Perjurer! The truth leaps to light at last! Ah God, Launcelot, that I trusted you, Loved you with such a love, such a mad love, So weak! But now my heart turns into hate And all my blood into one river of scorn. Oh, that I were the lightning and could strike To the false heart of you; there, there, Behind the lips that vowed me endless love To the false heart that laughed those vows away, False as the sea, cruel and false with smiles And sighs and perjured protestation. LAUNCELOT Queen! GUENEVERE Who fills your secret bosom, fires your thought? Who speeds her champion’s onset in the lists? Not I, but she whose dear red sleeve you wore. LAUNCELOT Guenevere, hear me! GUENEVERE A milky-hearted maid, A tender maid, the maid of Astolat, She for whose sake you did what never yet You did for any woman. And you came Fresh from her clasp, and her cold kiss, to me! Get to her, haste to her. Run to that adoration of meek eyes---- LAUNCELOT Guenevere, Guenevere! you are much deceived. GUENEVERE Deceived indeed! Ah, did you ever love? Is all that sweetness, ah God, all that seemed So sweet, it tortures me to think of it, Ashes and dust? Horrible! Now I know Why you came sainted and exalted back-- Loyalty and compunction on your lips, But in your heart a love you dared not own. It is this girl that’s changed you. Go to her! LAUNCELOT I am not changed, my Queen. It is you change. GUENEVERE I? LAUNCELOT Has some devil entered into you That you rave slander? Speak not, for you shall hear me. You have wronged One that you know not, and me too you wrong That never loved any but you, have spent Blood for you, fought for you, have many times Been in death’s peril for you, and would to God, If so I am requited, would to God That I had never loved. GUENEVERE Ah, you have said it. LAUNCELOT I love her not, you know it. GUENEVERE Yet you wore Her sleeve, her favour. LAUNCELOT What I did, I did For pity, and for the shielding of your name. I would not wear your favour for that cause. GUENEVERE And yet you never did so much for love. LAUNCELOT She had won me back from death. How otherwise Could I requite her, since I could not love? So earnestly she asked me for that boon. GUENEVERE It was a token to the world you loved her. You had no thought of me, never a thought. LAUNCELOT