Agravain

Sir Agravain is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend, whose first known appearance is in the works of Chrétien de Troyes. He is the second eldest son of King Lot of Orkney with one of King Arthur's sisters known as Anna or Morgause, thus nephew of King Arthur, and brother to Sir Gawain, Gaheris, and Gareth, as well as half-brother to Mordred. Agravain secretly makes attempts on the life of his hated brother Gaheris since the Vulgate Cycle, participates in the slayings of Lamorak and Palamedes in the Post-Vulgate Cycle, and murders Dinadan in the Prose Tristan. In the French prose cycle tradition included in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, together with Mordred, he then plays a leading role by exposing his aunt Guinevere's affair with Lancelot, which leads to his death at Lancelot's hand. In the traditional, albeit contested, division of the massive medieval prose Lancelot portion of the Vulgate Cycle into three or four parts, the last section is named after Agravain. Despite giving his name to the section, Agravain plays only a minor part in most of its stories. Arthurian legend The earliest known appearance of Agravain, as Engrevain the Proud (Old French: li Orgueilleus, modern French: l'Orgueilleux), is found in Chrétien de Troyes' 12th-century romance poem Perceval, the Story of the Grail in which he is one of Gawain's brothers and is also known as the one "with the hard hands" (aus dures mains). The poem's anonymous First Continuation describes him as very quarrelsome. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, where he is called Agravain of the Hard Hand, he is named in a list of respectable knights. This, combined with his unobjectionable depiction in Chrétien's original Perceval, suggests his reputation might not have been very negative prior to his characterisation in the prose cycles. In the Lancelot-Grail (also known as the Vulgate Cycle) prose works, Agravain is generally portrayed as a handsome man, taller than Gawain, and a skilled fighter. However, unlike his heroic brothers Gawain and Gareth, Agravain is known for malice and villainy, yet sometimes capable of heroic deeds. In the Prose Lancelot part of the Vulgate Cycle, Agravain is described as taller than Gawain and with a "somewhat misshapen" body. As "a fine knight" but "arrogant and full of evil words [and] jealous of all other men," he "was without pity or love and had no good qualities, save for his beauty, his chivalry [knightly values], and his quick tongue."