Guenevere, Guenevere Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Simple Joys of Maidenhood

"Camelot" opens with Arthur laying in wait outside a castle where he suspects Guenevere is staying with Lancelot. He plans to attack the castle at dawn, and in the night calls to Merlyn, asking him why Guenevere is inside a castle Arthur cannot breach, and if he should ever have loved her at all. Merlyn tells Arthur to think back to one of the most important days in his life - the day he met Guenevere.

From this point on, their story is told in flashback. On that fateful day when they met, Arthur was sitting in the forest, singing "I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight?", anxiously awaiting the arrival of his bride. As he ponders the evening to come, Guenevere travels through the same forest, singing:

"Where are the simple joys of maidenhood?
Are those sweet, gentle pleasures gone for good?
Shall a feud not begin for me?
Shall kith not kill their kin for me?
Oh, were are the trivial joys - harmless, convivial joys?
Where are the simple joys of maidenhood?"

Answer: "Where were you when my youth was sold?"

In her prayer to Saint Genevieve, Guenevere reminds the saint that she knows how "faithful and devout" Guenevere is, and how Guenevere has "always been a lamb". Then Guenevere gets to the point of her prayer, telling the saint how angry she is for being forced into a marriage and how she intends to escape. Guenevere prays:

"I won't obey you anymore; you've gone a bit too far.
I won't be bid and bargained for like beads at a bazaar.
Saint Genevieve I've run away, eluded them and fled.
And from now on I intend to pray to someone else instead!
Oh, Genevieve, Saint Genevieve!
Where were you when my youth was sold?
Dear Genevieve, sweet Genevieve!"

Guenevere is unaware that the tree she has chosen to pray beneath is the very tree which hides King Arthur. He listens to her prayer in silence and realizes that she is the woman he is intended to marry, in a marriage he, himself, is fretting! As Guenevere sings the last line of her prayer, "Shan't I be young before I'm old?", Arthur inches closer in the tree above, steps on a broken branch, and crashes to the ground in front of Guenevere.

Answer: She wonders if the autumn leaves fall into neat little piles.

As it turns out, there are quite a few legal laws in Camelot. Arthur tells Guenevere that "the Crown has made it clear the climate must be perfect all the year." The legal laws include:

- "July and August cannot be too hot."
- "There's a legal limit to the snow."
- "Winter is forbidden till December and exits March the 2nd on the dot."
- "Summer lingers through September."
- "The rain may never fall till after sundown."
- "By 8:00 the morning fog must disappear."
- "The snow may never slush upon the hillside."
- "By 9:00 pm the moonlight must appear."

Guenevere asks Arthur about one particular law after he explains that though he knows "it sounds a bit bizarre... that's just how conditions are" in Camelot. She then asks him, "and I suppose the autumn leaves fall into neat little piles?" and learns that in Camelot the leaves blow completely away at night.

At the end of "Camelot", Guenevere discovers that she was singing and joking around with the king, from whom she was planning to escape. Arthur explains how he became the king and then offers to find someone to accompany her as protector in her escape. She surprises him by deciding to stay.

Answer: Jenny

In "Might for Right", Arthur tries to figure out why people fight each other over boundaries that do not exist, and proposes that knights, right or wrong, "have the might, so right or wrong, they're always right," and that's wrong. He and Guenevere decide that they'll make a new order of chivalry where knights will fight to improve the world, not destroy it, and they will all sit at a round table, where no one is at the head.

This is the first time we see Arthur and Guenevere interact as husband and wife, and throughout "Might for Right", Arthur calls Guenevere "Jenny" an astonishing 15 times.

"Jenny, Jenny, suppose we create a new order of chivalry. A new order where might is only used for right, to improve instead of to destroy. We'll invite all the knights, all the kings of all the kingdoms, to lay down their arms to come and join us. Oh yes, Jenny. And we'll... take one of the large rooms in the castle, put a table in it, and all the knights will gather at it."

Answer: Everyone

Guenevere sings of every maiden, the birds and the bees, and the human race, but it's "everyone" who goes blissfully astray in the lusty month of May. She's quite enjoying herself at the picnic with her court on May Day and sings:

"It's May. It's May, the lusty month of May.
That lovely month when everyone goes blissfully astray.
It's here! It's here! That shocking time of year
When tons of wicked little thoughts merrily appear."

In addition to everyone going blissfully astray, "every maiden itches for fun, wholesome or 'un'", "everyone makes divine mistakes", and "the birds and the bees with all of their vast amorous past gaze at the human race aghast."

King Arthur and Lancelot arrive late to the picnic after their jousting match in the middle of the road, and Lancelot immediately gets off on the wrong foot with Guenevere with his overeagerness to serve the Round Table.

Answer: Sir Lionel

Guenevere sings with three of her knights, goading them into agreeing to fight Lancelot in the hopes of defeating him. First she speaks with Sir Lionel, threatening to take away her promise of letting him accompany her to the next town fair should he not challenge Lancelot.

