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LIFE OF MERLIN: Geoffrey of Monmouth's VITA MERLINI. By Basil Clarke. University of Wales Press, 1973. Pp. viii, 253. £ 4.00. The Vita Merlini is a long narrative poem in 1,529 Latin hexameters, ascribed in its colophon to Geoffrey of Monmouth, and dedicated by him to Robert de Chesney, who became bishop of Lincoln in 1148. If Geoffrey is, indeed, the author (and there have been doubts), it is a work which was composed during the last years of his life, and Geoffrey died in 1155. The present editor shows reason to assign the completion of the poem to the year 1150. A new edition and translation have been much needed for many years: the last edition with translation and full apparatus criticus by J. J. Parry was published by the University of Illinois nearly fifty years ago (Urbana, 1925), and it has for long been almost unobtainable except in specialist libraries. The Vita Merlini is a document of fundamental importance for the study of the complicated problems relating to the origins of the Welsh Myrddin, a legendary figure who became transmuted by Geoffrey into his Arthurian wizard Merlinus. Geoffrey had already given the name of 'Merlinus' to the prophetic child, born without a father, whose story he had taken over in his Historia Regum Britanniae, from Nennius's earlier account. Nennius had named the boy 'Ambrosius' and had given a colourful account of how he revealed to Vortigern the reason for the recurrent collapse of the tower he was attempting to erect at Dinas Emrys in the fastnesses of Snowdon, by uncovering beneath it the prestigious red and white dragons, whose fighting typified the two warring nations in Britain. Geoffrey enlarged upon the account, and greatly expanded Merlin's prophetic role. Later in his narrative, he depicted Merlin as assisting in the events which led up to the miraculous birth of Arthur, but after this point Merlin played no further part in the Historia Regum. In the Vita Merlini, how- ever, the setting of the poet-prophet is entirely different: Merlin is introduced as the king of the Demetae, or people of Dyfed. He supported 'Rodarchus' king of the 'Cumbri' and 'Peredurus' king of the 'Venedoti' in an un-named battle against 'Guennolous' king of 'Scocia'. As a result of disastrous events which took place at this battle, Merlin lost his reason and fled away to live a wild life as a wanderer in the Celidonia silva. Incidents illustrating his prophetic powers follow; he is visited by his sister 'Ganieda' and by a fellow-prophet 'Telgesinus'; he summarizes for their benefit British history from the time of Vortigern to that of Constantine; Telgesinus contributes excerpts from the natural history of Isidore of Seville, and the three agree to end their lives living in the forest, prophesying together. The two accounts thus share little in common, except for their insistence on Merlin's role as a prophet: Geoffrey is, however, at pains to insist that his new Merlin is the same person as his old one, with his life prolonged for nearly a century after Arthur's day, and he underlines the identity by associating his prophet with Dyfed, and by placing in his mouth a resume of British history as narrated previously in the Historia Regum. Later in the century, Giraldus Cambrensis endorsed the theory of 'the two Merlins' in a well-known passage in his Itinerary of Wales (II, 8): There were two Merlins: one who was also called Ambrosius-for he had two