Vita Merlini (The Life of Merlin)

A.   簡介 Introduction (within 100 words, Chinese or English)

    本作品是Geoffrey較晚期的作品，約於1150年完成，主角為巫師梅林Merlin，主要敘述梅林在歷經多場戰爭後，目睹可怕的暴力與好友之死亡，遂而發狂、退居到山林，這樣的傳統日後亦在Yvain、Lancelot與Tristan身上重現。在Vita Merlini裡，亞瑟的姐姐之名Morgan第一次出現在讀者眼前，日後馬羅里改為Morgan le Fay。Morgan在Vita Merlini中身為具有魔力的治癒者，為一良善的角色。在此作品中，梅林是在與Taliesin的談話中提到亞瑟，談及亞瑟一生如曇花般的經歷，還有最終遭到Mordred的背叛與擊敗。梅林似乎是見證了亞瑟的故事，而非身為亞瑟的導師。

B.   文本摘錄 Extracts (4-6 Pages)

1.
                              Vita Merlini
                          Gaufridi de Monemuta
                           The Life of Merlin
                         By Geoffrey of Monmouth
translated by Basil Clarke, in The Life of Merlin. Cardiff: UWP, 1973.                         

                                 (OOP)
                  Facsimile edited by Mary F.E.K. Jones
 
I set myself to sing of the madness of the bard of prophecy, an entertaining tale of Merlin. Guide my pen, Robert, glory of the bishops; for we know that Philosophy has filled you with its holy nectar and made you universally learned, so that you might prove yourself the foremost teacher in the world.
Approve, then, my project, and be ready to be more indulgent to this poet than was that other whom you have just succeeded, attaining an honour well-deserved.
Everything conspired to win that honour for you-your principles, your upright way of life, your birth, your fitness for the place: clergy and people alike supported you. That is why lucky Lincoln is now in the seventh heaven.
Indeed, it might well have been yourself whom I would wish to embrace in a noble poem. But I am not the man for it: no, not even if Orpheus and Camerinus and Macer and Marius and Rabirius of the great voice were all to sing through my mouth and the Muses were my accompanists. But, Sisters, you are used to singing with me; so let us to the song before us. Sound the lyre! 
Now, many years and many kings had come and gone. Merlin the Briton was famous throughout the world as king and prophet. He was law-giver to the proud South Welsh, and he foretold the future to their leaders.
A time came when it happened that a quarrel arose among several of the princes of the realm. In a savage war they had ravaged the unoffending populace in city after city. Peredur, prince of the North Welsh, was campaigning against Gwenddolau, who ruled the kingdom of Scotland. The day fixed for battle had arrived, and the commanders had taken the field. Their troops had begun the struggle, and on both sides alike men fell in the tragic slaughter.
Merlin had come to the war with Peredur, and so, too, had Rodarch, king of the Cumbrians, fierce fighters both. They killed the enemy before them with their dread swords; and three brothers of the prince, who had followed him to the wars, were everywhere in the fight, killing, and destroying the battle lines. So fiercely and impetuously did they rush through the dense ranks that they were soon struck down and killed.
Merlin, you grieved at that sight, and your sad lament was heard throughout the army, as you lifted up your voice in these words:
"Surely a malignant fate cannot have been so vindictive as to take from me all these my companions, men such that many a king and many a distant kingdom have stood in fear of them till now?
"O man's uncertain fate, death ever near, ever with power to strike him with its hidden lance and drive the poor life from his body!
"O glory of youth, who will now stand by my side in battle to turn back the princes who coixie to do me ill and their hordes that press upon me?
"Brave youths, your very bravery has taken from you your sweet years, your sweet youth itself. A moment back, and you were tearing through the formations in battle array, striking down all opposition. Now you lie heavy on the earth, red with fresh blood.'
So with fast-running tears he mourned amid the strife and wept for his heroes. The terrible fighting ceased not, the lines of battle clashed, foe fell to foe. Blood flowed on every side, and the people of both nations died.
At last the Britons rallied their scattered forces and drew together. Together they made an armed rush across the field, attacked the Scots, dealt wounds and laid them low. They did not slacken until the enemy battalions turned away and fled among the by-ways. Merlin called his companions from the battle-field and instructed them to bury the brothers in. a richly decorated chapel. He mourned for his heroes; his flooding tears had no end. He threw dust upon his hair, tore his clothes and lay prostrate on the ground, rolling to and fro. Peredur and the other princes and commanders offered comfort. He would not take their comfort and rejected their entreaties. So for three long days he wept, refusing food, so great the grief that consumed him.
