There is a song that lovelorn maidens adore, that sends seasoned ladies into a frenzy of lust, and makes hardened crones swoon. It is a song about love, of course. And of the perils a man is willing to endure for the woman of his heart.
To save his chosen love, the villain of the story whispered, the knight has to bring the uttermost sacrifice. Forced to forgo his pride and do something to leave his dignity in shatters, he had to embrace shame to save his intended.
Shame was a concept Ser Jaime Lannister was intimately acquainted with. For deeds of the past, good and bad and worse, he still felt the lingering twinges upon his heart.
So when the time came to add another blemish to his soul, he just burned his sister's letter and almost accomplished to forget about the voice in his mind susurrating what he could have, would have, should have done.
Instead, he followed a maiden not lovelorn, seasoned or prone to swooning into the woods.
In possession of the knowledge that he was led astray, he followed her deeper and deeper into the depths of hell. Forsaking the last bit of pride he hadn't been willing to let his sister annihilate through a shared fall from grace, he rode with a lady worth of songs into a future of betrayal, horror and, above all, mockery. When old names would be thrown at him, new ones be acquired, and he would have to kneel in the dirt as the mob brayed for blood, would his dignity be a tale of the past.
Thus, before the thicket of the forest swallowed him whole, he grasped for every moment in which he had lost a part of his honor through his acts, and embraced them. He nestled them up to his chest, let them lead him.
There was a song about a knight shaming himself to save his courtly love, and therefore gain a far greater honor than the one he had lost.
It was not a song Ser Jaime Lannister fully understood.
But it was one he could live.
As some of you probably deduced from the title of this ficlet, the 'song' they talk about is Chrétien de Troyes' "Le Chevalier de la charrette", the story of how Lancelot had to ride on a cart like a prisoner to save Guinevere.
Happy New Year to all of you!