line 256. steely weeds = steel armour. 'Steely' in Elizabethan times was used both literally and figuratively. Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI. ii. 3. 16, has 'The steely point of Clifford's lance,' and Fisher in his 'Seuen Psalmes' has 'tough and stely hertes.' For a modern literal example, see Crabbe's 'Parish Register':-- 'Steel through opposing plates the magnet draws, And STEELY atoms calls from dust and straws.' WEEDS in the sense of dress is confined, in modern English, to widows' robes. In Elizabethan times it had a general reference, as e.g. Spenser's 'lowly Shephards weeds' in the Introduction to 'Faery Queene.' Cp. below, Canto V. line 168, VI. line 192. line 258. The Champion is Launcelot, the most famous of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table. See Tennyson's 'Idylls of the King,' especially 'Lancelot and Elaine,' and William Morris's 'Defence of Guenevere.' line 263. Dame Ganore is Guenevere, Arthur's Queen. lines 258-262. Scott annotates these lines as follows:-- 'The Romance of the Morte Arthur contains a sort of abridgment of the most celebrated adventures of the Round Table; and, being written in comparatively modern language, gives the general reader an excellent idea of what romances of chivalry actually were. It has also the merit of being written in pure old English; and many of the wild adventures which it contains are told with a simplicity bordering upon the sublime. Several of these are referred to in the text; and I would have illustrated them by more full extracts, but as this curious work is about to be republished, I confine myself to the tale of the Chapel Perilous, and of the quest of Sir Launcelot after the Sangreal.