Guinevere
Guinevere was the
queen consort of
King Arthur. The name Guinevere may be an
epithetâ€"the
Welsh form
Gwenhwyfar can be translated
The White Fay or
White Ghost (
Proto-Celtic *vindo-siabraid "white phantom", see also
Ishara). However, as Rachel Bromwich notes in her scholarly edition of the
Welsh Triads, the name can also be analyzed as "Gwenhwy-vawr" or
Gwenhwy the Great in contrast to the personage "Gwenhwy-vach" –
Gwenhwy the less (
Gwenhwyvach appears in Welsh literature as a sister of Gwenhwyfar).
Geoffrey of Monmouth renders her name
Guanhumara in
Latin.
Guinevere is most famous for her love affair with Arthur's chief knight
Lancelot, which first appears in
Chrétien de Troyes'
Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart. This motif was picked up in all the cyclical Arthurian literature, starting with the
Lancelot-Grail Cycle of the early
13th century and carrying through the
Post-Vulgate Cycle and
Thomas Malory's
Le Morte d'Arthur. Their betrayal of Arthur leads to the downfall of the kingdom.
In the later adaptations, she is the daughter of King
Leodegrance and is betrothed to Arthur early in his career, while he is garnering support. When Lancelot arrives later, she is instantly smitten, and they soon consummate the adultery that will bring about Arthur's fall. Their affair is exposed by two of
King Lot's sons
Agravain and
Morded, and Lancelot flees for his life while Arthur reluctantly sentences his queen to burn at the stake. Knowing Lancelot and his family will try to stop the execution, Arthur sends many of his knights to defend the pyre, though
Gawain refuses to participate. Lancelot arrives and rescues the queen, and in the course of the battle Gawain's brothers
Gaheris and
Gareth are killed, sending Gawain into a rage so great that he pressures Arthur into war with Lancelot. When Arthur goes to
France to fight Lancelot, he leaves Guinevere in the care of Mordred, who plots to marry the queen himself and take Arthur's throne. In some versions Guinevere assents to Mordred's proposal, but in others, she hides in the
Tower of London and then takes refuge in a
convent. Hearing of the treachery, Arthur returns to Britain and slays Mordred at
Camlann, but his wounds are so severe that he is taken to the isle of
Avalon. Guinevere meets Lancelot one last time, then returns to the convent where she spends the remainder of her life.
Guinevere is childless in most stories, two exceptions being the
Perlesvaus [
1] and the
Alliterative Morte Arthure[
2]. In the former, the character
Loholt is apparently her son; he appears as Arthur's illegitimate son in other works. In the latter, Guinevere willingly becomes
Mordred's consort and bears him two sons, though all of this is implied rather than stated in the text. There are mentions of Arthur's sons in the
Welsh Triads, though their exact parentage isn't clear. Other family relations are equally obscure; a half-sister and a brother play the antagonists in the Lancelot-Grail and the German romance
Diu Crône respectively, but neither character is mentioned elsewhere. Welsh tradition remembers the queen's sister Gwenhyvach and records the enmity between them. While later literature almost always names Leodegrance as Guinevere's father, her mother is usually unmentioned, though she is sometimes said to be dead. Such is the case in the
Middle English romance
The Awntyrs off Arthure (
The Adventures of Arthur), in which the ghost of Guinevere's mother appears to her daughter and
Gawain in
Inglewood Forest. Other works name cousins of note, though these do not usually appear in more than one place.
Guinevere has been portrayed as everything from a weak and opportunistic traitor to a fatally flawed but noble and virtuous gentlewoman. The early chronicles tended to portray her more inauspiciously, while later authors used her good and bad qualities to construct a deeper character.
The earliest mention of Guinevere is in the Welsh tale
Culhwch ap Olwen, where she appears as Arthur's queen, but little more is said about her.
Caradog of Llancarfan, who wrote his
Life of Gildas before
1136, recounts how she was kidnapped by
Melwas, king of the "Summer Country" (
Aestiva Regio, perhaps meaning
Somerset), and held prisoner at his stronghold at
Glastonbury. The story states that Arthur spent a year searching for her, found her, and had assembled an army to storm Melwas' fort when Saint
Gildas negotiated a peaceful resolution and reunited husband and wife. This is the earliest written account of Guinevere's abduction, which is one of the earliest and most common episodes in Arthurian legend. A seemingly related account appears carved into the
archivolt of
Modena Cathedral in
Italy, which probably predates Caradog's telling. Here, "Artus de Bretania" and Isdernus approach a tower in which "Mardoc" is holding "Winlogee", while on the other side Carrado (probably
Carados) fights Galvagin (
Gawain) while the knights Galvariun and Che (
Kay) ride up. "Isdernus" is most certainly some incarnation of
Yder, a Celtic hero whose name appears in
Culhwch and Olwen, and who was Guinevere's lover in a nearly-forgotten tradition mentioned in
Beroul's
Tristan and reflected in the later
Roman de Yder. The
Welsh poet
Dafydd ap Gwilym alludes to Guinevere's abduction in two of his poems, and the medievalist
Roger Sherman Loomis suggested that this tale shows that "she had inherited the role of a Celtic
Persephone".
Geoffrey of Monmouth tells a different version of Guinevere's abduction, adding that she was descended from a noble
Roman family and was the ward of
Cador, Duke of Cornwall. Arthur leaves her in the care of his nephew
Mordred while he crosses over to
Europe to go to war with the (fictitious)
Procurator of
Rome Lucius Hiberius. While he is absent, Mordred seduces Guinevere, declares himself king and takes her as his own queen; consequently, Arthur returns to Britain and fights Mordred at the fatal
Battle of Camlann.
