玩过FATE的人都知道亚瑟王被称为“かつて存在し、未来に復活する王”,其实这句话就是翻译自建立起亚瑟王传说体系的经典著作,T.H.White的The Once And Future King(《曾经与未来之王》)的书名。这部四卷著作之后,还有人整理了他的遗作The Book of Merlyn(梅林之书)。最近在读这本书,在里面找到了一些很有意思的、当年White研究亚瑟王传说时写下来的小结。顺便翻译了一下:
“The whole Arthurian story is a regular greek doom, comparable to that of Orestes.
“Uther started the wrong-doing upon the family of the duke of Cornwall, and it was the descendant of that family who finally revenged the wrong upon Arthur. The fathers have eaten sour grapes etc. Arthur had to pay for his father's initial transgression, but, to make it fairer, the fates ordained that he himself should also make a transgression (against the Cornwalls) in order to bind him more closely in identification with the doom.
“The Duke of Cornwall married Igraine and they had three daughters, Morgan le Fay, Elaine and Morgause.
Cornwall公与Igraine结婚,生了三个女儿Morgan le Fay,Elaine和Morgause。
“Uther Pendragon fell in love with Igraine and slew her husband in war, in order to get her. Upon her he begot Arthur, so that Arthur was half brother to the three girls. But he was brought up separately.
“When Uther died and Arthur succeeded him in mysterious circumstances, naturally Arthur inherited this feud. The girls persuaded their husbands to lead a revolt of eleven kings.
Arthur had been told that Uther was his father, but Uther had been a vigourous old gentleman and Merlyn had very stupidly forgotten to tell Arthur who his mother was.
“After a great battle in which the 11 kings were subdued, Morgause, the wife of King Lot, came to Arthur on an embassy. They did not know of their relationship at this time. They fell for each other, went to bed together, and the result was Mordred. Mordred was thus the fruit of incest (his father was his mother's half brother), and it was he who finally brought the doom on Arthur's head. The sin was incest, the punishment Guinever, and the instrument of punishment Mordred, the fruit of the sin. It was Mordred who insisted on blowing the gaff on Launcelot and Guinever's affair, which Arthur was content to overlook, so long as it was not put into words.”