reat strength was recruited within him. Her love and beauty
inspired him with great boldness. He remembered the Queen, to whom he
pledged his word that he would avenge the insult done him, or would make
it greater yet. "Ah! wretch," says he, "why do I wait? I have not yet
taken vengeance for the injury which this vassal permitted when his
dwarf struck me in the wood." His anger is revived within him as he
summons the knight: "Vassal," quoth he, "I call you to battle anew. Too
long we have rested; let us now renew our strife." And he replies: "That
is no hardship to me." Whereupon, they again fall upon each other.
They were both expert fencers. At his first lunge the knight would have
wounded Erec had he not skilfully parried. Even so, he smote him so
hard over the shield beside his temple that he struck a piece from his
helmet. Closely shaving his white coif, the sword descends, cleaving the
shield through to the buckle, and cutting more than a span from the side
of his hauberk. Then he must have been well stunned, as the cold steel
penetrated to the flesh on his thigh. May God protect him now! If the
blow had not glanced off, it would have cut right through his body. But
Erec is in no wise dismayed: he pays him back what is owing him, and.
attacking him boldly, smites him upon the shoulder so violently a blow
that the shield cannot withstand it, nor is the hauberk of any use to
prevent the sword from penetrating to the bone. He made the crimson
blood flow down to his waist-band. Both of the vassals are hard
fighters: they fight with honours even, for one cannot gain from the
other a single foot of ground. Their hauberks are so torn and their
shields so hacked, that there is actually not enough of them left to
serve as a protection. So they fight all exposed. Each one loses a deal
of blood, and both grow weak. He strikes Erec and Erec strikes him. Erec
deals him such a tremendous blow upon the helmet that he quite stuns
him. Then he lets him have it again and again, giving him three blows
in quick succession, which entirely split the helmet and cut the coif
beneath it. The sword even reaches the skull and cuts a bone of his
head, but without penetrating the brain. He stumbles and totters, and
while he staggers, Erec pushes him over, so that he falls upon his right
side. Erec grabs him by the helmet and forcibly drags it from his
head, and unlaces the ventail, so that his head and face are completely
exposed. When Erec thi