Sir Launcelot and Sir Gawaine

Sir Launcelot and Sir Gawaine are first bound by shared service and remembered acts of rescue, but their relationship becomes one of the central personal fractures in the collapse of King Arthur’s fellowship. Gawaine refuses to join the accusation against Launcelot even when the queen’s affair is raised; later, after Launcelot accidentally kills Gawaine’s unarmed brothers, Gawaine vows to pursue him to the death. At the end, mortally wounded in the war, Gawaine writes to Launcelot not merely to name his killer but to admit his own part in the tragedy and beg him to return to Arthur’s aid.

Fellowship and remembered loyalty

Gawaine’s regard for Launcelot rests on specific debts of service. When Agravaine urges his brothers to expose Launcelot’s relationship with Queen Guenever, Gawaine refuses to take part. He recalls that Launcelot rescued him from King Carados of the Dolorous Tower and saved his life; he also reminds Agravaine that Launcelot rescued him, Mordred, and sixty other captives from Sir Turquine. Those acts, Gawaine argues, are kindnesses that ought to be remembered. Gareth likewise refuses to speak against Launcelot because Launcelot made him a knight. Gawaine and Gareth leave the discussion in grief, foreseeing that the realm will be brought to ruin and the fellowship of the Round Table dispersed.

Gawaine’s defense is not simply a denial of the allegation against the queen. When King Arthur considers sentencing Guenever to death, Gawaine asks him to delay judgment. Even if Launcelot was found in the queen’s chamber, Gawaine argues, he might have been summoned for a reason other than wrongdoing; Guenever might have sought to reward him for saving her life. Gawaine insists that the queen is good and true to Arthur, and that Launcelot would answer any knight who accused either of them of dishonor. Arthur rejects the appeal: he says the queen must face the law and that Launcelot will receive a shameful death if captured. Gawaine regrets the deaths of his brothers and sons, but says they brought their fate upon themselves by ignoring his warnings about the danger of opposing Launcelot. He will not seek revenge for them.

From restraint to vengeance

The decisive reversal comes after Launcelot’s rescue of Guenever. During the ensuing violence, Launcelot kills Gawaine’s brothers Gareth and Gaheris in the press, without knowing who they are; neither brother is armed against him. When King Arthur tells Gawaine what happened, Gawaine recognizes that they bore no arms, but his response is no longer restraint. He swears by his knighthood that he will not fail Launcelot until one has killed the other, and promises to pursue him through seven kingdoms if necessary. Arthur says Launcelot is waiting at Joyous Gard, where many knights have gathered around him. Gawaine urges Arthur to summon his friends, and the king raises a host to besiege the castle.

The siege transforms a personal bereavement into open war between Arthur’s forces and Launcelot’s. Yet Gawaine’s later meeting with Launcelot preserves the memory of their former fellowship. Gawaine says they will never be reconciled because Launcelot has slain three of his brothers, two of them, he says, treacherously and pitifully, while unarmed. Launcelot answers that he wishes they had been armed, for then they might have lived. He says Gareth was the kinsman he loved most, recalls that he had knighted him and that Gareth loved him above all other knights, and mourns the permanent enmity he knew Gareth’s death would bring between himself and Gawaine. He denies killing Gareth or Gaheris by intention and offers to travel barefoot and in a shirt from Sandwich to Carlisle, founding a religious house every ten miles, with prayers and provision for the dead brothers. Gawaine hears the offer but refuses forgiveness, especially for Gareth’s death. The personal bond has not vanished; it has become the measure of what vengeance prevents them from repairing.

Their combat and the old wound

When Gawaine and Launcelot finally fight, the encounter gives their enmity a physical form while recalling the distinctive terms of Gawaine’s prowess. They charge on horseback, their spears break the horses’ ability to withstand the blows, and both knights continue on foot. Gawaine has a special advantage: from dawn until noon his strength increases over three hours, a gift received from a holy man. Arthur has accordingly ordered that battles over quarrels before him begin at the hour of underne, so that Gawaine can fight during the period of his growing strength.

Launcelot endures Gawaine’s increasing power by defending himself and conserving his strength. Once noon has passed and Gawaine’s advantage fades, Launcelot takes his turn and knocks him down with a blow to the helmet. The defeat does not end their feud. Gawaine later carries the wound from this combat into the final war, where it becomes the immediate cause of his death. The text thus makes the bodily consequence of their earlier conflict recur at the end: the wound Launcelot gave him in battle is still decisive when the two men are no longer fighting face to face.

Gawaine’s last message and the relationship’s end

After Arthur’s forces land at Dover and drive Mordred back, Gawaine is found in a boat, gravely weakened. He tells Arthur that the old wound Launcelot gave him has reopened and that he knows he will die. He also revises the story of the war: had Launcelot been with Arthur, Gawaine says, the conflict might never have begun. Launcelot and his kin had kept Arthur’s enemies under control through their prowess, and Gawaine identifies himself as responsible for refusing reconciliation.

Gawaine asks for pen, ink, and paper and writes to Launcelot with his own hand. He states that on 10 May he was struck in the old wound received at Benwick, and that it has brought him to his death. He insists that his death was his own seeking, not Launcelot’s fault, and asks Launcelot to visit his tomb and pray for his soul. In the same letter he asks the knight he calls the flower of noble knights to cross the sea quickly and rescue Arthur, who is beset by Mordred. He reports that Mordred has had himself crowned king and would have married Guenever had she not shut herself in the Tower of London. Written only two and a half hours before Gawaine’s death, the message reverses his earlier vow: he had promised to pursue Launcelot until one killed the other; now he asks Launcelot to return as Arthur’s rescuer. Their reconciliation comes too late to avert the war, but Gawaine’s final acknowledgment separates Launcelot’s responsibility for the fatal wound from his own responsibility for the hostility that divided them.