once and Future King. They are instead replaced with a dystopian chapter as an ant, and an extended sequence where the Wart pisses around as a goose. The thing is, that these differences in the writing are not just part of a fascinating curio left over from an earlier edition of the story. It’s not just a stage on the road of publication towards the book we all know and love. Both versions of The Sword in the Stone are still being reprinted and published, the one from 1938, and the version that’s part of The Once and Future King, and it means that you kind of have to know which one you’re reading before you read it.

The Disney movie (1963). Watch it; it's quite all right.

So this raises the issue of how much control an author has over their own work. There is a significant casualty from T.H. White’s re-editing process, one who might upset fans of the 1963 Disney movie based on The Sword in the Stone: the cannibalistic witch Madam Mim. This sequence forms a substantial part of chapter 6, involving Wart and Kay losing an arrow, and in the process of retrieving it from an isolated cottage in the woods they end up captured by the evil witch Madam Mim, locked away in oversized rabbit-hutches, only to be rescued by Merlin who defeats the witch in a duel. In The Once and Future King however chapter 6 is truncated at the moment the boys lose their arrow, and Madam Mim makes no appearance in the book. T.H. White had clearly decided by 1958 that she was extraneous to the tale he wanted to tell, essentially subjecting the poor cannibal to a damnatio memoriae. If we accept the author’s later version as the ‘correct’ and final edition of the story, then it would mean losing Mim, it would mean losing a boring chapter about a snake, and it would mean having Morgan le Fay rather than a worrying and potentially xenophobic slaughter of some creatures whose species is nearly unpronounceable.

This is a goose, like the one what Wart is turned into

By this point I feel lost and confused myself. The fact of the matter is that a text is not entirely ‘locked’ or ‘static’, and should a living writer wish to come in at a stage post-publication and alter a work to reflect changed circumstances or opinions, or if they felt the original did not accurately reflect their intentions at the time, then we as readers might have to wrestle with that most dangerous concept – *authorial intent*. Or perhaps not, because do we really have to give a damn what the author wanted? When it comes to things like The Hobbit, Tolkien’s revision of the character of Gollum to bring the book more into line with its sequel The Lord of the Rings is now unanimously accepted as the standard work, and it would be unusual to find a re-print of an earlier edition lying around or on sale at your local Waterstones. With The Sword in the Stone however the matter is completely different. The previous edition, before T.H. White’s revisions, is still very much in circulation, and as this is the one which the Disney movie is based on I daresay it is probably just as well known as the 1958 version – if not more so.

As this review has already rambled on for quite a while it would be foolish for me to tackle the remaining parts of The Once and Future King, and so I will not delve any further into it at this time and just stick with my review of The Sword in the Stone. If I had to pick a preference between the two editions then it would probably be The Once and Future King version, because I like having Morgan le Fay instead of those most-questionable Anthropophagi, and I don’t think the loss of an ant chapter for one on snakes and evolutionary biology is really much of a trade-off. I do miss Madam Mim, however, as that is a relatively good scene and chapter 6 is fairly pointless without it.

All in all though, the novel holds together thanks to its own merits. It is a shameless love-letter to an idealised Medieval England, populated by fine characters and wacky sorcery, lost in its own anachronistically cobbled-together setting and occasionally displaying some of the most beautiful writing you might ever read. Seriously, at odd moments I could be convinced I had before me one of the greatest books ever written, but sadly T.H. White cannot keep up such a high standard of writing for the entire length of the novel. Certain episodes in the story are memorable and glorious, such as the boar-hunt, while a few are tedious and tend to dull one’s enthusiasm. Some of the animal chapters, for instance. The ‘sword in the stone’ scene itself, that quintessential Arthurian moment, is actually quite good, for it proves a satisfying finale for the whole affair and gives the book its absolute justification for being the way it is. Again, T.H. White could really put his words together when he set his mind to it. 

I will read the remainder of The Once and Future King in at a later date, assuming the assassins do not get me before then, but for now The Sword in the Stone has been dealt with. It is rather unique a work of art, and is well worth a read if only because it is such a strange literary concoction.

Bibliostone

White, T.H. The Sword in the Stone. Fontana Lions: London. (1971 [First published 1938])

White, T.H. The Once and Future King – The Complete Edition. HarperCollins: London. (1996 [First published 1958])

ByzReview: Agathias and Menander

Procopius, who I reviewed last time, is undoubtedly the premier historian of the reign of Justinian the Great (527-565), but his historical works only cover the first couple of decades of Justinian’s reign. Part of the beauty of the Byzantine historical corpus is that, though many works of history are incomplete or cut off abruptly, later historians take it upon themselves to continue these unfinished works or begin their own histories from the very point where their predecessors came to a halt. Perhaps the best example of this is Agathias of Myrina, a 6^th century poet, writer and all-round pretentious dick who decided to continue Procopius’ work, boldly outlining in the preface to his work that this is his intention.

