Unit 14 Vocabulary

Featuring

“Morte d’ Arthur”

Beatific – Adj. Blissful; rendering or making blessedKing Arthur’s arrival back in England is

anything but beatific when his illegitimate son, Mordred, meets him in battle, killing his nephew, Sir Gawain, in the fight.

SYNONYMS: rapturous, ecstatic, transcendent, serene

ANTONYMS: disconsolate, dejected, doleful

Beatific – Adj.

King Arthur’s beatific sleep is rudely interrupted by two foreshadowing dreams that are deeply troubling.

One dream involves a pit of

snakes, worms, and terrifying

beasts while the other night-

mare comes as a warning from

the dead Sir Gawain.

Behemoth – N. A creature of enormous size, power,

or appearanceFor all we know, the arm reaching up out of

the lake to grab Excalibur could have belonged to a behemoth like the Loch Ness monster.

SYNONYMS: mammoth, whale, elephant, colossus

ANTONYMS: dwarf, pygmy, midget

Behemoth – adj. (as used here)

When King Arthur’s

illegitimate son, Mordred,

makes an attempt to take

control of England, he creates

a monstrous or behemoth-

sized problem for King Arthur,

ultimately ending in death for both of them.

Blandishment – N. Anything designed to flatter or coax;

sweet talk, apple-polishingKing Arthur is not one to give in to

blandishments from others and does not listen to Sir Lucan who tries to coax him out of fighting Mordred.

SYNONYMS: allurement, enticement, cajolery

ANTONYMS: threat, intimidation

Blandishment – N. When King Arthur receives

the warning from dead Sir

Gawain not to fight Mordred

the next day, he sends some

of his best men to talk with

Mordred, offering blandishments

of land and goods as needed to cajole Mordred into

a peace treaty agreement for a month.

Cacophonous – Adj. Harsh-sounding, discordantThe chaotic battle that ensues after a sword is

drawn echoes with cacophonous sounds of knights rushing, riding, lunging, and striking until everyone is dead, except for Mordred, King Arthur, Sir Lucan, and Sir Bedivere.

SYNONYMS: Raucous, dissonant

ANTONYMS: Harmonious, melodious

Cacophonous – Adj.

After Sir Lucan and Sir Bedivere carry King Arthur into a chapel, Arthur sends Sir Lucan out to see what is causing the cacophonous noise on the battlefield where everyone lays dead. Sir Lucan returns with the disturbing report that the villagers are pillaging the dead bodies in search for valuables.

Chicanery – N. Deceptive practices or tactics, double-

dealingWhile King Arthur is gone to France, Mordred

uses underhanded means or chicanery to take control of England in his father’s absence.

SYNONYM: trickery

ANTONYM: fair dealing

Chicanery – N.

Sir Bedivere is known for his chicanery when he deceptively chooses to hide Excalibur instead of obeying King Arthur’s command to throw the sword into the lake.

Consign – V. To give over to another’s care, charge,

or control; to entrust, deliver; to set apart for a special use

When King Arthur hands over Excalibur to Sir Bedivere, he consigns its well-being to his knight’s care, expecting his orders to be obeyed.

SYNONYMS: transfer, remit, convey

Consign – V. In the end, King

Arthur consigns to Sir Bedivere the duty of praying for his soul, should Sir Bedivere never see King Arthur alive again.

Coup – N. (pronounced “Coo”)

A highly successful stroke, masterstroke, act, plan, or stratagem; a sudden takeover of power or leadership

Mordred plans his coup to take over England while his father is gone to France to punish Lancelot for Lancelot’s wrongful relationship with Queen Guenevere.

SYNONYM: tour de forceANTONYMS: blunder, faux pas, gaffe

Coup – N. (pronounced “Coo”)

The way the final battle begins is anything but a coup; instead, it is actually a gaffe where a knight simply pulls out his sword to kill a snake that has bitten him on the foot. Since both Mordred and King Arthur have told their men to fight to the death at the sign of the first drawn sword, the deadly

battle begins, all because of a faux pas.

Euphemism – N. A mild or inoffensive expression used in place

of a harsh or unpleasant one; a substituteCommon euphemisms for die include the expressions

“pass away” and “go to the other side;” in Morte d’ Arthur, the queens who come for King Arthur are to take him to an island to be healed, possibly a euphemism for heaven or paradise.

Synonyms: substitution, pretenseAntonyms: directness, conciseness

Euphemism – N. The text for “Morte d’ Arthur” states that

Mordred “dashed down…to the earth,” a kind of euphemism indicating that Mordred falls down “stark dead.”

Febrile – Adj. Pertaining to or marked by fever;

freneticThe longer Sir Bedivere waits to do King

Arthur’s bidding, the more febrile the king becomes, finally proclaiming that he is growing cold.

SYNONYM: feverishANTONYMS: leisurely, relaxed

Febrile – Adj. Though Mordred is

fatally wounded, in his final febrile moment, he plunges his sword with frenetic intensity through his father’s helmet, piercing the casing of King Arthur’s brain.

Gainsay – V. To deny, controvert; to disputeThere are many who gainsay the belief that King

Arthur is actually dead. They believe he was carried away by “our Lord Jesu into another place…[and] that he shall come again.”

