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

"Well," said Merlyn, "I don't think he is very different from the others. What is all this chivalry,
anyway? It simply means being rich enough to have a castle and a suit of armour, and then, when you
have them, you make the Saxon people do what you like. The only risk you run is of getting a few
bruises if you happen to come across another knight. Look at that tilt you saw between Pellinore and
Grummore, when you were small. It is this armour that does it. All the barons can slice the poor people
about as much as they want, and it is a day's work to hurt each other, and the result is that the country is
devastated. Might is Right, that's the motto. Bruce Sans Piti├й is only an example of the general situation.
Look at Lot and Nentres and Uriens and all that Gaelic crew, fighting against you for the Kingdom.
Pulling swords out of stones is not a legal proof of paternity, I admit, but the kings of the Old Ones are
not fighting you about that. They have rebelled, although you are their feudal sovereign, simply because
the throne is insecure. England's difficulty, we used to say, is Ireland's opportunity. This is their chance
to pay off racial scores, and to have some blood-letting as sport, and to make a bit of money in ransoms.
Their turbulence does not cost them anything thelmselves because they are dressed in armourтАФand you
seem to enjoy it too. But look at the country. Look at the barns burnt, and dead men's legs sticking out of
ponds, and horses with swelled bellies by the roadside, and mills falling down, and money buried, and
nobody daring to walk abroad with gold or ornaments on their clothes. That is chivalry nowadays. That
is the Uther Pendragon touch. And then you talk about a battle being fun!"
"I was thinking of myself."
"I know."
"I ought to have thought of the people who had no armour."
"Quite."


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"Might isn't Right, is it, Merlyn?"
"Aha!" replied the magician, beaming. "Aha! You are a cunning lad, Arthur, but you won't catch your
old tutor like that. You are trying to put me in a passion by making me do the thinking. But I am not to
be caught. I am too old a fox for that. You will have to think the rest yourself. Is might rightтАФand if not,
why not, give reasons and draw a plan. Besides, what are you going to do about it?"
"What..." began the King, but he saw the gathering frown.
"Very well," he said. "I will think about it."
And he began thinking, stroking his upper lip, where the moustache was going to be.
There was a small incident before they left the keep. The man who had been carrying the two buckets to
the menagerie came back with his buckets empty. He passed directly under them, looking small, on his
way to the kitchen door. Arthur, who had been playing with a loose stone which he had dislodged from
one of the machicolations, got tired of thinking and leaned over with the stone in his hand.
"How small Curselaine looks."
"He is tiny."
"I wonder what would happen if I dropped this stone on his head?"
Merlyn measured the distance.
"At thirty-two feet per second," he said, "I think it would kill him dead. Four hundred g is enough to
shatter the skull."
"I have never killed anybody like that," said the boy, in an inquisitive tone.
Merlyn was watching.
"You are the King," he said.
Then he added, "Nobody can say anything to you if you try."
Arthur stayed motionless, leaning out with the stone in his hand. Then, without his body moving, his