SUMMERS, KAREN CRADY, Ph.D. Reading Incest - The University ...

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can not be ameliorated, at least not without the confession and repentance that Arthur
neglects to offer.
The Beast may be interpreted as symbolic of the pagan, and of incest. It is a
divided creature, a hybrid of serpent and leopard; 21 leopards are themselves a result of an
unnatural union of lion and panther. The Beast is unnatural, unkynde; it is something that
nature never intended. The questing noise that emits from its belly is disturbing, as it
sounds like an internal war which threatens to tear the animal apart from the inside—civil
war in a microcosm. Notably, the questing noise stops while the animal drinks water,
something evidently as natural for beasts as for man, suggesting a similarity between man
and beast. That these events appear so very close together in the text is indicative of the
ill effects upon the whole land of a ruler whose kingdom is founded upon magic and
sexual transgression, including incest; all are symptomatic of the king’s inability to rule
his passions wisely.
When Arthur’s horse is brought to him by a yeoman, Pellinor takes it to replace
his own horse. Strangely, Arthur is unable to prevent this. He, as any knight, is at a great
disadvantage without a horse. He is impotent, unable to do anything other than sit
passively and doze off in the sunlight, as an old man might do. While waiting for his
yeoman to fetch yet another horse, Merlin passes by, this time in the form of a boy.
Despite his earlier encounter with a disguised Merlin and the details the boy relates,
Arthur does not recognize the wizard and “he was wrothe with the chylde” (29). Merlin,
appearing as an old man, passed Arthur soon after that. “The chylde tolde you trouthe,”
21 It is so described in the Post-Vulgate cycle.