Elaine the Lily Maid of Astolat Guarded the Sacred Shield of Lancelot

“Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable,Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,High in her chamber up a tower to the eastGuarded the sacred shield of Lancelot;Which first she placed where the morning’s earliest rayMight strike it, and awake her with the gleam;Then fearing rust or soilure fashioned for itA case of silk… (…)Nor rested thus content, but day by day,Leaving her household and good father, climbedThat eastern tower, and entering barred her door,Stript off the case, and read the naked shield,Now guessed a hidden meaning in his arms,Now made a pretty history to herselfOf every dint a sword had beaten in it,And every scratch a lance had made upon it…(…) … so she lived in fantasy.”

(Lord Tennyson, Idyll of the Kings: Elaine and Lancelot, 1859)

Henry Peach Robinson, Elaine Watching the Shield of Lancelot, 1859

Lady of Shalott, also known as Elaine, the Lily Maid of Astolat, is by far my favourite and most relatable character from the Arthurian legends. In the poem Lord Tennyson refers to her sweetly also as Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable. The Pre-Raphaelite artists seem to have had a particular penchant for portraying Elaine as well, inspired partly by her rather different depictions in Lord Tennyson’s poetry as well as by Sir Thomas Malory’s “Le Mort D’Arthur”. Still, not only Victorian painters but photographers such as Henry Peach Robinson were inspired to portray the loneliness of Elaine’s life in the tower and her exceeding yearning for a knight. Elaine “hath no loyal knight and true”, as Lord Tennyson wrote in another poem about her. The poet also writes that she “lived in fantasy”, and that she is “half-sick of shadows”; hers is a lonely, lovelorn life filled with yearning and pining, and a lot of free time which she uses, it seems, to gaze day and night at Sir Lancelot’s shield. She not only gazes at it and traces its decorations with her pale fingers, but she also tends to it as if it were, and indeed it is in Elaine’s eyes, the most precious object in the world. It is something that belongs to the man she loves oh so desperately. These verses from Delmira Augustini’s poem “From Far Away” made me think of poor Elaine:

“Ah! When you are far away my whole life criesAnd to the murmor of your steps even in dreams I smile.I know you will return, that another dawn will shine.”

The basis for Robinson’s photograph seems to have been the Lord Tennyson’s description of Elaine’s obsession with Sir Lancelot’s shield. The poet writes that Elaine had placed the “sacred shield” in her chamber up a tower to the east where it can be bathed by the first rays of sun, and how she made a silk case for the shield so it doesn’t get rusty, and how she would leave her household all the time to climb the tower and gaze at the shield for hours, tracing every dint and scratch on it completely entranced, imagining all the battles and tournaments that Sir Lancelot had been in, and shivering at the thought that he may almost have died in some of them.

In Sir Thomas Malory’s telling of the events Elaine’s father, the Lord of Astolat, had organised a tournament to which King Arthur and his knights came. Sir Lancelot, who had not originally planned to attend, was persuaded to come and, upon seeing him, Elaine becamse enamoured of him and she begged him to wear her token at the torunament. Sir Lancelot, knowing how jealous Guinevere would be, decided to wear Elaine’s token and compete in the tournament but only under disguise so he takes a different shield, that of Elaine’s brother, and leaves his own shield to Elaine to keep. Here is what Lord Tennyson writes about that moment:

“(…) ’True, my child.Well, I will wear it: fetch it out to me:What is it?’ and she told him ’A red sleeveBroidered with pearls,’ and brought it: then he boundHer token on his helmet, with a smileSaying, ’I never yet have done so muchFor any maiden living,’ and the bloodSprang to her face and filled her with delight”.

And then Lancelot tells Elaine: ’Do me this grace, my child, to have my shieldIn keeping till I come.’ ’A grace to me,’She answered.’”

Sir Lancelot gets injured in the tournament and Elaine tends to him in her chambers. When he gets better, he thanks Elaine and she returns the shield to him. Now he is aware of her affections for him but he departs nevertheless and Elain dies from a broken heart ten days later. Sir Lancelot later pays for a lavish funeral – as if that is a reparation enough for a broken heart. Hm!