t the bars of her
window. The ill chances and _quiproquos_ which result from his having
cut his hands in the proceeding (though the actual visit is not
discovered), and the arts by which Meleagraunce ensnares the destined
avenger for a time, lengthen out the story till, by the final contest,
Meleagraunce goes to his own place and the Queen is restored to hers.

Unfortunately the blots of constant tautology and verbiage, with not
infrequent flatness, are on all this gracious story as told by
Chrestien.[25] Among the traps and temptations which are thrown in
Lancelot's way to the Queen is one of a highly "sensational" nature. In
the night Lancelot hears a damsel, who is his hostess, though he has
refused her most thorough hospitality, shrieking for assistance; and on
coming to the spot finds her in a situation demanding instant help,
which she begs, if the irreparable is not to happen. But the poet not
only gives us a heavily figured description of the men-at-arms who bar
the way to rescue, but puts into the mouth of the intending rescuer a
speech (let us be exact) of twenty-eight lines and a quarter, during
which the just mentioned irreparable, if it had been seriously meant,
might have happened with plenty of time to spare. So, in the crowning
scene (excellently told in Malory), where the lover forces his way
through iron bars to his love, reckless of the tell-tale witness of his
bleeding hands, the circumlocutions are _plusquam_ Richardsonian--and do
not fall far short of a serious anticipation of Shakespeare's burlesque
in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_. The mainly gracious description is
spoilt by terrible bathetics from time to time. Guinevere in her white
nightdress and mantle of scarlet and _camus_[26] on one side of the
bars, Lancelot outside, exchanging sweet salutes, "for much was he fain
of her and she of him," are excellent. The next couplet, or quatrain,
almost approaches the best poetry. "Of villainy or annoy make they no
parley or complaint; but draw near each other so much at least that they
hold each other hand by hand." But what follows? That they cannot come
together vexes them so immeasurably that--what? They blame the iron work
for it. This certainly shows an acute understanding[27] and a very
creditable sense of the facts of the situation on the part of both
lovers; but it might surely have been taken for granted. Also, it takes
Lancelot forty lines to convince his lady that when bars are in your way
t