Lancelot will go to the tourney, and, despite Guinevere's warning,
will take part against Arthur and his own fierce Northern kinsmen.
He rides to Astolat--"that is, Gylford"--where Arthur sees him. He
borrows the blank shield of "Sir Torre," and the company of his
brother Sir Lavaine. Elaine "cast such a love unto Sir Lancelot that
she would never withdraw her love, wherefore she died." At her
prayer, and for better disguise (as he had never worn a lady's
favour), Lancelot carried her scarlet pearl-embroidered sleeve in his
helmet, and left his shield in Elaine's keeping. The tourney passes
as in the poem, Gawain recognising Lancelot, but puzzled by the
favour he wears. The wounded Lancelot "thought to do what he might
while he might endure." When he is offered the prize he is so sore
hurt that he "takes no force of no honour." He rides into a wood,
where Lavaine draws forth the spear. Lavaine brings Lancelot to the
hermit, once a knight. "I have seen the day," says the hermit, "I
would have loved him the worse, because he was against my lord, King
Arthur, for some time. I was one of the fellowship of the Round
Table, but I thank God now I am otherwise disposed." Gawain, seeking
the wounded knight, comes to Astolat, where Elaine declares "he is
the man in the world that I first loved, and truly he is the last
that ever I shall love." Gawain, on seeing the shield, tells Elaine
that the wounded knight is Lancelot, and she goes to seek him and
Lavaine. Gawain does not pay court to Elaine, nor does Arthur rebuke
him, as in the poem. When Guinevere heard that Lancelot bore another
lady's favour, "she was nigh out of her mind for wrath," and
expressed her anger to Sir Bors, for Gawain had spoken of the maid of
Astolat. Bors tells this to Lancelot, who is tended by Elaine.
"'But I well see,' said Sir Bors, 'by her diligence about you that
she loveth you entirely.' 'That me repenteth,' said Sir Lancelot.
Said Sir Bors, 'Sir, she is not the first that hath lost her pain