Lancelot's Song while Mad in the Forest Sauvage
I circled round the table, seeking solace in your arms
While King Arthur had his eye upon the grail
I perservered like Percevial, ignored the loud wassail
That Sir Kay made slipping sideways in his cups
But it’s madness that possessed me, and the thing that has distressed me
Is I don't know when I'll see my Gwen,
Or even when I will not fear to see a tree again.
While mad I slew Sir Ferdegrance, or did I wed his daughter?
I know that I did something which perhaps I shouldn't oughta.
Now I live on roots and berries like a wodewose in the dark
And a tear it trickles down my cheek, and I the knight who ne’r was meek
Go howling through the night and shriek at the shadow of a lark.
And I don't know when I'll be again, that man you loved to see again,
Or if I'll ever be again, within my own right brain again.
I know that once you loved me, as I know the sky's above me
Though the leaves shut tight against the blue of day
The forest it enfolds me, and the rustling leaves have told me
That my penance is to live without her who might restore the old me
My sword is laid aside now, and its rusting in the leaves, my armor
too is but a pile of mildewed plates and greaves. I fear I'm not a shining knight, I'm not a knight at all, and I snuffle like a hedgehog that is curled into a ball.
Maybe some lofty Galahad who never was, like I, a cad
Will come to strike down anyone who might your honour scorn
While hoary-handed as a villein, I would prove a worst villain if
I didn't love the chance that you might find at any dance, to
cast down that cruel Arthur and his iron. I bark at moonlight's beckon,
ing, but I will bear the reckoning, I'd live on bark and beetles on
the platters that I eat on. The wars of Venus are not fought, within
the bowers of Arthur's court upon the fields of Mars or on the battlefields at Eton.
My mind is full of Merlin's talk, anachronisms it seems stalk, the
land like some great stalking horse, and everything grows large and coarse,
yes even the great water-course that leads to Camelot, upon whose
breast I once espied the lady who, but you beside, some sorrow had
that touched my pride - the Lady of Shalott. Always now in my mossy bank
where weevils writhe and stinkhorns stank, and where my heart its life has sank, I still know I have one to thank, for any life I saw at all, and she is at
the castle tall, whose walls no foe shall ever fall, and she is Queen,
my Queen of all. My lovely Gwenevere.
GUENEVERE'S ANSWER
But thou art not in t' Forest Sauvage. From where I stand, well by and large,
Desertion seems the only charge, I guess a knight's a big fromage
Outside of Camelot.
I heard that you were married, true, and thought her little good for you
but I can't see the things you do or if with her you bill and coo
Outside of Camelot.
A love affair in pride can stand opprobrium throughout the land
the sniggering behind the hand the gossip through the roving band
Outside of Camelot
But while I could court iniquity if we had but proprinquity
A chance in bed to swink with thee, I'm not pleased you're stuck up a tree
Outside of Camelot
King Arthur may have set his sights too much on brawls with manly knights
And left me lone through longing nights but he was setting things to rights
Outside of Camelot
The whining of a braggart who has got himself into a stew
Is not the tone to keep me true, so pick your bloody feverfew
Outside of Camelot
When you're set upon which side the butter lies, and quite which bride
should be the one to which you ride, then you can come upon the tide
Back down to Camelot
I know that tidal rhyme is poor but you raised Shalott's fate before
As if a lovesick witch were more to you than aught I hold in store
For you in Camelot
In fact I think I'm of a mind some other champion to find
(Perhaps one with a firm behind for now to plumpness you're inclined
(I say in truth, for to be kind, your weight's come on a lot!)
Stick in your fen, rest in your bog, grow moss upon you like a log
I find that I don't give a jog. So be curled up like a hedgehog
Outside of Camelot
As to your fabled prowess, well there are some tales that I could tell
I never came a lot.
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