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Thus I have told you all the circumstances of that great battle betwixt Sir Tristram of Lyonesse and Sir Marhaus of Ireland. And now you shall hear how it befell Sir Tristram thereafter; so harken to what followeth. How Sir Tristram went to Ireland to be healed of his wound by the King's daughter of Ireland, and of how he came to love the Lady Belle Isoult.
In this strait, King Mark sent a letter by a messenger to Lyonesse, asking if there was any knight at Lyonesse who would stand his champion against Sir Marhaus, and he offered great reward if such a champion would undertake his cause against Ireland. Now I would that you would let me go to Cornwall upon this occasion.
Then it was ordained that the two knights should battle on a little island near the ship of Sir Marhaus, and so young Sir Tristram and his squire were rowed thereunto, and when he departed, King Mark and his barons and all the common people were rejoiced to see the young knight's noble and high bearing, and wished him Godspeed.
Then they gently took him up and brought him in a barge back to the land, and lifted him into a bed within the castle, and had his wounds dressed carefully. But for a great while he lay sorely sick, and was likely to have died of the first stroke Sir Marhaus had given him with the spear, for the point of it was poisoned.
He was dressed in a surcoat of red satin and a mantle of crimson, trimmed with gold; and on his head was a cap of rich purple, and his feet and legs were clad in fine leather, with gold bosses on his shoes. Alighting easily, he doffed his hat and came towards the king: 'Sir, said he, 'if ye will give me the order of knighthood, I shall do battle to the uttermost with Sir Marhaus of Ireland.
How then can you, who are altogether new to the use of arms, hope to stand against so renowned a champion as he?" "Lord," quoth Tristram, "I am well aware of what sort of knight Sir Marhaus is, and I am very well aware of the great danger of this undertaking. Yet if one who covets knighthood shall fear to face a danger, what virtue would there then be in the chivalry of knighthood?
Then Sir Marhaus went unto the giant's castle, and there he delivered twenty-four ladies and twelve knights out of the giant's prison, and there he had great riches without number, so that the days of his life he was never poor man. Then he returned to the Earl Fergus, the which thanked him greatly, and would have given him half his lands, but he would none take.
And who that did best should have a rich circlet of gold worth a thousand besants. And there Sir Marhaus did so nobly that he was renowned, and had sometime down forty knights, and so the circlet of gold was rewarded him.
"If ye can endure three strokes of my sword, it shall be honour enough," said Sir Marhaus. Then they rushed upon each other, and at the first encounter each unhorsed the other, and Sir Marhaus' spear pierced Sir Tristram's side and made a grievous wound. Drawing their swords, they lashed at each other, and the blows fell thick as hail till the whole island re-echoed with the din of onslaught.
With imagination aroused and sympathies excited he enters a life of alternate combat and love, almost real in the consistency of its improbability. Three gallant knights, Sir Gawaine, Sir Marhaus, and Sir Uwaine set out together in search of adventures. At the last they cam in to a grete forest that was named the countreye and foreste of Arroy and the countrey of straunge auentures.
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