How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
‘Am I so bold, and could I so stand by,
And see my dear lord wounded in the strife,
Or maybe pierced to death before mien eyes,
And yet not dare to tell him what I think,
And how men slur him, saying all his force Is melted into mere effeminacy?
O me, I fear that I am no true wife!’
(“Marriage of Geraint,” 102-108)
Enid finds it more difficult to tell Geraint about the rumors that he’s lost his mojo than to watch him be killed in battle. The slight to her husband’s good name—and the prospect of telling him about it—troubles her more than the thought of physical injury to him. Do these feelings constitute a betrayal of her wifely duty? Well, that depends: as Enid says, “I cannot love my lord and not his name” (92) since in a sense, his name, or reputation, is a part of him. On the other hand, whatever happened to unconditional love?
Quote #2
He heard but fragments of her later words,
and that she fear’d she was not a true wife.
And then he thought, ‘In spite of all my pains,
She is not faithful to me, and I see her
Weeping, for some gay knight in Arthur’s hall.’
(“Geraint and Enid,” 113-118)
Geraint’s statement that “I see her weeping for some gay knight” acknowledges that Geraint’s view of Enid is just his perception of her. Enid’s fear that she is not a true wife matches up so well with Geraint’s fears about her that it morphs into one shared delusion.
Quote #3
‘The flower of all their vestal knighthood, knelt
In amorous homage—knelt—what else?—O, ay,
And mumbled that white hand whose ring’d caress
Had wander’d from her own King’s golden head,
And lost itself in darkness, till she cried—
I thought the great tower would crash down on both
“Rise, my sweet King, and kiss me on the lips,
Thou art my King.”
(“Balin and Balan,” 501-509)
Vivien’s story about Guinevere’s betrayal of Arthur with Lancelot isn’t true, but—just like Enid’s unnecessary remorse and weeping before Geraint—it confirms the worst of Balin’s fears. It shapes his perception of the encounter he witnessed between Lancelot and Guinevere in the garden. The word “darkness” might refer to both the darkness of Lancelot’s hair (in contrast to the fair Arthur) and a moral darkness, wedding Guinevere’s physical sin to her spiritual one. Her declaration of Lancelot as her “king” emphasizes how her private love has political consequences.