Then, when the air was full with these repeated loud complainings, a strange madness came upon him. He crept away and fled to the woods, unwilling that any should see his going. Into the forest he went, glad to lie hidden beneath the ash trees. He watched the wild creatures grazing on the pasture of the glades. Sometimes he would follow them, sometimes pass them in his course. He made use of the roots of plants and of grasses, of fruit from trees and of the blackberries in the thicket. He became a Man of the Woods, as if dedicated to the woods. So for a whole summer he stayed hidden in the woods, discovered by none, forgetful of himself and of his own, lurking like a wild thing.
But when winter came and took all the plants and the fruit on the trees, and left him nothing to live upon, he poured out these complaints in a pitiful voice:
"O Christ, God of heaven, what shall I do? What place is there on earth where I can live? I see there is nothing here to eat--no grass on the ground, no acorns on the tree.
"Nineteen were the apple trees which once stood here with their fruit: they stand so no longer. Who, who has stolen them from me? Where have they gone so suddenly? Now I see them, now not. So Fate both supports and opposes me, letting me see and preventing me from seeing.
"Now the apples fail me, and all else besides. The forest stands leafless, fruitless. It is a double affliction: I can get no cover from the leaves or nourishment from the fruit. Winter and the rainstorms borne on the south wind have taken them, every one. If I happen to find turnips deep in the ground, hungry swine and greedy boars rush up and snatch the turnips from me as I pull them up out of the soil.
"Wolf, dear companion, YOU used to wander along the byways of the forest and through the glades with me: you scarcely get across the field. Harsh hunger has weakened both you and me. You lived in these woods before me, and age has turned you grey first. You have nothing, know not your next meal. I wonder at it, for the forest pastures abound in goats and other creatures you might take. Perhaps it is just that your hateful burden of years has deprived you of strength and prevented you hunting. All that is left to you is to fill the air with howling, your wasted frame sprawled flat on earth."
So he continued aloud as he went about among the undergrowth and dense hazels. The sound reached a passer-by, who turned aside towards the source of the speech he heard. He found the place and he found the speaker. But Merlin saw him, and was off. The traveller followed, but could not keep up with the fugitive. So he returned to his route and continued on his business; but he was touched by the plight of the man who had fled.
Then this traveller fell in with another man, who was from the court of Rodarch, king of Cumbria. Rodarch's wife was Ganieda, a beautiful woman with whom he lived most happily: she was Merlin's sister. Distressed by what had happened to her brother, she had sent retainers to the woods and the depths of the countryside to bring him back. It was one of these who came upon the traveller. The traveller at once went up to him, and as soon as they met they began to talk. The man sent to look for Merlin asked if the other had seen him in the woodlands and valleys. The traveller said, yes, he had seen such a man among the dense-wooded valleys of the Forest of Calidon; but when he had tried to sit and talk with him, he had rushed off among the oak trees.
As the traveller finished this tale, the messenger set off into the woods. He searched the deepest valleys, he crossed high mountains, he penetrated the most secluded places, seeking his man everywhere. There was a spring on the very top of a certain mountain, surrounded on all sides by hazels and dense thorns. Merlin had settled there, and from that place he could watch the whole woodland and the running and gambolling of the creatures of the wild. 
The messenger climbed up and quietly reached the summit, in search of his man. At length he saw the spring and Merlin sitting on the grass beyond it, complaining in this manner:
"O ruler of all, how happens it that all the seasons are not the same, distinguished only by their four numbers? As things are, the spring is bound by its own laws to provide the leaves and flowers; summer gives us the crops and autumn the ripe fruit. Then follows icy winter, which devours and lays waste all the others and brings again the rain and snow. It suppresses everything and causes damage with its storms. It will not let the earth produce its multi-coloured flowers, nor the oaks their acorns, nor the apple trees their russet apples. Would there were no winter, no white frost! Would it were spring or summer--and the cuckoo back in song, and the nightingale, who softens sadness with her tender air, and the turtle dove keeping her chaste devotion. Would that the other birds, too, were singing their harmonies in the fresh foliage to delight me with their warbling, while the earth refreshed, with flowers fresh, breathed out its scent from under the green turf, and springs ran babbling all around, and the pigeon among the leaves nearby kept up its drowsy cooing and brought sleep."
