I pray to the Saviour for you, that so
truly as He pardoned His death to him that smote Him with a lance in
His side, so may He pardon you of this sin that you have maintained,
and that so you be repentant and truly confessed thereof, I may take
the penance due thereunto upon myself!"

"Sir," saith Lancelot, "I thank you much, but I am not minded to
renounce it, nor have I no wish to speak aught wherewith my heart
accordeth not. I am willing enough to do penance as great as is
enjoined of this sin, but my lady the Queen will I serve so long as it
may be her pleasure, and I may have her good will. So dearly do I love
her that I wish not even that any will should come to me to renounce
her love, and God is so sweet and so full of right merciful mildness,
as good men bear witness, that He will have pity upon us, for never no
treason have I done toward her, nor she toward me."

"Ha, fair sweet friend," saith the hermit, "Nought may you avail you of
whatsoever I may say, wherefore God grant her such will and you also,
that you may be able to do the will of Our Saviour. But so much am I
fain to tell you, that and if you shall lie in the hostel of King
Fisherman, yet never may you behold the Graal for the mortal sin that
lieth at your heart."

"May our Lord God," saith Lancelot, "counsel me therein at His pleasure
and at His will!"

"So may He do!" saith the hermit, "For of a truth you may know thereof
am I right fain."

XI.

Lancelot taketh leave of the hermit, and is mounted forthwith and
departeth from the hermitage. And evening draweth on, and he seeth
that it is time to lodge him. And he espieth before him the castle of
the rich King Fisherman. He seeth the bridges, broad and long, but
they seem not to him the same as they had seemed to Messire Gawain. He
beholdeth the rich entrance of the gateway there where Our Lord God was
figured as He was set upon the rood, and seeth two lions that guard the
entrance of the gate. Lancelot thinketh that sith Messire Gawain had
passed through amidst the lions, he would do likewise. He goeth toward
the gateway, and the lions that were unchained prick up their ears and
look at him. Howbeit Lancelot goeth his way between them without
heeding them, and neither of them was fain to do him any hurt. He
alighteth before the master-palace, and mounteth upward all armed. Two
other knights come to meet him and receive him with right great joy,
then they make him be seated on