“Lord,” said Sir Launcelot, “thy Queen is held here in high and honorable regard. With us she is safe from harm or injury of any sort. Would she be thus free from danger of harm and dishonor if she were with you? Pledge me first that you would do her no harm or injury, and then it will beseem us as true and honorable knights to consider the surrender of her to you.”
“Am I then,” said the King, “to make treaty with you for the return to me of that wife with whom I have lived in amity for all these years? Sir, you do not consider how unfit such a treaty would be upon my part.”
Sir Gawaine accuseth Sir Launcelot.
Then up spake Sir Gawaine. “Also, Messire, you have forgot another thing, and that is that you have slain my two young brothers who stood before you defenceless and unarmed. I reckon naught of those whom you slew, armed and in battle. For I loved you well and truly for many years, and I advised them not to hazard battle with you; but they would hazard battle and so they were slain by you. But of those two others, they did not hazard battle; for they were unarmed and naked, and they would have stood your friends; yet you slew them as though they had been enemies. This I will never forgive you, but either you will answer for it with your blood, or I will answer for it with mine.”
Then Sir Launcelot groaned, and he said, “God pity us all for our sins, and God pity you, Sir Gawaine, for your unchristian hatred.” And with that he turned away.
The defenders of the castle sally forth.
So when the next day had come, they of the castle prepared themselves for battle and for escape. They placed the Queen in their midst and they surrounded her upon all sides. Then, of a sudden, all the gates upon one side of the castle were flung wide open and they issued out in full armor. And at that time the sun shone out very brightly, and it gleamed and sparkled like flames of fire upon the brightly polished steel of those knights. Then they, the defenders of the castle, shouted very loud, and they charged against their enemies, bearing the Queen with them in their midst.
And for awhile they carried all before them and no one could withstand them; and so they might have escaped, had it not been that the Queen was with them and retarded them in their charge and their advance. For, in a little while, owing to that delay, those of King Arthur’s army armed themselves, and in another little while the friends of Sir Launcelot were almost entirely surrounded by that vast multitude.
Then Sir Launcelot beheld that in a short time they would be shut off from return to the castle, but that as yet the way was still open to them. Wherefore he lifted up his voice and shouted, “Retreat! Retreat!”
They of the castle retreat into it again.