e is showing that he awaits his pleasure. He perceives this and
understands that if he holds back he will hold back too, and that if he
follows him he will seize the game which he has scented. Then he incites
and cries to him, as he would do to hunting-dogs. At once the lion
directed his nose to the scent which he had detected, and by which he
was not deceived, for he had not gone a bow-shot when he saw in a valley
a deer grazing all alone. This deer he will seize, if he has his way.
And so he did, at the first spring, and then drank its blood still warm.
When he had killed it he laid it upon his back and carried it back to
his master, who thereupon conceived a greater affection for him, and
chose him as a companion for all his life, because of the great devotion
he found in him. It was near nightfall now, and it seemed good to him
to spend the night there, and strip from the deer as much as he cared to
eat. Beginning to carve it he splits the skin along the rib, and taking
a steak from the loin he strikes from a flint a spark, which he catches
in some dry brush-wood; then he quickly puts his steak upon a roasting
spit to cook before the fire, and roasts it until it is quite cooked
through. But there was no pleasure in the meal, for there was no bread,
or wine, or salt, or cloth, or knife, or anything else. While he was
eating, the lion lay at his feet; nor a movement did he make, but
watched him steadily until he had eaten all that he could eat of the
steak. What remained of the deer the lion devoured, even to the bones.
And while all night his master laid his head upon his shield to gain
such rest as that afforded, the lion showed such intelligence that he
kept awake, and was careful to guard the horse as it fed upon the grass,
which yielded some slight nourishment.

(Vv. 3485-3562.) In the morning they go off together, and the same sort
of existence, it seems, as they had led that night, they two continued
to lead all the ensuing week, until chance brought them to the spring
beneath the pine-tree. There my lord Yvain almost lost his wits a second
time, as he approached the spring, with its stone and the chapel that
stood close by. So great was his distress that a thousand times he
sighed "alas!" and grieving fell in a swoon; and the point of his sharp
sword, falling from its scabbard, pierced the meshes of his hauberk
right in the neck beside the cheek. There is not a mesh that does not
spread, and the sword cuts the