Sarah Cate’s Reviews > The Once and Future King > Status Update

“Funny,” said Lancelot, “how the people who can’t pray say that prayers are not answered, however much the people who pray say they are.”

“It is the tragedy, the Aristotelian and comprehensive tragedy, of sin coming home to roost. That is why we have to take note of the parentage of Arthur’s son Mordred, and to remember, when the time comes, that the king had slept with his own sister. He did not know he was doing so, and perhaps it may have been due to her, but it seems, in tragedy, that innocence is not enough.”

Just finished the Sword in the Stone - having grown up hearing stories of King Arthur, I expected his pulling of the sword out to be much more dramatic, met with crowds and applause. But it happens quietly, unassumingly, while by himself, not even realizing what he’s done.