‘It may be, I am quicker of belief Than you believe me, Lancelot of the Lake. Our bond is not the bond of man and wife. This good is in it, whatsoe’er of ill, It can be broken easier. I for you This many a year have done despite and wrong To one whom ever in my heart of hearts I did acknowledge nobler. What are these? Diamonds for me! they had been thrice their worth Being your gift, had you not lost your own. To loyal hearts the value of all gifts Must vary as the giver’s. Not for me! For her! for your new fancy. Only this Grant me, I pray you: have your joys apart. I doubt not that however changed, you keep So much of what is graceful: and myself Would shun to break those bounds of courtesy In which as Arthur’s Queen I move and rule: So cannot speak my mind. An end to this! A strange one! yet I take it with Amen. So pray you, add my diamonds to her pearls; Deck her with these; tell her, she shines me down: An armlet for an arm to which the Queen’s Is haggard, or a necklace for a neck O as much fairer—as a faith once fair Was richer than these diamonds—hers not mine— Nay, by the mother of our Lord himself, Or hers or mine, mine now to work my will— She shall not have them.’ Saying which she seized, And, thro’ the casement standing wide for heat, Flung them, and down they flash’d, and smote the stream. Then from the smitten surface flash’d, as it were, Diamonds to meet them, and they past away. Then while Sir Lancelot leant, in half disdain At love, life, all things, on the window ledge, Close underneath his eyes, and right across Where these had fallen, slowly past the barge Whereon the lily maid of Astolat Lay smiling, like a star in blackest night.” This affair of the diamonds is the chief addition to the old tale, in which we already see the curse of lawless love, fallen upon the jealous Queen and the long-enduring Lancelot. “This is not the first time,” said Sir Lancelot, “that ye have been displeased with me causeless, but, madame, ever I must suffer you, but what sorrow I endure I take no force” (that is, “I disregard”). The romance, and the poet, in his own despite, cannot but make Lancelot the man we love, not Arthur or another. Human nature perversely sides with Guinevere against the Blameless King:—