Colombe

Colombe is Lanceor’s lady, whose response to his death turns a knightly encounter into a double tragedy. Finding Lanceor slain by Balin, she takes the sword from her dead lover and kills herself with it, an act that leaves Balin grieving and ashamed. Her story ends in a tomb shared with Lanceor, where King Mark commemorates their love and deaths.

Identity and Relationship

Colombe is identified through her bond with Lanceor: she is the damsel who rides to the scene and discovers him dead. The narrative gives no further account of her background; instead, her connection to Lanceor defines her brief appearance and the force of her response.

Lanceor’s Death and Colombe’s Choice

When Colombe sees Lanceor’s body, she laments that Balin has slain two bodies and one heart, and has lost two hearts in one body and two souls. She takes the sword from Lanceor’s hand and falls into a swoon. On recovering, she grieves so intensely that Balin approaches to take the weapon from her, but she holds it too firmly for him to remove it without hurting her. She then plants its pommel on the ground and runs herself through.

Colombe’s death follows directly from the discovery of Lanceor’s death and occurs before Balin can stop her. Her use of Lanceor’s own sword binds the two deaths together in a single scene: the weapon that marks the fatal encounter becomes the instrument of her grief. Balin is left ashamed that a lady so fair has destroyed herself for love of his killing Lanceor.

Memorial and Narrative Significance

Balin says he regrets Lanceor’s death because of Colombe, and recognizes that there was true love between the two. Their deaths also draw a response from King Mark of Cornwall. Seeing the bodies and learning how they died, he grieves for the lovers and refuses to leave until he has made a tomb. He searches the country, finds a fair and rich tomb in a church, and has both bodies buried beneath it; their names and the circumstances of their deaths are recorded there.

The tomb makes Colombe’s private act part of the story’s public record. The inscription preserves the paired account of Lanceor, son of the King of Ireland, slain by Balin at his own request, and Colombe, who killed herself with her love’s sword in grief. Her brief appearance thus gives lasting form to the lovers’ bond and to the sorrow that Balin’s actions have caused.