On another level, true kingship is obliquely identified with marital love, false kingship with rape. (It is a medieval commonplace that the relationship of the king and the state is "marriage.") The St. Michael's giant, as we have said, is emphatically identified with the rape of wives (the duchess; Guinevere).
In the source, Lucius' army includes German giants; but Malory sets them in sharper relief by suppressing details which distract attention from the giants. Lucius' destruction of fair lands involves the murder of women and children, while Arthur's capture of the Tuscan city, here as in the source, rules out harm to women, children, or anyone else other than the duke. The bear in Arthur's dream refers simultaneously (as in the source) to the tyrant Lucius and to the giant on the mountain. One further change Malory made was his introduction of parallels between Arthur and Henry V. (For discussion of this point, see Vinaver, Works, 111, 1361-62.)
