Arthurian Quotes

“Arthur was simply there in their midst, the sword in his hand.”
― Stephen R. Lawhead, Arthur

“And then, just as I begin to raise my sword to cleave a path to Arthur's side, there comes a sound like a tempest wind - the blast of a mighty sea gale. Men fall back, suddenly afraid. They cover their heads with their arms and peer into the darkness above. What is it? Is the roof falling? The sky?
The strange sound subsides and they glance at one another in fear and awe. Merlin is there. The Emrys is standing calmly beside Arthur. His hands are empty and upraised, his face stern in the unnatural silence he has created . . .”
― Stephen R. Lawhead, Arthur

“All that winter's day and far into the night the kings twisted and squirmed, but Merlin held them in his iron grasp and would not let go. He became first a rock, and then a mountain in Arthur's defence. Arthur stood equally unmoved. No power on earth could have prevailed against them . . .”
― Stephen R. Lawhead, Arthur

“Arthur stood alone in the centre of the ring of kings. In the flickering light of the Christ Mass candles, holding the sword easily by the hilt, alert, resolute, unafraid, he appeared an avenging angels, eyes alight with the bright fire of righteousness.”
― Stephen R. Lawhead, Arthur

“Myrddin', I said gently, 'what is she to you?'
His head whipped round and he glared at me. His mouth was a grimace of revulsion, and his eyes were hard, bright points of pain. 'She is my death”
― Stephen R. Lawhead, Arthur

“That is the part of being king. Of being queen. Making choices that will hurt some but save others. And often not knowing until it is too late who will be hurt and who will be saved. I am sorry you have to share it, but I am glad to have the company.”
― Kiersten White, The Camelot Betrayal

“Wait for me." It was the same farewell as always. "Wait for me. I shall come back."
And as ever, I made the same reply.
"What else have I to do but wait for you? I shall be here, when you come again.”
― Mary Stewart, The Crystal Cave

“He lay under the great bearskin and stared out of the window at the stars of spring, no longer frosty and metallic, but as if they had been new washed and had swollen with the moisture. It was a lovely evening, without rain or cloud. The sky between the stars was of the deepest and fullest velvet. Framed in the thick western window, Alderbaran and Betelgeuse were racing Sirius over the horizon, the hunting dog-star looking back to his master Orion, who had not yet heaved himself above the rim. In at the window came also the unfolding scent of benighted flowers, for the currants, the wild cherries, the plums and the hawthorn were already in bloom, and no less than five nightingales within earshot were holding a contest of beauty among the bowery, the looming trees...He watched out at the stars in a kind of trance. Soon it would be the summer again, when he could sleep on the battlements and watch these stars hovering as close as moths above his face and, in the Milky Way at least, with something of the mothy pollen. They would be at the same time so distant that unutterable thoughts of space and eternity would baffle themselves in his sighing breast, and he would imagine to himself how he was falling upward higher and higher among them, never reaching, never ending, leaving and losing everything in the tranquil speed of space.”
― TH White

“Think you that I forget this Modred's mother
Was mine as well as Modred's? When I meet
My mother's ghost, what shall I do — forgive?
When I'm a ghost, I'll forgive everything . . .
It makes me cold to think what a ghost knows.
Put out the bonfire burning in my head,
And light one at my feet. When the King thought
The Queen was in the flames, he called on you:
'God, God,' he said, and 'Lancelot.' I was there,
And so I heard him. That was a bad morning
For kings and queens, and there are to be worse.”
― E.A. Robinson

“I will tell you something else, King, which may be a surprise for you. It will not happen for hundreds of years, but both of us are to come back. Do you know what is going to be written on your tombstone? Hic jacet Arthurus Rex quondam Rexque futurus. Do you remember your Latin? It means, the once and future king.’
‘I am to come back as well as you?’
‘Some say from the vale of Avilion.’
The King thought about it in silence. It was full night outside, and there was stillness in the bright pavilion. The sentries, moving on the grass, could not be heard.
‘I wonder,’ he said at last, ‘whether they will remember about our Table?”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“The Chevalier Mal Fet. What a romantic name! What does it mean?’
‘You could make it mean several things. The Ugly Knight would be one meaning, or the Knight Who Has Done Wrong.’
He did not tell her that it could also mean the Ill-Starred Knight – the Knight with a Curse on Him.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“I am afraid for my Table. I am afraid of what is going to happen. I am afraid it was all wrong.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘When I started the Table, it was to stop anarchy. It was a channel for brute force, so that the people who had to use force could be made to do it in a useful way. But the whole thing was a mistake. No, don’t interrupt me. It was a mistake because the Table itself was founded on force. Right must be established by right: it can’t be established by Force Majeure. But that is what I have been trying to do. Now my sins are coming home to roost. Lancelot, I am afraid I have sown the whirlwind, and I shall reap the storm.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“Merlyn had not intended him for private happiness. He had been made for royal joys, for the fortunes of a nation.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“Guinevere grew grey in the grey shadow
At all things losing who at all things grasped”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fall of Arthur

“And Arthur, beginning to remember and trying not to, and suddenly more afraid than ever he had been in his life before, cried out "Father-Kay- why do you kneel to me? Get up! Oh sir, get up! I cannot bear that you should kneel to me, you who have been my father all these years."
And when Sir Ector would not, he dropped on to his knees also, to be on a level with the old man again.”
― Rosemary Sutcliff, The Sword and the Circle: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table

“What will they be like, the people we come back to? What will it all be like?" he whispered suddenly in anguish.”
― Rosemary Sutcliff, The Sword and the Circle: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table

