The Myths Type Story .

1. What happened to King Arthur? One
minute he's a young warrior king who
can pull swords out of rocks and
anvils, the next he's stuck shuffling
papers in some keep while his wife
dallies with his best friend. That is
one serious midlife crisis.
And it happens very abruptly, too.
The first quarter, at least, of any
Arthurian cycle revolves around the
once and future king himself: his
conception, his fostering, his coming-
of-age via sword trick, his defeat of
the rival kings, his marriage to
Guinevere, and his creation of the
Round Table knights.

3. Where Arthur's sitting, presiding over
feasts and refusing to eat until he

4. sees marvels and all that jazz. Kind
of a comedown for a vigorous young
king whose early career puts
everyone else's to shame.
There's a lot going on in the
transition from fighter to lawgiver,
from active participant to benevolent
presence in the wings. The first
factor in play was probably the
difficulty legends have with making a
legislator a warrior. The archetypal
"wise leader" is rarely found making
corpses on a battlefield. We
remember Hammurabi as the first
lawgiver in history, conveniently
ignoring the fact that he was a
Mesopotamian emperor, which by
definition means he kicked ass like
nobody's business. Nestor, spouting
smart advice Agamemnon rarely

5. heeds, is old and ill suited to hack up
Trojans. Ptah, the Egyptian god of
creation, also presides over
handicrafts, a product of peaceful
times; Maat, who represents balance
and justice, is a woman. Nobody
wants their legal system in the hands
of a berserker. So for Arthur to take
the place he himself has prepared -
that of lawgiver to the masses,
bringer of peace to a troubled land -
he has to become inactive. He can't
represent good government while
also taking the lead in all quests that
come to Camelot. And once it
becomes clear that Guinevere will
never give him a son, it's all the more
important that the king protect his life
and not go gallivanting after every
Questing Beast and white hart that
turns up.