Chapter 35

Summary and Notes

However, as time passes and there is still no intimacy between Guenever and Lancelot, she begins to get impatient, and then angry. She begins to be hurt that she is so disposable and perplexed by his apparent devotion to the divine. Lancelot feels pity for Guenever when he sees her becoming angrier, and he wants to be “generous” towards her; thus, White writes, “Generosity is the eighth deadly sin.”

Guenever asks Lancelot to go away on a quest and leave her alone; he is “wearing her out.” Lancelot rides from Camelot the next day.

In the previous two chapters, White redefines LancelotÂ’s inner conflict between the spirit and the flesh. It is not a battle easily dismissed, and despite his satisfaction at the outcome of the Search for the Holy Grail, and despite middle age and the cooling of lusts between them, this conflict is as relevant as ever.

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