4.  LYONNESSE.  The geography of the Idylls of the King is designedly vague.  The region of Lyonnesse was supposed to be adjacent to Cornwall, and the sea now covers it.  The Scilly Islands are held to have been the western limit of this fabulous country.

6.  THE BOLD SIR BEDIVERE.  The epithet “bold” is used repeatedly in this vaguely descriptive fashion with Sir Bedivere’s name.  Cf. lines 39, 69, 115, 151, 226.  The use of “permanent epithets” in narrative poetry has been consecrated by the example of Homer, who constantly employs such expressions as “the swift-footed Achilles,” “wide-ruling Agamemnon,” etc.

Bedivere is described in The Coming of Arthur as follows:—­

  For bold in heart and act and word was he
  Whenever slander breathed against the King.

12.  A GREAT WATER.  This expression has occasioned much unnecessary comment on the score of its alleged artificiality.  There might be a gain in definiteness in substituting “lake,” or “river,” as the case might be, but there would be a corresponding loss in poetry and in meaning at this particular place.  “Had ‘a great lake’ been substituted for it, the phrase would have needed to be translated by the mind into water of a certain shape and size, before the picture was realized by the imagination.” (Brimley.) It would have, consequently, been more precise, but “less poetic and pictorial.”

If further justification for the expression were needed it might be stated that “water” stands for lake in certain parts of England, e.g.  “Dewentwater,” etc.; and, what is of more importance, that Malory uses “water” in the same sense:  “The king . . . . saw afore him in a great water a little ship.” Morte d’Arthur iv. 6.

21.  OF CAMELOT.  Arthur’s capital, as noted in The Lady of Shalott.  In speaking of the allegorical meaning of The Idylls of the King, Tennyson states that “Camelot, for instance, a city of shadowy palaces, is everywhere symbolical of the gradual growth of human beliefs and institutions, and of the spiritual development of man.”  Always bear in mind that Tennyson has also said:  “There is no single fact or incident in the Idylls, however seemingly mystical, which cannot be explained without any mystery or allegory whatever.”

22.  I PERISH—­MADE.  In The Coming of Arthur this thought is amplified: 

For first Aurelius lived and fought and died, And after him King Uther fought and died, But either failed to make the kingdom one.  And after these King Arthur for a space, And thro the puissance of his Table Round Drew all their petty princedoms under him, Their king and head, and made a realm, and reigned.

And in The Passing of Arthur we read: 

  Ill doom is mine
  To war against my people and my knights. 
  The king who fights his people fights himself.