The fall of the Round Table
From the moment somebody says the affair out loud to the grave nobody can identify. The best-constructed tragedy in English before the theatre.
Watch how little of it is anybody's plan. An announcement, an accident in a crowd, a brother's grief, and a snake.
- 1StoryThe healing of Sir Urre
The whole fellowship is named, one last time — and the man who heals the wounded knight weeps as if he had been beaten.
- 2StoryThe ambush at the chamber door
Agravaine says out loud what the court has agreed not to know, and there is no way back.
- 3StoryThe rescue, and Gareth
Lancelot saves the queen from the fire and kills the two men he loved most, unarmed and unrecognised.
- 4StoryThe Pope's peace
A negotiated settlement arrives and nearly works — and one man will not accept it.
- 5StoryBenwick, and the death of Gawain
Arthur besieges his best knight abroad while his son takes the crown at home — and Gawain dies asking Lancelot to come.
- 6StoryMordred takes the crown
Forged letters say the king is dead, and the country believes them — and prefers the new arrangement.
- 7StoryThe dream of Fortune's wheel
Arthur dreams that he is carried to the top of a wheel and thrown down, and understands what is about to happen.
- 8StoryCamlann
A treaty is agreed. A knight is bitten by an adder and draws his sword to kill it. Both armies attack.
- 9StoryThe sword goes back
Ordered three times to throw the sword into the water, the last loyal knight cannot bring himself to do it.
- 10StoryThe barge, and Avalon
A barge full of women in black hoods comes for the king — and one of them is the sister who spent the book trying to kill him.
- 11StoryRex quondam, rexque futurus
Malory gives the most famous promise in English literature, and refuses to vouch for it.
- 12StoryAmesbury, and the death of Lancelot
He finds her a nun, and she will not look at him — and he does not survive it long.