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Guenever
Guenever or Guinever, a corrupt form of Guanhumara , daughter of king Leodegrance of the land of Camelyard. She was the most beautiful of women, was the wife of king Arthur, but entertained a criminal attachment to sir Launcelot du Lac. Respecting the latter part of the queen’s history, the greatest diversity occurs. Thus Geoffrey says—
King Arthur was on his way to Rome … when news was brought him that his nephew Modred, to whose care he had entrusted Britain, had … set the crown upon his own head; and that the queen Guanhumara … had wickedly married him. … When king Arthur returned and put Modred and his army to flight … the queen fled from York to the City of Legions [Newport, in South Wales], where she resolved to lead a chaste life among the nuns of Julius the martyr. History of the Kings of Britain by Geoffrey of Monmouth.
Another version is that Arthur, being informed of the
adulterous conduct of Launcelot, went with an army to Benwick
(Brittany), to punish him. That Mordred (his son by his own
sister), left as regent, usurped the crown, proclaimed that
Arthur was dead, and tried to marry Guenever the queen; but she
shut herself up in the Tower of London, resolved to die rather
than marry the usurper. When she heard of the death of Arthur,
she “stole away” to Almesbury, “and there she
let make herself a nun, and wore white cloaths and black.”
And there lived she “in fasting, prayers, and alms-deeds,
that all marvelled at her virtuous life.”
Le
Morte d'Arthur By Sir Thomas Malory
"When both our mouths went wandering in one way,
And aching sorely, met among the leaves;
Our hands being left behind strained far away.
"Never within a yard of my bright sleeves
Had Launcelot come before: and now so nigh!
After that day why is it Guenevere grieves?
The Defence of Guenevere, by William Morris
Guinevere. So Tennyson spells the name of Arthur’s queen in his Idylls. He tells us of the liaison between her and “sir Lancelot,” and says that Modred, having discovered this familiarity, “brought his creatures to the basement of the tower for testimony.” Sir Lancelot flung the fellow to the ground, and instantly took to horse; while Guinevere fled to the nunnery at Almesbury. Here the king took leave of her; and when the abbess died, the queen was appointed her successor, and remained head of the establishment for three years, when she also died.
Queen Guinevere had fled the court, and sat
There in the holy house at Almesbury
Weeping, none with her save a little maid,
A novice: one low light betwixt them burned
Blurred by the creeping mist, for all abroad,
Beneath a moon unseen albeit at full,
The white mist, like a face-cloth to the face,
Clung to the dead earth, and the land was still.
Idylls of
the King by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Guinevere.)
"Upon the more personal incidents connected with Arthur, Geoffrey openly professes to keep silence, possibly regarding them as not falling within the province of his history, but we are told shortly how Mordred took advantage of Arthur's absence on the Continent to seize the throne, marry Guanhamara (Guinevere), and ally himself with the Saxons, only to be defeated at that fatal battle called by Geoffrey "Cambula", in which Mordred, Arthur, and Walgan--the "Sir Gawain" of Malory and the Gwalchmei of the earlier legends--all met their dooms." Celtic Myth and Legend Poetry and Romance by Charles Squire
"If ill-news were to be borne to the king, Mordred bore it; were trust to be violated, Mordred violated it; were knights to be betrayed, Mordred w r as the spy and informer. Left to rule the land in Arthur's absence, he usurped the throne; left to guard Guinevere, he carried her away and attempted to force her in marriage; an outcast, he became Arthur's deadliest rival and fulfilled Merlin's prediction. It was he, and not the racial antagonist, who was destined to give the final blow to the Order that the king had established." The Lost Land Of King Arthur By J. Cuming Walters
"The mythology of Britain preserves the same root-idea as that of Ireland. If anything uncanny took place, it was sure to be on May-day. It was on "the night of the first of May" that Rhiannon lost, and Teirnyon Twryf Vliant found, the infant Pryderi, as told in the first of the Mabinogion. It was "on every May-eve" that the two dragons fought and shrieked in the reign of "King" Lludd. It is on "every first of May" till the day of doom that Gwyn son of Nudd, fights with Gwyrthur son of Greidawl, for Lludd's fair daughter, Creudylad. And it was when she was "a-maying" in the woods and fields near Westminster that the same Gwyn, or Melwas, under his romance-name of Sir Meliagraunce, captured Arthur's queen, Guinevere." Celtic Myth and Legend Poetry and Romance by Charles Squire
"There is more than one distinct stage in the progress of the Celtic influence in France. The culmination of the whole thing is attained when Chrestien makes the British story of the capture and rescue of Guinevere into the vehicle of his most finished and most courtly doctrine of love, as shown in the examples of Lancelot and the Queen." Epic and Romance, by W. P. Ker
Guinevere: A Tragedy in Three Acts By Graham Hill. 1906.
Guenevere: A Play in Five Acts By Stark Young. 1906
