Comet
Merlin recounts, “When, in the fierce fighting around the King’s litter in the centre of the field, young Arthur’s sword broke in his hand, King Uther threw to his hand his royal sword, and with it ( as men understood it) the leadership of the kingdom. After that he lay back in his litter and watched the boy, ablaze like some comet of victory, lead an attack that put the Saxons to rout.” King Arthur depicts his prowess in the battle using the sword which King Uther grants him. The allegorical comet affirms that Arthur is fit to be a king.
“Evil Seed”
Merlin explicates, “But the evil seed had already been sown. On the previous day, while he was still ignorant of his true parentage, Arthur had met Morgause, Uther’s bastard daughter and his own half-sister. She was very lovely, and he was young, in all the flush of his first victory, so when she sent her maid for him that night he went eagerly, with no more thought of what the night’s pleasure might bring but the cooling of his hot blood and the loss of his maidenhood.” The child which Arthur conceives with Morgause is a product of incest that would taint Arthur’s integrity. Here, the term evil suggests that the child’s conception is not unconditionally respectable for Arthur, and in fact its conception elicits the massacre of other babies who are unquestionably blameless.
