Medieval Arthurian Legend
Sir Thomas Malory: Le Morte d'Arthur
15th century, late-Medieval English.
Sir Perceval made a sign of the cross and the tent and the lady vanished in a cloud of black smoke.
Sir Perceval finds himself in a wilderness by the coast. A short while before he had killed a huge snake that was carrying a lion cub in its mouth. Strange events are unfolding. King Arthur's kingdom has taken on a far more pious atmosphere than usual. All the knights of the Round Table are searching for the Holy Grail, seeking the advice of hermits and the shelter of monasteries.
Perceval falls asleep and dreams of two ladies, one riding a snake and the other a lion. The young lady riding the lion tells him that he will shortly be required to fight a great battle against the strongest champion of the worlde.
‘Who is your lord,’ he asks.
The ‘grettist lorde of the worlde,
she replies.
The old lady on the snake then speaks to him. ‘You have disappointed me,’ she rebukes. ‘You have killed my snake. Make amends and become my man.’
Sir Perceval refuses.
When he awakes in the morning, he sees a ship approaching. When it arrives Sir Perceval finds a religious man on board and he asks him to interpret the dream for him. The young lady on the lion, the hermit replies, represents the New Law of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The old lady on the snake represents the Old Law.
The religious man departs and Sir Perceval sees a shippe com sayling in the see as all the wynde of the worlde had dryven hit.
A lady disembarks. Sir Perceval asks her who she is and she replies that she was once the most wealthy woman in the world and she lived with the grettest man of the worlde, and he made me so fayre and clere that there was none like me.
But he had driven her out and disinherited her. Sir Perceval offers to help and she causes a tent to be erected with all the food in it that Sir Perceval might desire. And upon the couch Sir Perceval is on the point of being seduced by her when he makes a sign of the cross and the tent and the lady vanish in a smooke and a blak clowde.
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