Then was Arthur
more dismayed than he was beforehand; for then he remembered him of his
sister Morgan le Fay, and of the enchantment of the ship. O sir knight,
said he, I pray you tell me who gave you this sword, and by whom ye had
it.
CHAPTER XI. How Accolon confessed the treason of Morgan le Fay, King
Arthur’s sister, and how she would have done slay him.
Then Sir Accolon bethought him, and said, Woe worth this sword, for by
it have I got my death. It may well be, said the king. Now, sir, said
Accolon, I will tell you; this sword hath been in my keeping the most
part of this twelvemonth; and Morgan le Fay, King Uriens’ wife, sent it
me yesterday by a dwarf, to this intent, that I should slay King
Arthur, her brother. For ye shall understand King Arthur is the man in
the world that she most hateth, because he is most of worship and of
prowess of any of her blood; also she loveth me out of measure as
paramour, and I her again; and if she might bring about to slay Arthur
by her crafts, she would slay her husband King Uriens lightly, and then
had she me devised to be king in this land, and so to reign, and she to
be my queen; but that is now done, said Accolon, for I am sure of my
death. Well, said Sir Arthur, I feel by you ye would have been king in
this land. It had been great damage to have destroyed your lord, said
Arthur. It is truth, said Accolon, but now I have told you truth,
wherefore I pray you tell me of whence ye are, and of what court? O
Accolon, said King Arthur, now I let thee wit that I am King Arthur, to
whom thou hast done great damage. When Accolon heard that he cried
aloud, Fair, sweet lord, have mercy on me, for I knew not you. O Sir
Accolon, said King Arthur, mercy shalt thou have, because I feel by thy
words at this time thou knewest not my person; but I understand well by
thy words that thou hast agreed to the death of my person, and
therefore thou art a traitor; but I wite thee the less, for my sister
Morgan le Fay by her false crafts made thee to agree and consent to her
false lusts, but I shall be sore avenged upon her an I live, that all
Christendom shall speak of it; God knoweth I have honoured her and
worshipped her more than all my kin, and more have I trusted her than
mine own wife and all my kin after.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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