“Do after the good, and leave the evil”

“Do after the good, and leave the evil” is the ethical hinge of William Caxton’s account of what Le Morte Darthur is for. The book offers noble and shameful deeds alike, but its readers are asked to distinguish between them: retain the good examples, refuse the bad, and make reading a guide to conduct rather than merely a source of pleasure.

The Prologue’s Instruction

Caxton presents the histories as a record of contrasting ways of acting. Readers will encounter courtesy, humanity, friendship, courage, love, and chivalry, but also cowardice, murder, hatred, vice, and sin. The imperative to follow good and leave evil gives that catalogue a practical direction: the episodes are not morally interchangeable, and the reader is responsible for choosing what to carry from them into life.

Caxton makes this purpose explicit by asking readers to keep honest deeds in remembrance and follow them. He adds that belief in the literal truth of everything in the book is left to the reader’s discretion; regardless of that question, the histories are written for instruction. Their stated end is to warn against vice and sin, encourage virtue, and lead readers toward good fame and renown in this life and everlasting bliss after this short, transitory life.

Conduct Made Concrete in Arthur’s Realm

The maxim’s moral distinction finds a practical counterpart in the rules Arthur establishes for the Knights of the Round Table. After the quests associated with the white hart, the brachet, and the abducted lady, Arthur provides lands for knights who lack them and binds the fellowship to duties: they must avoid outrage and murder, flee treason, reject cruelty, and show mercy to anyone who asks it. They must also aid ladies, damsels, and gentlewomen, while refusing to fight in an unjust quarrel for law or worldly goods. The knights swear to these terms, and renew their oaths each year at Pentecost.

Arthur’s judgment of Sir Damas and Sir Ontzlake gives mercy a further, judicial form. Though Arthur has fought and been injured while acting as Damas’s champion, he rules that Damas must yield the whole manor to his brother, retain only a palfrey supplied yearly, stop distressing errant knights, and release the twenty prisoners he has held. Ontzlake, whom Arthur recognizes as a true and capable knight, is invited to join the court. The episode distinguishes prowess from worthy conduct: strength alone does not excuse oppression, and authority is used to restore what Damas has abused.

Mercy, Service, and the Consequences of Choice

The same moral pattern appears when Beaumains defeats the Red Knight of the Red Lawns. Beaumains acknowledges that the knight has acted shamefully, yet refuses to kill him when those present plead for mercy. He makes his release conditional on making amends to the lady whose lands he harmed and seeking forgiveness from Sir Launcelot and Sir Gawaine. The defeated knight accepts these terms; the lady receives him under surety, her injuries are repaired, and he later appears openly at Arthur’s court to submit himself to mercy. The outcome makes restraint consequential: pardon does not erase wrongdoing but requires reparation and renewed submission to the court’s order.

Arthur’s treatment of the Roman ambassadors supplies another contrast. When twelve elderly envoys demand tribute for the emperor Lucius, some young knights want to attack them for the insult. Arthur forbids anyone to harm or insult the messengers and orders that they receive suitable lodging and hospitality, even as he prepares to answer the political demand. The scene sets disciplined conduct against anger: rejecting a demand does not release the king or his knights from obligations toward those who carry it.

The Maxim’s Reach

Caxton’s instruction is therefore not simply a closing moral attached to entertaining adventures. It offers a way to read the book’s reversals and judgments: vicious conduct brings shame or punishment, while honour depends on choices that protect others, restrain violence, and repair harm. Arthur’s commands give those choices institutional weight, and the episodes of Beaumains and the Roman envoys show them being tested in particular circumstances.

The phrase joins literary pleasure to ethical teaching without requiring readers to accept every narrated event as fact. Caxton invites them to enjoy the histories, assess their truth as they see fit, and still use their actions as moral examples. Its compact command expresses the book’s stated discipline of reading: remember what is worthy, refuse what is vicious, and let the difference shape conduct.