Nor let me shame my father’s memory, one
Of noblest manners, tho’ himself would say
Sir Lancelot had the noblest; and he died,
Kill’d in a tilt, come next, five summers back,
320 And left me; but of others who remain,
And of the two first-famed for courtesy –
And pray you check me if I ask amiss –
But pray you, which had noblest, while you moved
Among them, Lancelot or our lord the King?’
325 Then the pale Queen look’d up and answer’d her,
‘Sir Lancelot, as became a noble knight,
Was gracious to all ladies, and the same
In open battle or the tilting-field
Forbore his own advantage, and the King
330 In open battle or the tilting-field
Forbore his own advantage, and these two
Were the most nobly-manner’d men of all;
For manners are not idle, but the fruit
Of loyal nature, and of noble mind.’
335 ‘Yea,’ said the maid, ‘be manners such fair fruiti
Then Lancelot’s needs must be a thousand-fold
Less noble, being, as all rumour runs,
The most disloyal friend in all the world.’
To which a mournful answer made the Queen:
340 ‘O closed about by narrowing nunnery-walls,
What knowest thou of the world, and all its lights
And shadows, all the wealth and all the woe?
If ever Lancelot, that most noble knight,
Were for one hour less noble than himself,
345 Pray for him that he scape the doom of fire,
And weep for her who drew him to his doom.’
‘Yea,’ said the little novice, ‘I pray for both;
But I should all as soon believe that his,
Sir Lancelot’s, were as noble as the King’s,
350 As I could think, sweet lady, yours would be
Such as they are, were you the sinful Queen.’
So she, like many another babbler, hurt
Whom she would soothe, and harm’d where she
would heal;
For here a sudden flush of wrathful heat
355 Fired all the pale face of the Queen, who cried,
‘Such as thou art be never maiden more
For ever! thou their tool, set on to plague
And play upon, and harry me, petty spy
And traitress.’ When that storm of anger brake
360 From Guinevere, aghast the maiden rose,
White as her veil, and stood before the Queen
As tremulously as foam upon the beach
Stands in a wind, ready to break and fly,
And when the Queen had added ‘Get thee hence,’
365 Fled frighted. Then that other left alone
Sigh’d, and began to gather heart again,
Saying in herself, ‘The simple, fearful child
Meant nothing, but my own too-fearful guilt,
Simpler than any child, betrays itself.
370 But help me, heaven, for surely I repent.
For what is true repentance but in thought –
Not ev’n in inmost thought to think again
The sins that made the past so pleasant to us:
And I have sworn never to see him more,
To see him more,’
375 And ev’n in saying this,
Her memory from old habit of the mind
Went slipping back upon the golden days
In which she saw him first, when Lancelot came,
Reputed the best knight and goodliest man,
380 Ambassador, to lead her to his lord
Arthur, and led her forth, and far ahead
Of his and her retinue moving, they,
Rapt in sweet talk or lively, all on love
And sport and tilts and pleasure, (for the time
385 Was maytime, and as yet no sin was dream’d,)
Rode under groves that look’d a paradise
Of blossom, over sheets of hyacinth
That seem’d the heavens upbreaking thro’ the earth,
And on from hill to hill, and every day
390 Beheld at noon in some delicious dale
The silk pavilions of King Arthur raised
For brief repast or afternoon repose
By couriers gone before; and on again,
Till yet once more ere set of sun they saw
395 The Dragon of the great Pendragonship,
That crown’d the state pavilion of the King,
Blaze by the rushing brook or silent well.
But when the Queen immersed in such a trance,
And moving thro’ the past unconsciously,
400 Came to that point where first she saw the King
Ride toward her from the city, sigh’d to find
Her journey done, glanced at him, thought him cold,
High, self-contain’d, and passionless, not like him,
‘Not like my Lancelot’ – while she brooded thus
405 And grew half-guilty in her thoughts again,
There rode an armed warrior to the doors.
A murmuring whisper thro’ the nunnery ran,
Then on a sudden a cry, ‘The King.’ She sat
Stiff-stricken, listening; but when armèd feet
410 Thro’ the long gallery from the outer doors
Rang coming, prone from off her seat she fell,
And grovell’d with her face against the floor:
There with her milkwhite arms and shadowy hair
She made her face a darkness from the King:
415 And in the darkness heard his armèd feet
Pause by her; then came silence, then a voice,
Monotonous and hollow like a Ghost’s
Denouncing judgment, but tho’ changed, the King’s:
‘Liest thou here so low, the child of one
420 I honour’d, happy, dead before thy shame?
Well is it that no child is born of thee.
