Le Morte d'Arthur BOOK XI CHAPTER VIII

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 CHAPTER VIII
 
 How Dame Brisen by enchantment brought Sir Launcelot to
 Dame Elaine's bed, and how Queen Guenever rebuked
 him.
 
 
 SO when time came that all folks were abed, Dame
 Brisen came to Sir Launcelot's bed's side and said:  Sir
 Launcelot du Lake, sleep you?  My lady, Queen Guenever,
 lieth and awaiteth upon you.  O my fair lady, said
 Sir Launcelot, I am ready to go with you where ye will
 have me.  So Sir Launcelot threw upon him a long gown,
 and his sword in his hand; and then Dame Brisen took
 him by the finger and led him to her lady's bed, Dame
 Elaine; and then she departed and left them in bed
 together.  Wit you well the lady was glad, and so was Sir
 Launcelot, for he weened that he had had another in his
 arms.
 
 Now leave we them kissing and clipping, as was kindly
 thing; and now speak we of Queen Guenever that sent
 one of her women unto Sir Launcelot's bed; and when
 she came there she found the bed cold, and he was away;
 so she came to the queen and told her all.  Alas, said the
 queen, where is that false knight become?  Then the
 queen was nigh out of her wit, and then she writhed and
 weltered as a mad woman, and might not sleep a four or
 five hours.  Then Sir Launcelot had a condition that he
 used of custom, he would clatter in his sleep, and speak
 oft of his lady, Queen Guenever.  So as Sir Launcelot
 had waked as long as it had pleased him, then by course
 of kind he slept, and Dame Elaine both.  And in his sleep
 he talked and clattered as a jay, of the love that had been
 betwixt Queen Guenever and him.  And so as he talked
 so loud the queen heard him thereas she lay in her
 chamber; and when she heard him so clatter she was nigh
 wood and out of her mind, and for anger and pain wist
 not what to do.  And then she coughed so loud that Sir
 Launcelot awaked, and he knew her hemming.  And then
 he knew well that he lay not by the queen; and therewith
 he leapt out of his bed as he had been a wood man, in his
 shirt, and the queen met him in the floor; and thus she
 said:  False traitor knight that thou art, look thou never
 abide in my court, and avoid my chamber, and not so
 hardy, thou false traitor knight that thou art, that ever
 thou come in my sight.  Alas, said Sir Launcelot; and
 therewith he took such an heartly sorrow at her words
 that he fell down to the floor in a swoon.  And therewithal
 Queen Guenever departed.  And when Sir Launcelot
 awoke of his swoon, he leapt out at a bay window into a
 garden, and there with thorns he was all to-scratched in
 his visage and his body; and so he ran forth he wist not
 whither, and was wild wood as ever was man; and so he
 ran two year, and never man might have grace to know
 him.