e advice. It
is well done, said Merlin, that ye take a wife, for a man of your bounty
and noblesse should not be without a wife. Now is there any that ye love
more than another? Yea, said King Arthur, I love Guenever the king's
daughter, Leodegrance of the land of Cameliard, the which holdeth in his
house the Table Round that ye told he had of my father Uther. And this
damosel is the most valiant and fairest lady that I know living, or yet
that ever I could find. Sir, said Merlin, as of her beauty and fairness
she is one of the fairest alive, but, an ye loved her not so well as ye
do, I should find you a damosel of beauty and of goodness that should
like you and please you, an your heart were not set; but there as a
man's heart is set, he will be loath to return. That is truth, said
King Arthur. But Merlin warned the king covertly that Guenever was not
wholesome for him to take to wife, for he warned him that Launcelot
should love her, and she him again; and so he turned his tale to the
adventures of Sangreal.

Then Merlin desired of the king for to have men with him that should
enquire of Guenever, and so the king granted him, and Merlin went forth
unto King Leodegrance of Cameliard, and told him of the desires of the
king that he would have unto his wife Guenever his daughter. That is to
me, said King Leodegrance, the best tidings that ever I heard, that so
worthy a king of prowess and noblesse will wed my daughter. And as for
my lands, I will give him, wist I it might please him, but he hath lands
enow, him needeth none; but I shall send him a gift shall please
him much more, for I shall give him the Table Round, the which Uther
Pendragon gave me, and when it is full complete, there is an hundred
knights and fifty. And as for an hundred good knights I have myself,
but I faute fifty, for so many have been slain in my days. And so
Leodegrance delivered his daughter Guenever unto Merlin, and the Table
Round with the hundred knights, and so they rode freshly, with great
royalty, what by water and what by land, till that they came nigh unto
London.

CHAPTER II. How the Knights of the Round Table were ordained and their
sieges blessed by the Bishop of Canterbury.

WHEN King Arthur heard of the coming of Guenever and the hundred knights
with the Table Round, then King Arthur made great joy for her coming,
and that rich present, and said openly, This fair lady is passing
welcome unto me, for I have loved her long, and