[SIR BERNARD _goes out with his sons._ ELAINE Sir Launcelot! Sir Launcelot of the Lake? Was it the famed Sir Launcelot that I found Like a dead man so pale on the dead leaves? Sir Launcelot! I have won Sir Launcelot back To life, to glory! Now I have a name To call you by; the name I used to hear When it seemed distant as the dazzling sun; Why did you hide your name? (LAUNCELOT _is silent_.) Something is changed. What is it? Tell me. LAUNCELOT The King has been in peril; I should have been with him. ELAINE And not with me! LAUNCELOT Forgive me, my fair nurse. If I have breath To speak at all, I owe it to you. For you Have made of me a new man, and I thank you With all my heart that now I can return To serve my King. Where is my shield? ELAINE (_bringing the shield from a corner of the room_) So soon? And I must lose the shield? Look, I have made A silken case broidered with its device And bordered with fair flowers, which day by day I broidered while you lay so sick and speechless. Each morning I have burnished it. LAUNCELOT Like me, It wears its scars. ELAINE Glorious scars! I seem To feel the rushing stroke, when you upheld it There! Dreadful stroke! Good shield! What fight was that? LAUNCELOT It was that battle on the Solway shore, When all the sands were blood, and we were pressed So heavily by the wild men of the isles That in the press the King came near his death. This shielded Arthur then. ELAINE And you, you saved him. LAUNCELOT So kingly a King, who would not die for him? He has made this isle of Britain such a realm As famous Alexander might have throned Or Cæsar bled for: Beat back the Saxon, soldered into one The princedoms that were all at envious broil With one another; made his name a trumpet, Sounding across the seas even to Rome. The world knows that; but I know more and dearer. ELAINE How came this other scar? LAUNCELOT Ah, that was done By my own friend, Sir Gawaine. He mistook me For the false Torquil, who had trapped his brothers. But, when he knew, he flung his sword away And caught me to his heart; a headlong man In wrath or love. ELAINE I pray he love you always. And this deep gash? LAUNCELOT By the black winter waves Under Tintagel towers, that blow was dealt. ELAINE