The messenger, who had been listening to the prophet, here interrupted his lament by strumming on the guitar he had thought to bring with him in order to catch the madman's attention and calm him. So his fingers sounded a plaintive strain, plucking out the measure on the strings, while he lay hidden behind the prophet and sang softly:
"O the deep moan of mourning Guendoloena, the piteous tears of weeping Guendoloena! I grieve for Guendoloena dying in despair. No woman in Wales more beautiful-beyond goddesses in fairness, beyond the privet petal, the rose in bloom, beyond the lilies of the field! The splendour of spring shone in her alone, the beauty of the stars was held in her two eyes, gold glittered in her glorious hair.
"All this has gone: gone the grace, the delicate bloom, the snowy splendour of her flesh. She is not what once she was, but worn with weeping. She knows not where the prince has gone, whether living still or dead. She lies sick with sorrow, faded utterly in the dissolution of long grief.
"Ganieda is in tears by her side, complaining no less, mourning her lost brother, comfortless. One for a brother, one for a husband weeps. Their tears together flow, and time in sadness passes. They eat not, sleep not, wander unrefreshed by night through thorny ways, so great is the grief which grips them.
"So once Sidonian Dido mourned, when the fleet weighed anchor and Aeneas hastened on his way. So once poor Phyllis sighed and wept when Demophoon failed his appointed hour. So Briseis cried, Achilles lost.
"Now wife's and sister's tears together fall, and grief burns ever deep within their tortured hearts.'
This was the song the messenger sang to his plaintive strings; and with his air he soothed the listening prophet to calmness and to sympathy with the singer.
Suddenly the prophet sprang up, accosted the young man with a lively greeting and begged him to sound his instrument once more and play again the lament he had just played. So the singer plucked at the strings of his instrument and picked out the song, as he was asked, a second time. Little by little, as he played, he coaxed the madman to put by his wild mood under the sweet spell of the cytharum [guitar].
So Merlin came to himself, recollected what he had been, and thought of his madness with astonishment and loathing. His normal state of mind returned, and his power of feeling, too. His reason thus restored, he could sigh aloud at the names of his sister and his wife and be moved by their devotion. He begged to be taken back to the court of King Rodarch. His companion agreed. They set off at once from the woods and came in cheerful company together to the city of the king.
Then the queen was glad to have her brother again, and his wife overjoyed at her husband's home-coming. They vied in kissing him, flinging their arms about his neck in deep affection. The king, too, welcomed the returned wanderer with every due honour; and all the nobles who thronged the palace celebrated in the city.
But when Merlin saw such crowds of people there, he could not bear them. He went mad; and once more his derangement filled him with a desire to go off to the forest, and he longed to slip away. At that, Rodarch ordered him to be held under guard and music to be played on the guitar to calm his madness. He went sadly to him and begged and prayed him to be reasonable, to stay with him and not hanker after the forest and an animal life under the trees, when he might wield a royal sceptre and rule a nation of warriors. The king promised, besides, that he would make him many gifts. He ordered clothes to be brought, and hunting birds, and dogs and fast horses; gold, glittering gems and cups wrought by Wayland in the city of Segontium. All this Rodarch brought to the prophet, urging him to stay and forget the woods.
But the prophet rejected the presents in these words: "Let these things go to lords hard-pressed by poverty, such as are not content with modest living but covet everything. But I put above these things the woodland and spreading oaks of Calidon, the high hills, the green meadows at their foot-those are for me, not these things. Take back such goods, King Rodarch. My nut-rich forest of Calidon shall have me: I desire it above all else."
At last, finding that no gift would detain this sullen man, the king ordered him to be stoutly chained to prevent him setting off for the forest wilderness, if freed. The prophet felt the chains about him, and saw no way to be free to get to the woods of Calidon. He immediately fell into a gloom and stayed silent. His face lost its liveliness: not a word, not a smile would he vouchsafe. Just then the queen was walking through the hail looking for the king. He greeted her graciously as she approached, took her by the hand and begged her to sit down. He put his arm about her and kissed her; and in doing so he turned his head and saw a leaf hanging caught in her hair. So he reached up, pulled it out and threw it on the ground, with a cheerful joking word to his wife.
The prophet turned his eyes on this scene, and laughed. It made the men standing nearby turn to look at him in surprise, since he had been refusing to laugh. The king was also surprised, and pressed the madman to account for his unexpected laughter; and he reinforced his words with many gifts.