“And the joy flashed in Lancelot's ugly face like a bright blade drawn from a battered sheath.”
― Rosemary Sutcliff, The Sword and the Circle: King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table

“William (Marshal n.n.) gained great credit and patronage by his determined defense of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine… He was largely supported by royal patronage… serving the Young King (Henry, son of Henry II) on the field of tournament and at court. The latter role may have been the more dangerous: his biographer claims that enemies falsely accused him of adultery with the wife of the Young King; some think it was a romantic invention… If an accusation was in fact made, Marshal solved it as he did later when charges were brought against him at the court of King John: by challenging his accusers to fight, a challenge that they prudently avoided. It is fascinating to note that Lancelot, with a roughly contemporary beginning to a career in imaginative literature, would respond in just this fashion to charges against him. And the Young King, needing William`s martial skills (as Arthur needed those of Lancelot in romance), soon retained the great warrior in his service again.”
― Richard W. Kaeuper, Medieval Chivalry

“He fed ravens on the fortress wall
though he was no Arthur.”
― Aneirin, Y Gododdin

“There was a clearing in the forest, a wide sward of moonlit grass, and the white rays shone full upon the tree trunks on the opposite side. These trees were beeches, whose trunks are always more beautiful in a pearly light, and among the beeches there was the smallest movement and a silvery clink. Before the clink there were just the beeches, but immediately afterward there was a knight in full armour, standing still and silent and unearthly, among the majestic trunks. He was mounted on an enormous white horse that stood as rapt as its master, and he carried in his right hand, with its butt resting on the stirrup, a high, smooth jousting lance, which stood up among the tree stumps, higher and higher, till it was outlined against the velvet sky. All was moon-lit, all silver, too beautiful to describe.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“You can't all be the greatest knight in England."

"Why not?" Gawain smiled suddenly. "It makes for better stories that way.”
― Gerald Morris, The Squire, His Knight, and His Lady

“In the spring, the little flowers came out obediently in the meads, and the dew sparkled, and the birds sang. In the summer it was beautifully hot for no less than four months, and, if it did rain just enough for agricultural purposes, they managed to arrange it so that it rained while you were in bed. In the autumn the leaves flamed and rattled before the west winds, tempering their sad adieu with glory. And in the winter, which was confined by statute to two months, the snow lay evenly, three feet thick, but never turned into slush.”
― T.H. White

“Oh, Genevieve,’ it sang most mournfully into its stomach, ‘Sweet Genevieve,

Ther days may come,
Ther days may go,
But still the light of Mem’ry weaves
Those gentle dreams
Of long ago.”
― T.H. White

“So far as he was concerned, as yet, there might never have been such a thing as a single particle of sorrow on the gay, sweet surface of the dew-glittering world.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“So, for a time, there will be no more war; And you are going home to Camelot."

"To Camelot?" . . .

"To Camelot." But his words
Were said for no queen's hearing. In his arms
He caught her when she fell; and in his arms
He carried her away. The word of Ron
Was in the rain. There was no other sound.”
― E.A. Robinson

“A slow and hollow bell began to sound
Somewhere above them, and the world became
For Lancelot one wan face — Guinevere's face.
"When the bell rings, it rings for you to go,"
She said; "and you are going ... I am not.
Think of me always as I used to be,
All white and gold — for that was what you called
me.
You may see gold again when you are gone;
And I shall not be there." — He drew her nearer
To kiss the quivering lips that were before him
For the last time. "No, not again," she said;
"I might forget that I am not alone . . .
I shall not see you in this world again,
But I am not alone. No, . . . not alone.
We have had all there was, and you were kind —
Even when you tried so hard once to be cruel.
I knew it then .... or now I do. Good-bye."
He crushed her cold white hands and saw them
falling
Away from him like flowers into a grave.

When she looked up to see him, he was gone;
And that was all she saw till she awoke
In her white cell, where the nuns carried her
With many tears and many whisperings.
"She was the Queen, and he was Lancelot,"
One said. " They were great lovers. It is not
good
To know too much of love. We who love God
Alone are happiest. Is it not so, Mother?" —
"We who love God alone, my child, are safest,"
The Mother replied; "and we are not all safe
Until we are all dead. We watch, and pray.”
― E.A. Robinson

“No mystical system or divinatory tool can ever replace personally observed patterns, since these alone are the inner messengers which convey to us the guidance and sustenance which we need. However, sometimes a divinatory tool can help us *trigger recognition* of these patterns. It is only the innately lazy who rely upon the Tarot as a daily crutch or decision-making process. Hence the warning in many Tarot books about over-use of the Tarot for divination.”
― Caitlín Matthews, The Arthurian Tarot: A Hallowquest Handbook

“He seldom sat down, but strayed about with anxious movements, picking things up and setting them down without looking at them, walking to windows and looking out but seeing nothing.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“Before Arthur had started his life's work, a man accusing the Queen of anything would have been executed out of hand. Now, because of his own work, he must be ready to burn his wife.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“The Fairy Story (or Folk-tale if you prefer that name) has at any rate been altered: for in this case it has been welded into the 'history'. And not, I think, for the first time by our poet. Beowulf and the Monster were already grafted onto the court of Heorot before ever he made this poem. But however it was done, by one poet or a succession of them, it caused great changes not only of detail but of tone. And it did not leave the history unaffected. You have only to consider how different is magic, faerie, and the like when it takes place in the court of Camelot in the time of Arthur, that are placed in history and geography, from a mere fairy-tale; and how different is the atmosphere of Arthur's court for all its atmosphere of 'history' because of this fairy-element, to understand what I mean.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, together with Sellic Spell