Analysis of Lancelot
Gawaine, aware again of Lancelot
In the King’s garden, coughed and followed him;
Whereat he turned and stood with folded arms
And weary-waiting eyes, cold and half-closed—
Hard eyes, where doubts at war with memories
Fanned a sad wrath. “Why frown upon a friend?
Few live that have too many,” Gawaine said,
And wished unsaid, so thinly came the light
Between the narrowing lids at which he gazed.
“And who of us are they that name their friends?”
Lancelot said. “They live that have not any.
Why do they live, Gawaine? Ask why, and answer.”
Two men of an elected eminence,
They stood for a time silent. Then Gawaine,
Acknowledging the ghost of what was gone,
Put out his hand: “Rather, I say, why ask?
If I be not the friend of Lancelot,
May I be nailed alive along the ground
And emmets eat me dead. If I be not
The friend of Lancelot, may I be fried
With other liars in the pans of hell.
What item otherwise of immolation
Your Darkness may invent, be it mine to endure
And yours to gloat on. For the time between,
Consider this thing you see that is my hand.
If once, it has been yours a thousand times;
Why not again? Gawaine has never lied
To Lancelot; and this, of all wrong days—
This day before the day when you go south
To God knows what accomplishment of exile—
Were surely an ill day for lies to find
An issue or a cause or an occasion.
King Ban your father and King Lot my father,
Were they alive, would shake their heads in sorrow
To see us as we are, and I shake mine
In wonder. Will you take my hand, or no?
Strong as I am, I do not hold it out
For ever and on air. You see—my hand.”
Lancelot gave his hand there to Gawaine,
Who took it, held it, and then let it go,
Chagrined with its indifference.
“Yes, Gawaine,
I go tomorrow, and I wish you well;
You and your brothers, Gareth, Gaheris,—
And Agravaine; yes, even Agravaine,
Whose tongue has told all Camelot and all Britain
More lies than yet have hatched of Modred’s envy.
You say that you have never lied to me,
And I believe it so. Let it be so.
For now and always. Gawaine, I wish you well.
Tomorrow I go south, as Merlin went,
But not for Merlin’s end. I go, Gawaine,
And leave you to your ways. There are ways left.”
“There are three ways I know, three famous ways,
And all in Holy Writ,” Gawaine said, smiling:
“The snake’s way and the eagle’s way are two,
And then we have a man’s way with a maid—
Or with a woman who is not a maid.
Your late way is to send all women scudding,
To the last flash of the last cramoisy,
While you go south to find the fires of God.
Since we came back again to Camelot
From our immortal Quest—I came back first—
No man has known you for the man you were
Before you saw whatever ’t was you saw,
To make so little of kings and queens and friends
Thereafter. Modred? Agravaine? My brothers?
And what if they be brothers? What are brothers,
If they be not our friends, your friends and mine?
You turn away, and my words are no mark
On you affection or your memory?
So be it then, if so it is to be.
God save you, Lancelot; for by Saint Stephen,
You are no more than man to save yourself.”
“Gawaine, I do not say that you are wrong,
Or that you are ill-seasoned in your lightness;
You say that all you know is what you saw,
And on your own averment you saw nothing.
Your spoken word, Gawaine, I have not weighed
In those unhappy scales of inference
That have no beam but one made out of hates
And fears, and venomous conjecturings;
Your tongue is not the sword that urges me
Now out of Camelot. Two other swords
There are that are awake, and in their scabbards
Are parching for the blood of Lancelot.
Yet I go not away for fear of them,
But for a sharper care. You say the truth,
But not when you contend the fires of God
Are my one fear,—for there is one fear more.
Therefore I go. Gawaine, I wish you well.”
“Well-wishing in a way is well enough;
So, in a way, is caution; so, in a way,
Are leeches, neatherds, and astrologers.
Lancelot, listen. Sit you down and listen:
You talk of swords and fears and banishment.
Two swords, you say; Modred and Agravaine,
You mean. Had you meant Gaheris and Gareth,
Or willed an evil on them, I should welcome
And hasten your farewell. But Agravaine
Hears little what I say; his ears are Modred’s.
The King is Modred’s father, and the Queen
A prepossession of Modred’s lunacy.
So much for my two brothers whom you fear,
Not fearing for y
Scheme | AXBXXXXXXCDE FDXGAXAHIJXKLXHMXXXJENONXLDNFDIBDJDDNIXDXMPXQQGBRAXESCTTOXDDJX XXSPQFXBDXBAXXRXI XXTJXDXXDBKDXX |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10101110 0011010101 111011101 0101011011 1111111100 1011110101 111111011 0101110101 01010011111 0111111111 1011111110 1111111010 1111010100 111011011 0100011111 1111101111 111101110 1111010101 011111111 011101111 1101000111 110101100 110101111101 0111110101 01011111111 1111110101 110111101 110011111 1101011111 1111010011 0101111111 11010111010 11110011110 01011111010 1111110111 0101111111 1111111111 1100111111 10111111 1111101111 01110100 11 110101111 10110101 011101 11111100110 1111111110 1111110111 0101111111 110111111 011111101 111101111 0111111111 1111111101 0101011110 0110010111 0111011101 1101011101 1111111101 10111011 11111101011 111101110 11001011111 1111110110 0111101111 11110110101 01011110 01111101110 11111011101 1101011111 1101011100 1111111111 1111011110 1111111101 111111111 11111100110 1111111111 011111110 110111111 0101011100 1111111111 0101001 1111011101 111101101 1111010011 11101110 1111011111 1101011101 11110101011 1111111111 11111111 1100011101 10011101001 110100100 1010111010 1111010100 1111101 111111010 11110111110 0101111 1101111111 011110001 0111100 1111110111 11011 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 4,430 |
Words | 854 |
Sentences | 55 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 12, 62, 17, 14 |
Lines Amount | 105 |
Letters per line (avg) | 32 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 836 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 211 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on May 03, 2023
- 4:16 min read
- 399 Views
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"Lancelot" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 11 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/9988/lancelot>.
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