Merlin stayed silent, and avoided an explanation of his laughter. Rodarch continued to press him more and more, adding presents to prayers. At length the prophet grew angry at his generosity and said: "A gift is what a miser loves and a grasping man works hard to get. Such men are corruptible by presents and will turn their shallow minds whichever way they are told, because what they have is not enough for them. But for me the acorns of pleasant Calidon are enough, and the sparkling streams that run through fragrant meadows. Let the miser take his gifts: gifts do not buy me. Unless I get my freedom and may go back to the green woodland valleys, I shall refuse to explain my laughter."
So, since Rodarch had failed to change the prophet's mind by any gift or discover why he had laughed, he ordered the chains to be struck off at once and gave him permission to leave for the forest wilderness, so as to make him willing to give the explanation for which the king was eager. Merlin, his spirits rising because he could now leave, then said:
"The reason I laughed, Rodarch, was that in one and the same act you earned both approval and disapproval. When just now you pulled out the leaf the queen unknowingly had in her hair, you were more faithful to her than she had been to you when she crept into the undergrowth, where her lover met her and lay with her. As she lay there, a leaf fallen by chance caught in her loosened hair. You plucked it out, unknowing."
The moment Rodarch heard this grave charge, he was filled with gloomy anger. He turned his face from her and cursed the day he had married her. But she, unperturbed, hid her shame behind a smile and addressed her husband thus:
"Why so gloomy, my love? Why so angry over this, and so unjust in your blame of me, and why do you believe a lunatic who muddles lies and truth together because he is out of his wits? Anyone who believes him becomes many times more fool than he. Now watch, and, if I am not mistaken, I shall prove that he is talking nonsense and has not told the truth."
Among many others in the hall there was one particular boy. This clever woman noticed him and then and there thought of an ingenious trick to show up her brother. She called the boy over and asked her brother to predict the death the boy would die. So her brother said to her: "Dearest sister, when he is a man, this lad will die by falling from a high rock."
The queen smiled at this, and then told the boy to go away, take off the clothes he was wearing and put on others, and cut off his long hair. She told him that he was then to come in again, looking like another person. The boy did what he was told, for he returned to them in different clothes, as instructed. After a little while, the queen once more appealed to her brother, saying, "My dear, tell your sister what the death of this one will be."
Merlin said, "When this boy grows up, he will meet a violent death in a tree though misjudgment."
So he spoke. The queen, addressing her husband, said, "Has this false prophet been able to deceive you so far that you could think I had committed such a great crime as this? If you consider how much sense there is in what he has just said about this boy, you will realise that what he has said about me has been made up so that he can be off to the woods. As if I would do such a thing! I shall keep my bed chaste, and chaste shall I ever be while there is breath in me. I showed him up in questioning him about the boy's death. I shall now show him up again: you must watch and judge." So saying, she whispered to the boy to go out, dress himself in woman's clothes and then come back. He soon after slipped away and quickly carried out her instructions. He returned dressed in woman's clothing, looking like a girl. He came and stood in front of Merlin, to whom the queen said jokingly, "Well, brother, tell me of the death of this girl."
"Girl or not," said her brother to her, "she will die in a river."
This made Rodarch laugh loudly at his powers of reasoning. For to a question about the death of a single boy he had given three predictions. Consequently, he thought Merlin had spoken falsely about his wife, and would not believe him. He bitterly regretted having believed him earlier and having condemned his wife. Seeing this, the queen forgave him. She kissed and caressed him and made him happy again.
Meanwhile Merlin was thinking of his journey to the woods: he left the house and ordered the gates to be opened. But his sister came and stood in the way. Her eyes brimmed with tears as she begged him to remain with her and put aside his wild ideas. But he was determined and would not give up his plans. He continued to try to open the doors and strove to leave. He raged, he fought, and his raging forced the servants to open. At last, when all had failed to turn him from his resolution to leave, the queen sent for Guendoloena, who was elsewhere, to come as quickly as possible to see him depart. She came, she went on her knees to beg her husband to remain. But he rejected her pleas-he would not stay, and he would not look at her in his usual cheerful way. She was hurt; she dissolved into tears, tore her hair, scratched her cheeks and collapsed on the ground as though dying.
At the sight of this the queen said to him, "See, it is Guendoloena, dying for you here-what shall she do? Is she to re-marry? Do you tell her to remain as a widow?--or to go with you wherever you travel? She will go with you to the forest and will be happy to live in the green forest clearings, if only she can keep your love."
