Allegories; Fantasy fiction; Historical fiction; Middle Ages -- Fiction
Now said Queen Guenevere: "Farewell to you, then, Jurgen, for it is
I that am leaving you forever. I was to them that served me the
lovely and excellent masterwork of God: in Caerleon and Northgalis
and at Joyeuse Garde might men behold me with delight, because, men
said, to view me was to comprehend the power and kindliness of their
Creator. Very beautiful was Iseult, and the face of Luned sparkled
like a moving gem; Morgaine and Enid and Viviane and shrewd Nimuë
were lovely, too; and the comeliness of Ettarde exalted the beholder
like a proud music: these, going statelily about Arthur's hall,
seemed Heaven's finest craftsmanship until the Queen came to her
daïs, as the moon among glowing stars: men then affirmed that God in
making Guenevere had used both hands. And it is I that am leaving
you forever. My beauty was no human white and red, said they, but an
explicit sign of Heaven's might. In approaching me men thought of
God, because in me, they said, His splendor was incarnate. That
which I willed was neither right nor wrong: it was divine. This
thing it was that the knights saw in me; this surety, as to the
power and kindliness of their great Father, it was of which the
chevaliers of yesterday were conscious in beholding me, and of men's
need to be worthy of such parentage; and it is I that am leaving you
forever."
Said Jurgen: "I could not see all this in you, not quite all this,
because of a shadow that followed me. Now it is too late, and this
is a sorrowful thing which is happening. I am become as a rudderless
boat that goes from wave to wave: I am turned to unfertile dust
which a whirlwind makes coherent, and presently lets fall. And so,
farewell to you, Queen Guenevere, for it is a sorrowful thing and a
very unfair thing that is happening."
Thus he cried farewell to the daughter of Gogyrvan Gawr. And
instantly she vanished like the flame of a blown out altar-candle.
46.
The Desire of Anaïtis
And again Koshchei waved his hand. Then came to Jurgen a woman who
was strangely gifted and perverse. Her dark eyes glittered: upon her
head was a net-work of red coral, with branches radiating downward,
and her tunic was of two colors, being shot with black and crimson
curiously mingled.
And Anaïtis also had forgotten Jurgen, or else she did not recognize
him in this man of forty and something: and again belief awoke in
Jurgen's heart that this was the only woman whom Jurgen had really
loved, as he listened to Anaïtis and to her talk of marvelous
things.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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