A Fine Fragment
The Madness of Merlin. By Laurence Binyon. (Macmillan. 6s.)
ON his retirement from the Keepership of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum, Binyon proposed to devote himself wholly to poetry. He finished the great task of his translation in terza rima of the Divine Comedy, and then turned to a project which had been occupying his mind for many years. It was the writing of a play on the theme of the half-mythical figure of Merlin, the master of words, the magician who by his renunciation of the world was in the position to win the world. He is a strange and fascinating symbol. One feels that he occupies a centred position in Frazer's Golden Bough, as well as in the Old Testament : the priest-prince, holding primitive human society ingether until it should grow politically self-supporting. Perhaps he still functions.
Binyon's ambition however, was frustrated by the war. He found no real retirement. Indeed, the last years of his life were those of a traveller. Thus The Madness of Merlin got no further than the first act, which is now published with an admirable introduction by Gordon Bottomley, with whom Binyon had discussed the play over a number of years. I see he influence of Bottomley, as a dramatist, in this fragment. The movement is similar to that of his Northern stage-sagas, and so is the grouping of characters.
Otherwise, the work, especially in texture, is peculiar to Binyon the poet of the odes. It is difficult verse to describe. One might call it traditional ; but Binyon was never formal enough to be so labelled. In this play, for example, he proposed to build his dialogue roughly on a quantitative base, with numbered syllables to each line. But the tension of the man's spirit (always so apparent in his character and bearing) will break through, and for my ear at least the effect of the verse is strongly rhythmic, mostly into four-heat lines that create an elegiac atmosphere in keeping with the theme.
The symbolism of the play, and the use of day-dream, remind me of the scenes in AE's Candle of Vision. We see the sword, in all its Arthurian significance. And we are shown, with a gradual revelation, that which is more powerful than the sword (the whole moral of the play, as of Binyon's life).
" Therefore I say unto you Trust not only in the sword's edge."
The efficacy of that ultimate weapon is not revealed. All that Binyon had time to do is to show us the agonising experience of the loss of the sword, and of faith in it. RICHARD CHURCH.
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