To this speech the prophet replied, "[Sister, I do not want a cow that pours water in as broad a stream as the Virgin's Urn in flood. Nor shall I change my care as Orpheus once did when Eurydice gave her baskets to the boys to hold before she swam across the sandy Styx.] I shall remain clear of both of you and undestroyed by love. So let her have her due chance of marriage and choose of her own accord whom she shall wed. But let the man who weds her take care he never gets in my path or comes near me. Let him tread another road. For should it chance he meets me, he may feel my flashing sword. Yet when the day comes for the solemn joining in marriage and the elaborate banquet is set before the guests, I myself shall be there, provided with fine gifts, and shall endow Guendoloena handsomely when she is given away in marriage." He finished speaking, and, saying farewell to each of them as he went, set out for the woods he loved: no-one stopped him. Guendoloena stayed sadly watching in the doorway, the queen beside her. Both were moved by the fate of their dear one. They thought how remarkable it was that a man deranged should have so much secret knowledge and that he had been aware of his own sister's love affair. Still, they thought he had lied about the boy's death, in speaking of three deaths when he ought to have spoken of only one. So for many long years his pronouncement seemed an empty one, until the boy himself reached manhood. Then its force became universally apparent, and many were convinced.
While hunting with a pack of dogs, the youth saw a stag hiding in the forest undergrowth. He unleashed the dogs: at the sight of the stag they tore upwards along the rough tracks, filling the air with their baying. He spurred his horse in pursuit, directing the huntsmen by sounding his horn and by shouting, and urged them to come on with greater speed.
There was a high hill, ringed with rocks, with a river running across the plain at its foot. The quarry crossed the hill and fled towards the river in search of its usual type of cover. The young man pressed on and took a straight course over the mountain, looking for the stag among the scattered rocks. But, in his headlong course, his horse happened to slip and went over a high precipice, and its rider plunged down the steep cliff slope into the river. But he fell in such a way that one foot caught in a tree and the rest of his body was submerged in the flowing stream. So then, he fell-he was drowned-he hung from a tree; and by his triple death he proved the prophet a true one.

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2. Excerpt from Camelot Project:

Arthur from the Vita Merlini

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"Hiis igitur gestis cleri populique favore
Ambrosio regnumque datur regnique corona,
postmodo quam gessit tractando singula juste.
Emensis autem per lustra quaterna diebus,
proditur a medico moriturque bibendo venenum.
Mox germanus ei successit junior Uter,
nec primum potuit regnum cum pace tueri.
Perfida gens etenim demum consueta redire
venerat et solita vastabat cuncta phalange.
Oppugnavit eam sevis congressibus Uter,
et pepulit victam trans equora remige verso.
Mox reformavit posito certamine pacem
progenuitque sibi natum qui postmodo talis
extitit ut nulli fieret probitate secundus.
Arturus sibi nomen erat regnumque per annos
optinuit multos postquam pater Uter obivit,
idque dolore gravi gestum fuit atque labore
et nece multorum per plurima bella virorum.
Nam dum predictus princeps langueret, ab Angla
venerat infidus populus cunctasque per enses
trans Humbrum patrias submiserat ac regiones.
Et puer Arturus fuerat nec debilitate
etatis poterat tantas compescere turmas.
Ergo consilio cleri populique recepto
Armorico regi mittens mandavit Hoelo
ut sibi presidio festina classe rediret.
Sanguis enim communis eos sociabat amorque
alter ut alterius deberet dampna levare.
Mox igitur collegit Hoel ad bella feroces
circumquaque viros et multis milibus ad nos
venit, et Arturo sociatus perculit hostes
sepius agrediens, et stragem fecit acerbam.
Hoc socio securus erat fortisque per omnes
Arturus turmas dum progrederetur in hostes,
quos tandem vicit patriamque redire coegit,
composuitque suum legum moderamine regnum.
Mox quoque submisit post hec certamina Scotos
ac Hibernenses, convertens bella, feroces.
Supposuit patrias illatis viribus omnes,
et Norwegenses trans equora lata remotos
subdidit et Dacos invisa classe petitos.
Gallorum populos ceso Frollone subegit,
cui curam patrie dederat Romana potestas.
Romanos etiam bello sua regna petentes
obpugnans vicit, procuratore perempto
Hyberio Lucio, qui tunc collega Leonis
induperatoris fuerat jussuque senatus
venerat ut fines Gallorum demeret illi.
Ceperat interea nostrum sibi subdere regnum
infidus custos Modredus desipiensque
illicitam venerem cum conjuge regis agebat.
Rex etenim transire volens, ut fertur, in hostes,
reginam regnumque suum commiserat illi.
