The Once and Future King (The Once and Future King, #1-4)

by T.H. White

Yes, I think we could manage something like that. But they would have to behave themselves in future.”

“Civilization seems to have become insane,” she said. “Yes, and it seems that we have made it so.

Their aims were some kind of nationalism, with Gaelic autonomy, and a massacre of the Jews as well, in revenge for a mythical saint called Hugh of Lincoln.

“Have you ever thought what the Table has done to Cornwall and Orkney? Arthur’s father killed our grandfather. Arthur seduced our mother. And Lancelot has killed three of our brothers,

“I have given mercy to all of you, Sir Gawaine. I dare say I may speak without boasting, when I say that many in this room are indebted to me for liberty, if not for life. I have fought for the Queen in others’ quarrels, so why not in my own? I have fought for you also, Sir Gawaine, and saved you from an ignoble death.”

“Lancelot,” he was heard to say, “you know how the truth stands between us. My Table is broken, my knights parted or dead. I never sought a quarrel with you, Lance, nor you with me.”

“If you follow me, Gawaine, don’t challenge me: don’t let Arthur come against me. I can’t fight against my friends. Gawaine, for God’s sake don’t make us fight.”

Besides, if the King didn’t cling to Sir Gawaine he would have nobody left. He was prouder of the Round Table than of anything, and now it is splitting up and he wants to keep somebody.”

“That King of yours, madam, if you will excuse the liberty, is quite beyond my comprehension. First he goes to fight with his best friend because Sir Gawaine tells him to, and then he leaves his bitterest enemy to be the Lord Protector. Why does he choose to act so blind?”

“That fairness, madam, it will never come to no good.”

He said with cold eyes: “I have never asked to be treated with justice. It is something which he does to people, to amuse himself.”

You may depend upon it there is a regular fire of love inside him. Gwen used to say that all his warmth was for his mother.”

His wife was a prisoner. His oldest friend was banished. His son was trying to kill him. Gawaine was buried. His Table was dispersed. His country was at war.

And then, even as the might of the individual seemed to have been curbed, the Principle of Might had sprung up behind him in another shape—in the shape of collective might,

We cannot build the future by avenging the past. Let us sit down as brothers, and accept the Peace of God.

“I think it was a good idea, my lord.” “It was, and it was not. God knows.” “What happened to the King in the end?” asked the child, when the story seemed to have dried up.