Le Morte d'Arthur BOOK XI CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER VIII

How Dame Brisen by enchantment brought Sir Launcelot to
Dame Elaine's bed, and how Queen Guenever rebuked
him.

SO when time came that all folks were abed, Dame
Brisen came to Sir Launcelot's bed's side and said:  Sir
Launcelot du Lake, sleep you?  My lady, Queen Guenever,
lieth and awaiteth upon you.  O my fair lady, said
Sir Launcelot, I am ready to go with you where ye will
have me.  So Sir Launcelot threw upon him a long gown,
and his sword in his hand; and then Dame Brisen took
him by the finger and led him to her lady's bed, Dame
Elaine; and then she departed and left them in bed
together.  Wit you well the lady was glad, and so was Sir
Launcelot, for he weened that he had had another in his
arms.

Now leave we them kissing and clipping, as was kindly
thing; and now speak we of Queen Guenever that sent
one of her women unto Sir Launcelot's bed; and when
she came there she found the bed cold, and he was away;
so she came to the queen and told her all.  Alas, said the
queen, where is that false knight become?  Then the
queen was nigh out of her wit, and then she writhed and
weltered as a mad woman, and might not sleep a four or
five hours.  Then Sir Launcelot had a condition that he
used of custom, he would clatter in his sleep, and speak
oft of his lady, Queen Guenever.  So as Sir Launcelot
had waked as long as it had pleased him, then by course
of kind he slept, and Dame Elaine both.  And in his sleep
he talked and clattered as a jay, of the love that had been
betwixt Queen Guenever and him.  And so as he talked
so loud the queen heard him thereas she lay in her
chamber; and when she heard him so clatter she was nigh
wood and out of her mind, and for anger and pain wist
not what to do.  And then she coughed so loud that Sir
Launcelot awaked, and he knew her hemming.  And then
he knew well that he lay not by the queen; and therewith
he leapt out of his bed as he had been a wood man, in his
shirt, and the queen met him in the floor; and thus she
said:  False traitor knight that thou art, look thou never
abide in my court, and avoid my chamber, and not so
hardy, thou false traitor knight that thou art, that ever
thou come in my sight.  Alas, said Sir Launcelot; and
therewith he took such an heartly sorrow at her words
that he fell down to the floor in a swoon.  And therewithal
Queen Guenever departed.  And when Sir Launcelot
awoke of his swoon, he leapt out at a bay window into a
garden, and there with thorns he was all to-scratched in
his visage and his body; and so he ran forth he wist not
whither, and was wild wood as ever was man; and so he
ran two year, and never man might have grace to know
him.