That will I do!... Let all be seated. How I took oath on my head as anointed king not to set me down to meat on All-Hallowmass or I had undertaken some haut quest already do ye know. Also know ye how this damosel came riding hither into this hall, seeking succour for her knight! And none is there that knows not how forthwith I enterprised the matter! Now hear ye how I fared with it! Arrived afore the grimly tower I blew my horn and cried, “How now, Sir Knight, an ye be a fair fighter come, prove it, spear to spear and sword to sword, and body to body!” Whereon rushed forth the most outrageous churl and greatest murtherer was ever seen, with a huge laughter like thunder, and spitting flames of fire from his monstrous mouth! And by sorcery he cast an evil spell on me, so that its scabbard would not loose my sword Excalibur, and my arm fell helpless to my side like as it had been the arm of a dead corp! “How, now, King Arthur,” cried the rude churl, “I have you at a vantage, so best yield yourself without ado!” “Now not ever, nor never on my head,” I answered him, “for I had leaver to be hacked to bits than cry mercy of such a fiendly knight that it is no true knight at all!” “Then,” said he, “you leese, not alone your life the which you seem to hold so light, but also your realms, and your queen!” Well, for to curtail a long tale short, “Come,” said he, “I will release the knight the which to deliver you came, and suffer you to depart as you came upon certain conditions!” “Name them,” said I. “That you shall promise by the Holy Rood that you will not set you down to meat on All-Hallowmass until you shall have brought me the answer to a rede that I shall now propound to you!” “I assent to these,” I said!

Arthur Monologue from Festival Plays: One-Act Pieces

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