                Agathias is more-or-less a textbook case of a Byzantine ‘Classicising historian’, as opposed to a Chronicler, for he has no interest in relating the entire history of the universe in a series of easily-digestible factual chunks, but instead gives us an eloquently archaic and intensive account of a short and particular period of time – specifically the years 552 to 558. He begins his work with a hefty preface (or prooimion in Greek) in which he outlines his intentions, offers a profound description and justification for the writing of history, summarizes Procopius’ Wars which he intends to continue, and even gives us a little autobiography of himself, mentioning his previous literary works as credentials. It is heavyweight stuff, but it gets even denser once he begins his actual narrative.

Justinian, a bit later in his life

                For a mere six years in the middle of Justinian’s reign, Agathias sheds a lot of ink on the subject. Split into five ‘books’, his dense history covers the ongoing hostilities in Italy during its reconquest by the Roman empire, a messy situation on the eastern frontier with the Persian empire over the future of the land of Lazica, and an incursion from the northern 'barbarian' tribes right up to the walls of Constantinople. For those interested in military history, campaigns, and biased descriptions of the cultures and practices of non-Byzantine peoples (Franks, Slavs, Sassanian Persians, Lazicans etc) will find Agathias most useful. For me I found him dense, awkward, and generally difficult to get through. His ethnographical diversions are interesting, and the recalling of the heroic general Belisarius from retirement to fight one last battle in defence of Constantinople was a good tale, but ninety-five per cent of the whole history is nothing less than a tedious rhetorical description of countless battles, campaigns and speeches. Though the modern edition of Agathias is a handsome slim tome, nicely laid out and containing the occasional helpful explanatory footnote, it was so much more of a battle to get through than John Malalas ever was. If ever there was a clear distinction between a Byzantine Chronicle and a ‘Classicized' history, this is it.

                Like a majority of Byzantine historians, Agathias ends rather abruptly. Having paid the assorted barbarian tribes to war with one another, Justinian the Great has saved the Roman empire from its numerous external foes – and that’s where it finishes. Obviously history never ends, and just as Agathias thought to continue the work of Procopius, so somebody else decided to continue the work of Agathias. Enter Menander, the so called Protector, or Guardsman.

The Roman and Persian empires at the end of the 6th century, with their neighbours

                After Justinian’s death, power passed to his closest living relative, his nephew Justin II (r.565-578). As the final years of Justinian’s reign were consumed by the staving-off of the empire’s external foes (i.e. everybody under the sun), Justin II faced a number of foreign policy nightmares that got the better of him. During the renewed wars with Persia and the loss of the greater part of reconquered Italy, Justin II eventually succumbed to mental illness, leaving the reins of government in the hands of his wife the empress Sophia, and a trusted general named Tiberius. The emperor finally died after several years of regency, allowing Tiberius II (r.578-582) to smoothly ascended the throne, but he continued to face the same foreign policy problems that had plagued his predecessor’s reign.  After stabilising the frontiers, albeit with territorial losses, Tiberius II died and bequeathed the throne to his son-in-law Maurice, who would rule for the remainder of the 6^th century. Although writing in the reign of the emperor Maurice, Menander Protector prudently cuts off his history before then, concerning himself only with the last years of Justinian, and the reigns of Justin II and Tiberius II. For a list of all the rulers of the so-called ‘Justinianic dynasty’, here we are:

Justin I                           (518-527)
Justinian I                      (527-565) – Nephew of Justin I.
Justin II                         (565-574/578) – Nephew of Justinian.
Tiberius II Constantine (574/578-582) – Adopted son of Justin II, co-ruled with empress Sophia.
Maurice                         (582-602) – Married Tiberius II’s daughter, Constantina.

                Now would be the time to mention that Menander’s history is, shall we say, incomplete. As a complete text, this work has sadly not survived the test of time. It is the woeful fact of history that human creations are doomed to death just as their creators were, and if efforts are not made to preserve them, then works of writing, art and architecture will crumble and be forgotten. Chance references in surviving accounts, or occasional preserved fragments are the only clue we have to certain things existing, including books, and for every Procopius or Agathias I daresay there are countless numbers of lost writers and artists. In many cases, what we have left in the modern day has survived only by accident. 

