Vita Merlini is a Latin hexameter poem postluding Geoffrey’s earlier ‘Prophecies of Merlin’ in his History of the Kings of Britain. It establishes ‘Merlin’, transmuted from Welsh ‘Myrddin’, though not as the familiar Arthurian wizard, nor as a mediæval Harry Potter.
Merlin here is depressive, at times mad, craving the hermit life, fluctuating between woods and court, a skilled astronomer but reluctant wonderworker. Walker appositely quotes Arthur C Clarke’s Fort-like dictum: “Any sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic.”
The poem ranges from battle scenes to erotic intrigues to discourses on strange phenomena involving birds, fish and islands, springs and lakes. These verses will most interest FT readers. Walker sees a combination of autopsy (equating Merlin and author) and such sources as Isidore of Seville, now patron saint of the Internet. Classical possibilities include Pliny’s Natural History.
It is a pity that Walker excludes the Latin text (JJ Parry’s 1925 bilingual edition is online), which would have facilitated discussion of the poem’s classical allusions and sometimes clever variations: Ovidian influences are observed, Virgilian and others not.
Not everyone accepts Geoffrey’s authorship; JSP Tatlock’s Speculum 18 is not in Walker’s bibliography. It does, though, include RJ Stewart’s books, which link Merlin to 2012 prophecies based on the Mayan calendar. Walker’s English hexameter version (the first) and erudite commentary are a valuable contribution to understanding Geoffrey and his world.
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