Page:Le Morte d'Arthur - Volume 1.djvu/19

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In these triplets the position of Arthur seems to be very clearly indicated: the men fighting on his side are Gereint’s men from Devon. That is to say, Arthur is Gereint’s superior: he fills in fact the rôle assigned him in the Historia Brittonum when he is there termed a Dux Bellorum. This raises the question of Arthur’s title; for passing on from the description of him as a Dux Bellorum, we have him twice in the Mirabilia called Arthur Miles. Further the Vita Gildæ, sometimes ascribed to the twelfth century author, Caradoc of Llancarvan, in giving the story of the carrying away of Guenever by Melwas, speaks of the latter as rex, or king, reigning over the Æstiva Regio or Somerset, while it styles Arthur a tyrannus. To this must be added the fact that in the story of Kulhwch and Olwen the hero salutes Arthur as Penteyrned yr Ynys honn, or “the Head of the Princes of this Island,” and one should notice that, in common with all these, the passage last cited from the Black Book avoids calling Arthur a king. On the other hand the word ameraudur which it applies to Arthur is one of the forms given in Welsh to the Latin word imperator borrowed; but as it is used of him commonly in the stories of Peredur, Owein, Gereint and others which betray the influence of the French romances, it might perhaps be supposed that its presence in Gereint’s Elegy was due to that influence. There is, however, no evidence, and the way in which the word is used rather inclines me to regard it as spontaneous on the part of the poet: I am only doubtful whether instead of rendering, as I have done, “emperor, director of toil,” it would not have been more correct to write “commander, director of toil”: that is to say, to suppose the word to retain here the meaning which it had primarily in Latin. In any case, the instances which have been adduced will suffice, it seems to me, to shew that it was not due to accident that other terms than that of king were thought more suitable in speaking of Arthur. In that fact one seems to trace