"The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit"
About this Quote
The line also smuggles in a moral alibi. In a world of courtly love and chivalric codes, passion can be dangerous - socially disruptive, spiritually suspect. Malory diffuses that threat by making it agricultural. Desire becomes "fruit", productive rather than reckless. It suggests that springtime longing, like harvest, has a telos: it leads somewhere, it yields something. That framing is convenient for a narrative universe that constantly needs knights to ride out, fall in love, make vows, break vows, and call it fate.
Context matters: Le Morte d'Arthur is obsessed with the tension between public duty and private craving. This sentence works because it sets the season as a plot device and a pressure cooker at once. May isn't just scenery; it's the excuse the story uses to let characters slip. If everyone blossoms, no one is solely to blame. The tragedy to come can be read as personal failure, but Malory hints it is also systemic - a court built in springtime, pretending it can outlast the weather.
Quote Details
| Topic | Spring |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Malory, Thomas. (2026, January 16). The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-month-of-may-was-come-when-every-lusty-heart-91166/
Chicago Style
Malory, Thomas. "The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-month-of-may-was-come-when-every-lusty-heart-91166/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-month-of-may-was-come-when-every-lusty-heart-91166/. Accessed 5 Feb. 2026.










