【读书笔记 | 存档】The Fall of Arthur
【阅读时间】约2014年7月。
【说明】读书笔记，大量摘录；没有固定形式，感想未必严肃，脑洞未必像样。
The Fall of Arthur
Dawn came dimly. On the dark faces
of the old mountains eastward staring
light was kindled. The land shimmered.
Sun came shining. Silver morning
bathed in water bright ascended
the bare heaven blue and lofty.
Beams fell slanting through the boughs of trees
glancing and glimmering in the grey forest;
rain drops running from rustling leaves
like drops of glass dripped and glistened.
No beast was stirring: the birds listened.
这段不知为啥我觉得特别有画面感，而且具有十足的老头写作特色。以及，以前看亚瑟王传奇时还不觉得，但Mordred这人让老头一写，简直是活脱脱的Maeglin…………
The Poem in Arthurian Tradition
At the victorious end of the sea-battle, with Arthur on his ship off Romeril, gazing at his own land in doubt of his best course, my father ceased to work on The Fall of Arthur: in my view, one of the most grievous of his many abandonments.
小托这深深的无奈…………=v=
The Unwritten Poem and its Relation to The Silmarillion
这部分主要讲的是精灵宝钻里的Tol Eressëa和老头这首没写完的长诗The Fall of Arthur里Isle Avallon之间的联系。
HoMe里已经提到过二者之间的关系，而且仅从名称来看它们也必然有关：小托编辑的宝钻里，Tol Eressëa上的港口就叫Avallonë。老头写The Fall of Arthur的时候显然也受了宝钻相关构思的影响，小托甚至推断是宝钻和The Lost Road带来了一大堆复杂问题，致使他坑了这篇The Fall of Arthur……
联系大致如下：
曾经把Gawain的船命名为Wingelot；
Lancelot在亚瑟死后乘船出海，沿着Eärendel's passage去了阿瓦隆；（这说法一出，我顿时穿越了……）
Lancelot和Guinevere最后一次相见时，他问她“Where is Arthur”，据小托说这场面堪比胡林和墨玟最后一次相见，她问他“她是怎么找到他的”，且被问者都无言以对……= =
The Evolution of the Poem、附录和脚注
要我说，全书最大亮点恐怕就是小托这一针见血的吐槽了，简直想裱起来：
As a rule, indeed, no manuscript of my father's could be regarded as 'final' until it had safely left his hands.
我居然兴致勃勃地读完了附录里老头那份有关头韵体古英语诗歌的介绍，一点也没觉得枯燥，老头您不愧是教授！（虽说这讲稿其实面对的是普通大众……）
然而脚注6让我笑得无法自已——
Very oddly he is the slayer of the Emperor Lucius, although less than 200 lines later Lucius is slain again by King Arthur.
