I'm skipping around in Idylls of the King and after a double dose of Jane Austen, it's almost shocking. The characters are lustier, less gentile, and nothing of the parlor about them.
Vivian attempts to undo Arthur's court by whispering rumors of Guinevere's infidelity. She then gains a new challenge -- conquering the old Merlin who would wish for love in his old age. Seeing the danger of her wiles he flees, and she follows. Her real aim is learning a spell he told her of which would trap whomever she wills into four wall of an enchanted tower, so he could see no one but her, and no one could rescue him.
There lay she all her length and kissed his feet,
As if in deepest reverence and in love...
..."O Merlin, do ye love me?" and again,
"O Merlin, do ye love me?" and once more,
"Great Master, do ye love me?" he was mute.
And lissome Vivien, holding by his heel,
Writhed toward him, slided up his knee and sat,
Behind his ankle twined her hollow feet
Together, curved an arm about his neck,
Clung like a snake; and letting her left hand
Droop from his mighty shoulder, as a leaf,
Made with her right a comb of pearl to part
The lists of such a beard as youth gone out
Had left in ashes... "I am silent then,
And ask no kiss;" then adding all at once,
"And lo, I clothe myself with wisdom," drew
The vast and shaggy mantle of his beard
Across her neck and bosom to her knee,
And called herself a gilded summer fly
Caught in a great old tyrant spider's web,
Who meant to eat her up in that wild wood
Without one word. So Vivien called herself,
But rather seemed a lovely baleful star
Veiled in gray vapour; till he sadly smiled:
"To what request for what strange boon," he said,
"Are these your pretty tricks and fooleries,
O Vivien, the preamble? yet my thanks,
For these have broken up my melancholy."
Try and reconcile this Merlin to the Disney one. Presta-digi-tonium indeed!
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