The Queen was the first to have the honor of wearing such a mantle. But alas! It was not to be—what great joy that brought the King, you can imagine. Of course I, possessing a lady of high beauty and faithfulness, suspected it was only fit for her to be able to own something so rich.
The strangest thing began to happen, though—she began to tremble. I hadn’t had the faintest idea as to why, for it would be impossible for my lady to bring me nothing but honor. For some reason or another, however, the mantle did not shape her body well at all. What surprise that brought me! That I, a great knight, should be shamed in front of my fellow men as well as the King himself; that that shame came from my own lady love! She was certainly the loveliest of ladies now in my eyes, more so than she had been before this.
The ladies of the court joined her one by one. Oh, rejoice my lady! You now don’t have to suffer loneliness no longer. Look at all the lovely company you have. This court truly had the most beautiful women in the whole world, I discovered.
All women are this beautiful, I think. How lovely it is to break an oath; to be unfaithful. It must be men who are not beautiful. Why else would our ladies be unsatisfied? It is obviously natural for ladies to move on to a more handsome, newer man. It is a norm for women to be this way, and finding one that is truly chaste is a rare sight to behold. If our ladies are this way by nature, what can we men do? This will only cause us dishonor. It was only thanks to that mantle this fact could be known, and our honor lost. Ah, yes, today indeed was a day for all men to rejoice.
- Kay
Guinevere