Chrétien de Troyes tells yet another version of Guinevere's abduction, this time by
Meleagant (whose name is possibly derived from Melwas) in
Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart. Here the Queen's rescuer is not Arthur (or Yder) but
Lancelot, whose adultery with the queen is dealt with for the first time in this poem. It has been suggested that Chrétien invented their affair to supply Guinevere with a courtly extra-marital lover. Mordred could not be used, as his reputation was beyond saving, and Yder had been forgotten entirely.
In the German tale
Diu Crône, Guinevere's brother Gotegrim kidnaps her and intends to kill her for refusing to marry Gasozein, who claims to be her rightful husband. In
Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's
Lanzelet, Valerin, King of the Tangled Wood, claims the right to marry her and carries her off to his castle in a struggle for power that reminds scholars of her prescient connections to the fertility and sovereignty of
Britain. Arthur's company save her, but Valerin kidnaps her again and places her in a magical sleep inside another castle surrounded by snakes, where only the powerful
sorcerer Malduc can rescue her. All of these similar tales of abduction by another suitorare demonstrative of a recurring Hades-snatches-Persephone theme, positing that Guinevere is like the
otherworld bride
ÉtaÃn, who
Midir, king of the
Underworld, carries off from her earthly life after she has forgotten her past.
Motion pictures
*
King Arthur, the
2004 movie featured Guinevere as a Celtic warrior maiden, played by
Keira Knightley who became Arthur's consort after he rescued her from imprisonment.
Guinevere is a
1999 motion picture which had nothing to do with
King Arthur.
Guinevere is also the name of a
1994 made-for-TV-movie which centres the storytelling of the Authurian legend around the title character. Guinevere grows up with Lancelot, an orphan, as a Pagan under the tutelage of
Morgan Le Fey, who holds a grudge against King Uther and his son, Arthur due to
Uther's murder of her father and seizure of her mother.
First Knight is a movie featuring
Sean Connery as King Arthur,
Julia Ormond as Guinevere, and
Richard Gere as Lancelot.
Excalibur, a 1981 film adaptation of Arthurian myth, where Guinevere is played by
Cherie Lunghi. This film depicts the sexual consummation of passion between Guinevere and Lancelot (the late
Nicholas Clay) in the forest. After their sexual rapture the two lovers lie naked in the darkened forest, and awaken the next morning to find Excalibur between their bodies (an image taken from the tale of
Tristan and
Isolde), left behind as a warning by Arthur (
Nigel Terry); the sight of it sends Lancelot into madness and he flees, leaving the heartbroken Guinevere to lie with her naked body coiled around the sword. Years later Arthur finds Guinevere in a convent to ask and receive forgiveness, and she gives him the sword Excalibur, which she hid and protected.
*
Camelot, this 1967 film is based upon the 1960 musical by
Alan Jay Lerner and
Frederick Loewe. It starred
Richard Harris as Arthur and
Vanessa Redgrave as Guinevere.
*
Lancelot du Lac, 1974 French film by
Robert Bresson starring
Laura Duke Condominas as Guinevere.
*In the
1953 film
Knights of the Round Table, Lancelot (
Robert Taylor) and Guinevere's (
Ava Gardner) affair is limited to a kiss.
Musicals
*
Camelot*
SpamalotNovels
*
The Guenevere Trilogy by
Rosalind Miles follows the Queen of Summer Country from the time of her mother's death to the death of her husband King Arthur.
*
The Guinevere Series by Sharan Newman
*
The Tales of Guinevere by
Alice Borchardt. This Guinevere (Guynifar) is a descendant of
Queen Boudica and a
warrior in her own right. She was
raised by wolves, and has magical abilities such as being able to communicate with
dragons and
wolves, her "fire hand", and her
fairy tattoos that come alive as
Witchblade-like
chainmail.
*
Queen of Camelot by Nancy McKenzie tells of Guineveres life from being blessed and cursed at birth, becoming an orphan, finding herself to be betrothed to the "perfect" King Arthur and her struggles and leaderships not only as the Queen of Britain, but also the trials and tribulations of being a woman in that time.
*
The Mists of Avalon by
Marion Zimmer Bradley follows the story lines of many of the women that influenced King Arthur's life, including Guinevere (Gwenhwyfar). This Guinevere has an
antagonistic role as an "overly pious" religious
zealot. She also suffers from
agoraphobia.
Television
*The children's television show
Guinevere Jones revolves around the adventures of a girl who finds that she is the reincarnation of the Guinevere of legend.
The Legend of Prince Valiant, an animated adventure series that aired in the early 1990s, included Guinevere among its cast of characters.
Mists of Avalon, a mini series based on the novel by
Marion Zimmer Bradley. Guinevere is depicted as a Christian princess who struggles with barrenness and her temptation for Lancelot. She convinces Arthur to lower the Pendragon standards and the remnants of Avalon in Camelot in exchange for a fully-Christian kingdom.
Music
Guinnevere, a song written by
David Crosby of the band
Crosby, Stills & Nash, on their self-titled 1969 debut album describes her as a woman with green eyes, golden hair, and possibly hidden
pagan beliefs.
*Rachel Bromwich (1963)
Trioedd Ynys Prydein: The Triads of the Island of Britain, University Of Wales Press. ISBN 0708313868
*Ronan Coghlan (1991)
Encyclopaedia of Arthurian Legends, Element Books.
*
Guinevere page at the Camelot Project*
Timeless Myths - Arthurian Women*
Warrior queens and blind critics from the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
