replied: "And who are you?" "I am a wretched one,"
she said, "the most miserable thing alive." And he replied: "Be silent,
foolish one! Thy grief is joy and thy sorrow is bliss compared with that
in which I am cast down. In proportion as a man becomes more accustomed
to happiness and joy, so is he more distracted and stunned than any
other man by sorrow when it comes. A man of little strength can carry,
through custom and habit, a weight which another man of greater strength
could not carry for anything." "Upon my word," she said, "I know
the truth of that remark; but that is no reason to believe that your
misfortune is worse than mine. Indeed, I do not believe it at all, for
it seems to me that you can go anywhere you choose to go, whereas I am
imprisoned here, and such a fate is my portion that to-morrow I shall be
seized and delivered to mortal judgment." "Ah, God!" said he, "and for
what crime?" "Sir knight, may God never have mercy upon my soul, if I
have merited such a fate! Nevertheless, I shall tell you truly, without
deception, why I am here in prison: I am charged with treason, and I
cannot find any one to defend me from being burned or hanged to-morrow."
"In the first place," he replied, "I may say that my grief and woe are
greater than yours, for you may yet be delivered by some one from the
peril in which you are. Is that not true:" "Yes, but I know not yet by
whom. There are only two men in the world who would dare on my behalf
to face three men in battle." "What? In God's name, are there three
of them?" "Yes, sire, upon my word. There are three who accuse me of
treachery." "And who are they who are so devoted to you that either one
of them would be bold enough to fight against three in your defence?" "I
will answer your question truthfully: one of them is my lord Gawain, and
the other is my lord Yvain, because of whom I shall to-morrow be handed
over unjustly to the martyrdom of death." "Because of whom?" he asked,
"what did you say?" "Sire, so help me God, because of the son of King
Urien." "Now I understand your words, but you shall not die, without
he dies too. I myself am that Yvain, because of whom you are in such
distress. And you, I take it, are she who once guarded me safely in the
hall, and saved my life and my body between the two portcullises, when I
was troubled and distressed, and alarmed at being trapped. I should have
been killed or seized, had it not been for your kind aid. Now tell me,
my