Lancelot and Elaine

This is the story of Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable, Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat, who guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot high in her chamber up a tower. Day by day, leaving her household and her good father, she climbed the tower to read that shield. She saw marks of various battles on it, but she did not know the name of the knight who used to bear that shield; so she lived in fantasy, conjecturing one story after another. She even made a case for the shield, richly decorated, and she put the shield inside to admire it.

But how came the lily maid by Lancelot’s shield? He left it with her, when one day he rode to fight for the great diamond in the diamond jousts, which King Arthur had arranged.

For Arthur, long before they crowned him King, had found a secluded glen, all covered in stones and black tarn. It was not a happy place: many years earlier two brothers, one of them a king, had fought there and killed each other. No one entered the glen since then; so their whitened bones were almost dissipating when Arthur rode there. One of the dead was still wearing a crown, however, with magnificent diamonds, one in front and four on each side.

Going up the path in a misty moonshine, Arthur came, by purest chance, by that gorgeous crown. The golden rims and the stones fell in the bush, but the King collected them; and took it as a sign that he himself would be a king. Later, when he took his throne, he had the gems plucked from the crown, and showed them to his knights, saying,

“These jewels, upon which I chanced divinely, are the kingdom’s, not the King’s, they are for public use. Therefore, let there be a joust for one of these once every year. So by nine years’ proof we will learn who is our mightiest knight.”

Eight years past, eight jousts had been, and every year it was Lancelot who won the diamond with the purpose to present it to Queen Guinevere. He wanted to give all the nine of them to her, eventually: that would be a present worthy half her kingdom.

That year at Camelot the joust was to be held for the last, central diamond. Guinevere, though, told the King, her husband, was sick and unable to be present. She hoped that Lancelot would stay behind, too; while talking to Arthur, she raised her eyes to convey her meaning to the knight – and he understood her. However much he wanted to give her the largest gem, her look urged him to ask Arthur to let him stay. All that was because love bound them – illegal, desperate love which they could not protest. There was nothing shameful in it yet, for that was not the love of man and wife, but the King would find it offensive beyond measure, if he only learnt about their connection.

“Sir King, my old wound is hardly whole, and it lets me from the saddle,” said Lancelot, and the King glanced first at him, then her, and went his way. Both the Queen and Lancelot loved him wholeheartedly as their master and sovereign, the wisest, the noblest, the most skilful of all, but they could not argue with the love that bound their two hearts. Yet deeply ashamed they were of that others could think and say: ‘Look, the shameless ones, who take their pastime now the trustful King is gone!’ Where would then be Lancelot, the flower of bravery, and Guinevere, the pearl of beauty?

The Queen then suggested that Lancelot should go unknown, do his best to win, and this way gain even more respect from Arthur, who valued valour in his knights more than anything else. Consequently, Sir Lancelot suddenly got to horse and set off for Camelot.

He left the great thoroughfare and chose a green path to ride on instead. Eventually he arrived at the Castle of Astolat. Lancelot blew his horn at the gates and was admitted by a silent, wordless servant into the presence of the Lord of Astolat and his two strong sons, Sir Torre and Sir Lavaine. They all moved to meet him in the castle court; and close behind them there came the lily maid Elaine, his daughter.

“Where do you come from, my guest, and by what name are you known?” the master of the house asked, “By your bearing I guess you are chief of those, who, after the King, live in Arthur’s halls.”

Then answered Lancelot, the chief of knights: “Known am I, and, true, I am of Arthur’s hall. But I’m now going to Camelot, to get the great diamond at the joust, and I have made up my mind not to reveal my name. I made a mistake, though, by bringing my shield with me; I pray, therefore, that you lend me another one, if such you have, blank, or at least with some device, not mine. I promise to introduce myself to you properly, when the joust is over and I have won the great gem!”

Sir Torre, as they told him, was hurt in his first tilt, so Lancelot was given his shield, which was blank enough. The second son, Sir Lavaine, pleaded so he could go to Camelot with their guest to try his skills there, and so he was allowed.

“A fair large diamond you will win,” added plain Sir Torre, “such is for queens, and not for simple maids.”

