"'Our strongest, O King!' groaned Lancelot and as he paused I thought I saw a dying fire of madness in his eyes. 'O King, my friend, a sin lived in me that was so strange that everything pure, noble and knightly in me twined and clung around it until the good and the poisonous in me grew together, and when your knights swore to make the quest I swore only in the hope that could I see or touch the Holy Grail they might be pulled apart. Then I spoke to a holy saint who said that if they could not be plucked apart my quest would be all in vain. So I vowed to him that I would do just as he told me, and while I was out trying to tear them away from each other my old madness came back to me and whipped me off into waste fields far away.
"There I was beaten down by little knights whom at one time I would have frightened away just by the shadow of my spear. From there I rode over to the sea-shore where such a blast of wind began to blow that you could not hear the waves even although they were heaped up in mountains and drove the sea like a cataract, while the sand on the beach swept by like a river. A boat, half-swallowed by the seafoam, was moored to the shore by a chain. I said to myself that I would embark in the boat and lose myself and wash away my sin in the great sea.
"For seven days I rode around over the dreary water and on the seventh night I felt the boat striking ground. In front of me rose the enchanted towers of Carbonek, a castle like a rock upon a rock, with portals open to the sea and steps that met the waves. A lion sat on each side of them. I went up the steps and drew my sword. Suddenly flaring their manes the lions stood up like men and gripped me on my shoulders. When I was about to strike them a voice said to me, 'Don't be afraid, or the beasts will tear you to pieces; go on.' Then my sword was dashed violently from my hand and fell. Up into the sounding hall I passed but saw not a bench, table, picture, shield or anything else except the moon over the sea through the oriel window, but I heard a sweet voice as clear as a lark singing in the topmost tower to the east. I climbed up a thousand steps with great pain. It seemed as though I was climbing forever but at last I reached a door with light shining through the crannies and I heard voices singing 'Glory and joy and honor to our Lord and the Holy Vessel, the Grail.'
"'Then I madly tried the door, it gave way and through a stormy glare of heat that burned me and made me swoon away I thought I saw the Grail, all veiled with crimson samite and around it great angels, awful shapes and wings and eyes!'
"The long hall was silent after Lancelot was done, until airy Gawain began with a sudden.
"'O King, my liege, my good friend Percival and your holy nun have driven men mad. By my eyes and ears I swear I'll be deeper than a blue-eyed cat and three times as blind as any owl at noon-time hereafter to any holy virgins in their ecstasies.'
"'Gawain,' replied the king, 'don't try to become blinder; you're too blind now to want to see. If a sign really came from heaven Bors, Lancelot and Percival are blessed for they have each seen according to their sight.'"
PELLEAS AND ETTARRE.
When his knights went after the Holy Grail Arthur made many new knights to fill the gaps made by their absence. As he sat in his hall one day at old Caerleon the high doors were softly parted and through these in came a youth, and with him the outer sunshine and the sweet scent of meadows.