Guinevere

MySpace LayoutsGuinevere was the queen consort of King Arthur. The name Guinevere may be an epithet—the Welsh form Gwenhwyfar can be translated The White Fay or White Ghost. 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. WipikediaA database of Arthurian texts, images, bibliographies, and basic information is available at The Camelot Project , The University of Rochester.