SYNONYMS: contradict, oppose

ANTONYMS: confirm, corroborate, support, admit

Gainsay[er] – N. (as used here)

There are other gainsayers who believe King Arthur never even existed but is simply a legendary hero similar to our own superheroes today, such as Superman and Spiderman.

Imminent – Adj. About to happen, threatening

The dead Sir Gawain warns King Arthur in a dream that should he choose to do battle against Mordred the next day, his own death is imminent.

SYNONYMS: impending, loomingANTONYMS: distant, remote, faraway

Imminent – Adj. When King Arthur is

finally able to convince Sir Bedivere that his death is imminent, Bedivere carries him to the lake where the barge and queens meet them.

Innate – Adj. Natural, inborn, inherent; built-inSir Lucan has an innate loyalty to King

Arthur, trying to stop him from fighting Mordred and even sacrificing his own life to help his wounded king.

SYNONYMS: intrinsic, congenitalANTONYMS: learned, acquired, extrinsic,

accidental

Innate – Adj. Sir Bedivere’s loyalty to his king is not as

innate as that of his brother, Lucan’s. Otherwise, he would have followed his king’s orders the first time when told to throw Excalibur into the water. In the end, however, his own innate loyalty causes him to spend the rest of his life in prayer for King Arthur’s soul.

Loath – Adj. Unwilling, reluctant, disinclinedThough King Arthur knows that his death has

been predicted should he fight that day, he is loath to listen when Sir Lucan advises him against fighting Mordred.

SYNONYMS: averse, indisposedANTONYMS: willing, eager, inclined

Loath – Adj. Sir Bedivere is loath to part with the

beautiful sword, Excalibur, and is even willing to lie to his dying king to try to keep it from vanishing into the lake.

Manifest – Adj. Clear, evident to the

eyes or mind

It is manifest to Mordred that he has to lean into his mortal wound to bestow the death blow to his father, King Arthur.

SYNONYM: apparent

ANTONYM: unrevealed

Manifest – V. To show plainly, exhibit, evinceWhen Sir Lucan manifests signs of death

and starts foaming at the mouth, Sir Bedivere grieves the loss of his brother.

SYNONYMS: reveal, disclose

ANTONYMS: hide, conceal

Manifest – N. A list of cargo and/or

passengers

It is doubtful that anyone has ever seen a manifest, like the Titanic’s list here, revealing the names of the knights who fell in that final famous battle where all were killed on both sides, except one.

Minutiae – Pl. N. Small or trivial details, trifling mattersEven in his death, King Arthur is concerned with

minutiae, sending Sir Lucan to check out the relatively unimportant sounds he hears coming from the battlefield, littered with dead bodies.

SYNONYMS: trivia, trifles

ANTONYM: essentials

Minutiae – Pl. N.

I am not suggesting that looting and pillaging dead bodies for valuables is actually minutiae, but the fact that King Arthur is concerned with noises while he is dying seems a rather trivial matter at such a grave time.

(Pun intended)

Moratorium – N. A suspension of activity; an official waiting

period; an authorized period of delay

King Arthur sends some of his knights to meet with Mordred to negotiate a moratorium or a one-month delay of the battle.

SYNONYMS: postponement, stoppage

ANTONYMS: acceleration, escalation

Moratorium – N. The moratorium of the battle between

father and son is null and void as soon as the knight pulls out his sword to kill a snake.

Nostrum – N. An alleged cure-all; a remedy or

scheme of questionable effectivenessApparently, the island of Avalon is not quite

the nostrum the queens had hoped it would be for the healing of King Arthur.

SYNONYMS: panacea, elixir

Nostrum – N.

Queen Morgan Le Fay weeps over her brother’s fatal wound, stating that he has already begun to grow cold, apparently realizing the nostrum available to King Arthur will probably fail to heal him.

Pariah – N. One who is rejected by a social group

or organizationSome of Mordred’s problems likely stem from

the fact that he is a societal pariah as the illegitimate son of King Arthur.

SYNONYMS: Outcast, untouchable, persona non grata

Pariah – N. One who feels him or

herself to be an outcast or a pariah of society is more likely to cause problems, just as the illegitimate Mordred endeavors when he usurps control of England, turning traitor.

Visionary – Adj. Not practical, lacking in realism; having the

nature of a fantasy or dream

While some do not put much faith in a visionary wheel of fortune nightmare, it seems to be a foreshadowing of King Arthur’s death.

SYNONYMS: idealistic, impractical

ANTONYMS: realistic, practical

Visionary – N. One given to far-fetched ideas; a dreamer

or seer characterized by vision or foresight

The second part of King Arthur’s dream is brought to him by a visionary, the dead Sir Gawain, who warns him not to fight the next day.

SYNONYMS: dreamer, seer

Wizened – Adj. Part. Dry, shrunken, wrinkled (often as the

result of aging)One often thinks of Merlin the Magician as a

wizened old wizard.

SYNONYMS: withered, shriveled

ANTONYMS: bloated, distended

Wizened – Adj. Part. The hermit who is

formerly known as the bishop of Canterbury may have been a wizened old man, though we are not told his age. We are told, however, that Sir Bedivere spends the rest of his life praying for King Arthur’s soul…thus he grows

into a wiser, wizened old man.

“And many men say that there is written upon the tomb this:

HIC IACET ARTHURUS, REX QUONDAM, REXQUE FUTURUS.”

(Here Lies Arthur, who was once king and king will be again.)

THE END