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Notes de lecture
72
Le texte de base est celui de ldition de Janet Cowen, Penguin Classics (2 vol.).
BOOK IV
CHAPTER 11. How Accolon confessed the treason of Morgan le Fay, King Arthurs sister,
and how she would have done slay him
1 Then Sir Accolon bethought him, and said, Woe worth this sword, for by it have I gotten my death.
It may well be, said the king.
Now, sir, said Accolon, I will tell you: this sword hath been in my keeping the most part of this
twelvemonth; and Morgan le Fay, King Uriens wife, sent it me yesterday by a dwarf, to this intent, that I
should slay King Arthur, her brother. For ye shall understand King Arthur is the man in the world that she
most hateth, because he is most of worship and of prowess of any of her blood. Also she loveth me out of
measure as paramour, and I her again; and if she might bring about to slay Arthur by her crafts, she would
slay her husband King Uriens lightly, and then had she me devised to be king in this land, and so to reign,
and she to be my queen; but that is now done, said Accolon, for I am sure of my death.
Well, said Sir Arthur, I feel by you ye would have been king in this land. It had been great damage to
have destroyed your lord, said Arthur.
It is truth, said Accolon, but now I have told you truth, wherefore I pray you tell me of whence ye
are, and of what court?
O Accolon, said King Arthur, now I let thee wit that I am King Arthur, to whom thou hast done great
damage.
When Accolon heard that he cried aloud, Fair, sweet lord, have mercy on me, for I knew not you.
O Sir Accolon, said King Arthur, mercy shalt thou have, because I feel by thy words at this time thou
knewest1 not my person; but I understand well by thy words that thou hast agreed to the death of my person,
and therefore thou art a traitor; but I wite2 thee the less, for my sister Morgan le Fay by her false crafts made
thee to agree and consent to her false lusts, but I shall be sore avenged upon her and I live, that all Christendom shall speak of it. God knoweth I have honoured her and worshipped her more than all my kin, and more
1
2
J. Cowen : knowest.
J. Cowen : wit. Cf. vieil-anglais (e)wtan reprocher (I, 27, 7).
have I trusted her than mine own wife and all my kin after.
2 Then Sir Arthur called the keepers of the eld, and said, Sirs, cometh hither, for here are we two
knights that have foughten unto a great damage unto us both, and like each one of us to have slain other, if
it had happed so; and had any of us known other, here had been no battle, nor stroke stricken.
Then all aloud cried Accolon unto all the knights and men that were then there gathered together, and said to them in this manner, O lords, this noble knight that I have foughten withal, the
which me sore repenteth, is the most man of prowess, of manhood, and of worship in the world, for it is himself King Arthur, our alther liege lord, and with mishap and with misadventure have I done this battle with
the king and lord that I am withholden1 withal.
J. Cowen : holden
coup du sort davoir ainsi combattu contre le roi et suzerain qui je dois allgeance.
beholden
V uictis ! Malheur aux vaincus ! (Brennus, selon Tite-Live) ; cf. gallois gwae.