The children born of thee are sword and fire,
Red ruin, and the breaking up of laws,
The craft of kindred and the Godless hosts
425 Of heathen swarming o’er the Northern Sea;
Whom I, while yet Sir Lancelot, my right arm,
The mightiest of my knights, abode with me,
Have everywhere about this land of Christ
In twelve great battles ruining overthrown.
430 And knowest thou now from whence I come – from him,
From waging bitter war with him: and he,
That did not shun to smite me in worse way,
Had yet that grace of courtesy in him left,
He spared to lift his hand against the King
435 Who made him knight: but many a knight was slain;
And many more, and all his kith and kin
Clave to him, and abode in his own land.
And many more when Modred raised revolt,
Forgetful of their troth and fealty, clave
440 To Modred, and a remnant stays with me.
And of this remnant will I leave a part,
True men who love me still, for whom I live,
To guard thee in the wild hour coming on,
Lest but a hair of this low head be harm’d.
445 Fear not: thou shah be guarded till my death.
Howbeit I know, if ancient prophecies
Have err’d not, that I march to meet my doom.
Thou hast not made my life so sweet to me,
That I the King should greatly care to live;
450 For thou hast spoilt the purpose of my life.
Bear with me for the last time while I show,
Ev’n for thy sake, the sin which thou hast sinn’d.
For when the Roman left us, and their law
Relax’d its hold upon us, and the ways
455 Were fill’d with rapine, her
e and there a deed
Of prowess done redress’d a random wrong.
But I was first of all the kings who drew
The knighthood-errant of this realm and all
The realms together under me, their Head,
460 In that fair Order of my Table Round,
A glorious company, the flower of men,
To serve as model for the mighty world,
And be the fair beginning of a time.
I made them lay their hands in mine and swear
465 To reverence the King, as if he were
Their conscience, and their conscience as their King,
To break the heathen and uphold the Christ,
To ride abroad redressing human wrongs.
To speak no slander, no, nor listen to it,
470 To honour his own word as if his God’s,
To lead sweet lives in purest chastity,
To love one maiden only, cleave to her,
And worship her by years of noble deeds,
Until they won her; for indeed I knew
475 Of no more subtle master under heaven
Than is the maiden passion for a maid,
Not only to keep down the base in man,
But teach high thought, and amiable words
And courtliness, and the desire of fame,
480 And love of truth, and all that makes a man.
And all this throve before I wedded thee,
Believing, “lo mine helpmate, one to feel
My purpose and rejoicing in my joy.”
Then came thy shameful sin with Lancelot;
485 Then came the sin of Tristram and Isolt;
Then others, following these my mightiest knights,
And drawing foul ensample from fair names,
Sinn’d also, till the loathsome opposite
Of all my heart had destined did obtain,
490 And all thro’ thee! so that this life of mine
I guard as God’s high gift from scathe and wrong,
Not greatly care to lose; but rather think
How sad it were for Arthur, should he live,
To sit once more within his lonely hall,
495 And miss the wonted number of my knights,
And miss to hear high talk of noble deeds
As in the golden days before thy sin.
For which of us, who might be left, could speak
Of the pure heart, nor seem to glance at thee?
500 And in thy bowers of Camelot or Of Usk
Thy shadow still would glide from room to room,
And I should evermore be vext with thee
In hanging robe or vacant ornament,
Or ghostly footfall echoing on the stair.
505 For think not, tho’ thou wouldst not love thy lord,
Thy lord has wholly lost his love for thee.
I am not made of so slight elements.
Yet must I leave thee, woman, to thy shame.
I hold that man the worst of public foes
510 Who either for his own or children’s sake,
To save his blood from scandal, lets the wife
Whom he knows false, abide and rule the house:
For being thro’ his cowardice allow’d
Her station, taken everywhere for pure,
515 She like a new disease, unknown to men,
Creeps, no precaution used, among the crowd,
Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes, and saps
The fealty of our friends, and stirs the pulse
With devil’s leaps, and poisons half the young.
520 Worst of the worst were that man he that reigns!
Better the King’s waste hearth and aching heart
Than thou reseated in thy place of light,
The mockery of my people, and their bane.’
He paused, and in the pause she crept an inch
525 Nearer, and laid her hands about his feet.
Far off a solitary trumpet blew.
Then waiting by the doors the warhorse neigh’d
As at a friend’s voice, and he spake again:
‘Yet think not that I come to urge thy crimes,
530 I did not come to curse thee, Guinevere,
I, whose vast pity almost makes me die
To see thee, laying there thy golden head,
My pride in happier summers, at my feet.
The wrath which forced my thoughts on that fierce law,
535 The doom of treason and the flaming death,
(When first I learnt thee hidden here) is past.
