- King Arthur knights new men to fill the gaps in the Round Table caused by the quest for the Holy Grail.
- Among the chosen? A youngster named Pelleas… who's not exactly worldly.
- Pelleas has recently been made lord of his lands. While riding through his countryside, he pauses to rest in a beech grove by a hillside and whispers to himself about how much he wants to fall in love.
- At that moment, a group of young women led by the most beautiful lady Pelleas has ever seen asks him for directions to Camelot.
- Pelleas is straight up speechless. Did we mention this woman is the most beautiful lady he's ever seen? And it doesn’t help that he's a young lord of a remote place and has never been around any women but his sisters.
- The woman, Ettarre, is a great lady. And by great, we mean she looks down her quite comely nose at poor Pelleas. But she's also smart. And because she really wants to have a knight win the tournament for her, she pretends to return his love. Poor Pelleas.
- Ettarre promises to grant Pelleas her love if he wins the prize of the tournament—a golden circlet—for her.
- Arthur, looking out for his newly minted knight, keeps his older knights out of the tournament so that Pelleas can win. He does, and immediately gives his prize to Ettarre.
- Oh this should be interesting.
- After she receives the circlet, Ettarre snubs Pelleas. Figures. When Pelleas follows her home, she tells her ladies to keep him away from her. She even locks him out of her castle. Harsh.
- Poor Pelleas just thinks that Ettarre is testing his love, so he sets up camp outside he walls, fully armed and mounted, all day long, every day.
- Needless to say, Ettarre isn't exactly please she's got a stalker camped right outside her front door. So she instructs her knights to drive him away. When they are unable to, she tells them to bind him and bring him into her.
- Hearing these instructions, Pelleas relents. The minute he sees Ettarre, he declares himself prisoner of her will. But Ettarre throws him out again.
- The whole camp-out situation begins all over again. Luckily, Sir Gawain happens by just as the knights are trying to throw out Pelleas again.
- Gawain tries to intervene, but Pelleas tells him to let the knights bind him. Before Ettarre again, he tells her that her lack of love bothers him less than the spite marring her beauty. Wow. Judgy much?
- He tells her that although she has finally succeeded in fending him off, he'll always love her. Even then, Ettarre has her knights kick him to the curb again.
- And yet, this has got her thinking. Ettarre wonders why she can’t love Pelleas. He's a really good guy, after all.
- So what gives? Well, she thinks that if Pelleas really did get to know her, he wouldn't want her anymore. Hmm. Looks like our girl's got a case of the insecurity blues.
- Meanwhile, outside the castle, Gawain sets Pelleas free from his bindings. When he learns why Pelleas allowed himself to be tied up, he offers to try to convince Ettarre to accept Pelleas. Yes, because meddling in the romantic affairs of others always works out.
- Thrilled to play host to the renowned Gawain, Ettarre lets him in her castle immediately. He promptly delivers the (false) news: Pelleas is dead.
- Really, Pelleas wanders nearby for three days and nights, wondering what’s taking Gawain so long and struck by a premonition of a “worm” in his “rose.”
- On the third night, Pelleas rides into the castle and finds three pavilions pitched in the courtyard. In the third, Gawain and Ettarre lie in bed together. Hate it say it, P-man, but Shmoop saw that coming a mile away.
- Mortified, Pelleas creeps away in shame. Then he resolves to go back and kill Gawain and Ettarre. Because they didn't have therapy back then.
- When he stands over them, however, his knightly vows stop him. He leaves his naked sword at their throats. Just to send a message.
- As Pelleas rides away, he wishes an earthquake would swallow Ettarre’s castle and everyone in it. He also thinks that the oath of the Round Table has made liars of all who swore it, since most men are no better than beasts. He realizes that although he lusted after Ettarre, but never truly loved her.
- When Ettarre awakes to Pelleas’s sword, she realizes that Gawain lied to her. She promptly falls in love with Pelleas and is now doomed to a life of pining for him in vain. Bummer.
- Pelleas falls asleep by the tower where Percivale dwells as a monk. When Percivale wakes him the next morning he cries out, “I held thee true as Guinevere!”
- This exclamation prompts Percivale to ask Pelleas if he’s delusional. Has he really not heard about Lancelot and Guinevere? True? His left foot.
- Shocked, Pelleas asks Percivale if the queen is false, and if any of the knights of the Round Table have upheld their vows. Percivale’s only response is silence. Well that really says it all, right?
- The suggestion that the king might be false, too, prompts Percivale to ride away in a rage.
- As he approaches Camelot, he crashes into Lancelot. When Pelleas declares that he rides to expose the shame of the Round Table, and Lancelot and the queen, he challenges him.
- Lancelot quickly defeats Pelleas, but lets him go anyways. They arrive in Camelot at the same time.
- When Guinevere asks Pelleas why he is so morose, he hisses at her, “I have no sword,” and darts away.
- All talk in the hall dies as a strange premonition of impending doom falls upon them.
- Mordred, observing all that occurs, thinks to himself that the time is near. Oh, the suspense is killing Shmoop.