Merlin’s transcendent buffoonery

The Vita Merlini, to give it its short title, is an epic poem (carmen heroicum) of 1,529 lines in Latin dactylic hexameter by the British cleric and scholar Geoffrey of Monmouth (c.1095—c.1155). It tells of Merlin’s life as a wild man of the woods following his traumatic experience at the Battle of Arfderydd in 573, when he went mad after witnessing the death of Gwenddoleu ap Ceidio, whose bard he had been.

Geoffrey’s skilful text is fast-paced and shot through with lyrical touches. Merlin is portrayed as a profound seer who in order to keep open the approaches to the irrational depths acts out some apparently bizarre impulses. These antics can involve him in comical blunders, as when he plunges into a river whilst fleeing from his wife’s abortive second wedding (having just killed her husband-to-be by hurling a pair of antlers at him). Merlin, it has to be said, has made his escape on an unorthodox mount. All in all, the archetype of the trickster is strong in him. Here is the passage in question, from when Merlin is first spotted by his wife’s intended:

Stabat ab excelsa sponsus spectando fenestra,

In solio mirans equitem, risumque movebat.

Ast ubi vidit eum Vates, animoque quis esset

Calluit, extemplo divulsit cornua cervo

Quo gestabatur, vibrataque jecit in illum,

Et caput illius penitus contrivit, eumque

Reddidit exanimem vitamque fugavit in auras.

Ocius inde suum talorum verbere cervum

Diffugiens egit, silvasque redire paravit.

Egrediuntur ad haec ex omni parte clientes,

Et celeri cursu Vatem per rura sequuntur.

Ille quidem velox sic praecurrebat, ut isset

Ad nemus intactus, nisi praevius amnis obesset:

Nam dum torrentem fera prosiliendo mearet,

Elapsus, rapida cecidit MERLINUS in unda.

Circueunt ripas famuli, capiuntque natantem,

Adductumque domum, vinctumque dedere sorori.                   [Lines 464-480]

(Translation by C.B.: ‘The bridegroom stood watching from a high window, marvelling at the rider on his “stately” seat, and began to laugh. But when the seer saw him and realized who he was, he forthwith tore out the antlers from the stag he was riding and, with a flourish, hurled them at the fellow. Smashing his head right through, he divorced him from life and drove his spirit into the ether. Then post-haste and with a crack of his heels he goaded the stag into flight and set about returning to the woods. Dependents (of his sister) rushed out from all directions in response and pursued the soothsayer through the fields at full tilt. But he charged ahead at such a lick that he would have reached the forest untouched had there not been a river in his way. For while his wild mount was vaulting the torrent, Merlin slipped off and tumbled into the swift waters. The court servants, who had lined the banks, captured him as he swam across. Having bound him, they took him home and handed him over to his sister.’)

Merlin had arrived at his wife’s house driving an eccentric herd as her wedding portion. The stag’s antlers, which he so brutally appropriates, no doubt represent the cuckoldry suffered by the melancholy seer, though he had foreseen and approved it when he made his decision to retire to the woods and become Merlin Sylvester. As for his sudden baptism in the river, it most likely marks a deepening of his prophetic mission. Most remarkable of all, however, is Merlin’s sister’s enlightened and compassionate treatment of her deranged brother, which blends guile with dauntless patience. Eventually, she too becomes a shaman and goes to live in the forest with him and his fellow bard, Taliessin.