The pang – which while I weigh’d thy heart with one
Too wholly true to dream untruth in thee,
Made my tears burn – is also past – in part.
540 And all is past, the sin is sinn’d, and I,
Lo! I forgive thee, as Eternal God
Forgives: do thou for thine own soul the rest.
But how to take last leave of all I loved?
O golden hair, with which I used to play
545 Not knowing! O imperial-moulded form,
And beauty such as never woman wore,
Until it came a kingdom’s curse with thee –
I cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine,
But Lancelot’s: nay, they never were the King’s.
550 I cannot take thy hand; that too is flesh,
And in the flesh thou hast sinn’d; and mine own flesh.
Here looking down on thine polluted, cries
”I loathe thee:” yet not less, O Guinevere
For I was ever virgin save for thee,
555 My love thro’ flesh hath wrought into my life
So far, that my doom is, I love thee still.
Let no man dream but that I love thee still.
Perchance, and so thou purify thy soul,
And so thou lean on our fair father Christ,
560 Hereafter in that world where all are pure
We two may meet before high God, and thou
Wilt spring to me, and claim me thine, and know
I am thine husband — not a smaller soul,
Nor Lancelot, nor another. Leave me that,
565 I charge thee, my last hope. Now must I hence.
Thro’ the thick night I hear the trumpet blow:
Far down to that great battle in the west,
Where I must strike against the man they call
570 My sister’s son – no kin of mine, who leagues
With Lords of the White Horse, heathen, and knights,
Traitors – and strike him dead, and meet myself
Death, or I know not what mysterious doom.
And thou remaining here wilt learn the event;
575 But hither shall I never come again,
Never lie by thy side; see thee no more –
Farewell!’
And while she grovell’d at his feet,
She felt the King’s breath wander o’er her neck,
And in the darkness o’er her fallen head,
580 Perceived the waving of his hands that blest.
Then, listening till those armed steps were gone,
Rose the pale Queen, and in her anguish found
The casement: ‘peradventure,’ so she thought,
‘If I might see his face, and not be seen.’
585 And lo, he sat on horseback at the door!
And near him the sad nuns with each a light
Stood, and he gave them charge about the Queen,
To guard and foster her for evermore.
And while he spake to these his helm was lower’d,
590 To which for crest the golden dragon clung
Of Britain; so she did not see the face,
Which then was as an angel’s, but she saw,
Wet with the mists and smitten by the lights,
The Dragon of the great Pendragonship
595 Blaze, making all the night a steam of fire.
And
even then he turn’d; and more
and more The moony vapour rolling round the King,
Who seem’d the phantom of a Giant in it,
Enwound him fold by fold, and made him gray
600 And grayer, till himself became as mist
Before her, moving ghostlike to his doom.
Then she stretch’d out her arms and cried aloud
‘Oh Arthur!’ there her voice brake suddenly,
Then — as a stream that spouting from a cliff
605 Fails in mid air, but gathering at the base
Re-makes itself, and flashes down the vale –
Went on in passionate utterance:
‘Gone – my lord!
Gone thro’ my sin to slay and to be slain!
And he forgave me, and I could not speak.
610 Farewell? I should have answer’d his farewell.
His mercy choked me. Gone, my lord the King,
My own true lord! how dare I call him mine?
The shadow of another cleaves to me,
And makes me one pollution: he, the King,
615 Call’d me polluted: shall I kill myself?
What help in that? I cannot kill my sin,
If soul be soul; nor can I kill my shame;
No, nor by living can I live it down.
The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months,
620 The months will add themselves and make the years,
The years will roll into the centuries,
And mine will ever be a name of scorn.
I must not dwell on that defeat of fame.
Let the world be; that is but of the world.
625 What else? what hope? I think there was a hope,
Except he mock’d me when he spake of hope;
His hope he call’d it; but he never mocks,
For mockery is the fume of little hearts.
And blesséd be the King, who hath forgiven
630 My wickedness to him, and left me hope
That in mine own heart I can live down sin
And be his mate hereafter in the heavens
Before high God. Ah great and gentle lord,
Who wast, as is the conscience of a saint
635 Among his warring senses, to thy knights –
To whom my false voluptuous pride, that took
Full easily all impressions from below,
Would not look up, or half-despised the height
To which I would not or I could not climb –
640 I thought I could not breathe in that fine air
That pure severity of perfect light –
I yearn’d for warmth and colour which I found
In Lancelot – now I see thee what thou art,
Thou art the highest and most human too,
645 Not Lancelot, nor another. Is there none
Will tell the King I love him tho’ so late?