Then Elaine, who held her eyes upon the ground, blushed slightly before the strange knight, who, looking at her, returned courtly, yet not falsely:

“If what is fair could be only for what is fair, this fair maid might wear as fair a jewel as there is on earth.”

He spoke and got silent: the lily Elaine lifted her eyes and read his meaning. The great and guilty love he had for the Queen, in battle with the love he had for his lord, clouded his face. But, morose as he was, he seemed perfect to her. And it was at that moment that she loved him, with that love which was her doom.

At dawn, when Lancelot and Lavaine were preparing to leave, she stole down the staircase from her tower to bid farewell to her brother and to him of whom she kept dreaming all night. Lancelot was amazed to see her, standing in the doorway; and she secretly envied his horse which he patted so tenderly on its neck. There, in the early morning light, he saw how beautiful she was. A sort of sacred fear came on him, as she stood silent, though he greeted her, looking at his face as if it were a God’s.

Suddenly she had a wild desire that he should wear her favour at the tilt, so she bravely asked for it:

“Fair lord, whose name I know not – will you wear my favour at this tournament?”

“No,” said he, “fair lady, since I never yet have worn favour of any lady. Such is my rule, as those, who know me, know.”

“So,” she answered; “then, if you wear my favour, noble lord, those who know you will not recognise you.”

And Lancelot agreed. As her token, the maiden brought him a red sleeve embroidered with pearls, so that he could bound it on his helmet, upon which the great knight said, with a smile:

“I have never yet done so much for any lady,” and the blood sprang to her face and filled her with delight. But it left her all the paler, when Lavaine came out with the other brother’s shield and handed it to Lancelot, who then said:

“Do me this grace, my child: have my shield in keeping till I come.”

“A grace to me,” she answered, “twice today!”

Lavaine kissed her goodbye and told her to return to bed, and two knights set off. She stayed a minute, while their arms were still sparkling in the distance, and climbed to her tower, and took the shield, kept it there, and so lived in fantasy.

Meanwhile the new companions were riding past a place where a certain old knight, now for many years a hermit, was living and praying alone in the chapel of his own. On that spot Lancelot finally told Lavaine who he was in truth. The latter was amazed, and his great reverence for his new friend grew even stronger, but he promised to keep the secret.

Soon they arrived at Camelot, where the young man could admire even more at the greatness of the court, at all the knights and ladies present, at the great diamond awaiting its winner – and on the clear-faced King, who sat dressed in red samite, easily to be known, for gold and red dragons decorated his robes, his crown and his throne. There he sat, the fair judge of the joust, Arthur the Pendragon.

And the trumpets blew; and the contestants on both sides used their lances, spears and swords, moved quickly one onto another and clashed so heavily the earth shook for many miles around. Lancelot waited a little, till he saw which were the weaker; then he hurled into it against the stronger: little need there is to speak of Lancelot in his glory! King, duke, earl, count, baron – he overthrew them all. His kith and kin, the Table Round knights, thought they recognised the grace and the force of the mysterious knight’s movements, but when has Lancelot worn favour of any lady?

“How then? who then?” a fury came over them all, a fiery passion for his name. They all mounted their horses, and rushed like the wind, together, as a wild wave in the wide North sea, so in the end they overbore Sir Lancelot: he fell, and a spear pierced through his side and remained there.

Sir Lavaine then did well: he helped Lancelot to mount his own horse. The great knight was sweating with agony, but managed to endure the event to the end, when his own party, still not knowing his name, admired him. The trumpets blew again, proclaiming the prize was his who wore the sleeve of scarlet and the pearls; and all the knights, his party, cried “Come and take the diamond!”

But he answered, “Diamond me no diamonds! for God’s love, a little air! Prize me no prizes, for my prize is death! Now I shall go and due, follow me not.”

He spoke, and vanished suddenly from the field into the poplar grove, accompanied only by young Lavaine. There he slid down from his saddle, and said, gasping, “Draw the lance-head.”

“Ah my lord Sir Lancelot,” said Lavaine, “I fear, if I draw it, you will die.”

“I die already with it: draw, draw,” – and Lavaine drew, and Sir Lancelot groaned loudly of pain. Half of his blood burst forth, and down he sank, unconscious.

