The Prince's blood spirted upon the scarf,
Dyeing it; and his quick, instinctive hand
Caught at the hilt, as to abolish him:
But he, from his exceeding manfulness
And pure nobility of temperament,
Wroth to be wroth at such a worm, refrain'd
From ev'n a word."
The self-restraint of Geraint, who does not slay the dwarf,
"From his exceeding manfulness
And pure nobility of temperament,"
may appear "too polite," and too much in accord with the still
undiscovered idea of "leading sweet lives." However, the uninvented
idea does occur in the Welsh original: "Then Geraint put his hand
upon the hilt of his sword, but he took counsel with himself, and
considered that it would be no vengeance for him to slay the dwarf,"
while he also reflects that he would be "attacked unarmed by the
armed knight." Perhaps Tennyson may be blamed for omitting this
obvious motive for self-restraint. Geraint therefore follows the
knight in hope of finding arms, and arrives at the town all busy with
preparations for the tournament of the sparrow-hawk. This was a
challenge sparrow-hawk: the knight had won it twice, and if he won
it thrice it would be his to keep. The rest, in the tale, is exactly
followed in the Idyll. Geraint is entertained by the ruined Yniol.
The youth bears the "costrel" full of "good purchased mead" (the
ruined Earl not brewing for himself), and Enid carries the manchet
bread in her veil, "old, and beginning to be worn out.
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