How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #7
‘My brethren have been all my fellowship;
And I, when often they have talk’d of love,
Wish’d it had been my mother, for they talk’d,
Meseem’d, of what they knew not; so myself—
I know not if I know what true love is,
But if I know, then, if I love not him,
I know there is none other I can love.’
(“Lancelot and Elaine,” 668-674)
Elaine’s answer to Gawain’s question of whether she loves Lancelot is a little roundabout and cryptic if you ask Shmoop. First she doubts whether her family has given her a real understanding of the nature of love. Despite her doubts, she nevertheless (sort of) declares her love for Lancelot. Elaine is one of the characters who most purely demonstrates unconditional love, but she declares herself the most ignorant of it.
Quote #8
‘Yea, to be loved, if what is worthy love
Could bind him, but free love will not be bound.’
‘Free love, so bound, were freest,’ said the King.
‘Let love be free; free love is for the best.
And, after heaven, on our dull side of death,
What should be best, if not so pure a love
Clothed in so pure a loveliness?’
(“Lancelot and Elaine,” 1369-1373)
Lancelot expresses his dilemma to Arthur as the inability of Elaine’s love alone to “bind” him. Lancelot’s language makes it sound like he thinks of love as a constraining, imprisoning force, which makes sense, given his experience with Guinevere. By contrast, Arthur believes in the paradox that the bonds of love are freeing. In fact, they are the best thing humans have going on for them “on our dull side of death.” His understanding of the love-bond as liberating explains the philosophy behind his system of fellowship with his knights.
Quote #9
‘Why have I push’d him from me? this man loves,
if love there be; yet him I loved not. Why?
I deem’d him fool? yea, so? or that in him
A something—was it nobler than myself?—
seem’d my reproach? He is not of my kind.
He could not love me, did he know me well.
Nay, let him go—and quickly.’
(“Pelleas and Ettarre,” 298-302)
This poignant self-analysis from the otherwise unsympathetic Ettarre echoes Guinevere’s reasons for being unable to love Arthur. In Ettarre’s case, Pelleas’s nobility only makes her more aware of her own less than noble actions. Ettarre also shares with Lancelot and Guinevere an inability to love those who are most deserving of it.