Then, suddenly, the hermit came out and took him in his cave, and stanched his wound, and for many a week Lancelot lay there, in daily doubt whether to live or die, hid from the wide world’s rumour.

In Camelot, meanwhile, Arthur the Pendragon learnt the news of the winning knight’s sudden departure without the prize. He ordered Sir Gawayne to ride forth and find the knight, thinking that he could not have gone very far, wounded and wearied as he was. And thus, taking the great diamond, Gawayne set off.

He was not very pleased with the King’s order; though he was called Gawayne the Courteous, though he was fair and strong, and after Lancelot, Tristram, Geraint and Gareth, a good knight, he was Sir Modred’s brother, and the child of Lot; he was not always loyal to his word. And now he was angry with that that the King’s command made him look for he who he knew not, and leave the gorgeous banquet.

Like Sir Gawayne, the King feared that it was Lancelot who fought so bravely and was wounded. He was astonished to learn from the Queen that Lancelot had not stayed with her, but went to the joust unnamed. Her amazement, however, was deeper, especially when she found out the mysterious knight was wearing some lady’s favour:

“Yet good news we have, too’, said the King, “for I hope that Lancelot is no more a lonely heart. He wore, against his custom, a sleeve of scarlet, embroidered with great pearls, upon his helmet – some gentle maiden’s gift.”

“Yes, lord,” she said, “Your hopes are mine,” and saying that, she choked, and sharply turned about to hide her face. She then went to her chamber, and there flung herself down on the bed, and writhed upon it, clenched her fingers, cried out “Traitor” to the unhearing wall, and finally burst into wild tears. Then she rose again, got calm, and moved calmly about her palace, proud and pale.

Gawayne, the while, came at last to Astolat and asked if the inhabitants have seen the great knight.

Seeing him, in his glittering arms, Elaine cried, “What news from Camelot, lord? What of the knight with the red sleeve?”

“He won.”

“I knew it,” she said, happily.

“But he was hurt in the side,” at that point she caught her breath, as if she felt the sharp lance go though her own side.

Gawayne was invited to enter and then was told the whole story by the lily maid’s old father.

“Stay with us”, the latter said, “and ride no more at random! Here was the knight, and here he left a shield; this he will send or come for. Furthermore, our son is with him; so we shall hear from them soon!”

Sir Gawayne demonstrated courtesy, the courtesy with a touch of traitor in it, and stayed; and cast his eyes on fair Elaine: where a more beautiful face, a more perfect shape could be found? “This wild flower is for me!” he decided. And often they met among the garden yews, and there he admired her openly, showed graces of the court, sang songs, sighed, and smiled; but the maid soon rebelled against it, saying to him,

“O loyal nephew of our noble King, why don’t you not to see the shield that knight left, if thus you might learn his name? Why do you make your King wait and lose the quest he sent you on?”

“No, by my head,” said he, “I lose it, o damsel, in the light of your blue eyes; but, yes, it’s time, so let me see the shield.”

And when the shield was brought, and Gawayne saw Sir Lancelot’s azure lions, crowned with gold, he cried, laughing, “Right was the King! our Lancelot! that true man!”

“And right was I,” she answered merrily, “I, who knew that my knight was the greatest knight of all.”

“And if I had known,” said Gawayne, looking at her attentively, “that you loved him! Forgive me, then! Speak therefore: shall I waste myself in vain?”

She answered simply, “What know I? My brothers have been all my fellowship; I know not if I know what true love is. But I know that, if I love not him, there is none other I can love.”

“Yes, by God,” said he, “you love him well. But you would not if you knew what all others know, and whom he loves.”

“So be it,” cried Elaine, lifted her fair face and moved away.

But Gawayne begged her to stay a moment and to keep the great diamond for Lancelot, for he knew it would be safe with her. When, eventually, she agreed, he gave and slightly kissed the hand to which he gave the diamond. Then, wearied of the quest, he mounted his horse, and, singing a true-love ballad, rode away.

