Kairo-kō

Countless are the knights of Camelot, but there is not one who does not doubt the malady that keeps Lancelot from the tourney.

薤露行 or Kairo-kō by Natsume Sōseki, is a Japanese interpretation of the story of Lancelot and Elaine of Astolat¹.

It was written in 1905 as Sōseki during his studies in London, as part of Japan’s efforts to open up and expand its understanding of the Western world during the Meiji period. It’s one of the first stories overall and the first Arthurian one being filtered from the English tradition into Japan.

Footnotes

1. Largely off of Tennyson’s - in fact, both the version given in the Idylls and the different characterization in The Lady of Shalott, which Natsume Sōseki has split into two separate characters in the same story. ↩