How we cite our quotes: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph.)
Quote #4
"I know all about your birth and parentage and who gave you your real name. I know the sorrows before you, and the joys, and how there will never again be anybody who dares to call you by the friendly name of Wart. In future it will be your glorious doom to take up the burden and to enjoy the nobility of your proper title: so now I shall crave the privilege of being the very first of your subjects to address you with it—as my dear liege lord, King Arthur." (S.24.3)
You can almost hear the dramatic music thrumming up as Merlyn speaks. Plus, anytime someone tells you you'll have a "glorious doom," better look out. "Doom" also means judgment, so we get a big hint that Wart is going to be guilty of something sometime soon that will demand judging.
Quote #5
Even if you have to read it twice, like something in a history lesson, this pedigree is a vital part of the tragedy of King Arthur. It is why Sir Thomas Malory called his very long book the Death of Arthur. Although nine tenths of the story seems to be about knight's jousting and quests for the holy grail and things of that sort, the narrative is a whole, and it deals with the reasons why the young man came to grief at the end. It is the tragedy, the Aristotelian and comprehensive tragedy, of sin coming home to roost. That is why we have to take note of the parentage of Arthur's son, Mordred, and to remember, when the time comes, that the king had slept with his own sister. He did not know he was doing so, and perhaps it may have been due to her, but it seems, in tragedy, that innocence is not enough. (Q.14.19)
This is one of the most portentous passages in the entire quartet. Events are going to unwind as they will, and it doesn't matter who is innocent and who is guilty. There are forces beyond anyone's understanding or control. Arthur is innocent, but that's not enough to save him. His fate has been written down somewhere long before he was born.
Quote #6
"I am due to fall in love with a girl called Nimue in a short time, and then she learns my spells and locks me up in a cave for several centuries. It is one of those things which are going to happen." (Q.2.58)
Merlyn is cursed to know his own fate, which would—if you think about it—be a horrible thing to bear. He'll eventually be locked up alive in a mound of earth. He seems to shrug it off here, though. But later, he makes light of this, and regards it as a sort of vacation fling he goes on with his ladylove.