Editing Lady of the Lake (section)

===''Le Morte d'Arthur''===
{{See also|Le Morte d'Arthur}}

[[File:Ballads of bravery (1877) (14785021975).jpg|thumb|The gift of the sword Excalibur in an illustration for [[George Melville Baker]]'s ''Ballads of Bravery'' (1877)|alt=]]

In Thomas Malory's ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', a 15th-century compilation of Arthurian stories that is often considered definitive in much of the world today, the first Lady of the Lake remains unnamed besides this epithet. When the young King Arthur, accompanied by his mentor Merlin, comes to her lake in need of a sword (the original sword-from-the-stone having been recently broken in battle), he sees an arm extending from the surface of the water holding a sword. Arthur, informed by Merlin that the Lady can grant him the sword, requests the sword from the Lady and is granted permission to go out upon the lake and take it if he promises to fulfill any request from her later, to which he agrees. Later, when the Lady comes to [[Camelot]] to hold Arthur to his promise, she asks for the head of Sir Balin the Savage, whom she blames for her brother's death.

However, Arthur refuses this request. Instead it is Balin, claiming that "by enchantment and sorcery she has been the destroyer of many good knights", who swiftly decapitates her with his own magic sword (a cursed blade that had been stolen by him from a mysterious lady from Avalon just a moment earlier) in front of Arthur and then sends off his squire with her severed head, much to the distress and shame of the king under whose protection she should have been there. Arthur gives the Lady a rich burial, has her slayer banished despite Merlin telling him Balin would become Arthur's greatest knight, and gives his permission for Sir Launcenor of Ireland (an Irish prince similarly named but entirely unrelated to Malory's "Launcelot" Lancelot) to go after Balin to avenge this disgrace by killing him.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mksn538zTs8C&pg=PA19|title=King Arthur and His Knights: Selected Tales|first1=Sir Thomas|last1=Malory|first2=Thomas|last2=Malory|date=September 7, 1975|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-501905-6|via=Google Books}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jd-dCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA18|title=The Knights of the Round Table|last=Mersey|first=Daniel|date=2015|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1472806178|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K_iEKXz501MC&pg=PA223|title=Knighthood in the Morte Darthur|last=Kennedy|first=Beverly|date=1992|publisher=Boydell & Brewer Ltd|isbn=978-0859913546|language=en}}</ref>

[[File:Merlin and Vivien by G.H. Thomas.png|thumb|left|[[George Housman Thomas]]' illustration for ''The Story of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table'', adapted from ''Le Morte d'Arthur'' by James Thomas Knowles (1862)|alt=]]

The second Lady of the Lake is sometimes referred to by her title and sometimes referred to by name, today best known as Nimue (rendered Nynyve in Malory's original Winchester Manuscript of ''Le Morte''). Malory does not use Nimue's name for the Lady of the Lake associated with Lancelot, who remains unnamed as well, described as only "one of the ladies of the lake", and she may thus be considered a third one.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Addenda on Malory's Minor Characters|author=Wilson, Robert H.|year=1956|journal=The Journal of English and Germanic Philology|volume=55|issue=4|pages=563–587|jstor = 27706826}}</ref> It is also possible that Malory had only access to the ''Suite du Merlin'' part of the Post-Vulgate Cycle as a relevant source.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Evolution of Middle English Romance|year=2018|publisher = Boydell & Brewer|doi=10.2307/j.ctv1ntgs3|jstor = j.ctv1ntgs3|isbn = 9781787443341|s2cid=240036798|editor1-last = Archibald|editor1-first = Elizabeth|editor2-last = Leitch|editor2-first = Megan G|editor3-last = Saunders|editor3-first = Corinne}}</ref>

Nimue, whom Malory describes as the "chief Lady of the Lake", plays a pivotal role in the Arthurian court throughout his story.<ref name=Holbrook>Holbrook, S. E. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2849785 "Nymue, the Chief Lady of the Lake, in Malory's Le Morte D’arthur."] ''Speculum'' 53.4 (1978): 761–777. JSTOR. NCSU University Libraries, Raleigh, NC. 15 March 2009.</ref> The first time the character named Nimue appears is at the wedding of Arthur and Guinevere, as the young huntress rescued by Pellinore. She then proceeds to perform some of the same actions as the Lady of the Lake of his sources but is different in some ways. For instance, in the Post-Vulgate ''Suite du Merlin'', Malory's source for the earlier parts of ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', the Lady of the Lake traps Merlin in a tomb, which results in his death. She does this out of cruelty and a hatred of Merlin.<ref name=cl>Larrington, Carolyne. ''King Arthur's Enchantresses: Morgan and Her Sisters in Arthurian Tradition.'' I. B. Tauris, 2006.</ref> In ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', on the other hand, Nimue is still the one to trap Merlin, but Malory gives her a sympathetic reason: Merlin falls in love with her and will not leave her alone; Malory gives no indication that Nimue loves him back. Eventually, since she cannot free herself of him otherwise, she decides to trap him under rock and makes sure he cannot escape. She is tired of his sexual advances, and afraid of his power as "a devil's son", so she does not have much of a choice but to ultimately get rid of him.<ref name=Holbrook/>

