Editing Morgause (section)

===Malory's Morgause and his sources===
[[Thomas Malory]]'s 1485 compilation of Arthurian legends ''[[Le Morte d'Arthur]]'', based largely on French prose cycles, Morgause (also ''Morgawse'' or ''Margawse'') is one of three daughters born to Duke Gorlois and Lady Igraine. According to Malory, following his French prose cycles, their mother is widowed by, and then remarried to, Arthur's future father, the high king Uther Pendragon. Afterwards, she and her younger sisters, [[Elaine (legend)#Elaine of Garlot|Elaine]] (called Blasine in ''Merlin'') and [[Morgan le Fay|Morgan]] ("le Fay", later the mother of [[Yvain]]), now Uther's foster daughters, are married off to allies or [[Vassal kingdom|vassals]] of their stepfather. The young Morgause is wed to the Orcadian king Lot and bears him four sons, all of whom later go on to serve Arthur as key members of the [[Knights of the Round Table]]. They are Gawain, one of Arthur's greatest and closest companions with a darker side; Agravain, secretly a wretched and twisted traitor; Gaheris, a skilled fighter but troubled man; and finally the youngest Gareth, a gentle and loving good knight to whom Malory dedicates one of his work's eight parts (''The Book of Gareth of Orkney'').

Morgause's husband King Lot joins the failed rebellions against Arthur that follow in the wake of King Uther's death and the subsequent discovery and coronation of his heir. Acting as a spy during the war, she comes to [[Carleon]], where she visits the boy King Arthur, ignorant of their familial relationship, in his bedchamber, and they conceive Mordred. Her husband, who has unsuspectingly raised Mordred as his own son, is later slain in battle by King [[Pellinore]]. All of her sons depart their father's [[Court (royal)|court]] to take service at [[Camelot]], where Gawain and Gaheris avenge Lot's death by killing Pellinore, thereby launching a long [[blood feud]] between the two families that contributes to bringing the ruin to Arthur's kingdom.

Nevertheless, Morgause has an affair with Sir [[Lamorak]], a son of Pellinore and one of Arthur's best knights. Once, [[Lancelot]] and [[Bleoberis]] even find Lamorak and [[Meleagant]] fighting over which queen is more beautiful, Morgause or [[Guinevere]]. Eventually, her son Gaheris discovers them ''[[In flagrante delicto|in flagrante]]'' together in bed while visiting her castle (the Post-Vulgate's castle Rethename in Orkney, near the border with Arthur's own [[Logres]]). Enraged, he grabs Morgause by her hair and swiftly beheads her, but spares her unarmed lover (who is left naked in bed covered in her blood and is killed later by four Orkney brothers in an unequal fight). Gaheris (who in the Post-Vulgate version defends his act as a just punishment of the queen for her "wretched debauchery"<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8ywEEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA349|title=The Arthur of the French: The Arthurian Legend in Medieval French and Occitan Literature|date=15 October 2020|publisher=University of Wales Press|isbn=9781786837431 |via=Google Books}}</ref>) is consequently banished from the court of Arthur (though he reappears later in the narrative, eventually being slain by Lancelot during the rescue of Guinevere). 

In the Post-Vulgate story, Gaheris' brothers Gawain and Agravain initially vow to kill him in revenge for their mother's death until they are persuaded by Gareth and [[Bors]] to end the bloodshed in the family. Arthur buries the Queen of Orkney in the main church in [[Camelot]], inscribing the name of her killer on it, while everyone grieves for her and condemns the "treacherous and cruel" act of Gaheris, including actually even Gaheris himself in his self-exile.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=klsMZ41xAREC&pg=PA327 | title=Lancelot-Grail | isbn=9781843842385 | last1=Lacy | first1=Norris J. | year=2010 | publisher=Boydell & Brewer }}</ref> In Malory's telling, however, Lancelot calls the slaying of Morgause "shameful", but Gawain seems to be angry at Gaheris only for leaving Lamorak alive at the spot.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hcPtirDJv9wC&pg=PA98|title=Blood, Sex, Malory: Essays on the Morte Darthur|first1=David|last1=Clark|first2=Kate|last2=McClune|date=12 August 2011|publisher=Boydell & Brewer Ltd|isbn=9781843842811|via=Google Books}}</ref> Her death was first included in the Post-Vulgate ''Queste'';<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jg-8AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA222|title = The Romance of the Grail: A Study of the Structure and Genesis of a Thirteenth-century Arthurian Prose Romance|last1 = Bogdanow|first1 = Fanni|year = 1966}}</ref> Malory used the variant from the Second Version of the [[Prose Tristan|Prose ''Tristan'']].

The act of Mordred's conception is described variably in the different works of Arthurian romance. In the Vulgate ''Merlin'', the episode takes place earlier, back when a young teenage Arthur was only a mere squire to his foster-brother [[Sir Kay|Kay]] (prior to the fateful drawing of [[Excalibur|the sword in the stone]]) and completely oblivious about his true heritage. During a meeting of the lords of Britain, when King Lot is out hunting, Arthur sneaks into the queen's chamber and pretends to be her husband; she eventually discovers the deception but forgives him the next morning and agrees to keep the incident a secret between the two of them. Conversely, a flashback scene in the Post-Vulgate ''Merlin Continuation'' portrays the Queen of Orkney as entirely aware and willing in her incestuous tryst with her young half-brother.