Where, thinking, that if ever yet was wife True to her lord, mine shall be so to me, He compass’d her with sweet observances And worship, never leaving her, and grew Forgetful of his promise to the King, 50 Forgetful of the falcon and the hunt, Forgetful of the tilt and tournament, Forgetful of his glory and his name, Forgetful of his princedom and its cares. And this forgetfulness was hateful to her. 55 And by and by the people, when they met In twos and threes, or fuller companies, Began to scoff and jeer and babble of him As of a prince whose manhood was all gone, And molten down in mere uxoriousness. 60 And this she gather’d from the people’s eyes; This too the women who attired her head, To please her, dwelling on his boundless love, Told Enid, and they sadden’d her the more: And day by day she thought to tell Geraint, 65 But could not out of bashful delicacy; While he that watch’d her sadden, was the more Suspicious that her nature had a taint. At last it chanced that on a summer morn (They sleeping each by other) the new sun 70 Beat through the blindless casement of the room, And heated the strong warrior in his dreams; Who, moving, cast the coverlet aside, And bared the knotted column of his throat, The massive square of his heroic breast, 75 And arms on which the standing muscle sloped, As slopes a wild brook o’er a little stone, Running too vehemently to break upon it. And Enid woke and sat beside the couch, Admiring him, and thought within herself, 80 Was ever man so grandly made as he? Then, like a shadow, pass’d the people’s talk And accusation of uxoriousness Across her mind, and bowing over him, Low to her own heart piteously she said: 85 “O noble breast and all-puissant arms, Am I the cause, I the poor cause that men Reproach you, saying all your force is gone? I _am_ the cause, because I dare not speak And tell him what I think and what they say. 90 And yet I hate that he should linger here; I cannot love my lord and not his name. Far liefer had I gird his harness on him, And ride with him to battle and stand by, And watch his mightful hand striking great blows 95 At caitiffs and at wrongers of the world. Far better were I laid in the dark earth, Not hearing any more his noble voice, Not to be folded more in these dear arms, And darken’d from the high light in his eyes, 100 Than that my lord through me should suffer shame. Am I so bold, and could I so stand by, And see my dear lord wounded in the strife, Or maybe pierc’d to death before mine eyes, And yet not dare to tell him what I think, 105 And how men slur him, saying all his force Is melted into mere effeminacy? O me, I feel that I am no true wife.”