ing the damsel
showed them gear honour, and provided them with fair and pleasant
company.

(Vv. 463-538.) When they had sat up long enough, two long, high beds
were prepared in the middle of the hall; and there was another bed
alongside, fairer and more splendid than the rest; for, as the story
testifies, it possessed all the excellence that one could think of in
a bed. When the time came to retire, the damsel took both the guests to
whom she had offered her hospitality; she shows them the two fine,
long, wide beds, and says: "These two beds are set up here for the
accommodation of your bodies; but in that one yonder no one ever lay who
did not merit it: it was not set up to be used by you." The knight who
came riding on the cart replies at once: "Tell me," he says, "for what
cause this bed is inaccessible." Being thoroughly informed of this, she
answers unhesitatingly: "It is not your place to ask or make such an
inquiry. Any knight is disgraced in the land after being in a cart, and
it is not fitting that he should concern himself with the matter upon
which you have questioned me; and most of all it is not right that he
should lie upon the bed, for he would soon pay dearly for his act. So
rich a couch has not been prepared for you, and you would pay dearly for
ever harbouring such a thought." He replies: "You will see about
that presently.".... "Am I to see it?".... "Yes.".... "It will soon
appear.".... "By my head," the knight replies, "I know not who is to pay
the penalty. But whoever may object or disapprove, I intend to lie upon
this bed and repose there at my ease." Then he at once disrobed in the
bed, which was long and raised half an ell above the other two, and was
covered with a yellow cloth of silk and a coverlet with gilded stars.
The furs were not of skinned vair but of sable; the covering he had on
him would have been fitting for a king. The mattress was not made of
straw or rushes or of old mats. At midnight there descended from the
rafters suddenly a lance, as with the intention of pinning the knight
through the flanks to the coverlet and the white sheets where he lay.
[46] To the lance there was attached a pennon all ablaze. The coverlet,
the bedclothes, and the bed itself all caught fire at once. And the tip
of the lance passed so close to the knight's side that it cut the skin a
little, without seriously wounding him. Then the knight got up, put out
the fire and, taking the lance, swung it in the mid