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

Confederation should want to fight against meтАФas a Norman kingтАФwhen it was really the Saxons who
hunted them, and when it was hundreds of years ago in any case."
"You are under-rating the Gaelic memory, dear boy. They don't distinguish between you. The Normans
are a Teuton race, like the Saxons whom your father conquered. So far as the ancient Gaels are
concerned, they just regard both your races as branches of the same alien people, who have driven them
north and west."
Kay said definitely: "I can't stand any more history. After all, we are supposed to be grown up. If we go
on, we shall be doing dictation."
Arthur grinned and began in the well-remembered singsong voice: Barbara Celarent Darii Ferioque
Prioris, while Kay sang the next four lines with him antiphonically.
Merlyn said: "You asked for it."
"And now we have it."
"The main thing is that the war is going to happen because the Teutons or the Galls or whatever you call
them upset the Gaels long ago."
"Certainly not," exclaimed the magician. "I never said anything of the sort."
They gaped.

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"I said the war will happen for dozens of reasons, not for one. Another of the reasons for this particular
war is because Queen Morgause wears the trousers. Perhaps I ought to say the trews."
Arthur asked painstakingly: "Let me get this clear. First I was given to understand that Lot and the rest
had rebelled because they were Gaels and we were Galls, but now I am told that it deals with the Queen
of Orkney's trousers. Could you be more definite?"
"There is the feud of Gael and Gall which we have been talking about, but there are other feuds too.
Surely you have not forgotten that your father killed the Earl of Cornwall before you were born? Queen
Morgause was one of the daughters of that Earl."
"The Lovely Cornwall Sisters," observed Kay.
"Exactly. You met one of them yourselvesтАФQueen Morgan le Fay. That was when you were friends
with Robin Wood, and you found her on a bed of lard. The third sister was Elaine. All three of them are
witches of one sort or another, though Morgan is the only one who takes it seriously."
"If my father," said the King, "killed the Queen of Orkney's father, then I think she has a good reason for
wanting her husband to rebel against me."
"It is only a personal reason. Personal reasons are no excuse for war."
"And furthermore," the King continued, "if my race has driven out the Gaelic race, then I think the
Queen of Orkney's subjects have a good reason too."
Merlyn scratched his chin in the middle of the beard, with the hand which held the reins, and pondered.
"Uther," he said at length, "your lamented father, was an aggressor. So were his predecessors the
Saxons, who drove the Old Ones away. But if we go on living backward like that, we shall never come
to the end of it. The Old Ones thelmselves were aggressors, against the earlier race of the copper
hatchets, and even the hatchet fellows were aggressors, against some earlier crew of esquimaux who
lived on shells. You simply go on and on, until you get to Cain and Abel. But the point is that the Saxon
Conquest did succeed, and so did the Norman Conquest of the Saxons. Your father settled the
unfortunate Saxons long ago, however brutally he did it, and when a great many years have passed one
ought to be ready to accept a status quo. Also I would like to point out that the Norman Conquest was a
process of welding small units into bigger onesтАФwhile the present revolt of the Gaelic Confederation is
a process of disintegration. They want to smash up what we may call the United Kingdom into a lot of
piffling little kingdoms of their own. That is why their reason is not what you might call a good one."