Here comes in the exquisite story of Elaine, to which Tennyson has done ample justice.

Soon after the death of the “lily maid of Astolat,” Sir Agravaine, moved by jealousy of Arthur’s greatest knight, discloses the story of Lancelot’s treacherous love for the queen, and extracts from the king a reluctant permission to take the miscreant.  But Sir Modred is the real instigator of the plot, working upon Agravaine’s weakness, and Tennyson has altered little in the dramatic situation which immediately follows.  His description of the parting scene between Lancelot and Guinevere is fine:—­

“And then they were agreed upon a night
(When the good King should not be there) to meet
And part for ever.  Passion pale they met
And greeted:  hands in hands, and eye to eye,
Low on the border of her couch they sat
Stammering and staring; it was their last hour,
A madness of farewells.  And Modred brought
His creatures to the basement of the tower
For testimony; and crying with full voice,
‘Traitor, come out, ye are trapt at last,’ aroused
Lancelot, who rushing outward lion-like
Leapt on him, and hurled him headlong, and he fell
Stunned, and his creatures took and bare him off,
And all was still; then she, ’The end is come,
And I am shamed forever;’ and he said,
`Mine be the shame; mine was the sin; but rise,
And fly to my strong castle over seas
There will I hide thee till my life shall end,
There hold thee with my life against the world.’ 
She answered, ’Lancelot, wilt thou hold me so? 
Nay, friend, for we have taken our farewells. 
Would God that thou coulds’t hide me from myself!”

Lancelot will not yield himself up lightly to his enemies; Sir Agravaine and another knight fall in the struggle with him; but it is not now that Guinevere betakes herself to Almesbury, and the whole beautiful scene between her and Arthur, and his most touching farewell to her are weavings of the modern poet’s imagination.  Beautiful the scene surely is, although wanting in one supreme touch, which a more Catholic-minded poet would have given to it.  Guinevere’s sin, according to Tennyson, is merely her sin against her husband; according to Malory it is her sin against God, and this is the very essence of the true Guinevere’s repentance.

What really happens is this:  Lancelot takes counsel with Sir Bors and his other friends, as to how he may save the queen, and it is decided that if on the morrow she is brought to the fire to be burned, Lancelot and all his kinsmen shall rescue her.

Accordingly, Arthur’s nephews, Gawayn, Gahers, and Gareth, lead Guinevere forth “without Caerleyell, and there she was despoiled unto her smock, and so then her ghostly father was brought to her to be shriven of her misdeeds.”  But Lancelot’s messenger gives the alarm duly, and Lancelot appears with all his friends.  There is much fighting and bloodshed, and Sir Gahers and Sir Gareth are slain.