he ran awey as he were wood, for fere of the horryble
strokes, & laucelot after hym with al his myzt & smote hym on the
sholder, and clafe hym to the nauel. Thenne Syre Launcelot went in to
the halle, and there came afore hym thre score ladyes and damoysels,
and all kneled unto hym, and thanked God and hym of their
delyveraunce." The horrors of battle as recounted by the romancers lose
much of their painfulness by the enjoyment which the combatants take in
them, and by the facility with which the most terrible wounds are
healed. The mediaeval passion for conflict and violence could hardly be
more strikingly illustrated than by the words of the mother of
Tristram, who had just given birth to her son in the midst of a forest,
and being far from human aid, sees that her end is near. "Now lete me
see my lytel child for whome I haue had alle this sorowe. And whan she
sawe hym she said thus, A my lytel sone, thou hast murthered thy moder,
and therfore I suppose, thou that art a murtherer soo yong, thou arte
ful lykely to be a manly man in thyn age."[21]

From the recital of combats we turn to tales of love. The most
interesting of these relate to Launcelot and Guenever, and to Tristram
and Isould. They differ in many respects, and yet share the noteworthy
feature that both the women are already married, and their lovers are
connected by ties of relationship or of great intimacy with the
husbands whom they wrong. Arthur, however, is made to preserve,
throughout the story of his deception, the same dignity and the same
respect which he had always possessed, and in the loyalty of his
character never admits a doubt of his wife's virtue; while King Mark,
the husband of Isould, loses the sympathy of the reader by his
treachery and cowardice, and is always conscious of Isould's
infidelity. Guenever and Launcelot feel the deeper and the nobler
passion, as theirs is inspired solely by each other's merit, while that
of Isould and Tristram is inflamed by an amorous potion. The immorality
of these love stories was not in the Middle Ages the same immorality
which it would be considered at present. The conditions of life were
all opposed to self restraint. The standard of morals was set by the
church, and according to her interpretation of Christianity, continence
was so subsidiary to orthodoxy, that what would now be considered a
crime, was in the Middle Ages an irregularity which need not weigh on
the conscience. Evidence of this is amp