Guenevere: "...the Frenchman's power is more tremendous than I have e'er seen anywhere. And when a man is that stupendous, he, by right, should take me to the fair."

Sir Lionel: "You Majesty! Let me tilt with him and smite him. Don't refuse me so abruptly, I implore. Oh, give me the opportunity to fight him and Gaul will be divided once more!"

Guenevere: "You will bash and thrash him?"

Sir Lionel: "I will smash and mash him!"

Guenevere: "You'll give him trouble?"

Sir Lionel: "He will be rubble."

Guenevere: "A mighty whack?"

Sir Lionel: "His skull will crack!"

Guenevere: "Mon Dieu! Then you may take me to the fair, if you do all the things you promise. In fact, my heart will break should you not take me to the fair."

After convincing Sir Lionel to fight with the Frenchman, Guenevere speaks with Sir Sagramore, who offers to spear Lancelot, and Sir Dinadan, who offers to behead him. All three men lose to Lancelot in the tournament, one right after the other. Lancelot feels so badly about nearly killing the third knight that he starts crying. His display of emotion touches Guenevere and her view of Lancelot immediately and completely changes.

Answer: Her face has a luster that puts gold to shame.

In one of the courtyard gardens of Camelot, Lancelot explains to Guenevere that he could never leave her, though he knows he should. He couldn't leave in "springtime, summer, winter, or fall" because the love he has for her is too great to be apart. Lancelot sings his love song to Guenevere:

"If ever I would leave you, it wouldn't be in summer.
Seeing you in summer, I never would go.
Your hair streaked with sunlight, your lips red as flame.
Your face with a luster that puts gold to shame."

He goes on to explain that he couldn't leave in autumn after seeing how she sparkles "when fall nips the air"; he couldn't leave her "running merrily through the snow" or "on a wintry evening" when she "catch[es] the fire's glow"; and he couldn't leave in springtime when he's "bewitched by [her] so". Guenevere tells him quietly that he must go, and he mustn't worry about the future because they don't have one anymore.

Answer: They can whistle.

Though she tries her best, the one thing Guenevere cannot do is whistle. Arthur whistles a little tune, but Guenevere only manages to blow out air, which makes both of them laugh. "What Do the Simple Folk Do?" comes after Lancelot delivers news to Arthur that Arthur's estranged son, Mordred, intends to steal the throne with an army he is creating from Arthur's banished knights. The king asks Guenevere to tell him about the trivial things she did that day to help brighten the mood, and she starts to question:

"What do the simple folk do to help them escape when they're blue?
The shepherd who is ailing, the milkmaid who is glum,
The cobbler who is wailing from nailing his thumb?
When they're beset and besieged, the folk not noblessly obliged,
However do they manage to shed their weary lot?
Oh, what do simple folk do? We do not?"

Arthur explains that he's "been informed by those that know them well..."

"They find relief in quite a clever way.
When they're sorely pressed, they whistle for a spell,
And whistling seems to brighten up their day.
And that's what simple folk do, so they say."

Arthur and Guenevere decide that the simple folk also sing and dance their gloominess away, though Guenevere does not seem to have trouble with either of these activities.

Answer: I Loved You Once in Silence

After Mordred attacks Camelot, and the Round Table is destroyed, Arthur leaves, going deep into the forest to find Merlyn in the spot where he studied as a young boy. Lancelot stays behind to fight, and when he is done for the night, Guenevere sings "I Loved You Once in Silence" to him.

"I loved you once in silence,
And misery was all I knew.
Trying so to keep my love from showing,
All the while not knowing you loved me, too.

Yes, loved me, in lonesome silence,
Your heart filled with dark despair.
Thinking love would flame in you forever,
And I'd never, never know the flame was there."

Lancelot and Guenevere share a long, final kiss. Mordred catches them, accuses them of treason, and orders them to stand trial in the name of the king. A fight ensues and Lancelot battles Mordred and his knights to escape from Camelot. On his way out, he nearly runs over Arthur who is returning to Camelot after his night in the forest.

Answer: She is rescued by Sir Lancelot.

"Guenevere, Guenevere,
Oh, they found Guenevere.
In the dying candle's gleam
Came the sundown of a dream.

On a day dark and drear,
Came to trial, Guenevere.
Rule the jury for her shame,
She be sentenced to the flame."

Arthur doesn't really want Guenevere to be burned at the stake, but he dares not defy the courts he set up and overrule them, so he, like his townspeople, prays for Lancelot to rescue Guenevere from the flames. Lancelot arrives just in time, in shining silver armor, and carries Guenevere away on the back of a white horse.

Arthur then leads his army to the castle at Joyous Gard where Lancelot retreated, and while his men sit in wait, he secretly goes to meet Lancelot and Guenevere in the forest. Guenevere says they wish to return to Camelot with Arthur and pay for what they have done, but Arthur refuses. In the end, Guenevere leaves with the Holy Sisters, Lancelot returns to his castle, and Arthur stays to fight.