[Sidenote: Lancelot and Guinevere.] Lancelot, however, was doomed to much sorrow, for he had no sooner beheld Queen Guinevere than he fell deeply in love with her. The queen fully returned his affection, granted him many marks of her favor, and encouraged him to betray his friend and king on sundry occasions, which form the themes of various episodes in the romances of the time. Lancelot, urged in one direction by passion, in another by loyalty, led a very unhappy life, which made him relapse into occasional fits of insanity, during which he roamed aimlessly about for many years. When restored to his senses, he always returned to court, where he accomplished unheard-of deeds of valor, delivered many maidens in distress, righted the wrong wherever he found it, won all the honors at the tournaments, and ever remained faithful in his devotion to the queen, although many fair ladies tried to make him forget her. Some of the poems, anxious to vindicate the queen, declare that there were two Guineveres, one pure, lovely, and worthy of all admiration, who suffered for the sins of the other, an unprincipled woman. When Arthur discovered his wife's intrigue with Lancelot, he sent her away, and Guinevere took refuge with her lover in Joyeuse Garde (Berwick), a castle he had won at the point of his lance to please her. But the king, having ascertained some time after that the real Guinevere had been wrongfully accused, reinstated her in his favor, and Lancelot again returned to court, where he continued to love and serve the queen. [Illustration: SIR LANCELOT DU LAC.--Sir John Gilbert.] On one occasion, hearing that she had been made captive by Meleagans, Lancelot rushed after Guinevere to rescue her, tracing her by a comb and ringlet she had dropped on the way. His horse was taken from him by enchantment, so Lancelot, in order sooner to overtake the queen, rode on in a cart. This was considered a disgraceful mode of progress for a knight, as a nobleman in those days was condemned to ride in a cart in punishment for crimes for which common people were sentenced to the pillory. Lancelot succeeded in reaching the castle of Guinevere's kidnaper, whom he challenged and defeated. The queen, instead of showing herself grateful for this devotion, soon became needlessly jealous, and in a fit of anger taunted her lover about his journey in the cart. This remark sufficed to unsettle the hero's evidently very tottering reason, and he roamed wildly about until the queen recognized her error, and sent twenty-three knights in search of him. They journeyed far and wide for two whole years without finding him. "'Then Sir Bors had ridden on Softly, and sorrowing for our Lancelot, Because his former madness, once the talk And scandal of our table, had return'd; For Lancelot's kith and kin so worship him That ill to him is ill to them.'" TENNYSON, _The Holy Grail_.