The Seduction of Camelot
by Robert W. Watson
(10 January 2001)

The Idylls of the King is a warning to any civilization that rejects its founding principles in favor of uncontrolled passion. Indeed, Tennyson reveals that a people cannot long endure on a foundation of irrationality. In Tennyson's portrayal of the rise and fall of Camelot, Vivien fulfills the role of femme fatale as she directly causes the downfall of the kingdom. The first part of the Idylls provides only hints of the decay of Arthur's ideal. However, the sixth book, "Merlin and Vivien," begins the ruin of King Arthur's power, because doom is now impending with Vivien, who is clearly wicked, both openly and blatantly. Indeed, Vivien delights in falsehood, and her meanness is without a clear motive. In short, Vivien is pure evil and embodies an unholy trinity of Sin, Death, and Satan.

First, Vivien represents sin, because she is born of rebellion against King Arthur, a type of Christ. Vivien tells King Mark that her "father died in battle against the King." While her desire to destroy Arthur could be considered revenge, Vivien possesses a loftier reason to raze Camelot:

As Love, if Love be perfect, casts out fear,
So Hate, if Hate be perfect, casts out fear.

Thus, Vivien is in absolute and complete rebellion against the order and principles of Camelot. Since Camelot pictures a perfect environment like the garden of Eden, Vivien's entering into this garden with Guinevere's help suggests a parallel with Eve's beguilement by Satan and the tempter's rebellion against God. Also, since the physical environment seldom causes the destruction of the individual or his society from without, but rather through sin found within the human heart, so Vivian succeeds in destroying Camelot only by working her wiles from within.

Second, Vivien represents death, because she destroys morality, reason, and pure religion. Ironically, when Vivien is born, Death surrounds her. Because of his rebellion against King Arthur, Vivien's father dies fighting against the king in battle. Also, before dying, her mother delivers Vivien on the battlefield and then dies next to her husband. Because she is evil, Vivien refuses to believe that anyone is pure and chaste. In fact, Vivien thinks she understands the wickedness of Camelot, but her reference point is herself. Since she hates the good, Vivien easily lies, thus killing the truth and moral purity:

She hated all the knights, and heard in thought
Their lavish comment when her name was named.
For once, when Arthur walking all alone,
Vext at rumour issued from herself
Of some corruption crept among his knights.

Vivien merely started the rumor, and the rumor does its work. Vivien corrupts the base and the lowest in Camelot through the lust of the flesh; on the other hand, Arthur edifies the best and purest in the kingdom through righteous judgment. Vivien works her will indirectly, through Merlin, who embodies the ancient wisdom of Camelot. Since Merlin the magician represents the pure intellect and Vivien, the lust of the flesh, Vivien's defeating Merlin shows that reason fails against lust. Merlin acts more like a doctor who examines a disease and not as a moral and just man who hates evil. Indeed, Merlin tolerates Vivien's antics:

...the Seer
Would watch her at her petulance, and play,
Ev'n when they seem'd unloveable, and laugh
As those that watch a kitten; thus he grew
Tolerant of what he half disdain'd, and she,
Perceiving that she was but half disdain'd,
Began to break her sports with graver fits.

Furthermore, Vivien causes the death of true religion and gives birth to a pagan one. In "Balin and Balan," Vivien triumphantly sings:

The fire of Heaven has kill'd the barren cold,
And kindled all the plain and all the wold.
The new leaf ever pushes off the old.
The fire of Heaven is not the flame of Hell.

Vivien's fire is not fire sent down from God, but the fire that burns within the flesh: the fire of lust. This lust will destroy the old order based on purity and self-denial and will make provision for the new paganism based on the worship of nature and the base desires of men.

Third, Vivien represents Satan, because she is portrayed as a tempter and as a serpent. As she appeals to Guinevere, Vivien calls her "Woman of women" and "Heaven's own white / Earth-angel, stainless bride of stainless King." This is an allusion to the Biblical account of the fall of mankind. Through Eve's fall, Adam falls as well. Thus, the fellowship with God found in the Garden of Eden is severed by the sin of lust by Adam and Eve. The parallel to the fall of Camelot with the account in Genesis is striking, since the fellowship of the Round Table is destroyed as Arthur falls due to Guinevere's sin.

Furthermore, Tennyson compares and associates Vivien with a serpent. Of course the Bible identifies Satan as a serpent. When she sets out to seduce Merlin, Vivien "play'd about with slight and sprightly talk, / And vivid smiles, and faintly-venom'd points / Of slander." The "venom'd points" suggest the fangs of a snake. When she follows Merlin to a sylvan island, Vivien stretches out like a snake: "There lay she all her length and kiss'd his feet, / As if in deepest reverence and in love." As she further works her wiles, Vivien moves serpent-like towards Merlin:

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.

This passage reveals Tennyson's workmanship. The choice of words, such as, "writhed," "twined," and "curved" are suggestive of the movement of a snake. Also, there is the hissing sound that dominates the passage But, Tennyson gives Vivian a dual role as Satan and as Eve. Like Eve, Vivian here is desiring knowledge. Furthermore, Vivien's grasping Merlin's heel is significant in that Satan is able to bruise the heel of Jesus Christ since he is the seed of a woman. Therefore, Vivien is once again associated with death.

Like a serpent, Vivien is always ready to strike. When he muses about Vivien and her intent, Merlin mutters that Vivien is a harlot:

He spoke in words part heard, in whispers part,
Half-suffocated in the hoary fell
And many-winter'd fleece of throat and chin.
But Vivien, gathering somewhat of his mood,
And hearing "harlot" mutter'd twice or thrice,
Leapt from her session on his lap, and stood
Stiff as a viper frozen; loathsome sight,
How from the rosy lips of life and love,
Flash'd the bare-grinning skeleton of death!

As evil incarnate, Vivien's "false love" can quickly become hate. But Merlin surrenders to Vivien, only because Vivien wears the old sage down in argument: "For Merlin, overtalk'd and overworn, / Had yielded, told her all the charm, and slept." Merlin's end is rather ignominious:

Then, in one moment, she put forth the charm
Of woven paces and of waving hands,
And in the hollow oak he lay as dead,
And lost to life and use and name and fame.

Tennyson's portrayal of Vivien is indeed grotesque, because she represents Sin, Death, and Satan. A common seductress could never have defeated Merlin and, eventually, Arthur and his kingdom of Camelot. The destruction of a civilization that started on a foundation of moral and noble ideals must be destroyed from within. A people need not fear foreign armies or the tyranny of other lands. What must be feared is the traitor within the walls, who undermines a solid foundation of morality by replacing it with one that lacks eternal principles. The society that prefers unbridled passion over reason and objectivity will hear Vivien's echo: "Fool."