And when he arrived back to the court, he did not hesitate to rumour that Lancelot was in love with Elaine the maid of Astolat and that she was in love with him. The one who suffered most of this was the Queen: at the banquets she sat with stiff lips, felt the knot in her throat, and she hated all who gossiped.

But far away the maid in Astolat, her guiltless rival, came to her father asking him to let her go in search of her brother and his companion. She now had a quest, she was to give him the great diamond. Her father knew she was of strong will, and he had high hopes for her being a reasonable and honest maid, so he agreed.

“Yes, my child, you must give the diamond,” he said, “And remember this fruit is hung too high for any mouth to gape for save a queen’s… No, I mean nothing: so then, get ready: being so very wilful you must go.”

Elaine went to make herself ready for the ride, but her father’s last words sounded in her ears, “Being so very wilful you must go.” The phrase changed itself and echoed in her heart, “Being so very wilful you must die.”

But she was happy enough and shook it off, as we shake off the bee that buzzes at us; and in her heart she answered it and said, “What does it matter, if so I help him to get back to life?”

She rode to Camelot with good Sir Torre for guide, but just before the citygates came on her brother, who looked very happy.

“Lavaine,” she cried, “Lavaine, how is my lord Sir Lancelot?”

“Torre and Elaine! why here? Sir Lancelot! How do you know my lord’s name is Lancelot?”

The maid told him all her tale at once, and then Sir Torre, being in his moods, left them to enter the city, while Lavaine led his sister across the poplar grove to the caves. There the first thing she saw was Lancelot’s helmet on the wall: her scarlet sleeve, carved and cut, half the pearls away, was still on it; and in her heart she laughed. And when they entered the cell where he slept, she saw his mighty arms lying naked on the wolfskin, and a dream of dragging down his enemy making them move; but he was thin as if it were the skeleton of himself, so Elaine uttered a little tender dolorous cry. It awoke the sick knight, and while he was recovering from his dream, she looked at him and said, “Your prize the diamond sent you by the King.”

His eyes glistened; she thought, “Is it for me?”

And when she told him all the tale of the diamond sent and the quest assigned to her, not worthy of it, she knelt low by the corner of his bed and laid the diamond in his open hand.

Her face was near, and as we kiss the child that does the task well, he kissed her face.

At once she slipt like water to the floor.

“Alas,” he said, “your ride has wearied you. You must have rest.” “No rest for me,” she said, “Because only near you, fair lord, I am at rest.”

What might she mean by that? his large black eyes, which got even larger through his leanliness, stopped upon her, till all her heart’s sad secret showed itself in colours on her simple face. And Lancelot looked and was perplexed, but, being still very weak, said no more; but he did not love that colour: woman’s love, apart from one, he did not regard as possible to accept. And so he turned, sighing, and pretended to be sleeping until he truly fell asleep.

Day by day Elaine passed in the early morning or in the twilight, ghost-like, to the cave and back to the city, and every day and every night she tended him. Lancelot was still very sick and sometimes uncourteous to her through his illness, even he; but the maid was always meek and patient to him. Her deep love supported her. One day the hermit told him that her fine care had saved his life, and the sick man forgot her simple blush, would call her friend, sister, sweet Elaine, would listen for her coming and regret her parting step, held her tenderly, and loved her with all kinds of love except the love of man and woman when they love their best.

And she murmured more than once, “In vain, in vain, it cannot be. He will not love me: how then? must I die? Him or death,” she said, “death or him.”

When Sir Lancelot’s wound was healed, the company rode to Astolat. Lancelot asked Elaine many times what he should do to pay her for rescuing him. On such occasions, she was silent, though he could see there was something that she wanted to say but could not, till one day she put on a dress in which she believed she looked her best, and came before Sir Lancelot, for she thought, “If I am loved, this is my wedding dress, if not, my funeral one.”

And when he saw her in the garden, among the yews, Lancelot said again, “Delay no longer, speak your wish, as I must go today.”

“Going? and we shall never see you more. And I must die for want of one bold word…”

“Speak then!”

Then suddenly and passionately she spoke: “I have gone mad. I love you: let me die.”

“Ah, sister, what is this?”

“Your love,” she said, “your love – to be your wife.”

