—— _the Golden Flece,_ _How Jason it wan_]
_A boke of the hoole lyf of Jason_ was printed by Caxton in folio, n. d. (about 1475), being a translation by that venerable typographer from the French of Raoul le Fevre. A copy of it (now before me) in the King’s Library, though apparently perfect, has no title of any sort. Specimens of this prose-romance, which is not without merit, may be found in Dibdin’s _Biblioth. Spenc._ iv. 199.—The story of Jason is also told by Chaucer, _Legend of Hipsiphile and Medea_; by Gower, _Conf. Am._ Lib. v.; and, at considerable length, by Lydgate, _Warres of Troy_, B. i.
_Of Arturs rounde table,_ _With his knightes commendable,_ _And dame Gaynour, his quene,_ _Was somwhat wanton, I wene;_ _How syr Launcelote de Lake_ _Many a spere brake_ _For his ladyes sake;_ _Of Trystram, and kynge Marke,_ _And al the hole warke_ _Of Bele Isold his wyfe_]
—_warke_, i. e. work, affair.—Concerning the various romances on the subject of Arthur, Lancelot, Tristram, &c. see Sir F. Madden’s Introduction to the volume already mentioned, _Syr Gawayne, &c._—In this passage, however, Skelton seems to allude more particularly to a celebrated compilation from the French—the prose romance of _The Byrth, Lyf, and Actes of Kyng Arthur_, &c., commonly known by the name of _Morte d’Arthur_. At the conclusion of the first edition printed in folio by Caxton (and reprinted in 1817 with an Introd. and Notes by Southey) we are told “_this booke was ended the ix. yere of the reygne of kyng Edward the Fourth by syr Thomas Maleore, knyght_”.... “_Whiche booke was reduced in to Englysshe by Syr Thomas Malory knyght as afore is sayd and by me_ [Caxton] _deuyded in to xxi bookes chaptyred and emprynted and fynysshed in thabbey Westmestre the last day of July the yere of our lord_ MCCCCLXXXV.”
In the _Morte d’Arthur_, the gallant and courteous Sir Launcelot du Lake, son of King Ban of Benwyck, figures as the devoted lover of Arthur’s queen, Gueneuer (Skelton’s “_Gaynour_”), daughter of King Lodegreans of Camelard. On several occasions, Gueneuer, after being condemned to be burnt, is saved by the valour of her knight. But their criminal intercourse proves in the end the destruction of Arthur and of the fellowship of the Round Table. Gueneuer becomes a nun, Launcelot a priest. The last meeting of the guilty pair,—the interment of Gueneuer’s body by her paramour,—and the death of Launcelot, are related with no ordinary pathos and simplicity.