[[File:Look! - said the Lady Nimue - ye ought to be sore ashamed to be the death of such a knight!.png|thumb|"'Look!', said the Lady Nimue, 'Ye ought to be sore ashamed to be the death of such a knight!'" [[William Henry Margetson]]'s illustration for Janet MacDonald Clark's ''Legends of King Arthur and His Knights'' (1914)|alt=]]

After enchanting Merlin, Malory's Nimue replaces him as Arthur's magician aide and trusted adviser. When Arthur himself is in need in Malory's text, some incarnation of the Lady of the Lake, or her magic, or her agent, reaches out to help him. For instance, she saves Arthur from a magical attempt on his life made by his sister Morgan le Fay and from the death at the hands of Morgan's lover [[Accolon]] as in the Post-Vulgate, and together with Tristan frees Arthur from the lustful sorceress [[Annowre]] in a motif taken from the [[Prose Tristan|Prose ''Tristan'']].

In Malory's version, Brandin of the Isles, renamed Brian (Bryan), is Nimue's evil cousin rather than her paramour. Nimue instead becomes the lover and eventually wife of [[Pelleas]], a gentle young knight whom she then also puts under her protection so "that he was never slain by her days."

[[File:Cutler King Arthur Passing.jpg|thumb|''The Passing of Arthur'' in [[Andrew Lang]]'s ''Stories of King Arthur and His Knights'' (1904)]]

In the end, a female hand emerging from a lake reclaims Excalibur in a miraculous scene when the sword is thrown into the water by Sir [[Bedivere]] just after [[Battle of Camlann|Arthur's final battle]]. Malory's narration then counts Nimue among the magical queens who arrive in a black boat with Morgan (in the original account in the Vulgate Cycle's ''Mort Artu'', the chief lady in the boat, seen holding hands with Morgan and calling for Arthur, is not recognised by [[Girflet]] who is the scene's witness instead of Malory's Bedivere<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bHUWDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA297 | title=King Arthur in Legend and History | isbn=9781136609831 | last1=White | first1=Richard | date=12 February 1998 | publisher=Routledge }}</ref>). Together, they bear the mortally wounded Arthur away to Avalon.

In an analysis by Kenneth Hodges, Nimue appears through the story as the [[chivalric code]] changes, hinting to the reader that something new will happen in order to help the author achieve the wanted interpretation of the Arthurian legend: each time the Lady reappears in ''Le Morte d'Arthur'', it is at a pivotal moment of the episode, establishing the importance of her character within Arthurian literature, as she transcends any notoriety attached to her character by aiding Arthur and other knights to succeed in their endeavors, subtly helping sway the court in the right direction. According to Hodges, when Malory was looking at other texts to find inspiration, he chose the best aspects of all the other Lady of the Lake characters, making her pragmatic, compassionate, clever, and strong-willed.<ref>Hodges, Kenneth. “Swords and Sorceresses: The Chivalry of Malory's Nyneve.” ''Arthuriana'' 12.2 (2002): 18. JSTOR. Web. 19 Nov. 2014.</ref> Nevertheless, Nimue's character is often seen as still very ambiguous by other scholars. As summarized by Amy S. Kaufman: 

{{Quote block|Though Nynyve is sometimes friendly to Arthur and his knights, she is equally liable to act in her own interest. She can be also selfish, ruthless, desiring, and capricious. She has been identified as a deceptive and anti-patriarchal equally as often as she has been cast as a benevolent aid to Arthur's court, or even the literary descendant of protective goddesses."<ref>{{Cite journal|title=The Law of the Lake: Malory's Sovereign Lady|author=Kaufman, Amy S.|year=2007|journal=Arthuriana|volume=17|issue=3|pages=56–73|doi = 10.1353/art.2007.0036|jstor = 27870845|s2cid = 154046024}}</ref>}}