And Lancelot answered, “Had I chosen to get married, I had been married earlier, sweet Elaine, but now there never will be a wife for me.”

“No, no,” she cried, “I care not to be your wife, but to be with you still, to see your face, to serve you, and to follow you through the world.”

“No, the world, the world is all ear and eye, with such a stupid heart for false interpretations!”

“But not to be with you, not to see your face – alas for me then, my good days are gone.”

“No, noble maid,” he answered, “ten times no! This is not love, but only love’s first flash in youth. You yourself will smile at your own self later, when you give your flower of life to one more fitly yours, not thrice your age. If the good knight you choose is poor, I will provide you with broad land and territory, even to the half my land, beyond the seas, so that would make you happy. Furthermore, to the death, as though you were my blood, I will protect you in all your quarrels. This will I do, dear damsel, for your sake, and more than this I cannot.”

While he spoke, she neither blushed nor shook, but stood deathly pale, grasping what was nearest, and then replied:

“Of all this I wish nothing;” and fell, and thus they bore her swooning to her tower.

Elaine’s father, who accidentally overheard their talk through those black walls of yew, said to Lancelot: “This, I fear, will strike my blossom dead. Too courteous you are, fair Lord Lancelot. I pray you, use some rough discourtesy to blunt or break her passion.”

The knight promised to do what he could.

He sent for his shield; upon which the maid rose, meekly, stripped off the case which held it, and gave the naked shield. Then, when she heard his horse upon the stones, she looked through the window down on his helm, from which her sleeve had gone. He did not glance up, nor waved his hand, but sadly rode away. This was the one discourtesy that he used.

So the maiden sat alone in her tower: his very shield was gone; only the case, her own poor work, her empty labour, left. Her father and brothers tried to soothe her, but when they left her to herself again, death called to her, like a friend’s voice from a distant field.

And in those days she made a little song, and called it “The Song of Love and Death”, and sang it sweetly in her chamber.

 

“Sweet is true love, though given in vain, in vain;

And sweet is death who puts an end to pain:

I know not which is sweeter, no, not I.

“Love, are you sweet?

Then bitter death must be:

Love, you are bitter; sweet is death to me.

O Love, if death is sweeter, let me die.

“Sweet love, that seems not made to fade away,

Sweet death, that seems to make us loveless clay,

I know not which is sweeter, no, not I.

“I’d like to follow love, if that could be;

But I must follow death, who calls for me;

Call and I follow, I follow! let me die.”

 

Now she herself was fading away and scared her brothers and father a lot by that. She was not her former self, her love became an agony, and she was truly ready to welcome death.

After she had spent many days in this state, she said, “Sweet brothers, let me go beyond the poplar grove and far up the river, until I find the palace of the King. There will I enter in among them all, and no man there will dare to mock at me; but there the fine Gawayne will wonder at me, and the great Sir Lancelot will muse at me; and there the King will know me and my love, and the Queen herself will pity me, and all the gentle court will welcome me, and after my long voyage I shall rest!”

“Calm yourself, my child,” said her father, “You seem light-headed, for what force is yours to go so far, being sick? And why would you look at this proud fellow again, who scorns us all?”

Then the rough Torre began, “I never loved him: and if I meet him, I care not how great he may be, but I will strike him down, for the discomfort he has done the house.”

But to this his gentle sister replied, “Peace, dear brother; it is no more Sir Lancelot’s fault not to love me, than it is mine to love him of all men – him, who seems to me the highest.”

“Highest?” the father answered, meaning to blunt the passion in her, “No, daughter, I know not what you call the highest; but this I know, for all the people know it: he loves the Queen, and in an open shame, and she returns his love in open shame. If this is high, what is low?”

“Sweet father, this is not true. It’s his enemies talking. But it is my glory to have loved the one without stain: so let me pass, whoever I seem to you, not all unhappy, having loved God’s best and greatest, though my love had no return. Do you desire your child to live? Well, but you work against your own desire. So please stop, and call a priest to whom I could confess my sins, and die.”

So when the priest had come and gone, she, with a bright face, for sin forgiven, asked Lavaine to write a letter at her dictation, word for word.

