"T. H. White - The Once and Future King" - читать интересную книгу автора (White T.H)

"But, you see, Merlyn is helping me to win my two battles so that I can stop this. He wants me to put
things right.
"Lot and Uriens and Anguish and thoseтАФthey are the old world, the old-fashioned order who want to
have their private will. I have got to vanquish them with their own weaponsтАФthey force it upon me,
because they live by forceтАФand then the real work will begin. This battle at Bedegraine is the
preliminary, you see. It is after the battle that Merlyn is wanting me to think about."
Arthur paused again for comment or encouragement, but the magician's face was turned away. It was
only Sir Ector, sitting next to him, who could see his eyes.
"Now what I have thought," said Arthur, "is this. Why can't you harness Might so that it works for
Right? I know it sounds nonsense, but, I mean, you cant' just say there is no such thing. the Might is
there, in the bad half of people, and you can't neglect it. You can't cut it out, but you might be able to
direct it, if you see what I mean, so that it was uuseful instead of bad."


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The audience was interested. They leaned forward to listen, except Merlyn.
"My idea is that if we can win this battle in front of us, and get a firm hold of the country, then I will
institute a sort of order of chivalry. I will not punish the bad knights, or hang Lot, but I will try to get
them into our Order. We shall have to make it a great honour, you see, and make it fashionable and all
that. Everybody must wan to be in. And then I shall make the oath of the order that Might is only to be
used for Right. So you follow? The knights in my order will ride all over the world, still dresed in steel
and whacking away with their swordsтАФthat will give an outlet for wanting to whack, you understand, an
outlet for what Merlyn calls the foxhunting spiritтАФbut they will be bound to strike only on behalf of
what is good, to defend virgins against Sir Bruce and to restor what has been done wrotn in the past and
to help the oppressed and so forth. Do you see the idea? It will be using the Might instead of fighting
against it, and tu4rning a bad thing into a good. There, Merlyn, that is all I can think of. I have thought
as hard as I could, and I suppose I am wrong, as usual. But I did think I can't do any better. Please say
something."
The magician stood up as striaght as a pillar, stretched out his arms in both directions, looked at the
ceiling and said the first few words of the Nunc Dimittis.


7
The situation at Dunlothian was complicated. Nearly every situation tended to be when it was connected
with King Pellinore, even in the wildest North. In the first place, hwe was in loveтАФthat was why he had
been weeping in the boat. He explained it to Queen Morgause on the first opportunityтАФbecause he was
lovesick, not seasick.
What had happened was this. The King had been hunting the Questing Beast a few months earlier, on
the south coast of Gramarye, when the animal had taken to the sea. She had swam away, her serpentine
head undulating on the surface like a swimming grass-snake, and the King had hailed a passing ship
which looked as if it were off to the Crusades. Sir Grummore and Sir Palomides had been in the ship,
and they had kindly turned it round to pursue the Beast. The three of them had arrived on the coast of
Flanders, where the Beast had disappeared in a forest, and there, while they were staying at a hospitable
castel, Pellinore had fallen in love with the Queen of Flanders' daughter. This was fine so far as it wentтАФ
for the lady of his choice was a managing, middle-aged, stout-hearted creature, who could cook, ride a
straight line, and make bedsтАФbut the hopes of all parties had been dashed at the start by the arrival of
the magic barge. The three knights had got into it, and sat down to see what would happen, because