The Story of Sir Launcelot and His Companions

by Howard Pyle

Then Queen Guinevere gazed upon Sir Launcelot for a long while and her soul was tossed and troubled with a great ferment of passion, and yet she wist not whether that passion was of indignation or of grief or of anger or of something else that was not like any of these. And first her face had been very white when he stood before her, and anon it flamed red like to fire, and she said: "Sir Knight, one time I sent my word to thee by a messenger and thou heeded him not. Now it matters not that thou comest, for thy coming and thy going are henceforth of no moment to me."

Then Sir Launcelot's heart was filled to bursting with bitterness and despair, and he cried out aloud: "Lady, thou beholdest me a miserable man. For I have left all my duty and all my service and all my hope of peace and happiness and have come to thee. Hast thou not then some word of kindness for me?"

But the Queen only hardened her heart and would not answer.

Then Sir Launcelot cried out in great despair: "Alas! what is there then left for me? Lo! I have cast away from me all my hope of peace and now even thy friendship is withdrawn from me. Nothing then is left to me and my life is dead."

The Queen is angry.

Then Queen Guinevere's eyes flashed like fire, and she cried out: "Sir Knight, you speak I know not what. Now I bid you tell me this—is it true that you wore as a favor the sleeve of the Lady Elaine the Fair at the tournament of Astolat?"

Sir Launcelot said, "Yes, it is true."

Then the Lady Queen Guinevere laughed with flaming cheeks and she said: "Well, Sir Knight I see that you are not very well learned in knighthood not to know that it is both unknightly and dishonorable for a knight to sware faith to one lady and to wear the favor of another. Yet what else than that may be expected of one who knoweth so little of the duties and of the obligations of knighthood that he will ride errant in a hangman's cart?"

So spake Queen Guinevere in haste not knowing what she said, her words being driven onwards by her passion as feathers are blown by a tempest over which they have no control. But when she had spoken those words she was terrified at what she had said and would have recalled them. But she could not do that, for who can recall the spoken word after it is uttered? Wherefore, after she had spoken those words she could do nothing but gaze into Sir Launcelot's face in a sort of terror. And as she thus gazed she beheld that his face became red and redder until it became all empurpled as though the veins of his head would burst. And she beheld that his eyes started as though from his head and that they became shot with blood. And she beheld that he clutched at his throat as though he were choking. And he strove to speak but at first he could not and then he cried out in a harsh and choking voice, "Say you so!" and then again in the same voice he cried, "Say you so!"

Sir Launcelot leapeth from the window.