“Is it for Lancelot, is it for my dear lord?” he asked, “Then I will bear it gladly.”

“For Lancelot and the Queen and all the world, but I myself must bear it.”

And when the letter was written and folded, she called her father again.

“O sweet father, tender and true, don’t deny me,” she said, “you never yet denied my fancies – this, however strange, is my last one. Lay the letter in my hand a little before I die, and close the hand upon it; I shall guard it even in death. And when the heat is gone from out my heart, take the bed on which I died for Lancelot’s love, and decorate it like the Queen’s for richness, and me also like the Queen in all I have of rich, and lay me on it. And let there be prepared a chariot-bier to take me to the river, and a barge be ready on the river, clothed in black. I go in state to court to meet the Queen. There surely I shall speak for myself, as none of you can speak for me so well. And therefore let our dumb old man alone go with me, because he can steer and row, and he will guide me to the very doors of the palace.”

Her father promised; upon which she grew so cheerful that they thought her death was rather in the fantasy. But ten slow mornings passed, and on the eleventh her father laid the letter in her hand, and closed the hand upon it, and she died. So that day there was the day of mourning at Astolat.

Next day, at dawn, Elaine brothers, both aggrieved, accompanied the sad chariot-bier, which, like a shadow, went though the fields and arrived at the river bank. There sat the oldest creature of the house, loyal, dumb old servant, on deck of the black barge. The two young men laid Elaine in her bed, set in her hand a lily, hung over her richly embroidered silk, kissed her quiet brows, and saying to her “Sister, farewell for ever”, and again “Farewell, sweet sister”, parted all in tears.

Then the old servant rose, and the barge went upward with the flood with the maid on board – In her right hand the lily, in her left the letter. Her bright hair was streaming down, and she was covered with a cloth of gold drawn to her waist, and she was herself dressed all in white. Her clear-featured face was lovely, for she did not seem as dead, but only asleep, and lay as though she smiled.

That day Sir Lancelot got audience of Guinevere at the palace, to give her at last the price of half a realm. The Queen agreed, but was so unmoved that she might have seemed her own statue. Lancelot, kneeling till he kissed her feet, said, “Queen, lady, my friend, in whom I have my joy, please take what I had won specially for you, take these jewels, and make me happy! But, my Queen, I hear of rumours flying through your court. Our bond, as not the bond of man and wife, should have in it absolute trust to make up for that defect. Let rumours be: when did not rumours fly? Forget them, as I trust that you trust me in your own nobleness.”

“Yes, our bond is not the bond of man and wife. It’s an advantage, therefore, because it can be broken easier. What are these? Diamonds for me! Not for me! For her! for your new fancy. Only this promise me, I pray you: have your joys apart. In public we mustn’t break the etiquette, for you are Arthur’s best knight, and I am his Queen. So I cannot speak my mind openly. But – an end to this! And strange one! yet I take it. So pray you, add my diamonds to her pearls and tell her that she shines me down… But wait, they are mine now to do as I please! She shall not have them!”

Saying which she seized the diamonds and flung them through the casement, and down they flashed, and fell into the river. But close to the place where they had sunk there slowly past the barge upon which the lily maid of Astolat lay smiling, like a star in the blackest night.

But the Queen, who, unlike Lancelot, did not see it, ran away to her chamber to cry in secret; while the barge paused and the pier of the castle. People soon gathered there to see what the strange apparition was.

“He is enchanted, he cannot speak – and she, look how she sleeps – she’s the Fairy Queen!”

* * *

The King appeared with his knights, and it was only then when the tongueless man roseand pointed to the damsel, and then to the doors. So Arthur told Sir Percivale and Sir Galahad to uplift the maid; and they reverently bore her into the hall.

Then came the fine Gawayne and wondered at her, and Lancelot later came and mused at her, and at last the Queen herself – and pitied her. But finally Arthur saw the letter in her hand; he took it, broke the seal, and read it:

“Most noble lord, Sir Lancelot of the Lake,

I, sometime called the maid of Astolat, come here myself, for you left me taking no farewell. I come to take my last farewell of you. I loved you, and my love had no return, so my true love has been my death. And therefore I ask our Lady Guinevere and all other ladies to pray for my soul, and give me burial. Pray for my soul you too, Sir Lancelot, as thou are the best and purest of all knights.”

