CHAPTER XI
 
 How Accolon confessed the treason of Morgan le Fay, King
 Arthur's sister, and how she would have done slay him.
 
 THEN Sir Accolon bethought him, and said, Woe worth this sword,
 for by it have I got my death.  It may well be, said the king. 
 Now, sir, said Accolon, I will tell you; this sword hath been in
 my keeping the most part of this twelvemonth; and Morgan le Fay,
 King Uriens' wife, sent it me yesterday by a dwarf, to this
 intent, that I should slay King Arthur, her brother.  For ye
 shall understand King Arthur is the man in the world that she
 most hateth, because he is most of worship and of prowess of any
 of her blood; also she loveth me out of measure as paramour, and
 I her again; and if she might bring about to slay Arthur by her
 crafts, she would slay her husband King Uriens lightly, and then
 had she me devised <119>to be king in this land, and so to reign,
 and she to be my queen; but that is now done, said Accolon, for I
 am sure of my death.  Well, said Sir Arthur, I feel by you ye
 would have been king in this land.  It had been great damage to
 have destroyed your lord, said Arthur.  It is truth, said
 Accolon, but now I have told you truth, wherefore I pray you tell
 me of whence ye are, and of what court?  O Accolon, said King
 Arthur, now I let thee wit that I am King Arthur, to whom thou
 hast done great damage.  When Accolon heard that he cried aloud,
 Fair, sweet lord, have mercy on me, for I knew not you.  O Sir
 Accolon, said King Arthur, mercy shalt thou have, because I feel
 by thy words at this time thou knewest not my person; but I
 understand well by thy words that thou hast agreed to the death
 of my person, and therefore thou art a traitor; but I wite thee
 the less, for my sister Morgan le Fay by her false crafts made
 thee to agree and consent to her false lusts, but I shall be sore
 avenged upon her an I live, that all Christendom shall speak of
 it; God knoweth I have honoured her and worshipped her more than
 all my kin, and more have I trusted her than mine own wife and
 all my kin after.
 
 Then Sir Arthur called the keepers of the field, and said, Sirs,
 come hither, for here are we two knights that have fought unto a
 great damage unto us both, and like each one of us to have slain
 other, if it had happed so; and had any of us known other, here
 had been no battle, nor stroke stricken.  Then all aloud cried
 Accolon unto all the knights and men that were then there
 gathered together, and said to them in this manner, O lords, this
 noble knight that I have fought withal, the which me sore
 repenteth, is the most man of prowess, of manhood, and of worship
 in the world, for it is himself King Arthur, our alther liege
 lord, and with mishap and with misadventure have I done this
 battle with the king and lord that I am holden withal.
 
 
 
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