h to some in the other. As for the
accomplished Guinevere's probable contemporary, the Ismene or Hysmine of
Eustathius Macrembolites (_v. sup._ p. 18), she is a sort of
Greek-mediaeval Henrietta Temple, with Mr. Meredith and Mr. Disraeli by
turns holding the pen, though with neither of them supplying the brains.
But Guinevere is a very different person; or rather, she _is_ a person,
and the first. To appreciate her she must be compared with herself in
earlier presentations, and then considered fully as she appears in the
Vulgate--for Malory, though he has given much, has not given the whole
of her, and Tennyson has painted only the last panel of the polyptych
wholly, and has rather over-coloured that.[36]

In what we may call the earliest representations of her, she has hardly
any colour at all. She is a noble Roman lady, and very beautiful. For a
time she is apparently very happy with her husband, and he with her; and
if she seems to make not the slightest scruple about "taking up with"
her nephew, co-regent and fellow rebel, why, noble Roman ladies thought
nothing of divorce and not much of adultery. The only old Welsh story
(the famous Melvas one so often referred to) that we have about her in
much detail merely establishes the fact, pleasantly formulated by M.
Paulin Paris, that she was "tres sujette a etre enlevee," but in itself
(unless we admit the Peacockian triad of the "Three Fatal Slaps of the
Isle of Britain" as evidence) again says nothing about her character.
If, as seems probable if not certain, the _Launfal_ legend, with its
libel on her, is of Breton origin, it makes her an ordinary Celtic
princess, a spiritual sister of Iseult when she tried to kill Brengwain,
and a cross between Potiphar's wife and Catherine of Russia, without any
of the good nature and "gentlemanliness" of the last named. The real
Guinevere, the Guinevere of the Vulgate and partly of Malory, is freed
from the colourlessness and the discreditable end of Geoffrey's queen,
transforms the promiscuous and rather _louche_ Melvas incident into an
important episode of her epic or romantic existence, and gives the lie,
even in her least creditable or least charming moments, to the _Launfal_
libel. As before in Lancelot's case, details of her presentation had in
some cases best be either translated in full or omitted, but I cannot
refuse myself the pleasure of attempting, with however clumsy a hand, a
portrait of our, as I believe, English Hele