With Menander though, there is a bright side. Considerable fragments of his work were preserved in a number of different locations, split between numerous other texts whose creators thankfully plagiarised him, by taking anything from long sprawling sections of Menander’s work to short, contextless sentences and then populating their own histories and encyclopaedias with them. Thus they lay, separated for many centuries while the complete history of Menander was lost and forgotten, until ambitious modern-day scholars decided to go to the effort of tracking each surviving piece down and reassembling it in some kind of order. This means that Menander, the historian,* has been recreated to some extent, patched together out of what remains of the disparate passages that are all that remain of his work. When read as a book, Menander’s fragments naturally do not act like the unified work it originally was. Rather, it feels disjointed, and awkwardly jumps from one subject to another as one fragment comes to an end and another begins. Some relatively long passages have been preserved – one example being a peace-treaty between the emperor Justinian and the Persians, which is beautifully detailed – and these can be highly useful. Then there are shorter paragraphs which contain little snippets of information, and lastly single sentences which read like proverbs, whose contexts are lost and are about as useful as one of those fucking internet quotations that people plaster over the internet and believe are deeper than they are.

               To illustrate my point, here is one short fragment:

         ‘4. When Baian, the leader of the Avars, was intent upon the siege of Sirmium, he threw Vitalian, the interpreter, and Comita in chains. The Emperor Justin had sent both men to him to request that he discuss certain matters with them. He imprisoned them in contravention of the universally recognised rights of ambassadors.’

                                [Menander the Guardsman, Fragment 12.4, translated by R.C. Blockley, pg. 133]

               Compared to another:

        ‘7. Only freedom from ambition and the abandonment of jealousy can contrive the most timely course of action.’

                                [Menander the Guardsman, Fragment 20.7, translated by R.C. Blockley, pg. 193]

                A fragmentary history such as this certainly has its uses, but it tantalises the would-be reader with questions over what has been lost. The reassembled Menander the Protector is certainly a short text, but we must be grateful for the little that has survived. Assuming that he took Procopius and Agathias as his model, which he certainly claims to have done, then he is simply continuing the foreign policy and Persian War narrative from his predecessors down to his own time, covering the reigns of Justin II and Tiberius II. Less interested in tedious battle and campaign details, and with fewer heroic speeches, Menander seems to be more concerned with the diplomatic side of events – particularly in the so-called Fifty-Year Peace established at the end of the Lazic War (541-562), in the final years of Justinian. This peace treaty, which was intended to shelve disputes between the two empires for the specified time, barely lasted a decade before war once again erupted in 572, during the reign of Justin II, and was to be fought on and off until the time of Maurice.

                So then, to conclude this review of two fairly different Byzantine ‘Classicised’ histories, what can I say? Agathias was difficult to get through, and his efforts to recreate every heroic detail of battles and speeches can be quite draining. Menander on the other hand is a little easier, thanks to the surviving pieces of his work being of a straightforwardly diplomatic flavour, and the whole thing being shorter and more concise, alternating between events on the frontier and in the capital. If there was something to tie these works together, as well as to Procopius’ official history (as opposed to the previously reviewed Secret History), then it’s the near unceasing wars between the Byzantine-Roman empire and the Sassanian-Persian empire. Surrounded by enemies, reeling from its wars of reconquest, and facing conflict with its old enemy on the eastern frontier with only a few heroic generals to fight the tide; this is the picture of the empire presented by Agathias and Menander.

* The more famous Classical Greek playwright, also called Menander, was similarly left in only fragmentary condition for most of history. Must be an unlucky name.

Bibliozantium 5

Agathiae Myrinaei Historiarum Libri Quinque. B.G. Niebuhr (ed). Bonn. [Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae], 1, (1828).

Agathiae Myrinaei Historiarum Libri Quinque. R. Keydell (ed). Berlin: Walter De Gruyter. [Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae], 2, (1967).

Agathias: The Histories. Translated by Joseph D. Frendo. Berlin and New York: Walter De Gruyter. [Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae], 2a, (1975).

Menander Protector. The History of Menander the Guardsman. R.C. Blockley (ed). Liverpool: Francis Cairns. [ARCA Classical and Medieval Texts, Papers and Monographs], 17, (1985).

                [A Helpful Gnote: The Greek text of Agathias is available either in the 19^th century Bonn edition (CSHB), or in a more up to date edition which is part of the Corpus Fontium collection (CFHB). The latter edition has been helpfully translated into English, and exists as a separate volume within the same series. Menander the Protector most conveniently exists as a text with parallel English translation – that is, on one side of the page you get the Greek text, while on the other is the same page translated into English. This is by far the best way to do a translation].