The Arthurian Legends

The Arthurian legend is mainly known for the love triangles, but many of them have sad or tragic endings. One of the most well known and famous love triangles is among King Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot. Another love triangle many people know is the one between Uther, Igraine, and Gorlois. There is also a love triangle that isn’t as popular as the other two, but is still well known. That love triangle is between King Mark, Iseult, and Tristan. In many of love triangles, there is always a tragedy. In this case, all three of the triangles have a tragedy. There are many versions of love triangles with different variations of a certain tragedy. The tragedy could be a death of a member in the triangle or pain from a heartbreak.
In the Arthurian
legend, one of many famous love triangles is the one between King Uther, Igraine (Duchess of Cornwall), and Gorlois (Duke of Cornwall). In this story, Uther has Merlin cast a spell to deceive Igraine and make her think he is Gorlois. In order to completely fool Igraine, he needed to kill Gorlois. With the help of Merlin, he forms a plan to kill Gorlois and make Igraine his partner. Merlin’s plan was that he will “turn” Uther into Gorlois so that Igraine will be fooled into thinking that Uther is actually Gorlois. Of course, Merlin will only do this under one condition: that he is given Uther and Igraine’s first born child. “The king swore on the gospel that would do so, and Merlin continued: ‘Tonight you shall appear before Igraine at Tintagel in the likeness of her husband, the duke…’”(Anthology 1064). Uther agrees to Merlin’s terms and thus kills Gorlois. He then goes to Igraine disguised as Gorlois and gets Igraine pregnant. Later, Uther tells Igraine that he is not Gorlois and he explains to Igraine what went down between the two. After finding out that Uther was Gorlois, Igraine still gives birth to Uther’s child and is forced to give it up to Merlin because of Uther’s deal. Even after being fooled by Uther, Igraine eventually learns to love Uther. With the death of Gorlois, the tragedies in the love triangles have just begun. The next love triangle is between King Mark, Iseult, and Tristan, however, this love triangle is not as popular as Uther or Arthur’s. In this triangle, Mark, King of Cornwall, sends Tristan, his nephew, to Ireland to battle the Irish knight, Morholt. Tristan wins the battle but gets badly injured. He gets healed by Iseult, the princess of Ireland, who is skilled in healing. When he returns to Cornwall, he praises Iseult so highly that King Mark decides to marry her. So Tristan heads back to Ireland to ask Iseult’s hand in marriage for Mark. When he gets to Ireland, he seeks Iseult to heal him after his battle with the dragon and there he asks her for her hand in marriage for King Mark. Iseult agrees and returns to Cornwall with Tristan. On the way back to Cornwall, Tristan and Iseult accidentally drink a love potion made for King Mark and Iseult when they are married. They become lovers because of the love potion, but Iseult still marries King Mark. Throughout Iseult’s marriage with King Mark, Tristan and Iseult managed to keep their relationship a secret from everyone, especially King Mark. Although they managed to keep their secret for such a long time, they eventually get caught and Tristan flees from Cornwall. He fell in love with another Iseult, but his love for Iseult of Cornwall never died. Tristan, once again, gets injured in battle and requests for Iseult of Cornwall to help heal him. He asked for the ship with Iseult have white sails and the ship that didn’t have black sails. When the ship with the sail came back, Iseult lies to Tristan and tells him that it has a black sail. “Believing that at the last his beloved Yseut had failed him, Tristan fell back on his bed and died” (Béroul 165). Because of her jealousy of Iseult of Cornwall, the other Iseult lies to Tristan and he falls into despair and dies. After hearing of Tristan’s death, Iseult of Cornwall dies soon after because of grief. The tragedy in this story was dark and, filled with jealousy. This means that not all love triangles work out and that someone will eventually get hurt. The last, but most famous love triangle, is between Arthur, Guinevere, and Lancelot.
In this triangle, Arthur falls in love with Guinevere and they get married. They lived happily married for a couple of years. Soon, Lancelot, one of the greatest knights of the Round Table and Arthur’s best friend, slowly started to fall in love with Guinevere. They eventually became courtly lovers and had an affair without Arthur knowing. Over time, King Arthur started to be suspicious of them. One day, Mordred gathered some knights to prove to King Arthur that Guinevere was cheating. The knights caught them, Lancelot.ran away, but they seized Guinevere. King Arthur sentenced her to be burned at the stake, but Lancelot tried to save her. “‘I know, my dear. I did not want to come here today. I love you, and I love Arthur -- but the day is past when I can be content to be his captain of horse and --’ His voice broke. ‘And the champion of the Queen’” (Bradley 563). Lancelot is saying goodbye to his lover because he knows that they cannot be together. Lancelot was one of Arthur’s loyal knights and it would have been a great betrayal if he were to have a relationship with his wife. King Arthur soon died after the affair between Lancelot and Guinevere, and Mordred’s betrayal to King Arthur. After finding out about Arthur’s death, Guinevere decides to become a nun. After the destruction of the Round Table, Guinevere blames it on her and Lancelot’s affair. Lancelot then retires to become a hermit. After a while, Lancelot gets a dream that shows him Guinevere dying. He decides to go visit her, but when he gets to her, he finds her dead. Lancelot was about half an hour late from finding her alive. A while after the king and queen’s death, Lancelot’s health starts to fail. Lancelot soon dies six weeks after being upset with the death of his beloved King Arthur and Queen Guinevere. The events in this story make this love triangle one of the biggest tragedies because of the deaths of all the
members in the triangle. With all the love triangles in the Arthurian legend, a lot of the tragedies in the legend are caused by it. First, Gorlois is killed by Uther in order to have Igraine to himself. Next, Tristan dies after being fatally wounded and Iseult dies soon after from the grief. Finally, Arthur dies of the betrayal of Mordred and Lancelot dies after seeing the death of his beloved Guinevere. All of these love triangles had a certain kind of tragedy varying from death, heartbreak, or injuries. Tragedies are major keys in the Arthurian legend and the main cause of these tragedies are from love triangles.