While he was reading, lords and dames wept, looking often from his face to hers which lay so silent, and at times so touched were they, that it seemed to them that her lips moved again.

Then Sir Lancelot spoke to them all:

“My lord Arthur, and all you that hear, know that I am responsible for this most gentle maiden’s death; for she was good and true, but loved me with a love beyond all love in women who I have known. Yet to be loved makes not to love again; not at my years. I swear by truth and knighthood that I gave no cause, not willingly, for such a love: to this I call my friends in testimony, her brothers and her father, who himself asked me to be plain and discourteous. What I could, I did. I left her saying no farewell words. Though had I dreamt the damsel would die, I might have used my wits to invent something to help her.”

Then the Queen said, “You might at least have done her so much grace, fair lord, as would have helped her from her death.”

He raised his head, their eyes met and hers fell, as he added, “Queen, she would not be content with anything save that I married her, which could not be. Then might she follow me through the world, she asked; this, too, could not be. I told her that her love was only the flash of youth, that would darken down to rise later in a stiller flame toward someone more worthy of her. I promised to provide for her if she would need it, if the knight she marries is poor; I promised to always be her defender. More than this I could not give; but this she would not have, and she died.”

After a pause, Arthur answered, “O my friend, it will be your task, as my knight, and mine, as head of all our Table Round, to see that she be buried worshipfully.”

So a big, most exquisite shrine was prepared at the cemetery, and the maiden buried, not as one unknown, but like a queen. As Arthur said, “Let her tomb be costly, with her own image on it, and let the shield of Lancelot be carven at her feet, and her lily in her hand. And let the story of her sad voyage for all true hearts be written on her tomb in letters gold and azure, like those lions of Lancelot’s shield!” – so it was soon duly done.

The funeral was a grand event. After that, however, the Queen, who saw Sir Lancelot where he moved apart, approached him, saying, “Lancelot, forgive me; it was my jealousy in love.”

He answered with his eyes upon the ground, “That is love’s curse; pass on, my Queen, forgiven.”

Then Arthur approached, too, with darkened face, and said, “Lancelot, my Lancelot, you in whom I have most joy and most trust, for I know that you have been in battle by my side! You couldn’t have loved this maiden, who was made by God, it seems, for you alone. She might have brought you, now a lonely man, wifeless and heirless, noble sons, born to the glory of your name and fame!”

Lancelot answered, “Fair she was, my King, and pure, as you ever wish your knights to be. Yes, to be loved does not mean happiness, but free love will not be bound.”

“Let love be free,” the King saud, “free love is for the best: and, after heaven, on our dull side of death, what should be best, if not such a pure love clothed in such a pure loveliness? yet she failed to bind you with her love, though she was, as I think, unbound and gentle.”

Lancelot answered nothing, but he went on, and sat by the river mouth, at a little brook, watching the wave. When he lifted up his eyes he saw the very barge that brought her moving down, far away, a blot upon the stream, and said low in himself,

“Ah, simple and pure heart, you loved me, damsel, surely, with a love far more tender than my Queen’s. Pray for your soul? Yes, that I will do. Farewell too – now, at last – farewell, fair lily. ‘Jealousy in love’, she said? Was it not rather, dead love’s harsh heir, jealous pride? Oh Queen, if I accept the jealousy of love, won’t you fear that name and fame will speak, as it turns out, of a love that wanes? Why did the King speak of my name to me? My own name shames me, seeming a reproach. Because what am I? what profits does my name of the greatest knight bring me? I fought for it, and have it. But pleasure to have it – none; to lose it – pain. It has not grown to be a part of me: what use in it? To make men worse by making my sin known? Or sin seem less, if the sinner seems to them great? Alas for Arthur’s greatest knight, a man not after Arthur’s heart! I must defame myself: may God, I pray him, send an angel down to seize me by the hair and bear me far, and throw me deep in that forgotten moor, among the hills!”

So groaned Sir Lancelot in remorseful pain, not knowing yet that he would die a holy man.