_Guinevere._ Oh, no, I am not the Queen—I am Your wife! Take me away with you! Let me not lie To you, of all—my whole life is a lie, To one, at least, let it be truth. I—I— O Lancelot, do you not understand? I love you—Oh, I cannot let you go! This swift change of front, this weakening, this inconsistency, is yet so human, so subtly true to life, under such a phase of it, that the entire scene vibrates with emotion which gathers force in the declaration of Guinevere: Love, I will fly with thee where’er thou wilt! and reaches its climax in the sudden strength with which Lancelot meets the Queen’s weakness. During her pleading that he should leave her, his selfish wish had been uppermost; but her weakness recalls him to himself and evokes his latent loyalty to the King: Speak not of flight; I have played him False—the King, my friend. I ne’er can wipe that smirch away. At least I will not add a second shame And blazon out the insult to the world. And Guinevere, casting about for her own justification, replies: What I have given thee was ne’er another’s. How has another, then, been wronged? To which Lancelot: What’s done Is done, nor right nor wrong, as help me, Heaven, Would I undo it if I could. But more I will not do. I will not be the Brutus To stab with mine own hand my dearest friend. It must suffice me that you love me, sweet, And sometime, somewhere, somehow must be mine. I know not—it may be in some dim land Beyond the shadows, where the King himself, Still calling me his friend, shall place your hand In my hand, saying, “She was always thine.” No surplusage, no interposition of the merely literary, cumbers this scene, which immediately precedes the final one, in which Lancelot and the Queen are publicly accused before the King, sitting with Guinevere beside him on the throne. The opportunity for a great dramatic effect is obvious; but through the magnanimity of Arthur, in waiving the impeachment, and exonerating from suspicion the Queen and Lancelot, the effect is not of the clash and din order, in fact, it is anti-climax in action, the real climax being a spiritual one whose subtlety would be lost on the average audience. Lancelot (half aside, partly to Guinevere and partly to himself): Be less kingly, Arthur, Or you will split my heart—not with remorse— No, not remorse, only eternal pain! Why, so the damned are! Guinevere (half apart): To the souls in hell It is at least permitted to cry out. Whatever one may think of the ethical side of the play as wrought out by Hovey, there is no question of its human element. As a whole, “The Marriage of Guenevere” leaves upon one a more concrete and vital impression than do the other dramas of the cycle, though it has less of action and intricacy of plot than the succeeding one, “The Birth of Galahad,” and would probably, for stage purposes, be less effective.