![]() |
The Once and Future King Book 2, Chapter 2
Arthur and Merlyn look down from the castle at the town. There has been some letup in the Gaelic wars lately (Morgause's husband, King Lot, and others, are fighting Arthur). Arthur is still young and naïve-he thinks of fighting as a game--and Merlyn is still frustrated about this. He reminds Arthur that many people die in battle. He tells Arthur not to be like his father, to change the fact that kings and knights do whatever they want, while the peasants who are forced to fight for them are murdered. Arthur agrees that it is wrong, and that he will think about it. He is confident, and young: "So far as he was concerned, as yet, there might never have been such a thing as a single particle of sorrow on the gay, sweet surface of the dew-glittering world." Book 2, Chapter 2, pg. 230