Ast ut fama mali tanti sibi venit ad aurs,
distulit hanc belli curam patriamque revertens
applicuit multis cum milibus atque nepotem
obpugnans pepulit trans equora diffugientem.
Illic collectis vir plenus prodicione
undique Saxonibus cepit committere pugnam
cum duce, set cecidit deceptus gente prophana
in qua confisus tantos inceperat actus.
O quantas hominum strages matrumque dolores
quarum conciderant illic per prelia nati!
Illic rex etiam letali vulnere lesus
deseruit regnum, tecumque per equora vectus,
ut predixisti, nimpharum venit ad aulam.
Ilico Modredi duo nati regna volentes
subdere quisque ceperunt bella movere
alternaque suos prosternere cede propinquos.
Deinde nepos regis dux Constantinus in illos
acriter insurgens populos laniavit et urbes,
prostratisque simul crudeli morte duobus
jura dedit populo regni diademate sumpto.
Nec cum pace fuit quoniam cognatus in illum
prelia dira movens violavit cuncta Conanus
proripuitque sibi regiones rege perempto,
quas nunc debiliter nec cum ratione gubernat."

"Thus with these deeds and the favor the the clergy and people,
the kingdom and its crown were given to Ambrosius,
and thereafter he ruled by treating everyone justly.
However, with the days improving over a period of twenty years,
he was betrayed by a doctor and died from drinking poison.
Soon his younger brother Uther succeeded him,
but he was unable at first to watch over the kingdom with peace.
For indeed the treacherous people accustomed to return
came at last and destroyed everything with their usual regiment
of soldiers. Uther fought them with raging battles, and he beat them back, conquered, across the seas with their oars turned.
Soon with the struggle finished he re-established peace
and engendered for himself a son who afterward stood out so much
that he was second to none in uprightness.
Arthur was his name and he held fast the kingdom
for many years after Uther his father passed away,
and he was burdened with a heavy sadness and with the work
and the death of many through the many wars of men.
For while the foresaid king [Uther] was sick, from Anglia
the wicked people came and they subjected all countries
and regions across the Humber to their swords.
Arthur was a boy and not able, in the weakness
of his age, to check such throngs.
Therefore by the accepted advice of the clergy and the people,
sending to Hoel the king of Armorica,
he ordered that he return in haste with a fleet for aid.
Truly the shared life-blood and love united them
so that the one should lighten the injuries of the other.
Thus, soon Hoel brought together for the war
fierce men on every side and with many soldiers
came to us, and Arthur's ally [i.e., Hoel], attacking again and again,
struck down the enemies and made a bitter massacre.
With this ally Arthur was secure and strong
through all the troubles while he advanced against the enemies,
whom he finally conquered and began to return to the country,
and settled his kingdom with his law in the government.
And soon after these battles he subjected the Scots
and the Irish, ferocious, facing battles.
He placed all those countries under his power,
and he subjugated the faraway Norwegians across the broad seas
and the Danes attacking with a hostile fleet.
With Frollo conquered he subdued the people of Gaul,
to whom the Roman magistrate had given the care of the country.
Fighting the Romans he also conquered those who were seeking
war on his realm, and killed the governor
Hyberius Lucius, who then was an associate
of general Leonis and had come on order of the senate
to enforce those boundaries of the Gauls.
Meanwhile Modred, the unfaithful and foolish guardian,
had begun to place our kingdom under himself
and was making illicit love with the king's wife.
For indeed the king, as it is said, wishing go over [the sea],
had committed to him [Modred] the queen and his kingdom.
But as the notoriety of such great wickedness came to his ears,
he put off his concern over the wars and returning to his country,
he landed with many soldiers and fighting he beat back
his nephew flying across the sea.
There, with the Saxons gathered on every side,
that man full of destruction began to make war
with his lord, but he was slain, deceived by the impious people
in whom he, having trusted, had begun such deeds.
Oh, how great was the slaughter of men and the weeping
of mothers whose sons had perished there in battle!
There also the king, struck by a mortal wound,
abandoned his kingdom, and carried over the sea with you,
as you said before, he came to the court of maidens.
Each of those two sons of Modred, wishing to subdue
the kingdom, began to make war and to alternately
throw down their neighbors by slaughter.
Then duke Constantine, the nephew of the king,
rising up sharply against them, tore the people and cities to pieces,
and with those two cast down together with a cruel death
he gave law to the people with the royal crown taken upon himself.
And there was no peace since his kinsman Conan,
moving against him with cruel battles, injured him
and seized for himself lands with the king slain,
which lands he now governed feebly without reason."